November Goals

I might have been on haitus from blogging, but I’ve been very busy writing. Part of my problem with blogging right now is that I’m writing things for my pen name, which is so completely different than anything I’ve written here. I wonder now what I should blog about, or even if I should keep blogging because I don’t feel comfortable talking about that stuff here. It’s weird and kinda stinks. Still, I’m going to figure it out. So, let’s talk November and goals.

• Write 65,000 words
• Get my novella to submission ready
• Figure out what to do about blogging

Last year I wrote over 200,000 during NaNoWriMo. That was an accomplishment, but not a good one. Yes, I wrote some great stuff, but it was kind of all over the place. This year I want to slow it down and really enjoy NaNo.  I want to go have fun and not feel guilty if I don’t write between 7,000 and 10,000 words a day. If I only write the minimum, that’s okay!

The novella is almost at submission ready quality, so that’s not a huge goal, but I don’t want to lose sight of that goal.

Like I said above, figuring out what to blog about and where to go from here needs to be decided. I used to blog in detail about my projects but I don’t want to do that anymore. I’ll need to figure out another focal point. I think I’ve learned a lot while I’ve been away from blogging, and I could very well blog about that. However, I don’t think I’ll be blogging every day again. That takes something out of a girl.

So that’s me for the month of November.

How about you?

Hello NaNoWriMo!

So today is November 1st, which means my blog is out of hiatus and NaNoWriMo has begun. I’m nervous about both. For one, things are hectic as I get ready to move this weekend, and my project is something I’m writing for my pen name. So how do I talk about it without talking about it? I don’t know!

Sunday we had our regional kick off party at a great little used book store. There was a huge turn out and we had a lot of fun touching on all the major points of NaNo.

Unlike last year, I’m not trying to rack up a huge wordcount. I’m going for fun and easy this year. Yes, I’ll more than likely write more than 50K, but I’m okay with that. The point is that I’m not stressing myself to churn out more words than is smart.

And that’s me right now.

Are you doing NaNoWriMo? How prepared are you?

Hiatus until NaNoWriMo

I should have posted this last week when I decided to forgive muself from blogging, but I’ve been packing and editing and watching documentaries. Since I’m currently on a writing break and not doing a whole lot worth blogging about, I’m going on a mini hiatus until NaNoWriMo starts. During this time I’ll be packing and reading and plotting and generally going crazy because I’m not writing. For me it’s harder to not write than it is to write. Yeah, go figure that one out. Anyways, keep writing!

October Goals

This has been a random month. Writing the end to Decoy was both exciting, and like pulling teeth. I’ve been kind of bouncing around, not really steady, so in a large part this month has been frustrating. I wanted to get more done than I did, but I did what I set out to do. I knew heading into September that I needed a breather. I needed to focus on fewer projects and get other, non-writing things taken care of, like finding a new place to live! And work!

Overall, September was a great month that went by far too quickly. I’ve been looking forward to it for a while because of FenCon, and it didn’t disappoint in being an eventful month!

September Goals!

• FenCon critiques.  There are 18 of them to do. Very time consuming.
• Finish the additions to Decoy and set aside for at least a week.

What I did…

• FenCon critiques – all of them.
• Decoy’s ending is done, but now I want to write a new beginning!
• Finished writing a novella I haven’t mentioned.

Yes, I randomly wrote a new novella/short novel! The workshop was an interesting experience. It was good, but I think I need to focus my feedback on my audience instead of settling for feedback, period.

Okay, October! October is an unfortunate month. It’s right before NaNo, which is always a drain, so I like to take October easy, at least as far as writing goes. I hope to get revisions on at least one project done and loads of reading. I’ve seriously been slacking on my Book Addicts duties and I need to step it up.

I don’t quite know what I want to write for NaNoWriMo, but I hope to get the project ironed out over the next month so I can work on it during November.

October Goals!

• Write new beginning for Decoy.
• Revise on Decoy.
• Plan for NaNoWriMo.
• Read. Lots.

Well, that’s what I have going on. How about you?

Weekly Check-In

This was a good week. A welcome change to how things have been going. I found a place to move to. I’m not buying a house, which is a disappointment but in the long run I think that not buying is a wiser choice in the current economy. Plus, I don’t like yard work! I’ll be moving the first week of November, which really stinks but that’s how it goes I guess. I’m really looking forward to the move and redecorating with a new color scheme.

This coming weekend is FenCon! I’m super excited and I kind of forgot about it at times and it snuck up on me. I’m messing with my critiques for the workshop and putting together what I want to go and see during the convention. So from Thursday to Sunday I’ll be very busy and offline.

Blogging.

