Category: goals

Insecure Writer’s Support Group

Hey everyone. It’s the first Wednesday of the month, which means it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group post. For those of you who don’t know, the IWSG is the brainchild of Alex J. Cavanaugh. Once a month, we share our insecurities, then visit each other and encourage each other. You’re more than welcome to sign up. For more information and the entry list, please click here.

This month’s question actually ties in quite nicely with my insecurities… 

In terms of your writing career, where do you see yourself five years from now, and what’s your plan to get there?

I’d actually like to be writing (and doing writing-related activities) full-time by the end of next year. (Actually, I’m basically working as if I’m full-time already, but it’d be nice to actually make a living from it.)

Five years from now, I’d like to be making a very comfortable living from my writing.

As for my plan to get there:

I’m using my writing skills to freelance as an editor/beta reader/article writer on Upwork and Fiverr. I’m also working on building a Patreon following, and obviously I’m selling books. Right now, I’m putting all of the money I’m generating back into making more money (E.G. through marketing, or through paying for products that aid me in writing, editing etc.)

Eventually, I’ll hopefully be in a place where my writing earns enough for me to make a living. And actually, it’s not all that impossible. The lucky thing is that I live in South Africa, which means I’m earning in Dollars and living in Rands. So, if I managed to make $500 a month after expenses, I’d actually have the same income as a good starting office job salary. (And 2.5 times my country’s minimum wage.)

My insecurity right now, though, is my life at the moment. I’m not going to go into exactly what’s going on right now, but every time it feels like we’ve finally clawed our way out of the shit we’d been dragged into, something comes by to shove us back in.

So at the moment, I’m trying not to feel like I’m never going to get anywhere again, but the thing is, the thought is there. It exists. And the only way for me to make it go away is by pushing through and working anyway to build up the life I want.

It’d just be nice if I didn’t need to worry as much.

How are you doing? Do you set five year goals? 

Finally! A chance to update.

I’m finally back, with enough breathing room to let you know how I did with my crazy goals bloghop. This… isn’t really a good thing, but because I’m tired of complaining, I’m just going to ignore the reason why I haven’t been able to spend time in front of my computer and leave it at that.

There’s no point to talking about the situation yet, because I’m just going to depress myself when things could actually be okay.

So.

I ended up resetting my goal in September to allow for any income related to my writing skills to go toward my $7500 a month goal goal. (Which means, editing, ad money from a writing blog, money for hosting writing classes, royalties etc. all count.) 
On this new system, I’m taking a look at income generated and word-count, because I do really want my actual book writing to add the majority to my income. 

Generated Income

Last month, I’d set a goal for $300 generated which is the sum of incomes generated previously and future income. Yes, this means I count the incomes twice, but it works because I want to see how my income generation grows while also seeing how much I’m actually getting in every month.
This month, though, some royalty money I’d loaned to my family got paid back, and it was enough to actually boost my income so much that I lifted the goal to $500 about half-way through. (And then still managed to get over that.) 

But because most of this money is a real windfall (writing related as it is), I decided to keep the goal at $500 this month, because it’s a nice, lofty goal to reach for, which should keep me busy for time being. 
What am I spending all this money on? Mmm… first, the programs I need to update my books. Second, I bought a new web domain (with a custom e-mail address.) Other than that, I’m buying a map for The War of Six Crowns and everything else will go into a kitty to either carry me if I happen to go into a lean month (which feels like it might happen this month) and marketing. 
I’m delaying most of my marketing plans until my books are updated. (Just makes sense to me.) So really, finishing those updates are vital. 

Writing

When it comes to writing, I didn’t achieve most of what I’d wanted to do, but I did win NaNoWriMo. In fact, I ended up writing 60,000 words.
I still feel like I’ve got 100,000 words to go. (Yes, I’m aware this book is huge.) So, I have a bit of a monster task in front of me. Especially now that I have a fraction of my time available. 
So… I don’t think I’ll be able to finish the book this year. (Which makes me really, really upset. Deep breaths.) 
I also need to finish updating my books this month so I can start pushing with marketing. I’m hoping to start with this over the weekend. I’m just glad to have all the tools at my disposal again. I just need time. (Deep deep breaths.) 
So how are you doing? 

