#ROW80 Mid-Week Check-In 2013/07/03

Posted on 2013/07/03 by Tonette dela Luna

WRITING:

Camp NaNoWriMo and JulNoWriMo. Tweeting updates with @JulNoWriMo and #CampNaNoWriMo. Every Friday until September 21st, I’ll be writing update posts for WRITE YOUR NOVEL THIS SUMMER.

Fractured Tales Series Word Running Total for July: 7,397 words

Totals from April, June, and July: 171,216 words

I’m having fun storming the brain for the series and enjoy the company of old writers and new on this continuing adventure.

READING:

This week, I continued Lois Lowry’s THE GIVER QUARTET. Love her work! She’s one of my new favorites.

Here’s what I read this week, so far:

Yes, I totally dove into it.

Currently reading:

I need to go through my GoodReads account and sort through my Want To Reads and I’ve Reads… review to follow. Gah. So many words. 🙂

BLOGGING:

Angelina C. Hansen took over the hosting duties for #wipmadness on her blog. We had our first check-in for July this past Monday. Monday was also the beginning of Round Three of#ROW80 and today is our first Mid-Week Check-In.

Friday, I’ll continue my new column FRIDAY FORAGE and will go through my second week of summer writing updates.

A great start to the month already. How’s everyone doing?

July Writing/Reading Goals

Posted on 2013/07/01 by Tonette dela Luna

(via http://bit.ly/15capLM)

It’s checklist time again. Let’s see what’s in store for me this July.

WRITING:

Camp NaNoWriMo and JulNoWriMo. Tweeting updates with @JulNoWriMo and #CampNaNoWriMo. Every Friday until September 21st, I’ll be writing update posts for WRITE YOUR NOVEL THIS SUMMER.

The Fractured Tales continue.

Current WIPS:

BOOK ONE: HAMELIN

BOOK TWO: THE CURSE OF BRIAR ROSE

Brainstorming ideas for:

BOOK THREE: AND THEN THERE WERE SEVEN

READING:

I read three books in the last week of June and am currently on the fourth and fifth. I’ll be updating my progress with reading each Sunday in my Week in Review blog posts. I didn’t officially enter the mammoth reading challenge I blogged about previously. However, I already see my efforts proving fruitful. This self-imposed challenge gives me the opportunity to study other writing styles and genres while allowing myself to enjoy the art of storytelling.

BLOGGING:

Awesome accountability resumes with Angelina C. Hansen taking over the hosting duties for #wipmadness on her blog. Round Three of #ROW80 begins today and I posted my goals last night. There will be the mid-week and Sunday check-ins for that, too. good stuff.

I know I’ve only written one post, so far, in my new column FRIDAY FORAGE but I’m hoping I can continue that beyond the summer writing challenge. I’m considering posting a round-up of notable writing/story/craft related posts to share. I still have until late September to sort that out.

How was your June? Did you meet your goals? Make new ones? What’s your plan for July? Share your thoughts below. I’d love to hear what you’ve been up to in your neck of the interweb. 🙂

Week in Review – 2013/06/24 – 2013/06/30

Posted on 2013/06/30 by Tonette dela Luna

WRITING:

JuNoWriMo and Kiwi Writers SoCNoC. Also tweeting word count updates using #JuNoWriMo and #SoCNoC hashtags.

Fractured Tales Series Word Count Grand Total: 88,403 words (June)

Sleep. Does wonders. Chugged along and got splendiferous results. This total can join the 75,416 words I wrote in April. Not too shabby. I’m also pleased that I was able to exceed the 6K in a day challenge twice this weekend.

I have updates for WRITE YOUR NOVEL THIS SUMMER every Friday. More on that below.

I have some solid material to continue with for JulNoWriMo, Camp NaNoWriMo, and possibly Savvy Authors Boot Camp that starts on Monday. Already giddy because I’m enjoying the scenes I’ve written lately, pleasantly surprised and complete with oohs and ahhs.

READING:

Already the non-conformist, I’ve read books outside of the list I posted last week. Here’s what I read this week:

Currently reading:

I’ll continue reading non-fiction because it helps in my prep for next month’s writing challenges.

