The first week of January

The Man & The Beast

It’s a lazy Sunday afternoon here in the Big Cedars. I should be out walking today. I walked a total of twelve miles last week and most of that was on the weekend. That is so not happening this week. I felt sort of crappy today and just couldn’t motivate myself to get out and do it.

I baked brownies instead.

No that isn’t what I should have done, but it’s what I did.

This first week of January I also managed to add 12,945 words to my novel. Have I told you what it’s called? I can’t remember. It’s called Reap ‘Em & Weep. I added a lot to it yesterday in the Write In at The Creamery in Springfield. There were 38 writers in attendance writing in all sorts of genres. I added 3,800 words of that total yesterday alone.

The Write In

Now, that’s not all gold, but it’s at least something and it’s much easier to delete than to add so I’m getting close to wrapping up my novel. I should finish it this week. (fingers crossed). Then the editing begins. At this point I’ve read it so many times, I can’t see the forest for the trees. I’ll probably read through it in its entirety one more time after it’s finished and then I’ll solicit some beta readers to help edit and give me advice before going any further.

It’s funny how many people are secret novelists or at least harbor the desire to be. I had no idea. The more people I talk to, the more I meet who have a husband or wife or friend who want to or are trying to write a novel. It’s pretty cool.

Everyone has a story in them. The hard part is getting it out.
I’ve learned a lot already and I’ll learn even more before I’m finished.

I bought this little netbook so I could slip it into my purse and take with me for lunch time writing. It’s pretty swell.



I can’t wait to start the next novel.

January Resolutions

I had a long list of resolutions that I was considering for this year. I've decided to simplify them and just concentrate on one or two each month. This month's area of focus will be WALKING and WRITING. I signed up for JANOWRIMO which is the local version of NANOWRIMO. Basically to write a novel in a month or 50,000 words.

Most people start from scratch and write, write, write without editing until they hit the 50,000 word goal to 'win'. Some work on 'works in progress'. I'm going the WIP route as well as the blogging route to shoot for my word count. My real goal is 18, 591 on my novel because THAT will put me exactly where I need to be.

I'm going to need to write at least SOME on it every day this month to achieve that. No easy task! Time is the enemy of ambition. At least it is for me.

I am excited to meet some new people next Saturday at the Write In at the Springfield Creamery which will give me eight uninterupted hours of writing and smoozing with other writers. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday.

I've put a word counter at the top of my blog to try to keep track of the writing (all forms) I accomplish this month.

Here we go!