Up-boo! Day

Today is the last Friday of October, which means it’s time for another Update Day. In case you’re wondering what it is: Beth Fred and I host a blog hop, where we set crazy or crazy important goals. The idea is for everyone to chase down their goals, and on the last Friday of each month, we share updates on our progress.

You’re welcome to join at any time, so if you’d like to sign up, or to see who else is taking part, please click here.

I have to admit, it’s currently 9:30 p.m, so I’m cutting it close with my own blog hop. In fact, I almost considered cutting it even closer, because I have a deadline looming (more on that in a few), but I needed a break. So I thought: what better way is there to relax than to do a post mortem on the past month?

Huh?

Huh?!

Oh okay fine. I’ll just get to it.

In cased you missed last month’s post, I’ve hit reset on my 5-year goal and I decided to take this being-a-writer thing full-time. 
To make that happen, I’m setting monthly writing goals, along with writing business goals. The former deals with my activities in producing more stories. The latter deals mostly with marketing, and my ability to earn revenues from writing, and writing related activities. Just to clarify, if the money I earn relates in any way to me using my writing skills or knowledge, I’m counting it as revenues for my writing business. 
So, if I were to monetize this blog (which I won’t do) and this blog generated an income, it’d show up in my analyses. But if I win the lottery, or suddenly become a millionaire doing something else… Nope. 
Basically, this whole exercise is to see exactly how hard or how easy it is to start almost from scratch and become a full-time writer. So I started last September with a budget of $10, and started working. 
Every month, then, I set a goal for Writing and a goal for Generated Revenue. 

So how did I do in October? 

Before I show the graphs, I should point out one thing: If I had to give October one theme, I would call it The Agony and the Ecstasy. 

Especially the week I just had. Life and other work (yeah, remember how I said I’m still doing other work too because it gives me so much time? BAHAHAHAHAHA *sob*) just went into full-blown hell mode. 
In fact, when I wrote my friend Connie about it, I couldn’t even put a word to it. A day later, and it’s finally occurred to me: 
Shell-shock
I’m not even kidding. This was a week I will not want to experience ever again. I’ll get around to talking about it, as soon as I’ve really recovered. 
It’s not all bad, though. This same hell-week also turned out to have something really good in it too. (And that doesn’t count the fact that I’ve finally tasted (and fell in love with (even more passionately than I adore parentheses)) macaroons.) In fact, this exact same hell-week was nothing short of miraculous. (Again, more on this when I’ve recovered.) 
In short, the overall results of October were mixed. 

Writing

One of my major writing goals I have at the moment is to finish Book 3 of The War of Six Crowns before the end of this year. 
Basically, doing so means I have to write about 50,000 words every month, including October. 
Did I manage it? 
No. 
In fact, I’ve managed a slight bit under half of what I wanted to do. In my defense, pretty much every one of those plateaus coincided with some crappiness from the rest of my life spilling into my writing time. 
And sadly, most of the words added here were courtesy of my Insecure Writers’ Support Group short story, but I did submit that, so that was one writing goal achieved.
As for my third writing goal (reformatting my books for updates to the content and covers), I’ve so far managed to start on The Vanished Knight. It’s basically done, but I want to do yet another proofread. Not because I think I’ll find anything, but I’ve found that Word does funny things to documents, changing formatting without permission, making words and phrases vanish… That sort of thing. Call me paranoid, but I’d rather be sure everything is where it should be. 
If you’re wondering, if the hell-week is over, why I haven’t started writing… I have a very good reason. More on this on a bit.
Goals for November: 
1) NANOWRIMO! Yes, I’m a glutton for punishment, but I’ll be rebelling and trying to add 50k words to Book 3. In case you want to buddy up with me, my username on the NaNoWriMo website is iceangel. 
2) Published books. I have a lot to do here: 
2.1) Take my paperbacks out of Amazon’s expanded distribution, so I can prepare to publish them directly through Ingram Spark. 
2.2) Finish formatting and proofreading all three of my books so I can do the updates I want to do. 
2.3) Plan something around the reveal of the updated covers. 
3) Post Ryan on Patreon. Ryan is a short-story from the same world as Endless. I want to share it with my patrons, and had planned to start this month already, but I just couldn’t get to it. 

