Laura Roberts's Blog, page 32

Looking Ahead: Week 3 accountability check-in

It’s the end of the third week of 2017, and it’s time for another round of writing accountability. Let’s begin!

Word Counts for 1/14 – 1/20

January 14: 2,148

January 15: 1,055

January 16: 2,047

January 17: 1,420

January 18: 800

January 19: 0

January 20: 380

Weekly Total: 7,850 words

Compared to the previous week’s total of 6,391, I’m doing better with my word count this week (despite another zero, nyargh!). It looks like I’m losing momentum towards the end of my weeks, so I need to start actively scheduling writing time on Thursdays and Fridays to make sure I stay on top of my writing goals.

Weekly Goals

Set: Finish up my edits for Digital Media for Monday, send in an outline for Careers if You Like Music by Friday, write my third #52essays2017 essay, meet up with my Accountabilibuddies on Friday for more coffee and goal-setting.

Met: Finished both my edits and my outline, woohoo! And, of course, met up with my Accountabilibuddies on Friday. Well, one of them, anyway. It was pouring rain, so understandably it was not a day that made folks want to go outside!

Missed: I still need to write my third essay. I had wanted to wait until after the big to-do in Washington this week, but honestly there is nothing I want to write about that. The fact that a fascist is now President of the United States is sickening to me, and I still don’t have the words to express much more than that. Besides, plenty of other people who are much better at that sort of writing than I am have already weighed in. So I will probably just stick with the music essay I started, because at least we can all agree that music is important in trying times… right?

Goals for Next Week


Finish essay #3
Write essay #4
Start research for Careers if You Like Music
Write blog post about Christina Alexandra’s presentation to the San Diego Writers/Editors Guild meeting (Monday night)

What About You?

Got any goals for next week? Have you been tracking your words this year? Need some friendly advice or encouragement? Post your deepest, darkest fears – or just your goals – in the comments section!

Related Posts Confronting Zero: Accountability check-in #2017goals Let’s get accountable! #2017goals Return of the Accountability Group! #2017goals

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Confronting Zero: Accountability check-in #2017goals

It’s the end of the second week of 2017, and it’s time for another round of writing accountability. Let’s begin!

Word Counts for 1/7 – 1/13

January 7: 1,367

January 8: 810

January 9: 1,325

January 10: 1,279

January 11: 790

January 12: 820

January 13: 0

Weekly Total: 6,391 words

Compared to last week’s 8,894 words, this week hasn’t been nearly as productive. And I had my first zero of the year on Friday the 13th, which I guess is sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy, since I’m a teensy bit superstitious. It was also a full moon, none of which really excuses my lack of writing yesterday. Indeed, I chalk this zero up more to the fact that:

a) I didn’t do my writing first thing in the morning, as I usually like to, and

b) I was running a bunch of errands and didn’t even get to eat lunch until 4 PM.

So yeah, things were a little ridiculously hectic. I should’ve been writing after I got home, but I got sidetracked by various other things, and thus ended up with a big old zero to close out the week.

“November Moon” photo by Flickr user Donald Kautz

Weekly Goals

Set: Finish edits on Careers in Digital Media by Friday the 13th, write my second #52essays2017 and share it with the Facebook group, rewrite my “P is for Pop Songs” post so I can publish it this week, write a “First Lines Friday” post, post a check-in image in the Accountability Group and see how my Accountabilibuddies are doing.

Met: Wrote my second essay (“Notes from 20 years of life online“) and shared it with the group, wrote and posted my First Lines Friday piece (on Trevor Noah’s Born A Crime), and I’m off to post my check-in image as soon as I finish this blog!

Missed: Missed my deadline for edits, as this week was particularly crazy, and didn’t get a chance to rewrite my “P is for Pop Songs” post.

Goals for Next Week


Finish up my edits for Digital Media for Monday
Send in an outline for Careers if You Like Music by Friday
Write my third #52essays2017 essay
Meet up with my Accountabilibuddies on Friday for more coffee and goal-setting

What About You?

Got any goals for next week? Have you been tracking your words this year? Need some friendly advice or encouragement? Post your deepest, darkest fears – or just your goals – in the comments section!

