My 2016 Resolutions

Last year I tracked my resolutions for the first time and made a really good attempt to accomplish them. I met my weekly goals between 60% and 70% of the time, and met both of my large goals as well.

This year, I'm stepping it up a notch.

BIG RESOLUTIONS

Resolution #1: Finish the first draft of DSF.

I'm almost done outlining and plan on starting in January.

Resolution #2: Query TGITP

In order to do this, I need to meet some mini goals.

• May 31st: Send edited draft to beta readers
• Aug 31st: Make changes based on comments, send to new round of beta readers
• Nov 30th: Make changes based on comments
• Dec 31st: Send query

This is by far going to be the hardest goal to meet. 

Resolution #3: Read 70 Books

This seemed to be a good number for me last year. Challenging, but not too crazy. If it's easier this year then next year I'll bump it up.

DAILY RESOLUTIONS

Resolution #4: Write Once A Day

This includes editing and outlining/research as well, and there's no specified time limit. So as long as I sit down to work, even if just for 5 minutes, then that counts.

What does not count is reading articles or blogs about writing, or rewriting books and studying their structure. It must be something directly related to TGITP or DSF.

Resolution #5: Clean Up for 2 Minutes Every Evening

This is a resolution I've been thinking about for awhile. I know the difference that even a small amount of time can make, but I'm always so tired at night that I don't get it done. I'm going to anchor this resolution and the next one together to make sure they get done each evening. More about that below.

Resolution #6: Do 3 Pull Ups a Day

I felt like last year I didn't really accomplish what I wanted to with this resolution (to be stronger) and part of that was because 5 pull ups a week wasn't enough to really affect my muscles. I tried to bump it up to 25 a week, but that was an overwhelming number. So I'm going to start this year off with 3 a day.

As I was saying above, I plan on anchoring this habit to make sure it gets completed. The time this year that I was most successful at this habit was when I anchored it to getting ready in the morning, arriving home from work, and getting ready for bed. This year I'm going to anchor it to brushing my teeth.

How this will look: After I finish brushing my teeth at night (and washing my face, etc), I will immediately pull out my phone and set a timer for two minutes. During that two minutes I'll do anything that cleans up the apartment, from picking up and hanging clothes to sweeping the floor.

When the timer goes off, I'll immediately do 3 pull ups. And that's it! Hopefully anchoring these habits to an already established one will ensure they get done.

Resolution #7: Do One Good Deed A Day

I toyed with the wording on this resolution for awhile, because I want it to be very broad. I want it to cover everything from letting someone in front of me in traffic, to doing the dishes for my boyfriend even if it's his night, to asking someone about how things are going in their personal lives.

I think this will be a hard resolution to achieve, because it's not the same thing every day and it's not a habit I can anchor to something else. It's more of a mindset. I also think it will be one of my most interesting resolutions this year. I plan on tracking whether or not I complete this resolution on the same paper as the others, but I'm thinking that I'll also need to record what good deed I do every day. I might record this in a journal or maybe on the computer, I haven't decided yet.

And that's it! Here's a screenshot of the spreadsheet I plan on using to keep track of my daily goals.

I have each week of the year on the sheet, and for every week I have each day listed, as well as a space next to it for a check mark. At the end of each week I'll write in the bottom corner how many out of 7 days I met my goal.

Revisiting my 2015 Resolutions

At the end of 2014 I made some resolutions for 2015.

Let's look at how successful I was. 

Resolution #1: Finish the first draft of TGITP

I did it!!! Now I'm rewriting and editing. 

Resolution #2: Read 70 books

Finished, just barely in time! I think I'll keep this resolution for next year, 70 was a challenging number. 

Resolution #3: Write at least 1,000 words a week

This one kind of morphed once I finished the draft of TGITP and wasn't writing regularly. The 1,000 words sometimes represented the amount of time spent editing or outlining my new novel, DSF. Out of 53 weeks, I met this goal 32 weeks (school starting in September really killed my streak). 

That means I met this goal 60% of the time. Not bad, but not awesome either. It gives me something to beat with this year's writing goal, which will be in a post tomorrow. 

Resolution #4: Play an instrument once a week

About a month ago I decided I wasn't getting as much out of this resolution as I wanted, so I decided to start taking piano and guitar lessons again. It's so much more motivating to practice when you have someone experienced guiding you! Therefore this won't be a resolution for me next year, mostly because as long as I'm taking the lessons I'll automatically be held to practicing (especially since it costs so much $$$). 

