Success in writing: Breakdown of #ROW80 Round 4 goals, Part 1 of 3

“All great achievements require time.”~Maya Angelou, American poet 

Round 4 goals.  Writing, reading, playing and etc,

Today I’m focusing on my writing.  This is how I plan to break down and work on these goals, in no particular order:

WRITING:

1–Get back to writing haiku, at least one weekly.

This is how my Instagram account started: haiku.  My writerly friend and sorority Big Sister wrote haiku with me after one trip into New York City for an independent book fair.  Poetry may not be my formal writing genre, but I enjoy it and feel obligated to get back into it because of Instagram.

I found these notes jotted down on the back of my Round 3 Goals sheet.

I’m tweaking a Monday – Thursday writing schedule based on ROW80 Round 3.  Each day focuses on one genre or project, a schedule that provides structure and flexibility.  This revised schedule is something I’m testing out.

Since Mondays are one day I set aside to do email, I’ll see the weekly Haiku Horizons prompt posted each Sunday night.

Mondays, I will make time to write a haiku.  That poem will be published that day, Tuesday or Wednesday.  That gives me time and structure to work the haiku into a post.  Then I have the second half of the week to share it on social media.
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UPDATE: That worked this week!  Look for my haiku post on Wednesday.

2–Finish MomMemoir and DadLetters by December.

MomMemoir was so on track through August that it was scary productive. My first time-sensitive deadline passed, and my motivation slowed. My second self-imposed deadline passed, and I got sloppy. Tuesday afternoons are writing focused, and I’m allotting memoir writing to those days. It’s a good day to do that because my biweekly Memoir1 critique group meets on Wednesdays.

Pushing through procrastination, my schedule gives me structure to finish MomMemoir by October, DadLetters in November and I have December as overflow to allow for those unforeseen Life intrusions. If this works, it’s a strong format to follow with my full-length memoir in January.

3–Blog posts: finish or let go. For real this time!

**I will finish or let go of my 2017 posts.**

Yes, you read it here. With years of half-written blog ideas unedited, I am comfortable focusing on the year 2017 for the remainder of 2017. This honors my writing and cleans out my inbox, so to speak. It’s not overwhelming as it would be to think about every draft post for years back probably no longer relevant but needs to be reviewed. One calendar year, currently about 8 months to review, and I’m not going to stress myself out by going back into my past any further. Whatever I have completed by December is it. Deep breath. My weekly writing schedule has blogging scheduled Wednesdays or Thursday, thus giving me focus rather than flip-flop between this and book writing. Will I be strong enough by December 31st?

4–Freelance assignments/Full-time writing work

If I spend one day per week contacting 1-2 editors, then I’ll see what that gets me. It’s manageable, allowing time to research who to contact. The current writing schedule allows me to fit freelance assignments into my blogging and book writing, giving up nothing and moving forward with everything. Thursdays are another day I set aside to focus on housey things, email and general catching up, thus a good day for this.

The rest of my 2017 Round 4 goals are:

READING
–Blogs
–Magazines: trade publications and PennStater
–Books
–Social Media
PLAYING
–PokemonGO
–Planning
–Scrapbook/Mixed media crafting
ETC.
–Housey things
–Friends and Family

As I test out this first week, I’ll share my challenges and successes regarding my reading goals next week.

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