Recent Progress for February

She's back! To write more personal stuff!

I haven't kept up with posting updates much thanks to a few factors. One of which was being sick the last few weeks. I lost a lot of time sleeping and being grumpy but managed to achieve a few things:

• Finished Writing Down The Bones by Natalie Goldberg and wrote a very short opinion on the book to work on my reviewing skills, and started Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott.
• Got to page 80 of LBW. If the ideas keep flowing and I keep up two pages a day then I'll be making sweet progress. Actually I'd be happy with just a page a day or four pages a week.
• Low standards? Nope, I'm just a slow writer with trouble getting ideas. Goal: page 90 by March 5^th 
• Started my first weekly critique after a short break. By the way, I recommend Critique Circle, great place.
• Finished the paper revision I was doing of Serpenttongue. Now I'm plugging it in and making slight revisions as I go. Still finding spots lacking something uncertain, but there's always another go-through. I haven't set any goal other than be past chapter 25 by month's end.
• Still working on a new short story featuring my vampire. It's proving difficult to write. I just don't know the story. Goal: just work on it!

I have uber faith I can succeed, especially if I spend more days getting up at three like I did Thursday. I went back to sleep of course, but I figure why not use that time if I'm up anyway.

What are your goals for the rest of the month?

August in Review

August is concluded. Pretty sure I completed most of my goals, or enough of them to be satisfied with myself considering three weeks of crushing frustration about writing and plotting.

I have discovered the timer is my friend. With the help of the yTimer program*, I've managed to get more done this month than in past attempts, and I'm only doing 30 minute intervals.

The reasons (in a bullet list!):

• Forces me to focus on one thing at a time, and not worry/consider/daydream about anything else because I have a limited amount of time to work before the obnoxious buzzing occurs.
• Allows me to focus on task at hand because I know that I only have to toil at it for 30 minutes before I can fly from my chair and forget about it for a while instead of staring at a page blankly until I nod off.
• I don't stare at a blank page until I doze off. Somehow, actually having a timer cut back on the frequency of dozing off at my desk, and proceeding irritation of trying to translate what I wrote down right before sleep struck. It wasn't cool in high school, and it isn't cool now.
• Hand-in-hand with the previous, the 30 minute timer buzzes before boredom swoops in and I start playing with fonts in the editor or embellishing letters and doodling in page margins.
• The short breaks between force me to get up and handle other tasks, like preparing for the next day of work, getting more water, or just stretching (which helps with that whole falling asleep issue – who knew?)

Don't ask me why I didn't take to this strategy sooner when I've read and printed so many articles about it already.

I still have the impression of time missing in my week. I've been using methods to track my hours, but still haven't found all those missing minutes. Maybe they never leave bed when I get up in the morning.

Writing

1.      Made it to the end of the first scene of the new short I'm working on. Haven't devoted much time to it.

• Sketched a brief outline for the short.

1.      Still struggling with outline for LBW, but stumbled across a blog, Do-It-Yourself MFA(DIYMFA), with helpful articles, and through playing around with a mind mapping app to make character sketches I surprised myself by finding more ideas for back story, and a few for the plot.

• I also played around with free form character interviews of two characters, and dug up some more back story.

Revision

1.      The short in revision is, well, still in revision. It's one of three stories I've ever done that began right in the middle of the action, and not before. It feels cheesy for that reason, but maybe it really isn't.

2.      ST is so close to being done its 2^nd revision. Goodness, it's been a chore. Call me Madame Treeslayer.

I'm working to take the advice of numerous writers and break writing tasks down to the smallest goals possible. I do it all the time with my daily chores, but never tried with writing. I'm thinking it might help.

Hmm...I should probably decide what my goals for September will be too.

*yTimer by Spacejock software. Free to download and use. I am a fan of his yWriter program, which is how I found the timer.

End of the Month Update

Goodbye July, and hello August. Yet another month has come and gone already.

I tried hard, but my birthday was not to be resisted. It bowled me over, leaving an achy 27 year old me in its wake. I would have let this atrocity go without complaint, except the cheesecake I brought for my birthday was beyond mediocre, and there are some things I just can't let go.

Turns out I did not accomplish my writing goals for the month, because of personal oversight, as is usually the case.

Fireworks, Flame-grills, and Fantastic Fabrications

July, here again, hot and heavy. Tomorrow will bring fireworks and smoking grills, and my least-favorite question to be asked, “What are you doing for your birthday?” That question never gets easier to answer.


I do have plans to get a fair amount of writing and revision done during this yucky month.