ROW Update : Getting Back On Track

So it's been, what, three weeks since I last checked in?  Four?  And my last check-in post - I decided I needed to edit something and managed to delete it instead.  That will teach me to edit when I'm too tired to see straight.  And then I just fell off the face of the earth.

Anyway, I've mostly finished my cleaning, decluttering, packing project.  I still have some stuff to do - 3 or 4 boxes of paper to be dealt with in the living room, a bunch of clothes and things to clean out of my bedroom - but I can slow down and work on it at a pace that will accomodate other activities now.  Like writing.  Yay!

So I don't have a lot to report this week, but I'm working on getting back on track.  I've been doing a lot of reading, and I just got Bonni Goldberg's Room to Write book through interlibrary loan (I wanted to see if I liked it before buying my own copy.  I'm also kind of short on bookshelf space at the moment.) so I'm going to dive into doing some of those exercises.  I've also been thinking about adding morning pages to my routine before work, but we'll see how it goes.  Anyway, my goals:

1) Write 100 words per day.
Have not done this for a while.  I just didn't have enough mental energy with everything else going on. (I hate that - it sounds whiny and defeatist, but it's also true.)  But, this week I intend to get this goal moving again, and hopefully increase the word count in the weeks to come.

2) Visit and comment on at least 5 other ROW blogs per week
Not done.  Again, hoping to pick this back up this week.  I want to see how you all are doing!

3) Writing Post Round Up blog post on Sundays
This I actually did this week.  It's brief, but it's posted.  And I've found more time to read writing blogs this week, too, so I've been collecting material for the upcoming Sunday.


So that's it.  I know eventually I need to develop tools to help me keep going during times of business and stress.  This time I didn't make it, so all I can do is pick myself up and start again.  Here we go!


Wishing you all a wonderful and productive week of writing and life!

Writing Post Round Up - Week of Aug 18-24, 2013

Hello!  I know I haven’t posted anything for a couple weeks – that crazy life thing has been getting in the way, but things are hopefully settling down a bit now, so I can get back at it.  I’m just going to ease back into this – I haven’t been reading or collecting as many posts lately either – so today’s are mostly fun, light things.

http://www.dianapfrancis.com/2013/08/21/writing-post/

First up, Diana Pharaoh Francis shared this nifty graphic of the path to publication by Zachary Petit.  I think we can probably relate.  Plus, it gave me some laughs.

http://inkygirl.com/wwfc/2013/8/23/mimis-book-purge.html

If you haven’t yet read Debbie Ridpath Ohi’s delightful comic “Will Write for Chocolate,” I highly recommend it.  This particular one is the second in a new arc.  Mimi and I totally purge books the same way.

http://www.listchallenges.com/npr-top-100-science-fiction-and-fantasy-books?ref=share

Just for fun, how many of these top science fiction and fantasy books have you read?  I only scored 22, so I guess I have my work cut out for me if I want to be knowledgeable about the classics of my genre. J

http://www.magicalwords.net/james-tuck-2/its-not-easy-being-meh-or-sometimes-this-gig-sucks-but-its-alright/

On a slightly more serious note…  Writing is hard, and it can be easy to feel like it’s just you struggling and maybe you suck and aren’t meant to be a writer, and all of that stuff that comes up when we’re tired and discouraged.  But we’re not alone.  Hence, this comforting post by James Tuck.

http://edditto.com/sct/

And because my life would not be complete if I didn’t find some kind of instructional post on Scrivener on a semi-regular basis, here’s a detailed post on how to use Scrivener’s Structure and Content table.  This table is part of the Compile wizard and mastering it can help your compiling go much more smoothly.  Scrivener is a great program, but it’s not always intuitive, so I appreciate people who write these “how-to” posts and make my life easier.

Note: this is a list of blog posts and articles on writing that I collect weekly.  Inclusion on this list does not necessarily mean it was published this week, just that I read it this week and thought it was cool, interesting, and/or useful.