NaNoWriMo

“5 Remaining Goals” – A Skald’s Life – Foundational Virtues

/ Ed Raby Sr / Leave a comment

Happy Tyr’s Day

Journal Entry:

With the Crossing Off of another goal, it is time to list off the remaining ones and has some thoughts about them. This week A Skald’s Life is all about considering my goals so let’s first consider the remaining ones as a group.

  1. Find a new, better paying job by March 2020.
  2. Cross one thing off bucket list every year. Deadline March 31st.
  3. To Write a Non-Fiction Book by March 31st, 2020
  4. To engage in an exercise program that involves weightlifting, hiking/walking, and stretching/ yoga an average of three days a week from April 1st, 2019 to March 31st, 2020
  5. To be following a full Paleo Diet by March 31, 2020.

# 1 – I continue to look and I am getting anxious about this, I am hoping the new support group connection will help there as they do offer career change aid, for those that qualify.

#2 – Once I have the new job or my tax return comes in I am going to get the tattoo on my bucket list so that it will be crossed off.

#3- what I am doing as regards to NaNoWriMo and using it to write my first Non-Fiction Book, number 3 might be off this list fairly soon. Like December at the latest.

#4 – I need only to make one alteration which is to shift my walking. hiking indoors for the winter.

# 5 – I am also getting closer to being fully Paleo but I am having thoughts in March and I may merge the ideas of Paleo and Keto at that time.

If I get the new job and the tattoo and finish my non-fiction book by December, then all that will remain to do is finish to March with Paleo and Exercise.  It gets nice as you cross goals off the list because you can put more concentration on a smaller list.

Honor:

“Honor is the feeling of inner value and worth from which one knows that one is noble of being, and the desire to show respect for this quality when it is found in the world”

Principle – To possess a feeling of inner value about myself and my future with a desire to find the same in others.

Goal: Maintain a daily blog streak of one post per day for an entire year (365 days).  (achieved)

Bucket List: Hike the Northern Lakeshore Trail along the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan by March 2024.

Goal Achieved

Courage:

“Courage is the bravery to do what is right always.”

Principle – Act with Courage at the right time.

Goal: Cross one thing off bucket list every year. Deadline March 31st.

Bucket List: Go Back to Budapest, Hungary for a vacation by March 2029.

Like I said the most likely candidate for this goal is my tattoo.

Truth:

“Truth is the willingness, to be honest, and to say what one knows to be true and right. It is often better to not say anything at all if one cannot be honest.”

Principle – To Be Honest, and Speak Truth to Myself and Others.  To Be Silent in the presence of Fools.

Goal: To Write a Non-Fiction Book by March 31st, 2020

Bucket List: Read 52 books (one per week) in the year 2020.

NaNoWriMo being used instead to write my non-fiction book is working OK.  I need to catch up a little at the time of this writing. Days off will be critical to doing this.  I am kind of focusing on this goal and getting a job right now. The rest of my goals are more long term so this one is next as far as an early cross off along with getting a better job.

Higher Virtue: Love:

This renewed focus on goals is necessary right now. It takes my mind off of other more destructive thoughts to self-love. Goals do that for me, along with discipline.

Morning Routine:

  1. Stretching / Yoga
  2. Shower, Personal Hygiene. Morning Meds.
  3. Review Nine Noble Virtues (NNV), Principles, Goals and Bucket List
  4. Meditation – 5 min.
  5. Check Communications and Email.
  6. Paper Journal: Create a Daily Log and To-Do List.
  7. Get Dressed for the Day

This working really well, but would probably work better if I had my meditation place and altar.  Both are a work in progress.  I am also thinking of writing out nine meditations so I focus on the important parts of each virtue.

I remain.

The Rabyd Skald – Wandering Soul, Bard, and Philosopher. The Grey Wayfarer.

Skaal!!!

“2019 Book List” – The Rabyd Skald

/ Ed Raby Sr / Leave a comment

Happy Sif’s Day

NaNoWriMo – Word Count: 2002

I have two book lists.  The one for the remainder of the year and it will be made up of books I already have on my shelf.  The other is for 2020 which is a bucket list item for that year.

