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.