Another Month Has Zoomed By

January disappeared on me before I even had the chance to realize it was here, and now we're almost a quarter of the way through February! I miss the days of my youth where time just seemed to exist in endless quantities.

Well, January pretty much consisted of me dealing with my little one's new favorite thing: temper tantrums. Yup, that's right, she wants what she wants NOW and if she doesn't get it then she decides to bang her head on the floor.... She is not making life easier, I'll say that much. And I spent a week dealing with my husband's computer that managed to collect the Sinowal Trojan - it's still not fully off, and I will likely have to do a wipe and re-install of the entire OS (for now I'm waiting on a response from the tech gurus at Bleepingcomputer.com).

So, where did all this leave me? With not a single new word written. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. And six days into February with no new writing to show for it either. I did critique a lot again. Had to have a novel critiqued by the end of January, but I was even four days late on that because of the damn sick computer.

Let's see...I also revised "Ancient Ways" and got that into a slush pile, which was just returned as a rejection this week and has now been sent out again. I also sent out my three queries for Mind.

Oh, yes, I do have a bit of good news! A story I submitted to the Writers of the Future contest earned me an Honorable Mention. I know, it's not a publishing credit, but I have to savor every scrap I get.

I've also been thinking about the MFA. Aside from still needing to send in my acceptance and write the essay for the Scholar's Discount, I think because of the little one's new temper tantrums (did I mention she's also not napping until like 7pm? sigh), I am going to have to take it at a slower pace than originally planned. If I'm allowed to, I'm just going to take one online reading course during the June term, as well as next January term, then go back for my first residency and the heavier load in June 2011. I hate to do it, but I think it's the wisest path (see, there's that Wisdom goal peeking in). I still intend to get the F in between my MA - it'll just be a little longer than originally planned. This also means I can ease up on my Before June Battle Plan.

Anyhow, goals for this month, even though it already feels like the month is almost over.

- Study - clean, organize, file the papers away, put pictures up...finally make it usable for a writing hideaway! (Yes, I still haven't done this - I hate cleaning SO much.)
- Finish the rough draft of "Love Fades" and send it out for critiques.
- Dead as Dreams rough draft - right now any progress would be good....
- Revise "Ode to Buses and Libraries," then send that out for critiques.
- Edit and Submit "Ode to Buses and Libraries," depending on when I get it revised and critiqued.
- Start revising "Hell Hath No Fury".
- Continue critiquing - I'd like to get through another 180 pages of a novel I'm critiquing by the end of the month.
- Update Blog and Website bi-weekly (likely opposite weeks).
- Send out three more Queries for Mind.
- Keep my completed short stories in slush piles - all are currently in circulation as of yesterday - let's hope for an acceptance somewhere!
- Continue reading Storm of Swords and resist the urge to pick up some already read Ursula K. LeGuin novels (I blame Cheryl for this itch!).

That seems doable. Maybe. It would be nice if I managed to get some downtime this month. I haven't played any video games for two weeks, and my body is yearning for a break! Break or no, I have to keep going and start crossing things off my scary To Do List. Happy writing, all! ;)

2010 Already!?

It snuck up on me! The end of 2009 and the beginning of 2010. I have no clue where the year went! But it is a new year now, which means renewed vigor to get things done. I hope. It's only the 3rd day of the year and I already feel behind...I hope I don't feel that way for all of 2010.

Anyway, with one of the silly collecting games I play, they have new creatures for the 1st of the year. I snagged a bunch on the 1st and named them after my hopes for the year. Here's the list, along with my pretty little Wisdom bird:


Wisdom
Balance
Patience
Diligence
Intuition
Determination
Creativity
Optimism

I need to think of these eight things as I take everything I do step-by-step, with each task I check off of my endless list.

I'm not going to post a yearly goals list here this year (that won't of course stop me from drawing one up otherwise, as I am a compulsive list maker - it's an obsession). I will continue to post my monthly goals, though. Nice doable chunks that way - right?

Sorry for not posting an update in December, but I got crazy busy with holiday stuff (we celebrate Yule in our house, but visited the in-laws since they celebrate Christmas). And since I was crazy busy with holiday stuff, I didn't get all the goals for last month completed. Sigh. That's why I feel so behind.

It doesn't help that a short story I had lined up to write in March decided it wanted to be written NOW. Fickle characters.... That means I'm behind on Dead As Dreams, even more so since I didn't attain my monthly word count. I have time to slowly catch up, really I do!

Are you wondering what I accomplished in December with writing? Mainly a heck of a lot of critiquing, about 3,500 words written between Dead as Dreams and "Love Fades", and I read a little bit.

