I just realized that I have mentioned ROW80 several times this round...and never explained it. ROW80 is a writing challenge that is designed around the fact that we are each at different places in our writing and lives, and lets each participant set their own goals accordingly! I think it's fantastic because I'm the kind who needs some sort of outside accountability in order to get anything done, but I also need to be able to set my own goals when it comes to writing and life. This gives me the chance to have both of these key ingredients in one.
You can find more information about ROW80 on their page and I encourage you to join if you want a great way to be held accountable to your goals. They are a wonderful group and nobody minds if you join in mid-round, so it doesn't matter that we are already a few weeks in!
Now on to my goals. I'm not going to go through each of them one by one today like I usually do, simply because there isn't much to report since Wednesday. This is that trend I mentioned in my blog title. I seem to have a habit of starting out strong and finishing weak. I know this week part of the problem was that I ended up spending hours working on a laptop my hubby brought home before we realized that we just weren't going to be able to fix it's fatal flaw. This was rather depressing because my laptop is edging towards antique status, but the upside is that I finally organized all my files, deleted files and programs that are no longer needed, and I'm positive that everything important is backed up now!
Because I was working on the computer stuff (and a few other things that came up) I didn't get much else done in the latter half of the week, but I'm ok with that, because at least I was being productive! My overarching goal for this week is going to be to stay consistent through out the week if at all possible.
The one thing I did really well with this week was commenting on other blogs! I not only visited some bloggers I haven't checked in with in awhile, I also visited blogs almost every day. I think I'm finally getting into a routine, and that's making me happy! I'd really like to build readership to this blog and I know that is one of the ways to do it. I'm also interested in joining in on some blog hops, so if you know of any good ones coming up just let me know!
It's the last day to enter to win the book Hush Money by Chuck Greaves, so if you haven't already, make sure you go visit the post and enter! It's quick and easy and I'd really love to have more entries before it closes.
One of my goals right now is to cook more often, and so when I sat down to write this goals post the only I could come up with was this song. So of course I had to look it up...
Bring back memories for anyone? I'm not that old (not calling you old, calling me young :P) but my Daddy used to ask my Mom that question all the time, and even sing from time to time!
So how am I doing on my goals? Well...
Writing:
1. Five hours editing a week. I'm at 3:10 right now! I'm very happy with that. I'm actually ahead of the game! Granted, it's only by 10 minutes, but I was behind schedule last week, and never reached my goal, so this is super fantastic.
3. Write book reviews and post on GoodReads.com. Four so far! I'm not caught up yet, but at least I'm up to writing about the books I read this month! One of the reviews is in Monday's post... in fact it's the book I'm giving away! (hint, hint)
4. Read and comment on at least 5 other blogs. Check!
Life:
1. Put more variety in our diets. That above picture is last nights dinner. Left over burrito meat cooked up with some scrambled eggs and cheese, topped in salsa and olives, served on a tortilla (and rolled up, but this is prettier)! Super yummy. Tonight's dinner was a newish recipe (old favorite ingredients, new combination) but of course I forgot to take a picture of that!
2. Clean/Organize the house. I cleaned! A little bit. The house is still a mess in general, but the bathroom is clean! And a little bit of the mess is gone.
3. Exercise! I've been doing more stretching, and the cleaning is counting as exercise this week. Believe me, my knees are feeling it.
4. Take more pictures. I think the above picture of dinner is the only picture of any worth I've taken this week so far (the one's of my husband when I was picking on him don't count) but hey, that's one good picture. I'll take it.
See that pretty picture? Ok, so maybe it doesn't look so pretty to everyone else. Especially since I have gone through and blurred the text in the center. But that my friends, is the ready to go file for the second draft of Misfits!
Woohoo!
I finally finished the overly long process of taking all the changes I made on the paper copy and putting them in the new digital copy. This required lots of copy and pasting text, putting it in a different order (in many cases) than I wrote it, typing up the outline I created, typing notes into the text and highlighting them, and lastly, making sure all my references pages were in the new work-from file. Oh and for the heck of it I alphabetized, color coded, and labeled everything.
