NaNoWriMo 2021 Day 6

736 words completed today. Some is better than none. A total of 14,058 words written by the end of Day 6 NaNoWriMo 2021.

Free Photo Editing Programs

There are many picture programs where you can do photo editing. My favourites are Pixer and Canva.  Today I spent a satisfying morning revamping all my website banners to reflect the importance of my cozy mystery series and art journaling and caricature art more in my future creative life and the fine art and historical fiction set in Australia more reflecting my past than my future. I do enjoy manipulating images in these programs, and I loved the resulting banners I created for my Patreon, YouTube and the pages in this website.  No writing was done though. We cannot do everything.  Then, life happened, and no writing was done in the afternoon and early evening. It looks as if a writing sprint, just before midnight is on the cards for tonight.

My First Writing Sprint

My husband Reg fell and hit his head' and he's infinitely more important that my work in progress novel.  Still, part of being a writer is not making excuses. There are times when I can write, even sitting here watching him.  That is what I'll try to do a writing sprint just before midnight to get some word count done for the day.
I am reading as I watch Reg and Tess, our therapy dog. I don't get lost while reading and forget to observe what is happening in the room.
I know many of you are corers, and that's why I feel comfortable sharing that I do corer duties too, and we mustn't allow it to stop us being fulfilled in creative dreams for our selves. Our mental and physical health is important. We cannot care for others if we do not care for ourselves first.

Work in Progress

My new series, Cozy mystery covers

I am so pleased with these. This lot are not my work, although I do create most of my own book covers. This time I want to focus on getting the stories written for a rapid release (a month to three months apart if possible, in 2021.  I'd love to make contact with my book supporters via my Patreon. I share rewards with supporters.

From another time, in my travel journal

Reg and Ryn Shell in Silent Street the Grampians, Victoria, Australia.

It is worth the climb to see the view

It is worth the climb to see the top

​I had fun in the Grampians when I played an active part in the first Michelle Bridges 12 Week Body Transformation challenge.

This blog won the best fit lifestyle award from Michelle Bridges an that time and I received a mention in the book she had published the following year. 

Participation in that fitness program was enormous fun, a great blogging opportunity, and I mane some amazing friends. 

​What an achievement it was to climb to the top of this mountain. I'd not dare do that again, although I'm still setting mammoth challenges that are just out of my reach, and aiming for them, and usually achieving them. 

That, "Just Do It!" expression I learned while participating in the program has stuck with me. 

My size 14 black jeans, which had been very tight when I'd left home on that trip five weeks earlier  were slipping down. I checked, and sure enough, the waist needed to be taken in three inches. OMG, I hadn't been in size 12 for thirty years.

I am very impressed. I wore those jeans with a belt to hold them up that day; mountain climbing sure whittles the waistline.

Author's note: Seven years later, from the other side of my seventieth birthday: I thoroughly wore those jeans out. I maintained that size for four years until a sedentary lifestyle caught up with me and my waistline again. I do still count how many steps I walk each day and strive to be as fit as possible, within my capabilities.
If you don't use it you lose it. ​

Continuing the blog as I wrote it in 2010.

​I had worked very hard for this size and weight loss, mostly in week one at Tarra Valley, with a rainforest as my workout playground and then here in the Grampians, during weeks three and four of the 12WBT.  

Week two, was spent visiting family was in was my worst week of the program. Do you also find time spent visiting family the hardest to maintain a fitness routine?

I made a massive effort to catch up while at the Grampians, even to the point of putting Indigo our poodle into a kennel for the first time in her life so that I could go on bigger hikes.

I am not used to climbing, so this was a  scary—but fun.

The final clamber, not shown in the photos, was the most difficult part—but so worthwhile.

2017 NOTE: This is a blog about my time as a participant, at age sixty-three, in the Michelle Bridges 12-week body transformation challenge. 

This is not me today at age seventy. ​

​After two back-to-back, huge mountain climbing efforts, I promised myself a day off on the following day. I then went on to complete my week four, fitness test, part of which was to time how long it took for me to run one kilometre. That is run, walk or crawl it, but to ‘just do it.'  

Running was not my best skill, shortness of breath slowed me down even then. It slows me down a tad more these days but doesn't hamper by creative output, so I'm happy. I am a strong believer in focusing on what you can do and those goals that are within your reach with a little effort.

I gave it 'my best shot.'  

I will blog about how I went with that run. 
​I'd never run in my life, and I took up running at age sixty-three, as a part of the Michelle Bridges 12WBT program and my blogging challenge.

At age seventy, the maintains I climb are entirely different. I still set challenges, and I recall this day that I climbed a mountain, set a new personal best, and blogged about that experience with joy.