Tag Archives: goals

Days of Winters Past

21 Monday Dec 2015

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kittne December has passed in a whirlwind of no snow, which for Chicago is very unusual. December is a very busy time of year for me. Not so much in the way I would like, because I wish it was more writing intensive than it actually is. Work gets very busy, because we have fellowships that are being worked out, and interviewees to fly in and all that so I spend a lot of time working on travel things for my work. And then there’s my office’s Holiday Party. I’m in charge of it, from drinks to food to decorations to music to room reservations and all that’s in between. The only think I’m not in charge of is the alcohol. But naturally, all that needing to plan out, and then actually do day of, means that I’m running lots.

All the running means that I’m not really doing much in the way of writing, because I don’t really have a lot of time to think. But at the same time, after NaNo and all that push, it means that I get a small break in my life so I can kind of recharge on the writing front. I still have high hopes of finishing my NaNo novel before the new year begins.

And later this week (or the way my life goes, next week), I’m looking to post about my goals, both reading and writing wise. Because I want to try and really stick to with more of each.

Are you going to post goals for next year for writing or reading? Let me know in the comments!

Reading

22 Thursday May 2014

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My To Be Read list is growing ever longer, and I’m afraid I’m not getting through it nearly as fast as I wished. I haven’t actually finished a book in months, and it makes me wince. Especially since new books are catching my attention all the time.

I think that I am going to try and carve out at least one hour a night, after dinner, to read. No TV. No games. Not even writing, which I’m slowly getting back into. Just me and either the book if it’s one I have in hard back or my Kindle. No distractions.

That way I can get back into reading, finishing books. And possibly fill my blogs pages with some new reviews of the books that I finish. I still have one that I am about two thirds of the way through, that I should by all rights finish. And yet my slight obsession interest with Motorcycle Clubs, thanks to Sons of Anarchy on FX – and the fact that I have biker friends, has me reading a book that is based in that society. It’s a serious step away from the science fiction/fantasy genre that I usually submerse myself in, but I’m liking the change. We’ll see which I finish first.

What is at the top of your reading list, my dear readers?

And So It Begins…

09 Tuesday Jul 2013

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So this is going to be a fairly short post.

The good? I started writing yesterday. And I’m not gonna lie, it felt good to get the words out. I’m never sure if it’s great, or if it’ll keep through the rough draft edits, but words out are words out and I can expand or compress later. I really need to stop worrying about the future of the draft and focus on getting the draft actually out of my head.

The bad? It wasn’t nearly as much as I was hoping to write. Though it’s a start. A single step in the right direction. I just need to make sure I follow that step with more throughout the week.

I will say part of not hitting my goal was because I started to not feel well, and that’s continued into today. I’m wondering if I should have stayed home with how I’m feeling, but with two hours left once I’m off the little break, it’s already too late to do much but tough it out and crash on my face when I get home.

I am looking to get more words out, by tooth or nail tonight. Though quite honestly I may take an offline approach and notebook the word count from bed once home.

Weekend Plans

05 Friday Jul 2013

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So about a mouth back to date I decided to restart, and for the most part reboot, my novel. And since then it got to about two thousand words before my life and the world kept me busy. And I’m well aware that these are excuses and not reasons. I should be able to find a couple hours in the day to sit down and crank out a thousand words. And I plan to do that starting roughly Sunday.

I’m back into the swing of going to my job and chiropractic visits, and I’ve dropped from three times a week to two times a week now, which will open up a little more of my afternoon until I get hired as full time at work. And the massive project that was getting a Newsletter is now finished and over, and I wanna say about 60% of the five page Newsletter was written by me. Never again. NEVER AGAIN. I will have help next time if I need to crack out a whip. But it’s done. It’s been emailed out. So now I can take a deep breath and focus on my novel.

To make up for the month behind-ness of everything, I’m planning to set my daily word count goal at two thousand words a day so that hopefully by August I can drop back down to one thousand a day, or keep up the two thousand pace and get the rough draft finished that much quicker. Goals, but I don’t want to burn myself out with them either.

There’s also the question of whether I should try to participate in NaNoWriMo this November, but I think part of that will depend on where I am in my WIP. Whether I’m far enough along that I can share headspace with a new WIP or whether I’m still far enough from the end that 50K in 30 days would do me some good. It’s all a matter of how hard I crack the whip on myself.

Later today and into tomorrow I’ll be heading off to the wilderness of Indiana. Camping. Partially to see how the campground is doing so we have an update for the fest I coordinate in August, and partially to see how my, and my parents, trailer has faired the flooding and storms out in the area. I’ll be printing out what I have of my WIP to get back into the headspace and see about writing a little more of it by hand while I’m out there. Means I’ll have to type it up later, but if it gets words on a page, I’m good with it.

Though I’m thinking of figuring out some prompts to get me back into writing original work and not fandom stuff too. Just to get the juices flowing better. Any suggestions? They’ll be posted when I answer them, if you give me some.

Old Projects, New Eyes

18 Tuesday Jun 2013

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It’s hard sometimes to look back and go ‘well hell. I was supposed to be done with that by now.’ And yet that’s what I ended up doing this last week while I was on vacation visiting my best friend. I’ve been trying to write a novel for the last four years, and every year I always let life or other things get in the way of finishing. I don’t set it as a priority, and that’s my main problem. Though the major secondary problem is that I haven’t been setting time aside to write.

I got a new job a couple months ago and that had completely side tracked me as well, but that’s an excuse. And not a very good one. Though that’s also neither here nor there.

After talking to my friend, and realizing that I had written 30,000 words and the story didn’t go anywhere, or do anything. And staring at this large piece of work that’s been sitting for what feels like forever, it felt like a chore to try and work on it. Like I was tied down and chained to keep it because it’s what I have to show for the last four years. But it made me want to work on it even less for that too, because I wasn’t sure how to salvage it with how backed into a corner the main character was now.

So, with the encouragement of my friend, I scrapped all of it but the treatment and outline. We reworked some of story so it will hopefully flow a little better too as I write it. And we’ve set up goals for me to meet, the  main being a minimum of 667 words a day, but 1,000 if I can get it there. My goal as a whole is to have the rough draft done by Christmas. That starting in 2014 I can do revisions and edits and have it finished before this time next year.

It might not seem like a lot, or a strict deadline, but I have issues trying to follow most deadlines, and I will be doing my best to keep up with all of my goals. And hopefully I will update with better progress as the year gets closer to closing.