But how did I do this year? Out of 53 weeks I met this goal 37 of them. That means I met this goal 70% of the time. Still not awesome, but much better!

Resolution #5: Do 5 pull-ups a week  

Yikes. This one did not do so well. Out of 53 weeks I met this goal 34 of them. Huh. Better than I thought. That means I met this goal 64% of the time. I wasn't planning on making this one of my goals for next year, but now I'm thinking maybe I should...

So there it is! I think that having a printed out, paper and pencil chart really helped me keep track of my resolutions. I'm planning on doing the same thing next year, but a little more detailed since I have some daily goals. More about that tomorrow, January 1st, 2016!

2015 Resolutions - Update 3

It's been 6 months (27 weeks) since the New Year! Halfway there :). Time to check in on my resolutions and see where I am.

Resolution #1: Finish the first draft of TGITP

I have 5 scenes left until I finish the first draft! I will DEFINITELY, FOR SURE, be finished by this Saturday. I'M SERIOUS THIS TIME. 

Resolution #2: Read 70 books

I have currently read 35 books, so I'm halfway there! Goodreads tells me I'm one book behind but I'm halfway through quite a few so I should catch up easily. 

Resolution #3: Write at least 1,000 words a week

In the past 2 months I've missed twice, once for no reason and once because I was at a teaching conference. I'm not sure how this resolution will look once I finish the first draft. I guess it will be 1,000 words a week still, but unrelated to TGITP, kind of like my Camp Nano project. 

Resolution #4: Play an instrument once a week

I only missed once this time, for the teaching conference. I've started working on exercises to increase my hand independence (so that I can play a different melody on each hand at the same time, which is necessary for the song I'm learning) and I'm excited to say that I've already seen some improvement!

Resolution #5: Do 5 pull-ups a week  

Yikes. So I've only missed once, which is good. However, for awhile there I was doing 5 pull-ups a day. I had a routine down, but school ended and that routine died. I need to make a new routine for the rest of summer and stick with it, because I've already seen a loss of muscle definition!

Here are my spreadsheets for May and June. 

That's it! I'll check back in at the end of August, where I may re-evaluate my resolutions. 

Update: Paperclip Visual

Last month I tried out a new method to visually track my word count each week as motivation. It's worked really well, so I decided to make it prettier and a bit more permanent. 

I went out and got a set of clear shot glasses, and beads in two different sizes. 

The little green beads each represent 100 words (there are ten of them) and the larger red beads represent 1,000 words (I only have seven of these, since I don't typically write more than 5,000 words a week). 

I move a green bead over every time I write 100 words, until I reach 1,000. Then I reset them and move over a large red bead. 

Only 10 more scenes to go until I finish the first draft of TGITP!

Goal - Finish The Third Quarter

Summer break is here! And with it, a big push to finish the first draft of TGITP. I'm five scenes away from finishing the third quarter, so my goal is to do that by this Friday. Three days. I can do it! Much like my Spring Break goal I'm going to keep track of my progress on here to help keep me motivated (and give you all some insight into my writing process).

Wednesday, 1:38pm
Starting now! Today I'm going to plan the five scenes I need to write, and write one of them. I'm currently at a coffee shop with a writing group I joined. We meet a few times a week and chat and get settled for about thirty minutes, then Shut Up and Write for an hour. It's super helpful to be in a room with people who are all concentrating on their writing too.

Update: Wednesday, 2:30pm
Well, somehow I managed to add one, possibly two scenes to my to do list. However, I planned out about three and a half scenes. Not too bad for an hour's work.

Update: Wednesday, 4:13pm
Home now after running a few errands and sitting down to write. I think I'll crank out today's scene(s) and finish planning later.

Update: Wednesday, 5:30pm
Did a whole lot of nothing for awhile and then finally started. I wrote 421 and the first half of a scene.

Update: Wednesday, 7:55pm
Sitting in the Starbucks at my local Target. My boyfriend is across the table from me studying for his physics GRE. I just bought a clipfolio (clipboard on the outside with a pocket and legal pad inside, in cute, coordinating colors of course) in anticipation for editing TGITP. I figure I'll take my notes on the legal pad and keep critiqued scenes from my writing group in the folder. Ahhh, one day. Now to write the rest of today's scene...

Update: Wednesday, 8:53pm
983 words and two short scenes later.....I'm feeling pretty good about my progress today.

