Disappointment and Victory

I got some bad news this morning. It was business, and it's not a bad thing in the long run, but it's a blow and a setback and has left me feeling a bit adrift and at loose ends today.

BUT.

Then I played Wii Sport Resort, Swordplay Showdown.

I've been trying for MONTHS to get past level 18. MONTHS. I once spent 2 hours trying. I've gone long stretches without playing, but I'm sure I've logged many, many hours at it.

And it's kind of metaphorical, when compared to this setback I had. You see, I had certain strategies that let me get to level 18, but they failed at that point. Sometimes they failed immediately, sometimes I got to 91% (as in, I've defeated 91% of my opponents) before they failed. But I never, ever got through. I even went all the way back to the beginning once, to rebuild my score, get it as high as possible, hopefully giving me more strength/power to defeat my opponents. But nope, it didn't work.

There was a strategy I knew I needed to employ, but never got the hang of it. My brain and muscles were too trained in the old way. Today, after a bunch of failures, I made it work, and I got through level 18!

Man, you should have heard me shouting. LOL But it doesn't end there. Of course, I had to move on, and level 19 only took me a few tries. Level 20 was harder, with far more aggressive opponents, but I kept trying, and finally broke through and won. I am now Swordmaster! :)

So the lesson: Patience, new strategies, and calculated aggressiveness can lead to success. I think I'm going to have to employ that elsewhere.

Happy Day

This has been a very full week, let me tell you.

First, the most important thing, I just know you're all dying to find out: Yes, I got my tea. It was in a different bag labeled "Winter Dream," so yay! :)

This was week 2 of the RWA PRO Bootcamp on The Healthy Writer. I'm running it with Keri Ford, and it's been excellent, but intense. In a good way. But I also did a workshop for an RWA online chapter, Anatomy of a Hook, and combine the two for exhaustion. The last time I did a workshop I had NO questions or comments and a couple of thank yous at the end, and that was it. So I was apprehensive. Don't know what was different, but there was tons of participation, many questions, and I did a lot of critiquing.

So I'm tired. But guess what? I got a little fiction done, too! So I now have two days in a row I can say "yes" on Habit Forge. That's a site I just learned about, via one of the attendees of the PRO Bootcamp. It's based on the idea that it takes 21 days to form a habit. You create one, and it asks you every day if you did it the day before. If you did, you say yes, if you didn't, you say no, and it starts you over at 1. If you get friends to sign up, you can track each other. I love the added incentive--I don't want them to see me fail! :)

The only problem is that I signed up yesterday, and last night it asked me if I'd done my goals the day before. Well, duh! No! I didn't start until the next day! So I already show a failure for the writing one. (The exercise one, I did do, so that one is a-ok.) I'm hoping this will help me prioritize, as I've been letting everything else shove the fiction aside, as can happen.

This morning I installed new RAM in my computer. I had low expectations. I thought it might help a little, but WHOA. I've been having mental orgasms all day. I know that's inappropriate to say, but I can't help it. It's so EXCITING to press the button for iTunes and have it open before I can blink. Yesterday, it took two minutes and I couldn't do anything else while I waited. Today, I sat there for two minutes boggling at how fast it happened. I can't understate how happy this has made me.

I had a bunch of errands to do today. It was supposed to be 2 stops, but I wanted a coffee, and remembered I had to drop off the cardboard so I had room for the kids' instruments this afternoon, and Number One got a book in at the library, and if I was going to Target I should go to Best Buy...

I ended up going to two Best Buys. We had some gift cards, and while I was at the library I checked my e-mail real quick, and had a $10 Reward Zone certificate, so I was all excited to get a new guitar for Band Hero, essentially for free. Except our Best Buy had none, so I went across the river to the other one. They only had the Rock Band 2 guitar. I'm annoyed that I didn't do any research beyond asking two store clerks in two different game/electronic stores if the games are all cross-compatible with the controllers (they said yes). They're not. Rock Band's guitar is not compatible with Band Hero, nor is it compatible with the Guitar Hero Smash Hits I bought. But I was looking for a Guitar Hero kit anyway, so research wouldn't have necessarily done me any good. Luckily, I went overboard and also bought Rock Band 2, so we can at least all four play while using one game.

The problem is...

We bought Band Hero because it seemed to have more songs that the kids would like. It does, but we play so much everyone's getting a little "over" those songs. So we were all excited to have the new stuff. But Guitar Hero and Rock Band have few songs the kids know. (Rock Band only has, like 22 available out of the 100+, I'm assuming until we unlock them? I have to figure that out.) BUT, we like the notes and imagery in Rock Band the best. So I guess we ended our two-hour session both pleased and disappointed overall.

Okay, I think I ran out of things to say. TV has started again, yay! I'm giving Human Target a try (the guy seriously reminds me of Colin Ferguson, I hope I get over that when I get to see the actual show and not just the trailer) as well as Life UneXpected. So expect some TV posts in the upcoming future (is there any other kind? And I call myself a writer).

Have a good weekend!