September Wrap Up

*sigh*

It's been a pretty tough couple of months for me, writing-wise. As much as I'm finally moving forward on Capitoline Hill, I've been totally stalled on everything else. I made a half-hearted effort at Angels this month, but I hit a brick wall a week or so in.

I know what the problem is. I've reached a point in all my existing stories where the characters have to start moving towards the main goal. Which is the point where I realize the story doesn't have a main goal.

My pre-production--for lack of a better word--sucks. I don't outline. I don't even think past the opening chapters half the time. So it's no wonder that I get to the middle of the beginning of the story and crash and burn.

I've been making an effort at improving lately, but it's not going as well as I'd hoped. I wrote down everything I know for CH2, which I want to write during NaNo, and it turns out... there's only ten bullet points, most of which relate to the romantic subplot and not the main plot. So I'm trying not to panic that I'll be winging it during NaNo.

OK. Whining over now. I'm sure looking at my goals for September will make me (not) feel better.

September's goals:

• Write 10,000 words, mostly for Angels. Well. That didn't happen. I did write words for Angels. A few at least.
• Enter at least one bloghop and post at least one blog post (not including Teaser Tuesday). I did. I entered the Genre Blogfest (a little late, but better than never), and I posted about Kyra Lennon's novella cover.
• Be a better CP. I read one of them. Well, that's something.

Also, I started querying agents for CH, which I consider the biggest victory of all. Having accomplished that goal makes me feel better about the ones I missed.

And now, here are my goals for October:

• Outline CH2. This one is pretty important, seeing how I won't have another opportunity before NaNo.
• Query 14 more agents for CH. That will bring my total up to 25.
• Get through my CP pile. For real this time.
• Carve out a few hours a week that are solely devoted to writing. I think part of the reason I've been having trouble lately is because I'm unfocused, which comes from doing other things when I should be writing. Then I feel guilty about not writing, and a vicious circle begins. A lot of people talk about making writing part of your daily schedule. I need to be better about that.

Do you have any goals for October? Also, who's doing NaNo? Anyone want to set up a writers' group or message board or something to help motivate us?

August Wrap Up

I have to say, this was a really nice break. Taking a few weeks to decompress was a good idea. I think I'm ready to get back into things, but I'm still going to take it slow. Work promises to be crazy from now until Thanksgiving, so probably not piling up unnecessary deadlines is a good idea.

So here's last month's goal breakdown.

• Have a polished MS for CH, along with a complete query letter and synopsis. I mostly do. My betas have been sending feedback on the latest draft, and I think one more pass through ought to do it.
• Enter at least one bloghop. Er... oops.
• Visit K.S. Lewis. I did. And it was awesome! I so wasn't ready to come home.
• Relax, shake it off, and approach my writing with fresh eyes in September.

September's goals:

• Write 10,000 words, mostly for Angels. I've been in a very MG mood lately (as evidenced by my reading Animorphs for the past month). And I realized that I've been overestimating how long a MG book is. Based on some of the books I've looked up, Angels is really a third of the way done. So I'm going to try to spend the next two months working on it, so maybe I can have another finished book before NaNo starts in November.
• Enter at least one bloghop and post at least one blog post (not including Teaser Tuesday). I need to get back to being involved in the blogosphere.
• Be a better CP. I currently have three MS excerpts to read and critique for three people who have been fabulous at reading my stuff, and I owe them big time. Break time's over.

And that's it for now. How was everyone else's August? I know I've been a little absent from blogs and even Twitter, so I hope you all enjoyed your summer!

July Wrap Up

And fail.

Okay. I think the universe is trying to tell me something. I've had a string of unsuccessful started stories and about a gazillion new ideas, and nothing's catching. Nothing's lighting me up. And I think the reason is because I really need to finish editing Capitoline Hill. No more excuses. So for the month of August, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to edit and polish my query letter and synopsis, and when that's done, maybe I'll be able to write again.

So here's last month's goal breakdown.

• Write 11,000 words. I wrote about 7,000.
• Have a polished MS for CH, along with a complete query letter and synopsis. I have a complete query letter that I'm happy with and a complete synopsis that is... okay. I don't have a polished MS for CH.
• Get 150 followers on Twitter and 100 followers on my blog. 145 followers on Twitter, 86 on my blog.
• Enter at least two bloghops. Turns out the What If Blogfest is actually in August, but I did the Hookers and Hangers Bloghop. And it was two days, so that counts, right?
• Submit at least one short story for a contest/magazine submission. No.

