Final ROW80 Round 2 check-in

Tomorrow is the last day of Round 2 of ROW80. On the one hand, it's been an action-packed and seemingly long 11 weeks. On the other hand, I can't believe we're here already. So what have I accomplished during this round?

1. Be a ROW80 sponsor.
I'm gonna say I was about 3/4 successful on this one. Got behind on checking in on assigned ROW80-ers over the last few weeks but then I'd catch up. Have more catching up to do tomorrow. 

2. Write my chapter of the chain story I mentioned in this post.
Failed. I just had too much on my plate.

3. Do three public readings.
Accomplished! =*D And by the third one I felt much more comfortable, even excited to be sharing my writing with other people. Yay!

4. Continue to try to get more involved in the local writing community.
I attended readings and events for writers, had a few writing dates, looked into The Attic Institute a little bit, helped start a writing group (that is still going - fingers crossed it continues because these people are AMAZING), and posted my first author interview on this site. I'd say that was pretty darned successful.

5. Continue to write monthly articles for VoiceCatcher.
Yup. 

6. Focus on my pseudonym's novel.
Yesss! So proud of myself on this one! Completed a first draft of the novel and am on schedule to self-publish according to my original schedule. *pats self on back*

7. Try to stop trying to do too much.
Made progress in the sense that I'm more aware of my tendency to over-commit and am moving away from the habit of self-shaming when I don't get all two billion things on my to-do list done. I'm going to call that a success, even though I'll continue to work on this goal in future.

8. Apply for writing fellowships/grants.
Progress made: I researched a few opportunities and started reading the instructions for applying for the Literary Arts fellowship. The application is due June 28th, so this goal is actually one I'll accomplish between rounds of ROW80.

Round 3 of ROW80 2013 starts on Monday, July 1st. Here are my tentative goals for that round:

1. Continue: going to readings, writing VoiceCatcher articles, doing monthly author interviews on this site (next one is Zoey Derrick on June 30!), and posting writing prompts on this blog on Wednesdays. (That all counts as one goal, right? Hmm. Maybe I haven't learned so much about not doing too much after all. o_O)

2. Do a minimum of fourteen 30-minute writing sprints (total seven hours) each week. As I mentioned in this post, the 30-minute sprint seems to be working really well for me so long as I have the intention of just showing up to writing for that time rather than trying to get a particular word count. The other key to this goal is not saying, for example, that I'll do two sprints a day because I need some flexibility. Might be that I can do three hours one day and none the next.

3. Research places to publish. Goal is to write a blog post on one market (i.e. journal, magazine, or website) each week that includes my notes on their submission guidelines, whether or not they pay, the quality and style of work they publish, etc. In order to do that I'll have to read an issue of the market. The reason I want to do blog posts is so that a) I have a record, and b) I can share what I learn with you in hopes that it helps you, too.

4. Learn more about traditional book/chapbook publishing. I know people who know publishers, so I'll see if I can set up some informational interviews. Aim for 3 informational interviews during this round. I'm particularly interested in understanding the services they offer, who does the work, what they expect/want from their authors, etc. Perhaps will post interviews on this blog? What do you think - would that be useful to you?

5. Read/comment on at least five other ROW80-ers posts each week.

What are your writing-related goals for this next quarter? What do you want to learn about and/or practice to grow your writing?


This is a blog hop! Click here to read other ROW80 participants' final check-ins.