July 2015 Motivational Thread

Facing

Facing

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In my neck of the woods, July starts off with a BANG! Expansive flashes of light colouring the dark sky over the strained necks of small children who cover their ears while they ooh and aah at the sight of magic with no understanding of the independence that is being celebrated.

What wonders will you write this month?

I’ve got a first contact story to try and finish for Michael’s contest . The deadline is July 16 (midnight EST)

It’s also nanocamp month for any looking to join a cabin and participate. I’m signed up for 20 000 words and will try to finish a draft for Act two and three – Of Watches and Waistcoats which received such an empowering rejection back in May.

We’ve got contests and challenges in abundance. Who’s up for Microflash, Flash, Short Story, Novelette, Novella? I’m in for the Novelette with – A Touch of Light – which I hope won’t be too dark for @Bodhi : ) The themes have all been posted for the shorter contests and I'll try the flash & short story. Lastly, I may attempt the Novella with my Broughdale story.

Three deadlines I’m tracking are Crossed Genre – Anticipation, Shadow People & Cursed Objects, & Misunderstood Anthology– Trolls, Imps, Orcs etc. I’ve got partials that could work for each of them, it’s just a matter of cleaning them up and taking advantage of the Workshop.

What are your goals for the month?
 
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Well I kicked off July a little bit early tonight by adding a few scenes to my skeleton draft. Tomorrow will be right off with the holiday here and the aforementioned fireworks.

For the rest of the month I would like to complete a very large chunk of my skeleton draft, enter the micro-fiction contest again as I really like participating in the June competition.

I'd like to assemble lasts months short story into fully competent first draft and I'd like to layout a very rough draft for a new short story featuring the same characters.

Good luck to everyone.
 
My goals. Simple (so far). They may develop with time.

Highest Priority = Keep writers away from the dark side. Achieve world peace by spreading peace, love, and art to everyone I meet.
Also Important = Go through all my old writing and see what themes were prevalent. Find anything worth keeping.
Very Important = Win a contest with a story that contains no physical violence.
Important = Write creatively almost every day and see if I can develop my Major Inspiration into my longest work yet, a Novella or "Novelette".
 
I have 4 goals for the month:
  • Join Bodhi in keeping writers away from the darkside and spread peace, love and art.
  • Finish Draft 2 of the Pirate book.
  • Finish Halloween Book 1
  • Learn about the submission process for a novel, because I know jack squat.
 
I have a non-writing-life thing hanging out there that will have a big impact on what I am able to accomplish this month. Or really, it could potentially have a big impact on what I hope to tackle writing-wise for the rest of the year. I should know one way or the other within the next few days, so at that point I may add or tweak some of this...

But either way, I think these will be my minimum goals for this month:
  • Spire City, season one wraps up by the end of the month, so get the remaining episodes to subscribers and prepare whatever I need to in advance to release the complete season bundle (that won't actually be released until late August, so not really a rush on it, except that I'll be traveling for all of early August)
  • Revise and polish "Language of Fish and Storms" (my short from the comp last Nov-Dec), and hopefully submit as well
  • Revise another short story I wrote last November (and submit?)
  • Go through a variety of other flash pieces, story starts, poems, etc., and decide which ones merit revising and submitting
  • Write one poem
  • Revise my story for the Ecotones anthology and get critiques
So many other things I'm itching to do as well...but will wait and see about whether to expect I might be able to get to them this month or not.
 
Does anyone really care if writers go over to the dark side? I mean, what are they gonna do about it, whine on the page? Yeah, we're real scared of writers.

Goals are simple and familiar: write a flash, think about a short story.

Had an interesting moment yesterday when a lot of ideas I'd been bouncing around sort of clicked together. Might provide fodder for contests, probably not appropriate for the flash. We'll see.
 
@VictorK Writers often play in the dark. It's sometimes harder to play with the light and write life-affirming stories. It can be a challenge. Does anyone really care? I dunno, does anyone really care if darkness invades our world? Utopia or dystopia, which is more interesting, or are they one and the same? Born in sin, is there hope for humanity?

