ROW80 - round 2 -five more sleeps
March 28, 2012
I had a great time with the first time I did A Round of Words in 80 Days, so I will start it again April 2 - only five more sleeps until then. I sort of got into the twice a week post habit - so here I am again.
I had 3-4 writing objectives last time, and did pretty well I think. I didn't always meet them all, but I maintain I did do a lot more than I would have done without this. Plus I met a lot of interesting people. And learned that I too could claim the title "aspiring writer". So, all keen, for this next round I looked at all the things I wanted to get done, and never got around to doing, and added them all to the list.
Then I realized the list was longer than hours in the day. So - pared it down to my top priorities and will have an extra catch-all objective - to spend a chunk of time, 1-2 hours, whittling away at my longer to-do list. We'll how that goes.
Objectives so far:
- editing - 2 hrs on my WIP a day. I found over the past few days that this works best if I tackle my editing right after breakfast and shower, coffee in hand, and computer OFF. Just me, a stack of manuscript, and a pen. And some tunes of course - I have several thousand on my iTunes shuffle, plus TuneIn online. I've been adding maps and sketches too as I go through, such as layout of the town, detachment office, local bar, trail to Loon Lake - whatever setting I need to describe. Free-hand scribbles for now but would like to do up better on the iPad, have a couple of apps I'm trying. Easier if onscreen to add/delete, rotate, annotate, print. And perhaps eventually attach to novel.
- Flash Fiction - will keep doing those from Terrible Minds every week. It is tempting to do another one too, for variety, but I have to balance my time.
- blogs - I follow several on writing/reading, the objective is to keep up. So far has been maybe an hour, including occasional notes and/or comments. Also want to pass on links to any posts I find particularly interesting.
- social media - I'm already on Twitter and Facebook a lot to follow and comment on a variety of interests, this would be focused on writing and writers. For now I'll keep the same ID, to encourage any cross-overs. I do need to set a timer on this I think - hard to not stop otherwise.
- reading - I tend to find a good book and then go at it for hours at a time. And this has been almost exclusively fiction - sci-fi and mysteries. Need to set an upper limit - like an hour. In addition, as I've commented before - it's important to have a mix of non-fiction in there. Fine to want to creatively blend together nanotechnology, Incan mythology, and break dancing in a story idea - but first you need to know a little bit about those things. You need something to create with. Right now I am reading Guns, Germs, and Steel (for a book idea), but also have subscribed to a few newsletters - such as New Scientist and Smithsonian.
- learn to type - I'm thinking about this. I'm pretty fast at hunt and peck, but I have to watch the keys so miss errors. Lots of free programs online, some for the iPad too.
- other - as mentioned, will grab a chunk of time and work at the huge to-do list I ended up with
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