What's Your 2013 Goals Cocktail?

It's getting toward the time of year that some look at with hope and a renewed sense of purpose, and others will gawk at and hide under their covers...it's time to set your 2013 goals.

Today I want to focus on the three main guidelines I'm going to use this year.

1. What Worked 
2. What Didn't
3. Things I Know I Need To Change

At first glance these might seem like a cop-out as guidelines but there is much depth to these three points that should be explored before any smart author goes into making a new set of goals for writing and for their career. I'm going to put myself out there a little today and go through each step. At the end I won't have my list of goals yet for the year, but I will have all the information I really need to understand to set goals that are more tailored to me and my needs and abilities. I hope my examples will help you take a good look at yourself and your process. With a deep breath, let's start.

1. What Worked

• Writing at lunchtime worked when I actually left my desk
• Setting aside 2 hours min. a weekend worked - there was at least 2 hours one day all for me
• Having my laptop on the couch so I could write while I spent time with hubby "watching" TV 
• Writing at the bookstore 
• Writer Chats - I wrote more, brainstormed more, etc - BUT need to work on time 
• Knowing my average word count and being pleased when I made it
• When my writing area/desk is clean I write more on the fly

2. What Didn't Work 

• Trying to write at my desk at lunch 
• Thinking I could write on both Saturday & Sunday - it happened but was rare
• Writing on vacation - NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN - GIVE IT UP!
• Trying to keep my review blog full time and write too - SO not working 
• Set writer chats - might need to see if we can rotate days sometimes 
• Setting outrageous word goals for myself and then getting depressed when I missed the mark
• Spent too much time on craft books - JUST WRITE 

3. Things I Know I Need to Change  

• Limit Book Review blog to 2-3 Days a week and forget about the other days. 
• Limit myself to 1 craft book every 3 months 
• Don't focus on big conferences - attend smaller regional ones this year 
• Stop letting my office be the catch all for the house - keep it clean 
• Stop avoiding sharing my word counts - or lack thereof 
• SHARE MY WORK - it's time to put on the big girl panties

So that's a rough look at the start of my process. I'm going to take these 3 main areas and add to that my average word counts per week, what months I can look back on and see I NEVER write, what months I'm the most productive, what special events I have coming in 2013, etc. All of that will come together for me to really set an outline for my year and what my expectations should be. And let's not forget what my hopes will be as well - you have to hope beyond the norm.

My 2013 Goals Cocktail?  A shot of reality, a dash of hope, a spritz of inspiration and success being the oh-so-awesome olive I enjoy at the end.

Now it's your turn: Give me at least 1 example from each of the 3 guidelines just to help start you off. How do you go about evaluating how your year has gone before setting your new goals? Or do you never look back and just press on? Don't go hiding from setting goals. It's a cliche  for a reason - a goal without a plan is just a dream! 

This is part of a series that has a tinge of steam punk—have you read any novels that feature steam punk that you have enjoyed? 

I attempted to see Lincoln on Friday, but it was sold out, so I chose to see Life of Pi instead. Okay, I had to be talked into it by my other two friends, but once I had popcorn in my lap and a soda at my elbow, I was quite content with the movie choice. Besides the director was the guy who did Sense & Sensibility. It would be gorgeous no matter what.

It totally was.

But it was the story that moved me. The story was about how a boy found God out in the Pacific Ocean while he was shipwrecked and fighting for his life. Oh, and how he did this while taking care of a Bengal tiger who was sharing the boat with him.

Originally on the boat there had  been a zebra, a hyena, and an orangutan, but through a series of events, only the tiger remained; and it is the boy and the tiger who finally make it to land in the end. You know this because well, the adult version of the boy is the one telling this story to a writer who is in need of a story, and a friend hooked him up with this shipwreck survivor for a chance to tell this story.

Watching the tiger and the boy come to a "truce" of sorts is engaging--great dramatic action in the middle of an ocean where there is nothing that goes on for days and days. You wonder how the boy manages to survive as long as he does, but he confesses it is the tiger who keeps him going. If he didn't have the tiger to look after, he would have lost the will to survive.

When he finally washes up on a shore with actual people on it and is rescued, the tiger disappears and the boy mourns. As he is healing, some men who belong with the company who had the ship that sank (that's how he got stranded out in the middle of the ocean--a sinking ship) and asked him what happened. So he told the story about the zebra, hyena, orangutan, and tiger--about the story we all experienced with him and what we believed. The men look at each other and ask, "What really happened?"

After a bit, the boy tells another story, something completely different, something darker and grisly, a tale of survival. Your heart breaks as you realize this is probably what really happened, but he had created this other tale for his sanity, of sorts. The men leave. The writer who listens to this new story pieces together where the "real" story and the "made up" story overlap. Finally the boy-adult asks the writer, "Which story do you prefer?" "The one with the tiger," the writer confesses. "And so it is with God," the boy-adult says.