Related Posts Let’s get accountable! #2017goals Return of the Accountability Group! #2017goals Fail Better: 365K Club, week 21

The post Confronting Zero: Accountability check-in #2017goals appeared first on Buttontapper Press.

First Lines Friday: Born A Crime #fridayreads

The book I’ve been reading to start the New Year opens in this way:

“The genius of apartheid was convincing people who were the overwhelming majority to turn on each other. Apart hate, is what it was. You separate people into groups and make them hate one another so you can run them all.”

Today’s first line comes from comedian and The Daily Show host Trevor Noah, whose autobiography, Born A Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood, begins with this observation.

I was drawn to Noah’s book for its opening line, as it seems a timely reflection of what’s happening here in the United States. Ever since a certain orange-faced fascist was “elected” by a minority of the people, Americans have been turning on one another, committing hate crimes and expressing themselves with violence. Sadly, even the majority of us (who did not vote for the Cheeto in question) have been turning against one another for petty reasons, arguing over whether or not safety pins or safe spaces are appropriate reactions, trying to place blame on certain groups for the Cheeto’s “victory,” and generally playing right into this Russian puppet’s tiny little palms.

If it appears that I’ve been posting a lot of explicitly political books for my First Lines Friday series, you’d be correct. We are living in a time of great upheaval, and literature can be both a balm and an encouragement to continue to rise up, resist, and reclaim that power from those who seek to oppress us. So, yes, I will continue to post books that address bigger issues, and hope that you’ll continue to join me on my quest to read 52 books this year.

More First Lines

Here are the books previously mentioned in the First Lines Friday series:

1984 by George Orwell
Beautiful Losers by Leonard Cohen
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Matilda by Roald Dahl

What’s YOUR favorite first line?

Leave a comment below and your favorite first line could be featured in an upcoming Friday post!

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Notes from 20 years of life online #52essays2017

It’s 2017, 20 years since I graduated from high school this June. A lifetime achievement, perhaps, or just another one of time’s mile markers, depending on your outlook.

So I guess this is an appropriate time to look back on my youth, since I was just added to a Facebook group of the folks I graduated with, back in 1997. The ones that are still with us, anyway. I know at least two of my classmates have already crossed over, into the Great Beyond. One died of cancer (and under 40, too…), another from a sudden aneurysm. A stranger, a friend. Both male, both white, both married – or almost. It’s such a strange, sad feeling to know they are already gone. It’s only been 20 years. Aren’t we all still so full of life, so ready for our lives to simply begin?

Time flies.

I guess pondering the distance of 20 years should make me feel old, but mostly I have to wonder why it seems like half our graduating class now sells real estate for a living. Is this the default or the fallback option for upper-middle-class white kids who used to be cheerleaders and football stars?

Good thing I was never a cheerleader, nor a football star. My varsity letters were for bowling and badminton. (They were excellent ways to get out of gym class. Less so, marching band, as I never could figure out how to play music from memory and march in time.)

Everyone likes to say that in high school, they never fit in. I suspect that’s both true and false. Plenty of people were adept at fitting in. The cheerleaders and jocks, for instance, are easily categorized as such. Anyone you can put into a category and label, certainly. And surely these people had their own problems, underneath the façade – we all do. But what about those of us you couldn’t easily categorize? The ones that refused to be labeled?

In high school, I took on many labels. I was a good student, a band nerd, a quiet kid, but never really a writer. I did not submit to the school’s arts magazine, nor did I join the newspaper or yearbook as I had in middle school. I did not want to be judged by my fellow students. I did not consider most of them to be true peers. I had grown self-conscious, wary of these people – especially the ones that attended the Sunday School at my church, acting pious when the instructors were around, and whipping insults and items at one another once they stepped out of the room. I would watch them each play the part of “good kid” whenever authority figures were in earshot, then shape-shift into their true forms once the threat had passed.

Their hypocrisy disgusted me. I would not bare my soul to such people. They did not deserve anything I hid inside. And so I kept these thoughts and feelings to myself, hidden away in my diary.

That is, until I discovered The Internet.

Somewhere around 1993, my father installed some software on our home computer for a system named Prodigy. An apt name for a group of nerds who considered themselves superior to others, gathering online to discuss everything from sports to literature on an early version of the internet known as the bulletin board system (BBS).

