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“Everyone must party, my friend. Everyone. Especially you.”

Current Project: Under the Midday Moon
New Words: 824
Current Total Word Count: 8,858
Goal: Put together an workable draft of the novel that I would actually let someone read.

Accomplished: Finished Chapter Three, in which Claire and Evan discuss the coming events of the weekend and the potential for beer.

Random Rough Sentence(s): Evan reached across the table and gave her a high five, then turned to me. He smiled unleashing cavernous dimples. “Everyone must party, my friend. Everyone. Especially you.”

Notes: I am SO FREAKING HAPPY THAT I WROTE SOMETHING on this novel! It’s been many weeks! Too many weeks! And the absence has made me sad. But all the world’s better now, because there are words, sweet beautiful words.

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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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Um, interesting title about my novel goes here

Current Project: Under the Midday Moon
New Words: 1297
Current Total Word Count: 8,034
Goal: Put together an workable draft of the novel that I would actually let someone read.

Accomplished: The first half of Chapter Three.

Random Rough Sentence(s): I was tempted to tell Adam about my parents, because what else is a best friend for, if not for talking it all out, but I didn’t know if I could handle saying the word divorce. So, I just said, “Psychedelic.”

Notes: I’m still struggling with these opening chapters, feeling like things are moving too slowly. I keep thinking that there’s more I want to fit in and it’s not all particularly inconsequential. For example, I almost forgot to include Claire’s potential love interest in Chapter Three like I originally intended. He’s in there now, but it seems like a lot is going on in the chapter. I know it’s not precisely right, but onward.

In other writing news: I also finished a new poem last night and compiled a submission, which is ready to go out today. All this work had me up to midnight, which makes me zzzzZZZZZZZZZ.

Cross-posted to my livejournal. 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.
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Happy National Poetry Month!

I tend to forget that it’s April Fool’s Day (if not for the fact that everyone on the interwebs talks about it) and I’m also easily fooled, so chances are someone is going to have a laugh at my expense today. If you’re into that sort of thing, Jim Hines has a round up of some of the better Fool’s Day jokes that have already cropped up online.

But that’s okay, because today begins National Poetry Month! and that’s way more important. (^_^)
I will be participating in the National Poetry Writing Month challenge, which is essentially to write a poem a day in the month of April, or 30 poems total. Following the Poetic Asides prompts is an excellent way to stay inspired, if you’re participating.

I’ve been posting the poems to my tumblr the last couple of years, just to not have to cross-post and to have all the poetry in one place. I’m a bit torn as to whether I’m going to continue posting them online. On the one hand, posting them publicly is a way to hold myself accountable and actually make sure I get them done. On the other hand, posting the poems makes them ineligible for submitting to journals and I need to submit more often than I do. I’ve seen some poets put up their poems only temporarily, so maybe that’s one way to strike a compromise. I don’t know. Still thinking about that one.

Last Week In Review

My story, “The Shadow’s Flight,” was rejected by Strange Horizons. I read it over to see if I could clean it up anymore (I could), and immediately submitted to to Clarksworld, which also rejected it last week (wow! amazing response times!). So, I submitted it once again to Flesh and Blood (perhaps third times a charm?).

I managed to get through the first half of Chapter One of Under the Midday Moon. I like it so far, though it’s gone an changed where it’s going on me. So now I have to re-figure out just how I’m going to end Chapter One, which is all well and good, I suppose. At least words are getting on the page.

I ran 1.5 miles on Monday, and my foot was killing me by the end, but it started to clear up again rather quickly. But I didn’t push it on Wednesday and just did some sit ups and planks and squats instead. By Saturday my foot was feeling almost 100%, so I did a run and it went pretty smoothly. Almost no pain, which was bleeping fantastic, and I’m all set to get back to my running schedule this week. Yay!

Still struggling with my finances and trying to figure out how to handle them. I’m taking “contact accountant about retirement plans” off my to-do list for now, because I literally don’t have any extra income to invest. I need to figure out how to earn some extra money first.

Things to do in the coming week:
– Finish off Chapter One of Under the Midday Moon
– Submit something (poetry, fiction, whatever)
– Walk/Run at least three days at least 2 miles each day (0/3)
– Get California taxes done
– 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
– Get data transferred from the old computer to the new one (may require giving up my computer for a few days)

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