Trying Something New

Class and the new ROW80 round begin at the same time for me tonight: midnight. It’s been lovely not to have class. I actually wrote, revised (and revised and revised!), and edited a surprise story in the break. Clocking in at just over 10K words, the novelette is a new offering in the Katarr After the Fall universe, and my first attempt at playing by somebody else’s world-building rules.

It was surprisingly fun, and despite the number of changes I had to make to ensure my story was consistent with those rules, I would do it again. It was a useful exercise in changing perspective at a point in my Red Slaves story where I was feeling stuck.

Depending on how long it takes to get a cover, Trick of the Tail should be available within the next two weeks.

🙂

However, this once again shoves back my timetable for finishing the Red Slaves series. I’m beginning to wonder whether I have a block against writing to an outline (as broad and vague as that is), or just have trouble writing a story where I already know the end, … or maybe I just don’t want to write this story about Anne and Ivan and the rest of the crew. Who knows. But I’m tied to my editor’s calendar, too, so I’ll just have to power through.

And that encompasses the motto for my goals for this round–and the rest of the rounds this year while I’m finishing my MBA. POWER THROUGH. So by mid-March, when this round ends, I should have:

1. Finished and released the final Red Slaves book. (That means I need to write another 45K words and get them properly edited and revised in the next six weeks.)
2. Completed all assignments for class and turned them in on time.
3. Figured out some kind of alternate exercise plan while we’re essentially house-bound for what has already been a harsh winter, and committed to it at least twice a week.
4. Continued with at least weekly blog posts.
5. Written 5K words for super-seekrit project #2, and written another 10K words for the release slated for July.

That puts me at 60K words of fiction over the course of the round–a measly 750 words per day. Given that I was able to rock over 2K words per day while class was on break, that doesn’t sound unreasonable; given my challenges with managing that many words per WEEK last round… these goals depend entirely on the paper-writing and reading expectations for my new class. It also depends on the impact of my first family vacation in more years than I want to reveal. 😉

So I’m beginning my round’s goal-setting with some open questions, but will be working hard to keep them on track regardless, as I’m determined to stay on track with at least 3 releases per year to keep my author career rolling. Check out how my fellow ROW80 challenge participants are setting their expectations. I’ll be back next week to report on my progress again.