So here we are in Round 3. After a weekend off from writing while family visited, I’m looking forward to diving in again. I’ve been giving some thought to what goals I want to set for myself this go round.
- Finish revisions on Riven. Not setting any date on when this will get done. It’ll be done when it’s done, and I’ll release it when it’s right. But I don’t feel getting out out sometime this round will be a problem. At the moment I lack 11 scenes out of 32, so I’m past the halfway mark.
- Write 20 days out of 30 each month. This is an oldie but goodie for me. It works quite well for me, giving me enough days “off” that I can usually hit the goal number of days and get a good word count in.
- Fast draft a super outline for the next book. I’m not declaring what that book IS yet. I THINK I know, but who knows where my brain will be when I finish Riven. I’ll make the call on what then.
- My craft book for this round is John Truby’s The Anatomy of Story. This one’s been on my shelf for a while and I haven’t gotten around to it. It’s pretty long (over 300 pages), so I might or might not get all the way through it this round (I tend to sip at craft books).
- Continue with my daily meditation. I was semi decent at this last round, aiming for 5 minutes a day before my writing block. So I want to get more consistent with it.
- Find more stolen snatches of writing time. This is something I successfully did in years past at various times. I used to call them microbursts. Sneaking in 50-100 words in random times. What I like about this is when I’m on the ball, know what I’m doing, I can often sneak in my 500-600 minimum before my writing block (during breakfast or lunch), which takes the pressure off during my actual block. The thing that I have to be able to do to DO this, is keep my brain in the story, which I haven’t been able to do during the Project from Hell at EDJ the last couple of years (that’s now over). So I’m hoping to get back into that.
- Finish prepping my Psych and Law class for fall. I’m down to finishing the recordings of all the lectures, editing same, writing the tests and other assignments, and getting EVERYTHING loaded into the class shell by mid August.
- Unplug for a stretch every day. I am routinely surgically attached to my laptop, so I’m going to try to be better about finding small stretches every day to unplug and go for a walk or do a short workout, or read or…whatever. I read that you should unplug every 90 minutes, so I’m going to try to adhere to that.
It’s a lot to do, but…well this is my life…
6 thoughts on “#ROW80 Round 3 Goals”
You’re making my head spin. LOL. Actually, I’ve thought about the meditating thing. It would be hard for me because my mind darts here and there all the time. I’m not sure how to focus.
That’s one of the things I’ve learned. Meditation is not about just flat being able to blank your mind, but to accept that thoughts will come into your head and being able to let them go. Like…IDK…flotsam floating in a river. You see it and think “oh there’s a log” and then watch it go on down stream.
I really like that you included non-writing aspects into your goals. Not to mention that you include different forms of writing. It’s really nifty to see that I wasn’t too far off in the goals that I set for myself. This is my first run through for ROW80, so I’m pretty pumped to accomplish my own goals. Thanks for coming up with such a brilliant (and flexible) writing challenge.
I’m a social scientist by training, so I like coming up with things to TRACK. I like DATA. So this gives me lots of different things to track. :pets the spreadsheet:
Haha! Right on. I made one myself and was really excited to start filling in the blanks. I think i might apply some color too! o0o0o
OK, so I smiled at the ‘sip at craft books.’ So true!!!! And there are so many of them!!! I do like your goals. I think it’s really ok to say the book (RIVEN) will be done when it’s done. Also the goal of FASTDRAFTING the next novel sounds like a pretty good idea. As does the meditating for 5 minutes before truly starting to write. I’ll try to borrow both of these strategies. May Round 3 go very, very well for you . . .and all us Row80’ers.