The 2019 Book List is about developing the habits I will need to read a book a week in 2020.  I am also noting that the books must come from my current library that I haven’t finished or haven’t read with two exceptions. If my math is right there are nine weeks left in the year counting the first part of 2020.

The 2019 Book Reading List

  1. The Myth of a Christian Nation by Greg Boyd
  2. Moon Called by Patricia Briggs
  3. The Virtue of Selfishness – Ayn Rand
  4. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein (exception)
  5. The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell
  6. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
  7. Tales of Norse Mythology by Helen A. Guerber
  8. The Gangs of New York by Herbert Asbury
  9. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein (exception)

My two exceptions are simply books I want to read again before next year. The rest are books in my current library that I have either started and need finishing or I haven’t read yet.

I am looking forward to this training for next year.  I want to make this a good 2020 and reading a lot is part of that. I need to get back to it.  I will start using Goodreads to do a review at the end of each week and this schedule starts on Sol’s day with the review on the next Sol’s Day and then diving into the next book.  If you follow me on Facebook then you will get the link to the review there as well.

I am still working on my list for 2020, but a post about that should be out soon.  All this starts tomorrow so time to dive in.

I remain,

The Rabyd Skald – Wandering Soul, Bard, and Philosopher. The Grey Wayfarer.

Skaal!!!

“Blog Housekeeping” – The Rabyd Skald

/ Ed Raby Sr / Leave a comment

Happy Frigg and Freya’s Day!

I need to make some changes so this post is more ‘by the way of announcement’ than anything else. Freya’s Chambers will return next week.  My motivation is partly to make the time it takes to write this blog more uniform every day.  This will open up time for my other writing projects that I need to get busy on.  Mostly it is Mani’s Day, Woden’s Day and Frigg and Freya’s day that get crowded with double posts and I need to cut that down from three days to one.  The idea is to get back to the one post a day format as much as possible.  So the Weekly schedule is going to look something like this.

Sol’s Day: The Pagan Pulpit, Rogue Wizard

Mani’s Day: Of Wolves and Ravens

Tyr’s Day: A Skald’s Life – Foundational Virtues

 Woden’s Day: Odin’s Eye

Thor’s Day: A Skald’s Life – Business Virtues

Frigg and Freya’s Day: Freya’s Chambers

Sif’s Day: Space Tramp, A Skald’s Life – Self Virtues

This schedule gets me back to the daily blog routine I want which is: 1) File Yesterdays post, 2) Edit Today’s post, 3) Write tomorrow’s post, 4) Create a template for the post two days out and 5) Write a ficitonal post on my days off which I usually have two a week. I enjoy writing the ficitonal posts and I want to feature them on the weekend.

Right now this is about creating time for National Novel Writing Month which I am using to write a Non-fiction book at 2000 words a day but that habit of 2000 words a day needs to continue into the future as a writer. That means some changes to the bog to make the time spent consistently around and hour.

All the posts will drop at 4 pm except the fiction post appearing on Sif’s Day and The Pagan Pulpit which will drop at 10 am on the weekends.  From the standpoint of A Skald’s Life, my journal posts, this will also provide Sif’s Day being sort of a weekly recap.

This new schedule will begin on November 4 with Of Wolves and Ravens for that day.  This weekend will be another The Rabyd Skald tomorrow for the purpose of working on my booklist for the remainder of this year and the Pagan Pulpit will be Sol’s Day.  After that, the new schedule begins.

The Rabyd Skald Posts will, of course, be the rogue posts of this blog.  Appearing when they appear as needed.

Once again, to all that read my journey put in blog form, thank you. Writing this blog has mostly been about sorting out my personal issues, but the fact that some of you take the time to read me, like the posts, and comment on some of them is truly appreciated.

I remain,

The Rabyd Skald – Wandering Soul, Bard, and Philosopher. The Grey Wayfarer.

Skaal!!!

“NaNoWriMo and 2020 Reading List” – The Rabyd Skald

/ Ed Raby Sr / Leave a comment

Happy Sif’s Day!