If you’ve ever gone to an online forum to discuss something with folks, through a series of posts, you’ve used a modern-day version of the BBS. But back in 1993, that was all the internet was. You couldn’t communicate in real-time with someone. So you could either post a note to them on the bulletin boards, or you could send them an email. Reply times might range from a day or two to several weeks, depending on how often someone could use their phone to access the system, as dial-up was the only option, and load times were painfully slow.

Sometimes, if you really liked and trusted a person, you might exchange real-life addresses and send each other snail-mail. This is how I became “pen pals” with many different people across the U.S., and how my writing first found an outlet.

Writing to strangers was my escape from what felt like a suffocating small town. In truth, my hometown is a bona fide city (with a current population of about 45,000 people), but when you’re in high school, everyone always knows your business. I did not want to be pigeonholed as “the nerd,” as I knew my life would be bigger and better than anything my classmates were planning for themselves – if, indeed, they had anything planned at all. (The only person I knew would be a success and leave our hometown for sure was the classmate who asked us, once, in a History class, “Where will you go when you finally have the chance to get out of this hellhole?” He’s also, unfortunately, one of the two who have already left us too soon.)

I wrote about everything that was happening in my life: school, teachers I liked or hated, fights with friends, drama between my fellow nerds, crushes I had on older boys, music, movies, books and philosophical pondering on the larger world. I made friends with phone phreaks in California, supposed government spooks in Canada, Mormons in Idaho, skydivers in Wisconsin, gun nuts in South Carolina, philosophers in Baton Rouge, Jesuits-in-training in NYC.

I wish I still had copies of our letters. They are surely fodder for hundreds of stories.

Online, I was fearless. I created my own persona, instead of being forced to accept a label. Sometime I was “the kid” – the skydivers were shocked to discover they’d been arguing with a 13-year-old about whether or not their favorite pastime was really a sport or just a hobby. They mailed me a VHS tape of their largest formations, jumping out of planes and soaring over farmland to create multicolored rings with their parachutes. I’m sure my parents wondered how I had connected with these much-older men and their dangerous activity. Thankfully this was a time before anyone had ever considered doxxing to be a fun and easy way to ruin a person’s life; the skydivers were just genuinely curious about why I was on a bulletin board asking them questions and arguing semantics. They told me, “Call us when you’re 18! We’ll take you out for your first jump!”

At other times, I was the friend, the fighter, the freak. Even, to some extent, the lover. (Can one truly be in a relationship, if every bit of it is lived only through words on paper or screens? That’s up to you to decide, dear reader…)

I contained multitudes. And online, I was the prodigal prodigy, embracing each in turn.

The internet was much different, then. Sometimes I still mourn for that lost world, where people really could get along, despite their differences. Before block buttons, reporting stalkers and garden-variety assholes, instant access to someone’s home address, GPS to locate them and show up on their doorstep to do them harm. Before Trump tweeting every turd he passes at three in the morning. Before hatred and fear ruled both our online and offline lives. Hell, back when there was such a thing as “offline.”

We are all connected. And sometimes that’s a very scary thing.

P.S.

Here’s a funny video of teenagers reacting to the 1990s version of the internet, posted in 2014. The kid who observes, “Little did they know of the pedophiles behind the screens,” is one of my favorites.

_____

For more information on the #52essays2017 Challenge, join us in the Facebook group or read Vanessa Mártir’s post explaining the challenge here.

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Let’s get accountable! #2017goals

It’s the end of the first week of 2017, and I think that a good way to stick with my writing goals for the year is by posting a short accountability post every Saturday morning. In these posts, I’ll be reviewing my word counts for the week, my goals set and met or missed, and posting new goals for the week to come. This is one of the exercises I’m trying to get my local Writing Accountability Group to participate in as well, so feel free to play along at home by posting YOUR goals and word counts for the week in the comments section. Let’s begin!

Word Counts for 1/1 – 1/6

January 1: 1,589

January 2: 1,583

January 3: 3,132

January 4: 800

January 5: 905

January 6: 885

Weekly Total: 8,894 words – averaging it out, this is a nice start to my plan to write 1,000 words per day this year.

