Sidekick Chart 4

The last day of the month was a Saturday, and luckily, most of my family had gone out of town.  I had the choice between trying to write at the library, or sitting down and recording a chapter or two of my novella, "A Sidekick To Miracles."  I chose the recording, mostly because it was the end of the month and I'd have to admit defeat on my Patreon address (again), and I already had failed in my exercise goal for the first time in years, so I sat down and checked my recorder.  I had just under five hours of recording time left.

I did Chapter 5, then Chapter 6.  I thought about quitting then, because I had done alright and I could raise the red in the bottle.  But I still had space to record, so I went on to Chapter 7.  Then there hit a point where, despite my lofty insecurities about my own writing abilities, the story started getting really good.  I did Chapter 8 and Chapter 9 without taking a break.

I checked, and I had forty minutes left of space to record, so I continued until that time was gone.  And then I deleted a couple of files so I could keep recording.  I ended up going all the way to the end and was delighted to discover that I was getting a chance to voice an adult Ben Parks (something I've never done, and even forgotten I had written).  The story, while not perfect, and not even great, is at least good, and I can rest from my labors knowing I actually accomplished something I had set out to do.

For once.

P.S.  Okay, okay, I didn't accomplish the sample part, but that's for editing audio anyway, so eff you.

Sidekick Chart 3

It's practically the end of the month, and it seems clear I will not make my goal of finishing "A Sidekick To Miracles," even though it was totally doable.

The problem is, writing is hard.  And rewriting is, if not just as hard, probably less enjoyable, and that makes it just as difficult.  I have had several opportunities to get to work on the audiobook this month, and have found an excuse not to nearly every single time.

Today, though, I found myself alone in the house for a few minutes, and I forced myself to sit down and at least finish Chapter 3.  It took approximately five times longer than it should have, which is not great, but also not the worst I've done on one of these.  And then, after my run tonight, I did Chapter 4 (which is barely a chapter, and still took twenty-something minutes).

So, here's where our bottle stands as of now (great, it is not):

You may think I'm doing better than last time, at least as far as the bottle goes . . . and you'd be right.  Last time, I thought there were fifteen chapters in the book, but there are only thirteen.  So it looks like I've made much better progress than I have.

Sidekick Chart 2

Okay, I sat down and recorded the opening and closing titles, half of Chapter 1, then went for a drive (I had meant to get my oil changed, but they claimed they were all full up for the entire day--"double-booked," is how they put it).  I came back and finished Chapter 1 and got Chapter 2 done.  It was a bit of a slog, but hey, this process always is.

Goal Chart of a Sidekick

So, nearly a decade ago, I wrote "A Sidekick To Miracles," another Ben Parks novella, this one inspired by a piece of media I hated by one of my favorite creators.  For years, it has sat, gathering dust and irrelevance, but I set the goal of getting the whole thing recorded in the month of February.  In keeping with my goal, tonight I created a goal chart thermometer thing* so I can track my progress--in public.  Here goes.

This may not work, but I put a progress bar on there for each chapter I get recorded.

*I know there's a word for this, but I am never able to remember it.  Never.

Rish Outcast 319: New Year's 2026 Show

Rish talks about his family Christmas party and whether his table or his sister's table won the Best Table vote.

Also, how did he do with his 2025 goals . . . and would he be foolish enough to make some in 2026?

If you want to download the episode, Right-Click HERE.

If you want to support me on Patreon, click HERE.

Logo by Gino "Spew Year 2026" Moretto.

Exercise In Futility

At the beginning of the year, I set the goal of exercising 250 days in 2025.  October just ended, and here's my chart for the year-in-progress:

And lookie there, I have already reached my goal, with two months remaining.  Now I know what Big Anklevich much feel like when he does that insane writing spree thing he does so well.  

And I guess I can coast for the rest of the year.  Just like I planned.