National Novel Writing Month?:

I have done National Novel Writing Month in November many times, I have also succeeded twice. As we approach November this time I haven’t participated in the last few years as I was focused on school and writing for that.   That said, I could do this but I am conflicted because I could also use the same concept for my Non-Fiction Book as a major restart and massive getting the work done time as well.  So is it National Non-Fiction Writing Month instead?  I think so and it has the same acronym.  My plan is basically also to do 60,000 words too.  That makes it easy with 2000 per day.

Recently though I realized my first non-fiction book should not be a scholarly work but rather my own story of my journey from faith to atheism.  It also has the flavor of being something I can do without a lot of research.  It’s my story or at least my memories of my story and that inspires a lot of the possible titles but I won’t get into that yet. What I  do know is that there is a high probability that this time next week I will be writing this book. By the end of November, I plan to have it mostly there.  December will be finishing it up and polishing.  Then I will sit on it in January and then Edit it in February.  I guess this is a good process that would allow me to produce and edit a book every three to four months and I think this is a good habit to get into.

I want to use the concept of NaNoWriMo to get started.   Eventually, as a writer, I can see a month to write a book, one month to let it rest while starting something else and then a month of editing.  Having one book being written while a second is being edited sounds like a good way to go.  It would lead to three books in the creative forge at a time but that is the life of a writer.

2020 Reading List: 

A week or two ago I changed my bucket list item under Truth form learning Latin to reading a book a week for the year 2020.  it’s one of those ‘so I can say I did it’ bucket list items. But also I have a lot of catching up to do when it comes to my education.  So at the present time, I am looking into not only starting the habit of reading a book a week but also putting together my reading list ahead of time os that part won’t take a lot of thought other than to order the books in enough time to get to me.

Mostly I am looking at books under a couple veins but they have to be new to me in that I have never read them before.  This has to be a reading list, not a re-reading list.  I also am trying to hit a variety of topics but I have a couple themes

  1. Books that at one time were burned by religious people.
  2. Books on science particularly evolution the origin of life.
  3. Books by the Founding Fathers – I have read the federalist papers or at least most of them but some of the books by the founders like Thomas Paine’s Common Sense I have actually not read.
  4. Books on Economics and Political Science
  5. Viking Mythology and Culture (duh)
  6. Not to forget fiction – science fiction and fantasy probably but new stuff I haven’t read before.
  7. It’s going to be half non-fiction and half fiction.
  8. Half my fiction will be fantasy and the other science fiction.
  9. No book I am going to read in 2020 can currently be in my library.  I am using those books to get started the next couple of months to develop the habit. But the process of buying a new book and reading it is part of this.  I will make a few exceptions for books I just purchased for this purpose but other than that, I am going to read new shit.

Looking at this, I would say that it’s going to be a pretty eclectic list and I need to have it down before I start.  I do want to deal with one book I have put on this list because of #1 and it is a modern book: The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American by Andrew L. Seidel.  And the video below which was posted yesterday explains why.

Yeah. book burners piss me off. It tells me your afraid of what it says might disturb your precious world view.  It tells me ‘goose-stepping morons should try reading books instead of burning them’. 

My 2020 List So Far: 

The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American by Andrew L. Seidel.

Common Sense by Thomas Paine

 The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine

Leviathan Wakes, Caliban’s War, and Abaddon’s Gate by James S A Corey

Origin of Species by Charles Darwin

Outgrowing God by Richard Dawkins

Letters to a Young Contrarian by Christopher Hitchens

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

It’s a pretty good start, but I plan on getting this list done before Yule so maybe they can be gifts to me.  🙂 I will probably organize this later to make sure I have a good mix but in the end, it is going to be what I want to read. Although I am interested in books that people have burned and they go to the top of the list.

I am planning on using Goodreads to document my progress and write reviews on the whole thing.  If you follow my Facebook page, you will get each review.

Closing Thoughts:

If you haven’t noticed Sif’s Day has become pretty much whatever I want to write unusually under the moniker – The Rabyd Skald.  I kind of feel this is needed right now because I am using it to fill gaps in my thoughts and the normal weekly process. I just don’t always feel like doing something ordered so the end fo the week is getting the last bits of Choas out of my brain.  Hope you don’t mind.

I remain,

The Rabyd Skald – Wandering Soul, Bard, and Philosopher. The Grey Wayfarer.

Skaal!!!