Has everybody achieved their goals for the week?

Let's start off this week with new goals and chapter-swapping info:

Former Goal Results: Well is was a tough week, wrought with interruptions and personal dilemmas (like nobody else here, right?), but I managed to not only pull it off, I did so by an extra two-full-pages! I'm psyched. Silly, but it works for me.

Just thought I'd Share:Conn Iggulden, a best selling Historic Fiction author, told me he'd read on--and that my story reminded him of Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series. (This was when I finished my first chapter.) It was a double compliment. Cornwell writes in 3PO and I'm writing in 3PL. However, if it invoked one of my favorites (and Conn Iggulden's) I'm motivated.

New Goal To add a page-a-day to my output. (Make the jump from 14 to 21 pages this week.)

Chapter-Swapping Info:

• I use MSWord 2007 (but could convert to an earlier version if necessary--or cut and paste to works word processor).
• I have nearly 3 Chapters done.
• I cannot gaurantee the turnaround, but can promise I'll get to yours.
  

New Goal: To exchange the first chapter with some other readers here, to write another chapter over the weekend and then try to hold to a thousand a day during the week. Post a query letter at EE, starting thinking about marketing.

Chapter-Swapping Info: Have offered to swap with Bored Crow,Annepin and Our Fearless Leader, so far, Bored Crow has accepted and I sent mine to her, haven't gotten hers back yet.

New goals: Try out snowflake method; finish outline for real; ponder themes and characters and such. I'll write the second chapter if I have time, but my week might be better spent fleshing out the background instead of writing ahead of myself.

Former goal: Got about a quarter of Wolves done. Have not worked on the Whore (wow, that sounds bad...).

New goal: Use snowflake method on both stories. Write at least one chapter of either story.

Swapping info:
I have the first 4 chapters of Wolves ready for swappin'. Will swap with DH and BC. IB, you interested in swapping? Reagansgame?

Oh, and I don't even have Word on my computer! I use Google docs. I believe it can handle pretty much any format. Sending as .rtf takes care of most compatibility issues. To write I use a Mac program called Scrivener. I'll be sending out in .rtf.

[This message has been edited by annepin (edited September 19, 2008).]

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Nice going, IB! How did it come about that he read the chapter?

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Thanks.

New Goal: Finish the re-write of chapter 1 and finish the MindMap, that I am using in place of an outline, for the rest of the novel. I like my chapter 2 and 3 but think I need to complete the planning along with the rewrite of chapter 1. Then I'll have a pretty good view of the whole book and a complete first act.

Chapter-Swapping Info: Not until I get a good re-write of chapter 1. Although, I am reading/critting CL Lynn's Mists of Blackfen Bog, too bad she is not in this group.

Leslie
(who needed to update her goals a bit to add the mindmap stuff)

New Goal: Keep going with SM; fix my outline. Reduce time spent on Internet, email, games, etc and increase WIP time. (Traveling next week.)

Chapter-Swapping: Sorry, focusing on WIP.

Former Goal Results: I worked on my outline. I started fleshing out one character, and realized (to my surprise) that he was quite nasty. I also think I finally worked out a plot glitch that has bothered me ever since I started thinking about this novel(yay me!) I did it by combining two supporting characters into one. It seems obvious now, but this part of the book had its genesis in real life, and it was hard to break away from that.

New Goal: I'd like to have a short outline finished by the end of September. I'm jumping on Mrs. Brown's bandwagon too. It's shocking how much time I've wasted lately on this computer.

Chapter Swapping: I don't have anything to swap yet, but I'm reading OFL (Our Fearless Leader)'s 2nd chapter. If anyone else wants me to read their WIP, I would love to, but I'm not going to request anything individually until I have something to swap.

New Goal: I seem to be stuck at this next chapter. I know what I want to happen I just don't know how it should happen. so my goal is to figure out the detials of what happens and being writing it.

Chapter Swapping: I have word um... not sure what year, 2000 something. I have swapped with several people and am willing to swap with anyone else who wants to. Just send me an e-mail.

New Goal: Finish the chapter. I have no significant plans this week, so there's no reason why I shouldn't be able to.

