Okay... I've been writing every day this week -- not a lot, but something. I'm only about 2000 words into my story, but I really do like it. The best part is that I can't stop thinking about it and have come up with some really fun ideas for scenes.
The "write every day" goal is a good one for me. If I had a word count goal (say ... 1000 words) and I only had a spare 10 minutes, I wouldn't bother to open the document and write, because I'd know I wouldn't make it. But, giving myself permission to write 5 words or 5,000 -- well, that works for me.
How's everyone else doing?
Showing posts with label writing goals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing goals. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Sunday, February 7, 2010
New Goal
My goal for February is somewhat ambiguous but I think it will work for me:
WRITE.
Every day.
I don't care how MUCH or how LONG or ON WHAT.
But I must do some fiction writing every day.
..........
What about you? What goals do YOU have for this month? Let me know so I can add them to the sidebar.
WRITE.
Every day.
I don't care how MUCH or how LONG or ON WHAT.
But I must do some fiction writing every day.
..........
What about you? What goals do YOU have for this month? Let me know so I can add them to the sidebar.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
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
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
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