new week, new machine, new hopes

I really was going to post today, anyway--but I just love the nagging picture with the oven mitts for boxing gloves. Creativity and versatility all in one great image! Thanks, Marianne!

This week is pseudo confession time. It's good, but bear with me.

I've had a very nice paying gig this week that I'm looking at as not just a high hourly rate for writing (something that has sadly dropped off lately with the economy), but a way to start my own mental wheels rolling toward submission when I get SW completed. I've been researching agents and writing submission letters and synopses for a lawyer who finds it cost effective to pay me 10% of his hourly wage to do the kind of writing he hasn't been very successful at doing. He's fiction is fine--but his letters and synopses have not gotten the attention he wants (and with good reason, because this obviously isn't his forte). Since he's successful lawyer, my 10% of his 100% is a very nice little wage, thank you, and I don't have to also pay for an office outside my home, receptionist, secretary, paralegals, etc. Though I do long for my own personal assistant, but that's another story.

But I did NOT put my fiction completely on a back burner--only kinda. It's allergy season around here--I live near Tulsa, a city which muscles its way onto every bad allergy poll each year. We consistently top the charts on mold and pollen. That said, Zyrtec is my 11 month out of 12 sidekick, but by this time (and around Thanksgiving) even the big Z can't keep me up and mobile all the time. So, I've had several down days in the last two weeks, and couple that with the lawyer's deadline and my fiction hasn't gotten any extra time. However, I've mostly made my 1500 words a day of fiction--and almost like half of them.

And my reward for being good and working on marketing someone else's book because mine isn't ready yet came in the arrival of my very new, very cute, very oooh-oooh-oooh Asus 1000HA net book. I'm typing on it right now, and since it's only about 3 pounds it's going to be my constant companion now wherever I go. I plan on tripling my output just because of this wonderful little gizmo. I was going to put the Snoopy Dance after this paragraph, instead of at the top, but I couldn't figure out how to get the image to imbed into the type. I'll try a different approach next time--add the picture first--and see if that accomplishes the goal better. See, even my experimental creativity is improving, as I'd never tried to add an image to the blog before. I credit my Asus!

No, I'm not going to up my daily goal yet--yes, yet--but we'll just have to see how it goes. I'm very optimistic by nature, and this little jewel (yes, I got the pearl case) just makes me smile and want to type more.

So whenever you're writing uphill, don't forget to reward yourself. Yes, part of my upcoming check is now already spent, but if it pays off in more fiction I win over and again!

checking in

Last week had its challenges. All of my produced words weren't gold--by any means--but I kept my butt in the chair, didn't get sidetracked by new work-writing possibilities, or that next new, bright and shiny (or old, dim and dull) novel idea, and kept writing. End result? About 8000 words--I say 'about' because some of this draft was handwritten and I haven't typed everything up yet. I didn't make my 1500 words every single day, but I did make it more than half the time. So, I'm ready to plow into the new week.

Ready to March Forward

First I wanted to do 1000 words each day. Well, due to circumstances beyond my control that didn't happen. So, then I wanted to at least make up the "redo" work I lost from two computer crashes. Well, almost. Overall, I have a little over 17,000 for February, which is still less than the amount I lost, but more than I would have had if I didn't keep plowing forward. I'm not going to say part of this hasn't been psychological--I'm notorious for not wanting to redo work that wasn't my fault. But I'm not going to whine. I'm cranking up my goal to 1500 words a day for March and marching forward.

Just try to keep up with me (grin).

use your virus scan religiously

I've kind of learned my lesson about backing up files all the time--as I said, kind of. On that note, I'm a day late and quite a few words short, but I can safely say I got to keep about 3500 words last week. That's not my goal, and would not have been my total, except that very early Friday morning, when I had some paying work due by noon, I turned on my computer that was finally, finally all loaded back up again from the crash a couple of weeks ago, and...all I got was a blank screen. The computer was on. The little lights were glowing. But the screen stayed black.

I turned it off and then back on again, hopeful that this was just some "I'm cold and I don't want to get up yet" glitch. Nope. Finally, the computer whispered something to the screen and it grudgingly revealed in dotted text that my config/system file was missing or corrupted. I tried to do a file recovery, but that didn't work, so while I started penning what I needed to send to my editor onto paper, I had my computer reformat itself again--for the second time in February.

