Round 2 Goals

My goals are simple again - even though I'm also doing Camp Nano this month, with a goal of 50,000 words.

Once April is over, I'm going to attempt to keep up my momentum by continuing the 1,667 words per day. That, and continue planning far enough in advance that I'll always have something to write.

It sounds simple, but I have to do everything on my terrabyte drive and take it with me everywhere I go. Scrivener is on that drive, as well as my projects, so I can work anywhere there is a computer. My laptop is on its way out, so I made everything portable to use the computers at work instead.

Hmm. Maybe it doesn't sound so simple after all.

Looking forward to jumping back into ROW80!

I've Got the Blahs...

Everything has fallen off-track for me. I've given in on pizza and chicken. My only triumph on the chicken was that it happened to be rotisserie, not fried. A small gain, but a good one.

Writing? Hah! I think I've managed about 250 words since last Sunday, and plotted about three scenes. And I've only figured out where to put one of them. Then again, maybe not. Hmm. Have to take a look at that again. Thank God you can reorder things easily in Scrivener. I keep one scene per chapter while I'm working and planning, to make everything easier to shift if I need to.

The only upside to this week is that I gained another private student. That's a great thing, and very much appreciated at my bank.

Well, since my creativity button doesn't seem to want to work this morning, I think I'll put on my exercise clothes (t-shirt and sweats) and go to the gym. Something good has to come out of today, right?

See you Wednesday! (If I have anything to report...)

Today I'm a Babbling Idiot

Yup. It's true. Babbling. Completely. Know why? It's because I haven't really slept in two days. It's because vampires are real.

I'm sure if you, dear reader, live in the world of acceptable reality, you're probably thinking, "Huh?" Read on, and I will enlighten you.

I may have mentioned in previous posts about my odd upstairs neighbors. They sleep all day, with the blinds tightly closed. They only surface after dark. And, just before dawn, there is always a crashing around upstairs and the sounds of dragging furniture around. Hmm. Coffins?

They tend to do their "living" at night. In fact, Friday night, after spending most of their "day" outside on the porch sharing the dark (very loudly) with friends, they decided to call it a day. At approximately 5:45 a.m. About 15 minutes before my alarm went off. This semester, I teach two math classes on Saturday. Beginning in the early morning. I went out on my patio and I let them know that I really enjoyed their conversation, but it was time for me to get up and go to work now. As an afterthought, I added that I also appreciated the fact that they kept me from having to use my alarm clock that day. It was very thoughtful on their part. Yeah. Right.

Repeat last night.

I love coffee. A lot. I've been mainlining it for the past couple of days. Hence, the babbling today.

Goals:

I'm changing my writing goals because I made a great discovery in Scrivener. Now, I'm sure it's evident to anyone who's even remotely competent in it. But I just figured out how, when in the corkboard view, to add things in between the cards to facilitate plotting. This is making my life SO much easier. Therefore...I'm changing my writing goal to simply finishing a very detailed plotting of "Immortal Blood." Any writing that comes from that will be a bonus.

I also have to add studying for my teaching certification exams. I've got to take three, and I've got to have them done by the end of June. So that's going to take time away from writing. Unfortunately. Teaching math is going to be my ticket out of Florida back to the land of cold and snow. Yeah!

See you all Wednesday!

Lost In the Fog

Morning...at least, I think it's morning. Looking out the window, all I can see is fog. That's okay, thought, because it's matching what's going on in my head. Not a lot, so far.

On the writing front, something great happened yesterday. I came across an old blog post of Gwen's (I think her last name is Hernandez - but I'm not sure) explaining how to create templates in Scrivener. She's the author of "Scrivener for Dummies." I've been wanting to do that, because as I plot out what's happening, I'd like to make sure I have some thorough scene analyses to go along. Hence, the additional templates. All I can say is, Gwen's a goddess. She's gotten me out of a heckuva jam.

My goal for the day is to get all my templates created and start another Scrivener file to make my planning more comprehensive. If I'm really lucky, I'll get some writing done, too.

Other goals:

I've not made it to the grocery store yet today, so I'm on track so far. I'm still looking to spend only on local or USA products.

The plan is to go to the gym later this afternoon. I think there's a class I want to take, but I have to check the schedule to make sure. Luckily, the schedule's online so that will only take a moment.

I've been failing miserably when it comes to taking time for myself. Writing in a personal journal has gone by the wayside. Meditation hasn't happened. I'm more focused on trying to study for my teacher certification so I can work in the K-12 school system, and finding a part-time job because my hours have been cut at work. I'm down to 24 right now. Not good. But the pendulum always swings, and there will be an upside. I know it's coming, and that stops me from fretting too much.

I keep using a mantra from Firefly, originally uttered by Kaylee: "Everything's shiny, not to fret."