It is a treatise I think on telling your story BIGGER. If you want thematic meaning and magic, you'll have to tell the Whopper instead of what "really" happened. The story of how the boy really survived was also an interesting story--and just as sad, if not sadder, but without the tiger, it is just a grim story of survival and not a triumphant story of survival and the human spirit.

I'm not really sure how to do this of course. I think we're all adding tigers in our own way, what with love that conquers all and true love lasts forever. The reality tends to be a bit grimmer without the magic, but we are still looking for the shine. I like the idea of being given permission to tell your story as you wish to create the truth you know. That sticking with the "facts" isn't always the best way to tell a story and that in doing so you may be missing some of the magic.

Any movies you have seen lately? Have you read the book Life of Pi? Truth or embroidered fiction?

A funny thing happened on the way to Thanksgiving... I stayed home. With the dog. But it's fine, we had a good day and I made my favorite crock pot recipe so all was peachy.

It's done with and maybe next year we can manage a day together with a turkey. Though I have a new friend who owns chickens and by next year, she may have me converted to not eating our feathered friends... She's working on it!

So, Black Friday... Me? A movie, maybe. Shopping? Not a chance! Now, it's possible the husband will want to venture out. He does have my birthday to buy for...

Which is the 7th of December, by the way.

;-)

So...once upon a time, Black Friday meant other things...

This will be short since this is the holiday season and I've been running my butt off all day.

Monica McCarty's THE RECRUIT is probably the best of the series and I didn't think I'd say that. I've loved every book; and my heart belongs to the sailor named Erik for goofy, personal reasons, but Kenneth Sutherland is Hawt-Hawt-Hawt and the love story between him and Mary was passionate, lovely, and did I mention it was hawt?

Like really HAWT. Or Hot, because I'm driving myself nuts purposefully spelling that wrong.

Kudos to Ms. McCarty who researches her history thoroughly, but when she needs to finagle a bit with the history to make it work, she does so seamlessly and explains afterwards in case there are those of us (we know who we are) who might go, "That didn't happen." But I love these women who are women--who act true to their time period, but are still a little spunky and bold with the men who love them in return.

If you love history, you'll love this book.

If you love romance, you'll love this book.

If you love hot, sexy sex scenes, you'll LOVE this book.

If you love happy endings that feel real, especially in a time period where happy endings for women were probably pretty rare, you'll love this book.

I think there might be another four or so books left in the series. Ms. McCarty has had an end sight for this series, but each book in this series still feels fresh and interesting. I'm going to be really sad when this series ends for real.

What are you reading now? And what series do you hope will never end?

That was one interesting movie! And I understand it was a book first. One I may need to read. What’s not to love? Six stories, with reoccurring souls, over six time periods, which dance a mad polka back and forth across time and space.

No, it doesn’t involve Dr. Who.

Though it wouldn’t surprise me if it did.

This is the sort of movie, and I’m sure book, that would drive a great many people insane. Convoluted, dropping one storyline to explore another, boomeranging back to it, then gone - hinting at connections, teasing that this part is history, this part is fiction…this part is…??? Philosophizing all the time about how we continue to meet the same people over and over as we are born again and again.

This move appealed to me because I have a very skewed view of history and how people relate to each other. And, Terrio can bear witness to this, I love to mess with linear time when I write. Hop and skip and back and forth…that is me. The swing-set of keeping a straight timeline.

I like how electronic books are pushing the evolution of the reading experience. I can foresee a time when a writer can assist the reader in keeping storylines straight with using different fonts, or font colors or…offering options. And before you all run screaming for the gangplank, remember that the readers coming behind us have different expectations and attention spans. Nothing would surprise me.

Look at the prose of decades past and see how little you can tolerate how they wrote then. I bet it will be the same thing in the decades to come. Writing has become a very fluid thing. No, it’s always been that way. But the speed at which that current flows is speeding up.

There were a few copyeditors in the audience who died that day. A little bit.

A part of me considered the perception that the language is being dumbed down…but…I bet every generation has thought this. Will I recognize the novel in fifty years? If I live that long? Will it be filled with text-speak and references that are totally alien? Will the cross-genre and POV shifts grow so convoluted and commonplace that the readers of tomorrow will be groaning about how they wrote things in the past?
Of course!

Me, I love a good twisting in time and space yarn. I just wrote in my newest WIP, as my character considers the realities of traveling through time… She accepted that there was no line between truth and fiction, history and story. The two bumped up against each other, swapped DNA, fell apart, came back together… None of it made a lick of sense.

But I realize that I am not the normal reader, or writer, in this sense. So, I watched Cloud Atlas and didn’t fight the drifting from one story/time to another.  The reading experience is different. And I am as resistant to some things as the next person. Not a fan of alternating first person POV, for example. But someone will do it well and I’ll be convinced it can work!

