#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!

#ROW80 Check-in 4/13/14

Just rolling along on Reaper Girl. It is almost done, actually. I wanted to finish it yesterday, but I’d written 1,491 words at one point and didn’t want to aggravate my wrist. So, pending any disasters, I should be able to finish it within the next few days. I also have a plan for the revision, so yay.

So I should be starting the revision soon. After that, it’s either Soulfire or back to Grave Touched. Haven’t decided yet.

Stats!

Words written so far: 12,356 total/3,838 words since last check-in
Words remaining (Reaper Girl only): +2,356 words
What’s happening: Leliel, the MC, has to fight Hellhounds to reach the King’s Place.
What’s next: Leliel will request an audience with the King.
Eye report: Twinge-y, but not bad.
Feeling: Slightly sleepy
Chocolate consumption: Where to start? Chocolate donut yesterday. Ice cream bar last night. Devil’s Food cookies. Weight Watchers snack.

#ROW80 Round 2 Goals

Here we are again with A Round of Words in 80 Days. Since it worked so well for me the last time, it wasn’t a question of whether or not I’d join this round, but what my goals would be.

I have a longish short story, Reaper Girl, due to my editor on May 1st. It’s for an anthology. So this month has been about getting the rough draft written. I’m 6k in, going for around 10k. So this goal is twofold:

~Finish the first draft of Reaper Girl
~Edit/revise/polish/submit to editor

After that it done and turned in, I want to dive back into the Grave Touched Rewrite. Again, like last time, I will count all words written and/or “processed” (edited, tweaked, or any combination thereof) for simplicity. That goal will be 35,000 words, which should put me at or around 75k.

I also would like to rewrite the opening scene of my dark fantasy novel, Soulfire, and maybe get a few thousand words written on that, too. But I’m going to hold off on making that official right now. Don’t want to overwhelm myself.

As some of you know, I have been battling illness and health problems* this entire year so far. I *seem* to be getting better, and I want to be more productive. However, I have to be kind to myself — while being insanely productive is awesome, it can be insane. And I tend to set such high expectations for myself, then beat myself up when I don’t meet them, and…that’s not the way to do things. So. I’m going to keep in mind that if I don’t feel up to producing, that’s okay. Just keep moving. I’ll get there.

So let’s do this!

*A bad fall in January. Back injury in February. Bronchitis. Cold. Ongoing eye pain/migraines. Fibromyalgia…

#ROW80 Check-in the Eighteenth

Doing much, much better with the Rewrite. I finally got to the scene where everything blows up. So now everything goes downhill from there (*evil grin*). I’m feeling pretty good about it. I’ve hit 31k, just 4k shy of my 35k goal. I can do this!

On the photography front, I’ve taken a look at both my cameras (one is a high-end digital point & shoot and the other is a DSLR which cost a fortune) and both are capable of doing what I need them to do for HDR photos. The DSLR would be ideal because it can do something called auto bracketing (taking several different exposures of the same picture) whereas with the other one, I’d have to manually set it up. So that’s good news. I wanted to do a few test shots, but alas, I just didn’t have the time.

Overall, I’m feeling better. My back is still a problem, but I took some meds last night and they helped. I’m not as exhausted, but with the time change, I do feel a bit off kilter as I do every year. It’s funny — a lot of people say there’s no such thing as feeling poopy after the time change, but I do, even when I go to bed an hour early to compensate. Then again, I have fibromyalgia which makes me more prone to issues with sleep anyway. But, I’m glad to be feeling better.

Soulfire hasn’t happened yet. Got too deeply involved in the Rewrite, and that is the priority. Le sigh.

Onward to stats!

Running total: 31,526 words
Words remaining: 3,474 words (!!)
Body count: 1 possession down, many more to go! *evil grin*
Feeling: Okay. Better than I have lately.
Eye report: Still some pain issues, but not too bad.
Back report: Calm for now. But once the meds wear off, I might be hurting again.

#ROW80 Check-in the Sixteenth – Slow progress

Here we are again! Well, I haven’t been feeling the best — I hurt my back on Tuesday and my eye pain has been worse than usual. So I’ve been struggling with having enough brainz to write, let alone get a lot written, which was my goal. Ugh. Sometimes my body works against me.

But I have made some progress, which is better than none. I have a direction for Grave Touched — I was a bit stuck last night. I also have an idea of a first scene for Soulfire, so as soon as I feel up to it, I’m going to write it. I was going to start it yesterday, but decided against it.