Weekly Goals

Set: Finish writing and assembling the SDW/EG January newsletter and send to printer, write my first essay for the #52essays2017 challenge, work on edits for Careers in Digital Media, write and publish a new “P is for Pop Songs” post, hold first Accountability Group meeting of the year.

Met: Completed the SDW/EG newsletter and sent it in early (woohoo!), wrote and posted my first essay, made some progress on edits, hosted the first Accountability Group meeting (although we somehow managed to miss one of our members in the café, doh!).

Missed: I did finish writing a “P is for Pop Songs” post, but have held it back for personal reasons.

Goals for Next Week


Finish edits on Careers in Digital Media by Friday the 13th
Write my second #52essays2017 essay and share it with the Facebook group
Rewrite my “P is for Pop Songs” post so that I can actually publish it on my blog this week
Write a “First Lines Friday” post for my blog
Post a check-in image in the Accountability Group, to see how my fellow Accountabilibuddies are doing

What About You?

Got any goals for next week? Have you been tracking your words this year? Need some friendly advice or encouragement? Post your deepest, darkest fears – or just your goals – in the comments section!

 

Related Posts Return of the Accountability Group! #2017goals Fail Better: 365K Club, week 21 Create challenges, not resolutions #52essays2017

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Return of the Accountability Group! #2017goals

It’s the first Friday of 2017, which means it’s time for my Writing Accountability Group to meet again. And if you live in the San Diego area, you may be interested in joining us. Here’s the dealio:

Need some accountability for your writing goals in 2017? Join the San Diego Writing Accountability Group for bi-weekly meetings and give your year some structure!

We meet every other Friday at the Barnes & Noble café in Trolley Square (9938 Mission Gorge Rd, Santee, CA 92071 – accessible via trolley) from 3 to 5 PM to talk goals, accomplishments from the past two weeks, brainstorm our way through any blocks, and generally remain responsible to a small group of fellow writers who are serious about success.

We are open to writers in any genre, so long as your goal is kicking butt and getting your work finished, polished, and published.

We DO NOT do critiques (although you may be able to partner up with someone for that, if you like), but we DO offer support and a fun, friendly environment where you can bounce your ideas off of others, talk a bit of shop, and keep your goals on track throughout the year.

Our first meeting of the year is Friday, January 6th, from 3-5 PM. Please bring your writing goals for the new year – no matter how vague – and we’ll help each other break them down into manageable chunks. We look forward to meeting you!

NOTE: This group is free to attend, though we strongly suggest purchasing food or drink from the café.

Can’t make it to this meeting? Never fear: you can drop in any time! Our next meeting will be January 20th, same time and location.

Can’t make it on Fridays? I’m considering setting up a second group that meets on Saturday afternoons, so email me if you’d like to join us.

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Create challenges, not resolutions #52essays2017

There’s something so exciting and inspiring about a new year. Even though, technically, time is just an illusion that we’ve all agreed to participate in, these arbitrary designations do hold meaning. And after a crazy year like 2016, where it seemed one of my childhood (or young adult) idols died every other week, it’s nice to finally have that fresh start.

I mean, seriously, can everybody please stop dying?!

Wishful thinking. We’ve all gotta go sometime. That doesn’t make it hurt any less when our heroes move into the Great Beyond. Some of those wounds are still fresh.

But back to thinking about the passage of time, and the start of a new year…

Everybody loves a clean slate, right? I’m the messiest person you’ll meet, with books and papers strewn absolutely everywhere, and even *I* can appreciate a nice, clean desk (or table, or office…). Sometimes you just have to sweep the clutter aside and start with the blank page.

So, the obvious first topic for my first #52essays2017 is New Year’s Resolutions. Now, I don’t set resolutions for myself, but I do look back on the previous year to see what I accomplished, what I missed, and figure out what I want to accomplish in the next year.

In other words, I chart my goals.

In 2016, I even got a professional to come speak to my writing group on the subject of goal-setting, in order to learn more about why we all find this practice necessary but confusing. How do we set goals for ourselves? And how do we make sure we stick to them, even when the first flush of excitement has faded?

