work on my novel

Reworded because (a) I can’t figure out how to reinstate the old goal, and (b) because “work on my novel” is less intimidating than “write a novel.” Novels are huge – at least, the ones I read are. But they’re not all written in a single sitting (though I often read them that way).

Also, this rewording goes along with my unstated goal of making specific goals rather than vague ones. Specific goals are easier to quantify, if harder to fudge.

I’ve been reading quite a lot lately. (My neighbors would say I already read quite a lot…one is convinced that I read a book a day. I can’t seem to dissuade him from this notion.) And as always happens when I read a lot, I think about writing a lot.

_{Mostly (though not always) in the form of “Interesting. That’s not the way I would have handled [a scene, character, whatever]. I would have…”.}

I also had a breakthrough in my “main” book. I’m still in the mulling-over stage, but I think (hope?) I’ll probably start writing again soon. 16 months ago

October 7, 2010

I have been doing better at working on my novel. I have been using my laptop in order to write, but right now I am a little bit behind due to the emotional upset that is currently going on in my life: My Beloved and his son will be moving out at the end of the month.

Oh well, I must try to push on regardless on how much it hurts.

I am 6 days behind with writing, as I am suppose to write everyday, and even though I am 6 days behind, I am still to just plow through. I have a contact with myself. This is what it says:

I will make the necessary changes in my life to accommodate this goal, and I will ask family, friends, and my fellow writers for help when I need it.

I will organize my time well so I can do this, and I will set adise all non-essentail tasks so I have time to achieve my goals.

I will work on my book 5 days a week (if I miss a day, I’ll just keep going). I will complete 50,000 words/pages and get to the end. No matter what happens during these 30 days, I will just keep writing.

“ I don’t have the time” is not a good enough excuse for the next 30 days.

I promise myself that I will celebrate when the 30 days are up, even if I only met 75 percent of this goal. I will tell my family and friends to get ready for this celebration in Week 3, to further motivate myself.

This book is important to me. My future readers are waiting to read it and I owe it to them to finish it. What I have to say IS important.

I am trying to follow that contact. Last month my writing goal was only 20,000 words, but I only wrote 11,000 as I was focusing on other aspects of my novels (The Maiden of Anwen’s song and my Nano 2010 “Sword in the Window), such as plots, outlines, character bios, writing tag words (for Nano 2010, since I cannot write any of it yet),etc to help me write a better, more complete novel.

I have a couple writing buddies that I have been in touch with to help me with this goal.

:o) 16 months ago

March 26, 2010

I have no more excuses for not writing. I got my laptop yesterday. Even though I only paid $27.00 for it plus $15.00 shipping and handling, I was wondering if it was a good buy or not. I downloaded an Operating System on it and it works wonderfuly.

The word that I have on it, isn’t the best, and my older novel documents were opening up funny.

Last night I was up very late, playing around with my flash drives, and my new laptop. I can easily play music on it and write now.

I am also thinking aobut finding out if I can buy a wireless card for it. I really don’t know if I really want to be able to get online with it, since it might prevent me from really working on my novel, which is the real reason why I bought it. I can’t use not having a laptop as an excuse anymore for not finish my novel now.

I don’t know whether to jump up and down in happiness or jump up and down in frustration that I will have to move forward with no more excuses why I haven’t worked on it. LOL

That means I can go anywhere I have a plug (as the battery will not hold a charge, so I will be getting a new one in a couple weeks). The Laptop is a bit heavy, but beggers can not be choosy. I have kept telling myself, if I need something different for writing my novels, God will provide (but I have hounded myself about wanting a laptop to write, and now I have one – SO NO EXCUSES NOW!)

I will working down loading all my current Nano novels for 2007, 2008, 2009 and poems onto this laptop. I also will have to get another flash drive since the one I have is almost full.

I am already to start working on this goal finally and sticking with it. I will be more comfortable with writing where I want to write, especially once I get a new battery for it so it will hold a charge.

Yay! Yay for me! 22 months ago

March 20, 2010

Since I am stuck at the house by myself, I should sit down and write something. Maybe go outside and write in my notebook. It IS the first day of Spring!

I am going to push for 3,000 today. 23 months ago

March 19, 2010

I have only wrote 1,035 words so far in the month of March. My goal was 40,000. I have 38,965 words to go. That is writing is writing about 3,000 words a day for 13 days.

Am I up to it? I don’t but I am going to push myself. I need to find my inspiration and my motivation for this. This is ridiculous that I can’t finish this!

Words to date for March: 1,035

Final word goal for March: 40,000 23 months ago

March 1, 2010

At first, it was going slow, as I really didn’t have the heart to work on my novel, special 1,000 words on it. I stuck to it and got it done. I think tomorrow I will dig in my novel binder and look at all the things I placed in there to help me build the story to begin with.

