Well it is official, summer has started.
Not the season, but summer break. Today was the final day of school for our district and a half day at that. And it took all of half an hour before I was cursing the school district for their insistence of a summer break.
Three months of “that’s my spot”, “stop it”, “move” and so on. I am in heaven! (Someone should invent the sarcasm font for computers.) I think I have a new book to write, Summer Insanity; How my children drove me crazy.
So I did what any good parent would do, I popped in a movie! It would give me some peace and quiet for a few minutes so that I could maybe squeeze in a few words on my WIP and everyone would be happy. However I was not expecting to fall in love with the movie and watch the entire thing with them… darn it. Gnomeo and Juliet, it came out a few years ago, but we had never seen it. This movie was so cute! And funny!
Where was I… right, summer. This summer I have set certain writing goals for myself.
By the end of June I would like to have my compilation of short stories(4-5 stories total) completed. I started working on the first one back in Jan./Feb. I just completed that one earlier this month. Then I started and completed the second one this month as well. I started number three just this afternoon, right after the movie. 🙂 But my intentions are to complete all of the stories so they can be critiqued in July.
By the end of July/August I would like to finish with the first draft of my NaNo 2013 novel. I have 51k words already, I just need to finish out the story which probably has another 40k words left inside my un-giving mind. Once November ended and I made my goal of 50k words in just 21 days, I kind of needed a break. That break turned into a one month break and five months of pretending it doesn’t exist.
Earlier this month I realized that I had fallen into this big vast hole of halfway’s. I have started so many things and never quite completed anything. This is funny since my 2014 New Year’s resolution was to finish what I started. No matter what it was, or how long it took me, I was determined that I would finish.Â
My year didn’t start out so good, instead I started a horde of other things. Writings, books, a garden, cleaning… (Maybe I have a problem.)
I am a member of a writer’s group here in my area and at the last meeting, it was discussed to have a workshop so that we could take our completed work and get it ready for whatever publishing route we have set in mind.
I panicked, quietly of course, because well I have nothing ready to workshop. It’s like I get to the scary parts in writing and run for it. And hide till I think it’s not looking anymore. But it’s always looking, it’s sitting right there on my desk practically gawking at me. It is very uncomfortable. . Maybe I should move my desk outside.
When I realized that I wasn’t getting anywhere doing what I am doing, I knew something had to change. I had to change. Starting immediately.Â
I have started writing everyday (aside from weekends, I cannot seem to get writing done during the weekend.). It started out with those awesome flash fiction challenges. Only having 99 words to write was a great breath of fresh air. (Thank you Charli!) Then I started on my short story. Once that was completed, it was like “Phew, that wasn’t so bad. I’ll try another one.” And that is how I came up with the idea of my short story project. (Four – five point of views  of a family during a one hour event.)
But me writing everyday may be for just a few minutes, or hours. Whatever I can make the time to do, I do it. Sometimes I need a good pushing from my husband. But I have completed quite a bit in just the past two weeks. It feels great to say that. I have completed something.Â
And it is good to have short terms goals. It is less daunting in my opinion.
So what are you goals for this summer?
Till next time,
~AJP