My OCD side was very happy when I was done.
It took way longer to do all this than I expected, but I figured out some more things about my story along the way, and I know the next phases of the the process are going to be much easier because of this phase, so I'm happy.
So what is next? Well I was going to tell you rewriting is next, but I realized yesterday that I need to do some more world building and character building before I tackle the rewrite. I started in on that today, and I'm not sure how long it's going to take me, but I know the book will be better for it in the end, so I press on!
3. Continue to write and post book reviews on GoodReads.com - 2 book reviews written, not enough, I'm really behind on these!
4. I'm adding one - I need to visit and comment on at least 5 blogs every time I post a blog post. We'll see how it goes doing so this week!
Awesome re-purposed type-writer - check out the source!
Life Goals:
1. Put more variety in our diet, try new recipe's and cook more often - I didn't do as well as I wanted on this one as I wanted, but I still did really good! I tried two new recipes this week (I wanted to try a third but ran out of steam) and I only fell back on making sandwiches one night this week. Woohoo!
2. Clean/Organize the house - I completely failed at this goal, but it was more important to take care of myself emotionally this week, so I'm ok with that.
3. Exercise! Not as consistent as I'd like, but I did do quite a bit this week, so I'm happy! Plus my physical therapist was really happy with my progress when we met on Monday, so that makes me really happy.
4. Take more pictures - This is another goal I did really good the first part of the week and not the second half, oh well, tomorrow is another day!
I'm a sucker for soundtracks - picked up Coyote Ugly's soundtrack this week for $5 - and listening to it right now!
So as you can tell if you actually read through all of that - it was a mixed week. I would have liked to do better, but like I said in one section, I needed to take care of myself emotionally this week, so I'm ok with not meeting at all my goals. I'm just happy I had enough presence of mind to meet any of them! I'll keep trying, one day at a time, and we'll see what this next week holds. I know one thing it'll definitely hold a giveaway, so check back for that tomorrow!
Doesn't that look yummy? Among the many things going on in my life right now I'm trying to cook more. Tonight's successful experiment was a Boboli crust, Jack Daniel's BBQ sauce, chicken (fried up using a little pan spray, garlic, and oregano), minced garlic, diced green onions, and diced red onions. I love it! Mo even gave his approval, although he said he'd prefer a garlic alfredo sauce to a bbq.
Anywho... As you may have noticed from my sporadic posts lately, I'm having an awfully hard time focusing lately. There's some life stuff that has just made it hard to stay focused, and unfortunately there's nothing I can do about the "stuff" except give it time. What I can do is work on how it's affecting me.
For now, I'm working on spending a few minutes each day meditating, finding my center, that seems to help me focus and get done what I need to do. At least it did today :P We'll see how much it helps moving forward! I finally sat down today and made my ROW80 goals (a week late) so hopefully having those set will help with staying on track as well. I'm sure I'll mess up, but I'll keep trying, and that's what's important right?
You can see the goals I've set for myself on my goals page but I'll also post them into today's post. They are all pretty self explanatory, but feel free to tell me in a comment below if you have any questions :) I'll be talking more about each of the goals when I do my check in posts.
Writing Goals:
1. Five Hours Editing a Week (Ideally an hr a day M-F)
2. Blog on a regular basis: Saturday: Creative Nudge for the week Sunday: Row80/Goals Post Monday or Tuesday: My piece for that week's Creative Nudge Wednesday: Row80/Goals Post Friday: Book review Any other posts are bonus!
3. Continue to write and post reviews both here and on www.goodreads.com
Life Goals: 1. Put more variety in our diets, try new recipes and cook more often.
