Start here

I got busy (again) and fell away from ROW80 (again).  But I’m back (again).

In the Round 3 goals-setting post (linked above), Kait made some great points about habits that help and habits that hinder.  I looked at my own habits and can clearly see where I stumble every time:

• I procrastinate and do my writing and my blog posts at the last minute
• I’m inconsistent in how often I write
• I don’t make plans for when and what I’m going to write to help counteract the previous two bad habits

Things that generally help me get my writing on track:

• Setting smaller goals that focus on frequency of writing rather than word count (unless it’s NaNoWriMo, then that flies out the door)
• Scheduling when I’m going to write (loosely, like “Thursday afternoon before leaving work)

With all of that in mind, here are my goals for this round:

• Write fiction three days a week
• Post at least one ROW80 check-in weekly
• Comment on at least five ROW80 blogs each week

That’s it.  I want to write regularly, and I want to get back to being active in the community.  These are simple and straightforward and should get me what I’m after.

How about you?  What are you writing?  Are you doing ROW80?  Let me know what’s going in your writing life so we can encourage each other.

Can you believe I was thinking that?

I didn’t write this week.  I had a couple of things going on that changed my normal schedule, and it threw me off track.  So then I wasn’t going to do a ROW80 post this week because I have nothing to report, and really it’s kind of embarrassing to admit that the first week out of the gate, the first week when I was going to actually be putting words on paper for a story, I did nothing (well, no actual writing of story, but I did change a few things that made my plan for my opening scene much better I think).

But not posting when I’ve had a bad week is a bad idea.  So, here’s my “nothing  to report” report.

Back on the horse. Cutting out the weekly word count goal right now until I re-establish a regular writing routine.  That’s my plan for this week.  Write three times, even if it’s one sentence each time.  Just write something.

Do you have a plan for the week?  Let’s be in this together!

I’m just going to do a quick ROW80 check-in because I’ve been super busy for over a week, and I’m not done yet.  I’ve been super productive, too, so it’s all pretty good.  I haven’t been just running around doing busy work and not accomplishing anything.  I didn’t get as much of the novel planning done as I had hoped, but I am still determined that I am starting to actually write the story this week.

This is what I’ve done writing-wise to get things going so I can actually finish someday:

• Decided on a weekly word count goal–5,000 words/week broken into three sessions
• Set up a word count meter (over there to the left) for Inheritance
• Figured out a problem with my antagonist that makes what she does make so much more sense
• Created a writing schedule (Wednesday and Thursday nights and one floating day to reach my 5K)
• Came up with a decent logline which always seems to help me focus on my story and really get it moving

I set a preliminary goal of 80,000 words for Inheritance because that seems like a good starting point.  It’s a genre novel, paranormal/horror at that, and I’ve read that those are expected to be a little bit on the short side.  80K may not be right.  It may end up longer.  But I figure it’s a good number to aim for starting out.  At 5K words/week it will take about 4 months to get a first draft written.  I want to have a full draft written and at least the first chapters through one revision by the end of July because I want to take it to the Willamette Writer’s Conference in August and pitch to an agent.  I don’t expect this one to be my groundbreaking first novel, or necessarily even my first published novel.  What I do want is to start practicing some of the submission process so I have a feel for it so I can guide my writing clients through it better.  And, although I know this isn’t true, I’ll feel more like a writer if I’m submitting at least now and then.

So that’s where I am now.  Next week you’ll see progress on that shiny new word meter, and maybe I’ll have a little more time to do a fuller post.  I hope the writing is going well for everyone!

Sometimes, the things I do distract me and I forget to hop over here and do a post or a ROW80 check-in.  Oops!  But I’m here now, so that’s something.

I have pretty good reasons for not being here last week, too!  I was busy making this:

I’m also working on creating a couple of classes and a retreat, so it’s all sorts of exciting in my world! It’s distracting, though, as I mentioned.  I’m not getting to as much of my personal story writing as I had hoped.  But I’m learning how much I can fit into a week, and I hope that’s going to help me make regular space for writing again.

Meanwhile, even though I’m still not finished with outlining and planning, I intend to start writing Inheritance on February 2.  That was the plan, and I’m going to stick with it.  If I don’t have an outline, I’m okay with that.  I at least have the anchor scenes planned out from doing Sufficiently Advanced Magic with Alastair at StoryWonk.  It’s probably enough.  It’s definitely enough to get me started, especially since I’ve been spending some time getting to know my characters better.  With them feeling more like real people to me and a basic view of my biggest scenes, I think I’m ready to go.

Next week I’ll be putting up a word counter for Inheritance.  If you see that it’s not moving, give me a nudge! We can all use that little helping hand, right?

So what about you?  Where’s your writing life right now?  I hope the words are flowing!

See you next time with a report on actual words written!

I’m actually glad the holiday season is wrapped up.  I am so glad to be getting back to a regular schedule again, although all those extra days off were pretty nice.

One of the things I’m getting back to is ROW80 (I’ll be getting back to sharing my geeky delights, too, just not today).  I did a few weeks at the end of the year to dip my toes back in, but now I’m ready to jump all the way in.  And this post on The Myth of the One True Way is a great kickoff to the new round.  I have fallen into that trap so many times, thinking I need to find the right way to write a novel.  Even when I’ve qualified it with “the right way for me,” it’s just been a stumbling block.  The right way to do it is to jump in and find what works as I go.  The right way is to actually get it done.

I’m not saying that I don’t want to do any novel planning.  This is about going beyond plans and doing the real work.  I just have to remind myself–probably over and over and a million times over–that it doesn’t have to be right.  There’s no such thing.  It just has to be done.

My ROW80 Round 1 Goals:

• Finish working through K.M. Weiland’s Outlining Your Novel Workbook.  How I’ll do it: post updates on Twitter daily to announce what I’ve done and then post here weekly with a round-up of all of those posts. (This “how I’ll do it” thing is something new I’m trying out to see if it helps me stay on task.)
• Write 30,000 words on Inheritance.  How I’ll do it: once again via daily Twitter updates and weekly updates here.
• Twice-weekly writing practice for free writing and working on craft. How I’ll do it: take to Twitter once again and invite people to write with me and share their progress and maybe snippets of their writing; I’ll also mark these sessions on my calendar to see if that keeps the intention fresh in my mind.