Update Day: End of Winter Edition

Phew! I can’t believe that August is all but over. This is the last Friday of the month, which of course means that it’s time for me to update on my progress.

For those of you who are unaware, Beth Fred and I host a monthly bloghop where we set lofty (or crazy) or just important goals. Then on every last Friday of the month, we all post updates for a mixture of accountability and encouragement.

You’re welcome to join at any time. Just click here for more information.

And now, this is how I did.

My goals for August:

Writing:

1) Write 15k words.

I wrote almost 21k so far and will be adding a few words more by Monday.

2) Finish the rewrite to O1.

Very almost done with this. Just suffering from a bit of separation anxiety, or I would probably have finished it already. I should get to it this weekend, though.

3) Edit BvB1

Did some light checking before sending to an editor. Will start this on Monday. (Didn’t want to mix edits with O1’s rewrite to avoid introducing errors to BvB1.)

4) Edit ES1

Didn’t do this.

5) Edit Untethered Realms Short Story

Done and Submitted. And Oh look! The Cover…

6) Tie up any remaining loose ends to The Vanished Knight and The Heir’s Choice.

This I couldn’t do because someone screwed up with the mailing of my paperback proofs. Amazon are now shipping them for free and the ETA is Tuesday.

7) Prep for rewrite to VD

Didn’t get to it yet.

8) Work on concept to P.

This I did, but the concept simply isn’t getting together in a way that pleases me. So I decided to put it waaaaaaaaaaaaay back on the back-burner. Behind all the other projects I still need to get to.

Writing-wise, my month looked like this:

Reading:

1) Read six books.

I read three and am reading my fourth, but it won’t be done before the end of the month.

2) One of which must be Shakespeare.

This I did. I read The Tempest.

3) And another must be in French.

I’m reading Les Trois Mousquetaires (The Three Musketeers, but in French). It’s the original version (IE not simplified and not abridged. Which means it’s huge.)

4) Read for an average of fifteen minutes per day. (Which mean I can read for an hour on one day and then skip three, if needs be.)

My average is currently 28 minutes. (Yes, I keep track.)

Social media:

1) Continue with my regular blogging schedule.

Done.

2) Regular Tumblr and Wattpad posts.

Done(ish) for Tumblr, Done for Wattpad.

3) Start catching up on Wattpad Critiques

I am slowly catching up, but it’s tough going with all the other stuff I need to do. Including things that cropped up after last month’s post.

4) More regular presence on Twitter and Google Plus.

I feel that I have made a move toward this, but there’s still a lot of work to do.

Life:

1) Continue to grow business.

Boy this one got a sudden leap forward recently. Not going into details, but I will say that it makes the whole growth thing a lot easier.

2) Get some crafty stuff done.

I crocheted.

3) Start a painting/drawing.

I started a huge painting and would have done more, but the weather has thrown my plans a bit. (Can’t really mix the right colors when it’s cloudy, and it’s too expensive to flub something.)

Special Mentions:

I critiqued about a quarter of someone’s book.

I wrote and submitted a film concept with my mother and grandmother.

The Vanished Knight and The Heir’s Choice (but mostly The Vanished Knight) sold the same number of books in five days of being published as The Vanished Knight sold in the five months it was with my former publisher.

My goals for September:

When I decided to move P down my priority list, I decided to shift quite a few of my projects to next year etc. because I’ve seen this year how much I can do and I’m not going to put any unnecessary pressure on myself. That said, a lot of the goals from last month are moving to this one, because I should have a bit more time.

Writing:

1) Edit BvB1.

2) Rewrite Wo6C3

3) Rough Draft BvB2.

4) Rough edits to ES1 and get critique partners for it.

5) Prep VD rewrite.

6) Rough Draft StW

7) CdW concept.

8) Critique works sent to me by critique partners.

Writing-wise, my month should look something like this:

Reading:

1) TRY reading six books.

2) Give up on the idea that I’ll catch up on my yearly reading goal.

3) See how far I can get with Les Trois Mousquetaires.

4) Read for an average of 15 minutes per day.

Social Media:

1) Maintain about the same level of activity as August.

Life:

1) Don’t freak out while waiting to hear back from the film company I submitted the concept to.

2) Crochet.

3) Get the first layer of paint on my canvas.

That’s it for me for today. How did you do? Thinking about joining in?