2. Clean/Organize the house. First get things organized, then get on top of doing weekly chores.
3. Exercise!
4. Take more pictures. (like the two in this post!)
I originally just was going to share my writing goals, but that's not who I am. I mean, yes, I am a writer, but every writer is so much more than just a writer, and each of those goals I posted are important to me, and the pursuit of each affects the amount of time and energy I have to spend on the others. So, as the weeks go by, I hope to keep sharing my love for writing and my progress on my book, but I'll also share some of my life, because after all, whether you write fiction or fantasy, every writer's life affects their work.
I'm not a big fan of cleaning. I'm just not. I mean, I know it's important, and I don't really enjoy being in a dirty environment, I just always have something better to do. You know, something to make, someone to talk to, and of course, writing. Then there's always the problem of the "Ooo...shiny!" rule. The "Ooo...shiny!" rule states that any time I clear my plate and try to get serious cleaning done I will find something to distract me. It's inevitable. Like death, or taxes, or garlic being in whatever I cook. (ok, that last one's not entirely true, I do leave garlic out of things like... deserts.)
There's also, for a long time, been the problem of having constant migraines. Those things are major energy suckers, and it's hard to find the motivation to clean when pain is making you dizzy. I also have several other health issues that add in their own challenges to the prospect of picking up that sponge or tackling a pile of miscellania.
Combine the fact I don't enjoy cleaning with the health issues - and my house has never been super clean. I do try, but we live in a constant state of disorder.
I'm determined to change that to at least some degree, and I have reason to think I can. Want to know why? Meet R2-02:
What? An Oxygen tank? That's right folks. Apparently I'm one of the few migraine sufferers that receives significant relief from huffing on oxygen. I'm ECSTATIC about this. Seriously. I can't even begin to tell you how happy I am! Oxygen is cheaper than many of the meds I've tried... and it's natural. I'm discovering that there are still a few migraines that I need to combine oxygen therapy with pain meds for, but I don't care. This is significantly reducing the amount of medication I'm taking, and I'm functioning! I've had the tanks since Friday and I haven't had a single day where I'm down with a migraine, and trust me, several of those days should have been lost to migraines based on symptoms prior to treatment.
This means I'm having a much easier time getting things done, so I've declared this week spring cleaning! I'm still having some problems with the "Ooo...shiny!" rule, but I'm doing my best to take notes on whatever's distracting me and get back to work. Spring cleaning means I'm not really writing this week (although I have at least one book review I have to do so I can return the book) but I plan to be hard at work on editing again next week.
Speaking of writing... time to report on last month's progress and talk about ROW80!
And the title ties in perfectly with the story I'm working on... so...
March was a roller coaster month with some really good days and some really bad days. I ended up with 15,795 words for the month - which considering everything is something I'm really proud of. Obviously I'd love to have written more, but getting that took some real effort, so I'm happy. Plus, I'm up from last month's 10,233 :P
I read a TON last month. 27 books. That's crazy. In my defense I was really, really sick for part of the month so literally all I did was read. I still think that's crazy. I seriously doubt I'll come anywhere close to that this month, especially since I've been working on the same book for three days because I'm not spending much time reading so far.
As for ROW80 - I know I'm supposed to have specific goals, but I really don't right now. I might come up with something more specific next week when I'm done with spring cleaning and more focused on writing again, but for now I'm just going to say editing. Editing, editing, and more editing. Oh, I should try to blog fairly regularly as well. We'll see how far I get!
I'm still working away on my editing. Now that I have things reorganized in paper form I've been taking the digital copy and rearranging it, as well as inserting my notes, and copying the outline from the 3x5 cards into a single sheet. And I'm not done...
At first when I thought about writing this post I was a little embarrassed. I've had a couple of days - how long does it take to reorganize a file and type in notes? And isn't that a little OCD to do it all at once instead of as I go while editing?
That's when I had to sit back and remind myself that I am my own harshest critic. For one, I have at least worked on my book every day that it's been feasible since we last talked, which is nothing to sneeze at. For two, the reorganizing in digital form is taking a lot longer than I thought I would, so my original guess that it'd be done with an hour of two of work wasn't accurate and I shouldn't hold myself to it. Lastly, I've already seen this as being useful.
