Writing Wednesday: Summer to Winter and Back

Our weather has been a little crazy lately. Last week it was in the 60s, almost 70. Saturday we woke up to snow. Not that much really, maybe an inch. Not even enough to cover the ground. But, still. Then, by Monday, it was back into the 60s again. Taking advantage of it(except for today, since it’s raining) before it decides to flip on us again. Still, I’ve managed to be fairly productive.

• Stained Snow: Write 6000 words – This is one goal I have definitely surpassed. I have written 7704 words in the last week. And have added 5 more scenes than planned to this. I apparently didn’t plot out the middle too well. The novella is at 28145 words, and am at 23721 for April(and Camp Nanowrimo). I’m not so sure this is going to remain novella length, but we’ll see where it goes. It’s all ready as long as it was last year when I wrote it, and then shelved it.
  
• Flames of Redemption: Finished Read Through & have chapter 1-4 rewritten – I finished the read through. I have rewrites done through most of chapter 3. Ran into a little snag dealing with mostly how to refer to this character/what his duties would be in the fire investigation. From the research I’ve done, it varies depending on where you are. And even though I’ve made up the city, it located in the general area of where I’m from. So, I probably have some room for flexibility, but want to keep it as accurate as possible.
  
• Demons Rising: Finish back stories & start snowflake method – not quite there yet. I just started writing the last back story the other night. I don’t think this one will be more than 2-3 pages, but we’ll see how much he feels like telling me. Once I finish it, I’ll start working on the snowflake method.
  
• Read 2 books – Finished reading Waking Up Married and hae read 3 other books as well. I’m currently 38% through The One You Love by Paul Pilkington. Not loving it, but it’s keeping me interested, so I’ll probably finish it.
  

Goals for next week:

• Stained Snow: Write 6279 words(to finish Camp NaNo)
• Flames of Redemption: Finish Rewrites through Chapter 6
• Demons Rising: Finish last back story & get through step 3 of snowflake method
• Read 2 books

Writing Wednesday: Coming Together

One of the things I love the most about the ROW80 community is the support we all offer each other. And that support is only more evident when something happens in another author’s non-writing life. Lauralynn Elliot is currently going through one such instance. Last week her husband was admitted to the hospital with blood clots in his lung and leg. So, they both are not working at the moment which can make things rough. Our wonderful leader, Kait Nolan, has put together a fundraiser on Fundrazr to help with bills during this time. If you like paranormal stories, vampires and ghosts, check out her books. You can help donate or just spread the word around and keep her and her husband in your thoughts.

Now, for my check-in:

• Stained Snow: Write 6000 words – I’ve written 5791 words since last Wednesday. I’ve all ready written 825 words this morning.  Total count is up to 20,441. For this month, and Camp Nanowrimo, my count is 16017. So, I’m actually still almost 1k behind my goal. But, I’m planning on getting some more written today, so I can hopefully close that gap.
  
• Flames of Redemption: Read through & decide what to do with it – I’ve read through the first 10 chapters, still have 5 more to go. Have taken quite a few notes of places to add more in. 
• Demons Rising: Write Todd’s back story – I finished this Sunday night. And wrote the major antagonist’s back story. I have 2 more to write for a couple minor antagonists. They should be shorter than the main ones though. 
  
• Read 2 books – I finished reading His Allure, Her Passion on Thursday and read Destiny Gift, also by Juliana Haygert on Friday. I started reading it Friday morning and had it finished around dinner time that night. I started reading Tin God, by Stacy Green at lunch time on Saturday and finished it at 1 in the morning. I got sucked into it right from the beginning. I still felt like I was in the book on Sunday, so didn’t start another one yet. Was seriously tempted to reread it, and I don’t usually do that any more, since I have so many books on my Kindle. I did start reading another book on Monday, but just didn’t care for it. Mostly the third person present tense narration. Just didn’t feel right for me. Yesterday afternoon I started reading Waking Up Married by Mira Lyn Kelly. It’s one I downloaded for free back in December. I don’t think I had high expectations, but it’s a fun read so far. I’m all ready a little more than halfway through it. I definitely met this goal. According to goodreads, I’m 14 books ahead of my reading goal for the year.
  

Goals for the next week:

• Stained Snow: Write 6000 words
• Flames of Redemption: Finished Read Through & have chapter 1-4 rewritten
• Demons Rising: Finish back stories & start snowflake method
• Read 2 books

Writing Wednesday: Springing Along

So, even though Spring officially started like three weeks ago, it finally decided to show it’s face here. Spring is usually late to show up for the party here, so we’re pretty used to it. But, we’ve been taking advantage of it the last couple days. Although it rained most of the day and we had quite the storm this afternoon.

• Stained Snow: Write 5000 word – I’ve written 6531 words so far. I still haven’t finished today’s scene, so that will go up a little bit before the end of the day(providing I do finish the scene, but that’s the goal). I was hoping to get at least one scene written over the weekend too, but that didn’t happen. Saturday I went to a baby shower with my mother-in-law in the afternoon and our Fire Department’s Awards banquet was that night. It was a good night, and my husband was awarded the Firefighter of the Year award for the department. And I ended up having a little bit more to drink than I should have(which for me apparently was 2 wine coolers and a bottle of apple ale). So, I basically spent Sunday recovering from that. But, I passed my goal, so missing those days wasn’t really a problem. I’m still just a little behind on my goal for CampNaNo though. I shouldn’t have a problem getting caught back up.
• Slow Revenge: Find Beta Readers – still no luck with this one.
  
