Tag: unpublished

Blogging, Writing

The Quarterly Writing Round Up!- Q3, 2017

Emily

Oh my gosh, it’s a new quarter already!

time-go

2017 is just flying by. If it could slow down a just a smidge I would be fine with that, actually. No? Alright then.

Here’s a recap of my goals for the year, in case you don’t want to go back and read the original post:

Overall goals for the year: Edit and (Finished, Q1/Q2/Q3) Publish “The Stars Are Fire” (now titled “Doubt The Stars”); Write (Finished, Q2), Edit, and Post “Good Intentions”; Finish Writing “Double The Baggins, Twice The Took” (Finished, Q3); Finish Writing “Wonderland Reclaimed”; Write first draft of Tempest in Space novel (tentatively titled “Such Stuff As Dreams”)

Continue reading “The Quarterly Writing Round Up!- Q3, 2017” →

Random, Writing

Q&A TAG: The Debut Novel

Emily

So, my good friend and fellow author, Adan Ramie, is a much better blogger than I am. She does all these cool things on her blog that I love reading, but simply can’t imagine writing myself. This, however, I think this I can do!

13

Niamh set the rules for this game. It’s a Q&A Tag about your debut novel, which for me is Doubt The Stars. It’s not published yet (so I hope I’m not violating any “rules” or anything), but it’s really close!

tumblr_mz5esgjayn1r0ckzto1_400

This is a Tag post, so if you’re an author yourself, check out the end of the post to see how you can get involved! Continue reading “Q&A TAG: The Debut Novel” →

Blogging, Writing

The Quarterly Writing Round Up!- Q2, 2017

Emily

Welcome to Q2, y’all!

giphy4

Halfway through 2017 and I’m feeling pretty good (despite what you are about to see). A lot of things are coming together, setting up the second half of the year to likely be a cascade of productivity!

Here’s a recap of my goals for the year, in case you don’t want to go back and read the original post:

Overall goals for the year: Edit and (Finished, Q1/Q2) Publish “The Stars Are Fire” (now titled “Doubt The Stars”); Write (Finished, Q2), Edit, and Post “Good Intentions”; Finish Writing “Double The Baggins, Twice The Took”; Finish Writing “Wonderland Reclaimed”; Write first draft of Tempest in Space novel (tentatively titled “Such Stuff As Dreams”)

Continue reading “The Quarterly Writing Round Up!- Q2, 2017” →

Blogging, Writing

The Quarterly Writing Round Up!- Q1, 2017

Emily

Reminder:  For the second year in a row (go me!) I have made a set of yearly goals I would like to accomplish, and I’m breaking them down by quarter for you guys, so you can see where I am. And also so I can see where I am, because sometimes I forget? And I get distracted? So I need this reminder every few months, it’s hella important to me. I appreciate your time and attention as I reorient myself in my life 🙂

tumblr_oijowr3m9a1vbdodoo1_500

Here’s a recap of my goals for the year, in case you don’t want to go back and read the original post:

Overall goals for the year: Edit and (Finished, Q1) Publish “The Stars Are Fire” (now titled “Doubt The Stars”); Write, Edit, and Post “Good Intentions”; Finish Writing “Double The Baggins, Twice The Took”; Finish Writing “Wonderland Reclaimed”; Write first draft of Tempest in Space novel (tentatively titled “Such Stuff As Dreams”)

Okay, so I finished, like half of a goal this quarter. But, hey! Progress! And I did make some progress toward most of the others too, so it wasn’t a total waste 🙂

Here’s my WordKeeper Alpha graph for the year so far!

WKA_1stQuarter_17

As you can see, I’ve spent the majority of my time and energy on the self-edit of my novel from November, “Doubt The Stars”, which I’m feeling pretty good about. DBTT is also coming along nicely, so that’s two of my goals I’ve made significant progress on. I wish I’d spent more time on my “Good Intentions” outline, but I am only human, after all.

i_tried

Here’s the month by month breakdown!

Quarter One, 2017- Review

January– First month of NaNoWriMo’s “Now What?” months, focusing on revising and editing. TSAF- make character sketches, flesh out settings, build up the system of planets, research the tech, and figure out my themes. Dictate my brainstorming for “Good Intentions”. Post four chapters of DBTT.

