Author Journey (June 16, 2025)

I survived my first two weeks back. Things went pretty well, although there was no let up from my real life. Of course, things are about to take a major change once more as the summer holidays are almost here.

Author Journey (June 16, 2025)

What happened?

My ratio of real-life family events to event free days over the last two weeks was 8:6 which is a marginal improvement on the 10:4 I experienced the fortnight prior. It’s still almost impossible to predict when they will happen, but I think I’m getting better at diving into the tasks when I do have some time. I’m also finding it easier to put together my posts since I moved to having six images per post instead of nine. It doesn’t sound like much, but it has really changed things. Hopefully, it won’t impact my SEO rankings.

Having six weeks off to focus on building a buffer and being able to focus on my real life has made a huge difference too. I have half of the posts needed for the summer break scheduled and a couple of weeks to try to get the rest done. That way, I won’t have to worry about anything for a while. That will help my mental health massively as the kids will be out of school and it gets very hard to get anything done. I guess we’ll find out in two weeks if I was able to do it or not!

How is it going?

1. Health

Half of my days were 10 km+ days and the other half were not. A couple were almost half that… Still, the overall trend is going in the right direction. This fortnight, I added another 125 km to my annual total, 15 km more than the previous fortnight. At some point, I’m going to be able to reintroduce the treadmill sessions and that will take things to another level entirely.

Goal: 3,650 km (10 kmpd), Current status: 1,357 km (8.1 kmpd).

2. Writing

Writing took a back seat as I tried to get my posts ready for the summer break. I think it’ll be easier to work on my story with the kids as I can makes notes whenever and flesh out the plan.

Goal: Publish a book, Current status: On hold for a couple of weeks.

3. Art

Drawing will also be a good thing to do while the kids are off school. Both are into sketching and making art so I think it will be one of those easy activities that we can all do together.

Goal: Complete artwork for my book, Current status: Preparing to draw!

4. Watching

I’m all right for anime posts for a while, but I did manage to watch two episodes. One was a forty five minute OVA from 1995 and the other was an episode 1 from the show I’m planning on covering after Monster Musume.

Goal: Watch more than 629 episodes of anime, Current status: 35 episodes watched
Bonus: 8 episodes of TV, 4 movies

5. Reading

I put most of my free energy into reading manga and managed to read six volumes. Lots of demon lords, a couple of time travellers, and a shadow broker. I’m hoping to get through one a day for the next couple of weeks, so that should be interesting…

Goal: Read more than 159 manga volumes, Current status: 53 volumes read

6. Blogging

All ten of my posts went out as planned. It was nice to see new posts appearing on my home page once more after a short block of Author Journey posts with nothing in between. I’ve already got the next two weeks fully scheduled too, so that should continue.

Goal: Publish 365 posts, Current status: 97 posts

What are you planning?

The next two weeks are going to be all about manga. I want to have all of July scheduled (excluding Author Journey posts) before the end of June which isn’t that far away. I have my anime posts done, which is allowing me to shift my focus to manga. And, in truth, I’m really excited about that as there are several newer volumes from several series that I’ve already been covering that I haven’t got to yet, plus a couple of new series that I really want to read.

One thing that I am going to start doing in an attempt to make things run smoother is to do more planning. I’m going to try to maintain a daily list of things to do which I can add to and take away from as I go. I want to be a little bit more conscious of my time and how I’m using it. Anything that might save me some time on things that I don’t need to be doing is going to be a huge help. Anyhow, it’s great to really be back. Thanks for reading.