I also worked on getting my Fey Touched manuscript (I just love using that word! It’s so writerly!) formatted for Smashwords, something that’s been on my to-do list forever. Due to mistake, I ended up stripping all my italics out of the file. And since the bulk of it was already formatted, I didn’t want to start from scratch. I’m still learning. So last night I began the fun, monotonous process of italicizing each word that needed it, one at a time. I’m about 40 manuscript pages in (about 70 pages if you’re using the finished book). I got a bit distracted reading it — it’s been 2 years since I self-pubbed it, and it was fun to get back into the story again. I still love it madly. So that’s happening. I’ll be putting it up on Smashwords at a discounted price, so stay tuned.

Here’s hoping for more progress this week.

Running total: 25,925 words
Words remaining: 9,075 words (under 10k! Yay!)
Body count: Someone’s about to get possessed. *evil grin*
Feeling: A touch better than yesterday which is good.
Eye report: Very painful lately, but at the moment is just a little twinge-y. Hope it stays that way!

Year of No Fear – 2014 Manifesto – February Progress Report

February was a rough month for me. I spent most of it sick. I was hit by bronchitis right after my fall at work, and then once I started feeling better, I got hit with a severe cold. So most of what I wanted to accomplish did not happen.

Hubby and I didn’t ice skate — we still have plans to do more as soon as things calm down.

The Grave Touched Rewrite is going slowly. Still making progress. I’ve spent a lot of time fighting my muse on it so it hasn’t been fun. But I think I’ll be able to continue regardless. I also wanted to start poking at Survivor, another book needing revision. I have a rough plan for that, but I still need to go into the mammoth file and figure some stuff out (1,000+ pages! Yikes!). I was all set to do that when an idea to resurrect my 2009 NaNoWriMo novel Soulfire hit me like lightning. And, naturally, the muse is gung-ho, so I might try to squeeze some work in between stuff. A few hundred words a day won’t hurt, will it? (Don’t answer that.) Ahem. So I still want to work on revisions, but I’m getting sidetracked. Ugh.

Photography! I gots plans for that! I’m starting a Photo-A-Day thing for March. I did it way back in, I wanna say, 2010 in February, and kept it going into March. But then I got sick (see a pattern here?) and stopped altogether. I’d like to do it again to get into the mode of shooting again. I haven’t done any Serious Business photography in forever, and I’m feeling slightly intimated by the idea. So, dipping my toes in. (I also am considering re-opening my darkroom, but I need to get my 35mm automatic camera fixed. Also have a plan for that).

Been thinking more and more about poetry, even joined a few groups. Just need to write some.

Also worked on my erotica idea. Nowhere near time to write it, though. Needs to simmer.

I’m also actively working on dieting — but not the deprivation kind. I’m definitely watching what I’m eating, and decreasing my portion sizes. I still snack occasionally, but I’m trying to be more aware of what and how much of it I’m putting into my mouth. I’ve lost 2.5 pounds. Hopefully I can continue.

Trying to be more optimistic and such, but sometimes the depression gets to me. That’s the honest truth. But I am trying to be more aware of that, too, and counteracting it with positive thoughts and doing things that make me happy.

So I’m making slow progress. I’m hoping to ramp up my efforts this month.

#ROW80 Check-in the Fifteenth – and Grave Touched, I’m cheating on you

Ugh, not much progress on Grave Touched. It’s just not happening as fast as I would like. I left my poor characters in a weird spot and I want to finish this scene, but I’ve been avoiding it for days for reasons I don’t understand.

It might have something to do with a resurrected project I am kinda sorta working on (although not a single word has been written yet — it’s all plotty stuffs and worldbuilding stuffs). The original novel was my 2009 NaNoWriMo novel, Soulfire which is dark fantasy/dystopian featuring muses and the eradication of creativity (did I mention the world is dark?). That part is being used for a different project I’m calling The Last Muse. But in the original Soulfire, I veered way off from the seedling of the idea, which I am using for this version which going to be New Adult. With me so far?

So the name is staying but the seedling idea is what I’m pursuing. It hit me so hard and so fast that I’ve been trying like hell to keep up. Today I was getting scene ideas. And naturally, I shouldn’t be working on this because I’m supposed to be working on Grave Touched. I feel guilty about even thinking about it, but it won’t leave me alone! Soooo I might do a bit of writing on this, but my work on GT must be done for the day before I even think of working on this.

Novels, how you wound me.
Muse, how you spite me.
Brain, how you devour me.

(…not sure where that ^^ came from).

Ahem. Stats!

Running total: 24,068 words (creeping, I tell you, creeping!)
Words remaining: 10,932 words
Body count: We’re all alive at the moment.
Feeling: Torn in two. #sadface
Eye report: Twinge-y. No loopy pills were taken during the composition of this post.