August's goals:

• Have a polished MS for CH, along with a complete query letter and synopsis. Because I'm turning into the girl who cried edits.
• Enter at least one bloghop. Because, as I said, the What If Blogfest is actually in August.
• Visit K.S. Lewis. Plane ticket already purchased!
• Relax, shake it off, and approach my writing with fresh eyes in September.

Did anyone have a productive July? Please, share with the class.

June Wrap Up

Seriously, guys, where did 2012 go? How could it possibly be halfway over already?

On the bright note, June was a way better month for me than May. I think I managed to accomplish most of my goals. Here's the breakdown.

• Write 10,5000 words. I wrote 10,700.
• Have a polished MS for CH, along with a complete query letter and synopsis. I don't have a polished CH yet, but I do have a complete(ish) query letter and synopsis. Well, a complete first draft of each. And I'm halfway through another round of edits on CH.
• Get 125 followers on Twitter and 75 followers on my blog. I have 132 followers on Twitter and 77 followers on my blog. (and a happy dance)
• Enter at least two bloghops. I did the First Fight, First Kiss Blogfest and the Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Bloghop.

Woo-hoo! Not too shabby! And now for July's goals:

• Write 11,000 words. The 500 words/day goal is pretty easy, but it worked out well last month because I was able to do a lot more editing. So I think I'll stick with it for another month.
• Have a polished MS for CH, along with a complete query letter and synopsis. If I keep making it a goal, someday I might actually achieve it.
• Get 150 followers on Twitter and 100 followers on my blog.
• Enter at least two bloghops. Right now I'm thinking about the Hookers and Hangers Bloghop and the What If Blogfest.
• Submit at least one short story for a contest/magazine submission. I finished a short story last month that I'd love to do something with, so I might try to send it out to a few places. It's MG fantasy (dragons and stuff), so if you know of any place that it might fit, please let me know.

I hope everyone else had a productive June. Here's to a great July!

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?

April Wrap Up

Happy "It's Not A-Z" Day, everyone! No, in all seriousness, I had a great time doing A-Z, but I'm ready for a more relaxing May. I'll still be around, but I definitely need to devote some more time to my personal writing. Over half my total words for April were blog posts. I'd like that to be a little smaller of a percentage for this month.

Looking at my April goals:

• Continue writing 1000 words/day, half of them for Defenders. I did write over 21,000 words (1000 words/weekday), which was good, but I only wrote 6235 of them for Defenders. This probably would have been higher if I hadn't just stopped writing Defenders with a week left to the month.
• Send a mostly edited draft of CH to my beta readers and finish rough draft of query letter and synopsis. Again, I did a little over half of this. I sent my edited draft to my beta readers (and got a shiny reward and my first feedback from one of them. And I have a (very) rough draft of my query letter (which I wrote today), but not my synopsis.
• Get 75 followers on Twitter and 60 followers on my blog. Right now I have 83 followers on Twitter (*happy squeal*) and 54 followers on my blog.
• Submit at least two short stories to magazines and/or contests. Continue writing flash fiction every week. No. Well, I wrote the flash fiction.
• Complete A-Z Blogging Challenge. Yes.

And now I need some new goals for May:

• Write 23,000 words. Keeping on track with 1000 words/weekday. I think I'm going to take a temporary hiatus with Defenders and focus my attention on Bex's novel because, frankly, it's a lot more fun. It'd be nice to write something that doesn't make me feel like I'm clawing my way through quicksand for a change.
• Have a polished MS for CH, along with a complete query letter and synopsis. I will be (read: want to be) querying agents for CH in June, so I need to finish all the prep work by the end of the month. Perhaps I'll even come up with a title for the first book at some point.
• Get 100 followers on Twitter (at which point I might have a giveaway) and 65 followers on my blog.
• Submit at least one short story to a magazine or contest. Continue writing flash fiction every week. I'm lowering my expectations for this one. If push comes to shove, I'd rather fall short of this goal than my daily writing or my goals for CH.
• Enter at least two bloghops. Right now I'm planning to do the Dust It Off Bloghop and the First Loves Blogfest.

I've been more productive in four months of this year than in 20+ years before this, so I'm trying to stay optimistic about keeping it up.

Anybody got any goals they're trying to stick with? Good luck with all of them!

A is for Accepting Challenges

Happy A-Z Challenge, everyone! I've been really enjoying some of the other posts.

