ROW 80 Check In

I probably should have skipped this check-in, because I like to skip things when I don't do them very well. But, in the spirit of my new conquer-your-fears attitude, I'm going to stick it out.

I didn't hit all of my goals this week. I did edit Arieties for an hour, but let's face it, that was probably my least ambitious goal. I'm kind of stagnant with Arieties because I'm having mixed feelings about the story as a whole right now. I'll push through, giving it another hour a week, but I think we need to stay on a break for now.

As for writing, I wrote about 2000 words this week, most of it revision. I'm going in a different direction a bit with Skye's story so we'll see how this works out. I'm still going to set my goal at 3500 for a week (with a week beginning on Sunday) so I'm going to do my best to actually hit it.

Even though I didn't hit my goals, I'm going to add another one: Spend at least 20 minutes a day developing the plot for a new story. I have 3 bouncing around my head in various stages of development so I think I need to get some sort of plot down before they start killing each other. 

In all fairness I was somewhere between freaking out about moving out and celebrating moving out all week so I didn't have the best focus.

Hope everyone else killed it in their goals this week!

ROW80

My last shot at ROW80 did not end fantastically so I'm going to give it another try. It's my first week so I'll start with some easy goals:

1. Write 3500 words a week. That comes out to 500 words a day, but I know that I'm going to miss some days so I can make that up.

2. Edit Arieties at least 1 hour every week. I took a little break from my baby so I've got to ease myself back in while I'm working on The Limit.

I might add to this as ROW80 goes on, but we'll see how this goes. Good Luck to everyone else!

ROW80 7/27 check in

You know that saying "all good things must come to an end"? Well my goal-kicking streak definitely adhered to that this week. Epic fail all around. I don't want to post goal by goal this week because all of the red will probably depress me.

I only had a chance to write last Wednesday and a little bit on Monday. Thankfully I'm still on target for having Arieties ready for beta readers by the end of ROW80, which is my main goal. Unfortunately it's giving me a ton of issues. I'm going to work on it today for about an hour and if inspiration doesn't strike I'm going to have to set it aside and focus on another story.

In keeping with my weekly tradition, here's some cake:

He's disappointed in my lack of goal crushing this week. Hope everyone else was able to hit their goals!

ROW80 7/20 check in

Another week gone! Unfortunately, my Poconos trip was canceled this past weekend :( but I still went away with a group of friends :) but I didn't get a chance to bring a computer to work on my edits anyway :(

During the week I did well, though! Let's see how it went:

Goal 1. To write at least 500 words in a new story or 1000 words in an existing WIP, 5 days a week

COMPLETED!

I completely focused on Arieties and got 6000 words written this week, yay me! I am  completely rewriting the ending, so almost all of it is brand new scenes that I love 43280948230x better than what I previously had in my SFD.

Goal 2. To complete (or edit) at least two full scenes a day, 5 days a week

COMPLETED!

Again focusing on Arieties, in addition to my 6000 new words I also edited 5 existing scenes. I know that's not 2 full scenes a day, but I completed about 7 new scenes so that counts toward it.

Goal 3. To have the draft of my WIP Arieties ready for beta reading by the end of ROW80

DEFINITELY ON TARGET FOR COMPLETION!

I am so happy with myself this week as far as this goal. I have another round of edits before it's even close to ready, but I am way ahead of myself. I'm a little under 20,000 words away from being finished with editing this round. Yay!

Goal 4. To visit at least 2 blogs of my fellow ROW80 participants per day (on days that I have access to internet)

SORT OF COMPLETED.

My b. I skipped last Thursday because I just didn't have a chance at work and I did not have a chance to get on my internet connection at home. But, I went way over 2 per day on the other weekdays, so it sort of makes up for it. Maybe? Please forgive me?

For next week I'm going to amend Goal 2 to just focus on editing 2 scenes, since writing 500/1000 words and two scenes seems a little redundant. Other than that I think I'm going to keep my goals this time. Shocking, I know. After this round of edits on Arieties I'm going to demand that I work on other works, specifically some short stories that are half completed/stewing in my mind.


Since the treats went over so well last week, and we're in the middle of a heat wave in NYC, here's some ice cream to cool you off. Enjoy!

ROW80 Check in - Week 2

So my first week with this challenge is over! I definitely did better since my last check-in. I love the accountability of the whole ROW80 community. Everyone is so supportive and the fact that the participants check up on each other's blogs makes me even more driven to hit my goals each week. I've decided to make my goals more week-to-week than the whole challenge, with only certain goals making it the whole way through so we'll see how this goes. Thank you to everyone who has stopped by this week and good luck with this next week's goals!

