Tag Archives: Savvy Authors April Boot Camp

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

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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.

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#ROW80 Mid-Week Check-In & May Writing Goals

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April was busy, crazy, hectic, awesome, draining, exhilarating and… over? 😦

Got some pretty badges for my efforts:

Camp-NaNoWriMo-2013-Winner-Lantern-Square-ButtonI ended Camp NaNoWriMo with 75,416 words. I had my ups and downs but writing sprints were super helpful. I also met fellow writers online. We supported each other through the sprints and gave moral support during times of brainstorming and times of utter frustration at getting those word counts! What’s great is that these writerly connections will continue on to future NaNos and other challenges in between. We’ll be beta-reading for each other, and maintain accountability for our goals throughout the year. I think that’s an even better prize than exceeding my word count targets. Mind you, I have many words to go in my Camp Nano fairytale mashup, but I’m excited at the prospect of worldbuilding and writing something outside my usual fare. I’m taking workshops to help write something this grand and hope that by the next Camp NaNo, I’ll have this story polished and will be ready to tuck in to Book Two in the series.

I also exceeded my word count targets for my Savvy Author April Boot Camp. I ended up with 75,145 words. I have more to go on this story, as well, and I can see heavy revisions for both in the near future. The Savvy Authors website is going under a revamp, so I’m not worried that we don’t have badges yet. I’m actually excited to see the new site that will be up soon. This story was also out of my usual genre, so I’m proud that I tried new writing projects in April.

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A through Z. Done. That was an interesting challenge. I started off ahead of the game but ran into some RL issues that kept me from hopping as much as I’d have liked. The blog topics themselves were interesting to brainstorm. As this is my first attempt at a blog, I think I got off to a great start. We’re asked to write a Blogging A to Z Challenge Reflections Post. Since today is a check-in for a pre-existing challenge and I have the next several Sundays, Mondays, and Wednesdays devoted to challenges, as well, I think I’ll do a special Reflections Post this Friday. I read that there is also an upcoming A to Z Road Trip Challenge. I’ll keep my eye out for something new like that. It’s a great way to use the alphabet as writing prompts and has helped me work on creative non-fiction. I’d say that’s an added bonus from this blogging challenge experience.

And now today, the first day of a new month of writing opportunities. Let’s have a run-down on what’s ahead for me:

1) Round of Words in 80 Days – Each Wednesday and Sunday I’ll be checking in to make sure I’m on track with my writing goals. Aside from the 100 Pages Challenge I’ll continue throughout the month with a focus on the fairytale mashup. If I can write more of the contemporary fic draft, I’ll do that, too. Camp may be over but the writing continues.

2) 100 Pages in 7 Days Challenge – 25,000 words from May 1st to May 7th. Today I wrote 3,872 words. If we count the standard 250 words to a page, that comes out to 15.488 pages. Just for fun, I’m going to round down and say I got 15/100 pages today.

3) Work on the blog. Blog at least twice a week. With these new challenges, I’ll be blogging at least three times a week. I might hold off on the aesthetics of the blog (i.e. web hosting, theme upgrade, etc.) and just work on building more content.

4) Read. READ MANY BOOKS with a focus this month on MG Lit. I had the good fortune of participating in March Madness, two years running. The hashtag and support continues throughout the year under #wipmadness. Last month, Ghost Girl (a.k.a. Mary Ann) hosted the weekly check-ins every Monday. After daily check-ins during March, I felt less pressure but just as much accountability, so it was a good thing.  This month, Deb Marshall is hosting and she also has a reading challenge for Middle Grade books. This is perfect to keep me motivated as I catch up on my reading. I’ll be posting and tweeting about that using #middlegrademay and it should be exciting. I miss reading fiction. I’ve been focused on writing reference and it would be good to dive back into the fictional world again.

So, this is me. May 1st, 2013. A lil’ bit o’ this. A lotta that. Writing, reading, and loving every minute of it. What’s your plan this month?

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Week in Review – 2013/04/22 – 2013/04/28

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Two days left in the month of writetasticness.

Updated stats. The deets of my original goals can be found here and here.

Camp NaNoWriMo April, 2013 – Current word count, not including Sunday’s totals = 67,474 (I wrote 14,154 words this week.)

Savvy Authors April Boot Camp – Current word count not including Sunday’s totals = 65,876 (I wrote 14,919 words this week.)

Blogging A to Z Challenge – A through X posted

Round of Words in 80 Days – Four Mid-Week Check-Ins and Four Sunday Check-Ins (including today)

Holy carpal tunnel, Batman!

Very pleased with my word counts but I’ve found so much story in the twists and turns this month that the stories are nowhere near over. Originally, I was going to alternate NaNo months with revisions, but I’ll continue with these stories while they’re fresh in my noggin.

