Meilo Zaborowski: Author

Goal Update 4/18

Goal 1) Publish SKoS

My Goal: Spend at least 10 mins, 3 days/week minimum
Where I planned to be: Spent at least 30 mins
Where I am: Uhh…
On Target or Behind: it is a mystery

How’s It Going:
I started going through Matt’s notes and putting them in comments on my manuscript Google doc… and realized I have no idea how to do an editor’s revision. (I mean. I can guess. But.)

The more I look at it, the more I really want to do it on paper. So I guess it will have to wait.

As for covers, I’m down to the last of my winning batch of titles to do initial mockups for. I’ve been doing some more research, watching a lot of YouTube videos, really investigating what’s been done and how. And I think it’s really just gonna come down to tweaking it until I get it just right.

I’ll be sure to let everyone know when I get there. /s

Goal 2) Revise SYCU

My Goal: 2 Lessons per month/ 1 Lesson every 2 weeks; 3 chapters/13 scenes per day
Where I planned to be: Lesson 7, through chapter 9
Where I am: Given up on Lesson 7, reading through Lesson 8 to prepare for next week
On Target or Behind: On Target, I guess?

How’s It Going:
Ah, the world triage lesson. This is actually the one lesson I gave up on halfway through and just skipped when I was doing SKoS because it was so tedious and annoying.

My opinions have not changed. And I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that, in this world and in the SKoS world, mostly everything is the same as real life.

I tried. I really, really did. I know this will be important to know for later revisions (Krasnaya is set on a completely different planet). But the first worksheet was driving me crazy, so I moved to the second and kinda modified it a little. It was slightly more redundant, but made more sense to me and used less paper. But it was just as tedious, so I finally just gave up.

I also think part of my issue is I can’t print anything right now; I’m doing all these worksheets on notebook paper… as in, writing out all the questions and THEN my answers. And this involves a lot of paper and a lot of writing.

GOAL 3) SURVIVAL

My Goal: 500 WPD, 1500 WPW
Where I planned to be: 4500 words
Where I am: 4559 words
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
Listen, no one can understand how happy this is making me. I feel really good about this story. It’s actually pretty difficult to stop myself when I hit my daily goal when all I want to do is find out what happens next! I love it.

Which is more than I can say about SYCU right now. But I digress.

Goal Update 4/11

GOAL 1) PUBLISH SKOS

My Goal: Spend at least 10 mins, 3 days/week minimum
Where I planned to be: Spent at least 30 mins
Where I am: No one’s paying attention anyway
On Target or Behind: On target?

How’s It Going:
I am SO DAMN CLOSE with these covers, I’m telling you. While I’ve been waiting for all the feedback to come through this week, I’ve been scouring the internet for typography tips, and anything book cover related. Because while I’ve almost pinned down the image part, the main complaints I’m getting now are typography related. And I’ve discovered that the ins and outs of typography are… well, subtle and tedious.

I did rediscover an old bookmark to Matthew Butterick’s Practical Typography. I don’t know when or where I found it, but it’s just been chilling in my bookmarks for who knows how long. I will say it was an interesting read, and may prove useful later (which may have been past-me’s thinking as well), but not so much for my current issue.

YouTube tutorials. It’s all about the YouTube tutorials…

GOAL 2) REVISE SYCU

My Goal: 2 Lessons per month/ 1 Lesson every 2 weeks; 3 chapters per day
Where I planned to be: Lesson 6, through chapter 9
Where I am: Finished Lesson 6
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
*thumbs up* This lesson went faster than I expected. Since this was all about characters, and I technically did most of the work finding them in Lesson 2, I didn’t even have to read through everything this time.

On to the next.

GOAL 3) SURVIVAL

My Goal: 500 WPD, 1500 WPW
Where I planned to be: 3000 words
Where I am: 3002 words
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
I’m still loving this. It’s stupid and crazy and I haven’t even gotten to the fun parts yet. I feel like I’m doing a great job fleshing out the characters in such a short span, or maybe it’s just in my head. Either way, I love them already, and I can’t wait to ~~make them suffer through hell~~ take them on an interesting adventure!

Snippet time!

NOTE: The following material is a copyrighted excerpt from raw, unedited first draft, which may contain typos and spelling or grammar errors. Please do not point out corrections or make suggestions as I will not see them during revision. Please do not quote this material, as it may not survive to final draft.

“Dude, that’s just a… oh my god, that’s a massive cow.”

Aaren scrambled to his feet, wanting to look again but not wanting to get too close, settling for clutching at one post of his bed and peering around Brandon’s shoulder. Sure enough, the hulking frame of a solid black cow nearly filled the small, grassy area outside their window, almost too long to stand between the trees. Its head was down, calmly grazing on the grass, but its back was almost level with the floor under their feet.

