Thanks to the fabulous Kerryn Angell, I'm participating in a new challenge this month. The February 100 is similar to NaNoWriMo, in that it's all about getting yourself into the habit of writing every day - but the goal is much lower, and that's what makes it so brilliant.

Write 100 words a day.

That's all.

See what I mean?

I like getting big word counts. I love getting to the end of the day and seeing that I've written a thousand, two thousand, even three thousand words. But I can't do that every day. Life interferes.

A hundred words, on the other hand, is always achievable.

I usually write pretty quickly. On a good day, a hundred words might only take me a couple of minutes. On a bad day, on a day when I haven't got a clue what I need to be putting down on the page, it can take me a lot longer. But even then, it's doable.

And that's the point.

When you're aiming higher - let's say NaNoWriMo standards, 1667 words a day - it's easy to feel overwhelmed. If it's getting towards the end of the day and you haven't written anything yet and you know you're supposed to be getting that many words, it can feel like too much. You think you can't do it in the time you have left. So you don't write anything at all.

But imagine if you're at that point and can tell yourself you only need a hundred words, and then you can stop. That's tiny. That's less than a third of this blog post. You can do that. And then you can read a book, or watch some television, or just go to bed, knowing that you've got some writing done.

And every day you do that, you're closer to really getting that habit going.

And once you've written a hundred words, you'll often find yourself writing more instead of stopping, because you're starting to get into the story.

It's easy.

Come and join us.

I sat down the other day with my lovely new diary and a notebook and tried to plan out my writing year. I started out with the list of goals I posted in October, and added and amended a few. These are my goals in a nutshell:

JANUARY - Edits
First and foremost, I need to finish typing up my line edits and get them sent out to a couple of beta readers. I was aiming for the 13th of January, but given that I'm now working most of next week I've moved that up - I want to get this done over the weekend. I'm averaging about 30 pages an hour and have about 270 pages to go, so I guess at that rate I'm going to need nine or ten hours... I'm hoping that I've remembered correctly and that there's less red pen on the later pages in the manuscript! And I have serious incentive on this one - I have a 10% discount for the Festival of Writing if I book before the 15th, and unless I get this done, I'm not letting myself go. At all.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY - First Draft
I need to finish the first draft of my NaNoWriMo novel. I've been working on this intermittently since the end of NaNo, mainly on my Alphasmart on the way to work. My solid deadline is the end of February, but ideally I want it done before then. I was aiming for the end of January, but I don't think that's very realistic since I'm at 58K and probably not going to be able to stick to NaNo pace - certainly not until the edits are done. We'll see.

MARCH/APRIL/MAY - Edits
After that, I want to start editing the novel I started for NaNo 2009, The Bonded. I'm looking forward to that. Needs a lot of work, but I'm hoping three months will be enough to get the bulk of that done.

JUNE/JULY/AUGUST - Short Stories
I'd been considering getting another novel draft in here, but then I thought about it and realised that I really don't want that many unedited manuscripts sitting around at once! So I'd like to spend a couple of months working on short stories, partly to give myself a break from the edits and partly because it's a form I'm still not very familiar with. I think I'll go back and work through some of the stuff in Merrilee's Creativity Workshop that I didn't get round to, and revisit the stories I did manage to write. I'd like to get five short stories ready for submission by the time September rolls around.

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER - Edits
After that, it'll be back to edits, aiming to get the line edits done for The Bonded.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER - First Draft
NaNoWriMo - the only time of year I seem to be able to sustain a decent writing pace for more than a couple of days, so it will be time to work on something new!

These, of course, are only the bits that I think I'll be able to control. Once I've got feedback from my betas, fixing any problems with Amulet will become the priority again. When that's done, I think it will finally be ready to face the world. So somewhere in all of that, I'll hopefully start querying agents.

The skeleton outline of the year is all very well, but my biggest goal is to make writing a priority. The funny thing is that it already is in many ways - but it's all too easy to let it fall aside from time to time, and that's what I want to avoid. I'm aiming for at least two hours of writing/editing on 'easy' days, i.e. those days when I'm not at work or particularly busy, and 30 minutes a day on busier days. Two hours is a lot, but I think I can do it. Some days, at least. ;)

So far, 2011 is looking like it'll be rather busy!

So... I guess it's been a while, huh? Apologies and all that. Must be time for a brief update...

Creativity Workshop
Sadly, my last blog post was the last time I did anything directly related to the workshop. Other things took over, and although I would very much like to go back and work my way through the last few weeks of the workshop at some point I had to put it aside. That snarky mercenary is still in my head though, and I doubt she's going anywhere! I suspect she may end up with her own novel at some point, but she'll have to wait a while.

