Weekly Check-In

So I don’t have a whole lot to say.  I mean, I do, but not about writing.  This post is more about me getting back into the groove of working on stuff every week.  So, give me a little slack.  I have some stuff in the works, so let me share it with you!

Blogging.

I’m going to get back into the blogging groove this week.  I’m going to have a few blogs about my Paris trip.  For instance tomorrow I’m going to talk about how it was like to be in Paris at the PBP stuff as family.  Thursday I’m hoping to talk about all the sight seeing I did.  There’s so much to tell that I don’t really know where and how much to tell!  So, if you have any questions feel free to ask me. 

Critiques.

I’ve really got to get cracking on crits for the FenCon workshop at the end of September.  There are 21 critiques I have to do, well, really 18 since there’s no reason to do my own and I won’t be doing huge critiques on my two friends who are also in the workshop.  My plan is to start cracking on them today, and at my best do two a day.

Writing.

I did a little writing while in Paris, but it was all on pen name stuff.  I’m dealing with a few deadlines so I need to do some serious writing time this week. I think I’m going to miss one of my deadlines, which sucks, but that’s life and you just have to keep going.

What I read.

• Turn it Up by Inez Kelley
• Too Hot To Touch by Louisa Edwards

Less Blogging

I’ve had a pretty hefty blogging schedule on here these last few months.  It’s been awesome, but it’s also exhausting.  Since I’m doing A Round of Words in 80 Days, Savvy Author’s May Boot Camp & June Revision Hell, blogging will suffer.  I have a very light blogging series to do in May, but I’m going to give myself permission to slack off on the blogging.

This does not mean that my demands on myself are changing.  In fact, after a seriously lax month of little writing, lots of reading, and not much to show for it I want to kick it back into high gear and do stuff.  I’m not going to be working on what I wanted to work on, but oh well.  I’m accepting that.  I need to read up on stuff and do research.  When I’m finished with that I plan to do a blog series about stuff I learned from the research.

Well, this is enough rambling from me.

Weekly Check-In

This last week has been all about high notes.  I knew that this last week was kinda ‘my week’.  I was going to succeed with flying colors, I just hadn’t realized how amazingly I was going to do.  I’m still flying high from my success, but I might be nose diving pretty soon.  *bites finger nails*

Blogging.

I was doing soooo well at blogging ahead of time.  Now, I’m lucky if I have my blogs done a week ahead. *sigh*  I have the topics and place holder posts for future blogs with the idea jotted down in the body of the post, but I have to come back the week or even the night before and write the dang things.  I need to get back into the jive of having the blogs written out way in advance.

I kicked off my Goals series this week, and on Friday talked about the importance of goals.  This coming week I’m going to talk about setting realistic goals and keeping yourself accountable.  Both are easy to talk about, and very difficult to put into practice.  I foresee a lot of self deprecating stories when I sit down to write those blogs…

Revising.

This has been moved to urgent status this week.  As of Tuesday, I’m in a revising and editing class.  Because I decided to take an extra week to finish Casual Love, which I talk about below, I have lost a week of revisions.  I’m diving back into Blood Bound to revise and polish it.  I really love the story, and I think there’s more there to tell.  So I’m writing new scenes, explaining stuff that was crammed into the story too tightly by the word count restriction and beefing up the story.  I hope to take a week to write new scenes and then two weeks to edit and fine tune those scenes before I hand it off to other people for critiques.  Is that a tight schedule?  Yes, but I’m hoping that I can do it in that time because the Savvy Authors May Boot Camp is looming on the horizon and I want to be turning out wordcounts and not pages edited.  If, in the end, I need more editing time I will take it.

I put in a lot of revising and editing on Sunday.  I read through the draft of Blood Bound, made notes of where I thought stuff needed to be added and then set about writing the new introduction.  I was struggling with a way of laying out the world building and introducing some complicated issues without info dumping.  It’s still kinda an info dump, but it’s done in a different, less dumpy way.  I’m tentatively hopeful.

Last year I wrote a paranormal romance called Absolutely, about werewolves.  It’s never going to be publishable.  The idea just isn’t interesting enough, but I’m doing a quick and dirty pass so I can at least share it with my friends and let them read this strange tale.  It’s better than I had anticipated, but not good enough to warrant me doing more with it.  I’m a third of the way through the draft, which is twice as far as I thought I would get today.  I expect it to get more involved as far as cleaning it up from here on out.

