In With the New

As I mentioned last week, I did not start out last year with a set of goals. Now I’m not saying this is what caused the pandemic or anything, but I’m pretty sure it was at least in part the reason why it took me so long to get into the writing swing of things.

So this time, as 2020 started running down, I started thinking more and more about what I wanted from the year ahead. I made lists, and came up with five main goals, and sub-lists of ways to achieve these goals. This is what I came up with:

1. Write More

Kind of self-explanatory. I did a lot of weekly prompt stories last year, but it was a struggle and it didn’t leave anything left for other writing, which is why it took so long to finish Blood Ties. But when I did finally get going on Blood Ties, I really enjoyed myself. So much so that I went ahead with NaNo.

Once upon a different blog, I had links to two very cool writing exercise prompts. The first was One Word, which would generate a single word and give you one minute to write something based on that word. The second was Write Every Day, which would give you a sentence and five minutes to write. Alas, these wonderful writing aids are gone now, but I did a search and found a random word generator that generates as many words as you like. I’m going to set it for three, and give myself three minutes to free-write on a daily basis.

I will also (hopefully) work on Knightsong to get the first draft finished by the end of the year.

2. Edit More

Believe it or not, I actually enjoy editing. Just not my own stuff. LOL

First up is Blood Ties. I’ve already started this and it’s going well. I want to keep up the momentum and finish ASAP.

Next will be An Elemental Spirit. The draft was done for last year’s NaNoWriMo and I haven’t touched it since. It needs a lot of re-writing and I’d like to see that finished by year’s end.

In between novels is my ever-increasing collection of flash fiction that needs to be polished up.

3. Publish More

It should go without saying that I’d like to see Blood Ties released into the wild before the year is over.

I’m also planning on submitting a story or poem for publication on a weekly basis. There’s no point in writing all this stuff and not doing anything with it.

4. Learn More

I’ve collected a lot of information on writing techniques over the years, but mostly I’ve just put it all in folders on my lap top to look at “later.” Well, later never seems to come so I’m going to start going through this pile of information and maybe even take notes.

I also want to take a couple of classes. I really enjoyed the Speculative Fiction classes I took a few years ago – they were both fun and informative. Of course with the pandemic and all these classes will have to be online, but that’s fine by me.

5. Find A Balance

Woman cannot live by writing (and editing) alone, she also needs to read. And I don’t mean the reading binge I was on for the first half of last year, more like an hour or two a day.

I also need to carve out time for my crafts – it’s either that or get rid of my copious amount of craft supplies and I’m not ready for that. I’m also still a member of the Northumberland Stitchery Guild, and when we start meeting up again I don’t want to show up with an empty work bag.

And spending so much time at all these things that are done sitting down, I need to get off my butt once in a while and get some exercise. It might help if I snacked less too.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

So those are my goals for 2021 and how I’m hoping to achieve them. There are some things I’d like to do every day – the three word prompt, editing, reading, and exercising. The rest will take some juggling until I find a workable system.

But I think as goals go this is doable. Only time will tell how doable they are.

Back On A Whole New Track

Despite the lateness of this post today, I feel like I’m getting back on track, albeit a brand new track. Last week got really busy towards the end and it kind of got away from me. But I’m here now, right?

Alrighty then.

As you know, I was trying to put together an anthology of my darker flash stories in time for Christmas. It’s not that I didn’t have enough stories for at least a slim volume, but they all needed work (and my head’s just not in edit mode these days), and who wants to read horror at Christmas? Okay, well some people do, but not the majority of people the anthology is intended for.

So the dark anthology has been scrapped until the new year, and the new plan is to have it ready for next Halloween. This lets me take my time and perhaps it won’t be just flash stories, I have a few longer ones that would fit the bill too.

But I haven’t given up the idea of a book flood anthology. I have a number of lighter stories that will work, and they’re in much better shape than the darker ones. So cross your fingers for me.

Meanwhile, I promised to talk about NaNo for those of you who haven’t yet discovered the joys of writing in a pressure cooker.

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo or NaNo for short) takes place during the month of November. The goal is to write 50,000 words in 30 days – that’s 1667 words per day. Now they’ve redesigned the website and I don’t find it as easy to navigate as it used to be, so if you’re looking for the full history of it, you might want to do a Google search.

In a nutshell, it started in July of 1999 with Chris Baty and consisted of 21 writers. They had such fun that in 2000 it was moved to the month of November (because it’s such a grey and dismal month and there’s nothing better to do) and they created an official website as well as a few ground rules: you had to use new words only, you couldn’t have a co-author, and your word count had to be verified by the end of the month. They had 140 people sign up – about 30 of them finished.

The next year, to Baty’s astonishment, 5,000 people signed up with 700 finishing, and it’s been growing steadily larger ever since. Last year there were 287,327 participants with 35,387 finishing.

I first attempted NaNo in 2006. I say attempted because I had no clue what I was doing and my story ended at 35,000 words. I missed the next year but in 2008 I completed the challenge, as I did for the next 6 years in a row. I did not participate in 2015, figuring I had enough un-finished books on my hard drive, but I got back in the saddle in 2016 and have been participating ever since. You might find it ironic that my 2017 novel is a sequel to my failed 2006 one.