Then I went and had coffee with a friend and let her console me. Yes, I got my assignment turned in--typed like a madwoman on my kid's computer after I got back home. And I've been emailing my JaNo file to myself every few days now that I don't know why my DVD backups will burn but not show up again as good files when my computer tries to read them, I do have the first part of the week's JaNo work. I haven't put it on the computer yet, just finished getting all the stuff I have to have to run it, plus all the updates from Microsoft, Adobe, et al. But despite the fresh pain, at least I have progress to report this time; unlike the last crash.

Which reminds me. I think I know when I picked up the first viruses that caused the first problem. I don't know if this latest was due to virus interference or the fact that my computer is just getting as tired of all of this as I am, however...

Since my first crash I've been reading up, and there was a vicious worm released Dec. 8th that I believe was part of my initial crash. Because I usually only web surf the same boring sites each month, I didn't catch the problem until I had to do a web-intensive travel article around the first of this month. Apparently financial sites are also prone to the risk.

That said, please use your virus scanner regularly, and back up your files. Just from reloading my computer since Friday morning, before starting to add any of my files I ran a virus scan after all the updates were loaded and 12 viruses were detected and quarantined.

I'm not trying to scare anyone, but having to bring everything back up several times in as many weeks is just not fun.

mid-week confessions

Okay, I'm not going to belabor why I'm behind, and why I had to catch up all last week, but I am going to confess. Sunday night I thought life was truly grand again. I had finished all of my overdo redoes of nonfiction assignments and managed to get everything else done last week on time, and my computer has been humming right along trying to keep up and be forgiven (knock wood--or in the laptop's case, knock plastic). Monday was sunny and wonderful here, I brainstormed all morning to get back into the frame of mind I needed to revisit what I had written nearly a month ago, pounded out a re-roughed scene, then happily followed my daughter to Tulsa to do some shopping after she got out of college classes. I even wrote in the car while I was waiting. I was really being good.

Then yesterday happened.

I only had to meet someone at 11:00--yes, it was an interview of sorts, but not one I really had to work at, just a meet-and-greet kind of thng. But I woke up tired, telling myself all the reasons I wasn't ready to meet this new person who I might be working with a lot in the future on something I hope will bring in new revenue (I lost a huge chunk of yearly revenue when due to the economic conditions Toyota didn't renew a project I've been working on for 12 years). But the more I tried to force myself, the less I could find the stamina to go. So, about 9:30, I rescheduled the app't for Thursday and went to WalMart. Yes, I am depressed when I voluntarily go to WalMart when I really, really don't have to. But I got ice cream, so that was a good thing (maybe).

Back home I ate my ice cream and caught up on email I hadn't read because I was re-doing everything. And read email. And read email. Finally about 4:00 I turned off the computer and had written exactly 497 words. Not even quite a full page single spaced.

So, my confession. I know I needed yesterday. I know it came because I worked too non-stop the previous week. But today I will write. Today, I will write at least 3000 words.

I will!

Good, I feel better now that I know I've said it out loud to everyone.

Thanks group!

new week, new words

I've made almost 3750 this week! Yes, that's just a little over half my goal, but after the computer crashed last week, I've been having to redo everything I did work-wise for both this week and last. I had to get extensions on two assignments, and my editors were both wonderful about it, so that's good. And when I finally got the postpartum depression article turned in, my editor emailed me the next day and told me it was the best article on this subject she'd ever received. So, the redo was worth it after all! I also had to teach a class of seniors this week that really kept me on my toes, and I'm still polishing my final late assignment--a big travel piece. So, I'm going to try to do better next week--only one interview on Tuesday, and a proposal due by Friday, so I hope to have a much stronger total that gets me closer to the words I lost in the crash. And I'm hoping to continue my streak of writing even better the second time around. Beyond that, Happy Valentine's Day to all, and I'm so glad this group continues to "be mine."

Not my fault!

Okay, I'm very late in posting my progress--but that's because some nasty person on the internet apparently wanted to thwart my writing efforts. I had some weird security alerts pop up at the end of last week, and gave me fits when I tried to access various web pages--including this one. I hung back a little and stewed over things, talked to some friends, and as my internet access continued to shrink, I started doing a system back up to DVDs and then yesterday did a full reformatting of my laptop. Several friends told me there are a number if icky things rearing their active little heads that are worming and virusing their way into any systems that show a chink in the armor. I've always used McAfee, and had it going the whole time, but when I did my virus scan late last week it did actually have to isolate 8 viruses that had gotten through it.

