Word Count and Professional Envy

It's been a productive week, thank heavens.

Saturday was the NaNo write-in. There were around 16 writers attending, with about ten staying the entire time from 10 am to 7 pm. We took an hour off for lunch, a ten minute break every hour, and did 8 solid sessions. And the grand total of all words written...drumroll...was 81.000+!!!!

I got in just over 8,000 myself, all on the sequel to my YA that I plan to finish up in January. With Christmas and the end of the year sliding closer, I have to be a little realistic about what I'm going to be able to get finished in 2013. (6 1/2 weeks left, btw)

I did get the western romance proofread and polished. I also had a friend teach me how to do my own formatting so when errors are brought to my attention, I can go in and fix them myself. YAY! And this is no light accomplishment; I'm not technically gifted and I really doubted I could wrap my old wrinkly mind around it. BUT I DID!

So the book went up yesterday. And just like every other time I've put a book up, 24 hours later, I'm antsy to get the next one out. What can I say. I find relaxing a waste of good writing time. So tomorrow, I'll be working on Kiss This again. I'm going to expand it a little. But I've got some advertising coming up on Christmas Kiss, so I basically have ten days to get this up. I've got a reverse timeline figured out so I can stay on schedule. I LOVE reverse timelines. I have no idea why. Maybe it's a residual thing from running a flower shop and having a hundred steps necessary to pull off wedding productions.

Anyway.
Here's what's new from discussions with Supe.
We are working on professional envy, or rather, resisting it. And the best way to resist it is to stop watching what other writers are doing, what they're accomplishing, and thinking about what we can do to be equally successful. We realize it's something we've spent way too much time on, and it has left us feeling like failures. Which we're not.

For my part, I've just published my tenth book. The third this year. And I've got at least three coming out before the end of the year. Not a bad year.

We're coming into the home stretch. What can you--reasonably--get done before 2014.

New Moon Phase--Time for new goals. October 2, 2013

Perhaps, like me, you did not hit your writing goals for the month of September. And perhaps, like me, you hope to do better in October. Maybe you think lowering your goals is the best course of action if you hope to have any success.

But what if you're wrong?

What if there is some magic in the air in the month of October? Don't you want to take advantage?

And don't forget about football.
When it's third-and-five, you pick a play and hope for the best. After all, you can always punt if you fall short of first down.
But when it's third-and-forty, with only enough time on the clock for two more plays, you throw a Hail Mary. Maybe a Flee-flicker, and if that fails, THEN a Hail Mary.

The point is, we're in the last quarter of the year. With the holidays coming, we're getting down to the wire here. If we're going to accomplish great things, we need to get them done now. We're going to have to get tricky. We're going to have to put our weight into it. Not one or the other. We're going to have to do both.

So lets take the energy the crowd is offering and go for it.

Nothing to lose, but the game, maybe the season.

And since this championship game won't require too much physical exertion, I'm all in, baby. I'm asking myself to put a lot of energy into a sit-down job. How hard can that be, really?

I'm going to look around and find the goal post--the end zone for me is to get these five projects up like I had planned to do before.

I'm playing against a lot of big players--my family obligations (caring for my recovering daughter, etc.), some house remodeling, upcoming holidays, excellent TV programs, an overworked husband, etc. And the ringer here is my sudden lack of private office space at home. IN OTHER WORDS, the typical forms of resistance faced by nearly every other writer on any given day.

I refuse to let the opposing team intimidate me. I'm going to keep my eye on the game clock--about a month and a half--and I'm going to face the ugly truth: It's time to stop analyzing and line up for the kick-off.

Tomorrow, I'm going to carve out five hours from my day and edit my brains out. Five hours. Even if I have to take five separate hours, I will make it happen. And by tomorrow night, I'm going to feel like a writer again.

So invite yourself to a bowl game and get on the field. Let me know how it goes.