Is it possible to have too much green?

Whoot! Whoot! WHOOT! I finished the rough draft of my latest novel at five in the morning yesterday. Not once, but twice in those last four chapters, my main male protagonist threw me off, saying or doing something I hadn’t anticipated. I was like – seriously! You rock, MMP!

The other exciting thing is that I asked my husband to start reading it, and by nine yesterday morning he was up to chapter 10. He said that he liked it, but that he really did not like one of the male antagonists. Up to chapter 10 this MA hasn’t even done any of his bad stuff yet, but I’m impressed (with my husband or with my writing skills?) that Hubby picked up on this character.

Anyway, here are the stats: Total words - 73,554. Total chapters - 57 chapters, plus an epilogue. Started - 08-21-16. Finished rough draft – 10-28-17.

Next step. Let the Hubby finish reading it and email it to one other person for their initial review. Let it simmer for a month or two, then do a quick read through, checking for obvious grammar errors and inconsistencies, such as someone likes coffee in the first chapter and never drinks it by the end. My plan is to get that done by the end of the year. Give it another month or two to rest, then do a thorough edit to finish by March or April. Okay, I could continue with my plan, but that is for 2018.

Here are my goals for the past week and as usual, green highlight is goal accomplished, yellow highlight is at least worked on and red print is a total failure.

1)    Promote the new book, “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” five times.

a.     I posted a picture with a quote from the book to Twitter and LinkedIn. Twice. (So counts as two times.)

b.     Started researching ways to get more reviews and emailed a woman who reviews books on Amazon. I’ve had a hard time finding out how to contact people. I know ways I can stalk them on the internet, but I feel like if they don’t make their email address available, that they really don’t want strangers emailing them. I will continue to research this. 

c.      I heard from my publisher’s media person and she scheduled a book signing for me, so I shared that on my social media.

d.     Posted a rant on Facebook asking for reviews. Maybe not the right approach, but that’s life. I can be pyscho at times.

2) Finish the rough draft of the new novel. YEAH! You already know this.

3) Post three times to my other blog, The Dino Chronicles. Yes.

4) Read four other blogs and comment on three of them. Read five, commented on three.  

5) Clean up and organize my emails. I’ve always tried to keep my inbox less than 50, but it’s up near 100 right now.  I got my inbox to 50 at one time, but every minute it seems, another email pops in. At least it is back to manageable.

6) Non-writing things to do:

a. Scan a dozen of my mom’s old pictures into the computer. Done.

b. Get one box of stuff out of that spare bedroom. None of it was from the spare room, but I did collect a box for the second-hand store.  

c. Do three things for the nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers.

            1] Sent in our yearly report to the state.

2] With my son, we updated Quick Books to get ready for Audit committee next Friday.

Wow, that was pretty impressive. An awful lot of green. Like I’m on the wrong month – it’ll be a while before we celebrate St Patrick’s Day.

Now, can I keep up this pace?  For next week:

1) Promote the new book, “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” five times.

2) Work on the study guide for “A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven”, which I had started in September.

3) Post three times to my other blog, The Dino Chronicles.

4) Read four other blogs and comment on three of them.

5) Non-writing things to do:

a. Scan a dozen of my mom’s old pictures into the computer.

b. Get one box of stuff out of that spare bedroom. Try selling some of our stuff, maybe post to Craig’s List. 

c. Do three things for the nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers.

1] Audit the books for the fiscal year ending July 31, 2017 (we are a little behind).

My Aunt Clara's three kids. Frances died of cancer and Ben died in Viet Nam. Only Bill lived to old age. Ben (above) was actually the inspiration for one of the characters in my new novel. 

Whew! That feeling passed

Another uneventful week. As in, I did okay on the goals, nothing happening which should have kept me from doing more, but life goes on.

Here are my goals for the past week and as usual, green highlight is goal accomplished, yellow highlight is at least worked on and red print is a total failure.

1)    Promote the new book, “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” five times.

a.     Shared on Facebook that I’ll have the books at a seminar I am attending in November for the day job.

b.     Posted to my other blog a deleted scene from the novel.

c.      Posted to Twitter and LinkedIn the dates of my book signings in November. 

2) Write three thousand words on the new novel. I wrote 2,794 words. So close, that I had to give it more than just yellow. (And Aaron Rodgers, the Green Bay Packers’ quarterback, is out for the season with a broken collarbone. Actually all of Wisconsin has been wearing black all week. Our pastor even incorporated it into his sermon last night.)  

3) Post three times to my other blog, The Dino Chronicles. Done.

4) Read four other blogs and comment on three of them. Read five, commented on two.

