• 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

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Last Week's Goals

I have been busy with work tasks and other things that have prevented me from working on chapter 9 as much as I had hoped. Another reason I had difficulty getting much written is because I have not gotten much outlined for the current chapters. I will need to get that done before I can proceed.

My goals for next week:

• Study Scene / Sequel
• Study Motivation-Reaction Units
• Outline next few chapters
• Practice techniques with chapter 9

Since these work tasks and other projects will take much of my time for the next few weeks I think I will concentrate on outlining chapters and studying new techniques.

Basically, I need to outline more before I can write more scenes. I have slacked on that lately.

What did I learn this week?

So far I like what I have written using the techniques I have learned. It may not be much but I do feel that these tools have helped me write a better scene. I think I need to study them a bit more over the next couple weeks to see what else that I can learn from them.

Last Week's Goals

Dreamer's Rose: Finish Chapter Seven and write Chapter Eight.
Partly. I did finish seven and I'm about 1400 words into eight. Part of that is because I saw a different way for part of this plot to go and I had to go back and change a few things. The other part is because I have to write a battle between a dragon and several not-so-young men, one of whom is slightly suicidal. I'm just finding that scene a little hard to start.

The Shaman's Curse: Send out queries.
No. But I have an excuse. I started to print out the sample pages and my printer went nuts. It's not printing anything legible at the moment. Head cleaning hasn't worked, or nozzle alignment. The only thing left to try is to get another black ink cartridge and see if that helps, which burns me because this one is still half-full. The trouble started when I changed one of the color cartridges. The frustration has stopped me from doing very much on this front.
Current stats: Eighteen queries sent. Fifteen rejections--nine actual rejections and six assumed rejections due to elapsed time. I sent out one query last week and already have the rejection

The Ignored Prophecy: Continue working on the revisions I have already outlined. There are a couple of points I need to work out a little more, to tie them in more firmly with the central plot.
I didn't actually work on this. An idea that I've had rolling around in my head started to nibble at me. I tried to resist, but I finally gave in and started playing with it a bit.

This Week's Goals:

Dreamer's Rose: Since it seems to be a difficult scene, I just want to finish Chapter Eight.

Shaman's Curse: Send out the seven queries I've been supposed to send out over the last couple of weeks. If the printer still gives me trouble, I'll just have to do my research and find more agents that take e-mail queries. I need to add to my list, anyway.

The Ignored Prophecy: At least work on some of the revisions. I'd like to get through these revisions and print it out (assuming I have a functioning printer) and give a copy to one of my readers for her opinion. (Not that I want to accomplish all of that this week. Just make progress.)

Blood Will Tell: Working title of the new idea. Since this is the sandbox, where writing is most fun right now, I'll give myself some time to play with this and see how it starts to shape up. For some reason, this is the first one I've written with a really strong female protagonist.

Since my current chapter exchanges have been temporarily derailed--one by computer problem on the other end, one by a move--I'm open to starting another chapter exchange on The Ignored Prophecy. Anyone interested?

Ongoing.

Current: Mainstream novel: Order of events and character sketches are approx. 90% complete.
Goal: I'm announcing the beginning of my writing ministry for this story!

Considering I spent very little time on this story this past week, I still managed to crank out a tad over a thousand new words.

Current: SF novel: research phase
Goal: Continue studying and learning

I done goodly.

Current: My 'special' project: development phase
Goal: Complete one section, and start another

Not nearly as good, but progress was made.

UPCOMING WEEK

Current: Mainstream novel: My writing ministry is in progress.
Goal: 2K more words. At least.

Current: SF novel: research phase
Goal: More of the same.

Current: 'Primary' project: creation phase
Goal: My goal here is to increase my output. Even a 1% increase at this point would make me happy, but I suspect I'll do better than that.

This week I want to get more words on the page like a total of 2000 for the whole week. I don't care what it's on so long as I write something.

Next Week’s Goals
Start a draft of chapter 6 of RITN.

I said I was going to let myself play a bit with the new idea, Blood Will Tell. Well, so far this weekend I've written over 7500 words. I'm into chapter four.

Lesson learned this week already:

When it's hot, just let it flow and enjoy the ride.

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Okay, I need help. Do you let readers see rough or first drafts? If you do, do the drafts go to your spouse, a friend, a mentor, an offline or secure online writers group, or Hatrackers? How did you decide? Also, do you first provide an outline?

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It depends on the feedback I'm looking for. If I want to know if a story works, what elements may be missing, that sort of thing, then I might ask for a reader for a first or second draft and specify that kind of feedback. I personally would not ask for a critique of writing style, etc on a first draft. I know there's a lot of detail and polish I don't stop to put in a first draft. For me, the first draft is story. I can add the rest later.

Obviously, with a more polished story, I'm looking for a different kind of feedback (though I still want to know if an element just doesn't work).

Personally, I would not provide an outline. The story stands on its own or it doesn't. Most supporting materials only cloud the issue at this point. But that's my opinion.

Who you ask depends on who you trust to give you the kind of critique you need. Do you want somebody who will give you positive feedback so you can have the confidence to finish and then go back and fix what needs fixing? (I think most of us need a little bit of encouragment sometimes. ) Maybe a spouse, family member, or friend.

But as for writing, this week I was able to bounce my story ideas off of my fiancé, who is uber logical and smart. We worked out a lot of the details that were shaky, mainly in world-building areas. This lead to the re-thinking of story elements, and so now much of what I have already written (12 chapters) needs to be touched up. I think the hardest part for me is putting the scenes that are salvageable into my brain in the new story framework. Every time I think about them, I see them in the old story framework, even though there's nothing holding them back from the new one. It is all very confusing.

quote:

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Okay, I need help. Do you let readers see rough or first drafts? If you do, do the drafts go to your spouse, a friend, a mentor, an offline or secure online writers group, or Hatrackers? How did you decide? Also, do you first provide an outline?

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I'm a perfectionist at times and I tend to not show my first drafts to anyone, even close friends and family. I worry that someone reading these early drafts will think, "Is that your best?" and not want to read on. I'm sure many of us think that though.

However, I did recently have a few on Hatrack read the first chapter of my current project. In that case I mainly wanted opinions on whether I had written the Main Character in a convincing manner since it was the first time I used a female main character. In that case I had a very specific request in what I wanted reviewed: whether I had convincingly written a female point of view.

I also would be interested in learning others' opinions on this because I want to know whether I am alone in keeping my early drafts to myself.

quote:

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I was driving home from vacation with my fiancé and his family on Friday and I have been a bit distracted since then, mainly because my fiancé became my fiancé over this vacation.

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