Today is the last Friday of the month, which means it’s time for another Big Goals Update. For those of you wondering, fifteen of us have set some crazy or crazy important goals, and we update once a month on the last Friday, sharing our progress and encouragements.
Month: January 2017
The Remnant Blog Tour
Hey everyone! Today, I’m welcoming William Michael Davidson to the Five Year Project as part of his blog tour.
William Michael Davidson lives in Long Beach, California with his wife and two daughters. A believer that “good living produces good writing,” Davidson writes early in the morning so he can get outside, exercise, spend time with people, and experience as much as possible.
A writer of speculative fiction, he enjoys stories that deal with humanity’s inherent need for redemption.
For more on Davidson and his writing, connect with him on Goodreads, Twitter, Facebook, and Amazon Author’s Page.
I Survived! Blogfest
This is Chrys Fey reporting for Disaster 5 News. I am in Cape Town, South Africa where a tsunami hit yesterday morning. I have Misha with me, a survivor of the tsunami. Misha, can you tell our viewers what happened, and how you survived?
[Wiping away tears, clinging to the emergency blanket around her shoulders.] It was terrible. Just… Just water everywhere. One moment I was shopping for groceries–
[Sniffles, chin wobbling as she wipes away tears with the heel of her hand] I’d just come out of the shop and talking to my mom on the phone when I heard screams. It just didn’t make sense.
[Clears throat, tears welling in her eyes.] People shouldn’t scream on Fridays. I looked in the screams’ direction and there was just this…this roar and– [Breaths shallowing as she tries not to break down] Water. Water everywhere.
It pushed me back before it even hit me, and when it did, I knew I was going to die. [Breaks down crying, shoulders shaking with the force of her sobs.]
[Manages to look up again. Speaking through tears] I woke up on the roof of a bus stop. The wave must have put me there. I… I can’t believe… I don’t know how I survived.
The street below me was empty of people.
Page Count: 272
Sabrina and the San Francisco earthquake. Now they are approaching their
wedding day and anxiously waiting to promise each other a lifetime of love. The
journey down the aisle isn’t smooth, though, as they receive threats from the
followers of the notorious criminal, Jackson Storm. They think they’ll be safe
in Hawaii, but distance can’t stop these killers. Not even a tsunami can.
has ever faced. It leaves her beaten, frightened. Is she a widow on her
honeymoon? As she struggles to hold herself together and find Donovan, she’s
kidnapped by Jackson’s men.
with no luck. The thought of her being swept out to sea is almost too much for
him to bear, but the reality is much worse. She’s being used as bait to get him
to fall into a deadly trap.
If they live through this disaster, they may never be the
same again.
Balancing
I’m stealing a few moments to check in. It’s really busy here on my side, since I’m trying to write 100k words this month and I got three editing and formatting jobs to do.
Not sure what I’m doing right to get all those jobs, but I’m not going to argue with it. I have to say, I’m really glad that I decided to augment my publishing income this way, because I’m actually enjoying it a lot. More than that, spending most of my working hours on this means that I’m really getting paid (and incentivized) to sharpen skills that I can use on my own publishing efforts later.
My major thing this week is to get these jobs done by Friday, because then I have enough money to pay out my Payoneer account, which means my cash flows at least until next month again. Yeah yeah. I know. Business. Bleh.
I realize the need for balance, though. I can’t keep writing so much that I don’t actually check in on my social networks. (I know. I’m TERRIBLE.) I can’t freelance so much that I can’t actually write. There has to be a way to make everything fit in.
So now I’m giving myself regular breaks on editing gigs. Usually, I have a tendency to sit down and power through the entire manuscripts in as close to one sitting as possible. I just get lost in what I’m doing, so I don’t realize that I haven’t moved in four straight hours.
Which is a terrible thing. Very bad for my health. So.
Now I have a timer running. I set it for 30 minutes to an hour, and stop, move around, blog, check in on twitter etc for a short while before starting again.
That way, I also get to refresh my mind, which I imagine will only serve me even better for getting frequent rests than it does without them.
I’m also hoping that giving myself frequent short breaks will keep me from being too tired once I get around to writing. I don’t like pushing through exhaustion too much. It’s too risky, because if I burn out, it’ll be months before I can write, and I’ve given myself an official(ish) deadline for Book 3.
Luckily for me, writing is feeling like fun at the moment, which means my brain isn’t picking up that it’s actually a hell of a lot of work. Unless I’m tired.
So it’s much better not to tire myself out. I’m way more productive that way.
How are you doing? Any tips for me to stay balanced?
So…looks like this is happening…
Well. I’ve been wanting to put my social networking stuff into a regular schedule, starting on 1 January and keeping to it as consistently as possible.
I lasted until 5 January.
Terrible, I know.
I have a really good excuse, though.
I’ve started working on Book 3 of The War of Six Crowns again, and boy did I hit my stride. I even wrote a whopping 10k words on January 5th. Which means for the first time in my life, I really feel like I can make and cross 100k words in one month. (Less, actually, given that I’ve only started writing on the 5th.)
Crazy, I know, but I really want to see if I can do it. Preferably without burning out.
My strategy was to write as much as I could for the past few days, and see if I could catch up to par for 50k (since I started late.)
It went so well that I’m on par for 75k words. In fact, I’m a day ahead. Which means I only need 6k words to get on par for 100k.
After that, it’s 5k a day. Which I might actually make quite easily, given how the words just keep coming at the moment.
That said, I don’t want to crash either.
So I’m going to write today’s 6k words in 30 minute sprints, followed by 15 minute rest periods, to see how that goes.
Hopefully it works out. Cause it’ll be awesome to have Book 3 done.
How are you doing? Anyone want to sprint with me? I’m using #100kchase on Twitter to call my sprints, if you want to keep me company.
Insecure Writer’s Support Group: It’s Never as Good as You Remember
Update Day: New Year, New Goals
Hey everyone!
This is my Update Day post for the Got Goals? Bloghop. Same bloghop as the one you’ve been seeing on the last Friday of every month, but now with a new (extra) name and button. For those of you wondering what this is about, a bunch of us set some crazy, huge or crazy important goals, and to keep ourselves motivated, we post monthly updates and encourage each other.
As I mentioned, we usually post the updates on the last Friday of the month, but we made an exception for December’s post in order to give everyone time.