ROW80 Goals — Round 2, 2015

(other ROW80 participants)

I missed the goals post, so I’m joining a bit late this round.

My objective this month is to finish the short story I was working on last round. I’d like to have the current edit done by the 15th, and a finished version posted online by the end of April.

To accomplish that, I’m going to make it my sole writing goal: work on editing five days out a week, or six if possible, until this is done.

What I do on next month will depend on how the short story goes.
I’ll post an update around the beginning of March.

Asdie from writing, I’m keeping my usual reading goal (a book every two weeks) for this round.

Good luck and happy writing.

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ROW80 Goals — Round 1 2015

(other participants)

My central goal this round is to blog more — partly because my ROW80 check-ins have shrunk quite a bit since I stopped having reading goals, and partly because I have a few projects quite close to being postable.

Firstly, in place of my WIP (Conkers) I’m aiming to edit a related short story (at least two days each week), with the aim of putting it online some time this round.

Secondly, I want to post something beyond my normal schedule every two weeks; that might be here, or on Calculating Dreams. At the very least, I know I can manage to read a book every two weeks.

Thirdly, I’m aiming to write (or edit) on six days each week. Roleplaying might interfere with this, but I’ll aim high for now.

Good luck and happy writing!

ROW80 Week 10: Bearings

(other participants)

This was a fairly busy week, mainly due to unexpected things at work.

Despite that, it was good for poetry; as well as reciting poems five days this week, I wrote five of my own, and made some progress editing one I’d given up on.

Conkers didn’t do quite so well; I only wrote 270 words of the 300 I was aiming for. However, I’ve had some insights into why I’m not getting anywhere:

ROW80 Week 4: Joining Belatedly

(other ROW80 writers)

My ROW80 participation has been in hiatus while I was in Europe, hence the late goals post.

Regarding Europe: the most memorable part of the trip was probably the war memorials in Berlin. I feel like I should be talking about the enormity of the Holocaust, but it was the occupation of Poland that most frightened me.

New Goals

Since I’m still trying to keep up with the roleplaying group, I don’t want to aim too high this round; on the other hand, I really don’t want my other writing to stagnate.

Put time towards memorising poetry at least five days a week.
Iambic pentameter has become a bit of a rut for me; I can slip into it easily, even when I want to write something other than a sonnet. Hopefully learning poems in other styles will help me get around that.

Write at least 300 words on Conkers each week.
This gives me about half the time I was spending on Conkers spare to use for roleplaying stuff.

Write at least five days a week.
Reducing this since I couldn’t really keep up with the six-day goal.

Good luck and happy writing!

ROW80 Week 6: Piecemeal

(Other ROW80 participants)

This week has been one of bits and pieces. My cousin was visiting over the weekend, and I spent a lot of time out at family- and work-related events.

I think I wrote six days out of seven, but my records are a bit confused; in any case, it was definitely a substantial amount.

My main travel progress was booking accommodation near the airport for before/after I go to Europe; I did some other planning as well, but nothing very substantial.

This is actually getting to be a problem, since I now have seven things on my to-do list, and only five weeks left. To make up for that, I’m aiming to do two travel things this week — decide how to set up my phone for Europe, and sort out how I’ll be carrying money.

Good luck and happy writing!

ROW80 Goals: Round 3, 2014

My focus for this round is organising my trip to Europe, since I’ll be leaving just after the round ends.

Rather than make sonnets, roleplaying stuff, and Conkers separate goals, I’m rolling them all into a commitment to write and read regularly.

My goals for this round are:

• Check off at least one thing from my Europe checklist each week.
• Write six days out of seven.
• Read a book every two weeks.

I’m increasingly feeling that I’ll need more research for the second draft of Conkers; I’ll handle that by taking notes as I do the research, and counting them towards my writing goal.

Good luck and happy writing!

ROW80 Week 12: Compromise

(other ROW80 participants)

It’s become clear that the roleplaying group and writing Conkers are going to compete with each other.

I actually got a good bit of writing done this week — a few hundred words on Conkers, two sonnets, and over two thousand words on other projects. While I didn’t get any outlining done, I’m happy with the scenes I wrote instead.

However, it’s looking like my time this week will be taken up by preparation for roleplaying on Friday.

ROW80 Week 9: Conclusions

(Other ROW80 Week 9 check-ins)

I’ve finally finished reading Writing the Fiction Series! I don’t think it was quite the book I needed right now, but it will probably be helpful later on.

Most of the text relates to publication (marketing, working with publishers, and writing a series that can be commercially successful), which would probably be more useful to a working writer.

The discussion of series organisation did help me get to grips with Conkers, since I’m currently outlining the second draft; but I think I’ll want to read up more on the word-by-word details of fiction writing once I finish the outline.

I did also make some progress on that second draft this week: I’ve sorted out an outline I’m reasonably happy with for the first half or so of the book, and I re-wrote one of the climactic scenes to try to get a better idea of one of the main villains.

My other goals are going pretty well. I’m happy with that 700 words, and one sonnet, as my writing for this week; and I’ve read another 24 pages of Gormenghast.

With one goal for the round done, I’m declaring a new goal for these last few weeks:

• Write up a complete outline for Draft 2 (of Conkers).

Good luck and happy writing!

ROW80 Goals (Round 2, 2014)

I’m toning down my goals a bit for Round 4 of ROW80 this year.

In particular, I’m not making my WIP, Conkers, an explicit goal this round.

Partly, that’s because I’m getting a bit tired of it, and would like to follow up on a few other ideas (some writing-related, some not). It’s also partly because I don’t know where to go from here; I need to read up on editing to achieve much with the draft.

A couple of people have suggested craft books to me; it’s at the point where I just need to buy and read one, which is my Conkers goal for this round.

ROW80 Week 10: Landing

This is my 10th update for ROW80 this year (other people’s), and also a bit of a milestone for Conkers: I finished re-reading the first draft yesterday.

For this week, I want to organize all the notes I took during the re-read, and try to get a clear picture of what I want to change when I start re-writing.

Putting that in specific goals:

• Write or edit (or prepare for the Europe trip) at least five days this week
• List the different personalities I’ve used for each character (so I can pick a consistent one).
• Make a list of issues I want to fix in the next draft

I don’t really have anything else to report. Most of my other writing days were spent on travel stuff, and I didn’t finish reading any (other) books.

Good luck and happy writing!