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Posts Tagged ‘goals’

ROW80 Goals for Round 3

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on July 2, 2012| 20 Comments »

I can’t believe it’s actually that time again! I really meant to finish my WIP in Round 2, but those of you who’ve followed my blog know that I was a slacker. I bounced back the last couple of weeks of the round, but it was way too late. Anyway, here are my goals for Round 3.

1. Finish my WIP by writing one hour per day, five days a week (Sundays and Wednesdays are church days, so I intend to take those days off unless I’m itching to write).

2. Proof Vampires’ Curse a second time, then format it for print.

3. Exercise five days a week.

Some writers have said they only want to post writing goals on their blog, and they won’t talk about anything else, but I’m a firm believer in putting all of myself out there and connecting with people. I also believe that exercise goals HELP with writing goals.

Good luck to everyone this round, and if there’s anything I can ever do to help, please let me know! We are all about support here at ROW80!

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Sunday Update 6/10/12

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on June 10, 2012| 17 Comments »

1. Writing – I haven’t written a word. I was so floored by my blood pressure situation that I decided to concentrate on health last week. Plus, I’ve spent HOURS preparing to teach Vacation Bible School. I hope I can get back on track on writing this week. I’ll be at VBS every night this week, but hopefully I can come home and write. I still need to get the junk off my desk in my office (piled up to get stuff out of the living room when I had my Pampered Chef party). I write better in my office instead of in the living room with the TV on.

2. Kittens – The kittens played non-stop for 6 hours in the house yesterday. It was like having two toddlers in the house. I had to constantly watch them to keep them out of trouble. They knocked over a plant, but I think I fixed it so hubby doesn’t find out. LOL. After six hours, they plopped down in hubby’s recliner and snoozed. I did decide on Willow and Oz for names.

3. Health – My goal is to walk five times a week. I started all of this Wednesday. I walked on the treadmill Wednesday after church and at lunch on Thursday and Friday. That was three times, but I didn’t start until the middle of the week. I’m learning to leave stuff on my plate, so I have leftovers from both last night and from lunch today. Actually, I have more than half of today’s lunch left over. I still haven’t been to the grocery store, so not much cooking done. With VBS all week, I may not get to the cooking until after that’s over. Oh, and I forgot to weigh this morning, so I guess I won’t be reporting weight loss (or gain) until next week.

4. Movie thoughts -We went to see Men in Black 3 last night since it was hubby’s birthday and that’s what he wanted to do. It was good, but not as good as the first two, in my opinion. I loved the first one. It’s one of my favorite movies.

How did YOU do last week?

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ROW80 Check In 5/6/12

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on May 6, 2012| 27 Comments »

Not really much to say about this week. I haven’t touched my WIP since my check in on Wednesday. I’ve had so much going on this past week and still not feeling the best in the world. I’m going to go back to walking on the treadmill early in the mornings. The two weeks I made myself do that, I felt better than I had in a long time. When I’m lying in bed thinking about how much I want to just sleep another hour, I should remember how good I felt when I was exercising. It’s all about motivation. Besides, my husband said something to me that really hit home. My mother is overweight, diabetic, and has arthritis. We went to my daughter-in-law’s graduation, but my mom couldn’t go because it was in a place where there were lots of steps. I told my husband that my mom would never make it up the steps and he made some remark under his breath about how I would be in the same situation in a few years. I was stunned. I think he’s really worried about me getting into the shape my mom is in. So I’m determined not to. I CAN’T.

On a brighter note…I’m getting two kittens tomorrow! I’m so excited! I haven’t been able to have cats because I can’t leave them outside because of coyotes, and my husband won’t let me have them inside because of a bad experience with a cat we had with bladder problems. So my friend suggested a compromise. She had crate trained her cats before and they did really well. So I bought this huge cage that is big enough for the two cats to play in. It has three levels, two of which have little ledges for them to lie on. I’m going to keep the cage out on our deck and make a nice little roof on it for shelter from the elements. When I’m at work, they’ll stay in the cage, and when I’m at home, they can stay in the house with me. The reason I’m getting two is because I don’t want them to be lonely while I’m gone. I’m going to fix up this cage to be a nice little playhouse with toys and stuff. The cage also comes with a little soft bed to put on one of the ledges. This cage is big enough for 2-3 large cats, so two little kittens should have a ball in it. There’s no danger of coyotes coming up on our deck. (They couldn’t get through the cage anyway.) Our dog protects our deck fiercely, and he’s always there at night (and my cats might be able to stay inside with me overnight). So my kitties will be safe, sheltered, and showered with lots of toys. I can’t wait to get them!

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ROW80 Check In – Fate is Against Me

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on May 2, 2012| 19 Comments »

Monday, I sat down at the computer and wrote 710 words. But that was only in about 30 minutes, and I was supposed to sit at the computer for an hour. The thing is, I realized I had to get my Mary Kay order in by 9:00 that night, and it was after 8:30. Yikes! Then, when I got back to the computer, I decided to try to finish formatting a print book. I had allotted 30 minutes for that. It ended up taking me an hour and a half to finish because the page numbers kept changing on me. I won’t go into a long explanation about why, but I had to change a bunch of things, then go back through it and make sure, again, that the page numbers were correct. Grrr. I was going to walk on the treadmill for 30 minutes…wrong. In the middle of my walk, I had to stop and go to the bathroom.

