Tag Archives: goals

Preparing for RoW Wednesdays.

It’s been a long time since I’ve participated in A Round of Words in 80 Days, which is a real shame, because I truly believe that the sense of community and encouragement with that group is what ultimate lead me to publish my book last year. As I’m struggling to get off on the right foot for my next book, I’ve been wanting to return to this fantastic challenge, immerse myself back into the productive RoW80 culture, and finally get some more work done!

Now, RoW80 is currently on the tail end of its current round, with the next one starting on April 1st. You can join at any time (my very first round, I hopped in right in the middle), but I’m going to spend the next few weeks really focusing on what I want to be my goals and how I intend to accomplish them. Clearly, it’s going to involve the (hopeful) completion of Serpent in a Cage. I really want to get a grip on what I can set to have this latest draft finished by the end of the round. Too ambitious? Perhaps. But this is the third first draft of this WIP, so at least I’ve had plenty of practice?

Chances are, I probably won’t be able to swing the Sunday posts, just because of my limited computer access, so I’m focusing mostly on Wednesday posts. Therefor, the next few Wednesdays are going to be “RoW-prep”, getting myself in the habit of posting about RoW on Wednesdays. Any suggestions or tricks for setting goals will be welcome; I’m going to have to give some thoughts to what will get me from 50 pages to 250 pages in just 80 days. A challenge, to be sure, but it’s got to be possible.

The Forecast for 2013.

Hello, there, Interwebz, how have you been? It’s been a while since I’ve seen much of you, through no fault of your own. I’ve recently just returned from a pretty amazing business trip to Atlanta, and now I’m back, though I wouldn’t exactly say to the usual grind. It’s a new year, I’ve got a new career goal, and I’ve got to do some re-arranging of how I intend to go about the general minutiae of life. Not exactly a small order, but one I’m intending to pursue with verve and vigor.

I’ve already declared on Facebook that this is the year I “finally get my shit together,” though that’s a little unfair, since, let’s be honest, I’ve got my shit pretty well together, all things considered. I’ve always had in in my head that my thirties were going to be incredible, but then I thought, “Why wait until thirty?” So here are the goals I’d like to make for myself to accomplish in 2013. Resolutions, if you will. Because I felt like breaking out of the box and making a list of things to resolve to do at the start of a new year…

Ahem.

I will publish another book this year. I will read at least 100 books this year. I will be promoted to the next level this year in my Regular Job. I will start working out. I will start paying off more of my debt. I will start painting again and I will indulge in the things that make me happy. I will be unabashedly domesticated and maintain a clean home and I will start eating more “real food” and cooking like I used to. I will travel, and I will not be so overly concerned with what others think of me.

I will finally make a Snow Dalek if we get enough snow this winter.

I will have an awesome 2013.

What will you do this year?

Channeling the Tortoise.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Lao Tzu said that a long time ago, along with a lot of other really great things that I remind myself of whenever I’m feeling overwhelmed with the craziness that is life. This particular quote is a great way to encourage that moment on the precipice of something new and different, and a reminder that, if you want to get anywhere, you’ve got to take that first step.

I also like to think of it as a reminder that a journey of a thousand miles is taken in steps, and sometimes those steps are going to be small. …Most of them, actually.

Right now, small steps describes my writing career perfectly. In a few days, I’m taking off for Atlanta to do some corporate training for the Real Job, and everyone’s talking about how the next promotion is right around the corner. It’s retail management, which is pretty involved and hands-on and that doesn’t leave too much time for my writing anymore. Not having my own computer right now doesn’t help much with blogging and networking, either.

I wish I wasn’t so impatient. I know that I’ll eventually make that thousand mile journey even with these tiny steps, but I wish I could get on with things much quicker. I’ll just have to stop for a moment when I feel the itch of the hare, close my eyes, and channel the tortoise instead.

Not only does slow and steady win the race, but just think of how many more of those thousand miles you can appreciate with smaller, tinier steps. It’s taking me longer to write now, but I know I’m enjoying it even more now because I appreciate being able to write now that I can’t do it as much.

Which are you, a tortoise or a hare? How far along are you on your thousand mile journey, or have you yet to take that first step? What are you waiting for?