The Amulet of Sìochàin
I finished my story bible, eventually. It was useful, I think. I know the name of the town in the novel now, anyway. It may prove more useful in the future, if I ever get round to writing the sequel. Either way, I'm glad I did it, but it did seem to take forever. I'm now (finally) on line edits, and they seem to be taking even longer. But I've sped up in the last week or so - until this week I was having to limit myself to doing 15 minutes at a time, because it just seemed so tedious. This week though I've worked on it every day, taking advantage of extra pockets of time where I've had them, and I'm now on page 228 of 373. I can't tell you how long I've been working on it, but it's been weeks, and yet in the last week or so I've probably doubled my page count. This means that if I can get through nine pages a day for the rest of October I will be done in time to start NaNoWriMo. Talking of which...

NaNoWriMo
I told myself that if I hadn't finished my line edits by November, I wouldn't be allowed to do NaNo this year. I've participated in and completed it for the last three years, so that would be bad. To be honest, I'm not sure I'll really have the time to complete it this November anyway, but I want to give it a shot at least. Apart from anything else, I really need an excuse to write something else. I've been working on these revisions since January. Okay, they were extensive and required lots of new scenes, but apart from a couple of short stories I haven't written anything new since I finished last year's NaNoWriMo book. I have a one-sentence summary of the book I want to write. I'm really really hoping I finish these line edits in time to do just a little bit more plotting though.

Goals
So, goals. I'm never very good at these, but it seems a good time to make them all the same.
Finish Amulet line edits by 31st October Participate in (and win) NaNoWriMo Complete NaNoWriMo novel (this will probably take me through to January) Type up Amulet line edits Do a final read through, put together a decent query letter and start sending it out Start on The Bonded edits (last year's NaNoWriMo book - love the concept, know it's going to need just as much editing as Amulet) and get it ready to submit to agent/book doctor at the Festival of Writing Attend Festival of Writing (end of March) And that's as far ahead as I can bear to look.

So, I said I was going to be working on those exercises on integral setting, right? Yeah. Well, I started to. I did the first exercise (I chose ancient Athens, incidentally) and found it really interesting - I think Merrilee's post really got some important points through for me. And then yesterday I started on the second, and it looked promising - I decided to do it for the novel I'm currently revising, since it's so fresh in my head. But I didn't get very far. I was going to continue with it this morning, but... well. Somehow I ended up in plotting mode for the second book in the series, and this is what I ended up with:

Essentially, I suppose they're mainly character sheets, with notes on the issues they're all facing and some of the most important things they'll have to do. I had been planning to do some collaging this week, but at the moment I don't have access to a particularly good printer so I haven't been able to do that yet (although I have found a few interesting pictures that I'll be using). But this may well have been the more productive option. I don't yet have my inciting incident, but I do have a good idea of my character goals and motivations (which is very rare for me at this stage) as well as some of the key events plotted out. I know where they're starting from, I know where they're going, and I know some of the places they need to visit along the way.

It was probably the most exhilirating plotting session I've ever had - I was buzzing long before I sat down with my pencil and paper. I learnt some things about the bad guys I hadn't realised before, and I realised that one of the relationships I loved so much in the first book isn't going to survive this one. There were a couple of things I came across that I am going to have to feed back in as I go through and do my (hopefully) final revision on the first book, but that's all to the good - nothing major, more foreshadowing than anything, but important all the same.

I'm excited about this book. I have no intention of starting to actually write it any time soon though - I'll get a more linear plan in place, and then I'll put it away. My current plan is to finish this revision and send it out, and then start working on the revisions for last year's NaNoWriMo book. It takes place in a completely different world, and it's one which I'm itching to get back to. That way, if things go really well, I have a plan for book two of the world of Amulet ready to go; if they don't, I have a whole other book and concept that I can bring up to scratch and start sending out. It does mean that I'm not going to be able to start work on a new book just yet, but I guess this is the year of extensive revisions, and that's okay. Last year I finished one first draft and then a week later jumped straight into the next, so it's only to be expected! If I can get Bonded revised by November, then maybe I'll get to work on another first draft for NaNoWriMo - but that's still some way off, and I don't want to rush anything.

Creativity Workshop Week Seven: Coming Up
This week, though, I need to get back into the workshop. Firstly, that means getting the second exercise on setting done and dusted - I have a feeling it will be useful to have that done before I jump back into the third draft. I think I'm going to put the third exercise aside for now and come back to it for the third block of the workshop, which is going to be about setting.

