Writing, Writers, Written

Has it been a month?  I have no idea where the time went!  Actually, that's not true.  The time went to working on novel plans, reading about novel planning and outlining, gearing up for NaNoWriMo, and many other noveling type activities:

Yep, it's that time of year again, lots of words and lots of event planning as one of the MLs for my region.

Oh, and I had a birthday in there with a fun outing to take photos at historic cemeteries: 

Historic Columbian Cemetery, Portland, Oregon

I also had something of an epiphany over the course of the last month.  I realized that I really enjoy the coaching work I've been learning.  I want to be a creativity coach.  But it isn't my number one passion.  My number one passion is writing, and I haven't been giving it the attention it deserves in part because I somehow gave myself the idea that to be a coach that had to be my number one passion and get almost all of my time and attention with everything else--including writing--getting what was left over.

And I realized that this isn't working for me. Really, I knew for a while that how I'm doing things isn't working for me.  But I didn't quite realize that I had this attitude about coaching and writing and their places in my life.  When this came fully into my consciousness, I was so surprised!  I knew right away this wasn't the right way of thinking about this and running things, not for me.  So I have given myself permission to do what needs to be done for my coaching--take classes, write my newsletter, start building up my website, open things up for clients.  But I also gave myself permission to read all of the writing books and excellent stories I want--all the ones that inspire me and make me want to grab a pen and write things down.  I get to spend as much time as I want playing with my writing.  This feels so exciting!  I am happy with this.

This time of year, the writing is easy, too, so that makes all of this even more exciting.  But as always I'm thinking ahead to the non-NaNo parts of the year and wondering what to do when my enthusiasm flags.  And I think I might have found something for that.  It's a writing challenge called A Round of Words in 80 Days (ROW80).  You get to set your goal for the 80 day time period.  You check in twice a week to report your progress and see how everyone else is doing.  And this challenge repeats throughout the year, so there's always someone to check in with and help with that motivation thing.

Writing and ROW80 Goals

First my overall writing goal:  I intend to write and revise my current novel, Ordinary Girl, get it to readers for feedback and do more revisions (repeating that two or three times as needed), and have it ready to pitch to one of the agents at next year's Willamette Writer's Conference which is August 3-5, 2012.

For this round of ROW80 which ends December 22: I intend to write 65,000 words between now and then.  My hope is that this will give me a complete if somewhat sketchy first draft to add to and revise come January. After NaNoWriMo is over, I intend to write 5,000 words a week.  Some weeks I may write five days, some I may only write three.  My schedule tends to be shifty, so I'm going to try out a weekly word count goal instead of a daily writing goal.

On a final note, I've stopped reading The Artist's Way.  I am continuing the daily pages as I find those really useful, but I still can't get into the exercises like affirmations and some of the other things.  So once again I will set it aside with the possibility of a revisit at some point down the road.

Thanks for sticking with me 'til the end here everyone.  Stay tuned for novel updates--they will be coming!

Birthday Intentions

Friday marked another year on this Earth for me.  I love my birthday, so I was thrilled to find yet another way to mark it.  Jennifer Blanchard offered two reasons to set new writing goals on your birthday over at Procrastinating Writers, and I'm taking her advice.  I'm a couple of days late--I was visiting my family last week--but I think it's still well within my traditional birthday week. (Yes, birthday week. Really, I love my birthday.)

This year:

• I will not only write 50K for NaNoWriMo, I will actually finish the story (rough draft finished by December 31, 2010)
• I will finish the first draft of Ordinary Girl, then revise and submit it
• I will save the money to attend Willamette Writers' Conference again

Those are the writing goals.  I have a few others, too:

• Create a regular exercise habit
• Offer two online workshops
• Lead a writing retreat
• Lead a soul tribe retreat

Dreamy!

I had an incredible weekend! It was—finally!—time for the Willamette Writers’ Conference. I was looking forward to this for months, building it up in my mind, getting so excited I had trouble sleeping Thursday night. By Friday morning, on my way to the conference, I had to keep reminding myself to keep breathing and keep an open mind and remember that things don’t live up our imaginations. But this conference did!

It was excellent in all respects. The workshops I attended (list to follow) were so good—interesting and useful and motivating. In between workshops we were kept well fed and well hydrated—the brilliant people had coffee, hot water and tea bags, and ice water on tables outside each classroom area. They had a full breakfast buffet every day with actual food, not just muffins and juice. The organizers also cleverly scheduled thirty minute breaks between the two morning and two afternoon workshop times, and they schedule ninety-minute lunch breaks complete with guest speakers. Oh! And during the afternoon breaks? Cookies. Perfect. They had things set up so I felt really taken care of and a bit pampered so I could just relax and focus on soaking in all the information.

Now, the workshops…There were twelve time slots, and I took workshops during each one.

Friday—Fiction’s Balancing Act with Jessica Morrell (she has some really good writing books!); Confessions of an Eavesdropper with Pamela Smith Hill; Revising You Novel’s Query, Synopsis and 2 Pages with Elizabeth Lyon; Invite the Reader to the Party with Mary Rosenblum

Saturday—Fiction Manuscript Makeover I and II with Elizabeth Lyon (the first session was on style and wordsmithing and the second was on character); Setting is NOT Character, Character is Setting with Eric Witchey; Beat the Demons also with Eric Witchey (this was about overcoming procrastination)

Sunday—Creating Compelling Villains with Mark Schorr; Fantasy, Myth and the Reluctant Hero with Maureen Doyle McQuerry; Write a Short Story Now with Eric Witchey; Mythic Power from Your Life also with Eric Witchey.

They were all good. Of course I had favorites. Eric Witchey is a highly engaging speaker, does wonderful handouts and just piles on loads of useful information and techniques. I especially enjoyed Maureen McQuerry’s workshop since it was on my favorite genre, and I am planning to read her YA books because they look really good. I think Elizabeth Lyon’s information was probably the most useful, especially the info on writing queries.

There’s so much more—it was such a full weekend. My brain was so tired by the time I got home Sunday evening. But the rest of it is just in my head. It was wonderful. If you are a writer and you get the chance, go to this conference. Come out next year! I will definitely be there…