5) Clean up and organize my emails. Nope. I just keep looking at them.

6) Non-writing things to do:

a. Scan a dozen of my mom’s old pictures into the computer.  Nope.

b. Get one box of stuff out of that spare bedroom. Work on selling some of the stuff in that room. Nope.

c. Work on three things for the nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers. I signed us up for a sale in December and worked on the year-end audit report (our fiscal year ended the end of July, so we are a bit behind).

And next week:

1) Promote the new book, “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” five times. I really need to get on this. The book is selling rather poorly on Amazon and has only got ten reviews.  

2) Finish the rough draft of the new novel.

3) Post three times to my other blog, The Dino Chronicles.

4) Read four other blogs and comment on three of them.

5) Clean up and organize my emails. I’ve always tried to keep my inbox less than 50, but it’s up near 100 right now.  

7) Non-writing things to do:

a. Scan a dozen of my mom’s old pictures into the computer.

b. Get one box of stuff out of that spare bedroom. Try selling some of our stuff, maybe post to Craig’s List.  

c. Do three things for the nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers.

I don’t know. Sitting here writing this this morning, a sudden wave of depression came over me. I think I could just quit the whole writing thing and get on with life. Read books and watch TV shows like other people. Go to the movies. Go out with the girls after work. Drink alcohol. Something, anything that normal people do. I feel like my home office has become a dungeon that I have been banished to, instead of a healthy place filled with creativity and life.

Whew. That feeling passed. I just had to write about it, I guess. I’m living the life I want to, no matter how dysfunctional it feels at times. I am who I am. 

 And here I am, as my great-grandmother's great-granddaughter. Thinking about doing this for Halloween. My one attempt at being a "normal" person - dressing up for Halloween for the first time in a millennium.

taking some friend-time

Yesterday, I went out of town for the day and night with three of my former co-workers. We had such a blast! Just got back, which is why I am posting this so late. Needless to say, that cut into some of my time to work on goals, but hey, time with past friends is way more important than pretty much anything else, except maybe family. 

I still did okay. Here are my goals for the past week and as usual, green highlight is goal accomplished, yellow highlight is at least worked on and red print is a total failure.

1) Promote the new book, “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” five times.

a.     Contact Janke bookstore regarding doing a signing. Went and talked to them. Hmm? Let’s just leave it at, they said no.

b.     Start promoting the two signings I already have scheduled, finalize the third one. 1. Shared the flyer for the book signing on November 17 on all my social media 2. Finalized the signing on November 15. 3. Have been sharing a flyer of all three November dates I have signings.

c.      This might not really be about book promotion, but I think I want to come up with a spread sheet for sales. Done.

2) Write three thousand words on the new novel, which should be close to finishing it. 1,444 words, another chapter. Should only have three chapters or so left.

3) Tweak the poem on aging and submit it. Done.  

4) Post three times to my other blog, The Dino Chronicles. Only posted twice.  

5) Read four other blogs and comment on three of them. I think it was three and two.

6) Clean up and organize my emails. Nope, not so much. I just keep looking at those emails and going, huh?

7) Non-writing things to do:

a. Scan a dozen of my mom’s old pictures into the computer. Scanned 23 pictures.

b. Get one box of stuff out of that spare bedroom. Work on selling some of the stuff in that room. Nope, not so much.

c. Work on three things for the nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers. I think the only thing I did was promote our two upcoming craft shows.

Next week:

1) Promote the new book, “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” five times. Right now I don’t have any thoughts, other than to keep promoting those book signings and researching other venues. I’ll see what else I can come up with.

2) Write three thousand words on the new novel.

3) Post three times to my other blog, The Dino Chronicles.

4) Read four other blogs and comment on three of them.

6) Clean up and organize my emails. I’ve always tried to keep my inbox less than 50, but it’s gotten out of hand the last few months. I need to put those emails I don’t want to lose into their own files for posterity.

7) Non-writing things to do:

a. Scan a dozen of my mom’s old pictures into the computer.

b. Get one box of stuff out of that spare bedroom. Work on selling some of the stuff in that room.

c. Work on three things for the nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers.

 And that’s it folks!

Yikes, just Yikes

 It is three a.m. as I am writing this. I had some new pains in my leg when I went to bed, so thought I would try something different for pain, thinking it wasn’t bad enough for Vicodin. Not gonna try this pill again. I slept a few hours and now have been awake for two, dizzy as all get out, wide awake, and now as I write this, am getting sick to my stomach, getting the shakes and breaking out in a sweat. Nuts.

