Bimonthly Goals: July - August

Since it's the first of the month and the end of my other set of bimonthly goals, I thought it would be best to post my new goals for the months of July and August. The list will usually have about ten or so goals for me to try to complete.

So here they are:

• Write 70k of Hourglass or finish
• Keep up with critique partners
• Post on social media daily
• Blog twice a week
• Work on District Pluto series
• Save money
• Contact an editor
• Start up my newsletter
• Unpack Boxes
• Clean out car

These are my goals. I may add some later on, depending on how the months go. Let's see if I can get a little more than half finished this time around.

Writing Update: Making Plans

Well, I'm back in the swing of things. I just printed out all of Hourglass because I discovered that I can't revise on my computer. I'm not sure why. I just have a really hard time focusing on revisions. So, I printed my manuscript...which took a lot of paper but it was worth it. I kind of like not having to stare at a screen all day and my foot really appreciates me not sitting at a desk all day.

The revisions are going along smoothly. I want to try to finish everything by the end of the month but considering that it's already the 11th of May...It might not happen. I'll keep working on it though. I've been doing some research into some cover artists and I think I found one I really like and could possibly be a good fit for my series. While I'll still be making the cover art for my Wattpad stories, I kind of want my published novels to be professionally done until I get used to the new program I got or until I get better in general...Improvement is always nice.

I've been looking into making my own publishing company and it looks relatively easy. I'm going to look into it more though. I still have to come up with a name for it and do some more digging to figure out if it's what I really want (it probably is). There is just a lot to do for that.

Once I'm about halfway through my revision process, I'll be looking for Critique Partners. I want to make sure that I have something that I can actually give my partner(s) so I want a good portion of Hourglass finished by then.

Since I'm off school for the summer, I'm really hoping that I can continue to work on my novel and start working on my stories for Wattpad (which I've been procrastinating on). I think I'm going to take down my story Spliced until I'm done with my edits for District Pluto: Morality Sentence. Which I want to publish on the site next. I've been thinking about it a lot lately and it's something that I've been really interested in working on.

Another thing I started up again was reading. As much as I would love to go through and re-read the Tamora Pierce novels, I don't have them available for me right now. They are in my dad's basement waiting to be transferred to my apartment. I just need to clean it first. So, instead, I'm reading Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas. I will get through this story...I will. This book has been sitting on my shelf for a year now and I still haven't read it.

I'll probably write a review and post it...just to prove I actually read it. 

Writing Update: A Free Semester

I'm finally getting back into the swing of things. I'm typing up my outline and changes on my computer and I'm getting everything ready for when I actually start editing again (tomorrow). I fell behind a lot since the beginning of the year. I'm not even close to being finished. School and work kind of took over my life. I do work full time and I have to maintain my grades for the scholarship I got. I'm 27 and still in school...but I did switch my major. Now I'm working on my degree in Early Childhood Education rather than English (though, sometimes I miss it).

After a really terrible winter/spring semester, I decided to take the summer off of school. It will give me more time to work on my revisions and push toward my end goal. Since I fell behind, I decided to push my deadlines back to sometimes more reasonable. I want to be finished with the revisions by the end of the summer. That is the absolute latest.  I know when the Fall semester rolls around, I'm going to struggled with balancing my time again. Some of my classes are demanding and I have to give them priority.

So, other than that, I'm also going to be working on getting the next chapter of Spliced up and possibly work on the next installment of District Pluto. I don't plan on publishing these professionally. These are just stories that I wrote for a challenge or for experimental purposes. They are still stories I would want to share. Maybe one day I'll take them down and fix them up for publishing but not any time soon.

The Survival Agreement

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I thought I would post the cover art of my story, as I just published the first chapter on Wattpad last night. It was definitely outside my comfort zone but it did make it's way through a few people before I posted. Those people have been credited at the end of the chapter.

Feel free to check out my Wattpad: HERE - The first chapter of The Survival Agreement is available there. I'm hoping to update at least once a week on Sundays since this is a finished story. The only thing that takes time is when others are helping me by going through it.

This story is the first installment of my District Pluto series. And at the current moment, I'm editing the second story, The Morality Sentence. It's going to need some work - a lot of work.

Third Edits - Complete

These edits for The Survival Agreement didn't take me very long. While I know there are places that I can improve in, I need another opinion so I'll be actively looking for beta readers. I actually have a few that I've contacted but I'm waiting to hear back from them. This is the hardest part of the process for me. Finding someone to read my work.

