Tag: novel

Goal 1) Publish SKoS

• My Goal: Spend at least 10 mins, 3 days/week minimum
• Where I planned to be: Spent at least 10 mins (cause short week)
• Where I am: Spent …many mins
• On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
I’ve already done some testing on my titles in Holly’s forum, so I’m taking the top 7 and sketching out covers. I’ve found some photos on Scop.io I can probably use, but I may end up taking some of my own. (Writer, amateur photographer, what else can he do?) All that’s left to do now is start mocking up covers so I can get some opinions.

As for getting edits, I can use Holly’s forum to find folks who will do it for free, but I’m also looking into professional edits. One option is much cheaper than the other, but I know more about the more expensive one and I’m convinced of the quality. Not that I’m not convinced of the quality of the cheaper one, but I haven’t heard much about it. I’ll have to seriously weigh all my options.

Goal 2) Revise SYCU

• My Goal: Spend at least 10 mins, 3 days/week minimum
• Where I planned to be: Spent at least 10 mins (cause short week)
• Where I am: Spent ~20 mins
• On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
I read the first chapter and uh… not only do I not remember writing any of this…

It’s REALLY good. At least as far as first draft goes. Maybe not the best beginning, but… I don’t have much bad to say about it. Nothing that jumped out at me as “this is a huge problem”. Mostly it’s just a little clunky in places. Easy fix. Later.

But for now, so far, so good.

New me! I am resolutely refusing to call them resolutions. (See what I did there?) Because “New Year’s Resolutions” have never worked for me. But achievable goals?

That I can do. I’ve proved it, multiple times, these last few months.

Goal 1) SKoS (Insert Final Title Here)

• My clear target is: Publish Some Kind of Savior (or whatever it ends up being titled)
• My reachable deadline is: Oct 18, 2021
• My working days are: Tues, Thurs, Sat, Sun (for now)
• My method of measuring progress: Steps completed (Title, cover, copy, edits, final formatting, upload)
• My end goal: Publish!
• My daily goal, and number of available days: Spend at least 10 mins, 3 days/week minimum (obviously if I’m waiting on editors, I just… have to do something else)
• 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.

Why the odd and incredibly lenient deadline? That’s when I turn 30. I seriously want to publish this thing before that. Hopefully it won’t be a close call. If things go well, I’m hoping it can even be before my 29th birthday.

Goal 2) SYCU

• My clear target is: Revise Something You Can’t Understand (once again a working title, and not really a good one at that, but w/e)
• My reachable deadline is: Dec 31, 2020
• My working days are: Tues, Thurs, Sat, Sun (for now)
• My method of measuring progress: Lessons completed and/or pages
• My end goal: Have a final typed-in draft
• My daily goal, and number of available days: Spend at least 10 mins, 3 days/week minimum
• My leverage — WHY I need to do this: I liked this idea when I created it, it’s been sitting for a while, and doing this is part of being an author.

This one… might be a crazy goal. I don’t know. (How many years did I sit on SKoS again?) But they say the first one is always the hardest. If that’s true, I’m willing to bet this one won’t be easier by much. It was a product of a painful NaNo attempt (that I won! But it was not an easy victory) back in… 2014? Holy shit, I can’t believe it was that long ago…

But I’ve learned a lot revising SKoS, I’ve learned a lot writing Krasnaya, and I’ve learned a lot through living life in the six years post college. (University? Technically I’m still in college. Whatever.) Baby steps gets shit done. Consistency gets shit done. I know that now.

What about a new novel?

I’ll uh. Get back to you on that.

No, seriously. Like I said, I’m still in college. Classes start up again on the 13th. I want to see what kind of workload I’m looking at before I go lumping on too many projects. And I still have to decide if I want to revive an old idea (and figure out how to do so) or start from scratch. From where I’m sitting, the latter option is far easier.

Here, how about I just say I’ll make a call by the end of January. There you go, goal number 3.

Goal 2) Some Kind of Savior

• My Goal: 1 lesson per month, 10 pages per day for type-in
• Where I planned to be: 120 pages typed in
• Where I am: 120 pages typed in
• On Target or Behind: Finished!

How’s It Going:

IT’S DONE! I did it: I finished my revision of this beast on time. This is huge. I’ve been working on this thing for… 6 years now? I don’t know how I feel about it, tbh.

I’m still gonna go back and do a little tweaking on the time. Minor stuff. Next is to really dig into mocking up covers, preparing it for release (!!!), and gear up for my next revision…

…And the next novel. I have a couple of old ideas I may try to liven up again. But if in doubt, thanks to Holly, now I know I can just whip out something new.

So what am I doing now that my HTWAN story (code name “Krasnaya”) is done? Absolutely nothing. Actually, I’ve been working on title/cover combos for SKoS.

“What, the book’s not going to be called Some Kind of Savior?” I heard someone ask. Or maybe it’s just in my head.

Maybe. Maybe not. I came up with that title spur of the moment when I was submitting the first couple of chapters to my creative writing class for critiques in spring of 2013. While I was still writing it. (Yeah, I know, bad idea. Live and learn. This is absolutely why the beginning was so borked.)

Is it a good title? I think so. Is it the right title or the best title? I don’t know. That’s why I’m experimenting with titles and covers to see what works best.

Goal 2) Some Kind of Savior

• My Goal: 1 lesson per month, 10 pages per day for type-in
• Where I planned to be: 90 pages typed in
• Where I am: 101 pages typed in
• On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:

Goal 1) HTWAN story

• My Goal: 150 wpd, 450 wpw
• Where I planned to be: 44150 total words
• Where I am: 44552 total words
• On Target or Behind: …FINISHED!

How’s It Going:
IT IS DONE. Almost 500 words short of 45k, but that’s okay. I realized about halfway through that I dropped a piece of technology that became pretty important toward the end, so I know I’ll end up adding words in revision. But either way, it’s done!

My official finish date was the 12th, so my earliest pick up date to start revision on this would be Jan 11th, if I use the 30-day mark. I will… probably not start that soon. I have another novel in the wings waiting for revision first. And it’s ready to go, ASAP.

Yes, I was smart this time and printed one-sided, and it is a whopping 358 pages, just over 50k words.

Goal 2) Some Kind of Savior

• My Goal: 1 lesson per month, 10 pages per day for type-in
• Where I planned to be: 60 pages typed in
• Where I am: 81 pages typed in
• On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
I’m having to pace myself, because all I want to do is rip through the rest of it at once. But it’s going well. What’s great is the closer I get to the end, the less work I have to do, because the beginning was more messed up than the end. There is a lot of cutting and pasting going on though, where I’ve moved entire scenes around.

I am gonna have to go through when I’ve got everything cleaned up and really get my time straightened out. I couldn’t do it on paper very easily, with everything so screwed up, but hopefully it won’t take long on the computer.