Wednesday, April 30, 2014

What's Up Wednesday and Spring Writing Bootcamp Update



It's time for What's Up Wednesday!

If you are here for my Spring Writing Bootcamp Update and April Wrap-Up it is in the What I'm Writing section.

What I'm reading 

I just finished reading Balanced by Tricia Goyer.  It is all about balancing a family and a work at home career. I loved it! I'm currently reading Blood Bound by Patricia Briggs and am almost done with the audio version Open Minds by Susan Kaye Quinn. I have Cress waiting for me at the library but the roads are flooding... I can't wait to read it! My kids and I are reading Mountain Born by Elizabeth Yates and Tree in the Trail by Holling Clancy Holling.

What I'm Writing

I am still revising Slumber but since I scheduled writing time into the day (and have been guarding it like a crazy person) I have gone from doing maybe a page a day to doing 5-6 :) If I can up that to 7 pages a day I can still make my Spring Writing Bootcamp goal of having this round of rewriting/structural edits done! It won't be by the end of April like I originally planned but I'm content with having it done at the end of May.
So to sum up April:

  • I exercised most every day.
  • I got into a decent writing routine.
  • I continued reading about revising and editing.
  • Except for the week and a half my toddler was sick (doctor visits, hospital ext.) I wrote 5-6 days a week.
I'm pretty happy with that! 
My May Goals are:
  • Exercise 5-6 times a week (rain and bears have made walking difficult to do every evening but I got some new workout DVDs)
  • Finish this round of edits.
  • Read over my fairy tale story so I can finish drafting it for JuNoWriMo
  • Write down the random ideas in my head and decide what to draft after the fairy tale story is told. I want to write 50k in June and I only have 20 k or so left in this one.
  • Find a critique partner that is willing to get into a series of parallel stories...


What Inspires Me Right Now  

I just saw the movie The Giant Mechanical Man. It was so inspiring that I started scribbling quotes down on my arm until I could get a notebook to record them in. The themes in it are very much like the ones I've identified in pretty much everything I've written so far (expect mine tend to be in a fantasy setting).
"Why do I have to be something? Why can't I just be me?"
-The Giant Mechanical Man
I've also found a lot of inspiration in the book I mentioned earlier, Balanced. It was that book that had me digging through my brain, looking for common themes in my writing and life in the first place. When I saw The Giant Mechanical Man and the quote I posted I was practically twirling in circles. It pinpointed what I was looking for and put words to it.

What Else I've Been Up To  
The weather is horrible today, as in schools are closed, roads are flooding, horrible. I've been curling up with my children and listening to the thunder rattle my dishes. We are having a painting, reading, chocolate pancake eating sort of day. I also quit procrastinating and made laundry detergent, primarily because I'm out and I'm not leaving the house in this downpour!

6 comments:

  1. Sorry to hear the weather's so rough. Hope it calms down soon. But hooray for hitting your goals! Best of luck with your May ones :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's nice to see your writing progress getting even better and better. At least I know it's always a boost for me when I'm steadily making better and better headway on a WiP. Good luck meeting your goals! I hope the roads clear up so you can pick up CRESS. It's *so* worth the wait! Have a great week, Sarah! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I hope the roads quit flooding soon so you can go pick up CRESS at the library! It's such a good book! And I love that you were actually writing quotes on your arm because you didn't have a notebook. Way to improvise! It's interesting that you were pondering common themes in your life and writing, because I've been giving a lot of thought to the same thing lately. Good luck with your bootcamp goals!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sarah, i'm sorry you are caught in the bad weather. There are a few people i know who've been subjected to this storm, and it's not a good one.

    Congratulations on all you've accomplished, and i am glad your son is doing better.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Wait...did you say rain and BEARS? Are they really common where you live? Yikes. I just worry about a stray dog getting us.

    ReplyDelete
  6. That's great that you've been able to closely guard your writing time, and you're doing so well on your goals! Good luck with all of your May goals - I'm cheering you on! I hope the weather has improved since last week...

    ReplyDelete