Plotting.

I started working my novel idea, Little Spirits, towards being YA.  I’m really loving where the story is going, and even more excited about it than I was to begin with.  The difficulty is that I want to write this for the May Boot Camp, and still take it through the Warrior Writer Boot Camp process.  Those are conflicting goals since honestly they can’t coexist.  You know what I’m going to do anyways?  Proceed with the WWBC process and start the draft May 1st anyways.  It’s not a great idea, since I’m still pretty fuzzy on the plot, but I’m impatient and I know myself.

So my project for the next week is to revamp the protagonist profiles, do quick and dirty profiles for their siblings and parents and the minor characters.  Next Saturday I’m supposed to be doing the main plot points of my story, but I think I’m going to lapse a week and allow the group to have a breather and look over the revamped profiles and the down and dirty synopsis I want to write.

Writing.

Ya ready for this?  Really ready?

Project:Formerly Fat Club: Casual Love
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Type: novel
Progress: It’s finished! I’m still floating on air.  I’ll come down soon, but I’m still excited and happy and yea!

I also finished a short story! Yea!  I haven’t talked about these short story projects much because I’m leaning heavily towards submitting them to be published under a pen name, for many reasons actually.  These are fun side projects that if I can sell them, I will, but mostly I write them because I want to get an idea out of my head and they’re fun.

What I read.

• Wolf Mates 2-4 by Dakota Cassidy
• The Ex-Files by Dakota Cassidy
• Dark Enchantment by Anya Bast
• Bound by Blood by Cynthia Eden

#ROW80

If you don’t know, I’m participating in the A Round of Words in 80 Days challenge.  I’m being a rebel and doing my weekly updates on Mondays because I’m old and set in my blogging ways.  *brandishes cane*  Actually I rarely post on the weekends so the Sunday check in was out, and I had already promised to blog on topics on Wednesdays so it just made sense to combine it.  Anyways!

How did I do towards my ROW80 goals this week?

• This week, like I said above, I finished Casual Love, which was #1 on my goals.
• I finished a short story.  My goal is to finish two, so I’m halfway to that goal!
• I wrote every day.

Whew! I’m exhausted wading through this, so I have no idea how you made it this far.  If I could give you a dollar just for reading this, I would.  How are you doing this week?  Have you accomplished your goals?

Weekly Update!

I signed up for a writing courses over at Savvy Authors!  One of them focuses on horror, and the other on humor.  This means that between Savvy Authors and Lowcountry I’m going to be taking two classes a month.  It’s a little intimidating, but I’m excited about it!  A lot of the classes are workshop like and you get to work through your project, so it’s going to be a really good chance to work on weaknesses.

Blogging.

Since it’s National Craft Month, I added some crafty blogs to the mix for Thursdays.  Also, I experienced almost doubling of the daily hits.  It’s been exciting to watch everything double.  I don’t know why, but it’s cool.  Strangely, Suzan and I are doing complimentary blogging series.  She’s discussing the finer points of OneNote while I explain how I organize my Novel Notebook in the program.  It’s like we’re a collective or something….

Revising.

I’ve decided that in the interest of finishing this draft, I’m going to work on revising Blood Bound in April.  I think that the revisions shouldn’t bee too difficult, so a month will allow me to get most of it done.  While I haven’t done anymore work on it this week, I have been thinking about it and working some of the lore through in my head.  I’m excited about this project – still – even after all the revisions and the rejection earlier this year.  That’s a good sign, right?

Plotting.

We tabled my material this week for Warrior Writer Boot Camp.  There are several new people who are starting their projects and some other things going on, plus some brand new visitors, so it made sense to just hold off on mine until later.  Realistically, it doesn’t bother me because this month I’m working on my romance.  Next month I’ll be revising.  So I have two months before I need another project to sharpen my nails on.  That doesn’t mean I haven’t been plotting.  I’ve been watching a lot of paranormal investigator shows to get my brain rolling.  I’m bursting with ideas!

Writing.

