RoW80 Check In: What a Change!

This week has been a complete U-turn in comparison to last week. I’m not longer feeling so down, my productivity has peaked again and I’ve been getting so much more done with my writing that I thought I would be able to. More importantly I’m enjoying myself again, feeling that passion for writing which drove me to take up the pen and the keyboard in the first place. This week has been a week of discovery and rediscovery for me. I’m waking up earlier, sleeping better and getting so much more done. I discovered that I’m more productive in the mornings, not long after I first wake up about 7:30, that I like to take a two hour break for lunch to recharge and that when my parents come home from work I tend to meander in what I do but by 8pm I’m usually back at the computer working.

For the first time since I started this round I’m actually doing stuff that is on my goal list without having to put it on my daily to do list. I’ve made my goals into my habit, pretty much as I hoped to do. Without even meaning to I take part in social media, using it to build contacts and spread ideas as I lay on the sofa during my breaks. I write more often and for longer than I need to. I’m making major progress on a lot of things and I’m just so happy. But enough about how I’m a happy springy bunny in comparison to last week, let’s take a look at how my goals went;

Post 1 blog post other than a RoW80 check in a week –   I’ve actually begun to post twice a week now, on Wednesday with WiPpet Wednesday and on Fridays with my 3 Act Structure series. It’s amazing to me that without meaning to I’ve created a schedule and I’ve already got a bunch of posts lined up for the weeks to come. Progress –  Excellent

30 Minutes on social media a day – As I’ve said already I’ve been doing this without realising. I’ve been commenting on LinkedIn group discussions, talking to people on Twitter and I’ve also made more changes to my Facebook page. It hasn’t gone live yet though, I’m still waiting to sort out my profile pictures before I do that. Progress – Major improvements

Spend 1 hour doing a creative activity each day – Most days this week I’ve been either writing for the Autharium Project or jotting down blog post ideas. Sometimes I’ve even been writing the posts themselves, getting them ready to for editing and then publication. I might not spend a complete hour on one project but I’ve spent an hour doing something creative, split over different things. As long as I keep the productivity going, for me, that’s all that matters. Progress – Excellent

Spend 1 hour doing a different creative activity each day – I’ve actually managed to do this properly this week, every day I’ve been either editing or outlining. I’ve discovered that I prefer to edit with the tv on in the background, giving me something to listen to and watch between edits. I usually do this in the living room, with the family around so I can actually be near real people for a change instead of sitting in all on my own in my room/office. Hopefully I can keep this up into the next week. Progress – Excellent

Start and try for completion of projects on the order day – I’ve had a big project come through with my freelancing this week, as well as a few enquiries that I’m chasing up to see if there’s any work to be had there. Although I’ve not managed to complete the projects that I do have on the same day as they were ordered (5,000 words is a lot to write in one day on one thing) I’ve begun to write them as soon as they were ordered, meaning that I complete projects quicker and the money rolls in. More importantly I do my work on them before I do anything else. Progress – Excellent

So that’s it. This week has been great for me in terms of productivity, work ethic and general happiness. I go to bed tired each night and sleep fantastically. I don’t feel guilty for spending time away from the computer because I’ve actually done more of what I was meant to do that day and I can do the rest when everyone else has gone to bed.

On a side note I’m considering moving this blog over to Wordpress. Blogger keeps messing up the formatting on my posts even though they display fine on the preview and I’ve just been hearing a lot of good things about Wordpress and have for a while. I started this blog back in 2011 and I didn’t really know much about the blogosphere and which hosts were better. I just chose the one that my friend suggested (incidentally she’s since relocated to Wordpress and is now encouraging me to do the same). I also didn’t know what I would blog about at the time, just going with whatever caught my fancy, hence the meandering posts if you read through the archives. Now though I know, I have a clear idea and I’m torn.

Let me know what you think in the comments below. If I do move the blog over I’ll probably bring all the posts from June onwards over too, as well as any really useful ones that I made in the past. What do you think? Should I stay where I am? Or should I move? Do I risk losing the 6 followers I have on Blogger by moving to the more commonly used Wordpress? Is Wordpress as good as I’ve heard? How would you go about switching the blog? And don’t forget the goals progress. Am I getting too ahead of myself? Do I need to slow down or run the risk of burning out? Have I been too optimistic in my view of what I’ve achieved this week?