I actually sent it to an editor. I was going to wait until after the beta readers but it already presented itself. I figured I'd see what they had to say about it until I find more beta readers. This is mostly a trial time for me. I don't know what process I would prefer first and which I would prefer second. I guess I'll see.

Second Edits - Done!

Finally! Finally my second edits are done for District Pluto: The Survival Agreement (formally known as The Sacrificial Son). I've even created a checklist for what needs to come next. My third and final round of edits (which is mostly a syntax edit) should be over quickly before I sent it out to Betas. Then I'll be editing two projects at once. The next story in the District Pluto series, Morality Sentence and my stand alone novel Dowsers. I'm hoping to get some of these out to Betas by the end of the year but I have a feeling that Dowers will take me a long time to edit but I really need to get back on it.

One thing I noticed when doing this second edit was that my characters were weak. While typing up my edits, I tried to fix this but I don't know how well I did. I guess I find out when I start the last round of my editing. If not, then hopefully my betas can help me with how they read. It occurred to me that my characters didn't even have the barest of description so I had to add that in. That was a struggle.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the outcome of this short story/novella (possibly a novelette). I can already see the improvements compared to my very first draft. I finally have a name for it too, as I stated above. It's no longer Sacrificial Son, it is now titled The Survival Agreement. I already have the cover art made (and fixed). Actually, I have two. I have one that I picked out but I'll also ask the people who are my betas - if they want to. I'm not going to force that on them. I already have one in mind.

January Goals

The beginning of the year is going to be harder to start off than my normal years. With my classes starting mid-January, I need to try to get ahead of the game before then but if I don't manage to finish, I still have the rest of the year. Because 2016, I'm taking it a bit slower than I usually do.

Here are my writing/editing/reading/etc goals for January:

• Write book #1 (no real title yet)
• Edit 10 hours in District Pluto
• Read 1 book
• Blog once a week

It's simple enough right. That's just my goals for writing. I have personal, work, and school goals that are not added to the list. For now, I'm keeping my blog strictly writing related until later in the year. Smaller lists help me stay focused. I won't feel so overwhelmed with all the things I need to do.

We'll see if it helps at all.

Progress Update: First Edit

It has happened. I finally finished editing the first draft of the Sacrificial Son. I'm not sure if it's going to be called that but that's the title I have now. It will be what I'll call it until I figure out another name for it. Anyway, it's finished. I'm letting it settle for a moment before I go through it again.

I already know there are scenes that need work. Mostly the ending scenes. They are important to the story since it introduces a much bigger plot that encompasses the series. This editing process was a journey. I'm still trying to figure out what works for me but there are some things that I find really help. I'll be sharing them in another post later down the road.

For now, I'm going to continue planning my new novel The Escapist. That is also a temporary title. I only picked that because it was the only thing that fit for now. I don't have all of the details worked out yet so the title is more than likely going to change. As far as planning goes for this novel, I think I figured out a fair bit but not enough to get started yet.

Progress Update: Not Going to Plan

So this week started off strong but fell pretty rapidly. I managed to get 5.5 hours of editing finished. That got me through all 26 pages. I'm in the middle of taking the mark-ups and adding them in. Unfortunately, I have to write a few scenes in and I'm having a hard time figuring out where to place some of them. There are some places that I know I'm going to have to go back and fix several things before it has some kind of flow.

It's not going to plan. I wanted to finish the first short story this week but I procrastinated. It is around the time I normally have a fall out with everything I'm doing at the beginning of the year. I'll just have to put in as much editing as I can tomorrow. 

As far as writing goes...I'm not sure how many I wrote but I didn't write the 7 pages I wanted but I did make some progress. I just need to think of where I want this to go. I didn't plan ahead. I should have. That is something I'll have to work on.

I started planning out a novel for April. It's my month for a break. I'm pretty excited about this new novel. It is untitled as of now but I will get one as soon as I know what I'm doing.

Progress Update: Beginning of a New Month

 

Yesterday was the start of a new month and, for me, it started off pretty well. I managed to get 2 hours of editing in with the new method of editing I'm doing. Frankly, this is working a little better than my other method even though, I'm pulling a few things from that method.  I still haven't found a sure way of editing yet but I have a long way to go.

This month is the month I work on my District Pluto series. I've come to the conclusion that I'm going to need more short stories in the series to help people understand the world a little better. It's best to understand the world. 

I'm pleased with my progress so far. Editing short stories is going to be much easier than editing a novel. Baby steps, I suppose.

I'd better get my 2 hours in for today and write a page in my handwritten stories.