This week has had a lot more steady writing time.  I’ve been more focused, I’ve written more, and I feel more positive about my writing as a whole.  I think I’ve just let distractions grab my attention too much so I’ll have to work on that going forward.  This weekend was especially productive!  Between Saturday and Sunday I wrote almost 14K, which was awesome!  I haven’t written this much in one sitting for a long time, and it was a relief – a joy – to write like that.

Project: Formerly Fat Club: Casual Love
Genre: contemporary romance
Type: novel
Progress: I’m beginning to think that my novel started earlier than I really need it to.  I also wish that the hero and heroine had more interaction in the first half of the novel.  I’m thinking towards revisions and what I can alter to make it work out better.  Part of me wants to stop and work on the beginning again, but I don’t think that’s a good move.  I’d spend the rest of the month tweaking what I have and never finishing it.  I’m thinking I should finish the draft and then go back and evaluate it as a whole.  If I still think the same things that I do now, well then it’s time for some heavy revising.  What’s keeping me from going back right now is the idea of crippling the idea before it’s fully fledged.  I can mold it in the revision process, but if it’s only half finished it’ll still only have one leg!

This weekend though has really put me on track.  I reached an emotional high point in the book, the characters achieved something pretty high on the emotional stakes scale and I’m rocking along really well.

What I read…

• Trolls in the Hamptons by C – so freaking cute!
• Grimmspace by Ann Aguirre

Writing Update

It’s Monday! Already? Lordy, where has the time gone?  Well, if it’s Monday then it means it’s time for me to check in and account for what I’ve been doing.  Accountability is a big motivator for me – that and the competition factor with my other #writersdatenight girls.  If I don’t have something to show for my week, I feel shame!  But no shame for me over this last week.  Oh my goodness, I have done a LOT!

Blogging.

I have topical posts scheduled through, are you ready for this? MARCH! YES! March! I’m not announcing what I’ll be blogging about next month, but I’m happy with the posts.  There will be fewer topical posts, but I’m okay with that.  February has been a lot of work to get going, and I feel like instead of having a nice, targeted shot with each post – I’ve been firing buckshot and just hoping to hit the target.  March will be better.  Besides that, I have a new blogging feature I’ll be talking about later this week, I believe… Unless I change my mind and push it out, which is a possibility.

Revising.

This needs to be handled, like, someone give me a timer and Make. Me. Do. It. I’ve started the terrible process of himhawing around and wondering if I should just shelve the project because ‘Maybe it’s not really that good’ or ‘Revising is such a hassle. I’d rather write!’ or any number of other very invalid excuses for Not Revising.  I finished the read through of the zero draft on Sunday, and I’m working on my big revision notes of the stuff that really needs to be fixed.  In a day or two I want to start tackling this.  I would like to get halfway through this draft by the end of the month, which roughly means 10 – 15 pages of edits a day.

Writing.

This was a huge success this week, like phenomenal.  It felt so good to just sit down and do tons of writing in one sitting.  I haven’t really done this since November/December and I’ve missed that feel that something is just pouring out of you and you have to struggle to catch it all because every bit only comes out once and there’s no second chances.

Project: Formerly Fat Club: prequel novella, yet unnamed
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Type: Novella
Progress: This is a novella that I’m writing for a currently seekrit project.  The project was so seekrit that I forgot about it and realized this last week that I needed something to contribute.  Because I’ve been working on my contemporary romance, I came up with the idea of exploring the main character of the first novel’s sister.  She’s not technically part of the Formerly Fat Club, but I do talk about how it effected her life growing up with her sister and her sister’s problems.  It’s a sweet romance, which means the culmination of the romance is a kiss, but the characters were a lot of fun to write and the story just jumped onto the page.  I finished the 20K novella in three days.  I loved it!  I also learned more about the main character of Casual Love by writing about her sister and their deceased grandparents.

Project: Formerly Fat Club: Casual Love
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Type: Novel
Progress: I am currently working through the material I had written before, changing the story from first person to third.  It’s time consuming and doesn’t put many words on the page, but when it’s all said and done I’ll be much farther along in the story than I was.  What’s really fun is that I’ve come up with ideas for the following books featuring each of the Formerly Fat Club ladies, and an idea for a spin-off novella.  I’m getting a lot of encouragement about this project from my friends so I really think I am going to see this project through to the end this time!  I sat down on Sunday and wrote out the plot for the rest of the book and I’m excited and nervous about it.  I’m writing up a synopsis to send to my other writer friends to read over and give me feedback on, so hopefully I’ll be writing lots on this in the near future.  I’m going to be writing up the other character profiles soon too!