• Healing the Heart: Finish working in edits – Almost there. Have one more chapter to go and it’s a shortish one. Should be able to finish it after I get the rest of my words in for the day. Probably when the kids go to bed tonight.
  
• Demons Rising: Finish Jade’s Back story & Work on Todd’s backstory – finished writing Jade’s back story last night. I might be able to start Todd’s tonight.
  
• Read 2 books –I’ve finished reading Peacemaker by Lindsay Buroker, Dark Isle by Shannon Mayer, and Darkmoon by S.M. Reine in the last week. And just started reading His Allure, Her Passion by Juliana Haygert. I had been reading a book at last check-in but didn’t finish it. Just something about it wasn’t striking me. So, I set it aside.
  

Goals for the next week:

• Stained Snow: Write 6000 words
• Flames of Redemption: Read through & decide what to do with it
• Demons Rising: Write Todd’s back story
• Read 2 books

Writing Wednesday: ROWing Through Camp Nano

So, this is the first week of Row80 Round 2 and Camp Nanowrimo. I am cheating a bit for Camp, which I haven’t done the three years I’ve participated in November’s NaNoWriMo. But, they’re quite open to the “Camps” being more relaxed and rule-bendable. They even give you the option of putting in your own word count goal. I’ve made mine 30,000, think that’s what I’ll need to finish the novella(as long as it doesn’t transform itself into a novel), or at least get close to finishing.

The start of the week has been a little rough. My daughter didn’t go back to school until Tuesday, so that kept me thrown off my usual routine. And the boy decided he didn’t need to take a nap Monday or Tuesday. And naptime is usually when I get the majority of my writing/editing time in other than before they wake up. And since I’ve been struggling to get up as early as I usually do, that hasn’t left a lot of time for those things. Today though, my daughter is in school all day, usually it’s just half a day. But, they’re having a special day today with a traveling zoo coming, and they’ll get to see what some of the Kindergarten classes are like, gym, library, music, etc… And get to eat lunch in the cafeteria. She has been so excited about it. And I just had to remember not to go wait for her bus at 10:30 this morning. The boy watched The Land Before Time(the original! Was so excited when I found it at Walmart for $5) twice today. And started to fall asleep in his chair during the second time. And now, he is asleep in his bed. Hopefully this means the nap strike is over.  At least for a few days. And I can see what it will be like next year when the girl is in Kindergarten, as long as he will still nap during the day.

• Stained Snow: write 3000 words – I have written 3374 words so far this week. My goal has been to write one scene a day. And it has worked out pretty good. Usually when I finish a scene, I’ll go ahead and write at least the first couple sentences of the next one, so it’s easier to pick up the next time. This technique seems to be working well for me too. I wrote 766 words on Monday, 1430 on Tuesday, and 1178 today. Most of those were during the two viewings of The Land Before Time.
• Slow Revenge: Find Beta Readers – still looking
• Healing the Heart: Edits through Chapter 25(through 22 now) – I’m halfway through Chapter 24 right now. Hoping to finish it and hopefully most of Chapter 25(which is one of the longer chapters) this afternoon or tonight.
• Demons Rising: Jade’s back story – I have about a page and a half written out right now. That’s something else I would like to work on tonight. Hopefully will finish it then or tomorrow.
• Read 2 books: I forgot to add this one to my initial goals post. I started reading Murder in the North End by P.B. Ryan on Monday. I finished it last night. This is the 5th book in her Nell Sweeney historical mystery series. And I think it might have been my favorite so far.  This morning I started Justified by Carolyn Arnold. It’s the second in the series. Only 9% into it so far.

Goals for the next week:

• Stained Snow: Write 5000 words
• Slow Revenge: Find Beta Readers
• Healing the Heart: Finish working in edits
• Demons Rising: Finish Jade’s Back story & Work on Todd’s backstory
• Read 2 books

Row80 Round 2 Goals

Hard to believe it’s time for another round all ready. That could be because the last one just ended last week. There’s usually more of a break between rounds. It doesn’t really make much difference to me since I tend to keep working between rounds anyway. But, still I like to have the goals to keep me focused. So, here’s my goals for this round:

Writing:

• 1st draft of Stained Snow(novella)
• 1st draft of Demons Rising(#3 in Inner Demons series)

Editing:

• Finish 1st edits on Healing the Heart
• Find Beta Readers for Slow Revenge
• Read Through Flames of Redemption
• 2nd edits on Slow Revenge

Plotting:

• Finish plotting Demons Rising
• Re-plot Guarding the Heart(my 2011 NaNo)
• Start plotting Connie’s story(#4 in Inner Demons series)

Other:

• Read 17 books
• Complete 10 knitting projects
• Complete 10 crochet projects

To keep a better idea on what progress I’ve made, I’m also going to split these goals into monthly and weekly goals. So, for each of my weekly check-ins(since I usually only check-in on Wednesdays), I’ll update my weekly goals. And either at the beginning or end of each month(depending on when that check-in falls), I’ll update my monthly progress. So, my goals for April:

• 30000 words on Stained Snow
• Send Slow Revenge to Beta Readers
• Finish edits on Healing the Heart
• Read through Flames of Redemption and decide what to do with it.
• Finish plotting Demons Rising

And my goals for this first week(well, until this first Wednesday check-in):

• Stained Snow: write 3000 words
• Slow Revenge: Find Beta Readers
• Healing the Heart: Edits through Chapter 25(through 22 now)
• Demons Rising: Jade’s back story