2025 Goals - The Road So Far

Wow, we're a quarter of the way through this new year (is it even a new year anymore?), and I guess I'd better take a long look at my goals in a mirror.  Oh, and shave.  I ought to shave.

1.  Exercise 250 Days

I got in 23 in January, 24 in February, and 26 in March, so I'm on my way (73).

2.  Write 25 stories (and finish them) in '25

-1. On Your Side
-2.  Fairest (magic mirror story)
-3.  Plans Best Laid 
-4.  Door Number Three (reimagining)

3.  Put out 6th audio collection
Nyet.

4.  Publish 23 stories on Amazon

I have been very lax on this one.  This is what I have so far:
-1. Reply Hazy
-2. Christmas Day of the Dead

5.  Finish 2 "Lara & The Witch" stories (included in the 25)

-1. On Your Side (whoa, halfway there)

6.  Release "Sins of a Sidekick" novella

7.  Release "A Sidekick To Miracles" novella

8.  Write and produce three sketches ("Webtattler?")
None--didn't even finish the old one.

9.  Put out "Geriatric Protagonist"
Maybe I'll start on it next.

10.  Put out Christmas collection  
It's close to done, I just can't motivate myself to get it across the finish line.

11.  Put out 10 episodes of The Podcast That Dares Not Speak Its Name

-1. The Three D's
-2. A Notebook Found In A Deserted House

12.  Produce some paperback books and take them to a toy sale
Uh oh, I need to do this soon.  Okay, I just ordered some.

13.  Watch 50 Horror movies

Oddly, this one will be the easiest to achieve, even more than exercise (since I can watch a movie with no shoes on).
-1.  Nosferatu (2024)*
-2.  Village of the Damned (1960)*
-3.  Children of the Damned (1964)
-4. 13 Ghosts (1960)
-5.  Hell's Trap (1989)
-6.  Bloodbath at the House of Death (1984)
-7.  Food of the Gods (1976)
-8.  The Ghost Ship (1943)
-9.  The Leopard Man (1943)*
-10.  Talk To Me (2022)*
-11.  Heart Eyes (2025)*
-12.  The Monkey (2025)
-13.  The Monster of Piedras Blancas (1959)
-14.  The Thing From Another World (1951)*
-15.  Squirm (1976)
(*Denotes particularly good)

2024 Goals - How Did I Do?

Well, we're a month into 2025, and I had this post just hanging around . . . I might as well release it.

So, a year ago, I created my list of goals/New Year's Resolutions for 2024.  I did a couple of blog posts looking at how I was doing, but I should've done it more often (because out of sight is out of mind, and I am completely out of mind).  But the year is done, and so, let's see how I did.

1.  Exercise 222 Days
Hmm.  I managed to exercise 301 days in 2024.  By my math, that is 135% of my goal.  Not bad, kid.

2.  Put out 5th audio collection

Sure, that one's done.  And it's available to purchase AT THIS LINK. 

I got the introduction from Big, so that means it's all on me.

3.  Release "Balms & Sears" novel

Yes, and it was more work than I've ever done, both in the writing and the recording/editing, on a book.

You could buy it HERE.  If you wanna.

4.  Clear out my room . . . a bit
Epic fail.

5.  Finish "Melancholy Christmas Night" story
Yep, finished it in February. 

6.  Write "Sins of a Sidekick" novella
Yep, that one too.

7.  Write 10 stories (and finish them)

1.  Melancholy Christmas Night

2.  I Got A Secret

3.  The Day Before The Day Before Christmas

4.  Your Partner On The Road

5.  Happy Birthday Mister Cundy

6.  Witchcraft Fair Story

7.  Slightly Used/Slightly Cursed

8.  The Second Biggest Star Wars Fan In The World

9.  Faithfully 

10.  Family Christmas Story 2024

11.  The Grand Tour

12.  The Last Christmas

8.  Put out 10 episodes of The Podcast That Dares Not Speak Its Name
Yes, I did get ten episodes out in 2024.  On my Patreon.  All the more reason you should go HERE.