When Writing Moves to the Back Burner…

Those of you who follow this blog will know that I was recently promoted in my field of work. It was a pretty big step up and, in this company, it’s usually a fast-track toward more promotions. They really weren’t kidding; I received some excellent news yesterday that I’m scheduled to attend their first management training of the new year in their Atlanta headquarters. This is a huge deal, and I’m extremely stoked to have the honor. It’s a thirteen day trip and, while there will be a lot of training and work to be done, there’s also a good deal of fun and networking involved, as well, and the company pays for travel and room and board. It’s a great chance to meet new people and hone my skills as a manager in the company, and hopefully speed up my transition in the next big step.

When I started working for this company two years ago, did I expect I would be making a career out of it? God, no. But it appears that it’s happening all the same. I’m glad for it; I like the product and the company and I really do enjoy a management position, as stressful as it can be. My only real gripe is the fact that all this success in the retail business has caused my progress in the writing business to take a huge blow. Between holiday retail madness and all these new responsibilities, the training course and the hopeful eventual next step, when do I find time to write? When do I find time to market my book? How in the world do I balance it all?

It’s going to be interesting. I was thinking about it yesterday and how, if I want to really strive to be everything they’re molding me to be, I need to really have my head in the game and focus on that job. This is the complete opposite position I was in last year, when I decided to drop one of my two jobs due to the first promotion, and really focus on my writing with the other job as nothing more than income. I can no longer do that. They’re paying for me to go and be a better person for their company; it’s the least I can do to dedicate myself to it a little more.

So what does that mean for writing? I’m certainly not going to quit; for me, quitting writing would be like quitting breathing. It’s just not possible. Even with the crazy holiday madness, I’ve been ensuring that I still manage to write at least a page of any given manuscript in progress every day. On days like today and tomorrow, which I blissfully have off, I hope to do a little more, as well as catch up with blogs and whatnot. But my dreams of pumping out two to three manuscripts a year are definitely going to have to go on the back burner.

And that’s okay. Life is all about accepting the changes that arrive and rearranging things to suit it. The writing will still happen; the books will still come. There’s plenty of time while I explore this unexpected but exciting journey my job is taking me on. Wish me luck!

RoW80 Check-In: The Waiting Game.

“Locke grunted, trying to hold down his irritation. ‘Men lie, Majani,’ he said, ‘and quite often, and that’s why I ask. You didn’t honestly believe us to just blindly follow anyone with enough gold into caves and secret dungeons, do you?’”

I wasn’t sure if I was going to pull off a check-in post today, but, thanks to an agreement that has me working all day tomorrow, I was released from work early today and could have enough time to pen this after all. It’s not going to be much of an update, a little quick and dirty, but things have been going really, really well. Not so much with my Round of Words in 80 Days goals, but with life in general. And I’ve strayed a bit from the goals, but other accomplishments have surfaced, which makes me feel a little better about it. Especially since the whole point of RoW80 is the flexibility.

I’ve been doing really, really well with a-page-a-day on Serpent in a Cage, although I feel this chapter is kind of a hot mess. I’m just going to keep plugging along. This is the boring travel chapter, where I have to rely on character interactions to carry it, and I don’t think I’m doing as well as I could be with that. However, that’s what edits are for, right?

I started transcribing what I have for SiaC‘s sequel, too, and, oh man, is it bad! It’s almost kind of funny. It was last year’s NaNo, so, when I was writing it, it was all about word count. SiaC is still my main focus between the two, obviously, but I’m really going to have to roll up my sleeves when I get to cracking down on this one.

But the real catch in my recent progress is that pesky song of the Muse. Sometimes, I feel like I have practically no attention span at all, but my Muse makes me feel like I’ve got the focus of a GOD. Lately, two of my previous WIPs (Soulless with the zombie dystopian world and the one with the super haunted house) have been calling to me, and, not wanting to ignore them, I’ve embraced them with a little bit of scribbling here and there, too. Now, I know I’ve talked a lot about how I was going to push back the fear of finishing Serpent in a Cage, but a part of me still feels, “Maybe not yet…” So if either of these WIPs continue to demand my attention, I might switch my focus again, but we shall see.