Project: Reti Guild
Genre: Fantasy/Sci-Fi
Type: Novel
Progress: I feel terrible because I’ve skipped writing on this all week to work on the novella, but I did a lot more research and started working on how the religions all mesh.  This weekend I’ve been focusing on getting to know my antagonist, I feel like I shouldn’t write much more until I figure him out.  Granted, he doesn’t really show up for most of the novel, but knowing him and his motivations will help out writing.

All in all, I’m very excited about the way this week has gone.  Now to tackle this next week!!!!

Writing Update

I blogged earlier today about writing accountability.  One of the ways I talked about keeping myself accountable was by blogging my process.  Mondays work out as a good day for me to check in because I’ve had the weekend to burrow and write, and Tuesday my fellow writer friends and I meet up at our favorite deli to write alongside each other.

So, without further preamble, here’s what I’ve been up to!

This last week was the great snowpocalypse here in Texas.  You would think that with all of this time spent iced and then snowed in I would have gotten tons of writing done, right?

WRONG!

Most of it was spent working on my work laptops (yes, multiple) and watching the weather or counting down the minutes until the electricity came back on.  But I did get stuff done, to some extent.

Blogging. I wrote most of my topical blog posts for February during this frozen week.  I think I have two or three left which are going up at the very end of the month, so I’m dragging my feet on those.  But all this blogging is good!  I’m talking to you my readers, I’m making myself think objectively about things, and blogging about things like my story binder makes me more likely to fill the whole darn thing out!

Which takes me to the second thing I did tons of this week!

Plotting. If you’ve read my example post on the Springboard, then you know I’m working on a new project.  If you know me at all, you probably know that I’m a planner.  I like a nice, detailed plan of where my plot is going.  Some people find this boring, I find that it helps me to focus on my goal.  I have a tangible destination and I write myself there!  Without that goal, I flounder and my writing lacks and I get frusterated and walk away from projects.  But after this week I have a wonderful, complex plot that I’m excited about.

Writing. I didn’t do as much of this as I would have liked to do this last week, but I did a lot of ground work for my Babylon idea.

Project: Reti Guild
Genre: Fantasy/Sci-Fi
Type: Novel
Progress: I have the first day written.  This might not sound like a lot, but in this one day the major plot is kicked off, and four different subplots are introduced, as well as most of the major and minor characters.  I did a lot of work on this through the week, and it’s really cool to start writing the actual draft.  Very excited about this project!

Project: Formerly Fat Club: Casual Love
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Type: Novel
Progress: This is a resurrected story I started last year.  The idea is that there are five friends who have teamed up, won the Battle of the Bulge and are now looking for love.  The first friend I’m writing her story is Dee.  I was thinking about this a lot over the last week when I was weighing the decision to work on this again.  I needed more depth, more stuff going on.  So over the week I’ve made some notes and Sunday I sat down and wrote the new beginning.  There’s a big chunk of it already written, but I’m changing it from first person to third, and swapping up the love interests.  Overall, I’m excited about it, and I see some promise!

Revising. I’m going to not talk about this.  I haven’t done anything worth mentioning this week – and that’s bad.  I’m going to set a daily goal this next week to motivate myself, so hopefully next week I’ll be reporting next week on some better progress.

And that’s my writing update!  I’m going to work on an easier format for these updates, but probably later.  Not right now.

Writing Challenges and Accountability for 2011

Accountability often lights the fire of motivation.  Did you ever have a paper or project due in school, and you knew about it way ahead of time but you waited until the last minute to do it?  I mean, no one else knew that’s what you did, right?  And then you get those dreaded group projects and everyone is responsible for some part of it, and you somehow get everything done on time – or, dare I say it? – ahead of time!

Writing is a solitary thing.  If you’re a writer you probably spend hours alone with your notes or ideas writing or getting ready to write or thinking about writing.  But what about when you know you should be writing, and you’d like to have written something, but you just don’t feel like it?  No one will know, right?  It’s just you and your laptop writing.