BLOGGING:

The third round of #ROW80 starts on July 1st. My goals are pretty straight forward for the next eighty days.

1) Continue to work on my Fractured Tales Series with all the WriMos and writing challenges I can find (see above).

2) Working simultaneously on BOOK ONE: HAMELIN and BOOK TWO: THE CURSE OF BRIAR ROSE.

3) Outline and plot BOOK THREE: AND THEN THERE WERE SEVEN.

4) There are some submission call-outs I’m considering with due dates on July 31st and August 31st. I’ll get those sorted.

5) Continue reading and blogging because I think all of this has helped me become a better writer.

6) Try to keep up with the supportive #ROW80 family and meet knew writing buddies on the blog hop.

7) Try super-duper hard not to edit as I write. That’s always been something that I need to work on (or not, as the case may be).

I’ll also be checking in with the #wipmadness community. To share my progress with WRITE YOUR NOVEL THIS SUMMER I started a new series of posts entitled FRIDAY FORAGE. Those posts are going to be fun.

OTHERS:

Treadmilled my brains out only to follow it up with both TKT having fevers. I’m also considering Urban Rebounding. It was a long week so I finally had the chance to unwind and catch up with my word counts this weekend. Duolingo still waits in the wings, but I’ll get on that.

A busy June. Can’t wait for July. Good thing I won’t have to. 🙂

FRIDAY FORAGE – 2013/06/28

Posted on 2013/06/28 by Tonette dela Luna

WEEK ONE: WRITE YOUR NOVEL THIS SUMMER

Last Friday began another writing challenge for me this year. Oodles of words have been read and written thus far, but I’m enjoying the process.

My project this summer, in tandem with all the WriMos I can count, is to continue my Fractured Tales Series.

It all began with an idea.

I saw an anthology submission call for a retelling of any fairy tale. I stormed the brained and ended up coming up with more than one idea–sound familiar? I ended up with so much story that couldn’t be contained in 7500 words or less. Of course, when April came along with challenges such as Camp NaNoWriMo and Savvy Authors Boot Camp, I decided to make it a full-on novel. I already had one story being written for Boot Camp and when I couldn’t decide on the Pied Piper themed story or Sleeping Beauty, I decided to do a mash-up.

Cut to May. 75K for this mash-up but the subplot started to creep to the forefront. It demanded its own story, so I figured, why not?

Along came JuNoWriMo. I was planning on using the month to prep for July’s Camp NaNo and JulNoWriMo, but I’ve never been one to turn down a challenge. I’m a masochist, that way. I extracted the subplot from Book One and it’s now the main plot of Book Two. This month has been me reconstructing Book One and I hope to continue the Series. At present, the flow is as follows (titles pending):

Book One: Hamelin

Book Two: The Curse of Briar Rose

Book Three: And Then There Were Seven

More to follow.

I’d like to wrap up 2013 with a series I can be proud of, spend the holidays polishing and start the New Year with a publishing twinkle in my eye.

So, here’s the deets for Week One on this summer writing adventure:

Wrote just under 20K this week, but after a lengthy assessment, I found about 7K of it Series worthy. I can always put the other words to good use later.

My beautiful Keysmashing Tots had fevers this week. It’s hard to write on a daily basis when your nephew and niece compete for your attention–with each other or as a distraction so they can climb onto your lap and have a go at the computer. The duo was aptly named. But the amount of sleep I haven’t had this week put a dent in my creative plans. As I’ve said before, TKT trump everything, so my writing time, though diminished, still happened, but my three hour window was cut in half. Sometimes I just had an hour to get the words out.

I’m home for the long weekend to recharge my own batteries and it’s odd (though hardly surprising) that I now find their absence to be a greater distraction from writing. I have two days to keep adding to my June word count–hoping to break 70K–and prep for Camp that starts on Monday.

It’s a long road ahead but the journey is the best part, don’t you think?

#ROW80 Mid-Week Check-In 2013/06/19

Posted on 2013/06/19 by Tonette dela Luna

FINAL CHECK-IN FOR ROUND TWO

This was my first time doing #ROW80 and it was quite a ride.