And the results of this week:

Goal 1. To write at least 500 words in a new story or 1000 words in an existing WIP, 5 days a week



I'm going to adjust this one because I'm focusing on editing Arieties right now. For this week, I'm going to change it to write 1,000 words a week in a new WIP or in a new scene in an existing WIP. So no editing scenes and counting that toward my total.
So as far as the new goal goes: COMPLETED
I wrote 520 words for PLASTIC and 630 words for my short story Gemma (tent title). Done and done.

Goal 2. To complete (or edit) at least two full scenes a day, 5 days a week

COMPLETED
Most of the scenes were for Arieties. I'm now 2/3 of the way through my first round of edits and it's already 10x more solid than my SFD. I did get a chance to edit a scene in my short story LUCY IN THE SKY as well. I'm changing it to 5 days a week mainly because I have a bunch of weekend trips coming up and there's no chance of me bringing a computer to the Pocono Mountains or say A BRITNEY SPEARS CONCERT (sorry I just got a little excited there. DON'T JUDGE ME).

Goal 3. To have the draft of my WIP Arieties ready for beta reading by the end of ROW80
On target for completion.
Like I said, I'm 2/3 of the way through my first round edits. I'd like to get another complete round in by the end of the challenge so I should be doing okay.

Goal 4. To visit at least 2 blogs of my fellow ROW80 participants per day (on days that I have access to the internet)
COMPLETED
I've been doing this anyway but I don't want to fall off as the challenge goes on so I'm going to make it official. 

So there it is. Yay me! As a treat I'm giving myself some virtual cookies and sharing them with you guys. Mmmm kisses. Enjoy!

 

This whole bloggy thing

So as a dedicated participant of ROW80 and even more dedicated procrastinator, I have been visiting the blogs of my fellow challengees (that should be a word) and noticed something of note:

There are some seriously talented bloggers out there.

I'm not talking about just the writing, I expected decent posts by people who were participating in a writing challenge, but the designs overall. Some use the blogger/wordpress/livejournal-created designs, like yours truly, and others... well others blow my mind clear into space.  As I've mentioned before, I'm a virgo, just coming into my virgo-hood and the organization of some of these pages amazes me.

Which brings me to my page. I am a blogging newbie. I have no idea what I'm doing on this thing and, frankly, I prefer to learn as I go anyway. So I've decided to set some rules for myself to try and make this less of a teenager's closet and more of a color-coordinated celebrity shoe collection (if you've ever seen Mariah Carey's "Cribs" episode you know what I mean).


1. Post Schedule
I will post every Monday with my check-in posts for ROW80 on Wednesday(definitely) and Sunday(probably). Wednesday will be more of a commentary of where I'm at with my writing while Sunday I'm probably just going to throw up my check-ins just to keep myself on schedule (if I even make it on Sundays, I'm a busy girl!).

I know it may seem like I'm breaking my own rule by posting this on a Thursday, but I will reserve Thursdays and Fridays (whichever is the end of my work week, since we are doing Summer Fridays) for random postings if I feel that they are needed.

2. Layout
I will work on my layout on my non-posting days until I am satisfied, which knowing myself will be forever. I will try and incorporate at least one relevant picture in each post, since I've found that posts with pictures tend to be much more visually appealing.

 

I promise the pictures will be better than this.

3. Post content

Monday will be a post about writing. I am going to try to be really strict about this and I think I've done pretty well so far. The random Thursday/Friday posts can be about anything, but will hopefully relate to writing somehow. I might use Wednesday to share interesting links to other blog posts that I enjoyed, but we'll see how that goes. Book reviews may be added at a later date.

So there it is. Welcome to the new dawn of By any other name...

What things do you love about your favorite blogs?  

First check-in for ROW80

I am not off to a good start. In all fairness, we did get extremely busy at work yesterday and then I basically dropped into a dead sleep once I got home. Still, not a good start. To the check-in, shall we?

Goal 1. To write at least 500 words, 5 days a week

Tuesday: 510 words - JUST MADE IT!

Wednesday: 213 words - yeesh not too hot

Goal 2. To complete (or edit) at least two full scenes a day

Tuesday: Edited 3 full scenes from Arieties

Wednesday: Edited 1 scene from Arieties

Goal 3. To have the draft of my WIP Arieties ready for beta reading by the end of ROW80

Working on it

I'm thinking of adding a new goal for next week, but I'm going to let that idea marinate for a while before jumping in, especially since I couldn't accomplish the two that I set myself up for. I'll just have to do better next time. My personal goal for next week is to make up for the things I've missed this week. So I'm short 287 words from today (which is still not over, so I could still make it) and one scene. I can do this.

I hope everyone else did better with their goals then I did!