Generated Revenue

Every month, I’m setting a monthly revenue target. Then, I’m counting all of the month’s revenue, which means I count revenue the moment it’s generated (which I usually call future income or income generated in the month) and money that were actually generated in previous months. 
So, if I sell a book on Amazon and I get $5 in royalties, it will only really be in my account later. So, in order to show people where my income is coming from, I’ll show the money in the month I first earned it, and then again once it’s in my account. (It’s all just to make the graphs make sense. I actually studied accounting and am aware that this is not how normal people count money. But I’m not normal.) 
Also, I have a few rules I’ve set for myself: 
The first one is: I set the target, and the target doesn’t move until after I’ve reached it once. 
The second one is: The target for current and future generated income is equal to the monthly target minus accrued income. (So if I set a goal of $10 and that $5 royalty is paid into my account, I have $5 left to generate for this month, or for future months.) 
The third one is: If I hit the target, I have to raise the bar. 
And… well… I’m going to have to raise the bar quite a bit. 
See, in September, I set a $100 target for the month, and then came in under. But this month… this month I annihilated it.
That’s right. I generated more than double my target revenue. In fact, I hit the $100 goal on the 14th. Which was part of the reason why I haven’t been able to write today. Because I’m getting this income from Upwork, and I still have a deadline. 
On the positive side, I made enough to get Upwork to pay money into my Payoneer account, which also means I’ll be able to withdraw my money. Which means I can pay for Photoshop etc. 
Goals for November
1) Boost book sales. Don’t get me wrong. I really like when my target graphs look like this, but honestly, I need to see more book sales. Amazon was completely dead this month (except when they paid out a few royalties.) And really, my overall goal is to get my written works to pay my way, so I really need to make that bar graph a bit more colorful. Mainly, though, I know I didn’t enough to get sales this month. I did more in September, to obvious results. 
2) Hit my next revenue target. Deciding on the target is a bit tricky, because most of the money I made on Upwork this month will be accrued income in November. So, if I set a $200 goal, it will basically only be $100 to go after. Instead, I’m lifting the goal to $300. 
That’s it from me. How did your October go? Are you doing NaNoWriMo?

Update Day: Hitting the Reset Button

Hey everyone! Today is the last Friday of the month, which means it’s time for another Update Day!

I thought I’d do things a bit differently, which means…

Tada!

Vlog post.

To sum up for those of you who haven’t the time to watch the vid:

This month, I decided to stop moping around and approach my writing career as if it’s already my full-time job. My thinking is that I’m a business person anyway, so I might as well turn this writing thing into a business.

Making this work meant I had to rethink the way I’m going about this.

So…

TL:DR:


I’m hitting reset on my goal. 

My five-year goal is still $7500 a month, but now it can be from any writing related activity, whether it’s me actually writing, or me using my writing expertise in some way.

I’m starting over. 

This is actually year three, but the change is so major and the mind-shift so big that I decided to start again. So September 2016 is month one of Year One. I basically did this, because I want to track my growth. And since my income basically flatlined for the past three months, I thought it would be a good thing to start since this major change got brought in.

I’ve been keeping track since 6th (which was when I decided to kick things up a notch), so that’s enough for me to actually get some stats in.

Speaking of stats…

I’m also going to change the way I report on my progress. 

I might get back to the to-do list eventually, but I can’t help feeling that people really don’t care about those all that much.

A lot of people have been asking me how I’m actually doing with my five year goal, so I will be reporting on my money coming in and going out, since this full-time-writer-with-almost-no-money-to-start-with thing is probably something that might interest a lot of people.

Which means that I’ll be posting monthly stats for the year. Two, in fact, but I’ll explain more in a minute.

So how did I do? 

Basically, this full-time thing has two components: Me selling stories and services I already have, and me creating more stories. For ease of reference, I will call these Marketing and Writing. 

Marketing


Since my marketing results can only be measured in terms of income, I’m keeping track of that instead of the hours I’m putting in. 
My income basically gets divided into three groups: Income from previous months (since there’s up to a 3 month delay on royalties etc), income earned within the month and income generated for the future (so I’m keeping track of books I sold today so I know how much I’ll get in three months.) 
I set my goal for Total Income Generated. Which means that if I say $100 is my goal, I’ll see that goal as achieved even if $100 came in only from previous months sales etc. 
Since I’m also concerned about my income’s growth, I’ll be keeping track of how much income I generate within a month and for future months, separately. So there will be a separate graph, where the goal line is calculated by subtracting my Income Generated Goal from the amount that came in from previous months. 
Okay? 
Okay. 
So first, let me look at income generated in past months vs income generated within this month and for future months.