GOALS FOR MAY & BEYOND:

1) Round of Words in 80 Days – This challenge, as the name suggests, has 50 more days to go. I’m glad that I’ll have check-ins twice a week to keep me on track.

2) 100 Pages in 7 Days Challenge – 25,000 words in a week? Pfft. Hi, May. Have you met April? 😉 Challenge accepted and continued.

3) Work on the blog. Blog at least twice a week. Also, I’ll be looking into web hosting and switching to wordpress.org down the road.

4) Read. READ MANY BOOKS. My TBR pile is ridiculous. Also, I’m reviewing some books through goodreads and might add a review series on the blog.

5) Summer Novel Writing Challenge – June 21st to September 21st. I’ll brainstorm what stories I want to develop for the upcoming challenges.

I’ll add more goals as they come, but I think I have a fair amount to work with in the coming weeks. Thanks to everyone who’s joined me. Your encouragement and inspiration fuels my creativity.

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A to Z Challenge 2013 – U is for…

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~ UNSATISFIED ~

You’ve heard the saying ‘you can’t please everyone’ and it’s important to keep in mind when living the writing life. If you are lucky to gain a following, you’re sure to have your detractors. What if your biggest detractor is yourself? Don’t get me wrong. I love my characters. I love my stories. I think there comes a time when the story overwhelms me so much that I’m sometimes left unsatisfied even as I type the final word. Is it because of the rewrite? Or the rewrite of the rewrite. No, it’s the rewrite of the rewrite of the rewrite that gets me. That must be it.

I’m sure when I have children of my own someday I’ll endure a similar myriad of emotions as a writer who has birthed a story into the world. Each story I write is like one of my babies. I nurture it, sometimes smother it with good intentions, but want what’s best for it. I hope that when it goes out into the world that everything will be okay and that it can stand on its own (or maybe in a series. One can dream. ;-)) I think the pang of being unsatisfied is closely linked with its cousin, perfectionist. I don’t want a perfect story. I want a story that has its ups and downs. Of course, the only flaws a story should have are character flaws. Anything else needs to be nabbed before it gets published. Is not being satisfied because you suddenly want to change something or think there’s still room for improvement? Like any child, there comes a time when you have to let go.

Still, I think I’ll never be a fully satisfied writer. I consider it a good thing because it’ll keep me hungry to continue crafting stories but humble when those that I do write go off into the world and mingle.

Hmmm… unsatisfied with the spillage of my inner monologue, I at least have the good sense to include my #ROW80 MID-WEEK CHECK-IN with the blog entry rather than in the comments section. Score one for me.

1) Blogged A through U for the A to Z Challenge.

2) Words counts up to yesterday are as follows:

Camp NaNoWriMo – 60,969 words as of Day 23
Savvy Authors Boot Camp – 57,719 words as of Day 23

There are a couple of challenges in May and beyond that I’m considering, but I’ll look into them further and post about them in Sunday’s Check-in. Until then, many more scenes to unfold in both stories but I’m glad I’ve surpassed my targets. I almost rewrote one of them from scratch, because apparently I’m just unsatisfied that way. Fortunately, I held off. That’s where revisions come in. For now, and always, it seems, I write. 🙂

=8=

Today’s theme is brought to you by the letter

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Week in Review – 2013/04/15 – 2013/04/21

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Updated stats per my goals for this writerly journey. The deets of my original goals can be found here and here.

Camp NaNoWriMo April, 2013 – Current word count, not including Sunday’s totals = 53,320 (I wrote 20, 024 words this week.)

Savvy Authors April Boot Camp – Current word count not including Sunday’s totals = 50,957 (I wrote 16, 981 words this week.)

Blogging A to Z Challenge – A through R posted

Round of Words in 80 Days – Three Mid-Week Check-Ins and Three Sunday Check-Ins (including today)

I. Am. Tired.

Excited, too, so that’s good. I’m getting a kick out of the stories I’m writing and already have a series in play for the fairy tale mashup. It’s fun coming up with creative twists on familiar (and less familiar) fairy tale, fable, and folklore characters.

There’s a challenge to write 100 pages from May 1st to May 7th. I’m thinking of giving that a whirl to keep the momentum going. I’ll still blog but maybe once or twice a week (perhaps the for the #ROW80 check-ins) so I can focus on the stories I’m writing and revising.

As for the rest of the alphabet, I have pretty much all the topics covered but sometimes my inspiration for the content comes to me closer to the deadline. It’s been fun blogging through the ABCs and I look forward to doing that again next year.

We’re rounding the bases and home plate is in sight. It’s been an eyeopening experience and I can’t wait for future writing challenges and opportunities.

In the meantime, I’m taking it easy so my hands can recuperate and am catching up on some reading. I’ve also found some old stories that I’m reviewing with fresh eyes and have some story ideas I’d like to tinker with.

Though, I’ll be saying this more near the end, as well, thank you for coming with me on my writing journey this month.

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