59th 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. I had nice new strings of Ys in the two relevant columns until the last week of NaNo and altho FREEWRITE holds steady I've let FICTION FILES slide.  I gave myself permission to take a post NaNo break to catch up on the many things that got neglected during NaNo.  I will get back on track tho maybe not daily until after Christmas since that Secret Santa crochet project is scarily behind.

See my musings in this 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.

See last Sunday's check-in for the bullet list in which I try to analyse the variables that may be affecting the usual post NaNo aversion to my fiction files causing it to dissipate weeks or months early.

View the spreadsheet Google Doc directly

View the goals list

MOVE has apparently joined FICTION FILES on hiatus this week.  The latter was intentional because of the Christmas crochet project that is so far behind I've been working on it six to ten hours a day since NaNo finished and this week have had two 24+ hours awake in which I worked on it well over 10 hours and yet my fears that it won't get done in time have been realized.

Just days to go and the latest glitch is not being able to get enough of the Mushroom thread to proceed with the substitute plan for the bottom of the tote after not finding the Twig I'm using in the Mobius strip bottom/side/strap forced me to give up on the Mobius concept and settle for a simple rectangle which made me as incredibly sad as having to edit out a beloved scene or character or plot element from a story that it was crippling.

Not finding enough of the Mushroom either and there now being not enough time for yet another alternate plan, means the tote will have no bottom in time for Christmas. But I'm still hoping to finish the rest of it in time. Tho hope is fading fast as I've still two squares of the loops stitch to finish before joining the strips into panels and the panels into a bag and those squares are taking 4 to 6 hours to complete and I have no estimate on how long the joining processes will take.

The one upside to not finding enough Mushroom to do the simple rectangle bottom means I can reinstate the Mobius strip concept.  Since it is going to be late anyway it might as well be its truest self when finished.

Meanwhile I'm DAYDREAMING STORY and  listening to podcasts on writing and audio books to get my fiction fix and READ CRAFT.