9.  Sell Trypticon

Nope.  I only went to four or so toy sales the whole year, and the one I took the big Transformer to, nobody was interested.

10.  Avoid retail price, wait for clearance
I didn't avoid it completely, but wow, way more than had been my track record.  Except for at Ross toward the end of the year, I'd say I bought fifty to sixty percent fewer toys in '24 than in '23 or '22.  Oh, and even though it was my goal last year and not this year, I bought so few G.I. Joes in 2024 that the number could be rounded down to zero.

11.  Do 3 things that scare me
a.  Putting out physical copies of my books scares me, so I think this qualifies.
b.  Applying for a new job, even though I didn't think I was qualified for it ABSOLUTELY counts.
c.  And along those lines, having to be an authority figure, having to tell homeless people not to lie on the floor, having to confront troublemakers, that has been scary to me, and it still scares me, but it's going to get easier the more that I do it.

Rish Outcast 296: New Year's 2025

Better late than never? Rish looks back at his 2024 goals, and sets new ones for 2025.

Happy New Year to all!

Download the file directly by Right-Clicking HERE.

Support me on Patreon HERE!

Logo by Gino "New (Zealand) Year's" Moretto.

The Home Stretch

Just finished editing Chapter 50 of my novel ("Balms & Sears").  With the title and prologue, that puts the audiobook at eight hours and forty minutes--easily the longest of my works.  And there's only nine chapters left to record* and then I've achieved this long-overdue goal.  I think I'll record at least one tonight, and if I push myself, I could have the book published by Christmas.  

Something I've done in the past (and never very well) was to create a kind of thermometer or progress tracker to illustrate how close I am to my goal.  I didn't do it on this one, but hey, I'm still almost there.  Use your imagination.

*There were only eight, but I split Chapter 51 into two so . . . oh wait, just because I split it doesn't mean I have to record it again.  So, still eight.

Goal Achieved (A Little Late)

I finally achieved the goal I set back in September*, for getting the audiobook of my novel "Balms & Sears" to sixty percent.

As of yesterday, I've now got forty-two of sixty-three chapters recorded, which puts me at the glorious number of 66.66666 percent done.  I know someone out there is proud of me.

*Crap, I just looked, and Mephistopheles help me, it was August.

Positive Achievement (For A Change)

So, at the end of each month, I tally up how much I've exercised, much like I used to do with my word count.*  My goal for 2023 was to Exercise 200 Days, and my goal for 2024 was to Exercise 222 Days.  These are achievable goals (last year, I managed 249 days, which is not at all bad), and one of the few things I've managed to do this year is keep up with my exercise goals, mostly running.  On Halloween, I went on an extra long run, because one of the neighbors had put up a fog machine in their yard so I ducked down the cul de sac to check it out, and when I got home, I added up how I've done for the year so far.

Not sure why I didn't save orange for October.

So, as of October 31st, I'm at 251 days of exercise for the year, which means that not only have I already achieved my goal, but I've already beaten last year's total, with two months left.  Not too shabby.  I guess Big Anklevich and I are alike in at least one way.**

*In November, I've set the goal of writing every single day . . . but the trick is, I didn't say how much.  So if I write three words, I'm counting it.

**Or two, if you count our love of dogs, and understanding that cats are cold, sinister things.

Novel Progress (Still Quite Lacking)

One of my goals for August and September was to get my audio production of my novel "Balms & Sears" to sixty percent.  Unfortunately, I didn't even get in the ballpark (apparently, they have a dress code).  

I did record two more chapters last week, though, and spent another hour formatting the book, turning ***s into chapter numbers, and rearranging a couple of scenes where I had left a note for my future self to "PUT UNCLE MATT REVELATION HERE."  So, it's closer, just not a heck of a lot closer.

