Writing

What!? Another month GONE!? Already!?

I don’t know if that’s how you’re feeling, but it’s definitely how I’m feeling. So, I hope you understand why this post is so late…

I’ll make up for it with the full post I have planned for today. I’ll be doing my September Monthly Recap and giving you an overview of what my first bullet journal looked like.

Books

So, this month I finished reading the series that I started in August. The title of the series is The Golden Filly Series, and it’s a set of ten books about a teenage girl who rides horses. Tricia Evanston, the main character in the book, hopes to become a jockey after high school, but she also has to deal with the fact that her father just found out he has cancer. Tricia struggles with anger at both God and her father. The series follows her horse-riding journey, and she attempts to win the Triple Crown. Tricia learns that she should trust and praise God in everything, and she and her family learn to deal with her father’s cancer.

These books are really good, and they give a good lesson for those willing to listen.

Since I knew October was the next month, I decided to reread the Harry Potter series. I got Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the first book in the series, read before the end of September, and I plan to continue the series throughout this month.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get much writing done last month, and I probably won’t get much done in October as well. I’ve had tons of tests and studying to do in school, and this month, I won’t have much time because I’ll be packing boxes! My family is getting ready to move to a different house before the end of October!

But… I actually did get one big achievement done in my writing during September. My school has a writing prompt each month, and you can submit what you wrote in response to the prompt to the school. If they like your story or poem, then they will work with you for the next few weeks to revise it, and then publish it on their blog! Well, guess what! I submitted a story based on September’s prompt, and I got chosen!

Here it is if you want to read it: https://enlightiumacademy.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/48000952365-the-final-letter.

The prompt was to write a story of poem about a letter.

Bullet Journaling

I feel like I did pretty well in my bullet journal last month. I filled it out almost every day, and I am proud of the hard work I’ve done to get my new bullet journal ready.

I’ve been working really hard on my new journal for the last couple of weeks, getting it ready for this month. You’ll be seeing pictures soon!

Blogging

So, I definitely didn’t get as many posts out as I wanted to… I only did one… oops… Please, forgive me. I’ve been super busy recently. This month I’ll try to do better.

Goals

My goals last month were:

Fill out bullet journal every day. I did pretty good on this area.
Write every day. Here, I did the opposite of ok…
Be more productive. I feel like I was. I did lots of planning for my new bullet journal, and spent a lot of time studying.
Get A’s and B’s. 95% of my school work was probably an A or B.
Do 3 blog posts. Oops…

My goals for this month are:

Get to where you’re drinking three cups of water every day.
Bullet journal every day.
Pre-plan posts and get them out on time.
Be better about logging exercise.
Read Bible every day.

Review of my 1st Bullet Journal

This is how much time was done in my bullet journal:

1 year
months
weeks

The following is a list of the pages I used in my bullet journal:

8 habit trackers
8 sleep logs
6 mood trackers
8 different weekly layouts
3 dream logs
2 gratitude logs
4 pages for school: grade trackers
A list of birthdays
A page for books to read: a list of books I wanted to read
A water tracker
3 quotes pages: pages dedicated to quotes or Bible verses
A weather tracker (which turned out to be beautiful)
A page for books of the Bible: a checklist where I could check off the books I read
A packing list: a list of things I always pack on a trip
A page for my ideal day: a schedule for a perfect day
A cleaning list: a list for cleaning my room
A fitness tracker: a place to track the exercise I did
A page for New Year’s resolutions: a list of my New Year’s resolutions and a tracker for them
A stress tracker
A page for Keeper of the Lost Cities: a page where I listed out my Would You Rather questions I had created

And that’s all the pages I did in my bullet journal. A few of them I probably won’t do again, but that’s ok. At least I know what pages work and what pages don’t.

Well, that’s it for this post!

How long have you been bullet journaling? Do you like bullet journaling? Have you tried it? How did your September go? Talk to me in the comments! I love hearing what you all think about what I post!

My next post will probably be next week, and it’ll be all about starting a bullet journal, so stay tuned!

Thanks for reading! Happy writing!

For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning. Psalm 30:5 ESV

Hello, everyone! Sorry I’m a little late with this post! I just started school, and I’ve been pretty busy.

Today I’m going to talk about writing discipline, and then later on I’ll share some exciting news!

Here’s the Deal

Sometimes, you just don’t want to do it. You don’t want to wake up early, get ready, and go to work. You don’t want to get up and go to school. You don’t want to get your computer and work on your book or story.

Here’s the thing: everybody has those “off” days. Days where you just can’t do it. When you feel like you just can’t get the inspiration and motivation to write. Well, good news, friends! I’ve got some tips for you!

Tips and Tricks

Take a day off. One day won’t hurt that much. Especially if you don’t have a deadline. If you do, you could at least take a couple of hours to yourself.
Spark your creativity by reading this post I wrote.
Don’t work as long as you usually do. If you usually work for a couple of hours, try only one hour. My motto is: If you can’t do it well, then don’t do it. If you make yourself write, it won’t sound right, and it might not be correct grammar and spelling.
Learn to love writing. One way to do this is to write in a journal every morning or night. Think of a topic, and just write down every thought that has to do with that subject.

Steps to Create Discipline

Set up a time to write every day. You could set a reminder or alarm on your phone to help you remember.
Write somewhere you won’t be distracted.
Decide how long you’ll write each day.
Have a trial run to make sure that the time you decided on isn’t too long or not long enough.
Set up a place to keep track of how long and when you write. If you’re a bullet journalist, then you could keep track of it in your bullet journal.
Ready, set, write! Make sure that you be consistent and write every day, if you can.
Set up a time to journal or write about a specific topic every day. I have a book full of writing prompts, and I like to do it right after I get up every day.

Discipline is very important. If you slack off for even one day, you probably won’t be very motivated to write the next day.

A Few Other Things…

First of all, September is a very important month for me. And here’s why…

I’ve been bullet journaling for a year! I can’t believe it! Now, please keep in mind that I didn’t bullet journal every single day. There were some days that I just didn’t have time to bullet journal. But I always made sure I got caught up.

This means two things.

One, this is my last month in my first bullet journal. At the beginning of October, I’ll be moving to a new journal!

Two, to celebrate, I’m going to start a series of posts all about (you guessed it!) bullet journaling! The posts ahead are going to be filled with tips and tricks and fun pages for you to try out! So make sure you stick with me for new and fun posts!

Alright, last but not least, I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to get a post out every week. I need time to adjust to my new school schedule, and adjust to the new curriculum as well. I will still post, just not as regularly as I usually do. It’ll probably be every other week. And this is only temporary, until I get used to everything. Thank you for understanding!

I’m not sure when I will start my new series, but it will be soon!

Do you have writing discipline? Do you need to develop writing discipline? Do you have any extra tips? How long have you been bullet journaling? Tell me in the comments!