Hey friends! Welcome to my weekly ROW80 update!

Here is my goals for the past week and how it went:

• Writing: Just write. Anything. And edit when the next set of HHSW edits come to me. I was BAD. Will explain bellow.
• Reading: read book #60 of the year. Read book #60 and #61.
• Social media: I want to spend LESS time on twitter and blogging—so I can get more writing done! Ugh, have been on twitter a lot.
• Exercising: at least 4x. Six times.

This week was BAD. I think I continued with the burnout from last week, and I also had *something* happening behind the curtains (and it wasn’t entirely nice), which added to my blue mood. My brain, of course, didn’t shut down. It kept plotting and coming up with scenes and dialogues even when I didn’t want to. I wrote a query (and try to revise it, but it still sucks bad), played with beatsheet (plotting), and I created a new board on Pinterest for a novel I want to write in the near future.

But I didn’t do anything that really counted. And I’m not feeling too ashamed of it. I think I needed the break.

Hopefully, I’ll be better tomorrow and will start writing again. For real, this time ;)

Anyway, my goals for next week:

• Writing: Just write. Anything.
• Reading: read book #62 of the year.
• Social media: I want to spend LESS time on twitter and blogging—so I can get more writing done!
• Exercising: at least 4x.

This week on my blogs:

• Feature with author Renita Pizzitola.
• Cover Reveal of THE CRIMSON HUNT by Victoria H. Smith.
• Release Day of Violet Midnight by Lynn Rush.
• Prince of Persia in 15 Beats.
• Author Spotlight: Magan Vernon.

How was YOUR week?

You can click here and check out the other ROWers and their progress.

Have a great week!

Cheers,

Hey friends! Welcome to my weekly ROW80 update!

Here is my goals for the past week and how it went:

• Writing: finish pre-edits on DG, and start new WIP, which is called BREAKING THE REINS (BtR). And edit when the next set of HHSW edits come to me. Monday: kid didn’t have school, so I did nothing writing-related. Tuesday: wrote 3400 words. Wednesday: wrote 2800 words. Thursday and Friday: couldn’t wrap my mind around anything (I think I’m close to a burnout—will have a special blog post about it next week) so didn’t write.
• Reading: read book #58 of the year. I’ve read a novelette (12k words) and book #58 and book #59.
• Social media: I want to spend LESS time on twitter and blogging—so I can get more writing done! I should have spent less time here, but with the imposed break, I ended up online more than I wanted to.
• Exercising: at least 4x. Six times.

So, yeah,  not so good on the writing front. So much has been going on, and at the same time, I feel like I’m not doing enough. It’s frustrating. As suggested by Jani Grey, I might be close to a burnout and in need of a break. That’s why I didn’t write from Thursday and on. So I could get that break. But even not writing, the mind is still in overdrive. I can’t stop it from going over ideas, plots, and scenes. I’ll try to go back to writing tomorrow (Monday) and see what happens.

I’ve talked more to Jani, and I might try to get my muse going by totally pantsing—she likes this. I might abandon all my current ideas and just write out of my mind, without planning one bit, not even characters names and backgrounds. Just for creativity’s sake. It’ll probably be a mess and not fixable, but I need to get the muse out of this burnout somehow.

Anyway, my goals for next week:

• Writing: Just write. Anything. And edit when the next set of HHSW edits come to me.
• Reading: read book #60 of the year.
• Social media: I want to spend LESS time on twitter and blogging—so I can get more writing done!
• Exercising: at least 4x.

Checkout how the other ROWers are doing here!

Have a great week, everyone!

Cheers,

Hello friends! First check-in of round 4!

Last week goals and how they went:

• Writing: work on DESTINY GIFT pre-edits. The deadline is Nov 20, but I want to send it to my editor at least a month earlier since I have too much on my plate … also, HHSW next set of edits should drop in at anytime and those need to be work on asap. I had two rounds of HHSW editing this week. Worked a bit on DG pre-edits.
• Reading: read book #56 of the year and finish critiquing my CP’s manuscript. I’ve read book #56, #57, and I’ve also read two short stories (a little less than 8k words each).
• Social media: I want to spend LESS time on twitter and blogging—so I can get more writing done! I still spend a lot time on twitter. Bad me.
• Exercising: at least 4x. Six times.

The girls of NA Alley and I have some great news coming up. All I have to say it that New Adult is happening, even if most agents don’t want to see it. If you want to be informed about New Adult, you should follow NA Alley. Besides having posts about writing an industry, we have contests and features of authors that write NA, with giveaways. We’ll also start a monthly post with news of what happened on the NA side during that month, because a lot has been happening and we want people to KNOW!

Anyway, here are my next week goals:

• Writing: finish pre-edits on DG, and start new WIP, which is called BREAKING THE REINS (BtR). And edit when the next set of HHSW edits come to me.
• Reading: read book #58 of the year.
• Social media: I want to spend LESS time on twitter and blogging—so I can get more writing done!
• Exercising: at least 4x.

ROW80 pal Jenny Hansen is organizing a FastDraft group again and they started this past Friday. I hope to join them at some point this week  since I’ll be rafting BtR. I want to draft this pretty quickly, even though I know I’ll be interrupted by edits.