Chapter Swapping: I'm not sure how chapter swapping will work with me. I'm happy to swap the more recent chapters, but the beginning of the story is several years old, very poorly written and pretty irrelevent. I've rewritten the whole first 10 chapters or so in my head, but I don't want to mess up my momentum by going back and physically rewriting it.

I'd like to swap my most recent chapter at some point, as it features the first fight scene I've ever written *gulp*. If anyone is interested, I could send a summary of the story so far so that the recent chapters will actually make sense.

There's no need for stress:

There's no points for completing your goal, or condescension for not. If your goal was twenty pages, but you only wrote one, that's good--you wrote one!

If you are having trouble with something, that's what we're here for. Last week, I think a few people were aided by KayTi's post.

This weeks goal: I've decided to go back and re-write the intro to the novel so that it takes place in present day. Too much dissin the flashback for me to write in the format it currently is in, even though it would make a perfect match for my first book. The other thing is this ending. I'm not sure why it's kicking my butt. I have the end of the novel, but I'm not happy with it. I have the beginning of a third novel that would follow this one up, and I keep flip-flopping on weather or not to trash it all and give the ending finality, thus making the work on the third book useless or just tweaking it or somewhere in the middle. Once I get that done, I can go through the whole novel and make sure everything is in line for the ending. So, I guess I need to decide weather to cut bait here or not and go ahead and dedicate myself to an ending. At the end of the week, I need the three chaps I have or the beginning of a new three chaps for my ending.

chap swapping info I love to read, y'all. I've got one work in progress that I'm into, but if anyone has a chapter or two that they just want someone to look at -- send 'er over! I can read anything in Word, but I use Works Word Processor.

Goals last week:
Many and numerous

Goals met last week:
None of the ones for my novel project. Not one. I gave some *thought* to the characters. I think in my scribblings on this stack of post-its and other scraps of paper on my desk there are at least two mentions of my main character, but that's about it. Nada. Zilch. Zippo.

Good news is it's because I was working on other writerly projects (err, well, eventually) and critiques I owed.

But anyway, here's hoping I can meet last week's goals this week (unlikely with WOTF deadline looming. I'm a crammer, I'll cram for WOTF then have a month's breathing space to work on last year's Nano novel until I cram for this year's again. LOL)

http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/PICKOVER/nytimes_bestseller.htm

And on a more realistic note: Sometimes my goal is to open my document for the day and stare at it. Like tonight for example.

I.B. - perhaps we should set a high goal and a low goal. It seems fair to say that as writers, we all tend to also be dreamers and have a good imagination. Wanting to set a high goal would come natural to most, so having a low goal, like an absolute low, the least we will settle for from ourselves, would serve to keep discouragement out. I know for me, it's like riding a high when I'm hot, and can get chronically frustrating when I'm not.

I think people should set their goals for what works best for them. If we start implementing too many rules for how to set up our goals, I would get confused.

I just feel like I don't have enough time for reading - anything! I'm a very organized person, so it isn't misused time. But forum time, chatting, reading, critiquing, it all eats into the the time allotted for writing. And I feel like I've been sliding into the rut of surfing instead of writing a little too much lately. (And here I am again)

So, I feel that I can't participate fairly in the swapping of chapters. I'd feel like the time was being stolen, right now. I have my job and other commitments. Sheesh. It gets complicated.

Week 2 -

This week I've roughed out the outline for the second half. I've reworked two of the fight scenes and the connective tissue. I really wanted to get to the third scene but I'm not there yet. I still have a kidnapping and rescue to deal with and to add a character that would otherwise be cut into this section.

That's going to be it for me if we cut the week off at Friday. I have Back to School Night tonight. Joy.

Week 3 - 9-26 to 10-3

I want to finish the kidnap and rescue sequence. Ideally, I'd like to do the new intro for the character but I don't think I'll have enough time.

I'm trying to aim for a new/revised scene per week. If I do that, I should be wrapping up a the draft when NaNo Starts.

Thanks to all of you who have commented on my stuff. I really appreciate your insight and suggestions. IB and satate, I'll have your crits done in the next few days.