Howdy!

So last week the lovely Deborah O’Carroll tagged me in an original blog tag! And it came at a pretty good time. I need a post topic and this one is all about goals which I just rearranged recently. 🙂

Rules:

1. Link back to the person who tagged you
2. Share the picture
3. Answer the questions (naturally…) or even pick and choose which ones you answer
3.5. Tag 3 other writers and inform them that you tagged them (via comment/message/email or hey, even carrier-pigeon or smoke signal; I’m not picky)

Here we go with the questions!

1. Dust-bunnies and Plot-bunnies: Reorganize Your Writing Goals (Or Make New Ones)

So, my goals set forth at the beginning of the year seemed definitely achievable. So naturally I downgraded them at the beginning of this month due to some burnout and masterful procrastination. My sister and I are writing accountability partners this year which has been really nice to keep me mostly on track. My original goals were as follows for the first half of the year.

1. Jan
   • 23K in TMB
2. Feb
   • 15K in TMB
   • Edit TWP (20 pages/week – 90 pages total)
3. March
   • Finish TWP edits (20 pages/week – 55 pages total)
   • Begin Worldjumpers revisions (chapters or wordcount??)
4. Apr
   • Finish Worldjumpers revisions
     • Send to beta readers
   • 20K in Greywolf’s Heart
   • Begin TMB edits
5. May
   • 20K in Greywolf’s Heart
   • Edit TMB
     • Send to betas
   • Outline TCAD

How much of that got accomplished? Well, here’s the new version of the goals (with updates).

1. Jan
   • 23K in TMB (Almost! Wrote 20,504) – guyssss – this was so many words for me. Also where I burned out on the story… 
2. Feb
   • Edit TWP (20 pages/week – 90 pages total) (Met – 97.5 pages)
3. March
   • Finish TWP edits (20 pages/week – 55 pages total) –FINISHED! Now just sweeping through for last notes to myself. 
   • Begin Worldjumpers revisions (as of this post – almost done with first round!)
4. Apr
   • Finish Worldjumpers revisions
     • Send to beta readers
   • Finish TMB – 15K
5. May
   • Outline TCAD??

ALSO – sorry, not sorry for all the acronyms. Most of them you might know as The Mountain Baron and The Wolf Prince, but I’m not revealing TCAD yet. Mostly because I’m not sure if I’ll actually be working on that one this year.

2. Which Stage Are You At? Expound!

a. Remodeling layouts (planning the story)
b. Painting the walls in colorful hues (writing)
c. Polishing the windows and scrubbing the floors and putting flowers in vases (editing)
d. Blueprints (not to the cleaning or remodeling yet… just drawing up plans for the very beginning inklings of a story)
e. Some combination of those things (cleaning out a closet)

Erm… E? All of the above? I’m for sure in the editing phase for two projects (that I’m hoping to finish up this week!). I’ve been dabbling with B throughout this month, working in some projects, and then for sure will be in April, trying to finish TMB. And I’m kind of always doing D??

3. Treasure From the Back of the Closet (Share one to three snippets you love!)

SNIPPETSS!!

1: From The Mountain Baron

The howls sounded closer.

‘This is still a stupid plan.’

‘Point made, Rhys.’

‘Just stay close to me. I hope you’re ready to run.’

2: From Greywolf’s Heart – opening scene.

My father is a cold man. He always has been. Affection would only get in the way of guiding the clan the way it should be. So I don’t know why I expected any different, looking up at him from the dirt arena, waiting for him to decide who would take his place as chief. I’m his first born. It should be mine by right. But he’d never favored me the way a father should. I had to earn every scarce word of praise. Fight for my place at the warrior’s table. Steel my heart against the cold words he so matter-of-factly said.

He’d always favored the man beside me a little more. My half-brother. Bastard though he may be, his mother was of pure blood which gave him as much right as me to be considered. We’d grown up side by side, learned together, trained together. But there was no great bond between us. We’d known all our lives it would come down to this. One would be chosen, and the other would bend the knee. We’d just always thought it would be me.

3: From Worldjumpers

“I’m not a spy. I was at one time; the best in five systems or so they say,” he said. “Until one day my company blacklisted me in the middle of my operation, and I got my arm blown off as a parting gift.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Oh, I figure I knew too much about a guy, a bomb, and a giant golden moose.” He sighed and David thought he might even be serious about the last part.

3.5. Bonus: Do Some Actual Spring Cleaning of Your Writer Self! (and share a picture!)

Well…my writing space is currently my couch. I camped out on the floor on Saturday night and knocked out a bunch of editing. So not a very glamorous pic there. But here’s a snapshot of my glam apartment from my super comfy couch I probably  definitely spend too much time on.

(Sorry for the terrible quality. I was trying to snap a quick pic to get this post scheduled before I went to bed. The books are Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater, and Malice by John Gwynne).

---

TAGGING!

Anyone who wants to! (Sorry, Deborah, but I’m super terrible at tagging people for things… *hides*)

You should definitely do this tag though! It was super fun! And make sure you link back to this post so I can come cheer you on with your goals and spring cleaning. You might get some virtual pizza and ice cream out of it. 😉

 

ALSO – guysss – the results for The Rooglewood Five Poisoned Apples contest (for which I wrote and submitted a fantasy western) are going to be announced this Saturday, and I’m slowly dying of anticipation. There shall be a ginormous Facebook party in the group page and I’ll be frantically checking my phone while hanging out with fam and getting ready for the Easter midnight services at my church. Anyone else following/participating this contest? If you are, send help.