Year of No Fear: 2014 Manifesto – June Progress Report

Here we are again with another Year of No Fear Progress Report! I did some things in June, and I’m proud to say that I’m feeling pretty good about them.

Here’s how the month shook out:

Photography/New place: Went to the Clinton River Park with my hubby and took some awesome pictures! And, it was a new place, so it counts under my “Go to new places” thing.

Gratitude: Just started a Gratitude Journal at http://soulfearless.wordpress.com . (Ahem. I also need to update it, oops!)

Erotica: Made some progress on Awaken Me.

Diet: Integrating more veggies into meals. Also initiated a new rule: 1 low-calorie meal per week to start, and at some point, I’ll add at least one more. Trying to watch my portions.

Self-portraits: Lots of ideas. Just need to implement them.

Grave Touched Rewrite/Flamebound Revision: 46k into the Grave Touched Rewrite and going strong; I have a possible new direction for Flamebound which might prove to be better. I’m starting to get excited about it again which is cool.

A bit lean this month. I meant to try to write some more poetry, but it just didn’t happen. Still working on that. Life’s been kind of crazy lately, so once things calm down a bit, I should be able to focus on this stuff better.

Year of No Fear – 2014 Manifesto – May Progress Report

May was the month where I finally made some awesome headway on conquering my fears. Here’s what I did:

~Poetry: Wrote 10 (!!) drafts, edited 2 old drafts, and 3 of the 10 poems written were about a subject I haven’t been able to write about for 5 years. I’d say that’s progress!

~Photography: First shoot done on 5/10. Low light/Church. Beautiful pictures. 😀

~Erotica: I started Awaken Me on 5/4, a novella about cat shifters. Still in progress.

~Self-portraits: Been taking them hit and miss. Still nothing artsy, but I have been keeping my eye out for something cool to wear that won’t break the bank.

~Revision: Restarting Grave Touched today or tomorrow.

~New project: Although it’s not technically part of my Year of No Fear, I did start a new novel called Soulfire. It has a cool concept. Usually, I’d wait till I finished something, but I feared (!!) the enthusiasm and ideas would just vanish. Or it would take over and I’d mess up my deadlines. Well, no. I decided to start on it anyway and work on it when I could. I am trusting that I can do this without screwing things up.

So I’m pretty happy with what I’ve done so far. Here’s to much more!

#ROW80 Check-in 5/18/14

Doing fairly good over here. I’m writing again, hoping the wrist holds up. I’m considering going back to voice recognition, at least part of the time. I need a new headset though — the one you get is heavy and gives me migraines. I found a smaller, less bulky Bluetooth headset on Amazon. Just need the money to buy it (it’s not cheap).

Awaken Me is going well. I’m pretty much winging it, and the plot is moving a bit faster than I planned. I think that’s okay, actually, as I want it to be no longer than, say, 50k. Possibly less.

I also wrote some poetry — 2 poems and 1 haiku. It feels nice to be writing poetry again. I’ve been jotting down every single possible phrase that comes to my mind that remotely sounds poetic. Just need to get deeper into the mindset. I used to write a ton of poems a day — well, actually, they were freewrites that I turned into poems. This is before I started writing novels. I’d like to — ideally — write 1000 poems. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s something to aim for, and there’s no deadline, really. (I got the idea from another poet’s website. He actually gave himself a deadline, though.)

And lastly…my muse wants me to write the first scene of Soulfire today. After weeks of procrastinating, she’s saying today’s the day. Muses are crazy sometimes.

Stats!

Words written: 1,101 words / 5,701 words total
Words remaining: 29,299 words
What’s happening: Beth is discovering some stunning secrets about herself
What’s next: Her initiation into the group
Feeling: Okay, I suppose. Wrist is already getting twinge-y, dang it.
Eye report: Twinge-y but tolerable
Chocolate consumption: At least a few pieces a day since the last check-in. It helps stimulate brain cells. *nod, nod*
Mood music: The Fray and the Goo Goo Dolls

#ROW80 Check-in 5/14/14

I was doing really well until my wrist started bothering me. I think I may need more time to rest it, so I’m not sure how much writing I’ll get done between now and Sunday. I won’t push it.

So, Awaken Me is almost to 5k. It’s going pretty well, and I’m happy with it so far. I think adding the cat shifters was a good move. I wanted to try to write something I would be intrigued by — while still keeping it erotica. Hopefully, this is a good thing and my muse isn’t messing with me. 😉 (She does that sometimes).

On the HDR front, I have pics! Beautiful pics, actually! And I’ve been playing with them digitally, but unfortunately I don’t have enough bracketed ones to make a good practice set for this method. So I need to take more bracketed pictures. (I didn’t want to get too bogged down in method while I was shooting on Saturday — I wanted to be carefree and not worry much, but still have a few possibilities for HDR.) I’m not very happy with the HDR results, but I suppose I just need practice. It will come. But either way, I love the pictures I got and enjoyed shooting them immensely. They are of a beautiful Catholic church near us that’s always lit up at night. I’d tried, unsuccessfully, to do night shots of it before, but that’s when I was using a manual 35mm camera. Many, many moons ago. Now it’s a ton easier, although in some ways I miss the old days of having to figure it all out on my own.

I started photography in 1996 or so. (This isn’t counting my childhood, where I took a ton of pictures just for fun using one of those cassette cameras – god, I feel old!) And I’ve done so much since then, it’s not even funny. But every shoot is a new experience, and I learn so much. And it has never lost its magic. Need to do more. The muse is begging me.

So, stats!

