Nov

11

Maybe it wasn’t cheating.

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Supper turned out to be a big hit with my kids, especially Ari. Not only did she insist on putting together her own taco (which she did, and promptly devoured), but she also made a “cheese salad” for herself. She took a handful of the shredded lettuce, topped it with a smaller handful of shredded cheese, and proudly ate it.

Good news on the writing front too. I figured out my problem for Chapter 11 earlier today, finished it up and posted it to my writing group. That’s another 2k words, putting the word meter at 27,000 words. Go me!

I’m going to be pausing for a bit for TMA and do some crits. See if I can get a bit ahead of the game and get some extras in too.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Oct

24

Friday Funnies

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Lost the morning to doing errands I normally do on Saturdays. (Michigan State plays at Michigan, and when that happens, you do not want to be in Ann Arbor. The only time it’s worse is when Ohio State comes to town.) Ate lunch with my sweetie, then spent some time going through emails and reading my daily webcomics. I laughed a lot at them today, especially at today’s Vampires Suck.

Now that I’ve finished online stuff, time to decide if I’m going to tear my hair out over Chapter 9, or scare myself by trying to plan my writing and work projects for 2009. I’ve got my writing (as in the novel) goals all written out, but I need to apply them to the calendar and set specific due dates.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Oct

22

Writing Goals for 2009

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The Muse 2008 Online Writers Conference is now over, but it was a real blast. I wasn’t able to participate as much as I’d hoped to, but I did learn a lot. The workshop that influenced me the most was “Burn Those Bunny Slippers”. It was about helping yourself treat writing more like a job/profession - how to set goals, get your family’s support, and so on. The most important thing it did for me was to get me to actually sit down and create some concrete goals, rather than just relying on “oh, I’ll try to do this”. So, without further ado, here are my goals for 2009…

January 2009

  • Revise TMA, one chapter per week, minimum 1k words revised per day.
  • Submit minimum 3 chapters to crit group.
  • Do required 6 crits for writing group.
  • Start checking out agents currently accepting submissions.
  • Do Create A Culture & Create A Language for Zaan for Storm King’s Eye.

February 2009

  • Revise TMA, one chapter per week, minimum 1k words revised per day.
  • Submit minimum 3 chapters to crit group.
  • Do required 6 crits for writing group.
  • Check out agents currently accepting submissions.
  • Do Create A Culture & Create A Language for Mirander for Storm King’s Eye.

March 2009

  • Revise TMA, one chapter per week, minimum 1k words revised per day.
  • Submit minimum 3 chapters to crit group.
  • Do required 6 crits for writing group.
  • Check out agents currently accepting submissions.
  • Complete Create A Plot system for Storm King’s Eye.

April 2009

  • Revise TMA, one chapter per week, minimum 1k words revised per day.
  • Submit minimum 3 chapters to crit group.
  • Do required 6 crits for writing group.
  • Check out agents currently accepting submissions.
  • Do research for TMA #2

May 2009

  • Complete TMA polishing - 1 chapter per day.
  • Submit minimum 3 chapters to crit group.
  • Check out agents currently accepting submissions.
  • Do required 6 crits for writing group.
  • Research for TMA #2

June 2009

  • Put together submission package for agent search.
  • Submit first agent query.
  • Write Storm King’s Eye - minimum 1000 words per day.
  • Submit minimum 3 chapters to crit group.
  • Do required 6 crits for writing group.
  • Start Create A Plot for TMA #2 - working title “Ravenous”?

July 2009

  • Do required 6 crits for writing group.
  • Start writing Storm King’s Eye - minimum 1000 words per day.
  • Submit minimum 3 chapters to crit group.
  • If get response from agent, act on it. If rejection, submit to next agent on the list.

August 2009

  • Write Storm King’s Eye - minimum 1000 words per day.
  • Submit minimum 3 chapters to crit group.
  • Do required 6 crits for writing group.
  • If get response from agent, act on it. If rejection, submit to next agent on the list.

September 2009

  • Write Storm King’s Eye - minimum 1000 words per day.
  • Submit minimum 3 chapters to crit group.
  • Do required 6 crits for writing group.
  • If get response from agent, act on it. If rejection, submit to next agent on the list.

