Posts Tagged ‘reading’
My computer was giving me fits Saturday night, so I spent the time I should have been writing today cleaning out my car.
What can I say? Procrastination is a disease. 😉
I’m fighting a bigger disease, though. After decluttering my car, I took a bunch of the books I’d accumulated to the used bookstore. I decided that, as much as I might want to, I’m never going to have time to read certain books — so they might as well not continue to clutter up my living space.
While I waited for the staff to evaluate my offering, I browsed — where else — in the romance section. Big mistake. I found not one, but two books to add to my already massive TBR pile. (And, with time and an unlimited budget, I probably could have found several more.)
So even though I got rid of about five books, I ended up adding two more to my stacks.
I also spent a couple hours last night browsing on my Nook, adding books to my e-wish list for the next time I have money to go on a buying spree.
I already have enough reading material to last me for years — especially at the rate I’m reading these days, and I’m browsing for more?
It’s a disease, I tell you. A terrible, wonderful disease. I can’t wait to go to RWA Nationals, because I hear there are free books up for grabs.
What’s a few more books added to my TBR pile, right? I’ll have time to read them … someday.
Jan. 10 will be here before I know it. That means it’s time to craft my goals for the Ruby Slippered Sisterhood Winter Writing Festival.
But before I do that, I feel a need to create some writing resolutions for 2011.
2010 was a very successful year for me. I wrote more than 180,000 words, entered the Golden Heart in not one but two categories, successfully completed the NaNoWriMo with a 53,000-word story and scored my first-ever contest final.
In 2011, I want to build on that success and keep the momentum going. After all, I’m now less than a year away from the big 4-0 (the arbitrary date I set for myself to get published).
But how? That’s a very good question. I wish I knew the answer — but I don’t. All I can do is try to set some goals for myself.
— Keep writing. I wrote 180K+ in year because I sat down to write most days. I can’t say every day, mind you. However, I did write more often than not. I treated writing like a day job … a part-time one, at least. I took myself to Starbucks (where, until July, I did not have access to the Internet. Am I the only one who thinks free WiFi at the Bux is a bad idea?)
— Continue my search for the right agent. At our last NARWA meeting, I stated the intention to send out at least two queries a week. Hopefully my agent search will become easier in April, after I final in the Golden Heart. (A girl’s nothing without her dreams, right?) Speaking of GH dreams, I already requested the week of Nationals as a vacation week so I can go when I final. 😉
— Finish the first draft on Beth & Cody’s story.
— Edit Kenny & Kristi, my NaNo novel. I started reading through it again last week and still thought it was excellent … meaning, of course, I haven’t been away from it long enough to see its flaws yet.
— Take at least two online classes/workshops this year, so I can can continue to hone the craft.
— Read more. Writers read. Conventional wisdom says you should read as many books in your genre as you can get your hands on. Now that I’m concentrating so much energy on writing, I don’t read nearly as much as I used to. BW (before writing), I could devour two to three books a week. Now, I’m lucky to finish two a month.
Hopefully, that will change soon. The Boyfriend is getting me an e-reader for Christmas. I’m hoping access to cheaper books will encourage me to read more. (Then again, I have shelves full of still-unread books, and that hasn’t been an encouragement. It just adds to the clutter in my room.)
— Build up this blog. My weight-loss blog is moderately successful, even if my weight-loss efforts have faltered. It’s doing so well that I pulled in more than 1,000 hits for two of the last 12 months. Love & Laughter, on the other hand, gets between 100 and 150.
One big difference is posting frequency. Here, I’ve been lucky to post once a week. There, I sometimes put up multiple entries in a single day.
Any other suggestions for me? What about you? What are YOUR 2011 writing goals?
In preparing “Beauty and the Ballplayer” to send to the friends who’ve volunteered to read it, I found something handy to share. It’s a free service that converts Word documents into pdf files.
Nice, eh? And so much easier than the way I thought I’d have to do it … laying it out in an InDesign file (all 205 pages of it!) and then converting from there.
For better or worse, it’s in the hands of three volunteers. I can’t wait to see what they think of it.
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