Update Day!
Time for me to let you in on how I did this month.
For those of you (which might be many) out of the loop, every last Friday of the month, myself and 13 others on the Do You Have a Goal? blog hop gather around our computers and update on our goal's progress.
Hosted by authors Misha Gericke and Beth Fred, the blog hop is open to one and all. All you do is click this link, scroll down and submit your one big, crazy goal -- even if you have more than one, choose one and stick to it!
For instance, my goal is to reach one million words in finished projects. Along the way I hope this large word count goal will teach me to edit, be more confident in what I produe, and get to know my own quirks as a writer and aspiring/pre-published author.
So far I've been sitting pretty at 191K (or 19%) out of the total 1 million. Not too bad. But one thing I learned this year is that it isn't enough to finish a writing project. That if I want to make writing books my career than I gotta face the pages and self-edit!
I sat down this year and read my first finished novel, making slight edit notes. So far that book is shelved, with plans to re-work in the indeterminate future. More recently -- as in a couple weeks ago -- I picked up my second book, and fourth finished title, and re-read it. Again making minor edit notes, but setting it aside for my current WIP.
I'm 1K into this one, and no, I'm not entering NaNoWriMo this year. It's just too much and I have my own personal reasons for not wanting to load my plate. On the other hand I want to get into the habit of writing daily, so I'm aiming for at least 500/day. Especially while writing my current project.
Even though I'm not entering NaNo officially, just like last year I plan to intend to blog with weekly updates on the writing front, and I also wish to attend more of my local write-ins. So that should be fun. :)
For all you NaNoers, best of luck. Keep your head up. Don't let the fear of not reaching 50K stop you from writing even one sentence more. As a side note, check out this funny and adorably illustrated article about creative-types and the phobia associated with them!
Remember, more than ever carve out your own mark this year.
Remember, more than ever carve out your own mark this year.
And Happy All Hallow's Eve.
I hate editing. I find it such a drag after the excitement of actually creating something new. But I've finally found a system that works well for me.
ReplyDeleteI did really well when I started on 500 words a day. I increased my goal by 100 words a day until I was easily bashing out 2,000 words a day. It was crazy! But after that, editing was a relief!
You can find my goals update HERE
500 words a day is an excellent way to get into writing daily. If I haven't written in a while for some reason (like when I had to publish my books), I started on 500 words a day just to ease back into the process. It's three months later and I'm trying to aim for 3000 words per weekday, but work's complicating that a bit.
ReplyDeleteYou are way ahead of me - because you actually manage to finish your first drafts. I'm good at starting things, bad at finishing them. And sounds like we both struggle with editing. I like your goal of just getting down and writing daily. Better than biting off too much. I'm doing NaNo this year, again, and will probably end up with another half-finished masterpiece (sigh!).
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