The block which I'm now in, although a week late, is about relationships. I'm really hoping my plotting frenzy continues tomorrow so I can get some solid ideas, but we'll see! I originally planned to explore four kinds of relationship, but with only three weeks that's a little more difficult, so I'm cutting out the housemates story. This week, I want to try the mother and son relationship - it seems appropriate, since we're spending time with both my parents and my in-laws over the course of this week! I think this is going to be a challenge for me, since, for obvious reasons, I have never been a son, and have yet to be a mother. But it will no doubt be interesting. All I know about the story so far is that it's set in a small town. Tomorrow, hopefully, I will learn a bit more about it.

Towards the end of last week, after completing my third short story for the Creativity Workshop, I realised two things: one, that my chances of completing my second draft before the 31st May were next to none, and two, that I'd already achieved what I'd set out to try and do in the first block. I'd explored objective POV in my first story, and weeks two and three explored first person viewpoints of two of my characters. I'd already told most of the story (and had creeped myself out considerably in the process with my shapeshifter killing maniac), and so I decided to take Week Five off and concentrate on my revisions.

It went well for the first couple of days - on Monday I added 8K, and on Tuesday I added another 6K. I'm now up to 91K in total, which is about 20K more than my first draft. I think the structure's much stronger, and I'm pretty happy with my characters. I still have a few more scenes to fix and write though - the second half of this week has been less productive. This morning I got up to write and realised that I just wasn't in the right frame of mind, so I've been finding new pictures for my Daily Photo Prompt blog instead.

Merrilee put up a great blog about writer's block, and for me, this is how it usually manifests itself. If I force myself to try and write, I'll get frustrated with myself, so I've learnt that it's usually about needing something specific. Often it's because I haven't been getting enough creative input (not reading enough, mainly), or simply because I'm too tired. This time, I think it's the latter - I had a dreadful night's sleep for no good reason. I usually find that being productive in other ways can help me quite a lot in getting past this, so I think this morning will be dedicated to housework. The laundry's already done, the kitchen is next in line for a cleaning, and then I'll try and get a bit of writing done.

I've rarely found myself blocked because of the actual story itself, but it has happened - in the first draft of Amulet, I wrote a particular scene and then just couldn't get past it. It took me a couple of days to figure out that while my hero might be a bit of a bad guy on the outside, I'd taken his evil tendencies a few steps too far until he was behaving wildly out of character. For one of the first times ever, I scrapped that whole scene in the middle of the first draft and wrote what actually needed to happen instead. I'm a big believer in writing through to the end of that first draft, but sometimes, it just can't happen. I have also found from time to time that I'm really not as much of a pantser as I once thought - sometimes, I just need to brainstorm until I figure out what needs to happen next.

So. This week, I haven't been working on a short story, and I'm happy about that. I couldn't have given it any kind of decent attention, and the story I was planning just didn't interest me that much anymore since I already knew everything about it from the other three stories in this block. Next week, I think I'm going to wing it a bit. At first I was very frustrated not to have reached my goal, but I'm over that now - I realised quickly that there were a whole lot of reasons why the second draft done was taking longer than I'd planned, and so I'm just going to get it done as soon as I can. I think it still needs to take priority for me at the moment though, so I may take this week just as a planning week, with my goal for the second block being to produce three short stories again. It depends - if I manage to get to the end of this draft in the next few days, I'll be right back on my AlphaSmart working on another story. But I want to give myself the space I need to finish this draft.

So, that's where I am. And until I'm done with this draft, I'll probably be a bit quiet. Could be three days, could be a couple of weeks - but I'll let you know. ;)

Having been thoroughly distracted by the General Election here in the UK, I'm posting my goals a little later than planned - but it's still Friday for me, so I think it's okay. ;)

This wasn't the easiest task in the world (which of course bodes really well, since this is just the warm up) but I'm fairly pleased with them as they are. I think I now have a pretty clear idea of what I want to achieve, and I'm quite excited about starting to write these stories.

Block One
Goal: Explore different points of view
Genre: Urban fantasy

One of the issues I mentioned in my issues and interests post was that I seem to be slightly stuck in 3rd person POV. I'd like to explore both 1st person and 3rd person objective POVs and see how they turn out for me - it's been a while since I wrote in 1st person, and I'm not sure I've ever tried writing an entirely objective POV in fiction. The word objective, along with the concept of the Eyewitness television series my husband keeps telling me to watch, made me think it would be interesting to explore these different points of view within the context of one particular event. As a result, that will be the link between these four stories.

I'm going with urban fantasy for this section. I think the event will take place at night in the middle of a city, not too busy but with a few bystanders, and will probably involve a shapeshifter performing some kind of rescue. (It will not be a werewolf, and there will be no vampires. This may only be for my own eyes, but there's enough werewolf/vampire fiction out there already. I'm thinking maybe the shapeshifter will be some kind of bird, but once I put pen to paper anything could happen.)