Interesting posts on my blogs during this week:

– Promo of FLIGHT by Alyssa Rose Ivy.

– Cover reveal of THE FAERIE GUARDIAN by Rachel Morgan.

– Talking Tropes at NA Alley.

– Announcement of Entangled Publishing New Adult line at NA Alley.

Want to check out how the other ROWers are doing? You can find the linky here.

Have a great week, everyone!

Cheers,

Hello friends! Tomorrow starts the next round of ROW80.

Don’t know what ROW80 is?

A Round of Words in 80 Days is the writing challenge that knows you have a life.

We are all different and we all have different demands on our time.  Why should we all have the same goal?  The simple answer is that we shouldn’t.  If you want to be a writer, then you have to be able to roll with the punches and adapt to your changing circumstances.  If that means changing your goals when your life blows up, so be it.  ROW80 is the challenge that champions the marriage of writing and real life.

And the best part? The friends we make. The support. The sense of belonging to a tight group. Good stuff.

Anyway, I should talk about my goals, right?

My writing/revising/editing schedule is a wreck, so I’ll stick to weekly goals set every Sunday—which is also the day I post my check-ins. So I’ll state here the goals for this week, and next Sunday I’ll tell you how it went and state the goals for the next week. Okay?

Here it goes. The goals for the first week of ROW80:

• Writing: work on DESTINY GIFT pre-edits. The deadline is Nov 20, but I want to send it to my editor at least a month earlier since I have too much on my plate … also, HHSW next set of edits should drop in at anytime and those need to be work on asap.
• Reading: read book #56 of the year and finish critiquing my CP’s manuscript.
• Social media: I want to spend LESS time on twitter and blogging—so I can get more writing done!
• Exercising: at least 4x.

How about you? Even if you’re not on ROW80, what are your goals for the last three months of the year?

Let the fun begin!

Cheers,

Hello friends! It’s ROW80 update time. The last update of the round. This post was supposed to go up on Thursday (or Wednesday?), but I had one too many posts scheduled for this week, so this is going up today, Sunday.

By the way, if ROW80 sounds like something you would like (I know you would like it), check the website—the next round starts October 1st! You can sign up here for it.

My goals for the last week and how it went:

1. Writing: revise the novella (HAHP). There was no school Monday and Tuesday so my daughter stayed home, which means I got nothing done. Then, the other days, I did revise HAHP and worked on my CP’s manuscript.
2. Reading: finish book #53, read book #54, read a prologue from a friend, and at least half of a friend’s ms (I have to critique it too). I’ve read book #53, book #54, read the prologues and critiqued half my CP’s manuscript.
3. Social media: blog at least twice and hop on Twitter from time to time. Done.
4. Exercise: 4x at least. Six times.

ROUND 03 (July 2nd to Sept 20th) achievements and thoughts:

I feel like I didn’t do much, but I know I did. It just seems that, if I don’t add words and finish manuscripts, it really isn’t progress …

– I revised a novelette and send it out for a publisher.

– I got two publishing contracts—a novelette out in Dec, and a novel out in August.

– I wrote a short story that is up online for a very awesome contest. Winners will be announced next month.

– I revised an entire manuscript, then decided to shelf it for a bit. I realized I need to rewrite the whole thing but I need some time from it first.

– I revised half of another manuscript and sent it out for the first critique. Got it back two days ago and I’m still disgusting all comments. Quite a bit …

– I revised a novella.

– Worked on pre-edits of the novelette with my editor (the one that will be out in December), and received last night the next edits.

All I see is revising and gosh do I hate revising! But it’s a necessary evil. I wish I learned how to like it, at least a tiny bit, so it would be easier on me. Perhaps with time and practice … One can only hope ;)

Overall, a good round.

Want to check out the other ROWers? Click here!

Have a great week, everyone!

Cheers,

Hello friends! It’s ROW80 update time. I think this the last update before the round ends and we share our how-we-did-overall posts. By the way, if ROW80 sounds like something you would like (I know you would like it), check the website—the next round starts October 1st!

So, remember my “amazing news” I mentioned last week? I blogged about it on Wed. You can read about it here ;)

My goals for last week and how it went:

1. Writing: actually revising. Send my ms for first critique until Friday (but I hope to get it out the door by Wed). And I need to start working on the “amazing news” too. Monday I worked on the ms, then sent it for the first critique on Tues, actually. On Tues, I did the homework for my workshop, then broke a novella down in scenes to analyze them. Wed and Thu: pre-edits of the HHSW novelette. Sent the pre-edits back on Thu. Fri: re-read through a novella, analyzing if I could fix it, or edit it …
2. Reading: finish book #51, read book #52. Done. And I’m halfway through book #53.
3. Social media: blog at least twice and hop on Twitter from time to time. Done.
4. Exercise: 3x at least. 6 times!!

My goals for next week:

1. Writing: revise the novella (HAHP).
2. Reading: finish book #53, read book #54, read a prologue from a friend, and at least half of a friend’s ms (I have to critique it too).
3. Social media: blog at least twice and hop on Twitter from time to time.
4. Exercise: 4x at least.

That’s it for now.

Want to check out the other ROWers? Click here!

Have a great week, everyone!

Cheers,