Second-Trimester 2018 Shine Cycle Goals Check

On Saturday, I checked up on my progress so far on “miscellaneous” goals for the year. Today, a look at how I’m doing on my goals relating to the Shine Cycle, my fantasy series-in-preparation.

Outlining and Plotting

Objective: Have one complete and detailed outline of The Invasion.

Goal: Finish the “detailed synopsis” that is Step 9 of the “snowflake method”
Goal: Adjust the main outline and all synopses created in the “snowflake method” to all agree.

I finished the detailed synopsis, and compared it, the previous “snowflake” notes, and my outline; I’m currently slogging through the list of changes to each of those that I need to make to get them to agree. I’d say this goal is “pending,” finished in principle but not quite qualifying as “done” yet. Any day now.

Objective: Finish a presentable draft of The Invasion.

Goal: Get at least half-way through, or 50,000 words into, my new draft of The Invasion.
Stretch Goal: Finish this draft of The Invasion.


Objective: After I finish The Invasion, make significant progress on outlining The Adventure of the Royal Wedding

Stretch Goal: Follow the “snowflake method” to at least Step 4 for The Adventure of the Royal Wedding.

And so I haven’t even gotten to any of these yet.

Character Development

Objective: Have a biography, history, description, and “character logline” or “motivation summary” for every named character.

Goal: Write at least ten character biographies or histories
Goal: Create “character loglines” or “motivation summaries” for at least fifteen characters.

No progress on these in the last four months; the “next” character history has had me stymied every time I sit down to think about it (which hasn’t been often).

Worldbuilding

Objective: Create sufficiently-complete, sufficiently-detailed, maps of the worlds and areas with which the Shine Cycle is concerned.
Objective: Develop each race and culture that the Shine Cycle is concerned with sufficiently to portray it distinctly and excite potential readers’ interest.

Goal: Complete the “race fractalling system” for elves.
Goal: Complete the “race fractalling system” for dwarves

I haven’t given these any attention; The Invasion has demanded all my attention.

Blogging

Objective: Regularly post substantive Shine Cycle-related content here, as an incentive to continued progress and to attract interested future readers.

Goal: Post at least twelve Shine Cycle-related posts (not including writing status updates, year-end retrospectives, and the like; including posts already scheduled, but not including new posts scheduled for 2019) to this blog.
Goal: Post at least one Shine Cycle-related post (with the same restrictions) to this blog every month.
Stretch Goal: Post at least eighteen Shine Cycle-related posts (with the same restrictions) to this blog.


Objective: Create blog posts using “worldbuilding” material created using the various “systems” and question sets.

I think this may be the first post I’ve written since the last trimester-report, so I’m not doing well in this category.

All in all, I’m much further behind than before, but I’ve finally reached a milestone on The Invasion, which is something I’ve been aiming at all year.

I’ll round up my post-trimester goal-checking with a look at my Strategic Primer goals on Wednesday.