Basically, the income accrued in previous months is money from Patreon (which is currently around $10). 
As you can see, most of my money generated this month was for current or future earnings. Let’s see how those look. 

So since starting this whole exercise, I’ve critiqued one short-story on Fiverr, and actually sold some books on Amazon (which is definitely an uptick, because my book sales have basically been dead lately.) The Patreon income is basically the $10 from patrons who’d signed up before and $1 from a new sign-up. It will show up again next month as income accrued from previous months, since every month’s subscriptions only actually hit my account in the following month.
Goal for October: 

It’s such a nice, round number, so for now, I’m keeping to $100 as my goal. Fingers crossed that I actually hit the line next time. 

Writing

This month I basically set writing goals as I went along, which is why my goal line keeps jumping up as I hit my targets. 
I basically only started writing on 11 September, and then only sporadically. Then, on 24 September, I started timing my writing and trying to write every day. The effect on my daily word counts are quite staggering….

Let me put that into words real quick. I wrote over 16k words this month. 10k of those were written last week.
Goals for October: 

I have three big ones: 
1) I want to finish this draft of Book 3 of The War of Six Crowns before the end of the year, which means I’ll basically be chasing NaNo targets every month for three months. Thanks to timing myself, I know I can type 2k words in 80 minutes. 
2) I want to write the story I have in mind for the Insecure Writers’ Support Group competition. 
3) I want to re-format and update my currently published books, specifically The War of Six Crowns to prepare for the new covers I made for them. 
There are, of course, more goals (we’re talking about me, here), but these are my priorities. 
How did your goals go? What do you think of this new format for my Update Day posts? Are you interested in the outcome of this experiment of mine? 

Update Day

Today is the last Friday of August, so it’s time for another Update Day.

For those of you who are wondering what I’m talking about: Beth Fred and I host a monthly bloghop. A bunch of us have set huge/crazy/very important goals. On the last Friday of every month, we share updates on our progress (if any.)

You’re welcome to sign up! You can find more information here, as well as see how everyone else is doing.

So how have I done? 
Reading: Pathetic. I’ve only read a few pages in the beginning of the month. 
Life: Uhm…….. Let’s just say the crap continues. Which means that: 
Writing: 20k words, all of which except for 14 were written in the first two weeks. 
I wasn’t helped by the fact that I got a flu around the 14th. 
It also feels like… since setting aside my major goals for the rest of the year, I’ve sunk into doldrums, the likes of which I haven’t experienced since my time in university. 
I guess, by abandoning my plans, I’d abandoned my hopes for my publishing career, and as a result, I no longer have the incentive needed to be productive. 
Yes, I know what I’ve said before about not writing to publish. I stand by that.
But it’s also a widely known fact that writing is difficult enough without staving off what might become a monstrous depression of a scope I’ve managed to avoid until now. It’s difficult enough to write when everything else is going well. 
And I’m not doing well. Not by a long shot. 
And that’s the truth beyond my radio silence. 
People don’t want to hear about the sadness, hurt and pain of others. So… it’s best to try, at least, to limit posts about these things to a bare minimum while burying it in pep, promises, flowers and bunnies. 
But when you’re this tired… This hurt… this… hopeless. There. I’ve said it. Hopeless. All I’ve got left is a grim determination to survive. 
That’s not going to help me write, because right now, writing isn’t giving me anything to eat. 
And it’s certainly not helping my social networking, because grim determination tends not to bring out the snappy tweets, inspirational quotes or wise, philosophical blog posts. 
So in short, I’m basically incapacitated when it comes to writing anything the way I used to. 
It’s difficult for me to be friendly and funny and whatever else when I’m visiting other blogs, so I’ve stopped commenting because I hate writing a comment and feeling that that thing I’ve written just isn’t me. 
But I digress. Grim determination is really not a good place to be in when writing a book. No matter how difficult it is to write, I don’t believe it should be done with gritted teeth and white knuckles. And for all of eleven days, I had a moment of peace within myself. That was when I wrote 20k words. Which is sad to think, because at that rate, I could have written 60k if the peace had lasted. 
Maybe, things will turn around and I’ll regret my apathy toward writing later when I’m way behind (which I am already to the point where falling more behind hardly matters) and suddenly have the opportunity to publish again. But to be honest, that seems like the best case scenario right now. 
How are you doing? 

