13th ROW80 Check-In

A Round of Words in 80 Days
Round 3 2012
The writing challenge that knows you have a life

My goals will be very similar to what they were in Round 2 which I joined half-way through.  And like last time I will continue to copy/paste the goals list with new commentary for each check-in.  But I did strip nearly all of the commentary added during the last round leaving only what effects the new goals.  I also added some new goals.


I debated whether to start the check-in count in the post title at 1 for the new round but decided that it was important for me to get a sense over time how the number of total check-ins correlate to progress on all fronts.

LESSONS LEARNED LAST ROUND:

Miracles seem to happen when attention is paid to something.

Attention =Attend = serving as well as being in service to


Changing habits in just one area has ripple effects across all other habits.  It is powerful and empowering to realize that if you just take small steps in the right direction BIG things start to happen.


THE GOALS:

1. Choose 1 of the finished short stories to be the first ebook to publish on Smashwords or Amazon and prep it for take off by the end of June August:

• revision
• line edit
• format
• convert  

___[Blow Me a Candy Kiss  part 1; part 2; part 3; part 4; part 5;] -  
05-12-2012 Yes on choosing the title.  This story is set in my Fruits of the Spirit story world and aspires to be literary.  It has elements of romance in it but that is not the primary focus since the couple involved are already married.  The focus is on loss and grief over infertility and the death of a child/sibling.  Aprox 6000 words.

___Still have not started re-reading it.  It's been nearly two months since I set this goal and prioritized it at the top of the (then) four goals as I began the last round and yet I've still not started re-reading it.  That looks a lot like the RESISTANCE discussed in Pressfield's War of Art.  So I'm tempted to explore that but I sense Pressfield would call that RESISTANCE too--just another way to avoid DOING.  Besides, according to Pressfield, RESISTANCE is always about fear.  What more do I need to know?  At least before I begin.

Decided early in the last round I needed fresh eyes so set new goal:

Find beta readers outside of current circle of close family and friends.
___Not yet accomplished.  I confess I'm not sure how to go about finding/asking for beta readers


My sister Jamie and my Mom both re-read Candy Kiss while I was at my mom's in May and Mom read my entire portfolio of hard copy stories and snippets and poems.  But that isn't what I need at this point.

The binder Mom read which I call my portfolio contains all of my complete short stories and a number of scenes pulled out of WIP that I deemed worth wasting ink and paper on. There is another attitude steeped in my pesky perfectionism that I need to change and I would have put printing hard copy of all my WIP including the NaNo Novels on this goal list except that my printer is not working.

Camp NaNoWriMmo 2012

___ I intend to join the August Camp NaNoWriMo


WriMos Word Count:___


The Time Investment Goals:


2. [New Goal for Round 3] Return to some form of free writing exercise like doodling, morning pages or journaling for 30 minutes daily. A practice I once had that fell away when I began daily blogging which I confess is no substitute and if I cannot keep the very personal free write/journaling up in tandem with daily blogging then the blogging needs to give.  The purpose of this free writing is to develop playfulness analogous to a jazz musicians playfulness with musical tools, vocabulary and grammar.  I've been reading Imagine: How Creativity Works by  Jonah Lehrer which reminded me of the importance of play in creativity.

___7-2-12 - N
___7-3-12 - N But I did clear off my desk and set out several kinds of paper, pencils and pens to entice me to doodle and I opened a free topic in my WhizFolders note ap only to just sit and stare at the blank screen.  Sometimes I wonder if if is mere coincidence that the word 'free' is contained in the word 'freeze'

3. [New Goal for Round 3] MOVE!! 15 minute per day minimum: walk, mini-tramp, pace the house with weights on legs, exercise ball, exercise elastic bands, dance/sway to music.  ANYTHING counts as I've gotten so sedentary which I've re-learned recently has very negative impact on creativity and energy.  It doesn't have to be VIGOROUS yet.  Maybe later after the daily habit is established I'll add that requirement for 3 days per week and up the 15 minutes to 30.



___7-2-12 - N But I did get the box of stuff still needing to be sorted and put away after my recent trip out from under the tramp which made it impossible to be impulsive about stepping onto it.
___7-3-12 - Y Paced the floor in the house for about twenty minutes but didn't put the weights on.  Oh and at a separate occasion I played with the cat quite vigorously with dangly toys and balls.  Anyone with a cat knows that they don't generally fetch back the tossed toys.  They chase them while they are moving but then stop and stare at them waiting for them to start moving again.  So I did a lot of moving in order to retrieve and toss, retrieve and toss.... Who was playing with who I wonder.



