ROW80 Sunday Check-In #1

Posted on January 8, 2012 by S.J. Maylee

My first week in ROW80 has come to an end and I’m happy to report that I’m back in the swing of things!!

My goal for this round was to simply spend one hour a day with my characters doing something to move my book forward. The holidays got me totally off my goals and away from my story and I needed to get back in the game somehow. The week started out great, I got organized and I was ready to go. Monday I woke with some neck pain, Tuesday was crazy pain day and somehow I survived the week. Finally today, after sleeping on my new memory foam C shaped pillow, I’m doing much better!! YEAH!!

My goal was 7 hours this week and I got in just over 5 hours. After considering the pain I endured this week I’m very pleased with the results. I added almost 500 words and edited almost 80 pages. Sure this is not a huge step forward, but it is progress!!

In even better news, after spending just a few hours with my characters I’m feeling re-invested. I’ve bonded once again with my story and I’m on the road to getting it done!!

Several weeks ago I started participating in SixSunday, really great group of writers (there are no restrictions on published/unpublished, genre, heat level or publisher). You simply post 6 sentences from something you have written and that’s it. Their site explains it all. It is amazing how much you can get out of 6 sentences and how quickly you can get hooked on a book. I encourage you to stop by their site, as today they have a whole new slew of posts filled with six sentences. You can also follow this wonderful group on twitter at #sixsunday. I hope to start posting with this group again soon.

Here’s to an even better week, more hours with my characters, less pain in my neck and finding more authors to enjoy!!!

ROW80 Midweek Check-In #1

Posted on January 4, 2012 by S.J. Maylee

I’ve already had 2 good days and 1 not so good day. Bad news first, I’ve done something terrible to my neck and it HURTS!! I’m on my 2nd day of icing and taking it easy. Tomorrow I hope to begin to add heat and stretching to my neck recovery, I HOPE!!!! My week started on the right foot and that is what I am hanging on to. I signed up for ROW80 finally and spent Sunday and Monday getting re-organized and I am very pleased with the results.

For the past two months I’ve been in editing mode, looking for what was missing and cleaning up as I go. In two months I got through just over 100 pages, boo. Between Sunday and Monday I got through 42 pages, yeah, and came away pleased with the pace of the book and I have confirmed each scene IS pushing the story forward, double yeah!!

Yesterday I was a mess of pain and made no progress in my ROW 80 journey. I was simply trying to do too much and I kept aggravating my neck. I’ve learned from these mistakes and I got a good night sleep. Today I plan to dig back in and get back to my hour a day goal.

Here’s to progress and healing!!

ROW80 -Round #1 2012- The Goals

Posted on January 1, 2012 by S.J. Maylee

In 2011 I started to write and write and write. I ended 2012 in the middle of editing. I lost my footing somewhere along the way and lost my daily retreat into my writers head. Goal #1 is to get back into daily writing. How am I going to make this happen?… Oh, Oh, I know!!! ROW80

It’s the writing challenge that knows you have a life! ‘Round of words in 80 days’

I’ve been wanting to sign-up for ROW80 for sometime and now is the time or else something terrible could happen…I could stop…no I wont even finish that thought, I can’t, I must finish!

For round 1 I’m going simple. Work on my book for 1 hour everyday. Everyday I will write, edit, what ever is needed, I just need to visit my characters daily. No this is not a perfect plan, but it is better than the plan that occurred in December, which resulted in a grand total of 1107 words, well that was better than November’s 874 words.

Starting today I will spend 1 hour a day with my characters. I’ll let you know on Wednesday, my first check-in, how I am doing.