The goals for January are as follows (some are copy and paste from last month):

- Study - clean, organize, file the papers away, put pictures up...finally make it usable for a writing hideaway! (Did I mention the holidays made things crazy? - Not enough time to clean - sigh.)
- Dead as Dreams rough draft and "Love Fades" short story - write at least 3,000 words per week, ultimate goal of 20,000 words by the end of January.
- Revise/Edit "Ancient Ways," then subsequently submit it somewhere.
- Revise "Ode to Buses and Libraries," then find a few people to critique it. =)
- Edit and Submit "Ode to Buses and Libraries," depending on when I get it revised and critiqued.
- Revise "Hell Hath No Fury," then then send it out for critiquing (why do I see this one taking me a really long time - it's a massive short).
- Continue critiquing - lots of critiquing! - I am halfway through one manuscript, but it is now on hold because another manuscript has priority.
- Update Blog and Website bi-weekly (likely opposite weeks).
- Send out 3 Queries for Mind.
- Keep my completed short stories in slush piles (I have a few that came back and really need sending out).
- Read 50 pages per week in the current novel I'm reading. (I read a little bit in December.)
- Start to catchup with online Writing Groups and Newsletters that I am tremendously behind on.

I am really hoping the holiday craziness doesn't leak over into January too much. One of my Saturday's will be shot, though, to do the holiday thing with my mother. =(

Diligence, right? Have to get it done! Happy writing, all. =)

December 2009 - Battle Plan!

True, there is still a day left of November, which means I could theoretically get more words. The problem is, I won't be able to write - Mondays are insanely busy days, and if I don't get certain things done, they won't get done for the rest of the week.

With that said, I have drawn up a Battle Plan for myself extending all the way through the end of May 2010. Why? Well, in June of 2010, I'm planning to go back to Seton Hill University to get my MFA! The Writing Popular Fiction Program is now offering a MFA instead of a MA. Since I already have the MA, I only need to take half the required credits to get the MFA. Am I crazy? Yes. Will this mean I barely have time to breathe? Yes. Am I worried about time and money? Always. But it's worth a shot, and I think it will encourage me to rev up my writing engines and keep them humming.

Once June hits, I won't have time for many other writing projects I need to finish. Hence The Battle Plan. Dead As Dreams needs to get finished before June! At least the rough draft.

Instead of posting the entire Battle Plan, I'm going to post it in monthly chunks. Future blog posts will track my progress (as well as Twitter posts - I have been enjoying Twittering during NaNo - remember if you wish to follow me on Twitter, my username is AlexaGrave).

December's goals:

- Study - clean, organize, file the papers away, put pictures up...finally make it usable for a writing hideaway!
- Dead as Dreams rough draft - write at least 3,000 words per week, ultimate goal of 14,750 words by the end of December.
- Revise/Edit "Ancient Ways," then subsequently submit it somewhere.
- Revise "Ode to Buses and Libraries," then find a few people to critique it. =)
- Continue critiquing - lots of critiquing!
- Update Blog and Website bi-weekly (likely opposite weeks).
- Keep my completed short stories in slush piles (I'm happy to say all are currently off my desk and waiting in aforementioned slush piles).
- Read 50 pages per week in the current novel I'm reading.
- Start to catchup with online Writing Groups and Newsletters that I am tremendously behind on.

That's it. Not too scary, right? If I take things one month at a time, I think it won't be so intimidating. Unfortunately, I have other non-writing things that need to get done before June as well. Sigh. Well. Bring it!

Wish me luck, and happy writing!

NaNoWriMo 2009

As promised, here is my post that will track my progress with NaNoWriMo for the month. I will try to update the Writertopia graph daily (there is also a Word Count meter on the left side under my Twitter updates). Once in a while, I'll post a note with the date under this meter, instead of starting a new post for every comment I have.

Also, if you can't tell, I am doing frequent updates with Twitter - so if you want to know how I'm progressing, just follow me on Twitter (AlexaGrave)!



11/1/09 - Day 1 down, only 29 more days to go! The weekdays will be the biggest challenge, since my husband was around to be driven nuts by the little one today. Hey, at least it didn't feel like I was writing total crap. ;)

11/6/09 - Weekdays = no way I'm getting anything written because the little one demands my attention and I refuse to live in squalor (dishes and cleaning bathrooms, etc.). By the time my husband gets home I can barely think! And this Sunday I won't be writing either since we'll have friends over most of the day installing the molding in the little one's room (this must be done, as it's been put off for over a year and a half already). Sigh. We'll see what I get done on Saturday, but right now reaching 15k by the end of the month would make me happy.

11/9/09 - I'm not sure what's wrong with the Writertopia counter. I'll still update the other meter at the end of each day. Perhaps I'll copy that meter here in the post as well.... Anyway, I may be far behind, but at least I haven't given up (even though last Tuesday I was very close to giving up in a bigger sense because trying to do everything I need to do has been straining me). Only got a couple pages today, but it's better than nothing.

11/10/09 - Yay, I'm 10% to 50,000! I know, I know, still way behind. I have to revel in the little accomplishments to keep me going at least.

11/22/09 - I was sick most of the week. =( And I gave up on the 50k goal a while ago. Just not going to happen with the little one and other things. That doesn't mean I'm going to stop trying to add to my word count. I'm hoping for 14-16k by the end of the month. We'll see!

11/29/09 - I was planning to hit 10k at least, but unforeseen circumstances meant I couldn't (trust me, it was a good excuse, as far as excuses go). I won't be writing on the 30th, so 9,003 is my total for NaNo this year!