There are a lot of plot holes that I'm going to need to fill in this edit. Things where I just "made it happen" and now I need to go back and make it make sense. As I've been copying the old text into a new file, in the current "proper" order, I've come up with some of the solutions to filling those holes. It still feels like I'm being a little OCD about it - but as long as it's helping with the edit - I shouldn't complain right?
I've signed up for round 2 this year of ROW80! Round 1 went nothing like I expected, but that's ok, life does that some times. I don't have definite goals yet for this round, but the official start date isn't until the 2nd, and I should have something by then (maybe).
We all know that you are supposed to write what you know, and I remember hearing somewhere that means that you need to remember to live outside of your book, or you'll dry up for inspiration. Not to mention it would be pretty hallow to have published a bunch of books and have no family and friends to enjoy it with! So I've spent my week on my family and friends, and gotten no writing done other than a few blog posts earlier this week, and I'm ok with that. I was needed, I lived my life to the best of my ability, and I'll get back to the writing as soon as I can.
For those of you who haven't been following along, ROW80 is a writing challenge that lets you set your own goals, and cheers you on as you work on reaching them! I recently had to change my goals because I realized that, for now, my focus needs to be elsewhere. And, following quickly on the heels of that decision, I got thrown for a major loop. Some of my best friends are going through a personal crisis, and while there are going to be upsides to this whole ordeal, it's very difficult on all of us in the short run. Which, of course, means no time for me to write!
It has gotten me thinking though. My post yesterday (which only made it up because I wrote it Monday lol) talked about my experience with The Fault In Our Stars Tour and about living a life that is awesome, and the biggest thing I took away from the book that tour promotes is that life does not have to be going well for it to be awesome. So how can you be awesome when the people you love face hard times?
This can many different things because we all have different ways that we communicate and differing abilities and resources, but what that act is isn't really important. What's important is that you do something real, genuine, because people instinctively can spot fakes. Give flowers, take them out for a cup of coffee, write them a poem, send an email, do the dishes, just make sure its from your heart and not just some sense of obligation.
2. Be Realistic
When the people you love are hurting it is easy to want to save their world, but the truth is that usually you can't. You may be able to do some incredible things to help, but the truth is we all have our limitations, and there are some things that people have to work through themselves. As you are sitting there trying to figure out what you can do, be honest about your limitations. Maybe you can make a meal, but your not up to babysitting. Maybe your on the opposite side of the country and you can't be there, but you can still write or call. Maybe you can write a check or maybe all you can do is hold them while they cry. Don't feel bad about what you can't do, because everything you can do when someone is hurting is amazing!
You are no good to anybody if you wear yourself to the bone, and this one is extra important if you are closely involved with the situation. Don't forget to eat, drink some water, sleep, and take care of your self emotionally too. I think that last one is often the hardest, especially for someone like me who likes to take care of everyone else! You are important too, so call a friend, allow yourself an extra treat, take a bubble bath, but never forget to take care of you.
4. Don't Be Afraid to Laugh
Laughter really is the best medicine, and when you can find humor through the dark times, you'll make it through to the other side in much better shape. Granted, a funeral isn't always the best place to laugh, but then again, sometimes it is. You'll know what is appropriate, but don't ever loose site of the funny side of the dark.
~ Ruthie ~
Ps. I'll try to post tomorrow, but until this is all "over" I have no idea really what day to day is going to look like.
I mentioned in Monday's Post that I have some posts I'm really excited about. Unfortunately I then lost Tuesday to a migraine (seriously, it might as well be erased from the calender). My plan was to post it today... then I realized that it's the first day for February, and the first day of the month is a day that I like to reserve for looking at the month prior, and thinking about the month ahead.
My exciting and fun stuff is going to have to wait. I will tell you that it has to do with where I'm knitting in my picture, and why the gesture for "Live Love and Prosper" was my first thought for posing for said picture. Other than that, you'll find out tomorrow! I'm going to write up the post today to make sure I don't get knocked down again and miss posting it.