October 2009

  • Write Storm King’s Eye - minimum 1000 words per day.
  • Submit minimum 3 chapters to crit group.
  • Do required 6 crits for writing group.
  • If get response from agent, act on it. If rejection, submit to next agent on the list.

November 2009

  • Write Storm King’s Eye - minimum 1000 words per day.
  • Submit minimum 3 chapters to crit group.
  • Do required 6 crits for writing group.
  • If get response from agent, act on it. If rejection, submit to next agent on the list.

December 2009

  • Write Storm King’s Eye - minimum 1000 words per day.
  • Submit minimum 3 chapters to crit group.
  • Do required 6 crits for writing group.
  • If get response from agent, act on it. If rejection, submit to next agent on the list.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Oct

16

When Things Go Wrong

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The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

That phrase can be applied to just about anything you do. Since this blog is about writing and the writing life, we’ll be looking at it from that perspective. We all have the best intentions, and set what are achievable goals for ourselves. For example, I do some housework, then spend the rest of the morning writing. Today would be a slight deviation from that, as I had two errands in town I wanted to run before getting my day off it it’s usual start.

I got a call about an hour and a half ago to come pick up my daughter from school because she’s sick. I wasn’t at home when the call came. I was walking into Kroger to get the lemon I needed to make supper. Luckily, getting the lemon was the last errand I needed to do, so I went straight from the store to school to get her.

So, what had turned out to be a twenty minute delay in starting my writing day became an hour delay. And to top it all off, I think I may be coming down with what she’s got.

And now I’m faced with a choice. Do I throw in the towel, grab a mug of peppermint tea and join Ari under the comforter on the couch and watch Food Network with her, or do I try to slug it out and do my best to keep to the agenda I created for today? The one I really want to do is snuggle with my girlie, but I can’t do that. The Muse 2008 Online Writers Conference is kicking my butt, and I need to kick it back. I’ve got a crit for my writing group to complete, and I have to do some more housework and make supper (a savory cheesecake, which I will comment on at Chef Lisa sometime soon).

If I don’t make it, then at least I’ll have tried. And that’s really the most important thing. If you can’t write/work through adversity, then you’re greatly reducing your chances at success.

And to end this on a happier tone, here’s another quote from Bette Davis:

“To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to sweat over lonely labor, to be given a chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life. The money is the gravy.”

Popularity: 16% [?]

Sep

25

Cleaning: A Writer’s Boon and Bane

Filed Under Art of Writing, Novel In Progress, Stuff | Leave a Comment

Has it really been over a week since I last posted here? I find that hard to believe. Dates on the blog entries don’t lie.

What have I been doing during this time? Writing and cleaning. Or, as I like to say, “editing my life”. :)

As I’ve mentioned before, I work at home. For reasons I won’t get into, I’ve let the housework slide. Doing the bare minimum, letting things pile up until it hits a crisis point. It’s stressful on all of us, and it’s taking a toll on my writing. I’m just not happy and can’t concentrate well. When the world around me is cluttered, my mind is cluttered. To fix that, I’ve set up a new routine - I spend the morning cleaning a specific section, taking it 15 to 20 minutes at a time (with breaks so that I don’t burn myself out), and the afternoon is spent working on stuff like the novel.

The cleaning process got delayed by two days because the belt in the vacuum cleaner snapped, and the first place we tried to get the replacement didn’t carry them. So I went this morning and bought what I needed at Target. I didn’t get as much cleaning done as I wanted to, but another section of floor has been cleaned and vacuumed. Tomorrow’s job is to go through my cookbook/reference bookshelf. Figure out what I’ll leave on the shelf, what’ll go into storage, and what I’m going to get rid of. The stuff I’m keeping is going to get scanned into Readerware. I figure I might as well do that, so we can complete the inventory of our books and record which ones are on the shelf and which ones are in bins (and which bin).

Editing of the novel is going slowly. 200 words today (I lost half the day and half my evening to running errands and school related activities). I’m still moving forward, which is good. Not updating the WIP meter, though. I only do that when a chapter is completed.

Popularity: 28% [?]