When I started the ROW80 challenge, I had intended on keeping all the status updates as separate from the main blog pages. I didn’t actually manage that. I didn’t pay attention for the first few updates, and then I felt weird “changing” things in the middle of the journey, and then I wondered how I could actually move the old posts from one place to another (as far as I know, I can’t without losing the comments or doing a lot of dangerous text contortions…sad, sad geek girlie). And so I almost decided I wouldn’t bother.
Maybe I should credit pigheadedness for this burst of determination as much as anything, but really it was this post by Jenny Hansen at More CowBell (a title that was going to entice me instantly BÖC fan that I am). And though I’m normally a great fan of getting at least one thing done and off my mental plate whenever I can, this was hovering there, saying “Deal with me”, and I ignored it.
I’m not now.
In fact, there are a lot of things I’ve been getting off my mental plate. Just look at the tally of achievements I have to report today:
- Typing — I’m already over half done with my weekly page count.
- Exercise — more dancing and added some walks and light weights
- Social Media — somewhat reduced, but more of an attempt to really interact with people, not just read their pages and comment on a single post, but to look at previous entries and really “meet” both my fellow ROWers, but some of the other wonderful people whose blogs I’ve begun to read.
- Trying new software — It’s not so much writing related, but I experimented with GIMP (and Picassa some more) to bring out the colors in this picture after it had scanned in so oddly.
- I haven’t done a ton of editing, but I’ve done some every day.
- 500 words a day new material — Well, yes and not really. On average, yes. Not always on the WiPs or every day.
- Renewed intimacy with characters — Yes, yes, YES!
- Other artistic expressions — a bunch of photography today. Must empty camera.
In all, so much good stuff, it’s hard to believe that I felt sicker than a dog yesterday and kind of “bleh” since last Wednesday in general. As both Jenny and her inspiration Kristen Lamb say… “Baby steps.”
It’s not all happening at once, but oddly enough, things seem to keep happening faster than I realize. Now the scary part is coming. I need to start looking in to a beta reading trade. I need to think about asking for guest bloggers (I’ve found so many amazing creators of blogs out there that I must have you). I… I need to figure out why my main character wants to kill her husband. Well, not exactly… She has plenty of good reasons. I just need to figure out what reasons are driving her.
And I need to post this.
And this: Click here to look at all the other wonderful ROWers out there on the bloghop.