Update Day

Hey everyone! It’s the last Friday of the month, which means it’s time for another Update Day! For those of you who are unaware of what all this is about: A group of us have set some huge/crazy/crazy important goals that we’re striving towards. And on the last Friday of every month, we post updates on our progress.

If you’d like more information or to sign up, please click here.

So… last month was a bit of a downer and I didn’t set many official goals. But I made some progress with Book 3, having done almost 30k words of writing and editing this month. I might see how many more words I can do over the weekend. 
I also read one book, The Hunt for Red October AND I moved house. So I’m pretty happy with getting all this done despite the upheaval. 
Lots is going on in my life still, though, so I’m thinking I’ll continue with giving myself a breather and just seeing how much progress I can make in August. 
How are you doing? 

A Belated Update Day

So after all this time, I finally managed to be way late for my own bloghop. It’s been a long week and I got home so late that I just couldn’t focus. I decided to sit back and sort through my goals for July in the morning (because I didn’t have time to do it all week).
And when I finally managed to sit down and put this post together, I realized that I’ve got to be realistic and completely change the way I’m approaching my goals.
Why?
Let me show you…
Writing Goals:
1) 60 000 words written, 60 hours of edits or some combination of those.
The equivalent of 23k words.
2) Find and submit to Critique Partners for Wo6C3
Sent to one CP and in short, Wo6C3 needs only a ton more work before I can send it out to more.
3) Critique works by critique partners.
I’m waiting for my CP’s work.
4) Edit ES1
Didn’t look at it.
5) Prep rewrite for BvB2.
I managed to think of this a few times before I had to do something else.
6) Complete revisions to O1
I revised two chapters.
7) Add 10000 words to StW1
Added almost 8k words.
8) Work on CdW concept
Nope.
9) Start Sci Fi Project. (Still thinking about an suitable acronym.)
Nope and Nope.
10) Work on concept for a new story that came to me while I rested.
A little bit of this done, but not much in the way of a concrete start.
11) Edit my Untethered Realms anthology story.
Done. Yay. I managed one thing.
Reading:
Read 6 books.
I read 4.
Read some chapters of Les Trois Mousquetaires.
Nope.
Networking and Marketing:
Rethink Social Network Strategy
This I did and it’s huge. So much so that it’s taking a chunk of my writing time to implement.
Regular updates to at least some of the social networks.
This I was spotty on because I’m basically rebuiling my entire social network from scratch in some places.
Confirm new covers for Wo6C series.
Done.

Life:
Maintain balance between life, writing and work.
Bahahahahahaha *cries*
Go to dancing classes once a week.
Didn’t go because the week before I was to go to my first lesson, I discovered that I’m moving again, so I couldn’t sign the membership contract.
Get into the habit of eating more frequent, smaller meals. (Stress and an ulcer don’t mix, so I have to help where I can.)
This I did and also cut way back on carbs and sugars to help even further.
In short: I managed to do precious little that I set out to do.
There are a variety of reasons for this:
1) I’m having to rebuild my day-job business from scratch yet again. Which means I have to put in more hours.
2) I’m having to restructure my social networking (see here if you’re curious as to why and what I’m doing.)
3) I’m a bit of an emotional mess due to reason number 1
4) While being an emotional mess, I default to working on The War of Six Crowns, which means that I broke my own rule of not working on a sequel before the earlier book is ready for publishing, so that I could work on Book 4 while waiting for CP feed back on Book 3. And now Book 3 needs more work.
5) People, I feel like crying this morning.
In short, it’s taken just about two years of unrelenting pressure, but I’ve buckled under. This month was the most unproductive I’ve ever been and it’s been a downward trend from January.
Yesterday, I spoke to my mother about how I’m feeling right now and… It’s not good. I’m exhausted. Completely and utterly. I’ve expended every ounce of my energy to keep going earlier this year and in return I got my suppliers and clients stolen by someone I trusted and nothing to show for it because all the money I’d earned went into surviving.
So.
The situation is this.
I’m not catching a break.
My hard work does not result in anything. Because in this life, it seems, the only thing that matters is being rich or being lucky. I’m neither.
And yet, I can’t just give up, so I have to keep going.
I have to keep working in the hopes that this time I strike it lucky. And heaven knows I’ll keep writing because the day I stop that I might as well stop living.
But I can’t keep trying to do so much because I have readers waiting for Book 3. I probably have one or two people hoping I get the sequel to Endless out too. Since The War of Six Crowns is my happy place, that’s my priority, but other than that, my only priority right now is to survive rebuilding, moving house, and doing everything else I need to do in order to have a shot at making it as a writer.