Update: Thursday, 9:05am
I'm at my desk, delicious cup of coconut oil coffee at the ready. The sunlight streams through the window in front of me, and my dog is curled up in her bed at my feet. Mmm. So relaxed. Time to plan out the last scene of this quarter and then write one or two more.

Update: Thursday, 10:13am
Spent some time rewriting a great scene in a book I'm reading right now, to get in the "words are music" mindframe. Then I finished planning the last few scenes of this quarter. Now time for the actual writing! (while the Dallas String Quartet version of Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This plays on Pandora...)

Update: Thursday, 10:43am
490 more words written, and 1 more scene. Two more to go!

Update: Thursday, 8:00pm
Here we go, time to hammer out the last two scenes! Throw in a word sprint or two with my critique partner and I just might make it.

Update: Thursday, 8:48pm
FINISHED! A day early too!

2015 Resolutions - Update 2

It's been 4 months (18 weeks) since the New Year! Time to check in on my resolutions and see where I am.

Resolution #1: Finish the first draft of TGITP

I'm currently drafting the third quarter (7 out of 20 scenes done) and plan to finish by May 23rd. Then I'll just have one quarter left! I should be done with this resolution by the next check in, if everything goes as planned.

Resolution #2: Read 70 books

I've read 25 books so far, which is 2 books ahead of schedule! Still not doing so great at focusing on only a few books at once though.

Resolution #3: Write at least 1,000 words a week

Out of 18 weeks I've missed only 3 weeks! I also had another 5,000 word week.

Resolution #4: Play an instrument once a week

I've missed this goal 4 times in 18 weeks. I really want to practice more than once a week, but I keep reminding myself that right now I'm building up the once a week habit to start, so it's okay if I don't do more than that.

Resolution #5: Do 5 pull-ups a week  

I've also missed this 4 times in 18 weeks. I was all set two weeks ago to bump it up to 5 pull-ups a day, and then the great week 17 plague hit and killed those dreams. I'm going to go for it this week though now that I'm feeling better.

And here's my spreadsheet where I'm keeping track of my goals.

That's it! I'll check in on these again at the end of June.

Paperclip Visual

The other day I stumbled upon a cool way to track progress, and decided to try it out on my writing.

My current (low) goal is to write at least 1,000 words a week. I put 10 paperclips on a sticky note titled "not yet written" and made another sticky note titled, "written!" Each paperclip is worth 100 words, so 10 paperclips=1,000 words. 

Every time I write 100 words I get to move a paperclip from one sticky note to the other. This gives me a visual representation of my progress while I watch the unwritten pile shrink and the written pile grow. This is the first week I've tried it, so I'll be sure to come back and let you know how it worked for me. 

If it works especially well, I'm thinking of doing a bigger version. Maybe two small jars and 80 marbles, representing the 80,000 total words I'm shooting for in my manuscript?

Update: I've used the method once now and it worked pretty well! I didn't usually notice when I passed 100, and when I did notice I often got to move several clips at once, which was a nice boost. 

Spring Break Goal - Write 8 Scenes

A break from work and school should mean more time for writing, right? Somehow it doesn't usually work out that way. I'm determined to make this break different.

My goal this week is to write 8 scenes in TGITP.

After 6 scenes I'll finish the second quarter of the first draft, and I'll have to outline and plan the third quarter before writing the other 2 scenes. I plan to write 2 scenes a day on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, outline on Thursday, and write 1 scene a day on Thursday and Friday. Ambitious, but I can do it.

I'm going to update this blog post as I go, to keep myself accountable (though who knows if anyone will ever read this besides me).

Here we go!

Monday, 1:40pm
Starting now!

Update: Monday, 2:35pm
1,262 words and 1 scene written. Short break to do some chores around the house and then back to it.

Update: Monday, 8:50pm
Starting again...

Update: Monday, 9:40pm
543 words and 1 more scene written. Now to bed! (Or really, now to go read for two hours and then to bed...)

Update: Wednesday, 1:33pm
So sometimes life gets in the way. Yesterday was Saint Patrick's Day, as well as my 3 year anniversary with my boyfriend, so not much writing got done. Therefore, change in plans! I'm going to try to write three scenes today, one scene (and outline) tomorrow, and two scenes on Friday. Here we go!

Update: Wednesday, 2:43pm
Whew, tough scene. 642 words and 1 more scene complete. Off to do some things around the house, and then I'll be back!

