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"At the end of the day, we're just trying to prevent each other from going mad." ~ Will Champion

Writing was a bust last week. I feel like I’m going a bit crazy with this. I mean, it’s not that I’m block, per se, but I’m avoiding writing like a mad fiend, which is not helpful for my sanity. I always like to see at least a little forward progress each week, however minimal. I think I’m going to have to break up my routine, because it seems like as soon as I get home, I’m done. A few evenings at the nearby coffee shop might break me out of my slump.

I’ve been doing great in terms of running though and have been meeting all my goals in that regard. I’m seeing slow, but steady, improvement in my running abilities, so I’m feeling fantastic about that.

Walking into my room, I was greeted with quite a mess and so immediately set to work organizing the space. It wasn’t a complete job (you’ll notice the solution to the problem of the closet was to just close the door), but I feel like I can breath easier in my room now. This small progress has me wanting to work toward finally getting the closet where I want it, just because of how good it feels to have it clean.

Room Cleaning

That which must be accomplished in the coming week:
– Finish Chapter Three of Under the Midday Moon (need to get a move on)
– Submit something (poetry, fiction, whatever)
– Edit Letter Box poetry chapbook
– Workout at least three days with two workouts being running training (0/3)
– Do three yoga workouts, three sun salutations min. (0/3)
– Make Progress on Organization (do one or more of the following):
— Sort paperwork out by year for filing and set up system for the current year
— Organize craft supplied
— Shred papers and dispose of them
— Find a minimum of ten items (big or small) that can be gotten rid of and get rid of them
— Take box of items to donate to Goodwill

Cross-posted to my livejournal.
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Being a bit o' this and that at the beginning or end of one week or another

A Brief Aside, or, There’s This Cool Thing on the Web (not the sticky, stringy thing in the corners, but the electronic aether upon which you are reading this): Liz Argall posted a delightful blog post, “Jealousing is the new writing exercise“:

When I get professionally jealous it’s often an exciting thing. “Wow! I never thought of doing that, that’s amazing!” But excitement can turn into sad feelings… “I don’t know if I’ll ever be awesome, eloquent and organized enough to use a moment in front of doorknockers to do the sort of tight exposition, character development and micro-tension that’s now sucking me through this book.”

Fortunately these moments of wonder/jealousy/despair are the perfect place to find a writing exercise.

The post is worth a read over just for her fun facial expressions alone, and the exercise looks like quite a bit of fun, and I’m definitely going to have to give it a go.

Last Week in Writing: I received one rejection and visited an open mic. Yay!

I also finished up the last of the Napowrimo challenge, which required me to write 15 poems over the course of Monday and Tuesday. Another yay!

I did not, however, submit anything or work on my novel. And I have no excuse for this. Boo!

Last Week in Exercise: All three required workouts done and one yoga morning (sort of) completed. Though the run on Saturday was Rough McGruff. I made the mistake of going in the middle of the day and it was too hot and too dusty on the trail. It also didn’t help that I didn’t have any water with me. I will have to remember to start earlier in the morning during the rest of the summer.

Last Week in Other Stuff That Needed Doing: I bought envelopes and some other tools to help me with the filing process, but did not actually start the filing process. Still, baby steps.

That which must be accomplished in the coming week (which looks a lot like last week, but isn’t):
– Finish Chapter Three of Under the Midday Moon
– Submit something (poetry, fiction, whatever)
– Workout at least three days with two workouts being running training (1/3)
– Do three yoga workouts, three sun salutations min. (0/3)
– Sort paperwork out by year for filing
– Either purchase new a new filing cabinet(s), and/or buy folders/large envelopes, and/or go through the process of sorting and putting everything in its place

PS. As I’ve  been writing this I’ve completed the draft of a new poem (408 words!), which I will probably submit somewhere this week. I’m tempted to do so now, like RIGHT NOW, but am forcing myself to wait until I’ve let it rest a day and can give it a fresh read through.

Cross-posted to my livejournal. You are welcome to comment either here or there.
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2013 Goals Assessment

Inspired by whipchick, I’d thought I’d take a look at my year long goals and assess how I’m doing overall.

Primary Goals

1. Finish a coherent draft of Under the Midday Moon
Progress is perhaps a little slower than I hoped, but it’s still progress. Not sure that I’ll actually finish the entire draft by the end of the year, but I just might, especially if I pick up the pace a bit.

2. Work up to running three miles
Again, progress is slow, but steady. I’m feeling myself grow stronger week by week and I’m certain I can DO this. *believes*

3. Submit a chapbook- or full-length collection of poetry for publication
Done! Well, sort of. After sending the submission out, I realized that I might have forgotten to include an SASE, a profoundly stupid and newbie mistake. If I did forget, it doesn’t really count, since it wouldn’t be legitimate submission. This sucks. But never fear, I have every intention of sending out another manuscript to another publisher before June, so as to have this officially done.

4. Address finances
Complications have sort of sidetracked my intentions to start up an IRA or retirement savings account. There’s still time for me to start something up by the end of the year, but for the moment I’m putting this aside.

However, the second aspect of this goal was to start earning some money from my writing. I can’t control that entirely, but I can submit my work to paying markets on a regular basis, which I’m working on.

(A rather long list of secondary goals can be found here.)

What I’ve Learned So Far and/or Could Improve Upon

Bite Sized Pieces – Big goals can be a bit overwhelming, so the weekly goals has helped me break things down into little pieces that I know I can accomplish. This way I know that each week forward progress gets made in some way or another.