“Allow me to rephrase: that’s a massive bull.”

Aaren glanced at Brandon. “How can you tell?”

Goal Update 4/4

Goal 1) Publish SKoS

My Goal: Spend at least 10 mins, 3 days/week minimum
Where I planned to be: Spent at least 30 mins
Where I am: Hopeful
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
So, in case someone missed it, I got the edit notes back from Matt the other day, and they were overwhelmingly positive. I’m still a little speechless about it.

There are a few things he’s right about and I’ll definitely need to fix, most likely with his suggestion. A few others that I’ll have to think about. A couple I’m not sure how to fix because his suggestion was good, but still wrong for the story, but I know they need fixing now.

As much as I’d like to do the fixes on paper, unfortunately due to the whole COVID-19 thing and our printer having been sent out to pasture a while back, I’ll have to deal with doing them on the computer. Or maybe I’ll come up with something. I’m still reeling.

Also, he said in his opinion, it’s pure urban fantasy. And I think I’m gonna go with that. So I wasn’t too terribly off-base with the genre, and I can continue working toward that goal with covers. Which I think are going well.

Goal 2) Revise SYCU

My Goal: 2 Lessons per month/ 1 Lesson every 2 weeks; 3 chapters/13 scenes per day
Where I planned to be: Lesson 5 finished
Where I am: Lesson 5 finished!
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
Lots to think about. But it’s going. That’s about it.

Oh, and uh…

GOAL 3) Survival

My clear target is: Write 50,000 words
My reachable deadline is: Dec 31, 2020
My working days are: Mon, Wed, Fri (i.e. my usual work days, so this will have to change when I go back to work. But for now…)
My method of measuring progress: Word count
My end goal: Finish a novel (preferably 50,000 words worth)
My daily goal, and number of available days: Write 500 words, 3 days a week. So 1500 words a week.
My leverage — WHY I need to do this: If I’m gonna be a paid author, this is just part of the gig. And I really want to be a paid author.

And since I already started on this…

My Goal: 500 WPD, 1500 WPW
Where I planned to be: 1500 words
Where I am: 1544 words
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
~~Ignore the title, it probably won’t be the final one.~~ Two scenes in and I love this already. It’s a little clunky and I may have to hammer out some details, but I’m not gonna let it bother me.

First draft is always crap. First draft is allowed to be crap. Because I know now, thanks to Matt, that I can make it shine.

I’M SCREAMING

MATT LIKED IT.

“To be blunt, it was simply a fantastic read; so fantastic, in fact, that I finished it in a single sitting. Didn’t even get up. Not once.”

Goal Update 3/28

Well, I got laid off Wednesday due to COVID-19 causing loss of business. Bossman said he’d appreciate my return when he reopens the branch, so it’s only temporary, but. For how long, we don’t know. I’ve applied for unemployment in the meantime, hoping for some kind of income, even if it’s… meager. Gotta pay my phone and insurance bills and feed the cats, yanno.

School is restarting face-to-face classes next week via Google Meet. So we’ll see how that goes.

GOAL 1) PUBLISH SKOS

My Goal: Spend at least 10 mins, 3 days/week minimum
Where I planned to be: Spent at least 30 mins
Where I am: Contemplating
On Target or Behind: On Target?

How’s It Going:
I got some really great feedback this week on the forums. Not that the covers I posted were all that great, but some of the advice. I’m still not hitting the mark for genre, and it probably has something to do with the photos I’m using/my criteria for photos I’m using. Someone had the brilliant suggestion to just make random covers that have nothing to do with my novel for practice, to take my writer hat off, so to speak.

In other news, I finally got the okay to email my manuscript to Matt! He said he’d get back to me no later than next Friday. I can’t wait!

GOAL 2) REVISE SYCU

My Goal: 2 Lessons per month/ 1 Lesson every 2 weeks; 13 scenes per day
Where I planned to be: Lesson 5, through scene 38
Where I am: Lesson 5, through scene 40
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
Slogging through. Nothing amazing. Lots to fix.

More free time, new work?

So I have this story idea that started off about 10 years ago as an alternate universe fanfiction. I got the opportunity to talk about it with Holly at the beginning of 2018 and she pointed out that if I wanted to use the idea for a novel, I had to fix my world, because it was tragically broken. Which it was, absolutely.

Literally the night before I got laid off, I couldn’t get this old idea out of my head as I tried to go to sleep, and how I could rework it to fix the world. I tried to ignore it – I’ve got enough going on right now, right? And Holly always says the best ideas will come back to you when you need them – but a little after I got the phone call, it all came rushing back.

I’ve run the idea through the beginning stages of How to Write a Novel to develop the concept a bit more. I won’t be setting any goals just yet, other than I’ll probably start in on the writing by the end of next week.

And, of course, any goals I do make for this will need to be modified as the situation changes.