My problem that I have allowed it to sit too long, and I lost my motivation and inspiration. I will find it even more tomorrow.

I have also been looking into reading “Eat the Frog” to help me with my procrastination with my writing. I will just have to see.

Goal for March: 40,000 words 23 months ago

March 1, 2010

I haven’t been working on this goal very hard or even very much the last couple weeks or months, so I have re-newed my “Work on my novel” for the month of March.

Starting today, I will write 1,000 words or more a day for 31 one days.

I will finish this novel if it kills me! 23 months ago

February 19, 2010

I haev to sadly say I haven’t been working on this at all. I know where where my motivation is for it. A person would think that I would be all “Gun Ho” about wanting to finish this, but for some reason it is the fartherest from my mind, most days.

I guess I have too many other things to worry about, then sit down and work on my novel. Maybe it is because I don’t feel that it is worth it. Maybe I feel that what I write isn’t really good enough to push through for.

I am just not very “up and Adam” about doing this. Why? I have been wondering myself what I might do to get myself motivated on doing it. I know that I can’t expect to write it in a day, but I need the vision, the motivation and more motivation.

Over the weekend, I will try to find what my motivation is and work on that. I want to say that I wrote 1,000 words both on Saturday and Sunday, but time will tell to see if I even did that.

I need motivation. Sigh, I do want to finsh this novel, but working on it regularly is even harder then finishing it, it seems.

Motivation. 2,000 words in two days. Simple to accomplish, if I have the motivation. 1 year ago

My goal is to write every day a little bit on my novel. I didn’t want to set a large word amount like 2,000 words day to find myself failing it. So I decided to set a daily goal each day when I set down to write that way I am not focusing myself for failure in some kind.

I wrote 1,000 words yesterday, which was easily, since it is a weekend. I will set another 1,000 words for today. Come Monday, I will just have to see. LOL

As I was writing last night, I realized that there is a possiblity that I might have to change the outcome of the plot, as it is developing in a way, that I didn’t see it coming. I am trying not to focus too much on it, becuase if I do it will prevent me from writing as I nitpick and desect the story now.

For right now, I am making the cookies. Not decorating them, or adding too much of additional ingredients. The goal is the write the novel and when it is finished, go back and correct and change.

My other goal is to have my novel done by March. I have to set a deadline. :o) 2 years ago

I had the majority of my novel on a flash drive so that I could always have it with me. I kept in my wallet.

And my wallet was stolen Thursday night.

So now I have to collect and find all my novel work that I email to myself. All that I had on my computer at home, I saved on my flash drive because I needed more memory on the computer.

Sigh, so I lost a bit, I think I won’t know until I got through all my Nanowrimo folders in my email, which last year I had a habit of emailing each section wrote to myself so that it would be safe online, and not lost if I lost it off my computer and lost my flash drive.

I just don’t think that any work that I have done on my novel since Nanowrimo, I have updated it with hotmail.

Time with tell. 2 years ago

I didn’t do any writing last night. I worked more on the research part of it, which is still working on my novel. Today I will try to write at least 2,000 words since I need to catch up from yesterday “writing”

I got in contact with some people on Yahoo writing group I am apart of. In order to find a person that can be become my accountability buddy for writing. Someone that can email me regularly and maybe talk to me on Yahoo messenger to see how my writing is coming, as well as encourage then to write as well. I am very excited about connecting with some people for this purpose!

I am moving forward which is always a good thing. It is when I stop writing and working on it everyday that prevents me from accomplishing this goal.

I must remember a mile always starts with just a single step at a time.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

-Aristotle 2 years ago

Working on the novel can be hard work, because a person has to pull motivation and encouragment from within. And at times, that can be very hard to find.

I focused on my novel yesterday a bit, and of course, I had no idea where to start, since it all seems very overwhelming, but I took something very simple and used it. Before I knew it, I had written a little over 1,000 words.

That is a good start, after about months of written silence! I guess It was easy for me yesterday since my novel takes a bit of research in words and with my Bible, so I just became the Character more when I was in the past. It made it easy to write. I hope to do it again today.

My current goal is to work on writing on my novel at least 5 days this week, plus do a little bit of Biblical research as well so it is more well rounded and sound.

I hope that God gives me the strength and encouragment I need to really accomplish this goal. I talked to a friend last night about my novel and I spoke about how I would really like to have it published. I guess in the past, I never really had an urge to have anything published, because I don’t think my writing is all that good. But God has moved me to write this novel and I know if He is moving me, then it is for a reason.

I hope I do a good job. 2 years ago

I got the idea in november of this year. I am completaly stuck…. 3 years ago

1. the truck driving novel
2. the wife novel 5 years ago

I have a great idea and no idea what to do with it. I think I need to just start writng and stop thinking about it. 6 years ago