Looking Back at January:
I posted on our PDX Wrimo's group that I was ready to write January off writing wise, and I was, until I looked at the numbers today. No, I didn't meet any of my goals, and that is frustrating. I had a bad month and it was hard to get anything done. BUT I still got a total of 20,781 words written between books, short stories, blog posts, and other random writing. Divide by four and you get just over 5k a week on average.
What does that mean? Well I've decided it means January should not be written off. I didn't meet my goals, but back in the day (before I took a break from writing and found my way back through NaNoWriMo) my goal had been 5k a week. I never met it back then. Ok, maybe twice I met my goal, but it puts things in perspective.
Perspective is always a good thing. In this case it tells me that I have still grown, even if not as much as I had hoped for, and considering my health this last month, I'm more than ok with that.
Reading wise I've done really well. I usually do when I'm sick. My goal breaks down to 15 books a month, and I read 16, and some of them were really awesome!
Looking Forward to February:
Honestly, this part I'm still figuring out. I am going to have to dial back my goals, but I'm not sure the best way to do that. I don't really want to give up any of them, but apparently my health is not going to cooperate with my dreams right now, so I need to dial it back a little. I think, at this point, that is going to mean working on one book at a time, which frustrates me because I really want to work on both!
I will update my goals sheet to reflect my current reality by Sunday, and share about those changes then.
I look forward to seeing what books this next month ends up holding. I'm excited about the one's on my shelf from the library right now, and I'll be doing a beta read for a friend as well, which should be fun, it's my first one!
How are your goals going now that we're one month into 2012? Read any good books?
I'm making progress and writing again. It makes me so happy! I'm no where near caught up on my goals, and honestly I'm fighting a migraine right now so I'm not going to pull up my goals sheet and update it until tomorrow. I'm going to need to revise things based on the time lost due to the back injury, but that's ok. I'm well aware that there are things in life that are out of our control. The only thing we can control is how we respond to them and then move forward.
Moving forward can be hard sometimes, especially once you know your too far behind to properly catch up. The key, I've found, is to remember that even if you can't catch up you'll only fall farther behind if you don't start moving. That's where I usually start, simply moving.
Simply moving can mean a lot of things. Pertaining to the actual injury, it means doing what I can for myself, with out help. Getting my own water. Then, as I improve, getting my own food. As time progresses I move about more often, do basic stretches, start to catch up on small chores.
With writing, simply moving looks similar. The first thing I usually pick back up after a major set back is this blog. If you look at the last two weeks my posts have been few, but I did make attempts to get back at it. Then, once I was able to do that with relative ease, I focused on catching up on book reviews. Now? Now I'm back to the "real" writing.
In the last couple of days I've not only written some of those book reviews that I've mentioned (I have several in queue right now!) I've also started on a ghost story, and worked on going through Misfits and taking notes. I was hoping to work on Jemnath today, but I got knocked down with a migraine so again its one of those days where moving forward involves small steps.
The ghost story is one of those cases where I have loads I'm supposed to be working on, but my muse is insisting I take some time to work on a different idea. I'm trying to balance all three right now, but hopefully the first draft of the ghost story (it's a short story) will be done in the next week and I can put it on the back burner for awhile. Depending on how it turns out I might work on polishing it from time to time and make it my first submitted work. It has potential, but who knows what will happen!
Well - after I posted my last bloggy/writing update I managed to re-pull the muscle in my back. Yeah. I'm on a roll here this month! I was fighting off some sort of bug yesterday, so I didn't even mange to get this up on time. That's ok though, I'm definitely on an upswing again today! I even managed to wash a few dishes. Woohoo! Any progress is good!
Hopefully I'll have some writing progress to report by Sunday, at the very least I'd like to get back to my regular blogging schedule, and blog reading schedule. I miss it!