  • Um… Some of this happened. The posting of the chapters happened! The dictating experiment was a giant pile of fail.

source

Apparently, I can’t words through my face, only through my fingers. I did a lot of wording with my fingers this month, so that was good. It was also the month that I admitted to myself that writing of the words was more important than the posting of the words and lowered my chapter goal from four to two. I also wasted a lot of time on a little story that no one cared about and I will probably never finish, but it was fun while it lasted 🙂

February– Second month of NaNoWriMo’s “Now What?”. Self-edit TSAF. Continue to dictate brainstorming for “Good Intentions”. Post four chapters of DBTT (possibly start dictating new words?).

  • Ugh. The self-edit. The self-edit that I thought was going to take a month and instead took over my life for the better part of two months.

21628405

I still managed to write the words I needed and post the chapters I needed, so that was good, but I went through a pretty terrible episode in which I was almost convinced I was never going to be finished with this book. I got out of it, but it was tough.

March– Give TSAF to a select number of readers for feedback. Translate my dictation brainstorming to a workable outline for “Good Intentions”. Post four chapters of DBTT and write 25,000 new words (possibly through dictation).

  • So, since I obviously wasn’t finished with edits by March, the giving to readers thing didn’t happen. I did manage to finish the edits, so I’m only a month behind where I wanted to be. The outline of “Good Intentions” happened in the most basic sense, and if you add it up, I actually wrote more than the 25,000 words I had planned to write in March. I just stretched it out over a three month period, which I am completely fine with!

tenor

I wish that I was able to post chapters faster, but I’m trying not to beat myself up over it. I just need to focus and readjust my goals for the rest of the year. Yeah, things are… fine. They’re fine. o.O

Quarter Two, 2017- Goals

So, my plan for the year has (of course) been derailed already and we’re only three months in. But that’s okay! Trying to stay positive! I can do this!

giphy1

So, Quarter Two goals! Here we go:

April: Give “Doubt The Stars” to beta-readers. Write 50,000 words on “Good Intentions” for Camp NaNoWriMo. Post two chapters of “Double the Baggins, Twice the Took”.

May: Read the feedback from beta-readers, revise “Doubt The Stars”, send to editors for sample edits and decide on professional editor. Finish the first draft of “Good Intentions”, let rest for the rest of the month. Post two chapters of DBTT, write 10,000 new words.

June: Send “Doubt The Stars” to professional editor, begin search for cover designer, start working on back matter, dedications, acknowledgements, and links to include. “Good Intentions” pre-edit prep. Post two chapters of DBTT, write 10,000 new words.

Wow. That’s a lot of stuff. But actually, it all seems… very doable. Is that crazy? I feel like that’s crazy.

giphy2

Thanks, John Green 🙂 Alright, you guys, I’m gonna try to do better with keeping up with the blog from now on, so stay tuned! See ya!

 

 

Blogging, Writing

The Yearly Writing Round-up!- 2016/2017

Emily

It’s that time of year again! Time to take a look back, see what I’ve accomplished this year, and lay out my tentative plan for 2017. This is going to basically be an elongated Quarterly Round-up post, so let’s start with a recap of the goals I had going into 2016.

Overall goals for the year: Finish Changing History rewrites DONE! (Q1, February), Finish first draft of Changing History: Entwives DONE! (Q3, July), Write the Worth Living For short that I’ve been planning for ages, DONE! (Q3, July) Edit and begin posting Clarity DONE! (Q2, June), Finish the first draft of all three parts of Wonderland Reclaimed.
Reward Project: If I finish Wonderland Reclaimed, I can write my Avengers: Age of Ultron fic for NaNoWriMo in November.

