Archive for the ‘Progress’ Category

July 29, 2010

about, Progress

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Who, me?

During our last NARWA carpool, we were chatting away when my friends decided I was organized.

My first thought? “Yeah, right.” I believe I said something like, “You wouldn’t say that if you saw my desk at work.”

That’s true. My desk is one of the messiest in the newsroom, with piles and piles of stuff. My bedroom is the same way: stuff everywhere. Of course, I do know right where to find most things, so I guess you could call it “organized chaos.”

And yes, I am that girl — the one who has an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of her word count progress.

I have to use that silly program somehow, since I paid an arm and a leg for it in my Office package. I bought it for the Word, but refuse to have TWO unused programs. Since I have no idea how to set up Entourage, Excel it is. I’ve even figured out how to create cool charts to show my progress.

Hmm. If that makes me organized, I’m guilty as charged. Especially now that I’m focusing on treating writing like my day job so it’ll become my day job, I’ve been keeping track.

And I have been busy: Since deciding last year to enter the Golden Heart, I’ve …

  1. Revised Brad & Erin’s story and sent out several queries on it. (Received one nibble, which resulted in a rejection.)
  2. Entered it in the Golden Heart, where it received solidly average scores.
  3. Taken part in my first NaNoWriMo, writing about 25,000 words.
  4. Finished the first draft of my first single-title length novel.
  5. Edited it into a second draft, written a synopsis and query and submitted it to a handful of agents. (Two wanted to see more.)
  6. Expanded Cassie and Dustin’s story to the proper length for category romance, editing and revising as I went along.
  7. Done the same for Bree and Mike’s story.
  8. Written about two-thirds of Meg and Matt, finishing a first draft.
  9. Crafted the dreaded query and synopsis for Meg and Matt.
  10. Started a second single-title story, a sequel to the first.

Wow, I have been busy. Four series manuscripts and one single-title … Now all I need to do is find someone who’s interested in publishing one — or all — of them.

Let the organizing continue! 😉

July 25, 2010

Bethany & Cody, Progress

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25,000 words

That’s approximately how much I’ve written on Bethany and Cody’s story … and I have yet to get them to the island so their adventure can begin. They’ve been taking a side trip, with Beth’s mom attempting a reconciliation.

I guess since I have a total of at least 90K words, I’m still OK. I know they need to make it to the island soon, though.

I’m headed off on vacation in a few short hours — to Texas, then Oklahoma and Minnesota — with the Boyfriend, his mother and his kids. (It’ll be the first time I meet them.)

Still, I’m taking the laptop and hope to find plenty of time to write while I’m gone. Maybe I’ll even manage to get Beth and Cody to Bora Bora!

I sure hope so.

July 16, 2010

Bethany & Cody, Musings, Progress, Stories

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A gentle nudge

Sometimes, all it takes is a little shove to get moving again. I received one  today, courtesy of one of my NARWA sisters.

Jacqui Jacoby was a guest blogger over at Seekerville. The topic? Surviving the Abyss. In it, she told the story of her lost year of productivity, sacrificed to the health gods because of a still-unidentified virus.

Now, I’m no stranger to lost productivity. In fact, until about a year ago, I may well have been the queen of thinking “I need to write” and then doing absolutely nothing about it. But I’ve picked up my pace lately, and am now entering contests, submitting queries and — most importantly — writing almost every day.

At least I was going like gangbusters until recently. The last month or so, since I hit my goal of writing 100K words by NARWA’s November meeting, I’ve been slacking again. I’ve only written about 8,000 words through most of June and into July.

Part of it is because I’ve been trying to get back into the swing of weight loss, and for some reason, I can’t seem to strike the right balance between the healthy lifestyle and my writing life. When I’m focusing on one, the other falls by the wayside.

I’ve also been in limbo: I’m waiting for responses to queries and results from a contest I entered. I’ve started work on a brand new story (Bethany and Cody’s tale), but it hasn’t yet taken off. (I think it’ll help once I get them out of Chicago and onto the island, but before I can get them to the island, I have to do at least a little research — and I’ve been putting it off.)

But Jacqui’s post today gave me the nudge I needed to do some writing. I realized how important it is to take advantage of every opportunity. So while I was at lunch today, I handwrote about a page and a half — and now I’m raring to get back to the computer to start writing again.

Thanks, Jax. I needed that!

July 13, 2010

Progress

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Not surprised

I’m not surprised no one is reading my blog. Why should they when I haven’t been updating it?

I’m sorry to say there hasn’t been much writing going on this past week or so. (Ran into a little writer’s block early in the week and then spent most of my long weekend off computer shopping with the Boyfriend. Unfortunately, we were looking for one for him, not me. Ironically, the MacBook I’ve been coveting is listed as the Consumer Reports top computer — and the one he wants is under it. And he’s always giving me crap about Macs. Ha!  They’re better than PCs!)

I have been gearing up for my NARWA meeting this weekend. I’m looking forward to it. It should be a good one, with group critiques and a fun “share your best writing tips” session.

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