RoW80 Sunday Check In: A Bit of a Blip

It was a mixed week this week for my goals. I was doing great for most of the time but on Wednesday my depression returned with a vengeance in the evening and sucker punched me in the face. I don’t know whether it’s because I hit a particularly low ebb after the success of last week, beginning to quit smoking, the dreaded female hormones (which I have noticed have caused my depression to worsen in the past when it was particularly bad), or coming down with a sore throat which tends to leave me feeling a bit sorry for myself. It very well could have been a combination of them all though. I just don’t know.

What I do know though is that I’m undeterred. I’m not going to let this keep me down and after a few days relaxing and pulling myself together, but not slacking off entirely, I intend to come back swinging and take my best shot at hitting all my goals.

So, on to looking at how I did this week;

Post 1 blog post other than a RoW80 check in a week –   I did manage to do this one, even though it was late. Friday I completely cut myself off from the computer, only doing my work and then spending the day with my mother who had the day off work. It was nice and pleasant and a nice change to being alone every day. As a result my blog post didn’t get edited and published until yesterday but it still got published. Progress – Excellent

30 Minutes on social media a day – I didn’t really take part in this goal, beyond making a few posts on Twitter and responses to comments on my blog. Hopefully I can get back into it next week and finally start making social media work for me. I just need to do a bit of reading around the subject first to figure out exactly what I’m supposed to be doing. Progress –  Poor

Spend 1 hour doing a creative activity each day – Until Wednesday this was going great. In fact on Wednesday I had another bunch of writing done and got quite far. The few days that I was working on AP I wrote for far longer than the hour I set myself and made a serious dent in my word count for that project. In a way I think that this made up for the poor progress on in the end of the week but it’s still not as good as I had hoped. Progress – Needs to be improved.

Spend 1 hour doing a different creative activity each day – Much like the first creative activity goal I did fantastically. Come Wednesday, before I could sit down and do some editing or planning I found myself crying in the middle of a restaurant and had to be brought home. Needless to say I didn’t get much done after that. Progress – Poor

Start and try for completion of projects on the order day – I did great on this one. Even with depression hovering around, zapping all my motivation I still managed to begin writing for a client and made a few job proposals. Apparently money can motivate me more than depression can wear me down. It sounds shallow but it bodes well for the future and I know that if depression does pull me down totally again, as it did last year, then I’ll still be able to work and I won’t be completely broke. In fact, straight after this I plan to sit down for a little while and work on a client’s project some more. Progress – Excellent

Overall I’d say that it’s been a mixed week of success. It started out great, as you could see in my Wednesday check in, but then things began to plummet. I didn’t let everything slide though and I feel proud of that fact, that despite how I was feeling I still managed to hit some of my goals and make some progress into creating a better work habit.

What do you think? Am I being too hard on myself? Too easy? Should I have stopped all together or was trying for a few goals better in the long run? Don’t be afraid of hurting my feelings, I’m a big girl and I can take it. I need people to tell me the truth rather than being constant cheerleaders. Let me know your thoughts below in the comments. And if anyone has some tips for quitting smoking or helping fight off my depression then I’d love to hear it.

Progress Wednesday: A Row80 Check In and WiPpet Wednesday

So here we are, another Wednesday, another check in. It’s only been a few days since my last check in but given that I changed my goals around a little I think it’s understandable that I want to figure out whether they’re working for me or not. Overall I’d say they have but I think I need to look a little more closely to be sure.

Post 1 blog post other than a RoW80 check in a week – The week’s still young and the post is written. A few edits and it’ll be good to go on Friday. Progress – Good

30 Minutes on social media a day – I’ve been commenting on blogs, joining in LinkedIn discussions and posting on Twitter. It may not be a full 30 minutes that I'm spending though but what I have done is still good. I just need to find a way to not send half the social media time trying to figure out what I'm doing. Progress – needs improvement.