Update: Wednesday, 4:00pm
"If I crash I'll begin again"

Update: Wednesday, 4:30pm
647 words and 1 more scene! That one was easy because it was mostly just rewriting a scene I wrote awhile ago. Now for dinner and some anniversary celebrating, then I'll be back at it tonight.

Update: Thursday, 12:06pm
Decided I was too tired last night to write another scene. I always used to think I was a night owl, but I've learned in the past few years that I'm more of an early bird. Fortunately, since it's spring break, I can take advantage of that and write in the morning. Here we go...

Update: Thursday, 12:46pm
Got sucked into a email/name googling black hole. Now I'm really starting.

Update: Thursday, 2:41pm
God, it's like pulling teeth today. 670 words and 1 more scene complete. Time to read and take a nap.

Update: Friday, 3:00pm
Saw Insurgent this morning. Love. Now for writing, writing, writing...

Update: Friday, 3:56pm
FINISHED WITH THE FIRST HALF! I wrote 1,234 words (yes really) and 1 more scene. I also decided that the scene I was going to end this half with will do better later on. Therefore, I am officially finished drafting the first half of TGITP. I still have 2 more scenes to write this week, so later I'll do some outlining.

Final Update:
So that's it. 5,025 words and 6 scenes. I didn't totally meet my goal, but I did finish the first half so yay!

What I Wrote 2015 - Week 10

This Week I...

Wrote 2,811 words
Wrote 5 new scenes
Prepped 2 scenes for my critique partner
Planned the next 5 scenes
Will probably write another scene tonight
Rewrote 2 scenes from 2 of my favorite novels, then looked at their balance of description, narration, dialogue, and introspection. I also looked at how they use inferencing and other techniques.

I've realized just how important it is, for me, to make sure I write every day. Taking a break for even one day makes it that much harder to get back into the groove.

Current total word count: 48,256

2015 Resolutions - Update 1

It's been two months (9 weeks) since the New Year! Time to check in on my resolutions and see where I am.

Resolution #1: Finish the first draft of TGITP

I'd like to be further along with this goal than I am, but I've definitely made progress. I have a mini goal right now to finish the second half by March 14th. That means I need to write about 13 scenes in 2 weeks. I might change my goal to be Saint Patrick's Day, first because then it will give me the few extra days I need, second because I love Saint Patrick's Day (I can wear ALL green and not get any weird looks!).

Resolution #2: Read 70 books

So far I've read 14 books, and according to Goodreads that's 3 books ahead of schedule, so yay! I'm currently reading about 6 different books though, so I really need to focus on about 3 at a time...

Resolution #3: Write at least 1,000 words a week

Out of 9 weeks, I only missed this goal twice! (Though a couple of weeks were pretty close...) I even had one week where I wrote 5,346 words! I've realized though that I'll need to be writing closer to 5,000 a week if I want to finish this draft before June. I'm not changing my resolution, however, just pushing myself to surpass it.

Resolution #4: Play an instrument once a week

I also have only missed this goal twice in 9 weeks. I've been learning The Mountain by Ludovico Einaudi and working through a workbook to get back into reading music as well.

Resolution #5: Do 5 pull-ups a week  

Again, missed this twice in 9 weeks. The pull ups are getting a little easier! Of course I usually end up doing all of them on Saturday...

Here is the spreadsheet I've been using to keep track of whether or not I met my goals each week.

That's it! I'll check in on these again at the end of April. 

What I Wrote 2015 - Week 5

This week I...

Met with my critique partner
Edited the first 4 scenes of the second quarter of my WIP
Laid out the entire second quarter, including every subplot and scene, on an excel spreadsheet.
Made some pretty lofty goals.

After this week, I no longer have an excuse not to write. I have the next 20 scenes plotted out, ready to go. Because of that, I made the goal to write 5 scenes a week for the next four weeks, in order to finish writing the second quarter by March 1st. I plan to spend Sundays summarizing each scene, so I know exactly what I plan on writing. Then Monday through Friday (this will be the hardest part) I'll write one scene a day. Then on Saturdays I'll do any editing, update my excel sheet and plans for future scenes, and edit and post the next scene for my critique partner.

This is the plan, we'll see how it goes. I plan to post a short update on Monday about how the first day went. Remember, you can also follow my writing goals at My Write Club.

Wish me luck!

My Write Club

In honor of New Years, my critique partner Megan introduced me to this awesome website I wanted to share.

It's called My Write Club, and it's a place where you can create and track writing goals, as well as connect with friends and watch them meet their goals too. 

My username is jessicawrites if you want to connect with me!