After having to take some time off for bad behavior (playing on an injured ankle), I came back to it slowly. Frustrating in that I seem to have lost some of my endurance and arrow reading fluency, but encouraging in that I clearly have been making progress.

In DDR Supernova, I can now consistently beat "Doll" by Terra in yellow mode with an A (this one troubled me for months. It was one of my first major walls), and can also easily pass "Jerk It Out" by the Caesars with an above C grade (this was a song my sister, Moss and I were all failing around the new year). I can also manage to not fail many songs in pink mode, though not all by a long shot. Oh, also, I seem to be able to scrape a passing grade consistently on "Dance Dance" by Fallout Boy in yellow mode, but it's still a hard song.

In DDR Extreme 2, I am mostly working in pink mode, now, but still failing an awful lot. "When the Rush Comes" is giving me trouble in pink mode right now. I am stating that here as a marker so I'll know when I have made more progress.

I went back today to DDR Max, which I hadn't played in quite a long time. It's still much harder in yellow mode than the others, but I only failed one song of the ones I tried today ("Groove 2001"). I specifically chose songs that had been hard, or impossible before, too. Passed "My Generation" and "Ecstasy" without much trouble, but more impressively managed to pass two previously impossible NAOKI songs "You've Broken My Heart" and something else, the name of which escapes me. I just know that I played "You've Broken My Heart" for hours and days in my last stint of DDR Max and couldn't ever pass it. Today it took one try.

Generally, I am getting better at arrow fluency and anticipating where my center of gravity needs to be. I'm starting to deal a bit better with side-up and side-down jumps, and I am also slowly getting the hang of eighth notes(?) (I keep wanting to call them half beats), the slightly different colored arrows that require fast movement between two regular beat arrows.

I am sure this is nonsensical to most of you and fairly boring to those of you who understand what I am talking about, but it helps to have a record. If you have DDR war stories of your own, feel free to share in comments!

So far, I have still written every day this year, and I seem to be averaging a thousand words a day.

Here's the chart thingy:

16116 / 67500 words. 24% done!

Very exciting. Even more exciting is that many of these words are on the retrofuture novel I started in 2004 and never ever finished even though I wanted to. So that's good. One of my major goals for the year is to actually finish draft one of that novel and hopefully start in on the first revision.

Goal for the rest of this week:

*Actually edit the short story I finished into a readable draft by Sunday evening.
*Do 750 minimum new words per day as per the Novel in 90 guidelines.
*Post the next booklog.

7295 / 67500 words. 11% done!

I have 12,129 words in a "short story" now. I can't decide if it is done or still going. I guess I'll figure that out tomorrow.

I have also read roughly 3/4 of the manuscript bethr sent my way. Should finish that tomorrow and send feedback.

I have written every day this year! Huzzah!

Goals for next week:

*Send feedback on previously mentioned manuscript
*Write booklog for week one of 2008
*Finish and/or begin revising short story of doom
*Write new words every day