Sorry if this is way too much of a downer, but this is where I am right now. Hopefully tomorrow is a better day. 

Update Day: May Day! May Day!

Hey all! Today is the last Friday of the month, which means that it’s Update Day! But before I get into that, I just wanted to mention that one of the main characters from Endless, Ryan, is over at Libby Heily’sblog, getting interviewed.


So, for those of you who are new to this blog, Beth Fred and I host this bloghop. All the entrants share their big/crazy/crazy important goals. Then on the last Friday of the month, we all get together and share updates and encouragements.
You’re more than welcome to sign up. Just fill in your goal instead of your name…

http://www.simply-linked.com/listwidget.aspx?l=FF64F07D-7C24-4F9D-9F74-B5AFA89E3BCC




I have to admit that May was actually a bit of a terror for me. Within the first week of its start, I got hit with levels of anxiety that I haven’t experienced since the day I finished university. (In other words, it had even me worried.) Interestingly enough, the stress had slowly been receding, but I guess the exhaustion I’d been powering through caught up with me.
Add to that my blog tour and the surprise news that I might suddenly be without a job next month…
Yeah. May sucked. I’m glad it’s over.
But the thing is I changed my priorities from my goals to survival and then recovery. So… overall, I didn’t get much done.
In summary:
Goals for May:

1) 60k words written, 60 hours spent on edits or some combination.
Just over 22 hours on edits.
2) Find Crit Partners for Wo6C3. Any takers? It’s book 3 in The War of Six Crowns…
I didn’t get to this, because I took ages just to finish my round of edits.
3) Wo6C3 rough edits.
Got this one done.
4) Edit ES1.
Didn’t touch ES1 itself, but I’ve slowly been immersing myself in research, movies, books etc set more or less in that era so that I can get more of a feeling for the “world” of 1850s Texas.
5) Prep BvB2 rewrite.
Didn’t get there.
6) Finish Revisions to O1.
Didn’t get there.
7) Rewrite SS1. (Yep. This one’ll be sticking around for a while, I suspect.)
I was completely correct.
8) Add 10k words to StW1.
Didn’t write a single word of fiction this month.
9) Work on CdW concept.
Nope.
10) Start Sci Fi project. (Acronym still forthcoming.)
Nope.
11) Edit Untethered Realms Anthology short story.
I only got the editor notes back a few days ago, so I’ll get to this one in the coming month.
Reading:
Read 6 books.
I read four.
Read some chapters of Les Trois Mousquetaires.
This wasn’t one of them.
Networking and Marketing:
1) Get through blog tour for Endless.
Almost there. Only two more posts to go.
2) Regular updates to social networks.
This I can sorta call done, but I have to say, my whole anxiety experience is making me re-think my approach to social networks. Namely: I’m wasting precious time with most of them.
Life:
1) Find and maintain a balance between work, writing and life.
Kind of getting there, although the feeling like I had more balance *might* have been caused by circumstances more than any active decision on my part.
2) Find an exercise that I actually can do without the weather getting in the way. Balance is one thing. But let me just say that jogging just won’t happen if it’s cold and raining, and the wind blows hard enough to topple a link truck.
Done. I’m going to start dancing again, starting on Monday.
Goals for June:
Writing Goals:

 1) 60 000 words written, 60 hours of edits or some combination of those.
2) Find and submit to Critique Partners for Wo6C3
3) Critique works by critique partners.
4) Edit ES1
5) Prep rewrite for BvB2.
6) Complete revisions to O1
7) Add 10000 words to StW1
8) Work on CdW concept
9) Start Sci Fi Project. (Still thinking about an suitable acronym.)
10) Work on concept for a new story that came to me while I rested.
11) Edit my Untethered Realms anthology story.
Reading:
Read 6 books.
Read some chapters of Les Trois Mousquetaires.
Networking and Marketing:
Rethink Social Network Strategy
Regular updates to at least some of the social networks.
Confirm new covers for Wo6C series.
Life:
Maintain balance between life, writing and work.
Go to dancing classes once a week.
Get into the habit of eating more frequent, smaller meals. (Stress and an ulcer don’t mix, so I have to help where I can.)
How are your goals coming along?