I’ve also got two book reviews that I’ve been lazy about writing, and another one to come up shortly, too, so the reading’s going well, too.

And the most exciting news of all?

The print proof for Bowlful of Bunnies should arrive sometime this week. Wait. Did I say print proof? I do believe I did! I’ve finally hopped on over to CreateSpace to give their program a try, and so far, I am incredibly impressed…as well as completely flabbergasted by how incredibly easy it was! Granted, I haven’t gotten the print yet, so I don’t yet know how it’s going to work out, but if it does….having a print version of BoB is going to open a lot of doors. I have a lot of exciting things planned, and I can’t wait to get them started. Definitely stay tuned!

And, in the meantime, why don’t you hop on over here and visit my fellow RoWers? You’ll be glad you did.

Happy writing!

RoW80 Check-In: Microsoft Word Hates Me.

“Thankfully, Taluin had enough compassion and empathy to know what he meant without him having to say. ‘Oh, Locke,’ she said, her voice catching, breaking in her throat. ‘You were her world.’”

So, some of you may have been reading about my recent awesomeness revolution lately; some of you may not. In a nutshell, life is awesome right now, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into some epic progress on my Round of Words in 80 Days goals, and that’s okay. I’ve been making some steady page-a-day progress on Serpent in a Cage, and that has been most of my writing focus lately.

I’ve attempted to work on some short stories and typing up some of the first part of SiaC, but my computer has been acting a little…strange whenever I use Microsoft Word. I’ll get maybe half a page or so into typing, and some virus or some glitch in my computer is causing the Save As screen to pop up. I save frequently, so, at first, I thought I was just clicking it, but this is not the case. And then I go to save, and the window prompt keeps showing up, until I have to shut the program down entirely. It’s odd, it’s strange, it’s possibly something potentially harmful, but it’s an old, battered laptop, and that’s bound to happen eventually. Right now, I don’t want to deal with it, so I just do what I can and then call it a day when it pops up.

Nothing too exciting, then. I’m in the phase where it’s mostly just write, write, write, so I’m trying to use my time not at the notebook getting back into the blogging community and picking at a few short stories so I can start submitting to magazines again.

I would like to throw out a question, though: Anyone know of any good contests going on right now? Even if it’s just something to help prompt me…I know the contest Morgan Dragonwillow ran ages ago inspired a lot of really great new work from me. I’m looking for something like that to spark my creativity again, so if you can think of anything, please pass it along! I’d love to get back into something like that, but my focus is all skewed and I might need a little help.

How is everyone else doing? Have you had a chance to check in with any other RoWers (it’s real easy, you can just go here!). I’ve got the next three days off, so I’m really looking forward to a lot of Happy Writing!

Before I go, though, I’ve got a new follower to welcome to the blog. Hi, f-Stop fun! Thanks so much for subscribing!

RoW80 Check-In: It’s Sunday Already?

“‘Locke!’ Taluin’s voice was suddenly a whip, sharp and commanding…and stinging, too. ‘Don’t ever say something like that again! They were your parents; it’s your history. You should ask! Ask everything; you have a right ot know, and no one can blame you for your curiosity. Ask. Especially since I have answers. Please, ask, but one question at a time!’”

This week was certainly a whirlwind for me! It’s hard to believe that it’s already Sunday and time for another Round of Words in 80 Days check-in; it feels like I was just whipping one of these Sunday check-ins the other day. I think that’s a good thing, over all. I think it’s nicer to have a week fly by than to have one that just seems to drag on and on, even if I feel I haven’t been as productive as I could have been. I haven’t been a complete loss, though, like last weekend.

Nothing too thrilling has been happening as far as my goals are concerned. I’m getting the first part of Serpent in a Cage typed up to sort of get a head start on typing it all up when it’s finished. I’m thinking of running the same sort of contest I ran with Battarack Girls: encourage a little spike in Bowlful of Bunnies‘s sales which lead to a reveal of the prologue. I’m also scribbling away in the main text, on one of my favorite chapters where Locke learns about his mother from Taluin, and it’s all heart-tugging and you just want to give him a great big old hug.