Words written: 2,090 on Awaken Me / 4,600 words total
Words remaining: 30,400 words
What’s happening: The MC, Beth, is in major shock.
What’s next: Her initiation, I believe
Feeling: Crappy. Wrist + migraine no worky
Eye report: Ugh, not good!
Chocolate consumption: A lot. I stopped counting.
Mood music: Within Temptation – Hydra album

#ROW80 Check-in 5/7/14

I finally made a ruling on my project for this month! It’s Awaken Me, the erotica novella. It’s going pretty well so far. Only thing is, my wrist is starting to get twinge-y, which means I need to back off for a bit. So I’m not sure how much I’ll get done by the next Check-in, but I’ll try to do something.

I also decided on #poetrywednesday. I’m going to work on some poetry, per my Year of No Fear Manifesto, and because there’s been a bunch of lines that are gnawing on me. Been jotting them all down. And I want to start on it now. And, naturally, I’ll be tweeting it. Don’t know if anyone will follow it, but it amuses me so I’ll give it a shot.

Annnd that’s about it for now. 😀

Stats!

Words written so far: 2,011 on Awaken Me
Words remaining: 32,989 words
What’s happening: Allison, the MC’s bestie, is trying to convince her to join a secret, special club. 😉
What’s next: Beth, the MC, agrees. And her life changes dramatically.
Feeling: Okay. Not fond of this rainy weather, though. But…we’re getting 80 degree weather tomorrow (!).
Eye report: Not bad
Chocolate consumption: A WW Twix bar. And lemon cookies, but they don’t count.
Mood music: Adam Lambert ~ Trespassing album

#ROW80 Check-in 5/4/14 – May the Fourth be with you!

I’m currently between projects at the moment. I’ve finished Reaper Girl and I don’t feel quite ready to jump back into the Grave Touched Rewrite. Sooo, the top contenders are my erotica novella, Awaken Me and Soulfire, which has been gnawing on my brain for weeks. Maybe even a month.

I want to make a ruling today and start on something. I’m leaning toward Soulfire, at the moment, but that could change.

Maybe I’ll work on both. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve done that.

I’m giving myself this month only. I can’t afford to miss any more time on the Grave Touched Rewrite.

May the Fourth be with you!

Year of No Fear 2014 Manifesto: April Progress Report

So, here we are at the end of April. So what have I accomplished? Well, it’s been tough going because of my back. Still having issues. It’s majorly bumming me out, but at the moment, there’s not much I can do.

~Self-portraits: I’ve taken a selfie almost every day this month on my Kindle Fire HDX. Getting a bit more used to it now. And it’s kind of fun to sift through the pictures and see what I looked like, what I wore, etc. A lot of them were taken at work in the Conference Room where I take my lunch (half) hour. Getting there! (I still haven’t gotten up the courage to do an artsy shoot…baby steps!)

~Erotica: I have a bit of an idea of what I want to do, and I’d like to write a novella in a month or so. This month’s experience writing Reaper Girl taught me that I can make decent progress on another project. I not only hit my preferred wordcount, but I wrote 12k more than I was supposed to. Oops? Still, it was very freeing and thrilling and I wanna do it again. ASAP. I have a premise, I have my two main characters, I have a sort of plot, and I even have a working title. Just need to start.

~Poetry: I wrote my first poem of the year on 4/27/14. It’s not perfect, or even pretty, but it’s a start!

~Photography: I’m hoping (*crossing fingers*) that I can do some shooting this weekend. I hope!

~Ice skating: Still in the plan.

~Cultivating other creative things: I’ve got a possibility, just need to find the time to work on it and learn the technique.

Moving along!

#ROW80 Check-in 4/30/14

So, the big news is that Reaper Girl is finished. As in, completed, edited, and proofread for tomorrow’s deadline. BAM!

The second piece of news is that I’m considering writing another novella of some sort for a month. It would have to be around the same length, and not morph into a novel because I’m really supposed to be going back to Grave Touched. I just feel like I need more of a break with it. I don’t think it’ll impact my ability to make my deadline, but because of that possibility, I might try to work on it one day a week or something. I did that a long time ago — I had a main project I worked on every day, and then I had another I only worked with on Sundays. It was much slower, but the words did add up, and it didn’t impact the main project at all (the irony? I’ve since scrapped the main project from that, but that Sunday project is still in progress. It turned out to be one of the strongest novels thus far…and I’ve been doing this for at least 10 years!).

Sooo I’m currently struggling with what this project should be. I have a novella that needs a rewrite, but I was going to expand it into a novel. It is my ongoing revision through Holly Lisle’s How to Revise Your Novel class. It’s been languishing. Too long. But my muse hasn’t really gotten enthused lately, and I don’t know why.

I do have an erotica idea I’m pondering, as per my Year of No Fear Manifesto. I want it to be tied to some type of dance, because I love dance and dancing together can be really, uh, erotic. And just to throw a wrench into the monkey, I’m considering a female/female pairing. Might as well go all the way. My muse is intrigued and has already given me a first scene. Soooo we’ll see. (This will be a completely different genre for me to try. Kinda scary and kind of exciting at the same time).

But Grave Touched does need to be restarted. I might need to reread what I have because I’ve kinda forgotten where I left off. If I write a novel straight through (which is my normal process), I can keep track of stuff in my head, only referring to my notes/outline for main plot points and stuff. So I’ve lost that thread. I would like to add at least 35k to it this round.

Decisions, decisions.

Stats:

Words written so far: 22.5k – FINIS!
Words remaining: Big fat zero baby!
What’s happening: The MCs are happy and in love and everything’s just purrfect.
What’s next: No friggin clue.
Feeling: Happy, happy, happy! And a bit insane.
Eye report: Throbbing today, and it sucks.
Chocolate consumption: Today – 2 Samoas and a WW ice cream Twix bar. Yummmmm.