Goals for 2014: Checking in

I ran a little late this year with setting goals -- and implementing them.  I set goals for 2014 at the end of January (even though it had been on my mind for weeks already at that time), but I didn't start even thinking about how to start working on my goals until a month later, at the end of February.

Just over another month has passed, and I am happy to say that although my progress isn't stellar by any means, it's nothing to sneeze at, either.

NaNoWriMo: Plotting vs. pantsing

For the last couple of years, NaNoWriMo has been using the terms plotting and pantsing to describe the two major ways that people write: with or without an outline.

I personally used to be a pantser when it came to fiction, through and through.  When I wrote as a teenager, it was all in my head: the overall arc of the story, upcoming scenes, etc.  Sometimes I'd have an idea of what I wanted to happen several scenes in advance, sometimes I'd already have an idea of the ending, and sometimes I would come up with everything as I went along.  I never outlined, though, not once.

Camp NaNoWriMo begins!

I love that I get to enjoy the writing high of doing NaNoWriMo three times a year now, instead of just once.

This is my third summer doing Camp NaNo (although you can't really call it summer yet...).  I always miss the greater community that you find during November, with the forums and all the scheduled write-ins, but I also really like the greater flexibility of camp -- being able to set your own word count goal and (this year) what you plan on writing -- as well as the ability to request your wrimo friends as cabinmates.  I do wish they had given us a way to track things like editing as well, but I've managed in the past by tracking pages and converting that into words

The lost art of journaling

Recently I started journaling again.

I used to journal constantly, from the time I was 10 or 11 on into my teenage years and my 20s.  I wrote about everything that was on my mind, and some days would fill 10 or 15 pages with my ruminations.  I got away from it in my mid-20s, when I had my first job and was writing for a living, and then once I made the transition to blogging I stopped journaling entirely.

Lately, though, I miss journaling.  My blogs have become more focused as I've developed as a writer, and no longer replace the therapeutic process of journaling.  So that's one reason why I've decided to go back to it.

Sick days: Hiccups in productivity

I've been pretty sick the last few days.  It came on slowly, but it was so bad when I woke up Sunday morning that I ended up going back to bed and sleeping for most of the day.  I have a severely sore throat, swollen lymph glands in my neck, and a low fever, so it's nothing to sneeze at (haha), either.

Getting motivated and organized

This week has been a stellar success so far.  Not only have I managed to blog every day -- a nice start on one of my goals for 2014, and a good way to flex my writing muscles and get me back into the habit of writing daily -- but I also thoroughly cleaned my desk and caught up on filing, which is making me feel much better organized.  It's amazing how clearing the clutter also cleared my head, and made me feel more ready to get back to writing regularly... although it could also have been just getting something done that had to do with work that made me feel that way.

Camp NaNoWriMo pick-me-up

I've really been struggling lately -- with most everything.  I haven't been working on my novel(s), haven't been keeping up with my blogs, haven't been doing ANY of the things on my list of goals for the year.  I haven't even been riding my horses all that much, thanks in part to being very sick in February with a bad cold and a cough that wouldn't go away.

With all of this non-motivation going on, at this point I'm really looking forward to anything that will encourage me to get my tail moving.  One thing I'm counting on is an upcoming writer's critique group -- I need to get another chapter of my first Ruby Ransome novel revised and ready for the group to read, which should get me moving on revisions again (I hope).  The first session of Camp NaNoWriMo is also in April, and I hope to use that to get me moving on several other things, as well.