Spend 1 hour doing a creative activity each day – This first one I chose to as writing, trying to get The Novel finished for Autharium. Monday and Tuesday I spent an hour writing and in fact I kept writing past my hour deadline yesterday and had a 4k word day, the first that I've had in a while. Progress – Excellent

Spend 1 hour doing a different creative activity each day – Monday I struggled with this, trying to edit The Feral Diaries while waiting for a client to appear for an interview. Tuesday was excellent and I’m starting to see how sitting down and doing it can just pay off. Progress – Slow but getting there.

Start and try for completion of projects on the order day – I did in fact wake up to two new jobs yesterday morning and started and finished them both very quickly, before I did anything else. It was a great way to start the day, knowing that I’d done my official work as soon as it had arrived. Progress – Excellent.

Overall I'd say I'm definitely doing ok with my goals. There's only really one worry spot and that's the social media goal. I think I need to figure out what I'm doing there so I'm not wandering the internet in dazed confusion for 30 minutes. But there's more green and orange (I do like my colour coding) than there was last check in I believe and that's good. 

Now... I keep seeing the term WiPpet Wednesday bandied around the blogosphere a lot lately. A few of my new blog friends that I’ve made this round have actually taken part and have encouraged me to take part too. I don’t normally share my writing on here, preferring to keep it secret and safe, hidden from anyone. But I decided that I need to break free of some of these self imposed boundaries. So here it is; the first 500 words of The Novel, unedited and totally fresh from the first draft. I wrote this back at the beginning of July and I still really like how it turned out.

The dock of Crown’s Haven swarmed with men, every one of them knowing exactly where they were meant to be and what they were meant to be doing. Ropes were grabbed and tied and the ship slowly lowered towards the ground. The timbers creaked below his feet, the clanking of the chains growing louder and louder as the ship was towed, inevitably, irrevocably down to the ground. Marrick watched from the forecastle of the Dark Tide, watched the dozens of men and women scurrying around the deck, securing lines and bringing up cargo. The women had their long hair tucked up beneath scarves and hats, their curves hidden in billowing shirts and waistcoats.  

“We’re landed Captain,” said the burly quartermaster at his side.

“What do you want me to do Sir?” Marrick lifted an eyebrow at the older man. 

“Really Wallis?” he drawled “Are you actually going to go along with the Sir and Captain thing?” 

“It’s how it’s done Sir,” Wallis said, his eyes glittering with mirth “Wouldn’t do for one of the locals to suspect we were nothing but the honest, hardworking traders that we are, Sir” 

“Oh we work hard all right,” Marrick said, his smirk growing “You and I both know that you run this ship when we’re landed. I’ll let you to it and go and see if I can find us a new bowman or three,” 

“Ay Sir,” Wallis said with a mock salute. 

Marrick walked away laughing beneath his breath. He threw a quick wave at the other man and slung one long leg over the railing of the forecastle before dropping to the deck below. One of the crew stumbled and swore at Marrick as he appeared in front of him suddenly, making the crewman drop his boxes.  

“Language Hicks,” Marrick said with a scowl. “It wouldn’t do for the dock master to hear language like that here,” 

“Sorry Captain,” Hicks muttered, gathering the boxes together again. 

“Lower your voice, man!” Marrick snapped below his breath. 

“Sorry Captain,” Hicks muttered again, his voice gruffer now, deeper. 

Marrick cast a quick glance towards the dock master who was now on deck, deep in conversation with Wallis. He was looking intently at his chalkboard, checking off the log that Wallis had given him against what was being steadily lowered from the ship. The dock master didn’t look up. Marrick breathed a sigh of relief. 

“Wallis!” Marrick called, walking towards the two men, “I’m going landward but I should be back soon,” 

He didn’t wait for a reply, instead leaping onto the railing of the deck and grabbing a nearby rope. As he slid down it, plummeting faster and faster towards the ground he heard Wallis calling out above him. 

“You need to be back by the windshift Sir! Captain Rush will be mighty peeved if you’re late for the next cargo collection!” 

Marrick laughed and continued walking, throwing up an arm to show that he had heard.

I think that the first few pages are good but then again I wrote them so I would say that. What do you think though? Let me know if there’s anything that you would change, fix, jiggle around a bit. I always like to hear people’s opinions on my writing, more often than not they see problems in the prose that I don’t because I’m too close.

