Tag: novelist

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.

Goal Update 3/21

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: Screaming
  • On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
Listen, I’m still screaming about being next in line for my content edit. Holly said she’d get back to me in at least a week, depending on how well Matt’s current edit is going. So hopefully sometime next week? I’m excited and nervous all at once but I just… idk. I know parts of it probably still suck, but I hope there’s also parts that are really good. And that the latter outweigh the former.

Man, I’ve worked on this thing for so long, and now it’s come down to this. It’s a weird rush.

In cover news, I made another four and posted them on the forums for critiques. Covers are hard. We’ll leave it at that.

GOAL 2) REVISE SYCU

  • My Goal: 2 Lessons per month/ 1 Lesson every 2 weeks
  • Where I planned to be: Lesson 4, roughly halfway, can’t really do this one by chapters
  • Where I am: Finished Lesson 4; Lesson 5, 12 scenes in
  • On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
Lesson 4 was rough, but not as bad as SKoS. It was a little easier to separate everything out because I wrote… incredibly lean, somehow, even though out of the three novels I have now, this one has the highest word count. Most of my scenes are plot-centric. So that’s a thing. And I’m ahead of schedule now, yay!

So I didn’t mention it, but I came up with 75 scenes in this, so that will be how I measure progress for Lesson 5. This is the lesson I get to go through my conflict scene by scene.

And, uh. It’s not pretty. But that’s okay. It can be fixed.

Goal Update 3/14

Due to the coronavirus bullshit, I’m now on extended spring break. Which I guess is good for my writing work, but I’m still upset. I like going to my Cisco class. And I still have to do my Linux work because it’s online anyway.

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: Confused
  • On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
Surprisingly, my last round of covers went over really well on the forums. I’m not quite there, but I’m getting damn close, and that’s something.

Although, some of the conflicting critiques are… hmm. First my colors are too subdued, now they’re too bright. And I have all the elements in there that supposedly indicate urban fantasy, but these covers don’t “feel like UF”. And it seems like every font I’ve used is wrong, even the ones that are supposedly good for UF. Idk what you want from me.

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 3, through chapter 16
  • Where I am: Lesson 3, through chapter 16
  • On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
…heeeeeeey, macarena!