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ROW80: Back in Action!

Posted on January 29, 2012 by Jessica

So I kind of fell into a black hole last week called Work. I still absolutely love my new job, but it was a super busy week with a lot to accomplish. I fell into bed exhausted almost every night, my tiredness exacerbated by a lingering headache/migraine that lasted for three days. So, needless to say, it wasn’t the most productive writing week…I really didn’t accomplish anything.

But, I feel refreshed and ready to go. I have the basic plot sketched out for Drawn Together and I am going to fully outline it tomorrow so I can start WRITING! I am really excited about it, because I think it will be fun to write and I’ve never tried my hand at a true contemporary romance novel before.

I also have some blogging to do…it’s hard to blog for me when I am in that zone all day for work, but I know I can do it. :-)

What are your goals this week? Have you had a week get away from you like I did?

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ROW80: Birthday week!

Posted on January 15, 2012 by Jessica

So, my birthday is Tuesday, and I tend to have a week-long celebration of sorts. Tomorrow will be fairly low-key, but Tuesday I am going to dinner with girlfriends, Wednesday I’m going for drinks with co-workers, Thursday and Friday are still open for any revelry, and Saturday is my birthday party!

I am smart enough to realize that I am probably not going to get much done this week, so I’m narrowing my focus to the characters in Drawn Together.

I have been working on some character profiles for my two main characters. My goal this week will be to finish them, maybe write a few scenes to figure out their voices, and do some quick profiles for supporting characters. (And do my ROW80 update on Wednesday of course!)

Overall I am happy with my progress…I have kept up with doing a little something on all my goals despite being busy. I really want to kick it into high gear next week so that I can end January feeling accomplished.

In the meantime, I am going to relax, enjoy time with friends, and read on my new Nook Simple Touch (an upgrade from my original Nook, an early birthday gift from my husband!). Have a great week ROW80ers!

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ROW80: Quick update

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Jessica

It has been a crazy week for me…big client meeting at work that has required a lot of prep, and with three weeks on the job I have been moving double time to get up to date on things. I will be happy to do some relaxing this weekend, and I know my coworkers will be too. Even with all the crazy this week, I am passionately in love with my new job and I feel so comfortable there. It’s really great to love going to work every day.

Not too much has happened on the writing front other than a very successful goals group meeting (yay!), some research reading and some work on character development for Drawn Together…even so, that still has me hitting goals as long as I write a couple of blog posts. I have been keeping up my other non-writing goals too–tracking what I eat every day and doing an Instagram photo challenge!

How is everyone else doing on the second week of ROW80? I hope to visit the Linky and make some comments when I get a spare moment! :-)

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ROW80: Week Two Goals

Posted on January 8, 2012 by Jessica

I have done really well on my first week’s goals…so much so that I am going to keep them for week two. I have gotten to just about everything on my list except character development, which I am planning on working on tonight. I had some unexpected work to do this weekend so I didn’t have as much time to work on writing as I expected. I think the key to my writing goals is to adjust them based on my workload and the things that are going on in my life so that everything works in harmony. That way I don’t have to skip a goal to do something else that is important.

It is a busy week at work so I want to keep my goals easy and accomplishable, which is exactly what my goals are right now. To recap:

  • A blog post per week.
  • Research on The Recollector
  • Character development for Drawn Together
Tonight is the first meeting of my writing goals group and I am super excited about that! I think that both the group and ROW80 will help me keep accountable to my goals and accomplish everything I want to in 2012.
How are the rest of my ROW80 friends doing?
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ROW80: So far, so good

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Jessica

It has been a busy week for me, lots of getting further adjusted at the new job and working hard to get up to speed. Even so, I have been doing well on my goals.

  • I feel like all I have been doing is writing blogs since that is much of what I am doing at my day job right now! I am on top of the blogging game.
  • I researched a lot on possible climactic events and catalysts for The Recollector. I am learning more about one particular event that would be practically perfect. I am saving lots of articles to my Instapaper account to go through as the week progresses.
  • I haven’t started my character sketches yet simply because I know I will have more time later in the week for them, and over the weekend.

I feel pretty good…in addition to my writing goals, I am working on two other goals: food journaling and a photo challenge. I write down everything I eat so that I am more conscious of what I put in my body. The list today included delicious things like gourmet food truck burger sliders and a Sprinkles cupcake, but at least I drank plenty of water all day. I am also participating in a photo-a-day challenge on Instagram.. I love using my iPhone to document my life and taking a creative photo every day is really fun.

How are your challenges coming along so far this week? Check out your other ROW80 participants at the blog hop here!

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ROW80: Round One Goals

Posted on January 2, 2012 by Jessica

I talked about my overall goal setting for 2012, but now that ROW80 is beginning, it’s time to set my smaller, more specific writing goals. For the first quarter of 2012, I am concentrating on research for one project and outlining another project. I also want to get into a regular blogging schedule.

I know that as the round goes on, my ROW80 goals will change as my focus changes. That is one of the things I love about ROW80–you can change your goals at any time. Once I finish a goal, I can move on to the next one. Here are the high-level Round One goals I am starting off with:

  • Finish research for The Recollector. I first started writing this story during NaNoWriMo 2010. I got to 50K with it, but it became clear about 25K through that I hadn’t done nearly enough historical research to do it true justice. It’s set in England during the reign of Queen Victoria and I am twisting some historical events slightly to meet my own purposes. Research is fun for me, but I need to focus and get myself ready to start from scratch on this project.
  • Outline Drawn Together. I had a bit of idea lightning hit me a few weeks ago for a contemporary romance. I have never really tried my hand at that, but I think it will be a lot of fun to write. I can easily draw from life experience given the basic plot of the story, which will hopefully make it come together quickly. I would love to start writing this during Round One as well, but I am not even putting that down as a goal until the outline is complete.
  • Blog at least once a week. I love blogging and I miss it. I have multiple blogs (which some people would tell you is a no-no, but as a professional marketer I think it is just fine, thanks) about different subjects, and since one of my overall themes of 2012 is to be passionate, I want to start blogging passionately again about the things I am interested in.

The problem with my Round One goals is that they aren’t as measurable as something like a daily word count, especially the research goal. So I am going to set weekly goals for myself that help me fulfill those larger goals. Here are my goals for this week:

  • Write at least one blog post for each blog. I am already ahead of the game on this goal, hurrah! I may even be able to get a few in the queue.
  • Decide on the main event for The Recollector. I have waffled back and forth on what historical event is going to be the focus for the climax of my story. I keep thinking I have the perfect one, and then two more will crop up that give me pause. I need to decide on this before anything else so I can pick my bad guys!
  • Develop character sketches for my two main characters in Drawn Together. I have some basic ideas for my male and female leads, but I really need to flesh them out and give them all kinds of quirks and personality before I start throwing them into an outline.

So how are you setting your goals for this round of ROW80? Do you think I am crazy with my super-specific layers of goals? I can’t wait to read about what everyone else will be doing!