February Reflections

February was one of those months that seemed to last forever but also pass by in a flash. I wasn’t the most productive in all the areas of my life, but I was very productive in a few important parts of my life. Here are the stats:

Number of days I meditated: 16/28

Days of the Chloe Ting 2 Week Shred Challenge completed: 11/14

Number of days I journaled/practiced gratitude: 23/28

Chapters I revised for my novel: 15/41

Books I read: 0

Times I ordered delivery/ate a meal that could be microwaved: 1 (I was tempted by a packet of Top Ramen while visiting my parents’ house. I regret nothing!)

So as you can see, not quite as productive as last month overall, but a great month for my writing. I set a very ambitious 8-week schedule to revise (actually rewrite 80%) of my novel. That means writing about 2,000 words every weekday. It’s doable, but definitely not easy. I’m proud of myself for making it to the end of week 3 in February without skipping a single day!

What makes it an even greater accomplishment is that I was doing it all while also starting my egg freezing cycle. That meant 9 days of giving myself 3 to 4 injections a night, going to the doctor every other day for blood draws and ultrasounds, and navigating all the hormonal and emotional challenges of trying to freeze your eggs as a single 29 yo woman with fertility issues. I’d planned to write a whole post about the process, but my cycle unfortunately got canceled after the 9th day because I was responding poorly to the medicines and not getting the results my doctor wanted. That was a huge blow (jabbing yourself 25 times in the stomach and then finding out it was all for nothing is never fun) but people have different results on different cycles, so I’m hoping for better results next time. I’ll be sure to share a detailed post of the entire experience when it’s all done.

Starting my egg freezing cycle meant I wasn’t allowed to do some things like exercising, hence why I exercised way less this month. It’s also why I meditated a lot less. The funny thing about my meditation practice is that I’m great at doing it when things are going well in my life, but as soon as the going gets tough I just can’t get myself to sit down and focus, even though that’s when I’d benefit the most from it. That’s something I want to get better at going forward.

I did start a new stoic adventure in February, but I didn’t post about it yet because it’s still an ongoing process. It wasn’t the most exciting adventure, but it did involve me getting over a personal fear in my life. I can’t wait to share that one with you all soon!

In the meanwhile, here’s an update from a previous stoic adventure:

Stoic Adventure #2 Update: Applying for a Writing Mentorship:

If you haven’t seen my update already, I got in! I couldn’t believe it when I saw my name on that list. The whole day was an absolute whirlwind. My normally dormant Twitter notifications blew up with congratulations from friends and other people involved with the program. I also got added to a Slack channel with all the other participants who were chosen and I had a great time getting to know them. We had a virtual happy hour, and everyone was so great and fun to chat with. I also connected with another one of the mentees whose novel intrigued me. We decided to become critique partners and set up a way to share our work with each other for feedback.

I also exchanged a few emails with my mentor who is wonderful and has her debut novel coming out next year! She’s currently busy with her own revisions so we planned to work together starting in April, which worked out great for me because I told her I wanted to do my own heavy revisions based on the feedback from my writing group before we started working together. In the meanwhile, she sent me a fascinating video about raising stakes in your writing that helped me add a lot of extra tension that strengthened my revisions.

The best part of the whole experience was all the extra motivation it gave me to throw myself into my writing. Chatting with my mentor and seeing the other mentees share their own revision plans spurred me into setting up an intense two month revision schedule. I’ve got one month down, and I’m excited to wrap up my current revisions by the end of March. I submitted the first few chapters of my new draft to my writing group, and I was thrilled when they told me they had no feedback because it was a strong revision and they loved the new direction of my opening section.

In March, I plan on continuing with my revisions and enjoying my last month of my self-imposed break from dating. I haven’t gone on a date since December, and I have to say…it’s been pretty great. I won’t pretend I’m not excited to get back into the swing of things next month though. Combined with the warmer weather and the speedy vaccine rollout happening here in NYC, I’m thinking spring in the city is going to be a fun time.

I’ll also most likely be starting my new egg freezing cycle (possibly as early as next week), so I want to take things easy and practice some self-care while doing all that.

Overall, February was a great month, and I can’t wait to see what March brings!