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!
See that? Those are all the 3x5 cards I made for the different scenes in Misfits! (91 in total) Phew. I am so excited that's done! It was a lot more work than I was expecting, and I hit a lot of real-life speed bumps, so I thought I was going to be done with this step a loooong time ago. Now that I have it all organized...its time to tear it apart! I'll explain more about that on Sunday (with pictures!) That's tomorrow's project - and I've been looking forward to this since sometime in November when I wasn't even done with the story yet.
I'm also super excited because I made some real progress in reaching a title for the story, and in figuring out the sequel, all this morning! It's been a big day obviously.
I've known all along that this book was ripe for a sequel, and as I wrote the last couple of chapters it became clearer than ever, but I've never really known what the sequel was going to be about. Today, as I reread and outlined, I found several things that were just too much new information to be including in the last chapters of the book, especially with all the other realizations my characters were coming too. I started jotting down things like "use in the next book," and before I knew it, I realized I just given myself a major driving force for the sequel.
This book is all about my characters finding each other. Yes there's a quest that they're on, and that's very important too, but the quest is really there to drive them getting to know each other and learning to work together. The next book is also going to have some sort of quest to it (that part isn't figured out yet) but the focus for the characters is going to be growth. I'm going to have each one of them gain new abilities (some magical and some probably not), and grow as individuals along the way. I don't know much more than that, but that's more than enough to get me excited!
I've also figured out that Misfits (which is what my band of adventurers is) will be part of the series title. Each book title will have something to do either with the quest, or with the personal challenges facing the group. I know that sounds vague, but it's still a big step forward! I'll keep referring to this draft as Misfits for the time being, just to avoid confusion, and let you all know if I get something more concrete.
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.
I made banana bread! I'm so happy! Why? I'm learning how to do more baking, and this is something I've never made before and it came out awesome! Woot!
Anyway... on to the writing!
On Wednesday I said that I needed to rethink my goals. Here is the conclusion that I have come to, I can not devote my life to writing right now.
What does that mean?
First of all - I'm not going to stop writing! That would just be insane. That would be ... soul sucking. I may go through weeks where I write less than others, but I am a much happier Ruthie when I write, so completely abandoning writing is just not going to happen. Period.
Second - I am keeping my writing goals, but they have been massively scaled back. I have decided that while I have two books I want to work on, I just can't sustain that level of focus right now because I need it for other things. For the next few weeks my goals are simply to work on blogging regularly again, and focus on Misfits. This decision was HARD because I want to work on both, but I'm not doing justice to either and getting stressed. Stress is not good.
Lastly - the reason behind all of this is that I'm really good at setting myself up to do to much, and between asthma and migraines, that is not a good thing! Especially since stress tends to lead to both of those. I got through NaNoWriMo and said, "I can do this! I'm going to focus on my writing and put it first!" Which would be great if I was truly at a place in my life where I could do that.
Instead, I really need to put my health first. I'm in the middle of a long journey out of the deep hole that was dug by my body. That may sound weird, but a full explanation would just take too long and make me sad. Suffice it to say, I am a very unhealthy person and large portions of it are not my fault (that and I love food, I really love food!). It means I have a long journey ahead of me to be what could be considered even semi-healthy. I am much better than I was, but...
Working on my healthy isn't just good for all the normal reasons, as I continue to get stronger I'll be able to do more, which in the long run, will mean more writing!
Where are you at with your writing?
~ Ruthie ~
Ps. As a perfect example of how messed up my health has been - yesterday was a really busy day and I wrote this up while the banana bread was cooking. But by the time I had pulled it from the oven, taken pictures, and eaten, I had to go do something else. By the time dinner was done I was so tired I couldn't do anything else and this never got posted. See why we need to get on top of this whole health situation?