I’ve been working a little bit on some short stories, too. Not much, and my classic dilemma of being able to start things without finishing them is ringing true. So, I have a lot of stories started, but not a whole lot of them finished. One needs to be polished and sent out, though, so there’s something. I’m hoping to poke at them a little bit more on my upcoming days off, but most of my energy on days when I work has been channeled into SiaC.

I’ve been trying to be better about visiting my fellow RoWers lately, too (you can find them all here!), as well as doing plenty of reading and what have you. Quite a few good things have been happening in life in general, balanced out with some not so good things, so right now I’m feeling a pretty decent zen about everything. I’m not sure I really feel about delving into the depths of my brain with everything going on, but I do know that I can say there might be some really, really interesting things coming my way. Of course, usually when I say that, things tend to plod on as usual, but maybe this time I’ll actually be right.

How are things going for you? Have you ever had something going on in your life that you wanted to tell people about, but knew it was more prudent to just wait and see? I hate waiting, but at least the zen helps me keep my patience in check.

The 100 Books Project: The Myth of the Garage.

“So maybe you don’t need to think out of the box. Maybe you just need a new one to think in.”


“The Myth of the Garage” by Chip and Dan Heath

Everyone’s probably familiar with the adage that claims that you get what you pay for. Working in sales, I’ve been known to say it on occasion to tout the fact that our teas are a heck of a lot more expensive than the fanning you get in a teabag at the grocery store. Quite often, you’ll heard the old words of wisdom applied to ebooks…As writers, we strive to avoid the cliche, both in our writing and in proving statements like “you get what you pay for,” but sometimes…well…you do get what you pay for.

The Myth of the Garage was picked up on one of my “buy ALL the free books!” sprees, which have yielded…interesting results, at best. The Myth of the Garage is by no means a bad book; in fact, I found it pretty entertaining, but it was pretty unmemorable and sort of a “meh” kind of read. It’s a collection of short (and I mean short!) articles written by Chip and Dan Heath for Fast Company magazine, imparting advice and wisdom in a humorous fashion regarding the world of business and investing. The title article, for example, talks about how a lot of upstarts didn’t really upstart their business in their garage, as the mythos goes, but rather got their start by good-old hard work with other companies before they left the corporate nests to fly on their own. The quotes comes from an interesting article suggesting that maybe the outside of the box isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. There’s one about productivity, and one about research, and it’s all pretty basic stuff.

Which is to say that I didn’t really take anything new away from The Myth of the Garage. A lot of the advice is sort of Marketing/Business 101 to me, though I suppose others might find some new gems in there, others who haven’t been scouring the Intrawebz searching for blogs on the same topics or listening to a lot of radio programs while cleaning the house. I felt the articles were much too short to really add anything valuable to my life; it’s hard to really push new ideas in three short pages, which is about the length of a typical article. Still, they are written with a good amount of humor and tongue-in-cheek, and I did enjoy that quite a bit. So, nothing groundbreaking, a little too brief for my tastes, but still kind of amusing. It was a free book, and I basically got what I paid for.

There’s another marketing topic you guys could write an article on.

Books read: 28/100.

RoW80 Check-In: Back in Black.

In all honesty, I’m not wearing black right now; I merely wanted to get AC/DC stuck in your head. You’re welcome.

“      Suddenly, he cut himself off. He wanted to say more. He wanted to express how little he thought of destiny if this was the life destiny had chosen for him. He wanted to firmly deny the existence of anything that barred him from being in charge of his own fate. But he didn’t. He firmly set his mouth shut against the complaints, staring fiercely forward as he tried to sort through his thoughts.
      Realizing he had nothing more to say, Taluin lightly shook her head. ‘You truly are like your father,’ she mused, her voice marveling and soft.”

Today is Wednesday, which means it’s time for a Round of Words in 80 Days check-in, as well as an attempt to get back into gear after an unexpected little…we’ll say holiday from the writing world. It’s been an interesting, eventful few days, to be sure, which makes me feel a little bit better about the fact that it was so rubbish for writing. There are some possibilities opening up at work, and my social life took a dive on one facet while a reconnection with an old friend brought it skyrocketing up again. Life works in so many mysterious ways, it truly does, and I love when it happens with a bang. But it’s also nice to get back to something a little more regular and paced.