4. Spend 30 minutes or more per day reading a book or quality web article on Writing or Publishing or work habit/organization from my ever growing TBR of books and/or blogs or websites with professional level content on those subjects.  Will compile list for future updates.  (hmm no list yet)


Instead of a list of TBR titles I will start including the titles of books and articles and websites that I spend the time with between check-ins.  This week it was the same three books I've been working my way through since the beginning of my ROW80 participation.


The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One and Never Lets Go by Les Edgerton
Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Leher  



___7-2-12 - Y
___7-3-12 - Y


This goal had become a habit by the end of Round 2 and I kept it up during the break.

5. Spend 30 minutes or more per day daydreaming in the story world with pencil and pad at hand. 


___7-2-12 - Y
___7-3-12 - Y




This was the habit that really took during the last round and yielded astonishing things.  Late in the round I added a new goal related to this one: to develop the habit of keeping the note taking implements with me at all times because as the habit of dreaming the stories developed it didn't always confine itself to when I was near my netbook or crochet where the means to record them were available.  Developing the means is a bit tricky for some cases but I'm working on it.

6. Spend 30 minutes or more per day on one or more of the tasks in the list below:

[as the round progresses check-in updates will accumulate in this spot which will push the list itself down]





___7-2-12 - N
___7-3-12 - N



I did not keep this up during the break and that is probably why I am having trouble reintegrating it into my days.

• Input any material from the daydreaming session into it's appropriate file or task list.  ___  this is a developing habit begun during last round
• Clean up the Fruit of the Spirit storyworld worksheet.  ___  this is where most of the dabbling for last round occurred.   
• Create a master task list in FOS story world worksheet file and add any actionable task that comes to mind while working with the files: research and fact check, character development, scenes needed etc.  Future goals can be taken from this list.  ___ the master task list was created soon after I started the last round but using it is a developing habit  
• Create topic pages in the FOS story world worksheet file for every character from every existing story and novel finished or in progress that is set in this story world. Add any of the characters known life events to the master timeline. ___ have added a few and added info to existing ones as well. Much of my file dabbling occurred in these character notes
• New task --06-11-2012 : collect character info for all the Faye's Strays from out of all the stories and files they are scattered through into it's own section in the FOS worksheet file.   ___ this is where the work mentioned in the line above was happening during last round
• Re-read the incomplete short story Home Is Where the Horror Is and consider returning to work on it with an eye toward finishing it this summer.  This is one of the Faye's Strays stories so work on it will count toward the WriMos word count.   ___ have not reread nor written new scenes yet but have jotted many ideas for the the missing scenes, did some new character sketch work some of which I may count towards the WriMos which end tomorrow
• Do a line edit of all of the completed short stories

• Blow Me a Candy Kiss
• How Does Your Garden Grow
• Running In Circles
• Of Cats and Claws and Curiosities
• Making Rag Doll Babies and Million Dollar Maybes

• During the line edits consider whether any significant revision is still needed--scenes to add or delete, rearrange or rewrite; timeline issues, facts to confirm or to change--and create an actionable task topic in the file.   ___ am using the master task list in the storyworld file mentioned above and then linking to the appropriate story file.  This is what I love about WhizFolders as my story writing ap.
• Choose 10 POV level characters from FOS and write a first person rambling monologue for them. 
• Write fresh scenes whenever a spark is lit by any of the work on this list or the daydreaming or reading.
• Clean up the 8 NaNo novel files: quarantine the mess, create work space for new writing, and create a system for  storing the material salvaged from the mess in such a way as it can be found when needed. i.e. linking it to appropriate topic pages in the FOS story world worksheet.

• ____ The Substance of Things Hoped For 2009
• ____ Mobile Hopes 2008
• ____ Storyteller's Spouse 2006
• ____ Spring Fever 2007
• ____ Brooding Instinct 2005
• ____ Majoring in Marine Biology 2004
• ____ Everything That Rises Must Submerge 2010
• ____ A Trick of Light 2011

• Read and notate the scene text of the 8 NaNo novel files 

• ____ The Substance of Things Hoped For 2009 
• ____ Mobile Hopes 2008
• ____ Storyteller's Spouse 2006 
• ____ Spring Fever 2007
• ____ Brooding Instinct 2005 
• ____ Majoring in Marine Biology 2004
• ____ Everything That Rises Must Submerge 2010
• ____ A Trick of Light 2011 

Some of the work of these last two tasks can be done concurrently so I was tempted to collapse them under one task and have just one list of the WIP but they are very different tasks when you look close with this last one being more about the writing and the other about information organizing and story outlining.  I could conceivably do the work of one task with one novel while doing the work of the other with a different one.  The two tasks require different frames of mind.

