Writing productivity with #ROW80 for this #WeekendCoffeeShare

If we were having coffee….

Oh, I’m so glad you made it. This is so bizarre, isn’t it? A coffeeshop inside a movie theater, and not just a counter but a real sit-down coffeeshop with tables and pastries and you can’t even smell the popcorn from here.

The Bailout Blend may be the house coffee, but it’s very smooth. My husband, he’s trying the…what is it?…it’s a mocha drink, and look at that! The chocolate is melting from that chocolate lollipop. Oh, that’s gonna taste good. **Husband smiles** Great Lakes makes great coffee.

But we’re not here to talk about coffee…how was your week? My husband and I, we’re still recovering from the July 4th weekend and the drive back from Philly. I can’t remember the last time we were home when it wasn’t snowing. A 12-hour drive is best when done over a long weekend or Christmas break.  Let me show you some pictures.

Me and my uncle at Eat n’ Park in PA

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My husband knows how I shop at A.C. Moore!

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Summer grillin’…had me a blast!

Lucky looks out his window in the fence

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First time eating ice cream from University of Delaware creamery

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This morning was my monthly Motown Writers Network meeting.  I haven’t attended since April, what with all my traveling to Chicago and whatnot. Interesting topic today: What is the purpose of your book?  That kinda ties in to Thursday’s Emerging Writer’s topic about whether your novel is really a book or just a blog post or an idea.  Without details and focus, you can’t move forward with your project.

The 30-Day Challenge posed to all of us is to visualize our book,.  We folded a piece of paper as if it was our book cover and wrote what we’d like to see on that: our name, book title, an idea of the cover image.  Inside, we’re to write the book’s blurb summary and maybe sample text.  If you visualize it, you can work towards that vision.

I’m passing on that because I’m dedicating July to my blog.  Updating it is the first goal for my current A Round of Words in 80 Days.  Did you read last week’s post about it?
Round 3 runs from July 4 to Sept 22.  This was the first week of it.  How did I do?  I’m glad you asked because I feel rather productive about it all.

1–Update my blog.
1a–Update blog with no draft posts.

Currently, my WP-admin dashboard shows 152 draft posts. Embarrassing.  Some are ideas, some are half-finished, some are finished and waiting to be published and some are somewhere in between. Have you ever felt like that? Complete yet not complete?

I’m finding it hard to write with these nagging “my blog isn’t updated” guilt trips. Catching up with all of it will free my mind of clutter and distraction.

This weekend, I’m printing a list of all my drafts, and next week I will go through that list and vet posts, probably during my reserved writing times on Monday or Wednesday afternoons.

2–Deal with 10 emails/day: 5 new and 5 old.
I haven’t done this yet, but I am going to set up habit trackers in my planner so I’ll have visual motivation.  That’s a start.

3– Deal with the photos on my phone.
Not this week, probably not next, either. Not a priority right now, but still a goal.

4–Maintain current social media schedule.
Visuals ground me, as you can tell from above, so I typed up and printed my social media calendar.  Now I have a neat version to work from, not just scratches and scribbles.  Let’s see what I can do with that.

5–Keep in touch with friends and family through phone calls and letters.
I made one phone call this week.  I count that as success.

6– Write current WIPs, edit drafts, write new stories and just for fun.
Nope.

This first week was a short one for me because of vacation.  I will make time to list specific tasks on specific days.  Maybe that will help me focus.

What about you?  Any tips or tricks you care to share?