Well, I'm obviously beginning the New Year by being LATE!!!! ACK! My son has been here for a long visit and left a bit ago and these sorts of things always bring chaos with them.
I had set myself a goal of finishing a manuscript by the end of yesterday and guess what? I didn't finish. First one thing, then another and I reckon I'd just set myself up to fail. It all started simply enough. I have trusted writer friends and we often email scenes back and forth. Do you have a group like that? Most of us do. Anyway, I've been roughly 20 pages from finishing up when I sent off a scene and the general discussion became...my hero's name needed to be changed. No big deal right? Well, first I searched out Scottish surnames on line and found one I liked. By the time that was done, I did a find and search deal that took care of the change in about five seconds. Easy, breezy.
What I didn't count on was that replacing "Black" with "MacAdam" would cause a whole new set of problems. A black tee shirt became a MacAdam tee shirt. Black hair became MacAdam hair. Can you hear me screaming? LOL. I began to think that NOTHING is ever easy, ya know? Funny. In the act of going back and changing/fixing, I began to self-edit. I know you've done it too. Everything becomes like a giant jigsaw puzzle that had no end in sight.
Now that the holidays are officially over and my self-editing nightmare is resolved, it's back to work. Hopefully, this will be finished soon but if it doesn't happen overnight, I won't stress about it. Stress is for the birds and the world will not end if I don't finish by the self-imposed timeline. How's that for starting the new year off with a calm attitude?
Are you a big goal-setter? Do you find yourself banging your head on the keyboard in despair if you don't make your goals? What are YOUR writing plans for the New Year?
7 comments:
Yes I make goals. I have my 2009 writing year set up so far. I'm not a complete stickler if I'm not perfectly on time but I try.
Jan 15--finish WIP 80k
Feb 28--finish 20k erotic for LSB
April 1--20k novella for Parker Publishing
May 1--finish 20k erotic novella
Aug 1--80k novel for parker
That's what I have so far. We'll see if I can stick with it. So far I'm doing good with my at least 1500 words a day.
Forgot to say even if I'm a bit off its okay. If I get all that done before 2010 I'll be happy.
I make goals but don't stress too much if I don't make them.
I figure my excuse is good this year, but I'm darn well gonna try. :)
First, I like the name Black...I'm guessing the change was absolutely necessary???
I did something similar once, never again. It was a story that I tried to sell one place, but it wasn't erotic enough. So, I turned around and sold it somewhere else. But, I had other characters in the story that needed to be removed. That became a really big project!!! ugh!
Yeah, I set goals, it helps keep me on track. It's not like I'm going to kick myself if I don't make the goal, but if I see myself falling behind then I know I need to do something to pick up the slack and get back on track. With no goal, I have no real direction. I have to discipline myself or I just get lazy.
Been writing today...only 8 pgs or so to go so YAY!!!!
Unfortunately I probably did need to change the last name but I will use it again in another story. I like Black too. Ah well. This will work out fine. I'm seldom "married" to names because I can alway do something else with them.
My tentative schedule is to finish a book every two months. Some of them are well started so that shouldn't be too difficult. My other plan is to alternate them--series, non-series, series, non-series, etc. We'll see how that works out.
I had a goal for this weekend. So far, I'm not doing so well with it, given the family responsibilities that I didn't plan on being so distracting. Oh well, I'll have to do better next week, I guess.
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