As I mentioned in my Q3 round up, I’m pretty happy with having completed 4 out of 5 of my goals for the year. Wonderland Reclaimed… well, it’s going to have to take a back burner for a while. I feel like I maybe could work through its issues eventually, but I’m going to be a little busy with The Stars Are Fire in the next year, and I already have plans for another book in that loosely connected universe, so… we’ll see how it goes 🙂

Other notable highlights from the year include:

  • March- Began posting Double The Baggins, Twice The Took (15 chapters posted, 2016)

This was an unexpected addition to my workload this year, but not entirely unwelcome. I’ve enjoyed working on this fic and it has taken the place of Changing History in my life quite nicely. Though I do hope it won’t take me 15 years to finish! ;P

  • July- Finished posting Clarity

I honestly did not expect to finish this story this year. I expected to still be posting it well into January. But it was so… easy. Really, this whole process flowed so smoothly (even if sometimes it didn’t feel like it was) that once it got down to posting, it was simple. It was a real encouragement, especially as I had so much trouble finishing Changing History this year.

  • October- Finished the Changing History saga

This was a bittersweet moment for me. One of those moments I thought would never come, and certainly never expected to come this year. 15 years of imagination and now, it’s over. I legit cried.

  • October/November- The Stars Are Fire original novel

This one truly came out of left field and I once again have to thank my writing group for making this possible. I’m hoping for this to be the book that I (finally) publish in 2017, and honestly, even as a rough draft that I know needs work, I’m really proud of it.

And a few stats, just for fun!

2016wordkeeper

  • New words written– 112,610 (across five stories)
  • Fanfiction chapters posted– 75 (across five stories)
  • Stories Completed– 4

What’s Coming Up in 2017

Overall goals for the year: Edit and Publish “The Stars Are Fire”; Write, Edit, and Post “Good Intentions”; Finish Writing “Double The Baggins, Twice The Took”; Finish Writing “Wonderland Reclaimed”; Write first draft of Tempest in Space novel (tentatively titled “Such Stuff As Dreams”)

So another five goals for 2017! These are a bit more ambitious, but based on what I was able to do in 2016, I think they are doable. I also have a non-quantitative goal of trying out dictation for my brainstorming and possibly even my first drafts. I’ve been hearing a lot of good things regarding dictation and writing productivity, so I thought I would give it a try and see if I can’t incorporate some more walking into my life. Healthier and more productive? Sign me up!

I loved doing the Quarterly Round-Ups last year, so I plan to continue the tradition into 2017! Here are my goals for the first quarter!

  • January– First month of NaNoWriMo’s “Now What?” months, focusing on revising and editing. TSAF- make character sketches, flesh out settings, build up the system of planets, research the tech, and figure out my themes. Dictate my brainstorming for “Good Intentions”. Post four chapters of DBTT.
  • February– Second month of NaNoWriMo’s “Now What?”. Self-edit TSAF. Continue to dictate brainstorming for “Good Intentions”. Post four chapters of DBTT (possibly start dictating new words?).
  • March– Give TSAF to a select number of readers for feedback. Translate my dictation brainstorming to a workable outline for “Good Intentions”. Post four chapters of DBTT and write 25,000 new words (possibly through dictation).

I’ll be honest, I’m a little nervous about this. A lot of it rides on my dictation experiment being a success. If not, I might have some trouble getting all of these things accomplished. But I’m going to try it, and if it doesn’t work, well, I’ll modify my goals for Q2! 😀

And our adorable animal to start out the new year!

Capybara

The capybara! The world’s largest rodent (and arguably the cutest as well):

2c

cu_yx8kwwaezeib

Babies!!!

tumblr_nmv4ffrcw11s9rrcgo1_500

Look at him, he’s so chill! 😀

Happy New Year, everyone! See you guys in a month!

Writing

A Peek Behind The Curtain- November 2016

Emily

So, this post is sort of becoming a “When I have something” post, instead of a regular occurrence. That’s okay, it’s NaNoWriMo, which means I have something to report!

The novel I’m working on this year is best described as “Genderbent Hamlet in Space”. It’s been an interesting book to write so far, mostly because it’s the most outlined novel I’ve ever written. I’ve discovered that there are a lot of pros and a few cons to this, but I’ve been able to slog my way through it with dogged determination.

It’s actually a bit difficult to pick a scene to share with you all, but I think I’ve finally decided on this one from Act I, Scene ii: the wedding celebration of King Clarence and Queen Judith. The only character that doesn’t get at least a brief introduction is Hortensia, so you’ll have to wait to meet her 🙂

This is completely unedited, so I’m sure it’s awful, but here’s a Peek Behind The Curtain of NaNoWriMo!