Update Day Camp NaNo Edition

If you’re here for the A to Z Challenge, click here to go to my Y post.
But today is the last Friday of the month, which means it’s update day for my Five Year Project bloghop. For those of you who don’t know, I host a monthly bloghop with Beth Fred, where a bunch of us set huge/crazy/very important goals. Then we update on the last Friday of the month for a bit of accountability and encouragement. To sign up, please list your big goal (not your name or your blog’s name.)

http://www.simply-linked.com/listwidget.aspx?l=FF64F07D-7C24-4F9D-9F74-B5AFA89E3BCC



Right. So let’s look at what I got done.
 Goals for April:
Writing:
1) I signed up for CampNaNoWriMo in April, with the goal set at 60k words.
I’m currently at just over 51k words. But I’ve been pulling off Saturdays where I write/edit 7k words, so it’s still within reach.
2) Revisions to Wo6C3 (In case I don’t get them done this week, which I might not.)
Done.
3) Rough edits to ES1 using critique partner feed-back.
Done.
4) Add 10k words to BvB2.
I wrote less than 10k here, but I did finish the rough draft.
5) Revisions to O1.
Busy with this, but I won’t be done until next month.
6) Start rewriting SS1
Still not, although I plan to prep SS1 tomorrow.
7) Prep rewrite for VD
Nope.
8) Work on CdW concept.
This neither.
9) Add 5k words to StW.
Done. I also realized that this one will be book 1 in a trilogy, so in future I’ll be referring to it as StW1.
10) See if I can do more than 60k this month.
I don’t know if this’ll happen. Although I might manage to get a few more words in.
Reading:
Since I’ve got some huge goals up on the writing side, I won’t be putting too much of a priority on this, but if I can:
Read 6 books.
I read 2.
Read a few chapters of Les Trois Mousquetaires.
Nope.
Networking and Marketing
1) Send out any out-standing posts for the Endless blog tour.
*Sigh* I’ll have to do this on Sunday and Monday. I just didn’t have the time. But I’ve got everything sent out until May 13th.
2) Visit at least 25 blogs every day for the A to Z Challenge.
Nope. My average was a bit less than half that.
3) Regular updates on Social Networks.
Mostly yes. Although I might skip my Wattpad posts today in order to maximize writing time. I WILL hit 60k before this month is out.
4) Update Amazon’s Author Profiles
Done.
Life
1) Find and maintain a balance between work/writing/life.
Better, but not where I want it to be.
2) Cut out refined carbs.
Life really conspired against me on this one. And probably will continue to do so next month.
3) Continue vocal training.
I didn’t get to a single lesson thanks to my job. See point #1.
4) Go jogging at least once a week.
Ditto.
Overall, I actually got a huge amount done, but I have to say pulling off 50k words so far along with crazy work hours did give my energy levels a knock. Luckily work is supposed to calm down some for at least a few weeks.
Not that I’ll be kicking back and relaxing much…
Goals for May:
1) 60k words written, 60 hours spent on edits or some combination.
2) Find Crit Partners for Wo6C3. Any takers? It’s book 3 in The War of Six Crowns…
3) Wo6C3 rough edits.
4) Edit ES1.
5) Prep BvB2 rewrite.
6) Finish Revisions to O1.
7) Rewrite SS1. (Yep. This one’ll be sticking around for a while, I suspect.)
8) Add 10k words to StW1.
9) Work on CdW concept.
10) Start Sci Fi project. (Acronym still forthcoming.)
11) Edit Untethered Realms Anthology short story.
Reading:
Read 6 books.
Read some chapters of Les Trois Mousquetaires.
Networking and Marketing:
1) Get through blog tour for Endless.
2) Regular updates to social networks.
Life:
1) Find and maintain a balance between work, writing and life.
2) Find an exercise that I actually can do without the weather getting in the way. Balance is one thing. But let me just say that jogging just won’t happen if it’s cold and raining, and the wind blows hard enough to topple a link truck.

How about you? How are your goals going? 

Update Day: Easter Hunting Edition

It’s the last Friday of the month again, but more than that, today is Good Friday, so I wish everyone who celebrates it a blessed Easter.
But because it’s the last Friday of March, it’s time for my Big Dreams/Huge Goals bloghop’s update day.