APRIL:

Camp NaNoWriMo. Wrote the beginnings of a YA Fantasy Series. Book One turned into more of Book Two (more on that later.) Working titles are BOOK ONE: HAMELIN and BOOK TWO: THE CURSE OF BRIAR ROSE. I’m still stormin’ the brain for the Series Title.

Savvy Authors Boot Camp. Wrote contemporary fiction. Title: A LOVE LESS ORDINARY. Like the YA Fantasy Series, it’s the first time I tried writing in this genre.

Blogging A to Z Challenge. A month of firsts, I created this blog for the purpose of chronicling my progress. Then I discovered this challenge. It was interesting to keep this going while writing two stories at the same time.

#ROW80, Round Two. Yeah, so I figured with all that on my plate for April, I couldn’t say no to this awesome method of accountability. It certainly kept me on my toes.

MAY:

Last year I joined a lovely group of writers where we checked in with each other each Monday for pep talks, moral support, celebration and commiseration of our writing efforts. #wipmadness and two years of March Madness has kept my creative juices flowing and definitely served as a catalyst to my foray into the online writing community.

In May, one of my fellow WIPsters, Deb Marshall hosted #middlegrademay. I read ten books, though if you saw my TBR list, you wouldn’t have noticed the dent. Reading all the great MG books out there reminded me how important it is to be on both sides of the book, so to speak.

JUNE:

Reading books was a nice reprieve for my aching digits. So, I originally said I’d skip JuNoWriMo and just plan for July’s Camp NaNo and Savvy Author’s Boot Camp. It didn’t take too much arm pulling from fellow writers to get me all excited to write NOW, so I ended up doing the following (and am still in the midst thereof):

JuNoWriMo and Kiwi Writers SoCNoC. This time I decided to devote my words–and brain–to the Fractured Tales Series. Formerly known as Fractured Fairytales, the universe has since expanded to include other notables (and less notables) from lore, myths, legends, and other fictional worlds (that I can legally include). In April, my attempts to blend the stories of The Pied Piper and Sleeping Beauty turned too epic even by April’s standards.

I moved the Sleeping Beauty element (previously a subplot in Book One) to have it’s own focus for Book Two. The Pied Piper is my protagonist for the series and BOOK ONE: HAMELIN will serve as an origin story. Therefore, a complete overhaul was needed, characters rewritten, expanded, new angles, backstory, the gamut. It’s been a trip and I my brain’s churning out the scenes faster than my digits or dictation software can record them.

25,000 Words in 7 Days was an ambitious challenge. Made it just shy of 18,000 words but that was because there’s so much material to work with when you have a Fractured Tales Series. Once I got going on certain scenes, it took someone to nudge me from my spot for me to realize how long I’d been typing away. Unfortunately, this time around, I was only able to get two to three hours per night for writing. The rest went to The Keysmashing Tots. They kinda trump everything.

WRITE YOUR NOVEL THIS SUMMER starts this Friday-GAH! Two days–June 21st and runs until September 21st. Meh. I shouldn’t really be surprised. Considering I want to get this series out of my brain by the end of the year, I’ll be participating in every variation of WriMo from now until New Year’s. It’s exciting to be this excited about something. You know what I’m talking about here.

Not to be outdone. Reading made a comeback with THE 48 HOUR BOOK CHALLENGE, June 7th to 9th, and continues with 30 Books in 90 Days starting June 23rd. Should keep me busy, yeah? When not with TKT, I should have a book (or ebook) in hand or should be writing one. How’s that for keeping me in the creative mindset? 🙂

Apologies if I’ve left something out. As you might have noticed, it’s been a busy 80 days. 🙂

I smile as Round Two draws to a close, mainly because I’ve been super productive. I’ve written close to 200,000 words and have read almost 3,000 words of other authors so far. Many, many more words to come: written, read, spoken, and otherwise. I’m already chuffed about my Round Three Goals post. The line-up is expected to be full of wordtastic opportunities. I look forward to Round Three and am grateful for a fabulous writing community that keeps me motivated to keep on keepin’ on.

See you in the next round.