I went to the library yesterday, and re-formatted the file, this time counting all of the chapters (fifty-nine in total).  That will probably change, but only because a couple chapters are a bit too long.  So, by my math, I have thirty-eight percent recorded, which isn't my goal or close to it, but is still something.  Obviously, I need to make it a priority, and work on it every day, instead of every week or so.  It's slow going, no matter how much I give it.

But wow, the book is up over eighty thousand words at this point, sure to expand further, and there comes a point with a monstrosity like this where you have to ask: is it too long?  Should I start looking for parts to cut out?  How many different ways can I say the same thing?  Maybe I should find a spot to end it and call it Part One, and then put the rest in a Part Two.  Hmmm.

Novel Progress (Or Lack Thereof)

My big goal for August was to get my audio production of my novel "Balms & Sears" to sixty percent.  Unfortunately, I'm not going to make it.  

I did record two chapters last week, though, which isn't nothing*, and maybe I'll do one more tonight.  Still, at this point of the month (written back in August), I'm at nineteen percent, with no signs of getting more done.  I did go to the library and formatted the next couple of chapters (they have MS Word there you can use for free), but whoa, I discovered a chapter that was supposed to have gone earlier, and instead of simply snipping it and pasting it early in the narrative, I simply changed a couple of details so it works where it appears.  That sort of thing--it will come as no surprise to you--eats up a lot of writing time.  Sigh.

And since I'm here, I'll go ahead and post my Exercise Goal progress, instead of making it two posts (I originally wrote this all before, a week ago, but the laptop restarted as I drove back from the cabin and I lost it all (as usual).

So, at least as far as exercise goes, I'm way ahead of the pack.

*Though my "chapters" tend to be so small, they should hardly qualify as such.  I know the rules aren't set in stone, but I probably ought to do that thing where there are only ten or twelve chapters, and each one has several "segments" or sections of the story in them.  But it's too late for me now, son.  Maybe I'll implement that on the next one.

A Novel Goal For August

So, one of my goals for July was to start work on publishing one of my completed novels ("When You Need It Most," "Balms & Sears," or "A Sidekick To Miracles"), and I picked Balms--the story about the boy in high school with the power to heal.  I started on it, and got about five chapters recorded.

For August, I set the goal of getting the book 60% finished (which means, getting sixty percent of the book recorded, since I revise and fix typos and do clarifications as I'm narrating--and ostensibly, by the time I read "the end" or the author's note, it should be ready to publish that very day) by the end of the month.  But to figure out where I am, I either need to number all the chapters and find out what sixty percent of that is, or do a page count and determine how many I've gotten through.  Easy, no?

I just sat down and recorded another chapter (and there were good bits in both).  So, right now, the manuscript is 192 pages (it'll expand, believe you me), and after three recording sessions, I'm on page 27.  By my math, that's 14% finished.  Not great, but I originally divided 192 by 27 and got 7 percent, which is worse.

I can do this.

Progress On The Female Front

One of the goals I set for myself in May is to get the Female Protagonist audio collection published.  And believe me, it's waaaaaaaaaaay more work than just doing the text version (even a paperback text version).*  Some of the files are old, and have to be leveled and noise-reduced.  For some reason, I included Author's Notes at the end of the stories (most of them, anyway), and a few of those I hadn't recorded before, so I have to sit down, record them, clean them up, edit them, and then upload them.

But there's a palpable thrill I get seeing the total runtime go up and up and up.  It happened when I reached two hours, happened on three, and I imagine it'll happen on four (and five and maybe six, who knows how long we'll get here?).

I've found two typos in the Author's Notes (should that be capitalized?), and I'll go ahead and fix those in the digital version, but I don't know that I will for the print versions--who even reads A Word About The Story at the end?

Here's my current screenshot of progress:

More than halfway there.  I think can do this.  Just pretend you'll buy it, and I'll work faster.

*I originally typed "waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay," but didn't want to be childish.

