Monday Check In

Last week...

Writing Related:  I have the formatting issues ironed out but have decided that the back cover summary (blurb) is rather blah and needs some reworking. I'll work on that the first part of this week so I can get everything formatted and the book out into the world by February 1st at the latest.

Motivational Quote:  "Make it a point to do something every day that you don't want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain." ~ Mark Twain

What I'm Reading:  I'm going to the library later this afternoon to pick up a few books that I requested that have come in so I'll be reading one of them. I'm just not sure which one I'll chose to read first.

Random Thoughts:  I chose the quote listed above because one of my goals this year is to stop procrastinating on stuff I either need to learn how to do or that seem overwhelming every time I think about them. My starting point is to work on those items at least once a week. Once I get so I'm doing that consistently, then I'll try to work on them at least 3 to 4 times a week until they're taken care of or I've learned how to do them.

Random Photos:

           Somebody knows the right way to spend a cold and snowy winter afternoon.

What Happens When You Procrastinate

One of the things I'd planned on doing in the first quarter of the year was to get a DBA (Doing Business As) to use for anything I self-published. I procrastinated going to the county office building to file the paperwork and pay the necessary fee because I was waiting for the worst of the winter weather to be over. The office building is located in the heart of the business district where I live which doesn't allow parking on the streets and the parking garages aren't really within walking distance in terrible weather.

The Covid-19 Pandemic shut everything down in my state in mid-March so that put my plan on hold. We are now in the final phase of re-opening, but some of the county offices are still closed to the public. They are tentatively going to start allowing people into the buildings within the next couple of weeks by appointment only.

Now my goal is to get the DBA paperwork filed as soon as I can get an appointment. I'm hoping to have it taken care of by the end of August at the latest so I can plan my release schedule. One of the good things to come out of my procrastination is that by the time I'm able to get the DBA, I should have nearly three books completed so I'll be able to release them pretty quickly one after the other.

What's Up Wednesday

This week...

My current WIP (work in progress): I didn't get much revised last week due to a bunch of appointments after work. Part of me just wants to take the rest of the month off from working on revisions and spend some time reading or doing other creative things to help me recharge and then start again in September when school starts. Other part of me says this idea is just me trying to procrastinate.

Quote of the week: "You are the sole deciding factor between procrastination and progress." ~ Josh Duhamel.  I thought this quote was appropriate considering what I wrote above.

What I'm reading: I just finished Fatal Consequences by Marie Force. It's the third book in her Fatal series. I plan on starting the fourth book, Fatal Flaw, this evening. I don't know what I'm going to do once I've read all the books in the series she's published up to this point. They're very addicting. My mother and sister are now reading them too.

Random things: The nephew I use to babysit has gotten engaged! My, doesn't that make me feel old. His fiancee is a great girl that we're all excited about officially welcoming to the family (although we already consider her part of the family). They've been dating about 5 years and met while freshmen in college.  


Random Photo of the Week:

                        A photo of the fire truck my nephew is assigned to (and drives).

Goals - A Help or A Hindrance?

 This post was originally written in October 2012. Due changes in my day job work hours, I'm struggling to meet the goals I set just 5 weeks ago. I'm having to redefine what I thought I'd be able to accomplish weekly, monthly, etc so I thought re-reading this post would be helpful. I hope you find it helpful as well.

 

When I first starting writing, I set the most unbelievable goals for myself though I thought they would be achieved with ease.  One of them was that I would write 10 pages of new material a day, 7 days a week all while holding down a full time job, long standing commitments 2 nights a week, and another long standing commitment from 8:30am to 3:00pm on Saturdays, and keeping the majority of my Sundays for family time.  I don’t think I ever wrote 10 pages in one day during that time, or wrote 7 days a week.  As each week passed that I didn’t meet that goal, I became more and more depressed.  I questioned my desire to be a published author.  If I wanted it so badly, then I should be able to meet that goal right?  Wrong.  

 

A very wise friend and fellow writer pointed out that it wasn’t that I wasn’t committed to getting published, I just had too much on my plate to enable me to devote that much time to my writing.  She suggested that I not set goals or to focus on smaller goals that would fit around my scheduled commitments.   

 

I sat down and looked at my schedule.  I decided I needed the time to devote to my writing so I gave 3 months notice to the proper people on those long term commitments that at the end of the 3 months, I would no longer be able to do them.  During that time I tried to write whenever I could but I missed the structure goal setting gave me.

