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Posts Tagged ‘goals’

End of ROW80 Round 4

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on December 25, 2013| 15 Comments »

I FINALLY finished the first read through of Hearts of Evil. Yes, I have a title! I added a scene between the prologue and the current first chapter. If the beta readers think the scene adds to the story, it will become the first chapter. I found a few errors, but not as many as I thought. I sent the story to two of my beta readers today. I had already sent a non-edited copy to another one. I have one more to send it to. My two major beta readers are very thorough and always have a lot of suggestions for edits. I hope they will be gentle. LOL. I have a few concerns about this story, and I hope the betas can help me address those concerns. I have no cover art yet, but Anya is working on that.

There is a lot going on with my husband right now, and I’ve purposely withheld a lot of it for a couple of reasons. 1) It’s the holidays, and I just didn’t want to bring anyone down with all of this. I also tried to forget a lot of it, and I managed to enjoy Christmas with family and friends. 2) I don’t want anyone to think I’m whining or trying to get sympathy. When I’m ready to share, I’ll do it because I feel close to all of you and WANT to share. But after the holidays. We are going to enjoy these holidays all the way through the New Year.

Next year, I’m going to set deadlines for myself. I let myself get very lax with my writing this year, and because of that, it took me a whole year to get my latest book done. I’m used to publishing more than that, so this didn’t feel good to me. I’m going to be stricter with myself in 2014, but I’m going to make sure I allow for possible setbacks that might be beyond my control.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas (if you celebrate it) and let’s all have a fun New Year’s Eve.

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ROW80 Check-In 12/8/13

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 8, 2013| 12 Comments »

Is anyone else getting excited about Christmas? I am! Last year, I lost my father on Thanksgiving day. Then, in mid-December, I found out I had diabetes…the same day the Sandy Hook shooting occurred. Not a great holiday season last year, huh? But it’s a new year, and I have my blood sugar under control with one insulin shot a day plus some pills. Not ideal, but life is good. I intend to ENJOY my holidays this year.

So onto the report.

Writing: I finished my WIP on November 30, and I didn’t touch it until yesterday. I edited five chapters yesterday. So far, so good. I only found a few little things where I thought I should word some things differently. The manuscript is actually 900+ words short of what I shot for. Also, though, I realized there was a scene that might work between the prologue and the current first chapter. I’m going to talk to my beta readers about it and get their input when I’m ready to send it to them.

Exercise: Mostly, this has gone well. I did my three days at the gym. I have an extra incentive not to skip workouts since my insurance will now pay for it if I go 12 times in a month. I skipped a couple of days on the treadmill because 1) I had to get up at 4:00 on Thursday, and 2) I overslept on Friday (probably because of #1).

FlyLady: I’ve done so-so on housekeeping and organization. Now that the last exporting class for work is over, my stress is now lower. I nailed our presentation at that class, by the way. WIN! 🙂 So I’m ready to embrace all three of my goals with gusto! The rest of December is going to be awesome!

Let’s all get excited together, okay? It can be contagious!

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ROW80 Check In 12/1/13

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 1, 2013| 16 Comments »

It’s been a decent week, I think. I had a good Thanksgiving with great food (if I do say so myself),but most of all, great family times. Unfortunately, my oldest son was sick, so he and his wife couldn’t make it. But we might get to see them next weekend.

So here’s the deal:

Writing: My goal was to finish my WIP by November 30. This has nothing to do with NaNo, it’s just the date I picked for a deadline. I’m happy to say I typed THE END yesterday. I’m not so happy to say that I don’t really like the ending. I kind of let my corny sense of humor get the better of me in the epilogue, and a lot of people probably won’t be amused. I’m going to need a lot of help from my beta readers with it. I’m going to start editing and proofing next week before sending it out to be criticized critiqued. 🙂

Exercise: I was off from work for the holidays starting Wednesday. I didn’t get on the treadmill for three days. Grrr. But I got back on Saturday morning and walked a little extra to make up for some of it. I’ve bumped my speed up a bit. This is a big deal for someone with short legs.

