52nd 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?

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.

View the spreadsheet Google Doc directly
View the goals list

Sunday and Monday my Mom and sister were here again and as with the two days they were here last week I got zero on Nano and Ns for FICTION FILES.  My sister and her trusty tool box performed several small to huge tasks around the house.  She fixed the broken hot water faucet in the bathroom and installed a safety rail and skid-proof strips on our porch steps among other things.  She'd also brought or bought cleaning supplies and I busied myself using them repairing the effects of a husband's month long batching.

My main accomplishment Monday was running a number of solutions through our crusty coffee maker and then 'pouring' cups through its dispenser which started out dispensing cups of coffee colored crud every twenty minutes and after hours and hours began dispensing cups of clear water in 7 seconds.  That represented more than a month of neglect.  The machine was given to us by his folks when we moved and they'd replaced it with a smaller one when it started acting up.  I'd been after Ed to replace it but my sister thought it might just need to be cleaned inside where you can't see.

Today was a NaNo catchup day  I was cranky so my characters were cranky.  I thought my mood might stem from the stress of the last week and sadness at seeing my Mom and sister leave yesterday but when the wind started blowing about an hour ago I began to wonder if it had been my sensitivity to barometric pressure changes and that makes more sense actually.