Tag: author

So, this week was kinda nuts. People may like their long Labor Day weekend, but I only work Monday/Wednesday/Friday, and I don’t get paid for holidays. Meaning I had to make up those hours if I want my regular paycheck, and my only available time now to do that is on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, after my morning class. I did manage to get a lot of homework done for one online class on Monday, but the instructor for my other online class didn’t open up the assignments for this week until Tuesday night.

Cue the Benny Hill theme song as I run around trying to juggle college, work, medical stuff, car stuff, and on top of that, writing. Oh, and eating, showering, and sleeping.

Goal 1) HTWAN story

• My Goal: 505 wpd, 1515 wpw
• Where I planned to be: 27775 total words
• Where I am: 27805 total words
• On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
I feel like I’ve been working on the same scene for weeks now. Oh wait.

It’s good though. Lots of tension. Even I keep asking myself how Jordan’s gonna get himself out of his predicament. And I just keep surprising myself.

Goal 2) Some Kind of Savior

• My Goal: Step 1: Find the changes – 20pgs per day; Step 2: Rewrite scene sentences when I’m done with that
• Where I planned to be: Done with Step 1
• Where I am: Done with Step 1 (finished 9/4), working on Step 2
• On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
Despite this week’s craziness, I really powered through finding all my changes. Now that the manuscript is all chopped up, finding my way through the pages was a little dicey at times (“…87, 88… where the hell is page 89? Oh, here it is on the back of page 80.” -facepalm- This is what I get for printing double sided…), but I managed fairly well. Actually reading through it after my initial cut, I can see a few spots where I know I’ll need to fix things, but it otherwise isn’t quite as bad as I was thinking.

I haven’t had a lot of time to work on rewriting the sentences, but it’s going well, and I can hopefully get it done tomorrow or Monday so I can start looking through the scenes to make sure those are solid.

No, it’s not Hump Day… yet. ;D

No, today is September 1st, which means pumpkin spice is it fall yet? please someone turn down the heat outside my new writing goals start today! So I’d like to post them here together so they’re all in one place.

Goal 1) HTWAN story

• My clear target is: Finish first draft of HTWAN story
• My reachable deadline is: Dec 31, 2019
• My working days are: Tues, Thurs, Sat, Sun
• My method of measuring progress: Word count
• My end goal: 50,000 words total (unless the book ends before I get there)
• My daily goal, and number of available days: 505 wpd, 3 days/week minimum
• My leverage — WHY I need to do this: I want to write more books, I want to become at least a semi-professional author, and this is the next step.

Goal 2) Some Kind of Savior

• My clear target is: Finish revision on Some Kind of Savior
• My reachable deadline is: Dec 31, 2019
• My working days are: Tues, Thurs, Sat, Sun
• My method of measuring progress: Lessons completed
• My end goal: 4 lessons completed (18-21)
• My daily goal, and number of available days: One lesson per month, 3 days/week minimum
• My leverage — WHY I need to do this: I want to finally see this book through to completion, and finally have it pay me, however little it may be.

This goal is gonna start off a little differently, though. The first thing I need to do is go through my scenes and really tighten them up. Refocus them, if you will.

Step 1: Find all the changes. Rough daily goal is going through 20 pages (every day this week), so hopefully I can be done with this step by the end of the week.

Step 2: Rewrite scene sentences. I don’t know how to set a goal for this yet because I haven’t done step 1. Hopefully this can be done in a day or two.

Step 3: Cut scenes as needed. Also unsure of this one, but depending on what needs to be done here, I’m hoping this can be done by Sept 14.

The second thing I need to do is go through and really think about my story’s limitations. These need to be set in stone for everything to work. I’m hoping this won’t take more than a week, and I can be done by Sept 21.

Yes, I realize this leaves me with a little over a week to actually do the lesson planned for this month. It’s a pretty easy lesson. I’m not worried. And even if I go over a little, this other stuff is more important.

I’d like to continue with weekly updates on this, probably on Saturdays or Sundays. Keeps me honest. If I think of anything else to add during the week, I’ll do that too.