The second part of the blog series on the Three Act Structure should be up on Friday so keep an eye out for that and make sure that you come back next Wednesday for more WiPpet Wednesday and maybe you’ll get to see more of The Novel. Or maybe I’ll be cruel and post something from another Work in Progress.

How do you think I’ve done with my goals? Am I being too easy on myself? Too hard? Am I trying to do too many things each day? Let me know what you think in the comments below. I always try to reply to them, even if it takes me a little while.

RoW80 Progress: A Few Revisions Already

Progress in this first week has been a bit mixed. Even in the first day, when excitement was still running high, I only managed to hit a few of my goals. On my best day I still couldn’t reach all of those goals. I’m starting to think that I may have set myself too many goals. I’m trying to do so much that I’m not doing anything. I’m spreading myself thin and not achieving anything as a result. And then on Friday I kind of burned out and haven’t tried to complete my goals since. Most of my goals were aimed at building a work habit and I have managed to create a bit of a work habit. More importantly I’ve actually been waking up earlier and doing more than I was doing before. I’ve also been tracking how I spend my time and making sure that I do daily to do lists and a weekly to do list. But I haven’t reached my goals though. So let’s see how I did do;

Post one blog post other than a ROW80 update a week

I did hit this goal. On Wednesday instead of creating a check in post I began a new blog series about the three act structure. I’m pleased that I managed to reach this goal as it was one of the most important goals that I wanted to complete. The lack of content on my blog lately has been annoying and worrying me so the fact that I’m finally getting some new content up is encouraging. In fact I’ve already begun writing my post for next week.

Spend 30 minutes on social media each day

I’ve been doing a little bit of social media each day, ranging from comments on the LinkedIn Groups that I’m a member in, to spending time on Twitter and taking part in conversations there, to visiting a bunch of blogs from the other RoW80 participants and leaving comments. I may not have been spending 30 minutes each day doing it but I’ve been doing little bits and pieces each day which is a great start. I want to spend more time doing social media so I’m keeping this goal up.

Spend 4 hours each day doing two different creative activities

4 hours a day is actually quite a lot to be spending on creative activities. I’ve done two different creative activities most days but I’ve not spent 4 hours doing it. Mostly I’ve spent a half an hour at most on each activity. While I could get a lot done in 2 hours of writing it’s difficult to stay focused entirely on one thing for that long. I’m going to change this goal or rather these two goals a little to make sure that I actually have a slight chance of reaching them.

New Goal: Spend 2 hours each day doing two different creative activities.

The Two Work Goals

Apply for 3 jobs each day on the freelancing websites I use
Start and try for completion of projects on the order dayI’ve applied for a few jobs but they don’t update as often as they’d need to for me to apply to new jobs each job. For the first few days I was able to apply to three jobs each day but as the days passed and new jobs didn’t come up I had to stop. And when it came to the job completion... well I need to be hired for jobs to try and complete them. So I’m scrapping the application goal. It’s unnecessary and something that I do anyway. But the starting and completing on the first day is one that I will keep and aim for when I get hired again.

As I’ve been writing this I’ve been looking at my diary, trying to see where I went wrong. And then I realised that I was still trying to do too much on top of my goals. I had the RoW80 goals to reach towards and then I had weekly goals on top of that which were in no way linked to the RoW80 goals. I need to tie the goals in to each other, have a list of weekly goals that are what I needed to work towards as part of my RoW80 goals. For instance I can list the blog post that I need to write as the other blog post each week. I can list the two different projects I want to work on each day within my daily to do lists as part of my creative work each day. Once I’ve got those specific goals that link to RoW80 then I can include a couple of other goals to work towards.

Overall this week has been a bit disappointing but there have been a few successes. Also I’ve made a couple of friends through commenting on other blogs and taking part in conversations on Twitter. This is, in my book, a success. Even with the goal revisions this week has been ok. Let’s hope that next week will turn out better.

Progress Wednesday: 3 parts of my personal challenge ... and a poem.

I decided, after trawling the internet for the last week, that I would have one day a week where I discuss the progress I'm making on my Personal Challenge, and my monthly targets. I decided today may as well be that day considering how much work I've gotten done in the last two days. I've managed to finish another drawing and two pages of Witchan. I'm very proud of myself for getting this done.