I don't have a theme for my posts, but today's is about Accepting Challenges, a.k.a. setting goals and reaching them. This is the first year I've ever set writing goals for myself, the first year I've ever taken myself seriously enough as a writer to attempt it. At the end of February, I did a wrap up to see how I did with my goals, and I'm going to do that again for March. My February goals were:

• Continue writing 1000 words/day. I didn't actually hit my 22,000 word goal, but I was on track to when I decided I was going to take the last week of March off of writing and focus solely on editing Capitoline Hill. So while this goal wasn't completed, I still consider it a success.
• Edit 50 pages of Rosetta (now Capitoline Hill) per week. Well... I didn't do that. But I did edit over 250 pages during the month of March, completely my second draft/rewrite. So... I think that counts as a success too.
• Get 50 followers on my blog and Twitter. So close. I currently have 63 followers on Twitter and 46 followers on my blog. Just a few more to go!
• Continue to submit short stories and flash fiction. I didn't submit any short stories this month, but I have been writing flash fiction every week. I could have done better with this one, but I could have done worse.

And now, new goals for April:

• Continue writing 1000 words/day, half of them for Defenders. I'm not going to lie, Defenders is being difficult. So was CH when I started it, but somehow it feels worse this time. If I don't force myself to write it, I'll never get through the tough patch. So I have a monthly goal of 21,000 words, and I want at least 10,000 of them to be for Defenders.
• Send a mostly edited draft of CH to my beta readers and finish rough draft of query letter and synopsis. I'd really like to start querying CH in June, so I want to keep making forward progress on this.
• Get 75 followers on Twitter and 60 followers on my blog.
• Submit at least two short stories to magazines and/or contests. Continue writing flash fiction every week.
• Complete A-Z Blogging Challenge.

I don't think any of these are out of the realm of possibility, though doing the A-Z Challenge and writing 10,000 words for Defenders may wind up being a bit challenging.

What are your goals for April?

February Wrap Up

I figure the end of the month is a good time to take a look at how I'm doing towards my writing resolutions and see what I can do to improve, both as a writer and as a chronic procrastinator.

Just as a note: according to Blogger I had 400 page views for the month of February. From when this blog began in October 2011 through January 2012, I had 114. I also went from having only one follower (thank you, Kim!) to have over 30. So thank you to everyone who's been following my blog and tweets! I really appreciate each and every one of you.

Goals:

1. Write 1000 words per day, Monday through Friday. As of this morning, I had 970 words left to hit my monthly goal of 21,000 words (which is akin to that 1000 words/day goal). Barring some unforeseen circumstance, I expect to write that by tonight, thus accomplishing this goal. (Hey, it's nice to start on a high note.)
2. Begin Defenders. Yesterday I hit the 10,000 word mark for Defenders, so I'm well into it now. I also started/continued a story I'd originally intended to use for NaNoWriMo called Angels, but I'm only about two chapters into that and seem to be using it more for when I get writer's block, so we'll see what happens with that.
3. Finishing editing Rosetta. The wheels fall off the wagon here. Not only have I not finished my edits, but I've barely worked on them all month. I started out with about 70 pages edited, and now I'm up to about 90. Not good enough.
4. Submit short stories. This morning I submitted a short story to Penumbra eZine. I've also been submitting flash fiction stories to blog contests (and I must admit I'm getting kind of addicted to them). This is a fun way to hit my word count without agonizing over one novel the whole time, especially when that novel is as ornery as Defenders.

Three out of four isn't too bad, though I definitely wish I'd done better with Rosetta. If I ever want to start querying, I need to be, you know, complete. SO, with that in mind, here are my goals for March (I really like lists).

• Continue writing 1000 words/day. This seems to be a pretty good amount, enough that I don't feel like I'm not doing anything, but not so much that I can't handle that with my day job. This makes my March word count goal 22,000 words.
• Edit 50 pages of Rosetta per week. I honestly have no idea if this is feasible, but I need a stricter deadline for myself than, "Be done by the end of the month." I'm rewriting substantial parts of the book, but I'm still using quite a bit of the first draft, so hopefully this won't be completely unattainable.
• Get 50 followers on my blog and Twitter. I'm at about 30 for both, so I don't think this is out of reach.
• Continue to submit short stories and flash fiction.

I've discovered that I truly work better (read: I only work) when I have hard deadlines for myself with as little wiggle room as possible. If I can possibly find a way to put off doing the work, I will, even if I regret it later. I'm never going to be the kind of writer who only writes when they're inspired because I'll have nothing but a drawer of half-started manuscripts to show for it.

What about you guys? Does this kind of scheduling work for you, or do you work better with more flexibility?