So, that will be the key event that ties the four stories. Then they will each be in a different POV. In Week One, I want to try 3rd person objective - detached observation, what happened, how it happened. This is mainly for experimental purposes, but I want to try and ensure that I don't touch any of the characters' thoughts at this stage. This will also give me a skeleton for the following three stories. Then weeks two to four will each be from the point of view of a different character on the scene - I'll find out more about those in Week One, and then spend the first day or so of each week exploring those characters before starting to write. (In Week One I'll spend that time figuring out what actually happens - either that, or I'll jump right in like the pantser I sometimes am and find out with everyone else.) These three stories may not necessarily be set in precisely the same time frame as the first, since they may look at the effects of the event rather than the event itself, but the event will still be the catalyst.

Block Two
Goal: Explore different relationship dynamics
Genre: Contemporary

This block will actually touch on two points. The one I actually mentioned in my issues and interests post was that I wanted to explore different genres, in particular those which didn't involve magic. I'm already trying urban fantasy in Block One, but this is a rather more radical departure. I'd say it's more of an interest than an issue, since I genuinely love writing fantasy, but nevertheless this may be a bit of a challenge.

Still, the issue I'm really focusing on here is relationship dynamics. (So if I end up with some fairy dust in there after all, that's okay. Really.) I'd never really thought about it until I saw Eliza's post on her issues and interests, but none of my characters really have any friends - certainly not at the start of my stories. They rarely have any close family either, and if they do, those family members don't tend to feature in the story much. I seem to struggle to write anything without incorporating some kind of romantic relationship, but other than that, most of my characters' relationships aren't really very meaningful.

I don't have quite such a clear idea of the stories for this block yet, although I'm sure I'll get there. However, I do have four relationship types I'd like to explore:
mother and son friends since childhood housemates student and mentor I want to aim for a mix of male and female characters, and I also want to ensure that all the relationships are platonic. Again, I'll spend the first day or so of each week exploring the characters, but for this block I'll also need to spend some of that time working out the story dynamics. However I want to make sure I'm actually writing by the Wednesday of each week.

I do know that I want this series to be set in a small town. I may also use the idea of a linking event here if I feel the need for some additional focus (although shapeshifting superheroes are definitely out of the question). However I hope that won't be necessary - I'd like to be able to keep the link as simple as location for this block.

Block Three:
Goal: To incorporate more description of setting without info-dumping, and to ensure that the setting is important to the story
Genre: Fantasy

The major issue I'd like to work on over the course of the workshop is my fear of using too much description. I've got to the point where I shy away from anything at all, so that a lot of the time I don't give any real impression of the setting of the scene or story in question. I want to work on feeding more description into my work, and I think a good way of trying to do that is by working on ensuring that my settings are important to the stories.

For this one I'm going with my traditional stomping ground and throwing myself back into traditional fantasy. I think I've definitely been influenced by Merrilee's goal post, in which she mentions that her first block will explore heroic females - there's a band of mercenaries in my head now, and they seem to be led by a particularly bossy (and rather snarky) dark-headed female. I don't know her name yet, but I'm sure it won't be long. (If she's as insistent as I suspect she might be, I may have to bump this series up to Block Two, but I'm going to try and resist that.)

So for this block, it'll be the characters who link the series. Their stories will take place in four different locations, which at this stage
will most likely be the following:
A harbour/shoreline - They need a boat, I think. Not sure they have a clue how to sail her though. In the mountains - Cold, weird altitudes, short tempers, should be interesting. On a farm - How do you defend a farm when the cattle are all over the place? At the inn - I foresee a drunken brawl. I think the biggest challenge here will be remembering to keep focusing on the setting rather than letting the characters run away with the script. For Week One of this block I'll have to spend the first couple of days learning about the characters as well as figuring out the story, but in subsequent weeks I'll already have the character information to hand, so hopefully won't need as long to prepare.

And I think that's everything. I hope it is, anyway, because this is a ridiculously long post. Sorry about that. :)

Because I'm a bit mad, I've signed up for a twelve week Creativity Workshop over at Merrilee Faber's blog, Not Enough Words. The workshop hasn't started yet, but in the run-up I'm thinking about where I want to focus my attention over that time. I'm having a bit of trouble with this, but here we go all the same...