This week I took on a new blog mem, Salon Sundays. The idea is to discuss something about what you’re currently reading about. This last week I talked about whitewashing covers and how frustrating I think it is. There was some nice discussion and I’m appreciative to everyone who stopped by. Hopefully I’ll get to more blogs in the following weeks. I’m thinking this next week I’ll talk about reading unpublished works.

Critiquing.

I’m all done with my critiques! I think after this workshop I’m not going to sign up for another one that’s not geared for unpublished writers. Maybe it’s arrogant to feel that way but that’s how it is.

Plotting.

I’ve begun plotting out my NaNo project, which is a project for my pen name. Maybe someday I’ll be able to get back to writing stuff as Cid! The NaNo project is going to be an interesting one to do because it’s contemporary romance and deals with post-traumatic and cancer.

Writing.

I’ve managed a few thousand words a day over the last week.It’s been nice to have such steady progress.

Overall it’s been a good writing week. I’m still busy and scatter brained, but things are getting done and I like where I’m headed with my writing.

Reading.

• Loves Portrait by Monica Burns

How has your writing been going?

September Goals

So I knew that August was going to be a tricky month.  Because of PBP I was going to lost two weeks, add in the family stuff with my grandmother passing away and both my drive to write and the time was sapped.  I had hoped to do some writing in cafes while in Paris but the logistics of carrying the netbook into the city and the general disbelief of having outlets available worked against me.  So writing wise, August was disappointing, but experience wise it was super rich.

August Goals!

• Revise Decoy

What I did…

• Wrote a new ending for Decoy

So I had a really sad discovery about my zombie story.  I only wrote half of it.  Yeah.  How much does that suck?  After throwing myself a pity party, I figured out the new ending and I’m still kind of writing it.  Yeah.  I didn’t get as much of it written as I thought I would be able to before or even during my trip so I’m in a really bad flux place with it that I hate, but I love the direction of where the story is going.  I got to add two characters that will need to be interwoven in the beginning of the story, but I’m glad for this chance because one of them will get a spinoff novella.

September is going to be a busy month.  With FenCon coming up, I have a lot of critiques to do and I really want to finish Decoy and get it to submission readiness before NaNoWriMo, which I also have to start planning for.  All of this has to work into my goals.

September Goals!

• FenCon critiques.  There are 18 of them to do. Very time consuming.
• Finish the additions to Decoy and set aside for at least a week.

So there you go.  I’m keeping my goals simple since FenCon will probably sap me for a whole week and there’s so much involved with that process and what goes with it.  I’m sticking with keeping my focus on Decoy because I think it’s a good direction for me to flex my writing muscles.  So yeah.

What do you want to do over the next month?

Weekly Check-In

This week is back to ‘normal’ in my world.  Normal being subjective of course.  Last week was a gauntlet of exhaustion and I appreciate everyone around me for their patience and understanding.

I did write last week, but not as much as I would have liked.  I feel like I’m becoming a broken record with that phrase.

This week is kind of a big week as far as writing goes.  Suzan and I made an agreement that we would both submit our stories on the same day (Thursday).  So I’m avoiding counting down the days, hours and minutes until we hit send.  So that means that we have a lot to do to get ready over the next few days. There are synopses and queries to polish, not to mention the manuscripts themselves.  Excuse me while I freak out a little.

Blogging.

I gave myself a pass on blogging last week.  With all the family stuff going on I didn’t have the energy.  This week I’m going to bounce back with the blogging.  Suzan and I are planning to continue our series and I want to start blogging about the documentaries I’m watching and how I think we can use real life events and research to beef up stories and writing and cool stuff like that.

Revising.

Not much has been happening on the revising front, which is a disappointment to me.  That said, July will be all about revising as I have a Revise in Company class coming up.  Also, there’s a workshop deadline of July 15th for a writer’s workshop selection I need to be able to hand in with reasonable confidence as to where the story is going.  I’m slightly worried that the story I use for the workshop will be done and out on submission by the time the workshop comes around, but what can you do?

Plotting.

The Warrior Writer Boot Camp crowd is going to hate me.  I have a killer idea for an Urban Fantasy I want to write.  I’ve slowly been fleshing out the world and things in my head while not allowing myself to really think through the plot.  It was my way of telling myself to not work on it, but it’s not working.  I really want to write it.  So the Urban Fantasy might be what I write next, pushing Little Spirits to the project I write for NaNoWriMo, which would be fine since it will be a shorter book anyways.

Writing.

I’ve been averaging between 1-2,000 words a day.  It’s not as much as I would like, but it is progress.  I think I’ve been spread too thin over the last few months.  July will be less crazy in that regard at least.

