RoW80: Round Four - Looking Back and Looking Forward

Before I list my targets for this round of RoW80 I thought I’d get a little something off my chest.

I was a little disappointed in Round Three, mostly with myself. I met most of my targets each week but I just didn’t bother to update. It seems that’s a common flaw with me. I forget to blog, getting so engrossed in my other writing that it completely passes over my head. In fact, looking at the site I’ve not blogged in over 2 months. That is ridiculously disappointing. But I have reasons for not blogging. Some of them are flimsy excuses that don’t really hold up but others are more emotional, based in fear of letting you, my dear readers, down. Some of this is because I feel guilty that all I’m ever doing is telling you all about how well I’m meeting my targets or how bad I feel for being a lazy bugger. The other is that I feel guilty about only blogging about my RoW80 goals. Before I found RoW80 I’d blog about my thoughts on certain areas of writing or show some of my work (mostly the artistic variety) but since January a lot of my blogs have been devoted to RoW80.

But now I’ve decided to change all this. Round 4 of RoW80 is upon us, it’s October, the beginning of autumn (yes I use autumn, not fall. It’s a British/Me thing) and a chance to start afresh. Particularly as I just got back off holiday where I spent an entire day re-seeing the contents of my stomach (but that’s another story). So... onwards.

Goals

1. Plan/write NaNoWriMo 2012
2. Edit one chapter of Darkling Watch Book 1 a day (yes, there is now a book one and this will be explained) 
3. Finish and edit The Feral Diaries; Book 1
4. Plan The Feral Diaries; Book 2 once a week
5. Outline and plan o.S.a.M twice a week
6. Blog at least twice a week.

And now, because I’ve clearly got so much in my head about these goals I’m going to explain them. Partially for you, dear readers, but mostly for me so I finally know what on earth is going on in my crazy little wormhole they call a brain.

1) Plan/Write NaNoWriMo 2012 -  I’ve included this one because even though it’s pretty much a given that I’ll be participating in NaNo again this year I’m a little worried that I’ll forget to actually do any planning or writing what with all my other work that I’m doing. I love NaNoWriMo because it helped me realise that yes, I want to be a writer, and that yes, I can actually finish stuff when I set out to. So it goes in. As target number 1 in fact, so important is it to me. Incidentally I’m trying to beat my word count from last year of 105,000 words.

2) Edit one chapter of Darkling Watch; Book 1 a day - Yes, I’m still chipping away at this bad boy and yes it has now been divided into more than one book. I’m planning on writing an entire post on the Darkling Watch Trilogy as there’s a lot of information and thoughts I want to share with you all. That and, once more, it helps me to figure out what I’m actually thinking when I write it down and get it out there.

3) Finish and edit The Feral Diaries; Book 1 - This is a new work for me, a little different from my usual style and genre so I’m actually pushing myself as a writing with this one. I came up with the idea when I was planning for Camp NaNo (the mini NaNoWriMo that runs in June and August) as I sat at Skegness with a busted ankle. Needless to say that was a boring week for me. Any who, because I’m so excited about this new ‘novel’ and it was such an interesting process for how I’ve been working on it I’ll be doing a separate post about this as well.

4) Plan The Feral Diaries; Book 2 - Yes... there’s more than one for this as well. Or at least there was when I was planning it. Now though, because of how the story has developed it’s not really two books, or even three. Yes I know I’m being vague but I just want to tell you all about this right and to do that I really do need a post all about The Feral Diaries and The Feral Diaries alone.

5) Outline and plan o.S.a.M twice a week - I know, I know. I finished it, at least the originally script. But then I was talking it out with a friend, a fairly gifted storyteller in her own right, because I was having some iffy feelings about it. It didn’t really fit at all my original vision of the story, the characters were good but not really fitting into the roles I’d plonked them in and the entire thing just felt a bit off to me. So, with her advice and the amount of help she gave me as we hashed the problems out I decided to rewrite it, starting from scratch. So there; I’m starting all over again and o.S.a.M is now back at the very first planning stages. It needs a lot of work but I’m taking it slow because it’s a long term project that I’m going to have to live with, possibly for years.

6) Blog at least twice a week – I mentioned at the top of this post how disappointed and guilty I felt because I was only blogging about RoW80 and whether or not I was reaching my goals. Now I’m setting myself an actual blogging RoW target. Once a week I’ll blog about whether I’m reaching my targets or not. The other blogs... well they’re going to be more like the original posts were; thoughts on the creative process, my headway and discoveries about my work, the obvious mentions of the projects I’m working on. Too often I’m really vague about my projects, worried they’ll be silly or stolen. No more. I won’t be telling too many secrets (spoilers darling!) but I plan to give more information about them than I have done. I’ve even got a long list of things I want to blog about that are in no way related to RoW80. Isn’t it exciting?!

