Productive Days

This isn't something I get to talk about very often.  In fact, most of the time I'm complaining about how far behind I am in all of my goals.  But not today.  No, today I get to tell you all about the productive day I had on Sunday.

It started out fairly well.  Without the use of an alarm clock, I was up by ten.  (For those of you who know me, you'll know that this really is a feat.  I tend to sleep in when there's nothing waking me up).  As I thought it was closer to noon or one, I started the day on a happy note.

I didn't get up right away (because, why would I?) but I also didn't go back to sleep, which I'm pretty proud of.

By eleven, though, I had already gotten to work.  The first order of business was to catch up on the editing that I hadn't managed to get to the two days before.  That wasn't difficult, as I'd already gone through the chapters, I just had to put the changes into the computer.

Then came the blog post, which was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be.  See, I had tried to do my epiphany, and got a little stuck, so I wrote a blog post, which helped with my idea for the epiphany.

By the time I had done all of that, it was about one, and all I had left to do for the day was to do the two chapters of editing that I had scheduled for that day.

I'll admit, I slacked off a little at this point.  I might have gotten distracted by gag reels of comedies.  It started with How I Met Your Mother and quickly progressed on to Friends.  I had a few good laughs, but eventually I had to get back to work.

When I had finished my daily editing for the day (and had even managed to polish off the epiphany for Monday and got it all set up to post) I decided that I deserved a treat for sticking to my work all day (I don't really count the slacking off.  It was just a break, I swear!)

Anyway, I decided to watch Pitch Perfect, which I've seen before, but can't seem to get enough of.  It was a nice little way to reward myself, and when I was done, I thought, I might as well get a bit more work done.

So I did my Monday editing, and threw together another blog post (yep, this one right here) just to give myself a kick start for the week.

Now, if that isn't a productive day, please, tell me what is!

I'm happy with the progress I made.  I'm sticking to my goals for the year, which is surprising me.  I'm not usually good about keeping them.  Generally I procrastinate so long that it's no longer plausible for me to finish on time, and decide that I might as well just push back that deadline since I'm not going to meet it anyway.

With the way this year has been going, I'm going to accomplish all of my goals.  My first novel of the year is going to be edited to the second draft by the end of the month, and I couldn't be happier!

Now I'm going to go...I don't know...maybe work on another chapter of editing that doesn't need to be done yet.

How are your goals for the year going?  Have you started on any of them yet?

Wait...I'm Not Playing Catch Up?

So, I set some goals for myself about halfway through last month.  What usually happens when I do something like this is that I think I have so long before my goal, that I start to procrastinate.  And then I continue to procrastinate until I realize I have to go to bed.  And then days have gone by.  And then suddenly the goal date is only a couple of days away and there's nothing done, and I end up missing the goal date completely.

When I set these goals, that thought was in the back of my mind.  I thought I was going to let the same things happen.  That I was going to just let those date fly by and my goals would disappear right along with them.  Don't get me wrong, I didn't purposely intend to miss those dates.  I didn't think that I would just let those days go by and not care, I just kind of assumed that I would do the same thing I always do.

Imagine my surprise when I realized that it's the fifth of the month, and I'm currently three and a half chapters in to the ten chapters I need to have done by the fifteenth.  Which means that, as of right now, I'm on track with my editing goal.  On Track!

As for my planning goal, I'm actually about 75% of the way through the brainstorming and cast list compilation, which need to be done for the end of day Sunday.  Which means, I'm on track with that too.

I think this might actually be the first time I've ever been on track for any of my goals that weren't a part of nano.

Unfortunately, I've been pretty busy this month (and I don't actually think that's going to change any time soon.  But now that I'm on track (and plan on actually finishing one of those goals) I'm determined to continue on this path of productivity.

As soon as I'm done this I'm going to be working on more editing.  (I only have about two and a half hours before I go to bed, so we'll see how much I actually get done.)  I'm hoping to get to the end of chapter 25.

With that said, though, I think it's time for me to get to work.  So I'll talk to you all on Sunday!!

My Goals

Today I thought I would revisit the goals and deadlines I have set out for myself.  This isn't a new topic by any means.  I've discussed my goals on here more times than I care to count.  Unfortunately, I have yet to be able to actually finish a goal.  Somehow I always end up behind on every deadline I set for myself.

I've always wondered why I could do nano so well, but my own goals seem to be pushed to the wayside and never seems to happen.

It could be because nano is a deadline that's been set out by another person.  Rather than just the arbitrary goals I come up with in my head.  I have something that tells me how far I am to my goal, something that reminds me how long I have to complete the goal.  It's something I can't change, because it's not a goal that I came up with.

So, I've come up with some more goals for myself, and I'm hoping that I won't flake out on them like I normally do.  I'm going to really try hard not to.

The Goals:

Finish editing to chapter 20 of Pandora by Friday August 17th.  This dead line has obviously already passed, and sadly I have no accomplished it yet.  I'm working on chapter 14 right now, so I'm actually not even close.  Which means that I'm going to have to push back all of my deadlines for Pandora.  I'm going to have a tentative goal of finishing the second draft by the end of September, and ready for submissions by the end of January.

Finish planning Aliens Stole My Socks by the end of August.  I'm actually on track for this one.  I've broken it down into steps, and set goals for those steps.  The next part I'm working on is a point by point outline for it.  After which will come character bibles (of which I have about six or seven) and then a full plot.  I think I can keep on track for this one.  I kind of need to, because I have two more books to plan out before the beginning of November, and I only have two more months to do it.

Which brings me to my next two goals, which I'm going to lump together.  Finish the planning for the last two novels I will be writing in November. I'm giving each novel (one about a world were air is a valuable commodity, and the other about a Phoenix.) a single month.


At this point I'm not sure if I'll be able to get it all done.  I hope I can, but I definitely can't guarantee it.  There's a lot of work to do.  Each of the novels I'm writing in November is a new project, which means that new worlds need to be explored.  I can't put them off too long.  I'd have to start planning each new novel on the first day of each month.

Plus, I really can't put off Pandora, because there's no reason to continue writing new projects if I never get my work out there.  I actually need to finish a book, all the way through to a final draft.  I can't just sit on it anymore.  I want people to read my work, which means that I need to send it out into the world.  I can't continue to constantly work on new projects.

So I'm going to commit myself to these goals.  I may not make them all, but I'm going to damn well try my best.  If I don't succeed, at least I'll know that I did everything I could.