Tuesday, I sat down to write. After 309 words, I had a stomach cramp so bad that I was doubled over in pain. I had to lie down. If you’re a guy, you might want to stop reading now. It felt like someone was twisting one of my ovaries. Needless to say, even after the pain had abated, I didn’t feel like doing anything, so I lay down on the couch and watched TV the rest of the night. I have NO idea where that pain came from! At my age, it shouldn’t be happening.

Yeah, I know. TMI.

BTW, I’ve learned to be careful what tags to use on my posts. If, for instance, I enter a tag about “stomach pain” or “exercise”, I get hits from those search terms. Sometimes, that’s not a good thing. LOL

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ROW80 Check In 4/29/12

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on April 29, 2012| 16 Comments »

I realized that I completely forgot my Wednesday check in last week. I posted something else on that day instead of my check in. Oh well, a missed check in every once in awhile won’t kill me.

I only managed to write 1538 words last week. That is NOT acceptable to me! There were a number of factors involved in my lack of productivity. One of them was a migraine that lasted off and on for two days. The off and on was because of taking medicine, then it wearing off. I also have a “bladder irritation”, which I’ve had before. So having those both at the same time, I was torn between taking medicine for one or the other, since neither medicine would work for both, and I shouldn’t take them together. So I decided to take care of both problems with a couple of doses of hydrocodone. LOL. It at least allowed me to get through a function at church Saturday afternoon and a birthday part Saturday night without moaning in pain. Okay, enough about that stuff! Maybe I sort of had excuses for lack of productivity with the health issues and having my son, his girlfriend, and her baby come to visit one night. Come on, who can write when there’s a baby to enjoy? Such a darling little one year old. 🙂

I’m going to have to buckle down and do what I’m supposed to this week. I need to set aside time for my WIP, time for formatting two books for print, and time for exercise. Wednesday and Thursday are both tied up with church classes until at least 8:00 PM. It’s hard to come in and make myself work on days when stuff is going on that late after I’ve worked all day. Maybe on those two nights, I can have abbreviated schedules where I work on each thing for half the time. That’s better than not doing it at all, right?

Are any of the rest of you struggling with juggling writing with other things? (Hey, did you see how I had rhyming words in that sentence???)

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ROW80 Check In 4/8/12

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 8, 2012| 10 Comments »

I just have a few minutes. I’m on my way soon to a birthday party for a one year old little girl. That ought to be fun! Then, tonight, my oldest son and his wife are coming for a visit. So this will be a busy day. But a good kind of busy. 🙂

I had a pretty rough start with Round Two, but that’s because I was writing the WRONG STORY. I posted about this a couple of days ago. The story I was trying to write wasn’t working for some reason. Then, suddenly one morning, this other idea started coming to me. THIS was the story I was meant to write. So things are going much better now. I managed to write 1247 words Friday and 843 words Saturday. I’m still behind because my goal was 700 a day, and I’m still counting those first four days I was struggling with a different story, so I was four days behind before I started this story. I’ll have to admit, I’m once again writing about a vampire, but that’s what came into my head, so I have to write it. And the title came to me as soon as the story did. That has only happened to me once before, and that was my short story, The Beast in the Mirror. I usually struggle a lot with titles.

I actually had an idea for my next scene on the Christian romance, so I’ll be writing that at lunch on Monday.

I hope everyone is having a great day, and I hope I can get to some of your blogs in between all the stuff I have to do today. 🙂

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ROW80 Check In 4-4-12

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 4, 2012| 8 Comments »

Those of you that have been following and commenting on my blog know by now how much I HATED, DESPISED, ABHORRED trying to outline my new story. I was using Scrivener and the little note cards on the corkboard. I have discovered two things…1)I don’t think Scrivener has anything to offer that I can’t do other ways, and 2) I can’t outline the same way other people do. Or I can’t outline the way I “thought” other people do. I’ve found, by reading blog comments, there are vastly different ways to outline . What works best for me is to have a basic synopsis of my story with some main points, but not necessarily in outline form. The problem is that I’ve always just had this basic “outline” in my head. What I’m going to do is try to be a hybrid pantser/plotter for now and see how it works. That means WRITING DOWN my synopsis (for lack of a better word to use) instead of having the idea roll around in my head. As I get used to doing this, I might be able to plot a little heavier with each project.

