Raven's View

Another ROW done, with some goals met, some deferred. Was not a great one, but not too bad. Some think mine are too ambitious, but I like to give myself possibilities and see how I fill them in.

My writerly goal was to become a better writer. That can involve writing, editing, publishing, reading, learning, etc. My main non-writerly goal is to stay healthy enough to be able to enjoy life and keep on writing. That means exercise, diet, social connections, and exploring life. Healthy mind and body. The challenge of course is to maintain a balance. 

I'll repeat my objectives here, and add comments in italics on my progress. 

• Publishing

  • Edit second novel, KL-2. I printed out my draft, and marked it up with red pen. Found lots of bugs, some holes and extra things. Also developed my plot lines and character arcs better. However, it took way too long to enter that back into Scrivener. I was planning on two months. With three months of bits and pieces am still not done. Same problem with last novel too - haven't found a way yet to manage that. Finally set up a separate non-Internet PC in another room - that helped. Hope to be finished this pass by the weekend, but will then stop. Good time to pause and I need a break.   

• Publishing

• Editing second novel, KL-2. Maybe 2/3 through this pass? Hard to tall, as have been adding/moving/deleting scenes, paragraphs, lines. Which is a good thing, as I can see a more solid story now. As opposed to just a good plot. 
• Marketing of first book, KL-1. No more sales. Did get a royalty notice from Amazon for ebook sales of $1.46 (after with-holding tax). Not a payment though. It seems to have gone to another unknown bank account. On a positive note, I got the 1042-S tax form from them just fine.

• Writing

• ROW80 check in's - just doing weekly. And sometimes late. 
• 'How to write' - I do enjoy all the blogs I follow. However - only 8-9 posts a day yet here I am three days behind again. 
• Camp NaNoWriMo - hope to be done editing in time for this in April. Would like to get back to writing. It's a very open concept, so my choice is for 30 Flash in 30 days. 

• Other 

• Reading - did book club meeting The Long Earth, by Pratchett and Baxter.  
• Ottawa Independent Writers - planning book fairs and readings this spring for authors. 
• Socially - cafes and pubs. Grandkids visit. Band. 

• Publishing

• Editing second novel, KL-2. See above. Listening to some good tunes too, via Soundcloud. A local DJ. 
• Marketing of first book, KL-1. Doing more - India, Pakistan, SE Asia region this time. Big e-book market there. Pointed them to Flipkart and e-Sentral sites, as well as back to XinXii. Lots of clicks and likes, hopefully some sales too. 
• URL - bought mike-young.ca, pointed to my author page. 

• Writing

• ROW80 check in's - OK. That's about all that goes on this blog though. 
• 'How to write' - still caught up with various blogs. 

• Other 

• Courses - catch up later. 

• Socially - cafes and pubs. And daughter and grandson for lunch, then over to see other grandkids. 

• Extra - first board meeting for Ottawa Independent Writers. I do want to try to liaise better with local NaNoWriMo people. Successful in getting  OIW to focus, to think about some governance stuff - Vision/Mission/Goals/Objectives/Tasks. We even came up with a draft, that was good enough for now.