{"id":2166,"date":"2023-04-30T12:27:26","date_gmt":"2023-04-30T16:27:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/?p=2166"},"modified":"2023-04-30T12:27:27","modified_gmt":"2023-04-30T16:27:27","slug":"updates-and-other-things-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/?p=2166","title":{"rendered":"Updates and other things"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Val-in-hat-1024x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2167\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Val-in-hat-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Val-in-hat-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Val-in-hat-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Val-in-hat-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Val-in-hat-1536x1536.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Val-in-hat.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I know, it&#8217;s been a while. I&#8217;m actually coming out of a pretty dark time, but I&#8217;m working with a therapist and on medication and have been diagnosed with ADHD (I know, finally, right??), so the future is looking &#8211; well, it&#8217;s brighter than it&#8217;s been in a while, even if it&#8217;s still pretty dim. But I can see some light where I couldn&#8217;t before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My father&#8217;s dementia has been progressing steadily, and sadly, he&#8217;s reached a point where we&#8217;re having to do a lot of changes to his medications to try and keep him calm. Dementia with someone who is ex-military is not a fun thing, let me tell you. But we&#8217;re working through it, and he&#8217;s back at his assisted living home again after a brief hospital stay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The medication has allowed me to finally start writing again, and while I&#8217;m not doing more than first drafts at this point, I&#8217;m thrilled that both Belladonna Dreams and my new cottagecore dystopia (which doesn&#8217;t really have a name and is totally fanfic that I&#8217;m writing for myself) have more than 1 word written in them. In fact, for April, I wrote over 8k. This is amazing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, for May, I have 3 goals. 250 words a day 5 days a week, daily pages every day, and posting to this blog once a week (on Sundays). I&#8217;m starting small, and mostly just getting myself back into a schedule, because it was pointed out to me that I could actually be a full-time writer in 10 years (or less! EEK!) and also, with the ADHD, I&#8217;m finding I need structure. And I&#8217;m supposed to be an adult, so I kind of have to provide that structure for myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s a work in progress. But I need to start somewhere, and well, this is where I&#8217;m starting. I&#8217;m going to do some writing\/life posts, as well as some book reviews (I&#8217;m reading again too! It&#8217;s amazing what I can do!) and at least one guest post from a friend who has a new book out. I know a lot of people aren&#8217;t following this anymore, but that&#8217;s what I get for vanishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The longer-term goals for the year? Get at least one first draft finished (Belladonna Dreams) and get myself on a daily writing schedule. I can do this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I can.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I know, it&#8217;s been a while. I&#8217;m actually coming out of a pretty dark time, but I&#8217;m working with a therapist and on medication and have been diagnosed with ADHD (I know, finally, right??), so the future is looking &#8211; well, it&#8217;s brighter than it&#8217;s been in a while, even if it&#8217;s still pretty dim. &#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/?p=2166\">>>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,120,119,96,19,23,41,3,74,12,8,22],"tags":[122,123,121,67,78,7,34,60,66],"class_list":["post-2166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-cottagecore-dystopia","category-dad","category-depression","category-dreams","category-goals","category-health","category-metrics","category-pendragon","category-personal","category-weekly-updates","category-writing","tag-adhd","tag-cottagecore","tag-dad","tag-goals","tag-health","tag-life","tag-pendragon","tag-personal","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2166"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2166"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2168,"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2166\/revisions\/2168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vg-ford.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}