ROW80 check-ins 7 & 8

Wait. Where are we? Oh yes. That's right. In Week 9 already of this round of ROW80. My, how time flies.

Over the last couple of weeks my Muse has visited me with:

• A flash fiction piece for my pseudonym
• A new little chunk for a creative non-fiction piece I've been working on for several months (and had thought was finished, actually)
• A description of an explosion (part of a fiction piece that has yet to manifest itself)
• Two lines of poetry
• A prose poem about a woman whose baby refuses to be born
• Ideas for a couple of articles on romance/romantic relationships that I haven't even touched because when they came to me I was in the process of writing something else

None of these, of course, have anything to do with my ROW80 goals or any of the projects I already had in the works. Tricky, tricky Muse.

But because I actually do want to finish some projects already underway and accomplish my ROW80 and Fail Club goals, I also spent some time last week revisiting those goals and figuring out how to accomplish them in the time I have left.

1. Finish 5 speculative fiction short stories by March 28th. (ROW80)
Hey, guess what! I made some progress on this last week. Meaning I went to happy hour with some friends and told them about "The Choice" (described previously in this post), and they had a great question for me to answer and work into the story: What's keeping her from not choosing? What if she just refuses? Good point.

And given that I'm in the middle of an intense editing project, talking about my stories is about all I have the time & energy for. But this round of editing will be done on Friday and then - watch out! Stories, here I come!!!

2. Do 3 public readings this year. (Fail Club)
Not technically a goal for this round of ROW80, but I mention it here because I made some progress on it this last week. I already had one reading set up for April 5th through VoiceCatcher, and this week I got another reading set up for May 30th at a local coffee shop.

While I am happy to have made progress on this goal, I'm also nervous to the point of nausea about doing these readings. Especially since I announced them on Facebook and now several people I know are coming. Which is good, because they are friendly faces, but now if I make a complete ass of myself I will have to face those people again. Sigh. It'll be fine. I'll be fine. Yes.

3. Get 5 creative pieces accepted for publication. (Fail Club)
Again, this is a goal for the whole year, not just this round of ROW80, but I am making some progress on it this quarter. I mentioned already that I've been invited to write and submit a speculative fiction poem for a series Josh Hewitt is publishing on his blog A Beginning, an End, and All That Lies in Between. My pseudonym has also had one piece published so far this year and has been invited to submit a piece to another blog, so those count as well.

But evidently I'm not counting the articles I'm writing for VoiceCatcher (the first, about Willa Schneberg, went up January 10; the second, about Carrie Padian, will go up March 18) or the blog post my friend and colleague Kim Leonard has asked me to write for her actionable data blog. Again with the not counting work I do. Why do I do this to myself? Okay, I maybe understand not counting the blog post, but the articles I'm writing, if not fully in the territory of creative non-fiction, at least border on it. But whatever.