A Round of Words in 80 Days #ROW80 – Goals

After the intensity of NaNoWriMo, Kait Nolan came up with wonderful writing challenge called A Round of Words in 80 Days (ROW80). In this challenge, authors set their own writing goals for the next 80 days. This totally works for me, cause I'm a slacker at heart, while having public accountability motivates me. Set your clocks, peeps. ROW80 starts January 03, 2011.

What's doin' with me?

I've never been great at setting realistic goals. So why start now? Looking through my idea collection, I see I have a few stories already started. It's time to make some progress on them. Each month, I plan to start a new project. So here goes.

Jan: Finish the rough draft of Trinity's Awakening (New Adult – Suburban Fantasy)

Trinity's Awakening is an utter mess. I'm not sure when I started it, but it was before I got some writing tools under my belt–namely show versus tell. That skill is still a work in progress, but I'm getting better. Last I looked at Trinity's Awakening, I cringed at the overwhelming task of editing it. Honestly, I chose not to deal with it. Okay, so I'm still not going to deal with the editing portion. I'm just going to pick up where I left off and finish the darned thing. I have it planned as a trilogy, though the second and third books are not outlined. The only thing I really know about the second book is how it ends. The third book, I only know the character growth she'll experience. I'm pretty excited about this trilogy though. Not sure what I'll name the trilogy, but I've got the names picked out for all three books. Trinity's Awakening has a pretty decent outline and about 23k written.


Feb: Finish the first draft of Alley Cat and complete the first round of editing – 3rd and final book of the Striped Ones series (NaNoWriMo WIP – Contemporary Fantasy/Romance)

Okay. You might wonder why I'm writing the Striped Ones series out of order. NaNoWriMo. That's why. Start a book from scratch and finish it in 30 days. Well, I'd already started Stray Cat, so it was a no go. In fact, I have a lot of books I've started and not finished. Gosh I love starting books. How I'd love to have someone else complete them for me. Anyway, Alley Cat seemed the next logical choice. I already know how Stray Cat will end and pretty much the journey. So skipping to Alley Cat wasn't such a huge issue. The reason I'm working on the 2nd draft instead of finishing Stray Cat in February is because I hate editing. I'm hoping if I sandwich it between something I enjoy (like writing), I might be able to make greater progress and maintain motivation. Alley Cat is short 2-5 scenes plus a chapter from a complete first draft.


Mar: Finish the rough draft of Stray Cat – 2nd book of the Striped Ones series (Contemporary Fantasy/Romance)

It goes without saying, I need to wrap this up since it needs to head out before Alley Cat. Not much to say about this other than I think the beginning is pretty strong. It has a skeletal outline, and I've written about 9k.

Interested in joining? Well it's not too late to sign up.