Sunday, October 28, 2012

Success -A Little, Anyway.

Sorry I've been MIA for the past week.  My older son was at Grandma's so it was just Little C. and me for 8 days.  I decided to use the time with only one child to push for some words.  My goal was 20,000, but Little C. got sick. Sooooo... that didn't happen!
But guess, what, guys, I hit 16,000 words!  Whoohooo!!!  That is more than I wrote last month.  And the other thing was, it was FUN.  I think with all no sleep and the stressing about writing, I lost sight of why I love this so much.  I started to feel pressured to finish instead of feeling happy to let the story continue.

Discouragement is pretty easy to get lost in, as a writer.  Sometimes it's a review.  Sometimes it's lack of progress.  Sometimes it's lack of confidence.  I've certainly experienced all three.  My word of the year, as you will recall is Determination.  However, Determination without enjoyment equals STRESS.

Why do I do this?  Why do I plow away, day after day, trying my hardest to finish this series?  Because I love the characters.  Because I love the story.  Because I love the world I invented.  This is the reason I started writing about The Five Tribes in the first place.

Using my WOTY, I've Determined, not to let myself lose sight of why I do this.  I've Determined not to lose my love for writing.  I've Determined to keep this fun, no matter what.

Otherwise, what's the point?

Here are some super interesting articles I ran across last week:
The first is a guest blog by Erin Kern talking about how Indies are the new query letter.  If you'd asked me a year ago if this was true, I probably would have laughed.  Since then I've been approached by both a publisher and an agent, so I'd say I was dead wrong.  Take a look, it's a pretty interesting story.
The second is an article by one of my faves, Kristine Kathryn Rusch.  It's on PERFECTION, which is a big deal for me.  I loved pretty much everything this article had to say.

That's all from me this week.  Hope you all had a successful writing week!
Happy Reading!

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

I'm Just Here for the Pep Talks!

I got my NaNoWriMo email.  *cue ominous music*  How I long to join nano this year.  Such a great motivator and a fabulous way to rack up a bunch of words (50,000 to be exact)!
Alas, I know that if I join up, I won't make it to the goal.  Not enough sleep.
Still, I'm considering signing up anyway, simply because some of the best pep talks I've ever read have been from the authors who participate in nano.  One by Meg Cabot, I swear to you, changed my writing career FOREVER.
I'm going to think on it some more.  I have 22 days, according to the letter, before it starts, so I have time to make up my mind.

I actually got some writing done in the past week.  Yay!  Not much on Terris, but some is better than none.  Terris: 23,968.  Tues./Thurs. side project: 5,583.  I think I've gotten about 5,000 words total in for the week, I think.  For a person who has written in the hundreds of words in the past couple of weeks, it is a major victory.  Next week I'm off to my parents' house while my oldest son goes off to visit his grandma.  The last time this happened I was able to finish off Aeris.  My goal this time around will be 20,000 words.  In two weeks, that should be quite a goal, but I need to make up some ground given my utter failure to write in the past month and a half.

Right now, I'm hopeful and determined.  I'm wishing progress on all my fellow ROW participants!  Fighting!(It's a Kdrama thing, hahahaha)

Happy Reading!

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

A Hint of Desperation...

I've been skipping naptime.  I'll be honest.  It kind of sucks, but otherwise, no writing is done.  Little C. has stopped teething, but caught the flu then a cold.  I can see winter around the corner, folks!

But all is not lost.  Thanks to my nap skipping I have 3,000 more words written in the Angel story, which I been sadly neglecting.  I also have a rough draft of a new bio written.

I chaptered out the Angel book in Scrivener, which I have to say, I'm kind of disappointed with.  Scrivener is more of a writing program than an organizational program.  I don't really need a writing program.  I have my chapter outlines that I put in my Wonder Woman notebook, but I don't think I would ever take the time and effort to type those into a program.  I also prefer to write in Open Office.  I don't know why, but I just like writing everything out in one place.

So I think I'm going to go back to Notebook (I think that's what it's called.)  MUCH better for organizing your thoughts and world.  The labeling is amazing!

Beta Reading Claudia Lefeve's new book, Paradox.  So interesting to see where the twists and turns are leading us.  Etta is a grownup in this book, so that is also way cool!

Yes, I know, it's not an out of the ballpark blog entry today, but it's there!

Goals for the last ROW80 of the year?  Write something everyday.  Try to keep to my schedule of Tues/Thurs Angel, every other day of the week.  One blog entry a week, to keep accountable on my writing.

Happy Reading!