Deadlines and Procrastination

As any of you who have read my previous posts will know, I'm not a huge fan of editing.  In fact, if I can find an excuse to not edit (such trying to decide on a new desktop for my computer...because that's oh so important...) I will do it.  Take, for instance, this very blog post.  While I may have to have a blog post up by midnight tonight (or risk being turned into a pumpkin...don't ask...) I didn't need to do it right now.  I am, though, because I turned the page and stared in dismay at all the purple marks.

Another thing I've never been good with is arbitrary deadlines.  I like to set a dead line for editing (Like, say, the first ten chapters done by the fifth of December) then let it pass by with a shrug and perhaps a comment about how I can make up the time later.

So now it's the 18th, and I'm still working on those first ten chapters.  (Yes, I do realize how pathetic that is.)  Unfortunately I happened to go on the ABNA site the other day and realized that I do, in fact, have a very solid deadline.  One that I have been ignoring, and basically telling myself that I have lots of time to do it.  When I saw that January 23rd, suddenly I realized that my math wasn't working.  It may seem like a lot of time, but I have a lot to edit.  And putting it off was just going to mean that I would end up with a second rate book in the contest, rather than something I can show off with pride.

Last year my submission was the first novel I ever wrote.  I wrote it during nano, in the first two weeks.  It was just barely over the 50k mark, and I edited it in a month before submitting it to the contest.  I made it into the top 250 of 5000 in the YA section of the contest.  This year, I wanted to do better.

I was doing well, too.  The book was written over two months, with me giving it  more thought than I did the first.  It had far more planning and world building in it.  I even submitted the first few chapters to my critique group and have beta readers all lined up.  Unfortunately I put off the editing for so long, that I'm now in the same boat I was in last year.  This is going to be one of the quickest editing jobs ever, and it's all because of Procrastination.

There's really nothing I can do about that now, though.  I have to just get down to it and get this book edited.  I have to stop procrastinating!

So I did the only thing I could think of.  I gave myself a deadline, then asked other people to hold me accountable.  My beta readers, to be precise.  I told them when I wanted to have my chapters to them by, and told them they had free reign to bug me for them, criticize me if they were late, and generally make a nuisance of themselves until those first ten chapters (which will end up being 9 chapters, as two of the chapters were amalgamated...) in their drop boxes.

I think it's working.  I'm not done (obviously) but I'm much closer than I would have been if I didn't know there were people who were going to yell at me if I didn't get these chapters sent out by midnight.  But what I need is for someone to take away all of the things I use for procrastination.  This would just be an experiment, as I'm fairly certain that, even with everything taken away, I could still find a way to procrastinate, but it might work for a while.

Any takers?

Didn't think so.  Oh well, time to get back to editing now.  See you all next week!

A commitment

Now that NaNoWriMo is officially over, I have decided to recommit myself to my blog.  In November I took on the insane challenge of a blog post a day.  Unfortunately that it not something I can keep up with on a permanent basis.  For one thing, by the end of the month I no longer had any topics to write about.  And without any writing to complain about, I'm going to have even less to write about.

Instead, after coming to the conclusion that I want to post more often, I have decided to post once a week.  That day is going to be Sundays, starting today.  (Yes.  I do realize that it's almost midnight and I should really have done this earlier, but as I was at a hockey game with my boyfriends parents, it was a little difficult.)

My commitment is to have it posted every Sunday no later than midnight.  I cannot guarantee that they will all be the greatest posts in the world, but I can guarantee that they will help you to follow my incredibly exciting journey to being published.  (2012 will be the epic year of querying.)

The next year will include a submission to ABNA (Amazon Breakout Novel Award), NaNoEdMo, and the sending out of my first query letters.  Therefore you can expect to hear all about how much I hate editing...why I hate my characters...and the arrival of my first rejection letter.

I know you're just as excited as me, and I hope that hearing about my journey will help you to start (or continue) yours.  But, if all this blog brings you are a few laughs, I'm happy with that too.

The Last Day

Today is the last day of nano, and although I have already technically won, my own personal goal was 300k, and I'm not quite there yet. In fact, as of right now, I'm about 7.5k away from it. But that doesn't mean that I get to forget to do another blog post. (I don't know what it is about the end of this month, but not only am I having troubles motivating myself, convincing myself I can, in fact, continue to write at the pace I set for myself at the beginning of the month, but I also seem to be forgetting my blog...)

Anyway, I don't actually have a clear topic for this post, as I am currently writing it between word wars (In the hopes that I can actually hit my 300k). I find it easier to just not have a topic than trying to remember it while writing my story. You understand.

So, on this the last day of nano, I'm finding myself torn. On one hand, I am so happy that I can just sleep tomorrow. (Though, as my ML pointed out, I probably will start editing) but on the other hand, I wish that November was longer. That I could continue to write for hours each day and have an excuse to ignore everything else.

