May Wrap Up

Hear that explosion sound? That's my goal for the month of May.

I had a very, very unproductive month, at least when it came to writing. I wish I could say I had more important things to do, but the truth is I got discouraged early on by some things in my personal life, then K.S. Lewis was visiting (you just knew I was going to find a way to blame you for this ;-) ), and work was particularly crazy for a week or so. And I just sort of... stopped.

And, guys, I came up with yet another new plot for Defenders. I had this big revelation at the beginning of the month, and about the only thing I did right in May was edit the first 13 chapters to line up with it. And last night I decided to (possibly) change it all.

I should explain. I've always felt that Defenders was a romance, even though it doesn't appear so at first. So when I revised it the first time, I brought the romantic aspects out earlier. Which led to... a love triangle. I hate love triangles. I mean, it's not a make-or-break thing when I'm reading a book, but it's usually something I groan about. Because I never agree with the main character's choice. NEVER. I like to root for the underdog, and it's always so obvious which guy the MC is going to choose that I find myself rooting for the other guy (who's always popular, cute and sweet, but she goes for the bad boy with the troubled past). And sometimes it's done well, and I don't mind as much. But sometimes it's done badly, and I find myself resenting the book because of it.

So, long story made not much shorter, I have a mental block against writing a love triangle, especially when it will be obvious fairly early which guy she's going to wind up with. So I thought, "Well, what if she's just with the one guy?" But the result was that the book lost a lot of its key tension (not the romantic tension, but the plot was tied in with Guy #2). So then I started tweaking the plot to make it fit. And now... there's a new plot.

I haven't decided whether I'm definitely going to go in this direction yet, but it doesn't seem like, "Because it will be a pain," is a good reason not to do it. Needless to say, this is part of the reason I didn't write so much this month.

So if there's anyone still reading this, let's do the monthly breakdown anyway. My May goals were:

• Write 23,000 words, keeping on track with 1000 words/weekday. Um. No. I wrote 8700. That's like 23,000, but... not.
• Have a polished MS for CH, along with a complete query letter and synopsis. Um. No. I have a partial query letter and feedback from three of my beta readers (and I'm waiting on feedback from two or three more). I have no synopsis. In fact, my Writer-brain cries when I even type the word "synopsis."
• Get 100 followers on Twitter (at which point I might have a giveaway) and 65 followers on my blog. YES! I have 108 followers on Twitter and 67 on my blog. And in light of that ('cause y'all are awesome), I'm going to have a giveaway next week. Stay tuned for more details.
• Submit at least one short story to a magazine or contest. Continue writing flash fiction every week. Um. No. I submitted... nothing. And I wrote maybe two flash fictions.
• Enter at least two bloghops. I actually entered three: the Dust It Off Bloghop, the First Loves Blogfest, and the Flash Fiction Blogfest. So, yay.

But it's okay. Everyone has a bad month sometimes. The important thing is to keep moving forward and not get discouraged. I can do that. So here are June's goals:

• Write 10,5000 words. I'm halving my writing goal this month because I really want to focus on editing CH and prepping it for querying, and I'm starting to realize I can't do that and write 1000 words/day. I have to choose.
• Have a polished MS for CH, along with a complete query letter and synopsis. For real this time. I've pushed back my goal to start submitting it to agents until later in the summer, but I really want to have something to show by the end of the month.
• Get 125 followers on Twitter and 75 followers on my blog.
• Enter at least two bloghops. Right now, I'm planning on doing the First Fight, First Kiss Blogfest and the Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Bloghop.

And if you made it all the way to the end of this post, you're awesome. Here, have a cookie:

OK, seriously? How much do you want a chocolate chip cookie right now?