There are support systems and accountability places for writers.  Inky Girl has three different challenges for writers, the 250, the 500 or the 1,000 a day challenge where you commit to writing that much a day.  Sounds tough doesn’t it?  At times it is hard to sit down and make that word count.  I did the 1K a day last year and there were just some days that it didn’t happen.  But you know what?  That’s okay! I succeeded on far more days than I bombed.  The thing was that myself and the others who signed up just kept going.

Candace Havens, author of spunky romance, does a free writing loop on Yahoo.  She teaches workshops and everyone chats about their writing.  It’s a friendly, supportive group of people who are constantly striving to write more, write better, and write often.  I’m a guilty ghost on this loop; I read the emails, but I rarely post.  Maybe that makes me some sort of wordy vampire, feeding off of their good energy?  I’m going to stop with that imagery, lol!

Julie Butcher has a blogspot blog, Fire Drill, and runs word wars and challenges via twitter.  There are some really fun characters who join up and are regular participants.  I’ve also heard that on occasion there are prizes, and those prizes have always been super cool.  She’s also just an uber cool person.  Follow her on Twitter and argue about who has the best BBQ!

Blogging about your progress might not exactly hold you accountable, but it means that your progress, or lack thereof is on public record.  Mondays are my ideal time to write a quick check-up blog, in fact, check in later this afternoon for that!

If you’re on twitter, there are a ton of hash tags you can follow for encouragement, accountability and connecting to your fellow writers. #amwriting is one of my personal favorites.  You wouldn’t believe how resourceful people on that tag can be!  I’ve asked questions loads of times and wound up with some great advice and information.  If you’re editing, and laboring over a project you believe in, there’s the #amediting tag.  I haven’t used this one as much, but I’ve heard it’s good.  A new tag I plan on trying out is the #1K1Hr which is connecting with people to write 1,000 words over 1 hour.  This is the encouragement I need today!

Writing might be a solitary process, but chances are that you’ve met a few other writers, either from participation in NaNoWriMo or attending a conference or maybe you’re friends all write.  Use these people, connect with them.  Your fellow writers will understand a lot of your difficulties and hardships, and can be a great source of encouragement and accountability.  I have a group of four other writers who I always feel accountable to.  We don’t have a formal process for keeping tabs on one another, but just knowing they’re out there writing their little fingers to nubs reminds me that I need to be doing the same.

February Goals

Man, it feels like I haven’t done these in ages. Yes, I know I just did one a few weeks ago but other than that it seems like it’s been forevah!

This month was a new kind of deal for me. It wasn’t so much about my output as it was about putting in hours on a project. Revisions are a new ballgame for me, so I did a lot of learning the process, figuring out how I operate and then crafting the story. But now I’m going to be gearing up for an actual schedule that will have me doing both writing and revising each month. But that’s getting ahead of myself!

Lets review this last month. My goals for January were:

• Finish revisions on Blood Bound
• Submit Blood Bound
• Start read through on Gate Keepers
• Pick a new writing project

What I did:

• I kicked booty on Blood Bound revisions! At least I think so.
• I submitted Blood Bound last Tuesday. It was a big night for me and I celebrated with a blueberry scone.
• I’ve read through a third of Gate Keepers.
• I have two writing projects going on, but one is more prominent in my head than the other.

February Goals!

• Topical blogging
• Finish my read through on Gate Keepers
• Develop a plan of attack for the plot changes that need to happen in Gate Keepers and go for it
• Ideally I would like to have gone through the novel at least once in the next month, but I think that’s ambitious, but I’ll say it anyways
• I would like to write a third of the planned plot for my new urban fantasy with it’s alternate history

I’ve been going to this Warrior Writer Boot Camp, courtesy of an invite from my friend Suzan. Well the wonderful lady who is in charge of this does a lot of work on social media and promoting yourself. Well, with all of the work I’m going to be putting in on creating my world for my urban fantasy, I want to do topical blogs about world building. I’ll delve into what I’m doing and talk about generalities of how other people can create the same results.

Gate Keepers is a really fun project. At times I read through it and I think: OMG I WROTE THIS! and others I cringe and think: OMG I wrote this… I’m hopeful that this will be a project worth my time and effort – and that I’ll be able to share it with others – hopefully in a published format.

And that’s it. So, it’s time I get to working on some of this stuff, huh?