The past week started out pretty slow as far as the goals go. Well, actually pretty slow in all ways, as I can’t remember doing anything the first couple days of the week. I got up the gumption by Thursday though and accomplished a few things.

Goals for the past week and as usual, green highlight is goal accomplished, yellow highlight is at least worked on and red print is a total failure.

1)    Promote the new book, “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” five times. Hmm? I know that I sold a bunch of them, so that should count for something, but other than that I don’t remember doing anything.

2) Write three thousand words on the new novel. This is where I really shined this week, writing 4,748 words. That could be a record for me, at least since the last NaNoWriMo I attempted a couple years back.  

3) Write a poem about aging for the Oct 20 deadline. Finally. My problem was that I had so many thoughts on the subject of aging, that I didn’t know where to begin. Between my patients and my family, I could write a book of poems about aging.

4) Post three times to my other blog, The Dino Chronicles. Yep.

5) Read four other blogs and comment on three of them. I kinda lost track, but I know I was at least close.

6) Non-writing things to do:

a. Scan a dozen of my mom’s old pictures into the computer. Nope.

b. Work on three things for the nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers. I don’t remember, so I guess not.

Goals for next week:

1) Promote the new book, “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” five times. I seriously need to do this. Here are a few thoughts:

a.     Contact Janke bookstore regarding doing a signing.

b.     Start promoting the two signings I already have scheduled, finalize the third one.

c.      This might not really be about book promotion, but I think I want to come up with a spread sheet for sales.

2) Write three thousand words on the new novel, which should be close to finishing it. Super yeah!

3) Tweak the poem on aging and submit it.  

4) Post three times to my other blog, The Dino Chronicles.

5) Read four other blogs and comment on three of them.

6) Clean up and organize my emails. I’ve always tried to keep my inbox less than 50, but it’s gotten out of hand the last few months. I need to put those emails I don’t want to lose into their own files for posterity.

7) Non-writing things to do:

a. Scan a dozen of my mom’s old pictures into the computer. Though I have boxes of pictures to work on, I found another old, old photo album that I’m excited to do. Maybe that will motivate me.

b. Get one box of stuff out of that spare bedroom. Work on selling some of the stuff in that room (such as this love seat/sofa sleeper, like new and asking $250, if anyone is in northern Wisconsin and want to come get it).

c. Work on three things for the nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers. We are currently in between things to work on which could be why I haven’t done much with it lately. I might start working on a procedure manual. 

I need to go back to bed now. Even if I won’t be able to sleep, as least I won’t have to worry about the blurred vision that is settling in. Yikes! 

 

Do you want a little background?

For those you who follow my blog, but don’t follow ROW80, let me give you a little background. 

Round of Words in 80 Days (ROW80) is the writing challenge which knows you have a life, and being such, you come up with your goals to accomplish in 80 days, four times a year. Today started the fourth Round of this year. Because I don’t always color within the lines, I don’t always follow guidelines of ROW80 – keep in mind the premise is still the challenge which knows you have a life, so there is a lot of leeway.

So these are my guidelines: 1) I post a blog here once a week, letting you know what I accomplished that week and what my goals are for next week. 2) I try to read and comment on the blogs of as many fellow ROW80’ers as I can. Hmm? I think that’s it.

Now you know as much as I do. Here we are the first day of the new Round and this is what I want to accomplish by the end of the next 80 days (or the end of the year, more likely.)

     1)    Finish writing “The House by the River”.

     2)    Participate in three book-signings of “Where the Sky Meets the Sand”.

     3)    Submit three pieces somewhere.

     4)    Clean out the spare bedroom and turn it back into a spare bedroom.

So that’s that. Because I can’t pace myself with a three month-long list, here’s what I want to accomplish by next Sunday, when I will be posting here again.

1)    Promote the new book, “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” five times.

2) Write three thousand words on the new novel.

3) Write a poem about aging for the Oct 20 deadline.

4) Post three times to my other blog, The Dino Chronicles.

5) Read four other blogs and comment on three of them.

6) Non-writing things to do:

a. Scan a dozen of my mom’s old pictures into the computer.

            b. Work on three things for the nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers.

Oops, I just checked the last thing I posted here and I was heading off on a week’s vacation. If you don’t follow my other blog, The Dino Chronicles, where I’ve been chronicling that vacation, I should let you know that I had a great week. Didn’t rejuvenate as much as I had hoped (and did spend way too much money), but I still found lots of time to relax and unwind and bond with the Hubby.

Have a great upcoming week and I hope you find time to relax and unwind too.  

I don't usually relax in a dress, but hey, a girl's gotta have fun.