Tag Archives: writing goals

News & Contests, Works

Get a jump on your goals with the March-a-thon!

Looking for a pick-me-up for your writing this month? Come join me in a March-a-thon—but first, how I did last month.

February accountability

marchathon 2013I was really hoping to finish this first draft in February, but (sigh) it didn’t happen. But I’ve been keeping careful track of what I did do:

  • Critiques for my CPs
  • Blog posts (yay!)
  • Newsletter
  • Travel for my cousin’s wedding and spend time with my visiting grandparents
  • First read through on the novella I finished last month
  • And, yes, I did write!

So, in the interest of accountability, how much, exactly, did I write in February? 31,275 words: not too shabby!

Saturday night, I made out a list of all that I need to get done in March, and the deadlines for each task. Then I did the math to figure out how much I need to write or revise or whatever to get it done on time. Woot!

But once again, I’m facing a lot of work. Luckily, I’ve got just the thing to push me onward . . .

March-a-thon!

For the second year in a row, I’m running a March-a-thon! It’s primarily for Authors Incognito, an online writers’ support group where I’m serving as Education Director. We’re setting lofty goals for March and encouraging others with pep talks and other fun events.

What does this mean for you? I’d love for you to join me in the “public” side of the March-a-thon. Come share your goals for March!

Here are mine:

  • Project A: incorporate feedback and take this to finished product
  • Project B: finish first draft (~28,000 more words)
  • Project C (novella): get ready to send to critique partners
  • Project D: blog posts!
  • Read my library books before they’re due!

Did I mention we’ve got more family stuff this month, so I’m looking to finish this all by the 23rd?

I’m crazy.

You can come be crazy with me! We’ll have regular check-ins here each week and I’ll keep you posted about public sprints on Twitter. Come join in!

How did you do last month? What are your goals for March? Ready for a March-a-thon? Come share!

Is your writing any good? Join my writers' email group to find out how you can get a free edit & skill assessment!

 
Writing Life

When it’s hard to write: writing versus having written

6 Comments

Hey, there, Friday. I almost forgot: it’s time to check in on our goals.

Still sucking it up over here.

When I made out a production calendar in December, I tried to set my goals at an achievable level. For me, that was a fairly high goal, but it’s a number that’s far less than my peak. The number would have had me sitting on an 18,000 word novella draft at the end of December and 38,000 words of another novel at the end of January.

Reality: 3257 words in December. 26,544 in January.

That does mean that I finished at just over 19,000 words on that novella this month! Hooray!

But it also means that I started February with less than 11,000 words on my next project. That novel is the sequel to a book I began almost one year ago. From that distance, writing that first book looks so easy. I’m sure I could dig out my progress spreadsheet and see how many words I knocked out a day—probably typically 4000+.

Now I’m struggling and usually failing to make half that.

Granted, there are a few other stresses in my personal life these days, but still—it’s doubly discouraging to revisit a character and a voice that seems like it was so. much. easier the first time.

Maybe it was. Maybe that book is magic that will never be recaptured (my persistent fear!). Maybe I’m a failure and I’ll never write a good word again.

I kind of doubt that. Even if I’m not totally feeling this book like I was the first one (or like I think I was!), it’s not the end of the world to struggle with a book. I might end up setting it aside for a while, devoting time to more research and reading, or editing that novella, or other projects. I might even end up setting it aside forever.

But the fact remains that it’s always easier to have written than to write. I have written the first book, no matter how hard or easy that process actually was at the time. I am writing a sequel—and that’s a heck of a lot harder than admiring the polished first manuscript on my hard drive.

And here’s the reality of writing that first novel, as recounted in accountability emails (emphasis added):

[WEEK 1, DAY 2] I’m having a hard time hitting my word count goals because I keep getting bogged down in research, but at least I’m trying to ignore the TV more. Hooray!

[WEEK 2, DAY 1] I was a little short over the weekend, with traveling to visit family (and I already cut my goal back by 75% :\ ), but I’m hoping to make up for it this week.

[WEEK 2, DAY 4] Oy. Anybody else getting tired? I know I am. And I seriously can’t win when it comes to getting sleep: either I stay up late pushing through to hit my goals, or I hit my stride and push back bedtime even later. Oy again.

[WEEK 3, DAY 2, 5PM] It’s been a while since we’ve had a good check in, and I’m struggling a little personally. I have a lot of other stuff coming up, today especially, and right now I’m down 2500 words from where I’d like to be by the end of the day (some from yesterday, some from today).