The Stars Are Fire- NaNoWriMo 2016

The king (the word tasted stale on the back of her tongue and she took another swallow from her glass) was speaking to a pair of well dressed men, smiling at them pleasantly enough but she could see her uncle’s jaw flexing beneath his pale skin. It was a common tell that meant something was upsetting him. And whatever that was, Henley felt she wanted to be a part of it, she moved a bit closer and touched a string of gems that was nestled around the crest of her ear. The sound amplified and she could hear what was being said without looking particularly interested. She crossed her arms over the tasteful and unadorned bodice of her black gown and sipped at her drink.

“…miner’s guild is becoming increasingly concerned, my lord,” one of the simpering little weasels whined in her ear, “This business with the Lady Fortuna is getting… unreasonable.”

“They’re pirates, my lord,” his equally disgusting partner said, “Highwaymen. No matter their captain, no matter their position, they are still thieves! And they are harassing our shipping lanes with undue prejudice!”

“Gentlemen,” the king said, in his soft voice that used to soothe Henley and now only grated on her ear, “Do not misunderstand me. I understand that the problem must be dealt with. But we must address these things through the proper channels. No,” Henley could almost hear him raising his hand in a conciliatory gesture, though she had her back to him and she bit her cheek in an effort not to roll her eyes, “No, I hear what you are saying, Basil, but if you think the boy’s position is of no matter or consequence than you are more naive than I thought. We must speak to the Chancellor of Njor before we take any further action. I will not run hot-headed into this situation like…”

…like my brother Henley…

“…like we have done before,” he finished prudently (cowardly Henley thought in the darkest corner of her mind, but threw back the last of her champagne to stifle it), “We must be firm, but we must also be diplomatic. That is the only way to get the inner worlds to take us seriously, to see us as more than just a fueling station. I will write up a letter to the Chancellor in the morning and send you off with your complaints as soon as transport can be acquired and your protection assured, if that is…?”

“Your most gracious majesty!”

Henley winced and touched the gems in her ear, cancelling the audio enhancement to prevent feedback. Lady Persephone did not require any enhancement to be heard. Henley suspected that her high-pitched, fawning voice was on a different wavelength from most mammalian species. Henley could not help but turn toward that voice though, as much as it irked her. For if Lady Persephone had made an appearance it was likely that her children were not too far behind. And Henley never could resist Laersa’s pull.

The trio of red-headed nobles were standing in an almost pyramidic stance before the current royal couple (not new, neither of them were new to this, though everyone was acting as if they’d never seen Henley’s mother in a crown before), Lady Persephone at the head, giggling and twittering and flipping her luxuriously dark red curls back and forth over her pale neck, her two children standing at either of her shoulders, both with hair as red as their mother’s and looking like they were both trying desperately not to look uncomfortable. Henley caught the bright green eye of Ophestes, the younger of the two, and gave him a quick, but sympathetic smile. He smiled back, but it tensed up his round face and Henley could see his fingers bunching at his sides. Fez didn’t so well with… well, people. He was a sweet boy (and despite his seventeen years, he was most definitely still a boy), but he would much prefer it if no one knew that he existed, even the few people that he liked. He didn’t do well in social situations and his mother was a walking, talking social situation, everywhere she went.

Henley’s eyes drifted to the woman standing on the other side of Fez, never quite making eye contact, not daring, not here, it wasn’t safe, but still her gaze was drawn to her. Laersa stood straight and prim, her hands clasped behind her in a crisp parade rest sort of stance, her long, wispy strands of hair tied back in a long tail that hung down her lithe back. Her green and silver uniform looked good on her, clung in all the right places, but not enough to take away from the stiff regulation that came with Academy Officers’ training. Her eyes never left the face of the king as her mother droned on, but Henley still felt as if she could see her, just out of the corner of her eye, watching Henley watching her…

“Well, you know my Laersa, she is so used to getting her way…”

Henley’s attention went shrieking back to Lady Persephone. The Academy was the only thing Laersa had ever set her mind to in her life that she had gotten her way with her mother, and that was only because the silly bitch had somehow convinced herself that her daughter would come home in six months on the arm of a military man, possibly already married and expecting her first child. Henley regretted that her glass was already empty, and snagged another from the closest hover-butler.