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Ch- ch- ch- changes. Gets Thee Behind Me.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

I'm always discombobulated by change. No amount of reasoning as to how it is inevitable serves to make me comfortable with it. Today I woke to discover my blog had been hacked and was redirecting visitors to a spam page offering the domain name for sale. While I was dealing with that Blogger via a popup asked if I was ready to switch over to the new platform.  I don't know why I clicked yes.  I was not in the mood for learning a new way to prepare my post.  But then when would I ever be?  I think I may have been feeling a minor surge of courage after figuring out how to fix the hack on my blog without running to Ed to rescue me.

Well there are several things I like about the new posting platform : 

• more buttons for coding--strike, undo, redo, jump break.
• more space in the editing fiels tho I could still wish for more.
• ability to change the size and position of photos after they are in place without going into the code
• ability to add labels by scrolling through a list of available ones and clicking on them.

And there are a few things I don't like so much:

• the font in the editing field used to be large enough for me to see without zooming and now it isn't.  A difference between size 14 and size 10
• which wouldn't be so bad if I could then use zoom but when I implemented zoom the right side of the editing field went behind the panel of commands in the right hand column and no horizontal scroll showed up..  I would prefer anyway if the whole page, editing field and command panel remained in same ratio and the horizontal scroll appeared for the whole page.  I'm used to that as I take advantage of zoom on many pages because of my vision impairment and am used to using horizontal scroll

I'm sure there are more I would put in both lists but I've had enough for tonight.  I need to take my change in small doses.

I've been talking here only of the editing platform itself.  I haven't even begun to explore the other new stuff on offer: the stats and analytics, settings and layout.  But that's gotta wait for another day.  Like I said.  Small doses.

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2011 Where Are You Reading Challenge

I'm joining my first 2011 reading challenge. I waited so long because I was trying to make myself get the 2010 reading challenge wrap-up post done first. But I'm going to miss out on this one if I don't jump in by the 31st.

The challenge is to read one book set in or about each of the 50 American states and for bonus points as many locals outside the states as you can. This challenge is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. There are prizes involved.

You don't have to have a blog to participate but you do need to create a Google Map to display the locals.

My 2011 Where Are You Reading Challenge map.

I haven't recorded any reads on it yet. I just created it so I could link to it in this post

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Changes

The chorus of this song from my early teens has been haunting me all day. I couldn't remember any of it except two lines of the chorus and I even remembered them wrong. Thus: "Ch-ch-ch-changes. Turn and face the pain...Time may change me, I can't change time." It is actually 'face the strain' and 'I can't trace time.'

The song was haunting me because the concept of changes brought about by facing certain uncomfortable truths about oneself and then applying ones self to change that which is change-worthy and under ones control has been the major focus of my thoughts for over a week and yesterday I began one of the biggest projects toward applying big changes to my daily life.

Ed's folks left on a week-long vacation at the coast Tuesday afternoon and I almost immediately began the huge project of cleaning and reorganizing our room. I've talked here before about my issues with hoarding and disorganization. They are magnified by the fact we are living with Ed's parents and our room is the small bedroom in a single-wide mobile home. Last summer I blogged about a major cleaning and reorganizing of the room when we acquired some shelving from Ed's Dad who had just cleaned out his storage sheds. I was excited about it at the time and thought it was going to be the solution but they took so much room themselves that one section that was hip high on me blocked the front of the closet. We thought we could live with that but the top of the 'bookcase' ended up piled to the level of my eyes. Mostly with clothes.

Then the stack of boxes which serves as our bedside table ended up blocking access to more than half of the bottom three shelves of the nearly ceiling tall bookshelf. It was barely workable if everything got put away correctly every day. But neither of us dependably does that in the best of times. During NaNo I slacked off and during the overtime season between Thanksgiving and Xmas where Ed works he slacked off on keeping his things in order.

