The cat has nothing to do with my goals

 Whoa. Looking at the colors on the list below, I apparently have got it together. If you are following this blog via the Round of Words in 80 Days, however, you realize we are getting close to the end of this Round. Since these are all Round-long goals, I should be getting all of them accomplished by now, right?

Here is that list of goals for April, May, and June. Green highlight is goal accomplished (for the week at least), yellow highlight is goal at least worked on, red lettering is goal not even attempted. A Smiley face marks a goal completely done for the Round. 

A. WRITING

J 1. Finish a final edit of my novel, “The Truth Beyond the River.”  Done, on April 5, but really? When is the editing ever done? I got a critique back from a Beta-reader so, yea, I have more work to do. (Thanks so much! I mean it.) (I guess that’s what the next Round is for.)

J 2. Continue tweaking my book proposal / query, as needed for each literary agent I intend to contact next. Tweaked that query and first chapter and emailed it May 16 to the third agent on my list.    

3. Write eight chapters on my next novel, which I am giving the working title of “New Old Spies.” Still going slow, but making progress. Up to 2,889 words and got a start on chapter three.  

J 4. Write a piece to submit to the Guidepost Magazine Writers Contest (deadline June 10).  It’s written, edited and emailed off to the Contest people. 

5. Write three posts per week for my other blog, “The Dino Chronicles”. Well, I did post three times this week, but my post on Friday announced that I was going to cut back to posting twice a week for the rest of the summer. I just can’t do it all. And if I have time and inspiration, I can certainly post more.    

 

B. REACHING

J 1. Continue sending that proposal / query to each next agent on my list. As mentioned above, I emailed another query to another agent on May 16. (Current agent tally - submitted to 3, rejected by 2.)   

J 2. Submit the polished piece to Guidepost’s Contest. Emailed it on Tuesday.    

J 3. Submit a poem I wrote a while back to the next issue of Voices on the Wind Poetry Journal (deadline April 20). Submitted, accepted and published!      

4. Promote myself or a piece of my writing (whether it be promoting one of my books, submitting a piece somewhere, saying something brilliant about my writing on my social media, etc.) once a week. On my other blog, on Wednesday, I posted some excerpts from my novel, “Where the Sky Meets the Sand”.

C. READING

1. Read the daily assignment in “Today’s Light” Study Bible. I’m just shy of being a week behind, so am working on it.     

2. Read the daily devotion in “Jesus Calling”.  The new Kindle came on Tuesday, so I have been reading daily since then. Am two weeks behind, and not sure if I’m going to even worry about catching up.

3. Finish reading three other books. Read two books and started the third on Friday, “The Austen Escape”. My novel was one of the three finalists in the Grace Awards. They announced the winners last week, and I didn’t win.  The novel I just started reading did. I thought it would be helpful to see what a winning author does differently than I do.   

D. REMAINING

1. Physical

a. Increase my water intake. Most days I have been doing pretty good. Pretty lax on the weekends though. I just don’t have a bottle of water in front of me all day like I do at work.   

b. Cut way back on my sweets intake. Again, some days I am good and others I fall right off the wagon and into a bakery.  

J  c. Do whatever my specialist says to do that is going to heal my heel.  I’ve decided I am done with this goal. I did the best I could, and I will have to live with the occasional pain and other inconveniences.     

2. Home fires

a. Clean out my mom’s papers. Saw the lawyer about this on Friday and go back this coming Friday to sign the final papers. Whew! Not done yet, but I’ve done all that I can.  

b. Do a major cleaning of one of my closets. Not yet. Maybe today, or not.

c. Plant my garden. Flowers are planted, vegetable garden is planted.   

3. Tumaini Volunteers

a. Write the Policy and Procedure manual. Not started.

J b. Host two merchandise sales. Have had three of them – all successful – since the first of April.    

J c. Return to Kenya this Spring! As you already know!

I just had to share these pictures of my beautiful cat, Cheshire. He’s such a ham. His sister, Alice, was sitting on my husband’s dresser, staring down on us, this morning when I woke up. I reached for my phone to try to get a picture, but she jumped down before I could. I am the crazy cat lady.

How are your goals coming along? Have you completed most of them for this Round? Or are you finding that you need to have a writing marathon to accomplish them? Or are you saying, “what the heck, I’ve done what I could, it’s time for a break, maybe I'll just chill with the cat”?