 This is just all of the pages I've finished together. The colour is surprisingly good considering that it looked bleached out on the camera screen. They were all drawn using a 3H pencil and the colour was created with water-soluble pencil crayons. They took me roughly 2 days in total to complete and although the comic pages need to be editted slightly the first picture is pretty much how I want it to look. I seemed to hit some form of massive art surge that has gotten me creating large amounts or creative things in comparison to normal.

The colour isn't as good on this picture but you can see the general idea. The reason for that big border around the edge it that the Sketchbook Project books aren't A4, they're a little smaller. As it is I need to cut it down before I stick it into my book. The theme is 'Travel With Me' as I've probably already said so I thought I'd explore the hazards of travel. The sea was surprisingly fun to do with the crayon, just loosly sketching in the voids and joining the rest together. I like the slightly bleached appearance that the watercolour gives as it implies the sheer heat of the desert island.

These two are Witchan comic pages. I need to scan them in and edit them on my image editting program before they're ready to go up but ah well. I like the mixing quality of the water soluble pencil crayons and also the way that the pencil has run on the second page to emphasise the ink drop feel that I was going for with those black blobby things. I still need to place a white border around them as well as sketching in the text that is there but can't be seen on the photographs. I really love the image editting programs.

I also found myself writing a poem today. It started as a few lines I had when I was half asleep the other night and I've since expanded on them using as many of the senses as I can. It seems to be evolving in my head into an entire series based on a single theme. I want to do a little research into it before I write any more but I will put this one online once I've finished it.

Now onto a different subject. After a bit of consideration I've decided that I'm going to have specific themes for certain days. Here's a little list;

•  Progress Wednesday: In which I inform readers of my progress in both my personal challenge and the monthly targets. At the minute the two are slightly joined but now and then there will be things that are solely related to one or the other.
• Friday Links: Links to sites that I frequent or have found useful in someway and want to share with you.
• The Sunday Workspace: On this day I'll show you a little of what I have in my works in progress pile, whether art related or writing related. This will basically be a chance for you to get a little peek into what might appear soon 

I hope you like the thought of this, it'll help keep my blog update regular and let you know what to expect when. I'd love to hear thoughts about this though so please feel free to email me or comment on the blog.

Creative Bursts, Decisions and Fashion

I got serisouly sidetracked last month. Even in the last week. I fully intended to write a blog post a fortnight ago, even wrote it on a sheet of paper and everything. That sheet of paper disappeared into the filing system that is my room though but the good news is I found it today. I'm not going to tell you what it said though, nyah nyah nur-nur nyah :P
Instead I'm going to write a new one, and maybe now and then pull bits from what I wrote if I can find where I put it... oh bugger.
Any whoo... I've gone a bit of a writing spree, in the hope of finally acheiving some monthly deadlines... it's semi-worked. I've written and finished the first draft of three chapters for a novel (incidentally the novel is not the one I originally planned to write but something completely different that spanned from a simple image in my noggin). I completely finished the introduction of my webcomic and have managed to draw the first four pages of the First Book. I also managed to write down some basic information for five different countries in my fantasy world. This makes me sound very geeky but the sheer amount of stuff I expected myself to do was a little ridiculous. I need to learn to stop setting myself ridiculous targets.
This creative burst was spurred on in part, I think, by the fact that I finally decided whether I was going to do the Masters or not. I decided not. I'm just fed up of being poor and to be honest, weirdly fed up of having so much free time on my hands. Plus I'm wanting a break from constant assignments and deadlines. I know I'll probably get them in the real world but they're not as... educational deadlines I suppose. If I decide I want to go do a Masters again next year I can always save up and reapply, this time without the worry of applying for a loan. In fact that actually seems like the better option.
Now onto the third part of my post's title. It's a little unrelated to writing and reading but fashion is a creative output so I fgured I'd include it. Another reason that I'm wanting to get a real job is that I want to be able to update my wardrobe or expand it when I want to and not have to worry about next week's food shop. I'm starting to develop my own personal style and hopefully soon I may well be posting pictures of the day's outfit. So this blog may soon get renamed, relating to fashion as well as writing. I'm looking at doing a collaboration with other bloggers to put links to each other's blog in our own blogs and maybe expand readerships.