Monthly Archives: January 2013

Ignoring Distractions

28 Monday Jan 2013

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This is a follow on from last week’s post reader. This week I’d intended to work on my first draft of “Something in the Water”.

And I have to admit that I really haven’t done anything close to what I’d like to have. So today, a rainy and cool Monday, and a long weekend Monday at that, has given me an opportunity to get stuck in. Well, I’ve made a start.

Instead of editing and rewriting, I’ve been hanging out with my family, eating out with my husband and buying a new car.

The car is a whole other story reader, but here’s a picture of my new car. We hope to pick it up this week sometime, after it gets all the treatments imaginable.

Mitsy

Back to the writing, well, as you know it’s a slow process for me, but I’m beginning to make some progress. I hope you understand reader if I do less work here and use my time to do a bit more editing.

How do you battle the little distractions in day to day life reader? Can you stay on track and prioritise your writing?

Discipline

21 Monday Jan 2013

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240px-Bullwhip

I know you’d never believe me reader, but I have a bit of an issue with discipline.

I love it when I am disciplined, but, I have to work hard on it.

I’ve noticed a few things when I am disciplined and I’d like to share with you the benefits of sticking to a plan.

1. Progress – a definite plus here

2. Satisfaction

3. Motivation – when I am disciplined and make progress, I feel satisfied and that motivates me.

One place I find myself applying discipline is Nano!

NaNoWriMo is a good place to start. There’s such motivation with all my fellow Nano-ers. Because the competition is against yourself. Everyone encourages, eggs each other on and supports one another.

You look at your word count and you keep going even when you feel like watching the telly. So I need to keep up the same “stick-to-it-ness” for the rest of the year. Perhaps not to the same degree, but to have a minimum word count for each day.

Where I’m running into trouble is the editing stage. I’ve not finished editing anything, ever. I have to admit to be a little frightened of the process. I don’t know how long I can expect it to take me to edit a book, a chapter, a paragraph or even a line!

I know when I’m writing I can easily write between 1000-1500 words in an hour on a first draft. But as I have not consistently edited any of my writing I don’t know what to expect of myself.

My attempt to rectify this will be trial and error, but I need to start with trying. I will not allow myself to become overwhelmed before I even start.

With this in mind, I will work on editing “Something in the Water” for one hour per day, everyday this week. I’ll report back next Monday with my progress. I need you all to hold me to this plan. I need to be accountable.

Write stuff in 2013 & 2012 in review

14 Monday Jan 2013

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Hi there reader, here we are, mid January 2013 and I’ve been slack and not said G’day.

I have a lot of writing plans for 2013 and I hope that I can achieve at least 80% of the list.

First thing “writerly” for the year is that I’m applying for a Mentorship with ASA to get some help with On the River Bank. That’s exciting and terrifying all in the same breath.

I’m going to be editing Something in the Water in the last part of January and most likely most of February too. I have a plan for this story. So I hope to have something exciting to tell you about later in the year.

I have a plan for a YA book that I’d like to write, and I’ll be working on OTRB as well.

Another venture I’m planning is to work on my health and share with you all how I’m going about it. It will be trial an error, success and fail. I will share the good, the bad and the ugly with you. So if that part of my life interests you, check out “Road to the Right” at the top of the page in the Menu bar. I’ll be posting regularly there on Friday’s, and all about my writing on Monday’s here, as usual.

So, I hope 2013 has us keeping in touch and that you continue to drop by and keep me company, share your thoughts and let me know what you think of what you’ve read.

Here’s a little bit of info on last years stats if you’re interested.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The new Boeing 787 Dreamliner can carry about 250 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,200 times in 2012. If it were a Dreamliner, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.