All that being said, I’m either 95 words ahead of my 700 word count or 605 words behind. I have a little spreadsheet (I’m all about the spreadsheets) where I keep up with my word counts. I just haven’t decided whether to count the first day, since I was doing nothing but outlining and cursing (not really because I don’t curse) or start my word count on the second day when I really started writing. For now I’m counting the first day because I think I can catch up. 🙂

On the exercise front…I didn’t get up at 5:30 and walk on the treadmill this morning. I just couldn’t. I stayed up too late last night watching Final Destination 2 (for about the 3rd time) and then I had to watch a little of something else to get my mind off FD2 before I went to sleep. So I was up until about 1:00 or later. But I plan on making up for that tonight. And I’m NOT giving up on the morning walks. Also, I’m learning to eat 1/2 to 2/3 (depending on how big the serving is) of my meals and having the rest for another meal. Cheaper in calories and dollars! Oh, and I’ve lost 8 lbs. 🙂

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Beginning of ROW80 Round Two 2012

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 2, 2012| 27 Comments »

I’ve been with ROW80 since it’s beginning, and I can’t tell you how much it’s helped me learn discipline in writing. I’ve published three novellas and am about to publish…well, it’s either a short novel or long novella. Anyway, I feel like I’ve accomplished a lot.

So my goals for this round? Since I’m shooting for a novel instead of a novella, I’m going to up my word count goal from 500 to 700 words per day. We’ll see how that goes and if I need to change it or not. Okay, this thing starts today, right? I sort of feel lost because I don’t have a good outline. I’ve always been a pantser, so the ideas come as my fingers fly across the keyboard. Since I was going to try to be a plotter this time, I’m full of anxiety. Because I can’t THINK of an outline. I have a vague idea of what’s going to happen in the book, but it’s not concrete. Okay, so I need to outline my vague ideas, right? I may end up being a pantser/plotter hybrid. LOL

Exercise goals are going to start out at 30 minutes five days a week. That’s actually what I’m doing right now, getting up at dark-thirty every morning and walking on the treadmill. (I actually did some light running on it once.) I plan on upping that goal as my body gets used to the exercise.

Those are my two main goals for this round. I may add something later, but these are the two I’m focused on right now. I’m going to do some writing on my Christian romance, but I’m not setting goals for that. It will happen as it happens.

Good luck everyone!

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ROW80 Check In 3/21/12

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 21, 2012| 21 Comments »

Wow, I can’t believe this round is already over! It’s been a different kind of round for me. The last three rounds of 2011, I had a novella written and published by the time each round was over. The first round of 2011 was when I started my gnome story. My mom had a heart attack in the middle of the round, and I had to do a lot of things to take care of her before she got back to normal. I decided to put that work aside and do my three Libby Fox novellas for the next three rounds. In Round One of this year, I decided to take the gnome story back up and see what I could do with it. It’s pretty much finished except for the proofing and the tweaking. But is it good enough? It’s really different from the other things I’ve written. The first beta reader (the one that sees it before I edit) liked it. But the real tell will be when it goes to the others. Because each beta reader is different. I will get different points of view. So we’ll see. I still have to expand on that crazy fight scene at the end. I wish I was as good as Kait Nolan in writing fight scenes. 🙂

On the exercise front…most of this round has been a flop. However, for the past two days, I’ve gotten up at 5:30 and walked on the treadmill. This has more than health benefits. I’m habitually late for work. No one really cares here, but it bothers me. Since I’ve been exercising in the mornings, I’ve been early. I was here 20 minutes early this morning! And I feel soooo much better.

I can’t wait for Round Two. I hope I’m back to my old self, writing every day and getting things done! Maybe my full time job will slow down and things won’t be as crazy. So, how do the rest of you feel about Round One? Did you accomplish what you wanted to? Did you learn anything?

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ROW80 Check In 2-1-12

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on February 1, 2012| 10 Comments »

Yeah, I know, it’s late in the day, but it’s hard to do my Wednesday updates when I’m here at work. So let’s see what’s going on.

For my current WIP, the garden gnome horror story, I’m still behind on word count. It’s because I’m not writing every day. I’m having a little trouble with it right now. For starters, it’s going in a direction I didn’t really originally intend. I’m going to let one of my beta readers take a look at it early and see if it’s so bizarre that it’s falling apart or if it works. If I go in this direction, I’m going to have to go back and add a few things to make this all make more sense. But I think I can make it work. Also, I originally intended for this to be a novel, not a novella. In horror stories, especially the slasher kind, things move pretty fast. But I think I moved this one a little too fast. I wanted to get at least 50K words out of it so it could really be classified as a novel. Right now, I’ve written about 35K words, and I’ll be lucky if it makes it to 40K. So it’s right on the cusp of being a novel. Most of my novellas have run between 25K and 26K. So I’m not sure what to do with this. I know it needs a little more fleshing out, which will be done in the second edit, but I don’t know if it will be enough. I refuse to pad it just for word count.

Things are going well on the Christian romance I’m writing. I’m not setting a particular word count goal on this one because I never know when I’ll be going out for lunch instead of staying in and writing. I’m sort of shooting for at least 500 words for each lunchtime writing session. So far, the word counts have been 579, 908, and 926. I still don’t know whether to use my real name or another pen name. I wanted to use my real name so the people at church that read Christian romances would know it was me. But now I’m thinking I can use a different pen name and just TELL them it’s me. That way I won’t have to worry about stalkers and such. Because some authors actually get them.

Don’t even ask about my exercise progress….

On watching TV (yeah, I know this isn’t a goal) – I’ve watched lots of episodes of Dark Shadows. I’m LOVING this. It’s so much fun to revisit the show that started my love for vampires (and other paranormal beings) as a kid.

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