[WEEK 3, DAY 4] It’s been a tough week for me. I’ve had a bunch of other writing-related commitments crop up: critique group, business stuff. Plus, I’ve come to a very sticky part of my story: I know what happens after this, but I’m having a really hard time getting from here to there. I finally started making a little progress last night, but by midnight, I was too tired to keep my eyes open (thank you, head cold). Then, when I went to make the final file save of the night, my computer did something weird and Word just sat there thinking about saving the file until I finally had to give up and go to bed. I didn’t know if I would have any of my hard-won new words left. I have missed my goal every day this week, for a combined shortfall of an entire day.

There are actually lots of positive emails, too, since I did do a pretty dang good job of staying on my word counts before that (sigh), and I wrote those last 13,000 words in the last 3 days of the month. Obviously I can’t bank on another marathon like that right now (sigh) (sigh), but I’m really glad I have the record of struggling through that “magic” book (not to mention the fresh memory of how tough my last book was to write!).

What do you think? Do you ever forget how tough writing can be? How are your goals coming this year? Come share!

Photo credits: resolutions & goals—Ed Donahue; frustrated at computer—Andrew Catellier

Is your writing any good? Join my writers' email group to find out how you can get a free edit & skill assessment!

 
News & Contests

Predicting the future: plans for 2013!

1 Comment

Happy New Year! I hope your holiday was fantastic, and didn’t involve, I don’t know, your first trip to the ER in 25 years or something like that (yay! Pleurisy!). I love a fresh beginning (and a clear bill of health 🙂 ), but I don’t particularly feel inclined to make New Year’s Resolutions (basically ever). However, I do have big plans for this year.

Over the last year and a half, I’ve really become devoted to scheduling to help achieve my goals easily, and this year is no different.

2013 fireworks

Blog schedule in 2013!

Last year, I created a blog schedule with themed days, which I sometimes even stuck to. Each month, I’d write out post ideas for each of those days. This made blogging pretty easy! So I’ll try to continue that pattern this year, but I’m changing up my days a bit. In 2013, we’ll look at:

  • Mondays: ups & downs of the writing life
  • Tuesdays: the Neverending TBR pile
  • Wednesdays: Writing craft
  • Thursdays: TBA
  • Fridays: all kinds of fun

I’ll also be working on several writing guide PDFs this year, including last year’s marketing series, and updating some of the older PDFs throughout the year.

Writing in 2013

Naturally, I’ve got big plans in writing, too. I actually made up a day-by-day production schedule last month—leaving the end of the year a little open, but still. Kinda scary, huh?

If I can keep up with my schedule, I’ll finish two new books and a short novella this year. Unfortunately, I’m already behind in my schedule (I really hope this isn’t indicative of the future!), so I’ll probably be playing catch up a bit this month—but I’ll writing that novella and starting on one of my novels. My production schedule also takes into account lots of editing and critiquing—but I actually tried not to push myself too hard.

Writing slower

Yes, shockingly, one of my goals for 2013 is to write slower.

I wrote two new novels in 2012, in a combined total of less than six weeks. I kind of love letting my fictional worlds consume me, and I found that writing so much, so quickly had some definite advantages in quality (no, really!)—but also some distinct drawbacks.

To put it bluntly, writing isn’t my only—or even my most important—responsibility. I’ve got three small children, and I’m not going to plant them in front of the TV forever. So one of my most important goals this year is to be more careful about my writing time. I’ll still shoot for a decent amount of words when I’m drafting, but it’s less than half of my 2012 daily drafting goal. I really don’t want to spend more than ~4 hours a day on my work, and most or all of that while my kids are at (pre)school or asleep.

I absolutely believe you have to guard your work time—but novels aren’t the only things I’m working on right now, and I’m pretty sure my fictional characters can wait much better than the real characters who awe weawwy, weawwy hungwy!

What do you think? What do you hope to achieve in 2013? Come join the conversation!

Photo by Kotomi Yamamura

Is your writing any good? Join my writers' email group to find out how you can get a free edit & skill assessment!

 
Works

July Writing Challenge Results

2 Comments

Last month (is it August already?!), I participated in a writing challenge hosted by Tristi Pinkston. Well, actually, I did almost no writing, unless you count rewriting, but then again I did have two family reunions, a road trip, moving my sister and a long visit from my family in July, so I tried to take it easy on myself.