I do want to mention that I have other targets for myself that I’ve not included here in my RoW80 targets. The reasons for not including them are multiple.
First off; I don’t like the pressure and restriction of having so many targets written down. I think 6 is a fairly nice amount, not loading me down too heavily but giving me enough things to push at and work towards. More than that and I’d just be looking at this long list of things I feel like I HAVE to do and I lose all love of writing. I don’t want that to happen.
Secondly; the other targets aren’t really measurable. Not in the sense that the ones above are. These ones are more... vague outlines of stuff that I need to do for various projects. World building, timelines, chapter arcing and stuff like that. There’s not really a way to measure how successful I am at meeting them as there is no end game, no point at which I can say ‘There, I’ve done it, I hit my target’ like with Darkling Watch where I know I’ve edited a chapter because I reach a natural chapter break and save it on a separate document (explanations for this will come. I promise).
Lastly; I want some privacy. I know, it’s a little weird. Here I am on the net, blogging and telling you all about my projects and the crazy thoughts that go on in my head. But that’s the thing. I might tell you a lot but there’s got to be something kept back. Something for me that is just mine. Something that only I and my writing journal know. Some of it is also that I’ve got a few things in mind that I want to keep a surprise or that are going to take a while to implement. Know this though. When I do manage to meet one of my secret targets you’ll know about it. Whether you’re seeing it on the blog site itself or reading about it in one of my entries. You’ll know it when you see it.

Mostly because I’ll spell it out for you all.

But for now I’ll leave it be and sign off. I’ve rambled on for well over 1000 words and now I’m just getting to the loopy stage of my writing. So, I’ll go back to my editing and have an early night. Tomorrow I’ll wake with eerie optimism, get back to work and hopefully you’ll hear from me again in a few days.

See you later and keep writing.

A little bit of a let down

Since Sunday, the day of the very optimistic blog post I seem to have broken. The sun decided it wanted to come out, and come out in style. For the last three days it’s been too hot to do much more than sit down and read. So that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been reading like a crazy person. I haven’t got much else, if anything done, simply because it’s been too hot to sit down and draw or write, even in the evenings.

I have however been planning a new novel, linked slightly to DW but still somewhat separate. I’ve been world building around it and also figuring other stuff out about DW itself in my head. It makes me happy though. Thinking about this stuff has helped me to realise things about the world of DW that need more work or parts of the novel itself that need to be changed or removed. The editing process is a long one and it seems like there’s rarely an end in sight. Really though I enjoy it. I’m getting to make what I’ve written look more like I imagined it in my head and that is always a good thing... well almost always.

So... to summarise my progress on my goals so far (from Monday to the time of writing this;

• Draw something each day – 0/2
• Write something none-NaNo/blog/DW related everyday – 1/2- world building and mild planning for the newest idea.
• Spend ½ hour on oSaM a day – 0/2
• Edit 1,500 words of D.W. daily - 0/2
• Plan for NaNoWriMo – 0/2 (does thinking about it count?)

I honestly feel like I’ve let myself down by how much I’ve not done.? I know in my mind I could have found some way to make it comfortable enough for me to work on something at least but I didn’t. I ask myself why? Am I just being lazy... AGAIN? Or is it something else? From Friday and all through the weekend I had not touched a single cigarette. Come Monday, when I start to avoid doing anything I was smoking again. This has got me wondering... are cigerettes affecting how much I’m getting written or drawn. Are they really that much of a drain on my creativity? Or am I just finding more excuses for not doing what I know I should?

Revelations and Alterations

It’s been an odd week. After all the excitement of the weekend I seemed to get stuck in a slight rut. I was barely drawing, barely writing and if I’m honest getting a little depressed about my life. Then I had two girls and a baby hiding in my bedroom for an hour. While they were hiding we got chatting and they both said things that made me think. They have both worked to get what they want and they seem relatively happy with what they have. I haven’t.

I coasted through school and university doing the bare minimum and I got by fairly well. Every year after university was done and I returned home for the summer I’d kick myself for not applying myself and yet when I went back I’d just fall into the same habits and coast along. I’ve started to do that again now, now I’m graduated and trying to join the real world. I’m sitting around, doing the bare minimum to reach my goals and for some reason feeling proud of this. Well... not anymore.

After a couple of weeks easily managing to attain the majority of the goals I realised that they need reworking, they’re too attainable. I’m reaching them easily and it’s not actually pushing me to grow as an artist/writer. So from my own thoughts and the feedback of other people participating in RoW80 I’ve edited them.

• Edit 100 words of DW daily.

This was both too easy and too difficult. On a bad day I would generally get over 1000 words editted, working on entire scenes rather than brief chunks. I tried to edit in small 100 word bursts but it just didn't work. The blocks didn't really connect and everything felt discombobulated. With that in mind I came up with a new one goal based off the original idea that pushes me to my limits and makes me work harder to attain my goal;

• Edit 1 chapter (2,500 words) of DW a day.

• Draw one full art piece a week

With sketching thumbnails, writing and all the planning I'm doing I just don't have time for even more art on top of it. Full-time artists and writers have told me that they even struggle to achieve this goal so I don't feel too bad about altering it. So, with that in mind I tweaked the goal, keeping the general idea but changing the time-frame for it;

• Create on full art piece a month.

•   Write everyday

This was too easy. I included any form of writing I did, whether editing, planning for NaNoWriMo or even a blog post. I needed to write something that wasn’t included in the other goals, that I couldn’t use as an easy out for completing that goal and so I tweaked it, edited it and came up with;

• Write something non-NaNo, DW, or blog related each day.

 And so, with my goals and targets reworked I set to work again, with the hope that I will start taking my work more seriously than I already am and actually succeed in achieving not just my RoW80 goals but my life goals as well.