Short Stories
I've written a couple of short stories, one of which I really liked, but I don't really give myself the time to explore the possibilities of short stories. I always have a novel in progress, and so all my writing time gets dedicated to that. This isn't necessarily a problem, but occasionally I struggle to move on with the WIP, and I think it would be better if rather than just not writing I was better able to work on something different. I'm not brave enough to try and tackle two novels at once, but I think I could cope with working on a short story from time to time. This is something that the workshop as a whole ought to be pretty helpful with, rather than a particular issue to focus on, since I'll be working on a new short story each week. Since I'm revising at the moment, this seems like a good time to try this theory out - I'd be a little more cautious if I was in the middle of a first draft, but I'm looking at this as a kind of test. If I can make it work with revisions, hopefully I can make it work with first drafts too.

Idea Generation
Another one that's likely to be dealt with merely by doing the workshop, I suspect, but important nonetheless. It's not that I don't have ideas, but I don't seem to have very many of them. The ones I have usually seem pretty good - I have potential plots for the next two books in the Amulet trilogy and one for a completely separate idea in the back of my head - but if I'm going to start trying to write more short stories then that simply isn't good enough. I suppose really the problem is more specifically ideas for short stories. Merrilee said that "A short story is just a climax scene without all the buildup," and I really like that way of looking at it. Unfortunately, most of the time I don't know the climax of my story ideas until I get to it, so I guess we'll see how that goes.

POV
I always write from the same POV, third person limited, but with multiple POV characters. I have one POV character per scene and everything within that scene is told from that person's POV. I'd like to experiment with this a bit - merely out of curiosity, I'd like to try third person objective, and so stop myself from being able to talk about anything that's not actually said or done. I have a feeling this will make me think about things rather differently, and although I highly doubt I'd ever want to use this kind of narrative in most of my work, I do think it'll be a very interesting exercise. I'd also like to play with first person narratives - when I first started writing, I used this a lot, but I haven't tried it in a while and think it might be helpful for experimenting with the ever-problematic 'show don't tell'.

Description
My problem is that I don't put enough in. I've heard the 'no info dump' and 'show don't tell' rules so many times that I think I'm kind of scared to put anything in that isn't actually action and dialogue. (Well, and internal musings, but that's a whole other problem.) I'd like to experiment with working description in to my writing, trying to get that balance right.

Magic
A few people doing this workshop have mentioned that they want to play with the use of magic a bit more. For me, the problem is the opposite. Perhaps it'll prove different with short stories, but I seem to be incapable of coming up with novel plots that don't involve magic. That's okay - I love fantasy, and I'm pretty sure it's what I want to be writing - but I would like to use this opportunity to try something a little different.

Setting
Linked to the last point, really - everything I write is set in another world. Usually leaning towards the traditional medieval-type fantasy setting. I'm not really sure why. This is another point that isn't exactly causing a problem, but that I'd like to explore. Maybe some urban fantasy. Or, heaven forbid, some straight contemporary drama. Anything's possible, right?

Those are my initial thoughts. The first two aren't really things to focus on, since they'll be addressed through the workshop anyway, and of the others the only one that I really see as a problem is the description. So that's definitely one to work on. The others - POV, magic, setting - they're all things to play with, things to explore. And this seems like the perfect time to do that.

Last week's goals:
Fit in seven writing sessions Reassess short story and see what can be done with it Start on new ficlet Blog post Well, you can see the blog post for yourself; the ficlet was written this morning and tomorrow I'll check it over before posting it - it's a fanfic snippet for a Lord of the Rings forum I'm a member of.

As for the rest, well, I've yet to revisit the short story, but I'm fairly sure I won't be doing anything else with it. Maybe I'll post it here at some point, but it was just a short, fun little piece which I don't think will really find a place in a paying market. And I'm happy with that.

As for the writing sessions - I didn't quite get seven. I didn't write all weekend in fact, but then Monday came around and as I was capturing tapes to the editing PC for the day job I got a lot of writing done - over 10K in the end, which took me past the 70K mark and well towards the end. So on Tuesday, I finished the first draft. It came in a little short, but since I know there are things to be added earlier in the story I'm not too worried about that.

This means that technically, I've now completed two novels. I doubt I'll ever do anything with the first one - I started it nearly exactly a year ago, for NaNoWriMo 2008, but I've learned such a lot since then that I know it would need a complete rewrite to work. I definitely plan to revisit some of the ideas and maybe even one or two of the characters, but I hadn't really grasped the concept of actually telling a story when I first started it.

I'm feeling more positive about the second one. I'm putting it to rest for a while now - after all, NaNoWriMo is nearly here - but when I come back to it in a couple of months I think I can do something with it. I loved the concept and with a bit of TLC I'm sure I can make it work. Finishing it was a bit odd, because I'd been enjoying the writing so much that I felt rather bereft when it was done, so I'm looking forward to diving back in.