“…but she really would like to be heading back to school as soon as possible,” Lady Persephone said, tossing her hair again while Henley choked on her fresh champagne, “Exams are on the horizon and there is so much studying involved, all those books, and lectures, and things…”

The woman twirled a bejeweled hand absently and Henley jerked her eyes back to Laersa. Back to Academy? Already? But… they hadn’t even… she hadn’t been able to… Laersa’s sharp green gaze left its trained spot in the middle distance, just briefly, but in that glance Henley read all that she needed to. This wasn’t Laersa’s idea. Persephone was behind this, the way she was behind everything, with her social climbing machinations, and arrogant assumptions. Henley clenched her glass so tightly that she could feel her fingers cramping and forced them to relax, taking another gulp. Her eyes were burning and she tried to relax her jaw the way she’d relaxed her fingers. It wasn’t safe. They were never safe. She hated it.

So, there you go 🙂 I’m trying not to stress too much about whether it sucks or not before the first draft (and second… and probably third ;P) is finished 🙂 I hope you enjoyed it!

Blogging, Writing

The Quarterly Writing Round Up!- Q3, 2016

Emily

Reminder:  At the beginning of the year, I made some yearly goals and some quarterly goals, which I promised to reevaluate and re-prioritize every three months. It’s been six months now, and it’s time to look back at Quarter Three 2016! Here’s a recap of my goals for the year, in case you don’t want to go back and read the original post:

Overall goals for the year: Finish Changing History rewrites DONE! (Q1), Finish first draft of Changing History: Entwives DONE! (Q3), Write the Worth Living For short that I’ve been planning for ages, DONE! (Q3) Edit and begin posting Clarity DONE! (Q2), Finish the first draft of all three parts of Wonderland Reclaimed.

Reward Project: If I finish Wonderland Reclaimed, I can write my Avengers: Age of Ultron fic for NaNoWriMo in November.

I finished up two more of my goals for the year, bringing my total up to four out of five! The last goal regarding Wonderland Reclaimed I’m no longer worried about completing, and I’ve already moved my Age of Ultron fic, Good Intentions, to my tentative 2017 plan. So things are going very well this year!

Here’s the month by month breakdown!

Quarter Three, 2016- Review

July: Camp NaNoWriMo #2! Finishing WriMo including Calenhiril’s Search, Paradise Found (Worth Living For short), and Wonderland Reclaimed: Down The Rabbit Hole, 50k words cumulative. Possibly finish posting Clarity, but NaNo is the priority.

  • This was a HUGE month for me, and I’m proud to say I accomplished all of my goals, plus some! I picked up Double the Baggins, Twice the Took this month, along with my writing and I managed to post a couple of extra Calenhiril’s Search chapters. I really need to learn how to pace myself, because…

August: Finish posting Clarity (if not finished in July), Focus on the editing and posting of Calenhiril’s Search (at least one chapter posted a week, more as I finish them).

  • …this month was a disaster. I didn’t have to worry about Clarity at least, because I had finished that in July, but I lost all the momentum I had built up for NaNo and only posted one (two if you count Sept. 1st) chapters of Calenhiril’s Search. I did almost nothing else. I also managed to burn myself out for Wonderland Reclaimed. I don’t know when I’ll be able to look at that story again. I’m hoping early 2017, but not holding my breath.

September: Continue posting at least one chapter of Calenhiril’s Search a week, complete first edit of Paradise Found, add at least another 25k to Wonderland Reclaimed.

  • I feel better about this month, even though one of my goals was a complete non-starter. I had given up on Wonderland Reclaimed by this point, so I didn’t even try, but letting that go seemed to have the effect of freeing up my brain to post for Calenhiril’s Search, doubling my projected chapter count. I completed the edit of Paradise Found and posted the story too, which was a nice boost to the ego 🙂

Quarter Four, 2016- Goals

Quarter Four is a short quarter, since I usually try not to set any specific goals for December to allow my brain to rest and try to cope with the depressing reality of the holiday season. For all that, here are my goals for Q4!