Plan for What’s Doable – That said, it’s equally important to make sure the list of weekly goals is doable. I have a life beyond my writing, family and friends I want to hang out with, trips to take, events to go to, errands to run, and downtime that needs to be had, so I try to make sure that the weekly goals I set are doable from a practical stand point: Do I really have time to do these things, assuming I use my time wisely? The answer is always yes. It doesn’t mean I always get the list done (in fact, more often than not, I don’t), but it means I could do it.

Accountability – Whenever the fantastic Kima Jones posts on twitter about her writing she always uses the hashtag “accountability”, and I love that. Hold yourself accountable, because no one else will. You’re life is what you make of it and the effort you put it. So, while my weekly goal posts are always public and I do get some kind feedback, it really comes down to my own sense of being accountable. It’s really about making choices, such as getting some writing down before turning on the TV or video game, which is something I personally need to work on.

How are you doing with your goals? What have you learned or what could you do to be better about meeting those goals?

Cross-posted to my website. You are welcome to comment either here or there.
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La-de-dah and tra-la-la

Things accomplished in writing: Received rejections for the two flash pieces and sent out three poems. Also started Chapter Three, completing 1,200 words. Yay!*

*Honestly, I count the rejections as a yay, too, because it means I’ve been submitting and the process is ongoing.

Incidentally, a large portion of this work was accomplished on Thursday, when upon arriving home from work I wrote and edited new poem to completion (not a napowrimo poem), got a submission package prepped, and wrote 1,000 words of Chapter Three — at which point my head exploded. It took most of the rest of the weekend to pick up the bits of brain and skull and assemble then back into working order.

Things accomplished in health: Two running training workouts and one strength training workout with my trainer — all of which has me feeling great. I think I’m going to count the strength training workout  as a part of my three required days (the last couple of weeks I’ve been trying to do three days of running, plus the strength training). If I can manage four days, great, but it’s good to have rest days and it’s not always practical for me to do more than three days. I think the strength training will really help me meet my running goal of reaching three miles, so it should all work out fine.

The one thing I need to start including is some yoga, even just a couple rounds of sun salutations, because I just know that will make my spine feel so much better.

Things accomplished in other stuff: State taxes are done and sent! Woot!

Haven’t made much (or any) progress on my filing, but I started cleaning and organizing my room a bit, because the clutter is killing me. No seriously, I think it’s crawling off the shelves and trying to throttle me in my sleep. Hiding it in the closet isn’t good enough, because I still know the monster’s there.

That which must be accomplished in the coming week:
– Finish Chapter Three of Under the Midday Moon
– Submit something (poetry, fiction, whatever)
– Finish the rest of Napowrimo poems (15 poems in two days O.o)
– Workout at least three days with two workouts being running training (0/3)
– Do three yoga workouts, three sun salutations min. (0/3)
– Sort paperwork out by year for filing
– Either purchase new a new filing cabinet(s), and/or buy folders/large envelopes, and/or go through the process of sorting and putting everything in its place

Cross-posted to my website. You are welcome to comment either here or there.
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That which hath been accomplished…

In writing: I submitted a couple of poems/flash pieces to Nano Fiction and wrote four new poems for Napowrimo. One of the poems you can read here.

I spent a considerable amount of energy avoiding writing Chapter Three. Once, I even had the laptop out and in front of me with the blank page open, so, I, uh, started fleshing out the outline a bit more. Sometimes I just need to get a hold of the big picture in order to be able to focus on the specifics of a scene. I start to get annoyed if I don’t know what to write and verge off into generalities, rather than get to the heart of the scene. It feels all wrong as I’m writing, and while I know sometimes it’s best to just soldier through, it can be frustrating to put work down on a scene that you know you’re probably going to have to rewrite from scratch later. At any rate, I hope the outlining will help me with getting Chapter Three done this week.

Edited to add: I just saw whipchick’s mapping post on triggers, which notes how the triggering event is what really get the story started. Perfect right now, since I think (part of) the reason why I’ve been stuck on the opening chapters is that I’ve been burying the triggers a bit. Will have to think about moving them forward to get some more action going.

In exercise: It was a very good week. Did a run on Monday (which went very well), did an excellent workout with my trainer on Wednesday, another run on Thursday (which didn’t go as well — in fact, it was a bit rough), and did a four mile hike on Saturday with my sister, niece, and mom (which involved lots of hills and felt great). So, I’d say I accomplished my goal with flying colors.

In other important stuff: State taxes did not get done, which is very, very bad of me. I must accomplish them this week. MUST.

I think the filing thing is kind of a spin off of the taxes thing. It would be fantastico, if I could get more organized in that regard and I keep saying I will and then, um, not. If I even just do some baby steps this week, that would be awesome.

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That which must be accomplished in the coming week:
– Get California taxes done (must happen today)
– Begin Chapter Three of Under the Midday Moon (write a minimum of 1,000 words and hopefully finish)
– Submit something (poetry, fiction, whatever)
– Finish at least a handful of Napowrimo poems
– Walk/Run at least three days at least 2 miles each day (0/3)
– Sort paperwork out by year for filing
– Either purchase new a new filing cabinet(s), and/or buy folders/large envelopes, and/or go through the process of sorting and putting everything in its place

Cross-posted to my livejournal. You are welcome to comment either here or there.