Photo by my friend Jenni; Author, Blogger, and Photographer. Check out her blog: Jenni Merrit.
We got some snow this weekend! It was just a dusting, but it was a enough to make the world look pretty. I didn't get any pictures, but Jenni did, so I stole hers!
Now as to why I didn't get any pictures, and why my blog has been silent... Remember that "little and massively annoying thing which shouldn't completely stop me from writing" that I mentioned in my last post? Yeah. Um. I was a wrong. It was worse than I thought and I didn't get anything done. Like anything. I didn't even cook for a couple days (poor hubby).
Long story short, I had a virus that caused an asthma flair up, that resulted in my coughing HARD, and spraining a muscle in my back as well as knocking my back just all out of wack. I shrugged it off, kept doing things, and woke up the next day with the left side of my back swollen and this one line of muscle spasming. Ouch.
Since then I've been a good girl. Very little time at the computer (until today). I didn't even clean my inbox out for three days! And I'm someone who finds unopened emails painful. I did a bunch of reading, took the meds the doctors gave me that made me nice and relaxed (weeeee!), and rested.
I'm back in the game today...sorta. I still have a lot of healing to do and I start physical therapy tomorrow which will probably both be good for the healing and exhausting. BUT I wrote today! It was just a book review for one of the books I read this weekend, but just doing that felt so good! I also have an idea for a ghost story that I'm going to try and work on later.
So that's my belated ROW80 check in. Didn't meet any of my goals, but you know what? I think I'm more that excused this time *wink*
Before I start talking about where I'm at in my writing goals - I wanted to share something fun with you! I mentioned on Tuesday that I won the Book Mark Break Challenge this year, and the prize was that she featured me on her blog. I'm very excited about it as its my first time being featured since I rejoined the bloggy world, so I'd really appreciate my lovely readers heading over there and checking it out. Just don't forget to come back and read this post and leave me a comment!
Today marks the end of my first week of ROW80! (If you don't know what that is go here.) It's been a weird week, but a good one. Most of my plans got changed around, but I still got a lot done, and I had some invaluable girl time that I don't regret for a minute, so that makes me once very content writer. Mr. Muse is happy too.
The Goals and what I accomplished:
1. Write 750 words minimum a day - I did it! I had one day where I was really sick and almost didn't do it, but that's why I've set up a reward. If I do my 750 words every day I get to buy a book - and I really want to buy a book! It was enough to get me to the computer. Most of what I wrote that day was trash, but reading back over it today it was interesting to see how some of what I wrote set me off on things I worked on the next day, without even remembering I'd made a note about it while sick! See? Even sick ramblings can be useful.
2. Jemnath - Ch’s 16 &17 - I barely made this goal ... by writing at least half of it today. But hey, the goal was there, this blog post was looming over my head, and it got written. Isn't that what joining ROW80 is all about? I know I do much better when I both have set goals, and a system of accountability. Of course we'll have to see what future weeks hold, but so far it's working!
3. Misfits - Read Through & Hatchet Attack - This is a lesson in needing to adjust goals. I'm not done with the read through - and I haven't done the hatchet attack yet because I have to finis the read through first! I'm ok with that though because I am 30% of the way through my read through, and I put a bunch of hours in it. It's just taken me longer to do than I expected because of the type of notes I'm taking. So I've adjust my goals, dedicated next week to trying to finish the read through (hopefully life will cooperate a little better than it did this week), and going from there. If you look at my goals page you'll see both that I updated it with this weeks results, and I've already adjust my editing goals to match reality!
How is your writing going? Are you meeting your goals? Do you need to adjust your goals like I had to when faced with reality?
That's right, my week so far has been full of distractions. Some of them good (lunch with a friend) and some of them mundane (like laundry) but full none the less. Today was supposed to be a day of writing with a little bit of house work mixed in - but my plans have been derailed!