How is it that I can be so conflicted over something like this? I realize that tomorrow I will wake up and be oh so thankful that it is over. That I can watch my shows and not feel guilty that I'm not writing. That I can look forward to each weekend without having to calculate just how much I'll have to write each day just to catch up to my goal.

I may read an entire book tomorrow. Just saying.

Either way, while I will be mourning the loss of this month, and marvel at how quickly it went by, I will still be thankful that I don't have to keep up this pace forever. That I can take a breather. That I can stop being obsessed with a graph, and base my life around it.

Of course, my break will be short. While I wont be picking up this same crazy pace (writing a novel in 10 days?? Yep...craziness) I will be editing. One novel will be going into the ABNA contest in January. Another will need to be edited so I can start querying (which I fully intend to do next year...don't worry...you'll get to hear all about it right here on my blog!! Excited, aren't you?) And the third will be given to my critique group so they can tell me everything that's wrong with it.

I have a full year ahead of me, and I'm hoping to report back next year that it is going well. But that does not mean that I need to lose sleep over it (though really, that's more up to my characters than me) and it does not mean that I have to be attached to my computer for hours on end every day.

Tomorrow I fully intend to take a bit of a computer break. Although I may start planning for next year's nano ^.~

Getting Overwhelmed

It's the twelve hour write in today, which means that I have absolutely no time to think of and plan out a blog post. So I'm going to just wing it like a usually do. Here goes:

When November first started, if I fell a little behind, I remember thinking it would be fine because there was still so much month left. I didn't have to worry about a few thousand words, I could make them up that weekend, or on my next day off. It would be fine.

Now, though, it's so close to the end of the month, and thinking about how much writing I still have to do in order to get to the goal I set for myself, I'm starting to feel overwhelmed. It doesn't seem to matter to my brain that I have already written two entire books in ten days each. It keeps trying to tell me that this is just not going to work. That there simply is not enough time left to get everything done.

So today I am telling my brain 'Shut up Brain!' and getting on with my day. Mostly because it's twelve hour, and do I really have time to have that argument with my brain? No. No I don't. But also because I have to write 15k today, and if my brain keeps telling me that I can't do it, I won't do it.

Here are the facts. I have had 5 15k days so far this month. So what's one or two more? I have 2 completed novels printed out and waiting for me to start editing them. (One will be used during critique group. The other is set aside for NaNoEdMo in March). I am almost half way through a third novel which is the sequel to the novel I started editing before nano and will continue to edit afterward, hopefully fast enough to get it into ABNA.

One more fun little fact for you: I AM going to hit my 300k goal. I AM going to allow myself to buy the nano messenger bag I've been eyeing since they put it up. I AM going to start looking for an agent next year because writing IS what I am going to do with my life.

I am not going to let my brain dictate to me anymore. I am good enough to be an author. I have written almost 6 novels now, and I will not let that go to waste. They will not all end up in the dusty folder in the back of my computer never to be seen from again. I refuse!

The End.

Milestones

Welcome to the first blog from me.  Epic Robot Danni.  That's right.  Epic robot.

I suppose I should start with an explanation.  Epic Robot.  I know what you're thinking.  Huh?  Where did I get that from.  Let me tell you.  In November I participated in something called NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) or as you writers probably call it : The month where all normal life activities (aside from eating and sleeping...though less on the sleeping) comes to a sudden screeching halt.

For those of you who are not writers, NaNoWriMo's goal is to write 50,000 words in the month of November.  So how does that tie in with my nickname?  Well...I wrote 150,000 words in November and was awarded Calgary's most likely to become a nano robot award.  Then when it was mentioned that I should add 'Epic' to the title (after a particularly productive wordmongering session) I couldn't help myself.

Hence Epic Robot was born.  That's me!!

Now that you know a little bit more about me, let's talk about the blog, shall we?  I've come to the realization as of late that I may need a way to get away from the actual serious writing and do something a little bit more fun.  Maybe even where I can post my progress and see if anyone (at all) cares.  Plus, everyone and their dog has a blog, and I was beginning to feel left out.

So, here we are.  With a brand new blog, all shiny and pretty and named awesomely, and I'm left with the final question that I probably should have thought of first: What the hell am I going to write about?

Writing.  Yep.  Writing.  More specifically, my writing.  Or, of course, anything that randomly pops into my mind after reading other blogs (which happens.)  But mostly it's going to be about the milestones of writing.  All of my firsts as a writer.

First #1: Finish a novel (completed in November 2010)
First #2: Edit a novel to a second draft (completed December 2010)
First #3: Enter a novel in ABNA (completed January 2011)

So far that's all I've got for firsts (For any of you that care, I made it to the top 250 of ABNA out of 5000 in the YA portion before being kicked out.  Not bad for a first attempt!)  I have many other firsts that I look forward to (including sending out my first query letter...scary) and I'm hoping to share my journey with you.