Do you suffer from bouts of depression? How do you deal with it? Does it keep you from writing or does it help?

Musical Influence: "Transcendence" Audiomachine (Epica,  2012)

I've been reading historical romance since before I became a teenagers. History fascinates me and has since before I can remember. The way that historians can wax poetical about war, famine, political strain in a way that keeps people intrigued is certainly some sort of art form. And to hear a country with rich history like England tell their side of the story (while an American listens in the background) amused me. But history is recounted in just one side of the story. Rarely can you hear all sides without exaggeration. This is why I made a list of places in London I wanted to see.






I've always wanted to take a stroll through Hyde Park. I'm a lover of the outdoors. I like to be surrounded by just the rustling of leaves and the tweet of birds. I love the sun beaming down over me and feeling like I'm alone. The sun was starting to set over the horizon, the air was brisk. Lovers held hands as they strolled down the paths and disappeared into mazes. Kids giggled as they roller skated past with their parents riding slowly behind them on bicycles.



In a bustling city, where people are constantly streaming by and cars are honking and zooming past, it was a place of solace and beauty hidden away for someone to stumble upon it.






I've always wanted to see Covent Garden as well but by the time I dallied at the pub where GPS met her across the pond twin, Yvette, and promptly made a new drinking buddy we'd drank the daylight away. So we headed into Covent Garden where the roads were lined in stone and the store fronts were lit up to entice patrons inside. I didn't get any pictures of the Royal Opera House or pictures of the lit up lined roads. I stared in awe at everything, soaking it up and storing it in my memory for later thought.



I'm in the middle of writing for NaNoWriMo and my fantasy story is based off legends and myths. I walked up to Stonehenge, the wind whipped around me. The magic of Stonehenge stole my breath away. There was something about stepping onto those hollowed grounds. I'm unsure I can explain it. To feel the grass beneath my hand, to step around the circle memorizing the pattern. How many people have done it before me? How many people stood in that same spot and fed their energy to the spirits. Awe-inspiring.



Have you ever wanted to visit a place you read in a book? Do you prefer to make up places when writing or use the actual city? To my NaNo writers, how are you doing so far this month?

Congratulations to JUANITA DECUIR who has won a copy of Blythe Gifford's new book! Please email romancewritersrevenge @ gmail dot com with your mailing details so I can forward it to Blythe.

Thanks!

Fran

I am reading some fantastic books right now. My latest finding--okay, it came in the mail from the publisher--was Cathy Maxwell's THE SCOTTISH WITCH. This is the second book in the trilogy of The Chattan Curse, where a faithless young man who had been handfasted to one lady, marries a rich heiress and betrays his love. The betrayed lady kills herself, and the mother curses the young man and his family in revenge. In a most dramatic fashion.

The first in this series, LYON'S BRIDE, was quite wonderful (and I've been on quite a streak with Ms. Maxwell--ever since the book with the vicar who was a highwayman!)--and this one was just as good. I'm sure Terri can provide the emails of me saying, "I'm reading the best book!" and "This book is so good!"

At the beginning of this novel, the hero, Harry, is in Scotland to find the witch--or someone who can help with breaking the curse that is now affecting his brother (the hero in LYON'S BRIDE) and his health. He doesn't want to lose his brother; and he certainly doesn't want this curse extending beyond his generation (assuming the heir his brother's wife is having is a boy and therefore cursed). Harry isn't having a lot of luck finding an appropriate witch; the folks there are rather unwilling to help him, due to some Scottish grudge.

The heroine, Portia, is in a bit of a bind. She needs some money fast to pay rent for her family (her sister and mother), or they're going to be evicted. The owner of the cottage they live in doesn't really care for them--and would use this as a ready excuse to get rid of them. Therefore when she finds out a young lord is tossing money around, looking for a witch, and she just happens to find a book in her attic that has a few spells written in it, she decides she can pass for a witch long enough to get rent. And she does.

It all goes downhill from there. Well, conflict wise for the characters. For the reader, it's a delightful read.

And the love scene is pretty darn awesome.

Due to this being a three-book series, the curse doesn't get resolved in this book--and on top of it, yet another Chattan is in love (and thereby cursed as well), so it will be up to the third Chattan sibling, a sister, to figure out how to break the curse before her brothers succumb. Like the previous novel, it is a Happy For Now ending and the theme that "you don't know how much time you have; be true to your feelings" is prevalent. I tend to gravitate to themes where love conquers all (and I'm sure that will come into play in the third book) and redemption, but I have to say this theme is a nice change of pace. It's a good reminder.

So if your TBR pile is dwindling, move this one to the top. It's spooky, a little paranormal, romantic and nicely dramatic (what with what the mother does to create the curse). A great escape.

What great escapes have you been reading lately?