#WriteMotivation August Goals
It’s a little early, but I thought I’d get a head start and write at least a first draft of what I want to get done in August for the group Write Motivation on Google +. I’m still fulfilling the July goals one-by-one, but I know I’ll have it all done by the end of the month. It was on my schedule already.
The one big goal is hiring my web designer to get my Website updated, which includes changing the number of short-story publications, because one of them fell through, and the other is taking so long that I can’t keep holding up hopes for it–since October 2009. I know, that’s bad, that I haven’t changed the amount of pubs, but I’m not a techy guy, and it’s not in my budget to pay a web designer till August. June and July, all my money’s tied up in getting the second short-story book made into an eBook. I’ll need to change the book cover and link that’s in the middle of my homepage, also, for I always list the most recent book I have out there. Furthermore, I need to change my Publications slideshow, because two of the anthologies I have tales in came off the NextGen device because the company, Rymfire eBooks, changed owners, and the books were taken down from Amazon. Only one was put back up for sale. Hopefully, the other one will be up by August. Lately, if it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.
I don’t have a short-story goal other than the second story collection coming out, because all my best tales will be in the two short-story books. I spent years and a lot of time submitting them to magazines and anthologies, so the chance to get them pubbed is past. I want my focus to be on novels and novellas from now on. To make sure my writing skills stay honed, I’m banging out a writerly exercise every morning where I come up with something creepy and then add on to it day-by-day, but it’s not the sort of thing I’d put out to the world. Authors need to write everyday, so hence the exercise. I’m going to wait till Nano in November to write the rough draft of the next horror novel, because I’ve had a hard time writing one longer than a novella lately, and I figure Nano will motivate me. What the hell, I’ve already written ten publishable (or self-publishable) novels.
On a side note, while I and the other writers on Write Motivation are hammering away on our keyboards, there is a way to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome. Ironically, a musician friend taught me this, for he has to type constantly at his job. What you do is take the weights off your barbell and just use the bar. You let it roll from your palm down to your fingers, then up again, ten times a day. Apparently, it works, for I’ve never had carpal tunnel.
Good luck with your goals, fellow writers.