I’ve already written a bit about my 2016 as a whole, and even charted some of my goals for the New Year… but how, exactly, do I create goals for myself?

I wrote a post in 2014 that I titled “5 life-altering New Year’s Resolutions for authors,” which goes over some of the basics. One of the five ideas was “challenge yourself,” which I take quite seriously. Every year I have certain writing challenges that I look forward to participating in: the A to Z Challenge in April, NaNoWriMo in November, and the 365 Club throughout the year.

This year I’ve decided to write a personal essay every week.

It’s a new challenge, because although I’m used to writing blog posts on an approximately weekly schedule, I haven’t written many personal posts lately.

Why?

The simple answer is: FEAR.

I used to be fearless when it came to writing things online. Back in the olden days, when the Internet and I were both young and stupid, I actually kept an online diary. Not a journal, which serious authors might consider more of a log, but a spill-it-all-out-as-it-comes Diaryland diary.

I wrote under a pseudonym, suggested by an ex-lover, so that I could be brutally honest on the page. I wrote about heartbreak, struggles with school, not knowing what I really wanted to do with my life, and 20-something angst. (I was a philosophy student, so I had a lot of angst.)

I didn’t care what anyone else thought of what I wrote. I wrote for myself. To please myself, to share my feelings with whomever might be reading.

I was brave mainly because I didn’t know any better. I poured myself out online because I didn’t have anyone else I could talk to about the thoughts swirling around in my brain.

It wasn’t so much bravery as nakedness. Exposing myself to the world, and hoping someone would reach back with a comforting word, a virtual hug.

Now, though, I am guarded. I don’t feel the same need to expose myself, my life, my words. There is a time and a place for sharing. I do not believe that everything I write should be for public consumption.

Sometimes, a little mystery is sexy.

Of course, I still have plenty to say. I still have plenty of words I’d like to share. But my motivations are different. I’m not seeking love or adoration. I am seeking connection, intellectual conversation, the ability to share thoughts and feelings without the now-customary avalanche of hate that the Internet has become known for.

So I joined a group of writers who are looking for the same thing. Community. Connection. Their voices, heard. Their truths, told.

I don’t need to hide behind a pseudonym. I don’t need to be afraid to share personal stories. That, indeed, is the point of this exercise.

One of my favorite essay writers is David Sedaris. He writes humorous stories about common, everyday occurrences. But he also shares some of his embarrassing moments and failures, and describes his family’s quirks and foibles. I laugh because I see myself in these stories. They are funny because they are true, real, honest.

I would love to write as honestly as David does. And so, I begin.

_____

For more information on the #52essays2017 Challenge, join us in the Facebook group or read Vanessa’s post explaining the challenge here.

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Out with the old: Reflections on 2016

As 2016 draws to a close, and thoughts of New Year’s Resolutions begin to fill my head, I thought I’d take a look back on some of my accomplishments from the past year.

Here are some fun stats from 2016…

Personal Bests by Word Count in 2016 (By Month)

January 19 – 1,236 words, with 14,665 words total for the month
February 13 – 1,414; 17,546/month
March 29 – 1,975; 19,869/month
April 18 – 1,439 (16,842/month)
May 2 – 1,789 (18,580/month)
June 19 – 1,626 (17,676/month)
July 25 – 6,391; 43,806/month
August 8 – 2,090 (30,215/month)
September 3 – 3,462 (31,237/month)
October 23 – 3,015 (34,985/month)
November 12 – 2,925 (36,229/month)
December 2 – 1,740
December 28 – Over 300,000 words for the year!

As you can see, July was my best month in terms of total word count, and my best day for writing this year was July 25. Must’ve been my determination to beat the mid-year doldrums, or the decision to make good use of my summer! Either way, I look forward to another productive July in 2017.

I’ve also joined the 365 Club Challenge again (formerly known as the 365K Club), and have set a daily goal of 1,000 words for myself. Given that my daily goal this year was a mere 275 words, I look forward to bumping up my productivity and filling the 1K per day with a variety of different projects.

And now, my “the good, the bad, and the ugly” take on 2016!