2024 Goals - May Update

I need to post my goals/New Year's Resolutions much more regularly, because every time I do, I am reminded of where I'm falling short.  So here are 2024 goals I set.*

1.  Exercise 222 Days
I'm well on my way.  By my count, I'm near to one hundred days of exercise, which is way past where I technically HAVE to be to make my goal.

2.  Put out 5th audio collection
I got the introduction from Big, so that means it's all on me.

3.  Release "Balms & Sears" novel
No progress.

4.  Clear out my room . . . a bit
Oh . . . oh no.

5.  Finish "Melancholy Christmas Night" story
It appears I finished that one on the third of February.  Not sure of the date, but around then.

6.  Write "Sins of a Sidekick" novella
Oh my lord, I've actually started it.

7.  Write 10 stories (and finish them)
I wrote "Your Partner on the Road" and the currently untitled Witchcraft Fair story, both in the Lara & The Witch series.  I wrote a very short comic tale "I've Got A Secret."  I also wrote the holiday story "The Day Before The Day Before Christmas."

8.  Put out 10 episodes of The Podcast That Dares Not Speak Its Name
I only have two so far, but I shelved that series while I ran "Ten Thousand Coffins" for two months.  Started on another one yesterday.

9.  Sell Trypticon

I tried once, and failed.

10.  Avoid retail price, wait for clearance
I'm about 40/60 on that . . . in the good way.

11.  Do 3 things that scare me
I gotta say, putting out a physical copy of my writing, that people could buy or not buy, was scarier than it should've been. 

*Episode 269 of the Rish Outcast goes into these in much greater detail.

Exercise Report '24 - February

So, February came and went, and even with an extra day, I didn't manage to achieve all my goals.  One of those was exercising 24 days (which, now that I think about it, allowed me to take Tuesdays off and a single other day the whole month).  I did manage 21 days, and did very well at the end of the month (though I still miss most Tuesdays), and I'm happy that I keep it up, but technically, this was one of those months I fell short of my goals. 

I'll try to manage 24 days in March.  

2024 Goals List

I need to post my goals/New Year's Resolutions much more regularly, because every time I do, I am reminded of where I'm falling short.  So here are the (admittedly-few) goals I set for this new year.*

1.  Exercise 222 Days
I'm well on my way.  By my math, I only have to exercise nineteen days each month to reach my goal, and I averaged 20 days a month last year, so it's fine.

2.  Put out 5th audio collection
To my surprise, Gino Moretto heard about my plight and created a provisional cover for it.  Since I'll never, ever do anything with it, I simply don't deserve a friend like that.

3.  Release "Balms & Sears" novel

4.  Clear out my room . . . a bit
I managed one box, then stopped.  But hey, I bought three more storage containers, and one day, I will fill them.

5.  Finish "Melancholy Christmas Night" story
As of January 18th, Melancholy is at 9010 words.   While that's not any great accomplishment (Big's last novel was nine times that), if I reach "The End," I'll feel pretty good, especially considering I was supposed to finish it in December.

6.  Write "Sins of a Sidekick" novella

7.  Write 10 stories (and finish them)

8.  Put out 10 episodes of The Podcast That Dares Not Speak Its Name
I got one so far.

9.  Sell Trypticon

10.  Avoid retail price, wait for clearance

11.  Do 3 things that scare me

*Episode 269 of the Rish Outcast goes into these in much greater detail.

Rish Outcast 269: New Year's 2024

Rish likes New Years, and talks a bit about that.  He looks at the many goals he failed at in 2023 and sets a few for 2024.  He answers a couple of questions from listeners, and despite this episode ending up obscenely long, reads "The Cremation of Sam McGee" by Robert W. Service.

Why?  Because he thought you would like it.

To download the episode, Right-Click HERE.

To support me on Patreon, click HERE.

Logo by Gino "New (Zealand) Year's" Moretto.