Update Day: Spooky Edition

I can’t believe that it’s the end of the month yet again. The time’s just flying and it’s almost terrifying to think that New Year’s Eve is two months away.

But for now, it’s Update Day, which means it’s time for me to take a look at what I’ve achieved and what I want to do in November. I’m doing this as part of my Big dreams/crazy goals bloghop. Basically, we’re a group of people who’ve set ourselves some big goals and then get together every last Friday of the month in order to post updates on how we’re doing. The idea is to share accountability, celebrations and sympathy as needed in order to keep moving in the direction that we’re aiming to go.

Anyone who’s looking to join is more than welcome to do so. All you need to do is click here for more information and the list of participants.

Right. Enough talk. Let’s see how I did…

My goals for October:

Writing:

1) Edit BvB1

Done.

2) See if I can finish the Wo6C3 rewrite.

I wrote 28k words at the time of writing this, but might add a few thousand more. Also, I finally managed to put the rewrite of the book into a planned structure, and now know that I’m about 30% of the way through. Yes. Turns out the book will be… hefty.

3) Get back to the BvB2 rough draft.

Didn’t get to it.

4) Find critique partners for ES1.

Done. I also gave this another editing pass before sending the ms out.

5) Prep the DM1 rewrite for NaNoWriMo.

I still feel like this isn’t quite falling into place the way it should, so I’m postponing this to next month. Hopefully I’ll be in a better head space to work on it then.

6) Start StW. (Or…end up postponing it yet again.)

Hahahahahahahahaha. Poor StW.

7) Work on the CdW concept.

Didn’t get to this.

Writing-wise, October looked like this:

Reading:

1) Read four books.

Eh… Depends on how you look at it. Roughing It by Mark Twain is technically one book, or seven separate books. So I either finished no books or three books, depending on your point of view.

2) If possible read some more of Les Trois Mousquetaires.

Didn’t get to this. I’ve been stealing minutes here and there, and reading a classic in French is a bit too involved for that.

3) Since I’m giving myself a break on the number of books I’m reading, I’m upping my average time a day spent reading to 20 minutes.

I managed the huge average of 7 minutes.

Social Media:

As disheartening as this is, start again to build up some sort of a presence.

This I did to mixed results, but I think I can call it done.

Life:

1) Be prepared to chop and change my plans in the (unlikely) event of the film concept I’ve sent in being chosen.

It wasn’t.

2) Take deep breaths and try not to murder anyone. (Long story.)

Managed this. But only just.

3) Crochet.

Nope, and now it’s the time of year where I’m going to put the project away. It’s way too hot now to mess around with wool.

My goals for November:

Writing

As is tradition, I’m taking part in NaNo this year. As is tradition, I’m going to have to do so with some sort of complication. This time, it’s officially starting my new job post-merger. Also, I’m on a bit of a productivity kick, so I’m going to push for a bit more than 50k words.

1) Write 60k words or edit for 60 hours or some combination of the above. (Therefor 10k written and 50 hours of edits also count.)

2) Finish Wo6C3 rewrite.

3) Add words to BvB2 rough draft.

4) Start StW rough draft.

5) Edit ES1 if the critiques come in in time.

6) Prep DM1 rewrite.

Writing-wise, I hope my November looks like this:

Reading

Given that I’m in for a crazy month, I’m going to give myself a reading break.

Social Media

Do my part in Realms Faire.

Add to 100 Things Part 3 (my How-to book on writing. You can find the first two parts on Wattpad.)

Twitter, Google+ and Wattpad presence.

Life

Settle in with the new job, hitting all required performance goals.

Decide on the proportions I’ll save on my salary and devote to helping other people.

What about you? Making progress on your goals? Got a big goal that you might want to share?

Also: HAPPY HALLOWEEN!