MY 2016 YEAR IN REVIEW

GOALS ACHIEVED

Wrote and published five books
Completed my first book with a traditional publisher (with another currently in progress, and a third in the development stage)
Completed my first 365K Club Challenge at the “Poe” level (where the goal was to write 100K in a year)
Wrote more than 300,000 words this year!
Took on the role of the San Diego Writers & Editors Guild‘s Newsletter Editor
Hosted five monthly events for the Nonfiction Authors Association’s San Diego chapter, which I founded last year (I have since stepped down, in order to pursue other interests)
Created and hosted a monthly writing critique group
Created and hosted a bi-weekly accountability group
Edited nonfiction books for Norm Schriever, Judd Reid, and a local realtor (among others)
Attended the San Diego Public Library’s Local Authors gala
Wrote several “1 in 12” poems (one of which was published in Stardust, Always in honor of David Bowie)
Did some in-person sales events
Got several foreign language translations of my books published (including San Diego from A to Z in Spanish and Portuguese)
Participated in another April A to Z Blogging Challenge, writing  Chicago from A to Z , and hosting local blog-ins
Started the DISARM anthology (to be published in 2017)
Organized a day-long writing retreat
Had a piece accepted in SDW/EG’s The Guilded Pen anthology (5th edition)
Attended Twainfest, as a volunteer, handwriting responses to notes posted at the Letter Writing Booth
Attended the Citizen’s Academy and learned a lot about the local criminal justice system – and even got to visit the county morgue (aka Medical Examiner’s Office)!
Completed a 5K Walk/Run/Write event with the 10 Minute Novelists

BOOKS WRITTEN &/OR PUBLISHED THIS YEAR

Awesome Lady Authors
Careers in Digital Media (edits currently in progress)
Careers in Gaming (ReferencePoint Press – out January 2017)
Everything I Need to Know About Love I Learned From Pop Songs (editor)
Just A Quickie !

PROJECTS TO COMPLETE IN 2017

Careers in Digital Media
Careers if You Like Music
The Case of the Cunning Linguist
YA book series (currently in development)

GOALS FOR 2017

BLOG GOALS

Write once a week, minimum, as part of the #52essays2017 challenge
Revamp my author newsletter
Write more “P is for Pop Songs” posts
Write more “First Lines Friday” posts
Write more “Top 10 Takeaways” posts
Start a “Cool Careers” series – pitch me if you’ve got an awesome job you’d like to talk about!

WRITING GOALS

[TOP SECRET!]

BUSINESS GOALS

[ALSO TOP SECRET!]

HEALTH GOALS

Walk 30 minutes daily, minimum
Walk 250 steps/hour during the work day (9-5)
Acquire and use a standing or treadmill desk

READING GOALS

Read a book a week, for a total of 52 books

WRITING CHALLENGE

Organized by Vanessa Mártir and Lizz Huerta, here’s the gist: Write an essay a week, for 52 weeks, and you win.

In Vanessa’s own words:

1. This isn’t about producing a polished essay. This is about surrendering to [the] process. This is for you, no one else.

2. There is no word limit. It can be as short or as long as you like. Just try to dig into the stories. Why is this coming up? What is it you’re not saying? What is it you want to say? Why? Dig!

3. […] If you decide to make the essay public, […] don’t forget to tag the essay with the hashtag: #52essays2017.

4. You have to post an essay a week, which isn’t easy. I have missed a week here or there but posted it later, usually not past the following Monday. If you miss a week, okay. Don’t beat yourself up. Just try. Push. Write. Then post it.

I plan to publish my first essay this week, on the subject of New Year’s Resolutions and goal-setting for writers. Stay tuned!

NEW YEAR, NEW BLOG THEME

And finally, I recently discovered Cerries Mooney’s approach to personal branding, which relies on personal archetypes. I am, obviously, a Creator:

Created by Cerries Mooney

My secondary archetype is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Jester. So stay tuned for changes to this blog based around my two archetypes, as I continue the journey ever forward.

Your turn!

What have you accomplished in 2016, and what are some of your goals for next year?

