Wednesday, February 2, 2011

February Fresh

I love February.  At school, the first of February is the day we would go to the canal to get reeds and make the cross of St Brigid to mark the first day of Spring.  I miss having stupid looking home-made reed crosses around.  :)

First Check-In of February and I figured I needed to take a look at my goals - considering I completely forgot about one of them last month.  So my original (major) goals were:

  • Write 500 words a day, Monday to Friday (at least)
  • Write 2,500 words a week (at least)
  • Edit the y/a novel (without clawing my eyes out)
  • Write one short story a month
  • Replot Taunt
  • Rewrite first draft of Taunt
I didn't always write regularly.  Case in point, I didn't do a thing on Monday and barely got anything done on Tuesday of this week alone.  *Is lazy*

I definitely got my weekly words done but mostly because I banged them all out in the one session.

I edited half of Verity then decided it needed a rewrite so changed my goal to that.  I finished that on Sunday so it now needs some space and then a round of edits.  For real this time.

I completely forgot about the short story. 

I replotted Taunt.  Literally the only thing that went to plan in January.  Although it took longer than I expected.  :)

The first draft of Taunt is now at 14k words.  I'm a little sad I took such a detour from it but I was able to jump straight into it this morning so it's looking like it's not quite as cold as I feared.

Taking all of that into account - here are my new goals for February:

  • Write at least 500 words a day - Monday to Friday.  I'm keeping this because I still need that schedule to kick in for me or I'll waste hours when I should be at least attempting to write.
  • Write at least 5,000 words a week.  I'm upping this because I need to get this draft of Taunt done, hopefully this month but if not at least I'll have a good chunk done.
  • Finish rewriting the first draft of Taunt.  
  • Spend at least a half hour daily working on organisation.  By organisation, I mean keeping my folders and files updated, regarding, in particular, character sheets and world building info - actually, over the weekend, the twins pretty much destroyed everything I had done so far so I've a lot to do here. 

 Good luck in February people!  Check out everyone else's progress here.
Posted by at

11 comments:

  1. Laurel-Rain SnowFebruary 2, 2011 at 2:08 PM

    You've got some good goals, and I think we have to be flexible and revise them when we need to do so, which is what you've done.

    Nice going, and hang in there.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Stacey Wallace BenefielFebruary 2, 2011 at 2:26 PM

    Nice job actually accomplishing most of what you set out to do! Goooooo Claire! I'm always happy to get to February too. :) Good luck this month!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Susan BischoffFebruary 2, 2011 at 3:11 PM

    I like how not clawing your eyes out is part of the goal. This is important. I have no idea what you're talking about with the reeds and think I would be charmed to read a scene in a book taking place within that.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Claudia LefeveFebruary 2, 2011 at 5:26 PM

    Glad to hear I was not the only one to hit a lazy patch on Monday! Still sounds like you got a lot accomplished :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Robin MFebruary 2, 2011 at 6:18 PM

    I like your goals and think I may need to concentrate a bit on organization myself. Thanks for the idea. Glad to hear I'm not the only one to feel lazy this week. I get going gangbusters for a few days, then start to slough off again.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Katy BennettFebruary 2, 2011 at 8:04 PM

    I'm also trying to get up to 500 words a day and done a rethink recently. I even did some organisation and set up all my ringbinders so they are easily accessible, need to tackle the maze that my hard drive has become. Congrats on your great progress so far and good luck with the new goals.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Kait NolanFebruary 2, 2011 at 9:17 PM

    Great goals! I'm always in awe of people who can go several days without writing and then just dive right in. I get page fright.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Jessica ThomasFebruary 2, 2011 at 9:42 PM

    Page fright. Love that. I do too. I have other projects that are eating at me but I'm afraid if I leave the one I'm working on it'll never get done out of fear.

    Great job Claire for being able to manage multiple projects.

    ReplyDelete
  9. AnonymousFebruary 2, 2011 at 11:26 PM

    I like your organization goal. I might have to copy it for the next round. Good luck with the 5000 words. That would scare me. LOL

    ReplyDelete
  10. C.FarrellFebruary 3, 2011 at 9:51 AM

    Thanks everyone.

    I used to get page fright - I would do anything to avoid trying to write but that wasn't getting my manuscripts finished so I just force myself to write, even if I know I'll delete it later, for me, writing anything is better than staring at a blank page. It gets quicker and quicker to get right back into it then.

    ReplyDelete
  11. ShariFebruary 3, 2011 at 4:05 PM

    I'm with Clairegillian - I'm not ready for 5000 word goals, but I'm feeling good about the progress in general. Kudo's to you on multiple projects - I'm in awe :-)

    Congrats on the progress (even if it means you, er, spaced the short!! ;-)

    ReplyDelete

Feel free to have your say.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)