#RoW80 Check In, General Notes

#RoW80 progress:

I expected the first week to be a bit slow. How Not To Write had a post a while back on returning to writing. Good advice, I’d say, even if I haven’t been following it to the letter.

This past week:

• I rewrote the gambling scene, changing the game of choice from blackjack to roulette.
• We’ve kind of finally decided on what sort of interstitial bit properly shows off Aleister’s luck. We had thought about news-report-style epigraphs (but I can’t write journalistically to save my life) or iterations of Aleister’s decisions. Instead, I’m writing bits showing how Aleister’s actions affect other characters, often very minor characters. I wrote/rewrote about three scenes in this manner. Not sure how it’ll work on a large scale. Eric’s only comment thus far was on the details of one scene, not on whether it works.
• Submitted 4 queries/short works. Got a rejection on one Friday, so that’s a slam-dunk #5 for this week.

I wanted to get though a fifth of the novel, but only got through about a tenth.

This week:

• 20 hours of work on Luck for Hire
  • Continue adding scenes/doing rewrites on certain scenes where applicable.
  • I’m getting to the point in the novel where I need to start paying attention to my things-to-be fixed notecards.
  • Shoot for getting through a fifth of the book.
• Tessa sent me preliminary artwork for Lucinda at the Window‘s new cover. I at least need to write a new blurb this week and start doing sone ebook research.

Check on my fellow writers!

I meant to do a non-writing post Friday and didn’t get to it.

I posted some thoughts on Let Me In and Let the Right One In over at Taming of the Queue. Haven’t gotten much reading done lately.

Tess has sent me the art (or at least some of the art) she wants included on her website. I need to get moving on that.

Wednesday disc has gone on hiatus. Sadness. But it will set us up for a triumphant return in September. In the meantime, we’re gearing up, slowly, for fall league. Keith will be running a small coed league in August in Scottsdale. Laura is hosting a Women in Ultimate forum Monday night and has asked my to talk about leagues. I haven’t done any public speaking since senior year in high school.

With the lack of ulti, I need to make a concerted effort to get more exercise. I didn’t exercise at all this past week. Of course, I haven’t been eating much either. Or sleeping much. I weighed in this morning and found that I was below 125 for the fist time in three months.

#RoW80 – July 6th Check In

Well, I haven’t gotten 4 hours a day in yet, but progress hasn’t been bad.

I’ve gotten through about half of the material I want to review and identified some areas that need improvement. Eric and I had a nice little conversation yesterday morning that opened up the intent/consequences aspect of the novel. Wrote/rewrote a scene to emphasize some of that. I still need to familiarize myself with roulette and rewrite the gambling scene.

Got one query out. Received a rejection on "Personal Trust" which doesn’t have great prospects.

Complicating factor? Our internet was out Tuesday-Wednesday afternoon. I should have done more writing during that time, but I couldn’t do research on roulette or agents/fiction markets.

Distraction? Headed to the library yesterday to check my email and, well, spend time at the library. Then, last night, I discovered Calibre ebook management software. It is so much better than the Sony software that it isn’t even funny. I spent too much time organizing and tagging.

Check on my fellow writers!

Bring It, Summer Round!

Finished adding that scene to Divine Fire. Well, sorta. I kind of rewote/added to an existing scene. I hope I didn’t get myself into too much trouble doing that. Eric’s been reading through, but unless he has some big problems, I’m putting Divine Fire to bed. Tomorrow, Luck for Hire! My bravado-filled motto for RoW80, round 3 is "Bring it, summer round!" 

Received a rejection on "Eaters of Dust." It’s going back out the door today.

Yesterday was the hottest day of the year, thus far, at 118. The low was 91 due to some cloud cover that kept in the heat. I stayed up to watch the Wimbledon final, then took a nap. So, about 1.5 hours of sleep in the past 30. And I’m feeling surprisingly okay.

My crocheting is…going. I’m on Scarf Object, v. 4, using the same skein of yarn. I’m going to have to learn to live with flaws, I think.

2nd Quarter Summary, #RoW80 Goals

2nd Quarter Summary

The nice part about RoW80 is that it’s pretty much a quarterly challenge. I like splitting things into easy-to-manage chunks. Second quarter wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be. I’ve gotten most of the way through an edit on Divine Fire. The last quarter of the novel is still rough and I still need to write that scene, that scene I should have written in June.

On the submission end:
Submitted 9 queries to agents, received 4 rejections this quarter.
I currently have 5 short works subbed to various markets. Two rejections from that front.

Finished reading 7-8 books and a handful of short stories. Ill-advisedly started a new blog.

And this quarter has been hard on me socially. There’s been a death, a friend moving away, and another friend’s elopement. These kinds of changes are tough on a hermit.

#RoW80, Round 3, preliminary goals

I’ll be moving back to Luck for Hire.

I definitely need to give it a read-through. I’m not sure that it will need a 10% cut, but I’ll read with that in mind. Considering changing Luck’s first gambling scene. Eric also has an idea for showing the uncanny nature of Luck’s luck. Aside from those two things, I have 22 note cards with things that need to be addressed (not to mention going though my list of banned words and getting rid of them). How does that break down into daily/weekly goals? Hmm.

I am considering making a time goal. This is not something I usually do. Usually, I set a goal and a deadline and work/procrastinate toward it. But maybe a time goal with definite sub goals, like:

• Four hours of work daily on Luck for Hire (Monday-Friday).
  During the first week:
  • writing a new version of that gambling scene
  • writing the first proof-of-concept on Eric’s idea (which might be the gambling scene, I guess)
  • reading through the first fifth of the book
• The return of #2QueryTuesday (subbing to agents/markets at least 8 times in a month).
• Other goals for this round/the immediate future:
  • Write new blurb for Lucinda
  • Give Lucinda a read-through and format
  • Give Pas de Chat a read-through, edit, format, write blurb

This is my preliminary plan. Ambitious! Especially for July/August, not my most productive time of the year.

One thing that strikes me as a little funny about #RoW80 lately is the unofficial motto, "A writing challenge for normal people." And I get the meaning. A Round of Words in 80 Days is the diametric* of National Novel Writing Month. For most people (myself included), writing 50K in a month requires an inordinate amount of time spent on writing. More than most people can give without shutting out much of life. RoW80 lets you set your own goal and even change it, so you don’t have give up life for writing. But for me, my RoW80 goals are actually geared toward putting "life" stuff behind writing. Writing is my life, or should be. I am maybe not the "normal" for Round of Words.

RoW80, round 3 participants!

*Can I use diametric that way? Seems like it should be correct.