For those of you who are new to the blog, Beth Fred and I host a bloghop where a bunch of us set huge/hugely important goals. Then we post updates on the last Friday of every month to let each other know how we’re doing. It’s a great way to be accountable, which is the best motivation imaginable to be proactive about achieving our goals and making our dreams our reality.
You’re welcome to sign up. Just fill in the form with what you would like to achieve.


http://www.simply-linked.com/listwidget.aspx?l=FF64F07D-7C24-4F9D-9F74-B5AFA89E3BCC
Okay! First things first, let’s see how I did on last month’s goals.
All in all, March wasn’t a particularly good month for me, which resulted in me having a major freak-out recently. Things are getting better now and I did get some things done, so let’s take a look.
My goals for March:
Writing:

1) 60000 words written or 60 hours edited or some combination of the two.
I managed to write 7000 words and edit for 15hours, although I suspect I’ll be nudging this up a bit more over the next few days until the actual end of the month.
2) Revisions to Wo6C3
Haven’t started it yet, but I plan to over the weekend.
3) Rough edits to ES1
One round down. About a million left to go.
4) Rough draft BvB2
I have added words to this and will probably continue to do so until month end.
5) Finish rewrite to DM1
Done.
6) Prep rewrite for SS1
Haven’t started yet, but I hope I can get it done sometime this weekend.
7) Work on concept for CdW
Haven’t gotten to this.
8) Rough draft for StW
This neither.
9) Edits for The Thing That Turned Me and Ghosts of Fire.
Didn’t get any editing suggestions.
Reading:
Read 6 books
Done.

Read at least a few chapters of Les Trois Mousquetaires.
Didn’t get to it.
Networking and Marketing:
1) Send out e-arcs if not done by end February.
Done.
2) Send out posts and information to everyone involved with the Endless blog tour.
I’ve sent out cover reveal info, but still need to do everything else. I’ll probably graft to get this done before month end.
3) Get back into a regular blogging schedule.
Didn’t do too bad, although the freak out and lack of internet from moving house didn’t help.
4) More involvement in one more social network.
This I feel like I managed.
5) Update Amazon’s Author Profiles.
Not done yet.
6) Plan and create A to Z Challenge posts.
I managed to plan the posts and the first twenty are scheduled. I’ll have the rest scheduled by tomorrow.
Life:
1) Create balance for work/writing/life
Ah. The reason for my freak-out. Work has been trespassing everywhere else and I’m not too thrilled about that. But I am actively working at beating it back into its rightful place.
2) Get back into healthy eating habit.
Sigh. This one fell by the way-side. But I WILL succeed here.
3) Continue with vocal training.
Done.
4) Unpack house.
Done.
5) Find new sporting/exercise activity. (Yes, this one will keep appearing every month until I actually get this done.)
Done. I just haven’t started yet. (My brother and I will be going jogging together, which will be a good bonding thing for us too.)
So overall, I actually didn’t do that bad. Just felt like I was rolling a house-sized stone uphill this month.
Goals for April:
Writing:
1) I signed up for CampNaNoWriMo in April, with the goal set at 60k words. (Those of you who’ve been reading these update posts will realize I have a running theme here.) 60 hours of edits or some combination of the two count as well.
2) Revisions to Wo6C3 (In case I don’t get them done this week, which I might not.)
3) Rough edits to ES1 using critique partner feed-back.
4) Add 10k words to BvB2.
5) Revisions to O1.
6) Start rewriting SS1
7) Prep rewrite for VD
8) Work on CdW concept.
9) Add 5k words to StW.
10) See if I can do more than 60k this month.
Reading:
Since I’ve got some huge goals up on the writing side, I won’t be putting too much of a priority on this, but if I can:
Read 6 books.
Read a few chapters of Les Trois Mousquetaires.
Networking and Marketing
1) Send out any out-standing posts for the Endless blog tour.
2) Visit at least 25 blogs every day for the A to Z Challenge.
3) Regular updates on Social Networks.
4) Update Amazon’s Author Profiles
Life
1) Find and maintain a balance between work/writing/life.
2) Cut out refined carbs.
3) Continue vocal training
4) Go jogging at least once a week.
That’s it for me. Anyone else doing CampNaNoWriMo in April? My username is iceangel if you want to buddy up.

How are you doing on your goals?