50th ROW80 Check-In

A Round of Words in 80 Days
Round 4 2012
The writing challenge that knows you have a life

I'm doing things quite differently this round.  Since I joined mid Round 2 this year I have been using a blog-within-a-blog format for these check-in posts with updates stacked atop previous updates and commentary added under each goals section including a string of Ns and Ys for the five time investment goals.  This got quite unwieldy by mid round.

So now I've created a Google Doc Spreadsheet to keep track of the Ns and Ys and have set up a ROW80 page to feature the goals sans commentary.  These check-in posts will now contain only the commentary relating to the previous half week, a screenshot of the relevant lines on the spreadsheet and link to the spreadsheet and goals page.  And as of October 23 the READ CRAFT reading lists.


READ CRAFT:

Currently Reading

What to Do When There's Too Much to Do by Laura Stack (Part of my attempt to organize my life around my priorities. So part of my ROW80 reading list)
Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One and Never Lets Go by Les Edgerton
Write Good or Die! edited by Scott Nicholson (a collection of essays by inde authors.  many of them self-published)  
The Act of Creation by Arthur Koestler
What Matters in Jane Austen? by John Muller
Trust the Process: An Artist's Guide to Letting Go by Shaun McNiff


Recently Read:

A Cheap and Easy Guide to Self-publishing eBooks by Tom Hua read this online
Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Leher
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg  Just finished this last month and wrote an overview of it for that next check-in along with my musings on how to apply what I learned..  This is where I've been getting the most help with learning how to recognize a habit, determine if it is desirable and if so maximize it but if not change it.


In a recent Check-In I implemented a NEW GOAL:  before heading to bed, close all aps but the one I've chosen for free writing and when the time slated for that is up segue directly to working with the fiction files.

I established it after digesting the info in Duhigg's The Power of Habit and have followed through since the Sunday before November 1st now. See the nice new strings of Ys in the two relevant columns?

View the spreadsheet Google Doc directly
View the goals list

See my musings in last check-in post about my several encounters recently with the principle that clarity isn't arrived at through thought alone but via action--engagement in the non-abstract realm with the minutia, manipulation of the materials, or in other words 'just doing it' and how I'm attempting to apply it to my stalled out stories.


This will be short as my right arm is in a sling to hold the icepack in place over my elbow which I smashed into a doorknob while carrying a stack of books this evening.  Was in the midst of packing for tomorrows return trip home and my foot caught in the handle of a half-packed bag on the floor.  I have a lump the size of large chicken egg that is also scraped raw right on the fleshy part of the forearm at the bend.  My whole arm feels like a toothache.

My ribs and back are screaming as well but I'm not sure if that is from the jarring or the hours of packing.  Whichever it is I'm looking forward to taking some naproxin or ibuprophin and laying down.  I was afraid to take them earlier for fear of getting sleepy too soon.

I'm so glad I got my NaNo words in before I slept Tuesday morning.  I've been depending on the wee hours for that while here at Mom's.  I don't think I'll be getting them that way for Wednesday now and I'll be exhausted by the time I get home and the car is unloaded and I've greeted my husband and cat and in-laws and....

Plus my sister might be taking me and whatever laundry has accumulated at home over to the laundromat tomorrow evening.  So if I'm to get my NaNo words before midnight I suppose I'll have to get them in the car on the five hour trip.  That's something I've never done but my netbook does have a battery worth over 3 hours if I don't have too much open and it is just text not video.  Otherwise I'll be catching up this weekend.