August involved a lot of time away. We were travelling for nearly half the month, and another three days were blown with the conference. I didn’t make up that time anywhere else because, honestly, I needed to take things a bit slower.
So, with that lowering of expectations, let’s look at the things themselves.
Three Things for August
- Willamette Writers conference – attended, learned a lot, met a number of interesting people.
- revise Song – finished working through punch list comments, as noted earlier. I can’t claim to have fixed another third of the draft comments, though. Call this half a point.
- short stories
- draft next short story – started. I have three of the eight or nine scenes I need, so call this a quarter point.
- submit an existing story – not done.
Not covered in these things are the gains made on health goals: weight has been coming off, running speed has improved. I had a check up for the first time in several years. So even though the goals I defined for August probably count for 1.75/3 I am going to call this month a win as far as life goes.
Three Things for 2018
Two thirds of the year has passed. What is the state of the annual goals?
- finish A Turquoise Song – draft completion this quarter looks more doubtful since August had about half the work on this that I had hoped, but I really do want to have this done before November. I think I can put a bow on things before that, or at least get it in a readable state.
- submit my work – a goal in two parts:
- submit Song once it is done
- complete and submit short stories
No new submissions but third BSQ short story is being drafted.
- produce Livia as an audiobook – no new work, as expected. This goal is in jeopardy, although since I lost so much of the year to a voice which was scraped raw by throat infelicities this is not unreasonable.
Three Things for September
September is back-to-school month* which means writing routines can be reconstructed. My goals for the month are mostly around finishing things.
- revise Song – incorporate outstanding punch list comments into third pass list, and fix another third of the third pass comments.
- short stories
- complete next short story
- submit an existing story
- investigate self-pub options – if I’m serious about reworking Livia, I need to figure out how much I can put into pubbing it properly.
- setup audio recording area – I have to clean up my office anwyway. Might as well get somewhere to record.
Need to get some things finished. So, do that.
[*] actually, our school district starts the new year in the last week of August, but it’s been so chaotic that it hardly seems to count.