First though, I have a new story to write. This week will be dedicated to plotting (having written one book with plotting and one without, I now know which I prefer). This story is going to be very different to the previous two - as far as I can tell, there's nothing magical or paranormal about it. However, there will be a white horse.

So, this week's goals:
Finish ficlet Story plotting using How to Think Sideways methods Collage Final word count:

76358 / 76358 words. 100% done!

Last week I set myself these goals:
Fit in five writing sessions Submit short story to another magazine Start on the next lesson in How to Think Sideways Blog post I've had mixed results. My writing has been going great, and I definitely exceeded the five writing sessions goal, but I'll come back to that. As far as submitting the short story goes, I deliberately haven't, as I'm not really sure where I should send it. It's a 750 word one-shot, probably classified as urban fantasy (or at least something along those lines), but I'm not sure there's that much to it. So I think I need to reassess that one. I haven't started on the next lesson in Think Sideways because I've been spending most of my spare time actually writing, since I'm so deep in the story. And as for the blog post - voíla.

But it's the writing that's the interesting part. After last week's post, where I said that "I need to remember that evenings are available too", I decided that I was going to see what I could do with that. But rather than just doing so when I skipped my morning writing session, I thought I'd try for both. The results were pretty surprising.

I've found this before, and in so many ways it seems entirely obvious, but the more I write, the easier the words flow. I get completely into the story, so that when I come back to the page a few hours later it's still fresh in my head. This is why the rule "write every day" is so important for me - if I don't, I lose track of where I am, and it can take me a whole scene to get back into the story properly. I know there are some writers who work differently, but I'm learning that this is the most important rule for me. And writing twice every day places me even more solidly into the story, and lets me remember how much I love it.

I actually lost track of my number of writing sessions, but my total for the week is about 16K - by far the most I've written in one week since last year's NaNoWriMo. It might actually be my most productive writing week ever, which is a fairly staggering thought, because it's just seemed so easy. There's got to be a stumbling block just around the corner, but for now, I want to keep up this momentum and keep writing. At this rate, the first draft of this story could be done before this year's NaNo starts - and although I haven't got a clue what I'd write if I were to take part, I'm pretty sure I'd have to give it a go. Provided of course I don't run into total burnout, which is probably very likely.

All in all, though, an excellent week, making it a bit more difficult to set next week's goals. I don't want to lose momentum, but I'm not keen on setting daily word count goals, and it isn't practical to aim for two sessions daily, even if it is the best case scenario. Still, I need something to write on my whiteboard, so this week's goals are as follows:
Fit in seven writing sessions Reassess short story and see what can be done with it Start on new ficlet Blog post Current word count:

62587 / 80000 words. 78% done!

I'm finally at home with no plans to go anywhere in the immediate future, which means there is the smallest chance that I might actually be able to manage a blog post now and again. I'm not making any promises though - life is unpredictable.

Despite being in one place, this week hasn't been the greatest writing-wise. I keep sleeping badly, which means I end up staying in bed longer than I should, which means that by the time I get up I feel like I really need to get on with the day job rather than fitting some writing time in. (This is a serious hazard of working a) from home and b) with my husband. Because I hate working late into the evening, but if I don't get the hours in then I'm letting him down - which means working when I get up is the best option.)

When I get up early enough, I love writing in the mornings - but tonight I realised that actually I quite like writing in the evenings too. This is the first time I've done this in months, so it was something of a revelation. The biggest problem with it is that I'm far more likely to be disturbed, but for those days when early morning writing sessions aren't an option, I need to remember that evenings are available too. If I plan my time well, I can actually have quite a bit to play with, and I'm incredibly lucky in that - but somehow it's easy to forget.

Despite not updating my blog, I have been working with weekly goals. I write them on my whiteboard, but I think it would make sense if I were to start posting them here too. I didn't do too well on this week's goals. (My week is from Saturday to Friday, incidentally, because that's how we do at Will Write for Wine.) In fact the only goal I met was to make a blog post - and you can see how last minute that one is. This means that a couple of my goals are carried through to this week - and the other two should be happening every week anyway. Fit in five writing sessions Submit short story to another magazine Start on the next lesson in How to Think Sideways Blog post Last week I only got four writing sessions in and completely skipped the second and third goals. Hopefully next week I'll remember to check in - and maybe I'll even have met my goals!

Current word count:

46041 / 80000 words. 58% done!

June was an utterly insane month, as we moved house and juggled some of our biggest jobs ever, and as a result I didn't do very well in SocNoc at all. I wasn't really expecting to win, but I only managed 12,336 words, which was less than satisfying. Still, I'm up to 25K in the new manuscript and really enjoying the story, so I won't complain too much.