 

I’ve come a long way since then.  I still like to set goals because they keep me on track and help me stay focused.  I set yearly goals, quarterly goals, and weekly goals.  But one thing that has changed is now-a-days my goals are very fluid.  For example, one goal is to write 20 to 25 pages a week.  By not nailing down a set page count per day, I give myself room in my schedule if something pops up and I can’t write on a certain day.

 

I also set goals in my non-writing life for things I want to accomplish by a set time or date though for some reason it doesn’t work when it comes to dieting.  I wonder what that says about me…probably that my weakness for ice cream is greater than my desire to lose those unwanted pounds.  LOL.

 

Do you set any type of goals?  Do you find them helpful?  If you don’t set goals, why not?

December, At Last?

Happy December 1st!  

For those of you who are like me and hate shopping for holiday gifts and have barely started the dreaded chore, we only have 23 more days to shop (24 if you're a serious procrastinator or a male). 

For the most part, I've kept to my vow to try and do as much of my shopping as I can. I went out on Saturday and purchased some art supply items one of my nieces asked for because the store had a great sale on canvas, oil paints, etc. That's been the extent of my brick & mortar shopping. I also did some online shopping on Black Friday because I won't have a chance to get any of the deals for Cyber Monday.

Did you do any online or in store shopping this last weekend? Or are you one of those organized people who are done shopping by the end of October? Yes, I actually know someone like this. :o)

Reaching For The Finish

I've mentioned a few times before that I wanted to finish the first draft of my current work in progress by the end of August or by September 12th at the latest. Unfortunately that's not going to happen.

Between working 10 hours days the last week of August and doing only the bare minimum of writing last week (the 100 words per day required for the 100 day challenge) so I could enjoy the holiday and visits with family, I haven't meet my 25 page a week goal the last 2 weeks. I want to say this isn't an excuse, but if I'm honest with myself, it is. I had time to squeeze in more writing than just 100 or so words each day last week, but I didn't. 

 

I only have about 50 pages  give or take a few and the manuscript will be complete so one would think I'd be chomping at the bit to write those last pages and write "The End," but for some reason I'm not. I can't really say why I'm not rushing to finish. It's not like once I finish it, I'll be done with it. This is only the first draft so there will a lot of revisions/rewriting ahead of me. 

I don't know why I'm dragging my feet. Part of me wants to tie everything up and write The End, but part of me doesn't. It's not like I don't have an idea for the next book - I've been jotting down character sketches, scenes, and the like for the next book as they appear in my mind for the last month or more. 

Maybe it's because I really like these characters. Maybe it's because I know the first set of revisions are going to require a lot of work - someone I didn't expect turned out to be the villain, not the person I thought it was so I'm going to have to go back and lay the ground work for that so it doesn't come out of left field for the reader. Or maybe it's because I know I'm not going to even attempt shopping it around after the revisions are done until the first full week of January or so.

Do you ever find yourself dragging your feet about something that you once looked forward to?

Procrastination

I'm a procrastinator.  Is that a bad thing to admit?  I don't think so.  I think everyone procrastinates in some form or another. I know I tend to put off things I know I have to do but that I hate doing. Surely, everyone does that.  :o)

Other than putting of things I hate doing but have to be done, I also procrastinate about things I think won't take long so I tend to put them off to the last minute.  My nephew has this down to an art form.  If he has a term paper due at midnight on a certain date, he doesn't even start writing the paper until 9:00pm of the night it's due.  He does do all the research before hand but none of the actual writing of the paper.  And yet, he always manages to get really good grades on them.

I'll also procrastinate if I'm not sure about something.  For example, I procrastinated about writing this post because I wasn't sure what I wanted to write about.  I had three different topics but nothing written on any of them and now it's getting near time to post so I figured this was the best topic of the three.  

When someone tells me I'm procrastinating, I usually deny it.  Why is that I wonder?  Am I worried that person will think I'm lazy or can't make a decision?  I'm not sure. I like to think I have a plan and everything will get done in time and that's the extent of the plan. 

Maybe I just want to take time to smell the roses and not just hurry through my day  I'm not sure.  Maybe that's just another excuse. 

How about you?  Do you procrastinate?  Always when it comes to certain things or just from time to time?