NaNo is fun, NaNo is frustrating, NaNo is addictive. I totally regret the year I skipped it – I felt itchy the whole month and didn’t really get anything else accomplished. And I don’t know about anyone else, but it’s something that can’t be duplicated at any other time of the year. Under a deadline? Why not try a January NaNo? Nope. Doesn’t work. You have to do it at the same time as the other crazy people around the world.

If you’d like to learn more or sign up, visit their WEBSITE. As I mentioned, they redesigned the site so I’m finding it a little difficult to navigate these days, but I’m sure they’ll iron out all the wrinkles soon. And if you do sign up, look me up to be your buddy – I’m Carol R. Ward over there – and I’ll buddy you back.

Goals For The Week:

At least 3 more stories edited for the new anthology
Come up with a cover design for NaNo novel
Get my research done for NaNo novel
Come up with a game plan for NaNo novel

And since I won’t have an excerpt ready for Thursday, I’m hoping to have a monk story ready for you.

An Embarrassment of WIPs

New Words - 557 + 1051 + 617 + 397
Poetry - 0
Total Words - 2622
Editing Hours - 0
Paragraphs of Notes - 4

So ... despite last Monday being a holiday, I finally started to ease into that much needed writing schedule I’ve been yearning for. I wrote 500+ words on Monday, twice that on Tuesday, nothing except updating my journal (a week’s worth) on Wednesday, and Thursday ... Okay, Thursday I did park my butt in my office at the appointed hour, but that was it. And no poetry at all last week.

I did print out some stuff to work on during nap time (which didn’t happen - the writing, not nap time). I just kind of ground to a halt. The mind was willing but the fingers were weak. I got hit by a dose of writer’s apathy and I’m still struggling with it. And while I did lose three days to the writer’s apathy, I did start to rally on the weekend and get a few more words in.

But there’s another reason I didn’t get as much done as I could have last week and I can’t for the life of me decide if this is a good excuse or a really stupid excuse, but here goes. You be the judge:

I have too many projects to choose from.

I have a folder on the desktop of my computer that’s labeled Working On. In this folder is 28 document files - all stories that are in various stages of being done. Some just need a little tweeking, some need a lot of work. A couple are stories I started for the weekly BSB prompt and never got off the ground, but I want to finish anyway.

But wait! There’s more. There are also 8 sub-folders that contain a total of 143 files of stuff I’ve been working on. That’s a lot of WIPs to choose from, don’t you think? And that’s not even dipping into the folders on my desktop marked Books, Short Stories, or Poetry.

The Books folder, for instance, holds all of my NaNo efforts as well as folders for several different series I have plans for. Not just novels, but series of novels. I’ve completed the NaNoWriMo challenge 10 times and only 1 of those novels have seen the light of day. Shame on me! But it’s no wonder I’m not getting anything done, I have so many irons in the fire you can’t even see the fire.

So, what am I to do?

I’m going to change the name of the Working On folder to To Be Worked On and maybe even store it on a USB stick to remove temptation. I will create a new folder called Currently Working On for my desktop, and in it I will limit myself to no more than six WIPs, including the novel I’m hoping to have done in time for Christmas. And if I’m going to have a prayer of that happening, I’m going to have to seriously up my game.

Expect to see the New Words at the top of this post divided between Short Fiction and Novel next week. And it would really help if Book Bub would stop offering me so many good books to read. And maybe the new season of television could be put off for a couple of months.

And at this point I really have to wonder, what was I doing with all my time over the last few months?

Better Than Nothing

New Words - 614
Poetry - 177
Total - 791
Editing Hours - 0

Okay, so maybe not a lot to show for my week, but it’s better than nothing, right? It’s certainly better than the last couple of weeks.

The new words were for a story for the Brazen Snake Books weekly prompt (check out this week’s prompt HERE, and if you scroll down you can read my story.) I got the idea while I was parked on the pier, sipping a cup of coffee late Saturday afternoon. Fortunately I had a notebook with me so I sat there and jotted down notes, and when I got home I sat down and started typing it out on my lap top.

IN MY OFFICE!

That’s right, I wrote that story in my office. No, I didn’t finish getting my office cleaned up last week, but I did clear off enough space on my desk for my lap top and notebook. It was one of those rare occasions when a story pretty much came to me all at once and I wrote it out in one go.

Okay, technically it was two goes. But I got the bones of it done out on the pier and just had to flesh it out when I got home. Normally even with flash fiction I take at least a couple of days. Of course I may have been influenced by the fact I was ticked at the hubby at the time. Nothing like anger at a dumb-ass spouse to get the creative juices flowing. ;-)

The poem was also written for the BSB prompt, but it was written over the course of several days. The prompt was to write about a favourite or least favourite carnival ride, and I knew immediately what I wanted to write about. But first I had to do some research - that’s right, I had to do research for a poem - and then it took me a couple of days to actually write it.

This week I was hoping to implement my plan to get back into the writing habit. I considered everything I had to do during the week, and what time I had free, and figured out a couple of times during the day I could spend in my office writing.

Normally I take the hubby to work at 10:30 a.m., and my normal morning routine would allow me to spend between 9 and 10 writing. However, this week the brother-in-law is on vacation and the hubby needs to be to work for 9. I’m not sure whether this will give me more or less time for pre-babysitting writing, but whether I write or not I’ll be sitting in my office. I’m trying to develop two habits here really, daily writing and writing in my office.

Eventually I’d like to have different days for specific kinds of writing, but for now I’ll just be happy to get the words in.

This week's goal is to beat last week's total.

Let the games begin!