I’m still making some steady progress on Serpent in a Cage, but I’ve decided this morning that I want to turn my attention on getting some more short stories written and submitted to magazines. I usually go through a cycle where I feel motivated to write and submit, and then I quickly fall out of it and it falls to the wayside as I focus on novels more. So I don’t know how long this bout will last, but we shall see. I whipped up a little tale that’s been in the back of my mind yesterday, and today I’m trying a hand at whipping up something new. It’d be nice to aim for a new tale every day, but I’ve tried that before and I know how lofty a goal it is, so we shall see. The fact that I get two enjoy two consecutive days away from work has made me feel ambitious and optimistic.

I also want to turn my attention back to getting Bowlful of Bunnies on other platforms, including a potential print version. I keep intending to do this, but other projects and life events keep distracting me. Every so often, another sale comes in and tickles me pink, but I really feel like I just threw it out there in the wind and let it do its own thing. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I feel a little guilty that I should be cultivating it or guiding it a bit more.

I’ve got a few Aryneth-themed posts in the works, and a few more book reviews coming, and hopefully no more big gaps in posts like these last few days. But, hey. Sometimes, you’ve just got to take those breaks.

So, not much of an update, just a typical L.S. Engler note of getting back in the saddle again and ready to ride. Yee-haw! If you get a chance, check out my fellow RoW-ers here!

I’ve also got some new followers to welcome and thank. So thanks for following the blog, Armand Rosamilia, Ellis Nelson, and Zac Egs! So cool to have you guys here!

The 100 Books Project: The Fall of Atlantis.

“‘…Never underrate the power of intellectual curiosity, Domaris! It leads to more trouble than any other human motive! If Riveda were malicious, or deliberately cruel, he would be less dangerous! But he only serves one motive: the driving force of a powerful mind which has never really been challenged…’”


“The Fall of Atlantis” by Marion Zimmer Bradley

The Fall of Atlantis is a very odd book. I’ve thought many times on how exactly I’d describe it, and that’s what I come up with every time. I’ve been slowly working through some of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s works, and I’ve liked everything I’ve read so far up until this one. The concepts, the ideas, and the world-building were exceptional, of course, but the actual writing itself failed to leave a good impression on me. Opaque in most parts and overly dramatic, I could never really feel a strong connection with any of the characters or the events that were happening to them, and, as a result, the experience was not particularly lovely.

Which is a shame, because I really did want to like this book. I like MZB and I liked the idea of it, even if I wasn’t fond of the execution. I feel that the story of these two sisters bound by the strict and mysterious religion of their ancient world is too burdened with rhetoric to be effective. Domaris and Deoris are two sisters that could not be more dissimilar; kind and gentle Domaris, the older sister, is almost like a mother to the brash and stubborn Deoris, and they are daughters born into the prestigious Priest caste of their society. Their father is one of the highest Priests, and their careers are expected to follow a similarly successful path. Of course, things are never that simple, and the sisters, especially little Deoris, find themselves tangled up in a great mess of ritual and faith that mingles with questions of sexuality, womanhood, and love. The love and motherhood aspects were so heavy-handed that it almost turned me off of those ideas, and the sexual rituals of the Grey Robe order were intriguing, but they were so vague and random that it felt entirely gratuitous.

There are a lot of really fantastic ideas in The Fall of Atlantis; of course there are. It’s Marion Zimmer Bradley. But the telling of the story and the execution of the ideas fell flat. It’s interesting, because this edition finishes off with a very brief afterward from the author, in which she contemplates the source of ideas. It feels very fitting, as The Fall of Atlantis seems like little more than a roughly conceptualized idea. Some of it all ties together, most of it doesn’t, and it’s definitely an intriguing world, but not one I felt truly immersed in or invested in. I would have liked to have been, but I was just left mystified, in a wholly unsatisfactory way, like these over-dramatic characters in this mythical saga were holding back all their secrets and had no intention of giving them up to their reader. Frustrating, disenchanting, and how very disappointing.

Books read: 27/100.