The reformat makes my system clean and run very nicely this morning, and after I get all my necessary files back on that should be the best part of the story. Unfortunately, when I finished the reformat last night (really about one in the morning) I pulled the couple of disks I particularly need on my computer and tried to reload the files. Emphasis on tried. Apparently, I also now have a DVD reader/writer that will write to disk, but then can't read what it wrote. I can read all the CDs and older copied DVDs that I want. But not the latest.

So, now to my progress--or I guess I should say regress. I have a copy of my wip that I emailed myself a couple of weeks ago, so instead of gaining the 7000 words I wrote last week, I'm back about 18,000. However, I'm not daunted. I know where I've been and it will be much easier to find my way back. I'm just glad I never back up only one way.

Challenges; what would we do without them?

February, here I come!

I didn't make the 50K goal, but it sounds like I'm in good company and we're all going to make our goals for February, right?

I always thought November was a horrible month for NaNo--at least from a woman/mom/hostess/doer-of-everything-for-the-upcoming-holidays point of view. And I thought January would be better. Of course, if I'd been able to clear the decks better of all other distractions (work, upcoming contests, etc.) I may have made it. But no excuses. I averaged about 1000 words a day overall for the month on my wip--Suicide Watch--and I'm going to be darned pleased with that!

But I'm going to do better in February.

Still have one more busy week for all the beginning of the month column deadlines, but then I have smooth sailing (I hope--except for need to do tax stuff, of course. Ugh!). Since I made 1000 words pretty regularly last month, I'm going to hope to go over 1K each day since that's the goal for this month.

That's my plan, anyway.

And not to derail anyone else from Feb goals, but does everyone who reads romance know that Harlequin is giving away downloadable books right now at their website? You can download into several formats--I just had everything sent as PDF, but there are several ebook format for anyone with readers. The link is http://harlequincelebrates.com/index.php. You can download 1 book, or all free 16!

Joan

challenged but still game

I was going to wait and make my confessions tomorrow, but I just received the most wonderful email from my accountability partner and felt ready to hit the blog tonight. Anne, you're my hero.

This has been a very challenged week--not challenging, as that implies a lot of highs--but challenged, as in I had to push a lot to get through each day and its barriers. I've allowed myself to get into one of those pragmatic moods, where I don't allow myself to expect things to get worse, but I keep saying "isn't something going to go easy?".

So why did all that change with the email from Anne? Simple--she put the week into perspective. She can see my life more clearly than I can right now simply because she's 1500 miles away and looking in via my daily messages. She reminded me of how I didn't kill a doctor I was sent to interview who was a complete waste of time, and still figured out how to get an article despite his attempt to torpedo my efforts. She reminded that I will be able to send out at least 6 contest entries Feb 1st for a big yearly contest one of my writers groups holds for members, and may even squeak through with a 7th--and best of all, several of the entries will mean probable sales in publications, and will definitely lighten my load in future months as at least one of the entries will mean I will likely already have three monthly columns completed way ahead of time. She reminded me that I had an epiphany in my JaNo fiction project this week, and though I may have to push to get my goal by the end of the week, the fact that I hit this "mountain top experience" means "it's tough then to come down from the mountain."

So what if I didn't get my fiction writing goal yesterday. I still have a few hours to double today's output to make it up and congratulate myself.

Part of my way of starting the new year was to get a calendar just to document my writing each day. Mine has beautiful pictures of gloriously green Ireland, and at the end of each day I hurriedly sketch out how many words I've written on each project I've worked. You would think that while I was feeling challenged I would have the simple brain power to go to my calendar, look at the progress I'd made this week, and just shrug everything off. But I didn't. It never even came to mind.

Instead, it took someone half a continent away to bring it all into focus for me. And having to account here makes me push harder each day to not look like a slacker to any of you either. I know that none of you are going to judge me--but if this group weren't here, who knows if I would push through at all. Those stone walls are awfully hard to break down, but luckily I have so many helpful people handing me the figurative sledge hammer.