FlyLady: The housekeeping and organization with the FlyLady method is going well. Not perfect, but good enough. Because FlyLady says we have to let go of our perfectionism. 🙂

How about the rest of you? Who did NaNo? Who WON NaNo? Who is glad they didn’t do NaNo? *raises hand* Good luck to everyone this week!

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ROW80 Check-In 11/24/13

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on November 24, 2013| 10 Comments »

Brrr. We’re having a cold spell. My computer says it’s currently 23 degrees. Ouch!

So here’s how it went this week:

Writing: I was so afraid to read my last chapter, which is the climax of the horror part of the story. I put it off and put it off, thinking it was a mess. I finally reread it yesterday, and I really like it! I just hope my beta readers will. I also wrote almost 1500 more words, which was basically the denouement of the horror part, and kind of a little climax (no jokes!) of the romance. I started an epilogue, but I have no idea what I want to do here. I don’t know if I want this to be a complete HEA, or do I want to end it with something happening to let readers know the evil isn’t over? I will ALWAYS have an HEA for the romance part of any book I write (or at the end of a series), but horror doesn’t always go that way. I may need to brainstorm with someone.

Exercise: Walking on the treadmill every morning is continuing as usual. I’ve upped my speed just a tad. I only got to the gym one day. Monday, I had my doctor’s appointment. I went to the gym Wednesday. Then, Friday, I took too long at lunch, so I didn’t have time to work out. I only get an hour to get food and work out. It’s fine when I take my lunch, but when I have to get something, it pushes me.

FlyLady: This is the one I’m most proud of this week. I cleaned off one half of my dresser (this was a job that took a couple of hours…it was that bad), cleaned my bathroom sink (I’m letting hubby clean his side), cleaned part of my tub (it’s huge), shopped for groceries, did three loads of laundry, and WASHED MY CAR. Did I mention it’s getting cold around here?

How did the rest of you do with your goals?

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ROW80 Check-In 11/20/13

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on November 20, 2013| 10 Comments »

This has been a so-so week.

Writing: I’m still sitting on that last chapter, almost afraid to look at it. One more day. I’ll look at it tomorrow and see if it sounds insane or awesome.

Exercise: I didn’t get back to the gym for my normal Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule because I had to go to the doctor Monday. But he’s very pleased with my blood sugar and me in general. And I’ve lost 2 lbs. this week already. I’m going back to the gym today.

FlyLady: I’ve kept a shiny sink so far this week. I did my 15 minute mission on Monday, and it ended up being more like 25 minutes. When I checked my mission for yesterday, it turns out I did both missions on Monday. LOL. So I felt like I could slack off yesterday. *looks around to see if Susan is seeing this*

I hope to have much more to report on Sunday. Later!

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ROW80 – Writing, Exercise, and FlyLady

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on November 17, 2013| 14 Comments »

I’ve found that when the rest of my life is organized and NOT in chaos, that my writing goes the same way. I was really sick last week, and I did practically nothing in any category. So today starts a new week, and I want to tweak my goals a bit and really work hard on getting my life in order, especially now that the holidays are coming up.

Writing: I don’t know if I’m going to make my November 30 deadline or not. I don’t know how many of you read my last post, but I felt like my last chapter was out of control, so I want to sit on it a couple of days and see if it’s better than I think. I might still make the deadline, but I’m not going to obsess about it. I would rather the story be good than be done on time.

Exercise: I go back to the doctor for my three month visit tomorrow. I have no idea how my A1C test will look because I haven’t been checking my blood sugar. (bad me) I didn’t exercise last week because I was sick, but I have been exercising. And I have a new incentive to go to the gym. If I go at least 12 days out of the month, my insurance will pay for my membership fees! Who doesn’t want to save money, right? But I’ve gained a few lbs. so I’m not sure what my tests will look like. Today, I’m back on track!

FlyLady: For those of you who don’t know who FlyLady is, she has a website that basically teaches you how to keep your house clean and how to stay organized. My goal is to start back doing the daily missions, which usually take about 15 minutes. But the very first thing she wants everyone to start with is to keep your sink shiny. No dishes in it. Mine is shiny right now, and that’s after I cooked breakfast. 🙂 After you get the daily missions started, you can go on to the detailed cleaning. She encourages you to keep a control journal. Check it out. FlyLady.