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How is it December already?! (365K Club, week 48)

It’s that time of the week (or should I say month, at this point – how is it already December?!) again: time for another 365K Club word count check-in! Numbers, please…

November 19, Day 324: 1,722 words

November 20, Day 325: 900 words

November 21, Day 326: 970 words

November 22, Day 327: 420 words

November 23, Day 328: 420 words

November 24, Day 329: 785 words

November 25, Day 330: 1,100 words

WEEK 47 TOTAL: 6,317 words

November 26, Day 331: 785 words

November 27, Day 332: 1,820 words

November 28, Day 333: 2,769 words

November 29, Day 334: 895 words

November 30, Day 335: 825 words

December 1, Day 336: 985 words

December 2, Day 337: 1,740 words

That’s a grand total of 9,819 words for this week, 36,229 words for the month of November (2,725 so far for December), and 286,985 for the year!

Did I beat last week’s total?

Last week I wrote 6,317 words, which means I beat that total by 3,502 words. Woohoo!

Badges!

No badges this week, although I did finally manage to crack 10K on my NaNoWriMo project before the end of November. Not exactly my finest moment, but I persevered. Hey, it’s 10K more than I had in October, right?

Goals for next week?

This weekend I am finally (seriously) finishing up the very last of my Careers in Digital Media manuscript, and then I am taking a week off to write something for myself. Frankly, I’m a little burned out.

It’s December, which is the time of year when I traditionally like to start evaluating my year, adding up my accomplishments and acknowledging my failures, and trying to figure out how I will map out my new year. I’ve been doing a lot of personal journaling, using the Passion and Purpose Writing Challenge from This Cherished Life, which you might also find useful (and, hooray, it’s free!).

I’ve also been thinking about a new writing challenge I’ve been dreaming up for myself, after a year spent doing other people’s challenges. I’d like to design a year-long challenge for myself that will give me something new to learn, and help get my writing goals on track within a specific genre. I’ll explain more in another post, once I have things a bit more mapped out.

So… what are YOU working on this week?

And have you got any good resources for new year’s goal-setting you’d like to share?

Related Posts Fail Better: 365K Club, week 21 Hanging Out: 365K Club, week 22 DISARM: 365K Club, week 24

The post How is it December already?! (365K Club, week 48) appeared first on Buttontapper Press.

Halfway through #NaNoWriMo: 365K Club, week 46

I haven’t done a 365K Club update in a while, and it’s that time of the week again, so let’s do this for the month of November thus far! Numbers, please…

November 1, Day 306: 1,777 words

November 2, Day 307: 765 words

November 3, Day 308: 2,435 words

November 4, Day 309: 888 words

TOTAL, WEEK 44: 8,390 words

November 5, Day 310: 1,176 words

November 6, Day 311: 810 words

November 7, Day 312: 2,066 words

November 8, Day 313: 1,326 words

November 9, Day 314: 775 words

November 10, Day 315: 835 words

November 11, Day 316: 875 words

TOTAL, WEEK 45: 7,863 words

November 12, Day 317: 2,925 words

November 13, Day 318: 2,041 words

November 14, Day 319: 815 words

November 15, Day 320: 775 words

November 16, Day 321: 820 words

November 17, Day 322: 790 words

November 18, Day 323: 371 words

That’s a grand total of 8,537 words for the week, 22,265 for the month of November, and 270,296 for the year!

Did I beat last week’s total?

Last week I wrote 7,863 words, which means I beat that total by 674 words.

Badges!

No badges this week. But here are a few that I received in October, and never got a chance to write up! Here are my October Bullseye, Sea Tourist (for writing every day for 6 months), and my 5K Walk/Run/Write Winner badges:

Goals for next week?

This week I am working on my second book for ReferencePoint Press, entitled Careers in Digital Media. It will, as the title suggests, include information about a variety of jobs in the digital media sphere, including Freelance Writer. My goal is to hit my deadline (which is November 28th), so I’m plugging away this weekend with a few more chapters left to go. This is the project I’ve actually been tracking for NaNoWriMo this year, so I haven’t gotten to the halfway mark this year. But that’s okay, since my goal isn’t to hit 50K; it’s to “win” by finishing this book and moving onto the next one!

How’s your NaNoWriMo project coming along?

Let me know in the comments – I hope you’re doing great!

Related Posts Fail Better: 365K Club, week 21 Triple word scores: 365K Club, weeks 35-37 YARRRR! 365K Club, week 40

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