Welcome to this week's Novel Support Group (NSG). Anyone can join. If you're new, tell us a bit about who you are and what project you are working on. Although we can report on any number of things, here is a list of suggestions (suggestions welcomed).

What were your goals last week and did you accomplish them?
Describe what you worked on.
Set goals for next week.
Did you learn something during this week?
Here is a list of things that you can do each week as we work on our novels (suggestions welcomed).

Writing on a novel
Characterization
World Building
Relevant research
=-=-=-=-=
Last Week's Goals:

Get back to work on Dreamer's Rose.
I fininshed chapter four and have only a couple more scenes to write to finish chapter five.

Finish up a draft of a novelette/novella The Music Box. I couldn't get back to Dreamer's Rose until I did finish this. It turned into a novella at around 17,000 words. Now it sits for a while.

Continue working on the query letter synopsis for The Shaman's Curse.
Bad, bad, bad. I didn't do any of this. I'm more than half inclined to rethink the synopsis entirely and start over. Since the query and synopsis clearly have not been doing the job (7 rejections, 7 still outstanding), I'm going to give myself another week to consider this.

I did, however, add three agents to my list of possibilities. So the week wasn't entirely lost.

Politely requery one agent.
I did. I still haven't heard back.

This week's goals:

Keep working on Dreamer's Rose. This one is going pretty slow. I'd like to pick up some steam and get a couple of chapters done. So I'm going to set two goals in the hopes that achieving the easier goal will build my incentive towards the harder one.
Easy Goal: Finish chapter five and get at least half-way through chapter six.
Hard Goal: Finish through chapter eight. The action should start picking up by then.

Work on the query letter and synopsis. Really. I mean it. Where did I put that whip?

I am not going to look at the other three novellas I set aside. I'm not. I won't. Well, maybe just a peek . . . Gotta find that whip.

I'm still open to another chapter exchange on Book Two, if anybody is interested.

* What were your goals last week and did you accomplish them?
The prime goal was to re-write two chapters of Mass. The rewrite worked so well that I could combine them into one chapter based on content rather than splitting them based on length. The result is one chapter complete. Does that count as accomplishing the goal?

* Describe what you worked on.
This is a fairly deep re-write that deflates word-bloat, fixes characterizations in early chapters that went in unintended directions later (naughty characters), and re-partition chapters.

* Set goals for next week.
More of the same: re-write two chapters, even if they are combined into one result, which is likely.

Current: Working on the "Metzgerhund Empire" synopsis.
Goal: Finish the synopsis, and make contact with at least one agent.

Success!

Well...not entirely. Two queries have come back in the negative, so I will review my pitch again before sending any more out.

Current: Studying and researching for my upcoming SF novel.
Goal: Finish the chapter I'm currently reading...and actually understand it.

Another success!

Current: Working on my "main project"
Goal: Complete at least one 'section,' and start at least one more.

Yet another success! I'm still not as far along on this project as I'd like, but positive forward progress is always good.

UPCOMING WEEK

Current: Revise the "Metzgerhund Empire" synopsis, as needed.
Goal: Resume submissions.

Current: Continue my SF studying and researching.
Goal: no set word-count-based goal, just keep at it.

Current: Continue workload on my "main project"
Goal: Complete the next 'section,' and start at least one more.

Last week's goals
I did not do near as much writing as I had wanted. I finished the one scene that I was not able to finish for last week's goals. This last week was supposed to be used for adding scenes I had missed or added in the previous month or so. Unfortunately, I did not do any of those.

What did you work on?
I did work a little on the final scene of the previous week's goals and thought of ways of expanding it a bit. I will likely start from there for the next set of goals. In addition, I did add a few bits in a few chapters to help connect events between several chapters. So, the week was not entirely unproductive.

Next Week's Goals

• Chapter 7
• Detailed Scene Planner

This week I will work on chapter seven. I think I only have two or three scenes to work on for it so that should be workable. I did not do my usual late night scene planning so I will have to do that later.

On that note, I think I will work on a Scene Planner where I will write down specific things I need to think about during my late night scene planning. I may add a blog entry on that Scene Planner if I actually accomplish that goal. I've been neglecting the blog for the last month (except for my progress counter).

What did I learn?
Not much this week. However, once again I have found that even taking the slightest break from writing makes it that more difficult to get back into the flow. That is likely because I have only just started writing again (in March) so I have not fully establish my writing habits.

Looks like so far most everyone had a more successful week than I. Congratulations.

Well, I'm off to writing, at least I hope so anyway.

I did manage, however, to get more work done on world building and character fleshing-out. So it was a "transformers week," it was more than meets the eye.

This week, I'm going to push myself more since I didn't get this done. I want to finish Chapter 3 and be well into, if not done (hoping for done) with Chapter 4.

* Describe what you worked on.
Plotting. I'm doing this in Freemind and finding it to work really quite well. I'm also finding that drilling down to Scene/Sequel level helps.

* Set goals for next week.
More of the same! I need to start writing by the beginning of next month.

* Did you learn something during this week?
Indeed. (1) My novel is better broken into five acts than three (acts 2,3 & 4 are basically three instances of act 2 structure with a pseudo resolution and failure in each case - each of these acts reverses and changes the characters' perception of what's going on), and (2) for each notable character, making a list of (a) audience/mc perception of them in each act and (b) a corresponding list of their main actions has helped me better define these simultaneous plots so that I can write the main plotline.

Last week was pretty good, considering that I spent half of it sick or on vacation. I got TDT out to a magazine, have another short story almost ready to send (OSH), and have made some good progress on Mbs (aka the story that REFUSES to work).

Oh, this is a NOVEL support group, you say? Well, in that arena, I may have finally gotten Chapter 13 revised. Just a few edits tonight, and then I should be able to send it to critiquers. Next is Chapter 14, which is mostly action and much less thinking (aka more fun to work on!).

This time I am going to finish chapter two of TG.

So, this week’s goals:
• I made a list of all the scenes in my werewolf book. Now I have to go back and determine character emotional development for each scene.
• Start scene tracker for witch book. I have to combine 2 drafts and determine the threshold, crisis point, and climax.
• Let WotW percolate (this should be easy!)
• Write confrontation scene for TWOH.

I've noticed that I can't really get in the flow of it now. Don't stop your daily writing! Not for a minute. My sweet husband mentioned that maybe instead of spending several hours a day writing I should, I don't know, clean. And I've been really working on it. Now my house is spotless, but my writing is nonexistant.

On the plus side, I think my house is haunted. So that's fun.

However, learning that my mother-in-law's weekend holiday visit was actually the start of a three week visit probably didn't help. That was quite a ... surprise ... from which I am still reeling.

Also started on an info sheet for it and plugged out five pages of a synopsis, nearly getting through the third chapter with it before I decided that if I spent too much time outlining the scenes they'd be too boring to write.

Goals:
Keep on keeping on, I suppose. I'd like to see if I can get the entire thing finished off so I can finish the synopsis and start editing.