AROW80 Check-In: 7/30/2014

Writing-wise, I didn’t get much done this last week because I was out of town for my uncle Bob’s funeral. I did however get a chance to visit with my family and shared some good memories of my uncle.  It was good to go home for a few days and see old, familiar places and people.

Typing Goals: I’m still working my way through Chapter Four and am at 22,317 words right now (and will probably add a bit more before I go to bed).  Right now, the typing is going slow because I’m making changes to the scene I’m working on but I’m happy with what I’m doing so that’s a plus.

Goals for this Week: Finish typing up Chapter Four and work on getting back on goal as far as my word count goes.

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AROW80 Check-In: 7/23/2014

Not much of a post this week. My uncle Bob passed away Monday morning. It was…not entirely unexpected, since his health hasn’t been the best for the last few years but it was a surprise and a shock. I’m going to miss him; he was a good man and I wish he’d had more time to do…hell, everything.

My girlfriend and I are heading up to my home town for the funeral tomorrow and I’ll be out of town for the next few days. I hope everybody has a wonderful week and I wish everybody good luck with their goals.

Goals for this Week:  I’m not setting any writing goals for the rest of this week. Otherwise, I’m going to go home and say good bye to my uncle and hug my aunts and cousins.

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A Round of Words in 80 Days is the writing challenge that knows you have a life. You can learn more here.

 

AROW80 Check-In: 7/20/2014

Typing Goals: Chapter Three is typed up and I am on to Chapter Four, with a grand total of 17,285 words.  Which puts me on track for 100,000 words by the end of this round!

Goals for this Week: Finish Chapter Four and reach a minimum of 21,250 words by Wednesday July 23rd.

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AROW80 Check-In: 7/16/2014

Typing Goals: As of 11:51 pm Dayton, Ohio time, I am at 11,005 words and am on Chapter Three, Scene Five. I’m hoping to get in at least a couple more scenes tonight (Chapter Three is a ridiculously long one).

Edited to add:  As of 0214 am 7/17/14 — 13,157 words and just finished Scene Six!

The outlining is going well; it’s now around 4 pages long and growing. Part of me is kind of worried about  whether I should be working on revising as I go but I’m afraid if I do that, I’m going to end up spinning my wheels and endlessly rewriting the first three chapters. So, for now, I’m going to continue on typing away and making notes. And maybe revising things here and there as I go without making it a huge commitment.

One big problem I’ve been having with this project is the fact that I am working on what is supposed to be the LAST book in a series so even once I finish it, I still have to write four other books before I can consider trying to sell this one.  I’ve got ideas for a few short stories in this universe, but I’m also wanting to try and get a novel done that I can send out. So, thinking ahead to Round Four, I’m planning on working on a different novel, one that isn’t part of a series (or if it is, will be the first book of a series).   But that is for the future. For now, there is typing!

And, on the plus side, I’m learning things about writing a novel with this project that will, hopefully, we very helpful come the next book.

Goals for this Week: Finish typing up Chapter Three and move on to Chapter Four.  Continue to combat the insecurity monster that rides on the back of my head and tries to tell me that I’m wasting my time and all the other usual hogwash.

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AROW80 Check-In: 7/13/2014

Typing Goals: Chapters One and Two are typed up for a grand total of 6,376 worlds. I didn’t get as far as I wanted to this week, but blame that on having gone to see a Planet of the Apes double feature, which was AWESOME!

I’ve noticed some plot holes in what I’ve done so far, but I’m keeping a separate Word document for taking notes of what I want to fix, which is very good for keeping me focused on my goal of getting things typed up.

Goals for this Week: Get Chapter Three typed up; make a stab at better organizing Chapters One and Two.

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Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (or, GOAL ACHIEVED!)

Short, spoiler free review of Dawn of The Planet of the Apes:  OH MY GOD THIS MOVIE WAS SO AWESOME! GO SEE IT! GO SEE IT! GO SEE IT!

Longer, spoiler free review of Dawn of The Planet of the Apes: The girlfriend and I planned to go see Dawn pretty much once the trailers first started showing up.  We were planning on going to an 11:30 pm show, but when I was looking to see if there was another movie we could fit in to kill time before that showing, we found out there was a double-feature of Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Dawn.  So, y’know, we jumped on that!  Especially since it’d been a while since either of us had seen the first movie.

We made a date night of it, going out to dinner (we considered getting Caesar salads but went with stir-fry instead) and then heading over to the theater to loaf around a bit waiting for the movies to start.

I’m glad we did the double feature, since seeing the first movie again helped refresh my memory of what happened and helped me to get some of the references in the second.

The second movie was soooo good! Excellent storytelling, Hit a lot of the beats you expect in a post-apocalyptic/conflict between cultures kind of story but hit them well and without a note out of tune. The ape effects are superb; Andy Serkis is an amazing actor, particularly considering that he does most of his acting in a motion capture suit.

There’s going to be a third movie coming out in 2016 (according to the guy in front of us) and I cannot wait!

AROW80 3rd Quarter Check-In: 7/9/2014

From Kait’s round three post: OWN YOURSELF AND STATE YOUR ROUND 3 GOALS

So my challenge to you for Round 3 is to OWN YOUR DREAM.  Own the title of writer.  Because there’s only ONE QUALIFICATION for being a writer–and that is to write.  It’s not a designation that belongs only to the published, not a designation that belongs only to those whose support themselves by their words. 

Ok, here goes nothing! I am a writer, I AM a writer! I AM A WRITER! And boy is it scary to say that out loud — well, so to speak. I mean, I’m not saying anything as I type that and presumably you who are reading this aren’t reading this out loud (but if you do, please give me a nicely triumphant voice? Thank you in advance!).

Goals for this Round:

Taking some advice from the article on goal-setting linked in Kait’s post, I’m going to set some realistic, actual achievable goals, rather than stating some nebulous end-results.

1. Type up my novel, DEFCON: FADE OUT: which I’ve actually started on as of last night. This goal is going to entail a lot more than simple typing, since I’m going to be editing as I go but a large part of this goal is going to involve turning a handwritten manuscript into a typewritten one. Toward that end, I’ve set myself a word count goal of about 8,750 words per week, with a first week goal of 13,750 words since I figure it’s better to start stronger at the beginning when I have more oomph in my mojo.

2. Create a cohesive manuscript: I’ve got about 100,000 words of Defcon: Fade Out written and I figure it’s probably approximately 3/4ths of a story all together. Since I can’t do any typing while I’m at work, my plans for work are to review what’s written and shape out the ending of the story.  Toward this end, I’m going to be working on coming up with an outline for the book as it is and plot out where it is supposed to be going.

3. See Dawn of the Planet of the Apes — because this movie is my JAM! I, for one, welcome our new ape overlords!

4. As a secondary goal, I want to try and come up with ideas for shorter stories.  This is a blatant attempt on my part to try and produce some potentially marketable fiction with an aim toward making some money. Not a lot, just enough for me to be able to say “I wrote this and I got paid for it!” Wow, it was scary to type that too!

5. Be better about checking in with folks. Last round, I let that fall by the wayside and I don’t like that I did that. Going to set a goal of checking in with at least 3 people every week.

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Powered by Linky Tools, A Round of Words in 80 Days is the writing challenge that knows you have a life. You can learn more here and if you want to join, you can Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…