Yeah, apparently I don’t know what that phrase means.

So I had to lighten my own load with revised goals the first week of the month—and I’m glad I did.

  1. Edit 350 pages of my MS. Woot! I mentioned this before, but not only did I finish the two rounds of editing, I added a bunch of words (side note: once I had a writing client inform me that you cannot use “not only” without the accompanying “but also.” Riiiight.). I’m still working on cutting. Well, not really. I’m working on getting chapters to critique partners, still. My mom read it and liked it, though 😀 .
  2. Read my library books:
  3. Read at least one book off my Summer Reading Thing list.: Lockdown, reviewed last week! Hm. . . . two challenges this summer. Have I ever met a challenge I didn’t like? (Oh yeah.)
  4. Continue to mull over the exact plot, premise and motifs for my next WIP. (If I’m feeling really ambitious—or, y’know, stuck on a long road trip—even outline one book or the full story arc.) Mulled like cider, baby. (Um, wow . . . let’s just move on.) I have most of the book outlined, though I still need to clarify a few things and work on the conclusion. Still doing a lot of research in this area, and I definitely want to brush up in the genre before I nail down the characters and events, but I’ve already written a little of the opening. It was tough going, though, and I don’t like fighting with my writing from the beginning, so we’ll see.
  5. Stay current on critique partners’ edits. Thankfully, there wasn’t much demand in this area.

Even if you weren’t part of the challenge, how did your writing (or your vacation 😉 ) go for July?

Photo credit: Richard Dudley

Is your writing any good? Join my writers' email group to find out how you can get a free edit & skill assessment!

 
Works

Progress report

2 Comments

Note: coming up in our deep POV series this week: Getting into our characters’ heads in two different ways!

Well, we’re almost a week into Tristi Pinkston’s July Writing Challenge. I admitted when we started that my goals were rather lofty, especially given that I’ll be spending the rest of the month with family in town. Plus, my library due date is fast approaching. So I’m revising my goals a bit, and reporting on the progress I’ve made so far.

  1. Edit 350 pages of my MS:
    • Go through my writing partner’s notes on the last ten chapters. Down to the last five!
    • Go through the second half of the book last eight chapters again to make all my planned changes, add two scenes one scene to go! and cut out the parts people skip
    • Get as many chapters to my critique partners as they can stand. 😉
  2. Read my library books:
  3. Read at least one book off my Summer Reading Thing list.

  4. Continue to mull over the exact plot, premise and motifs for my next WIP. (If I’m feeling really ambitious—or, y’know, stuck on a long road trip—even outline one book or the full story arc.) (Mulling away!)
  5. Stay current on critique partners’ edits.

Even if you’re not part of the challenge, how is your writing (or your vacation 😉 ) coming along?

Is your writing any good? Join my writers' email group to find out how you can get a free edit & skill assessment!

 
Works

July Writing Challenge

Tristi Pinkston is hosting a July writing challenge! For the month of July, we’re setting goals for what we’d like to accomplish in our writing projects, whether that’s words written, pages edited or even research done.

July is set to be a pretty busy month for me—festivities for the Fourth of July (seriously; my husband just called and said he got us tickets to four different events next week), my family here for most of the month, two family reunions, a road trip. . . . I think I’m getting a little ambitious. But we’ll try, anyway!

  1. Edit 350 pages of my MS:
    • Go through my writing partner’s notes on the last ten chapters
    • Go through the second half of the book again to make all my planned changes, add two scenes and cut out the parts people skip
    • Get as many chapters to my critique partners as they can stand. 😉
  2. Read my library books:
  3. Read at least one book off my Summer Reading Thing list.

  4. Continue to mull over the exact plot, premise and motifs for my next WIP. (If I’m feeling really ambitious—or, y’know, stuck on a long road trip—even outline one book or the full story arc.)
  5. Stay current on critique partners’ edits.

This is a great way to help us reach our goals. By writing them down, we have something concrete to work toward. And part of the challenge is checking regularly at Tristi’s challenge blog, where you get accountability and encouragement. And at the end of the month, we report to Tristi for our final dose of accountability. All of these things can help us achieve our goals.

So what are your writing goals for the next month (well, five weeks—my goals start from today for me)? Share them in the comments or on your blog to participate in the challenge!

Photo credit: Richard Dudley

Is your writing any good? Join my writers' email group to find out how you can get a free edit & skill assessment!