Blogging, of course, dropped off my to do list entirely, for which I can only apologise. Actually, I think double apologies are in order, since I should have posted a couple of weeks ago when we finally managed to stop in our new house for more than two days at a time. The problem with that was that I wanted to post about my new writing room, and in particular put some photos up, but the truth is I haven't got round to taking a single picture of the house yet. (I did, however, manage to write an article about Using Writing Spaces and Rituals to Your Advantage, if you're at all interested.)

Another thing that was rather ignored during the madness of June (and most of July, obviously) was my How To Think Sideways lessons. I nearly have all the lessons now, but I'm only half way through what I have (I'm on lesson 11 of 22). When I've had the chance to work on it, it's continuing to be very useful indeed, but lately that's not been very often.

As a result of the last couple of months, I've changed my routine a bit. I missed so many writing sessions that I got quite grouchy about it, so I've lowered my sights a little. I'm setting myself a weekly word goal of 4000 words and giving myself weekends off. That works out at 800 words a day, which is usually quite manageable, and if I hit my word goal earlier in the week, I can have an extra day free. (I'm also considering an Amazon reward system, but I'm not sure that's entirely wise.) It's an odd way to do it, but it seems to be working - it's not that I don't want to be writing on weekends, it's just that we're still so busy at the moment that I need to let myself off the hook a bit.

I'm really only working on the novel in the mornings now, although I'm trying to make a point of doing something writing-related in the evenings - whether that be blogging, writing an article, or working on an HTTS lesson. Assuming that I manage to stick to that, I hope it won't be quite so long before my next post.

So... the May Marathon over at Will Write for Wine went pretty well for me, all things considered. I'm pretty sure I met all my goals - it surprised me, but I'm pretty pleased with myself.

May's Achievements:
- Wrote, edited and submitted a 2500 word short story - two rejections so far, waiting to hear from the third market.
- Typed up all of my handwritten edits for my NaNo 2008, making further changes as I went alone, and sent that off to be beta'd by my sister.
- Using Lessons 7 & 8 of Holly Lisle's How to Think Sideways course, I actually did some serious plotting and produced about 35 scene cards for my new story idea, creating a full story skeleton.

June's Goals:
- It's SocNoc, so my main goal for June is simple: write 50,000 words. Hopefully on this new story idea that I've got all plotted out.
- As far as short story stuff goes, I'm hoping that the market I'm currently submitting to will give me some helpful feedback. I already have a couple of things in mind I'd like to take another look at with this short story, so before submitting it elsewhere I think I'd like to do one last pass on it. I was so excited about my first submission that I think I may have sent it out before it was really ready to go. Or perhaps I'm just being paranoid. Either way, I'll at least check it through once more before resubmitting.
- Lessons 10 and 11 of the How to Think Sideways course. I'm on the six month version, which means I get a sent a new lesson each week, and I was hoping to get through them faster than I am - but being able to take it at my own pace is going to prove very useful this month as we're in the process of moving.

So that's that. We'll see how we do. The whole moving thing may cause a few hiccups this month, but I think it should be okay. I'm aiming for 50K, but honestly, I'd be happy with 25.

Have a good month!

Okay, so I think it's time for another update on my May goals. If it's just crossed out with no explanation, then I already covered it in my first update on my May goals.

- Write a 3000 word short story - it's pretty much all planned out now, and even has a working title (which is more than I can say for my NaNo), so I hope to get started on that in the next couple of days.

- Work through Lesson 8 of the How to Think Sideways course, Planning. - I have started this. Or at least, I've read through the lesson. I'm deliberately putting off the actual task, though, since I don't want to start properly until all my edits for my NaNo are typed up.

- Type up all my handwritten edits for my NaNo story and send it to my sister to read. Will also probably get my husband to read it, although he's insisting that he wants me to read it aloud to him! Try and line up another writer to take a look at it, terrifying thought though that is. - I'm getting there. I'm nearly at the halfway point. I scrapped 3000 words today. Ugh.

- Put the pre-plan modules from Lesson 7 of HTTS into practice for my new novel idea. - Done.

- Edit the short story.

- Put Lesson 8 into practice for new idea. - Nope - see above!

- Further research into possible markets for short story.

- Submit short story. - Done. First and second rejections already received. Third submission made - and this one gives mainly personalised rejections, so hopefully if I don't make it in I'll get some helpful feedback.

So I'm doing pretty well, all in all. I've also done some other stuff on my NaNo - I finally drew a decent map for it (yay!) and I also built two of the key buildings in Sims 2 (my gaming weakness). That's really helped me get a feel for the world and the layouts - I had most of it pretty much in my head anyway, but it's really helped to clarify a few things. I did create two of the characters as well - limited accuracy, really, but it made me think a bit more about the physical characteristics that I maybe haven't described as well as I should. I've also been doing some behind the scenes work on my new website - not quite ready yet, but it's getting there.

