It’s April, which means… the pause is over! I’m really happy with my decision to take a break. I’m seeing things with a complete different eyes now, and writing doesn’t feel like a burden anymore, unlike how I was feeling for the second part of last year.

When I pressed pause in January, I wanted that break to be healthy. Taking a step back always seems to help. And teaching the weekly intensive with Miss Soffia was a different way to take a deep dive in my own understanding of the most classic ties. It was never really a full step back from rope.

What I didn’t expect was this global pandemic. We didn’t get to finish the intensive (8/10). My trip to NARIX and Beachbind are postponed and I don’t get to see any of my partners except my husband (and we are both mostly tops). That said, I can’t complain, I can work from home, we’re in a comfortable house. In theory I should have more time, but in reality I have to work a lot to compensate the remote situation and my stress level is not in a good place. That’s not stopping me from moving forward, it’s just not easy.

  • So going back in the content, I started looking at the goal I wrote before the break. And I started a few things:
  • Go back in research mode: I started looking at all my rope book to find ideas I might have missed
  • Review current content: made a tracking spreadsheet and list improvements ideas.
  • Complete the summaries: I started reworking the structure and updating the season pages on the website. Broke down the work for future improvements.
  • Finish writing Spring: Broke down the work for future improvements

If I want to reach my main goals for the years (finish Spring and polish the structure), I have to break it down in smaller objectives. But I have to be careful not to repeat last year and burn myself doing it. I’ve broken down the main things I need to do into monthly goals, hopefully it will get me where I want with less pressure than weekly goals. I’m also think of making these the focus and not the goal, so if I don’t manage to finish something within the month, I move to the next focus so I don’t get stuck.

  • April
    • Research
    • Web site: rework general structure, landing page
    • Structure review
    • Content review: intro, safety, consent
  • May
    • Web site: update getting started, resources section and about
    • Complete Week 7: The Rope
  • June
    • Complete Week 8: The Body
    • Improve summaries for Summer
  • July
    • Complete Week 9: Tension
  • August
    • Complete Week 10: Movement
    • Improve summaries for Fall
  • September
    • Complete Week 11: Partnership
  • October
    • Complete Week 12: Intimacy
    • Improve summaries for Winter
  • November
    • Complete Week 13: The bed
  • December
    • Review week 1-6
    • Improve summaries for Spring

If the pandemic carry on for a very long amount of time, I may not be able to complete everything but I’ll try to push it as far as I can.

One question on my mind is, how much content do I put on the website, how much do I keep for the book? My main goal is making rope accessible, the book sales comes second. That said, the web site is a huge task to maintain in parallel to writing the book so I must be careful not to put more content than I can maintain. If I want to have a book at some point, I need to be careful in how I divide my energy. My current mindset is to have week 1-8 on the website because they are the most essential topics, and week 9-52 will have a nice summary for each activities, some resource links and a gallery of pictures.

So I spent the entire easter week-end shuffling chapters around, reviewing the activities and making structural changes. I’m trying to fix a few logic issues I noticed while reviewing. Spending time of skype with friends talking about the structure brought interesting improvements. I expect that as I continue to work more changes will come so I’m waiting a bit to update the web site.

Here is a little bit more on my April to do list:

Research

  • Structuring documentation
  • Going back to books
  • Going back to previous classes
  • Fetlife/youtube/instagram stalking
  • Talk to people and ask questions

Make the website easier to navigate

  • Static welcome page with guidance
  • Restructure the menu, especially the top level
  • Add intent to season names
  • Simpler mobile menu

Review

  • Make a tracking tool to note improvement – Done
  • Read current content and correct stuff on the way
  • Ask for feedback
  • Use a software to review grammar
  • Update the web site

Wish me luck!