So far, it works. Life is good.

First Round of 2013

Welcome to Round 1! I'm so excited to be back. I'm at work, so I have to get my goals out really fast and get back to what I should be doing. Here we go...

Writing

• Continue planning and organizing "Immortal Blood" in Scrivener.
• Plot out scenes in detail, including transitions and/or final sentences.
• Finish 80 pages of new material.

Community/Economic

• Buy American, if at all possible. Congress doesn't seem to be able to get our country back to work, so I will do my best to help.
• Buy from local farmers, as much as I can, to keep the money in our local community.

Exercise

• I will go to the gym on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Sundays, because those are the days I have off, and so I'll have no excuse not to go.

Personal

• I will try to take some alone time for myself, to recharge my batteries.
• I'll try to write in my journal as a method of private meditation.
• Continue to eat healthier, as much from scratch as possible.

See you next time!

My Head is Spinning!

Hi everyone!

Hope all of us are recovered from Overeating Thursday and Black Friday. Here's my goal rundown:

80 Pages for this Quarter: Completed, but mostly due to Nano.

Planning: Still going. I've gotten over 60,000 words for Nano right now, so I think I'm going to use my Scrivener software and do some major rearranging of scenes and things. I think I may need to make better sense of it all before I continue any more planning of big things.

Fried Chicken: I haven't had any in the past week.

Pizza: I've managed to stay away from that, too.

Exercise: There's one that I'm failing miserably on. I have to find a way to organize my life better. It will come in time.

I hope everyone else is doing well. It's going to be short and sweet today, as I'm getting the flu that's been slamming my roommates to the ground. So, it's off to the kitchen to make a big batch of homemade soup to get me through this crap.

See you Wednesday!

Wow, What a Week!!

Happy pre-Thanksgiving, everyone! I've been running around like a crazy person buying things for Thanksgiving, and writing like a crazier one. I cracked the Nano 50,000 word goal the day before yesterday, reaching 50,088. Not that I'm quitting for the month - oh, no! In fact, I've got a meeting with writing friends tonight. But I've got to get my Thanksgiving prep done first.

Goals:

I've made my 80 pages for this round, having done over 200 just for Nano.

Planning has suffered somewhat this month, as I've been focused on output alone. I've had a weird few scenes centered around a therapist office. My heroine had a breakthrough - and a meltdown. It made me tear up and leak a bit while I was writing it. (Since I was at work at the time, that might have been not so great. Luckily, my students know what I'm like and it doesn't faze them.) I got a couple of interesting motivations, from the werewolf guardian/secret assassin, so that's going to be fun to play with. Especially since one of her phone calls is overheard by the heroine's lover. Talk about it hitting the fan!

Exercise and junk food aversion fell by the wayside for the past week or so. My words were more important than anything, and my lack of kitchen participation showed it. Oh, well.

I've got to put a plug in here. Now, before I do, I have to say I'm in no way involved in this company and have not financial or personal interest in it whatsoever. My Nano output has been phenomenal this year. I've never done anything close to this in only 19 days. And I have to say that I don't think I could have done it without using Scrivener. I downloaded their Nano trial version, and it blew me away. It's now my go-to piece of writing software. I can't say enough about it. (Getting down from soapbox now.)

Off to go make some applesauce and some cranberry/orange compote.

Have a wonderful, safe Thanksgiving. (Isn't it wonderful - the leftovers mean we won't have to cook, and we will have time to write more! One more thing to put on the list of things to be thankful for.)

Goals and Scrivener

Morning, everyone! Here's the midweek rundown:

1. Exercise - I discovered that I procrastinate more than I should. (Actually, should anyone ever really procrastinate? I'm going to answer yes, because if I'd made it to work on time today, I might have been caught in the elevator fire we had in my building. Whew!) Ok, back to exercise. I'm finding that only walking during the commercials doesn't work for me. There's always something "more important" to do, like unload the dishwasher or throw another load of laundry in. So, it looks like it's going to have to be done all at once.

I also discovered that vanity was a better motivator for me than health. Huh. Who woulda thunk it?

2. I haven't done any "writing" yet - still doing a lot of planning. But I had this outrageous nightmare last night, which I'll probably try to get on the page today between rounds with students.

3. No fried chicken or pizza. Go me! And the fried chicken is on sale this week, too. I came home from work late on Monday, so we had Chinese instead. Veggies were better for me, and I had leftovers for lunch. I worked out great.

4. I'm doing well on the no processed food goal. It seems that less processed equals better flavor. Things are really looking up.

Could I get some feedback on something? I'm currently using WriteWay as my writing software, but I'm considering switching to Scrivener because it also does screenplays. How do all you Scrivener users like it? Why do you like it? Have you had any experience with WriteWay?

Thanks for all your feedback - I really appreciate it!