October: Finish Calenhiril’s Search, post one chapter of DBTT and write 5,000 new words, finish outlining my new NaNoWriMo project, The Stars Are Fire.

November: National Novel Writing Month! This year, my goal is not just to write 50,000 words, but to COMPLETELY finish the first draft of my novel.

December: My only goal this month is to post my requisite chapter of DBTT and to finalize my plans for 2017. I will likely try to pull out Wonderland Reclaimed again and see if anything has jostled loose, but I’m not setting any goals in that regard.

And that’s it! I feel pretty confident in what I have here, we’ll see how I feel once December rolls around. Until next time!

 

Blogging, Writing

The Quarterly Writing Round Up!- Q2, 2016

Emily

A reminder:  At the beginning of the year, I made some yearly goals and some quarterly goals, which I promised to reevaluate and re-prioritize every three months. It’s been six months now, and it’s time to look back at Quarter Two 2016! Here’s a recap of my goals for the year, in case you don’t want to go back and read the original post:

Overall goals for the year: Finish Changing History rewrites DONE! (Q1), Finish first draft of Changing History: Entwives, Write the Worth Living For short that I’ve been planning for ages, Edit and begin posting Clarity DONE! (Q2), Finish the first draft of all three parts of Wonderland Reclaimed.

Reward Project: If I finish Wonderland Reclaimed, I can write my Avengers: Age of Ultron fic for NaNoWriMo in November.

So out of five goals, I’ve finished two. Not quite half, but pretty close, considering I’ve been working on Calenhiril’s Search as well.

And here’s the month by month!

Quarter Two, 2016- Review

April: Camp NaNoWriMo #1! Edit Clarity (A Loki Fanfiction).

  • I did this! 80,000 words edited in thirty days! It was awesome! I’m super excited! 😀

May: Continue to post at least one chapter of Calenhiril’s Search and DBTT a week. Finish the first draft of Wonderland Reclaimed, or add 50,000 new words (whichever comes first).

  • I posted three chapters of Calenhiril’s Search. Respectable, but not quite what I was hoping for.
  • I only posted one chapter of Double The Baggins, Twice The Took, and this was the month that I decided to put this particular fic aside for the time being, until I could dedicate the time and attention it deserves.
  • No new words were written in May. Actually, I may have, kinda, forgot I had even made this goal. Whoops! ;P Hopefully July will make up for this!

June: Prep month for Camp NaNoWriMo #2! Depending on how May goes, either prep for editing Wonderland Reclaimed, or prep for a finishing WriMo (50K words on Wonderland/Calenhiril’s Search/DBTT). Begin posting schedule for Clarity (M/W/F).

  • I… prepped as much as I could? Okay, I didn’t really prep for Camp. I’m doing a Finishing WriMo so it’s not quite as critical, but I probably should have done more on this front. Hopefully it won’t be too detrimental. Also, I changed up one of the stories I decided to finish, instead of DBTT I’m working on my Worth Living For short (one of my year-end goals, so yay!).
  • I started posting Clarity! \o/ I only missed one day early in June, but I’m still well on my way to being finished with Clarity by the end of the month of… wow, I’ll probably be done by the end of July if I keep up the way I have! 🙂
  • I also got back into the swing of posting Calenhiril’s Search and made up for the missed chapter in May by posting five chapters in June 🙂

In review, I think I accomplished a decent amount this quarter. Granted, no new words were written (I feel like such a dumbass for forgetting that goal, tbh), but I got a lot of other things finished and several more things are in the process of being finished. One of my goals for 2017 is to limit myself to two sprawling epics in a year, one fanfic and one original work. I’m well on my way to making that happen, I think 🙂

With that in mind, here’s what I have planned for the next three months:

Quarter Three, 2016- Goals

July: Camp NaNoWriMo #2! Finishing WriMo including Calenhiril’s Search, Paradise Found (Worth Living For short), and Wonderland Reclaimed: Down The Rabbit Hole, 50k words cumulative. Possibly finish posting Clarity, but NaNo is the priority.