That’s all, folks!

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ROW80 Update 11/13/13

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 13, 2013| 8 Comments »

I don’t update on Wednesdays very often, since I write Thursday-Saturday. I was going to possibly try to write a little on Monday or Tuesday, but this week I have been SICK. I went home from work Monday after only working two hours. I was miserable yesterday, but stuck it out all day. I’m better today, so I’m hoping to be practically well by tomorrow. Because tomorrow is writing day! And I’ve set a deadline to finish my WIP by November 30, so I have to get going. 🙂

By the way, I just gotta ask this. Do you find yourself writing a blog post and realize you’ve used a local colloquialism, so you change it to something else because you’re not sure anyone that’s not from your area will have a clue about what it means? 🙂

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ROW80 Update 11/10/13

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on November 10, 2013| 15 Comments »

I feel really good about my progress last week. My word count goal has been 3,000 words per week, but since I set November 30 as the deadline for finishing my WIP, then I realized I had to write more like 5,000 words. The good news is that this week I wrote 5,777 words! I’m really close to finishing this book, and it’s getting exciting. I just wrote, Saturday, an action scene that I’m pretty pleased with. I’m really liking how this book is ending, but I’m almost afraid I’m going to end it a little too early. I need to flesh out some of the scenes, but that can be done during the editing process. I’m glad I’ve finally gotten excited about this book.

My other goal was to visit several of my fellow ROW80er’s blogs. I visited ten last week. I’m glad I got that goal done, too.

I’m really pleased with the way last week went. 🙂

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Deadlines

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on November 7, 2013| 6 Comments »

Today I was reading THIS blog post by my friend, L.S. Engler. She was talking about a quote concerning deadlines whooshing by. Her post made me start thinking about deadlines and how, as indies, we only have self-imposed deadlines. Although one of my favorite perks of being indie is that I don’t have to answer to anyone about deadlines, it also can cause me to be lazy about them. If I only have to answer to myself, what are the real consequences of not meeting them? Maybe this is part of the reason I haven’t published anything in a year (except a short story in an anthology). Because I don’t HAVE to. I’m not making even a quarter of the money I made when I first started, before this whole indie thing exploded, so THAT motivation isn’t there like it was. As long as I’m answering to only me, will I have the discipline to make myself meet deadlines? Wait…I haven’t even SET deadlines.

Okay, this has got to stop, right? So I went to my trusty Google calendar and I entered November 30 as the deadline for finishing my WIP. That gives me about 17 days to finish. I’m already about 80% done (see my nifty little word count widget over to the right), so that should NOT be a problem. This will make me have to up my word count per week a bit, but it CAN be done. If I finish by November 30, then I should be able to get it published before Christmas. My beta readers are super fast and they are also great editors and proofreaders. This should be NO PROBLEM. The only obstacle is me. I’m going to start treating this like a real job again with deadlines. And you guys out there need to kick me in the behind if I don’t do this. When I said the only person I have to answer to is myself…well, that should be the most important person!

Thanks, L.S.!

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ROW80 Update 11/3/13

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 3, 2013| 16 Comments »

My goal is to write 3,000 word per week. I did it this week. I wrote 3,875 on my current WIP. It’s getting really complicated and twisty, but I think I’ve got it under control. I think I’m just within a few chapters of finishing this thing, so I’m really hoping I’ll have a release before Christmas. It’s going to depend on beta readers.

My other goal is to visit several of my fellow ROW80ers each week. If any of you saw my apology post recently, you’ll know I’ve been very neglectful of that lately. I don’t know when I’ll get those visits done because I have a full day tomorrow after church. We’re going to a baby shower and to visit our son and his wife, and we’re going to church with them tomorrow night. They live about an hour away, so it will be kind of late when I get back. But I’m going to try to pop in on some people’s blogs Monday while I’m at work.

So how are the rest of you doing? Who’s doing NaNo? Not me! 😉

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