Project: I Spy You (formerly known as Booty-Call Bust)
Genre: paranormal romance
Type: short novel
Progress: I’m crossing my fingers that I can write The End on the draft tonight.  It needs work.  It started out as a novella and is now a novel.  The beginning needs a better lead in for it to be a novel.  There needs to be some more subplot, not a lot since the book is almost entirely the two characters and only one POV.  Overall I’m happy with this project.  It’s fun, it’s made me laugh and I got to write spies.

What I read.

I don’t really remember what I read.  That’s bad, isn’t it?

• Magic Slays by Ilona Andrews

Goals: Participating in group challenges.

This month I’m talking about something super important to me as a writer: Goals!  So far we’ve discussed the importance of goals, setting achievable goals, keeping ourselves accountable, giving yourselves deadlines, and rebounding from goal-depression.  Whew!  Today I want to talk about something I touched on when I talked about accountability.  Today is all about group challenges.

I’m a highly competitive person.  Putting me head to head with someone else when I think I can win is a guaranteed way to make me double my efforts.  You can set up challenges with your friends or people you know.  My friends and I actually met thanks to a writing challenge, NaNoWriMo.  These group efforts stir up a lot of encouragement and frenzy to do things.

Here’s a list of writing challenges that can help you meet your goals:

• #1k1hr – These are sprints done on Twitter.  This isn’t so much a challenge as a way to make a focused effort on writing for a solid hour with the end goal being to have written 1,000 words.  You can do these at any time, just twitter with the hash tag!
• NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month is a division of Office of Letters and Light that challenges participants to write 50,000 words in a month.  Many people who have never written a novel join NaNo and write more than they’ve ever written in their life.  This is held annually in November.  The OLL team has a NaNoWriMo forum, and volunteers that moderate each region, setting up local events for writers.  It’s very exciting!
• Story a Day in May – This is going on it’s second year in 2011.  The challenge is to write a short story a day, every day in May.  I’m not participating in it this year, but I’m going to be sponsoring a prompt challenge.
• April Fools – This is similar to NaNoWriMo, but smaller.  Participants can set their own goals.  There is a forum, but it lacks the regional face-to-face interaction.
• A Round of Words in 80 Days – This just started on April 4th.  Participants sign up on the blog and create their own goals.  Unlike the other challenges that have goals set for you, you set your own.
• Savvy Author Boot Camp (paying members only   ) – I recently signed up for a Savvy membership.  In May they are separating us into teams of about five people, and we write or edit pages.  The team who does the most wins a workshop credit.

Do you know of any other writing challenges?

January Goals

Okay, so I haven’t really set any goals for myself since NaNoWriMo, and seriously, do you blame me? I’ve been either burnt out, scrambling for the holidays, or working on stuff that blogging about my goals this month hasn’t really entered my head. Lame, I know huh?

Well, even though I haven’t blogged about my goal this month, I have one. I have a big one!

During November I wrote my novella Blood Bound with the intent to submit it for an anthology call. Well, the deadline for that is February 1st so I’m getting close to the official deadline. Since December I’ve blogged about the revisions for BB, and seriously, that is my goal for January – to do my revisions, feel confident about the final draft – and submit it!

If all goes according to plan right now I should be done with my “final” pass this week. Next week I want to have a friend or two just read it – not critique it or revise it – just read it and give me a thumbs up or down on if they enjoyed it.

Now, if I end up with some spare time on my hands to do some writing stuff with I want to start my read through on Gate Keepers because that’s my next big revision project.

I’m still a little wishywashy about what I want to be writing on, but I think I’ll either be completing my draft of Derby Girls Are Dangerous or working on a paranormal horror idea.

So, in bullet form here are my “tangible” goals for the month:

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

Using Scrivener

So I downloaded the Scrivener Beta software in December but haven’t had much time to play with it until this week. Last night I started really using it to write a novella I’m working on right now.

I added a few characters and used the templates provided in the starter document for the sake of them being on hand. For what I’m working on right now they’re perfect because neither do I need to keep track of many details, I don’t quite know them yet myself since I’m doing a lot of discovery writing.

Right now I’m hesitant about the software. I know a lot of people love it, but the various ways to split your document up into scenes, chapters and sections feels clunky to me right now. It’s why I stopped using yWriter for anything but NaNo WriMo. The details it allows you to capture in a pretty interface is nice, but I was already using OneNote and really liking it more than the organizational tools Scrivener touts.

I think that Scrivener will be more helpful toggling between sections, though it’s difficult for me to identify these in the initial writing phase as I don’t really think in terms of chapters. I’ve only ever outlines chapter by chapter once, and I’m still working on writing that project.

Today I’ll do some more writing and have more opinions on the actual writing interface later.