Oh yes, and I'm moving to Wales, where I will have a gorgeous view over a beautiful green park from the room I've already labelled my Writing Refuge. If that doesn't help my muse, I don't know what will.

Just over a week ago I set myself some goals for May as part of our May Challenge over at Will Write for Wine. Here's how I'm getting on - completed tasks have a line through them, my comments and additions are in bold:

- Write a 3000 word short story - it's pretty much all planned out now, and even has a working title (which is more than I can say for my NaNo), so I hope to get started on that in the next couple of days. - I had a first draft before the 1st May was over. It turned out that it wasn't quite going to make it to 3000 words - there wasn't enough story for that - but I was pretty pleased with it.

- Work through Lesson 8 of the How to Think Sideways course, Planning. - Haven't done this yet - seems silly to start it when I haven't finished the previous lesson's exercises yet!

- Type up all my handwritten edits for my NaNo story and send it to my sister to read. Will also probably get my husband to read it, although he's insisting that he wants me to read it aloud to him! Try and line up another writer to take a look at it, terrifying thought though that is. - Nothing yet.

- Put the pre-plan modules from Lesson 7 of HTTS into practice for my new novel idea. - I've started this - I've done character sheets for my protagonist and antagonist. Hoping to get some more done over the weekend.

- Edit the short story. - Done - I'm on the third edit now. First I showed it to my husband, who was very helpful, and followed his suggestions. Then I asked a couple of the people in my HTTS workshop to take a look at it, and have taken their comments into account. I'm waiting for their feedback on the changes now, and then I think it's about ready.

- Put Lesson 8 into practice for new idea. - Nope.

- Further research into possible markets for short story. - Done - I've found six I like and put them in the order I'm planning submit to them. I'm not expecting miracles - these are pretty difficult markets to crack and I am after all entirely new at this - but I'm kind of looking forward to that first rejection. Also a couple of them seem pretty good at personalising rejections, so that should be useful.

- Submit short story.

At the suggestion of the lovely Karen Pinco, we're holding a May writing challenge over at Will Write for Wine. I have quite a few things going on right now (at least in my head!) so I thought it might be a good idea to write down my goals for the month.

- Write a 3000 word short story - it's pretty much all planned out now, and even has a working title (which is more than I can say for my NaNo), so I hope to get started on that in the next couple of days.

- Work through Lesson 8 of the How to Think Sideways course, Planning.

- Type up all my handwritten edits for my NaNo story and send it to my sister to read. Will also probably get my husband to read it, although he's insisting that he wants me to read it aloud to him! Try and line up another writer to take a look at it, terrifying thought though that is.

- Put the pre-plan modules from Lesson 7 of HTTS into practice for my new novel idea.

- Edit the short story.

- Put Lesson 8 into practice for new idea.

- Further research into possible markets for short story.

And if I manage all that, maybe I'll even get to start writing that new story!

I decided that the only way I'll keep any of my goals this year is to actually keep a record of how I do, so today I created a new spreadsheet for just that. It's very basic at the moment - weight, exercise and word count. But it means that I can tell you that I wrote another present fic and some more of the fanfic I was working on today, with a total of 1307 words for the day. Which isn't too bad considering how little I got done over Christmas. I was away from home for nearly two weeks and although I managed a few rough drafts of present fics I haven't even looked at my NaNo since I last wrote here.

My goals, incidentally, are fairly basic.

1. Finish my NaNo.
2. Write at least five days a week. I'm realistic enough to know that I'm unlikely to be able to do it every day at this point. It doesn't matter what I'm writing - just write.
3. Do NaNoWriMo 2008.
4. Read some craft books. Just because.
5. Cook from scratch more often. I enjoy it when I do, and the food is always better that way.
6. Exercise. Hubby and I got an EyeToy game for the PS2 for Christmas, and it's fantastic. It's sort of like the Nintendo Wii, except that it's a lot cheaper and you don't have to hold on to anything. The game we've got includes bowling, volleyball, assault courses and various other less active things, and it's a great way to get just a bit more exercise.
7. Work a decent number of hours a day. Since hubby and I work from home, I tend to get sidetracked quite easily, which he finds very frustrating. It means things get done much more slowly than they should do and it annoys me as well. I rather wish I could turn off the internet while I'm working, but since we're a media and IT company it's very rare that I don't need to use the internet!
8. Eat. More. Fruit. And. Veg.

I think that's about it really. They're not particularly stringent - I know that if I set a specific goal I tend to flounder about and generally won't meet it. I'm just aiming for improvement, that's all.