August: Finish posting Clarity (if not finished in July), I don’t plan to add any new words this month, instead focusing on the editing and posting of Calenhiril’s Search (at least one chapter posted a week, more as I finish them).

September: Continue posting at least one chapter of Calenhiril’s Search a week, complete first edit of Paradise Found, add at least another 25k to Wonderland Reclaimed.

So, with any luck, by next quarter, I will have finished two more of my yearly goals and be well on my way to completing another, which will put me on track for the year! I’m really looking forward to this quarter, I think my goals are definitely doable, if nothing untoward happens (which, let’s be honest, is always a possibility).

Until next time!

pusheen-typing

Blogging, Writing

Results of My Full-Time Writing Venture

Emily

Well, if anyone follows me on Twitter, you will recall that I was not very enthusiastic about the outcome of my full-time writer experiment.  I’ll get right down to it.  I calculated it up and on average I only worked on my writing projects 3.3 hours per day.  That is a far cry from the eight hour a day goal I had set for myself.  But after taking a couple of weeks to reflect on it and allow the sinking disappointment and inevitable self-loathing to dissipate, I have decided that it is just the beginning.  If I give up now, how will I ever improve?  And so starting next week, I will begin fresh and I will set a goal of beating my time from the last week.  I think it’s definitely achievable considering I didn’t work at all on that Friday because I was packing for vacation.  I’m still hopelessly optimistic about the entire situation.  If I can improve even a little bit, it would be a huge step for me.  So I’m looking forward to continuing my experiment and keeping all of you updated on my progress in the coming weeks!  I wish everyone out there a successful week, whatever your goals are.  And if anyone has any suggestions that might improve my performance, feel free to leave a comment.  I would love to hear from you!

Blogging, Writing

Full-Time Writer (Trial Period)

Emily

So, I have recently stumbled upon the opportunity to discover what it might be like if I could make enough money doing what I love.  In other words, I lost my job.  I have decided that I will take one week and act just as if writing were my full-time occupation.  I will work an eight hour day, Monday through Friday, and I will concentrate on the various projects that have recently been shoved to the side because of my stress over my job. 

I feel good about this little venture.  I know that it won’t be permanent (unfortunately, my husband and I do not make enough money for me to sit at home all day), but it will give me a taste of what life might be like for me one day.  It’s an exciting prospect.

I’m also a little uneasy.  After all, I know how I operate.  I start something wonderful and at first I am completely gung ho about it.  I throw myself into what ever project I’ve decided to do and I just go to town.  Then, when that “new project” smell has faded away after a few days, I generally tend to, well, forget about it.  I don’t really give up, per say (such a nasty phrase, “give up”).  It’s as if the wonderful idea that I had just a few short days ago is just gradually shoved down the totem pole by the next brilliant idea and the next and the next, until it’s so far down that I forget I ever had the idea in the first place.  Trust me, many the diet and fitness routine has gone that route and it is not a pretty picture when I realize what I’ve done.  The self-loathing knows no bounds.

However, I believe that this might be just a tad different.  First of all, I have a set amount of time committed to the project.  I will commence this little experiment on Monday, September the 14th and end it promptly on Friday, September the 18th.  The timeline itself is a bonus because I have something concrete to work towards instead of the goal of “forever and ever”.  And the relatively short length of time means that the “new project” smell will not have completely faded away before it is time to end the venture (hopefully, fingers crossed).  Also, I have absolutely nothing better to do for that week.  As I said, I have no job, and I can’t start looking for one until after Sept. 27th (I’m going to Las Vegas with my husband.  Yay!).  So actually this project will keep me from losing my mind to boredom.  That is incentive in and of itself.  And lastly, this isn’t something that I  HAVE to do or I’ll hate myself for all time.  There are a lot of writers who write and have jobs.  I might be one of those writers and I might not.  I’ll never know until I try it both ways.  And I much rather try it for a week and discover that I love it, than decide to do it forever and discover that I hate it.

So wish me luck everyone!  I’ll be sure to let you know if  it all goes well (or not).  We’ll see!