It's a good derailing though. See that cute couple on the left? That's my "baby" brother Peter and his wife Tanya wearing some of the knit & crocheted items my Mom made (I know the hats were knit, and I have a feeling the scarf was crochet but I can't remember). They have been in town for Christmas (they live in Chicago) and I found out last night that there is a going away luncheon for them today! I was going to head up to Vancouver tomorrow, but I've moved all my plans around and I'm heading up today instead. Which should be a ton of fun and leaves tomorrow as a writing day instead!
Despite all my distractions I've gotten a little bit of writing work done. My goals for this week are:
1. Write 750 words min. a day. 2. Jemnath - Ch’s 16 &17 3. Misfits - Read Through & Hatchet Attack
So far I'm going strong on the writing 750 words a day. I've promised myself a new book at the end of the month if I manage to do it every day so that's plenty of incentive! Yesterday's 750 was taken up writing chapter 16 in Jemnath (goal 2!). Every other chapter in this book is very short, between 450-800 words, so that was relatively easy to hammer out yesterday. The only downside is that means I have at least 2000 more words to write this week in that book, but with tomorrow and Friday pretty wide open that should be reasonable to accomplish.
I'm LOVING doing the read through of Misfits! I'm only through chapter 5 so far. I debated going through and just reading with out notes the first time versus taking detailed notes as I went a long and opted for the second option. In an ideal world I'd be able to keep my writing fingers still long enough just to take in the scope of the story - but I just couldn't do it. I am not only taking notes in my notebook, I am making 3x5 cards for each scene as I go along. It's all part of my master plan to take a hatchet to first draft! I'll explain more about that (with pictures!) in the ROW80 check in on Monday.
For now - I gotta go take a shower, write my 750, and head out for Vancouver. Cheers!
I’m very excited to share my writing goals with you, my blog readers! I’m not sure I’ve ever been this excited about sharing my goals. There are several reasons for that, but I’ll save that for later.
This year I’ll be joining in on A Round of Words in 80 Days (ROW80). ROW80 is all about setting good writing goals and then achieving them, but there is lots of grace involved, you are free to change your goals and adjust them to meet reality.
I am excited about meeting other writers, and about the accountability involved. I’ll be posting twice a week (Sunday and Wednesday) about how I’m doing with my writing goals. I have put a page up at the top of my blog with my writing goals (or you can click here). That page has it a copy of my spread sheet (I’m all about spread sheets!) but I’ll summarize in this post.
1. Write 750 words a day. I’m doing the 750words.com monthly challenge (for more on 750words see my post here.) If I write every day for this month I get to buy myself a book! Going back and forth between actually owning Hunger Games, Eden by Keary Taylor, and working on my Terry Brooks collection. Anyway, the 750 might be made up of writing prompts, writing book reviews, working on my books, or just stream of consciousness, but it will happen!
2. Two chapters a week in Jemnath. I’ve projected that out until the end of the 80 days, but I honestly have no idea how many chapters this book will take! I may be done by the end of ROW80 - or I might just be really close. We’ll see. Two chapters equals one long chapter and one short (about a page) chapter. I think that’s attainable and still gives me time to meet my other goals.
3. Editing Misfits. I really don’t know exactly what that’s going to look like past the first read through and going at the book with a hatchet (I’ll post about that on Wednesday). For now I have the first two weeks filled in and the rest is TBD (To be Determined). I’ll expand on my goals once I have a better idea of how the edit is going.
Like I said - I’m really excited about this! I think I’ve set attainable goals that will stretch me, but not too far. It certainly won’t be the challenge NaNoWriMo was, but I think thats probably a good thing in this case. I also feel more confident about meeting those goals than normal, because I’ve learned that I desperately need outside accountability to meet my writing goals, and I think this will be perfect for that. Not to mention, I’m just elated that I’ll be doing so much writing!
What are you writing goals right now? Want to join ROW80? We’d love to have along for the ride!
~ Ruthie ~
Ps. Do you like my writing notebook (see picture)? I love Celtic knot work and leather - so this book is perfect for me! I also love purple and this pen works really well.