I can't overstate the demoralizing effect of seeing freshly laundered clothes being treated little differently than those in the hamper. This chaos made beginning let alone completing the simplest tasks extra difficult and caused them to take extra time as well. Hunting out clothes for a shower was often a matter of moving the layers of that stack of clothes onto the bed until the items you were looking for were found and then moving the stuff back again. Things that fell behind that stack into the cavern of the closet could not be retrieved unless the entire stack of clothes, duffel bag full of clothes and plastic drawer-in-a-box were moved off the short bookcase. And then it was necessary to sit on the bookcase and lean into the closet. Once I fell head first into it when I was alone in the room. I'm sure it would have made a funny video but it wasn't funny at the time. The thought of having to call for help and inviting one of my in-laws in there to see the condition of their guest room at that time was nearly enough to precipitate an anxiety attack.

I haven't bothered going after items I lost back there since that incident which occurred sometime in October.

As if things weren't bad enough before my trip to Longview at the beginning of December, I made the mess twice as bad while packing for that trip. I had to empty that large duffel bag of clothes being stored in it in order to use it. And the same for a smaller duffel. All of the items I didn't take with me were stuffed into a large yard trash bag which was stuffed into the closet on top of what was already in there.

I can only do a major cleaning or reorganizing of our room when Ed's folks are not at home and not going to be home for a good eight hours or more. The only time I get that is Saturday racing day between April and September and their semi-annual three day trips to the coast. But for most of 2005 and 2006 I was needed for all of those occasions to sit with Ed's Grandma. So for about twenty months or so, my regular maintenance of the room was cut back to close to zero.

The reason I need to be home alone or with only Ed is that I have to move a lot of stuff out of the room in the process. Into their living room.

I have felt so demoralized by the process the last several times I went through the motions because I had begun to feel like Sisyphus pushing that meaningless boulder up the hill only to have it roll back down again. I keep moving stuff out of the room that I never see between the times that I move it out and back in again. Shuffling stuff like an endless solitaire game played with clothes and books and electronics and cardboard boxes and papers and sewing projects and HABA (Health and Beauty Aids--a term Ed and I began to use when he spent a year as a janitor of a department store.)

This time I am determined to winnow it down. The clothes especially. The majority of them are rags that I just have the hardest time throwing out. I mean they aren't even good enough for Goodwill. Holes, stains, frayed edges, snags and runs. I won't even go into the HABA, the sewing supplies, the office supplies and my research and writing papers. At least not until I get to the specific projects of sorting them. Some of the smaller sorting projects can wait until next week after the room is essentially put back together. My focus this week is on the closet and the books.

We have come up with a plan that might solve the problem of the space those shelves took up and the way access to the closet and half of the shelves was blocked. Ed is going to build a seven foot long bench against the wall opposite the closet. The bed is against that wall now. Two of the book cases will be set on that bench and the bed pushed back against them. Then I will take that side of the bed which is currently Ed's and he will have the side by the closet. Most of the books will fit onto those two book cases. The two shorter bookcases will fit side by side on top of the entertainment center. The bottom shelves of which will probably also hold books but the top shelves are too short so they will hold boot and shoe box tops and bottoms upturned to serve as drawers. Which is what is on them now but I'm sure different items will be stored in them when the change over is made because the items in them now are related to my writing and sewing projects which I will probably want to keep closer to my workstation at the head of the bed.

Today I got the laundry sorted and did seven loads. There are probably five more to go including blankets and coats. I also unloaded the two book shelves slated to be placed on the 'bench' and moved one of them out to the living room and put books back on it. Seems silly but it is the safest place for them. The other bookshelf is on top of the entertainment center now and too heavy for me to lift down. I lifted down one large cardboard box full of books off of it today and in the process one of the books (one of Ed's programmer's manuals) fell out and knocked my glasses off my face. My heart skipped several beats before I located and assured myself my new glasses had not been broken. I should have emptied the box first.

I also got everything off the floor of our half of the closet. The other half still contains my in-laws belongings.

I filled a hip high waste basket one and a half times already. That was just stuff immediately identifiable as trash. I won't embarrass myself further by listing any of it. I mean. Really. It was so bad it isn't hard to imagine images of the things I saw today being featured on one of Oprah's shows about hoarders or disorganized people. Or similar shows on the TLC channel.

I got a shower at nine and started this post at nine-thirty intending for it to be brief so that I could be in bed by ten. It just turned twelve. So much for intentions.

I just realized I have been sitting here on the couch for three hours. I barely sat down at all between noon and 5:30 today nor between 6 and 8:30. I lay on the bare mattress between 8:30 and 8:50 waiting for the sheets and mattress pad to finish drying. I could barely stand up afterwards. Oh boy. It is going to hurt when I stand up and start walking.

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