Do we want to see more organizations like the National Socialist German Workers' Party and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant? Wouldn't you rather see more things like the legacy of Alfred Nobel and the United Nations?
 
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Bodhi said:
@VictorK Writers often play in the dark. It's sometimes harder to play with the light and write life-affirming stories. It can be a challenge. Does anyone really care? I dunno, does anyone really care if darkness invades our world? Utopia or dystopia, which is more interesting, or are they one and the same? Born in sin, is there hope for humanity?

Do we want to see more organizations like the National Socialist German Workers' Party and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant? Wouldn't you rather see more things like the legacy of Alfred Nobel and the United Nations?
Click to expand...

The last two stories I posted were a bit of a divergence for me in that most of my stories are about kids and magic. That being said, I think all writers need to play in the dark so that the "good guys" have something to battle and perhaps overcome, even if it's only a part of themselves. I also believe that some of the darker tales are meant to be cautionary: Choose your friends wisely, be careful what you wish for etc.
 
Bodhi said:
@VictorK Writers often play in the dark. It's sometimes harder to play with the light and write life-affirming stories. It can be a challenge. Does anyone really care? I dunno, does anyone really care if darkness invades our world? Utopia or dystopia, which is more interesting, or are they one and the same? Born in sin, is there hope for humanity?

Do we want to see more organizations like the National Socialist German Workers' Party and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant? Wouldn't you rather see more things like the legacy of Alfred Nobel and the United Nations?
Click to expand...

:eek:

It wasn't my intention to aid and abet the rise of modern Nazism or the propagation of ISIS theocracy. I actually liked your goal about writing and winning with a story that didn't involve violence. Fantasy and Sci Fi lend themselves so much to war stories that, although I'm not terribly concerned with writers going over to the dark side, I think they have a responsibility when portraying war and violence to do so in a way that is somewhat consistent with the real life human experience. And I say that as someone who is an avowed realist and hardly a pacifist.

As for what that real human experience might be, I will let my good friend William Tecumseh Sherman explain: "I confess, without shame, that I am sick and tired of fighting — its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands, and fathers … it is only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated … that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation."

But we're getting far afield. I will join you in that goal, and try to do something more 'fun' and life affirming that doesn't involve physical violence or war. A writer has to have more drama and conflict in their toolkit than the martial variety, which I think is what a lot of us are raised on---either that or the more religious temptation dramas. Now that we have our themes for July/August, I can start thinking about that approach.
 
Great start, Facing!

Let's see...I want to start another novelette (that's the one shorter than a novella, right?). So, I'll be joining that contest/challenge when it goes up (though I'll be trying to finish the whole thing this month instead of spread over many months). I don't think I'll make it to any of the other contests on the forum, but my goal is to read/vote on each one.

That's it.

Good luck to all!
 
My goal is to pick one of two stories and drag its carcass over the first draft finish line. Work has gotten a bit more calm, so I might actually have a fair shot at this.
 
I'm not going to set highly specific goals because that works so rarely for me, but last month I topped my target word count for maybe the first time all year, so I'd like to do that again. Two days in, I've already written 2,500 words and killed a virgin, so the word count is achievable but I guess you have to count me out of the nicey-nicey writers group hug. I plan to sink ever deeper into the dark side, starting by nixing hundreds of thousands of Londoners in the year 1861.

See you all in hell!
 
1861? Fresh off his subjugation of the Confederacy and liberation of the slaves, Sorcerer-Emancipator Lincoln turns the baleful eye of liberty on the home country?

Of course McClellan might screw things up a bit, but that dynamic duo of U.S. Grant and W.T. Sherman sure are tearing things up in Wales with the assistance of the Frederick Douglass Division of freedmen. Woe to those whose efforts disappoint the Wizard of Washington...
 
VictorK said:
1861? Fresh off his subjugation of the Confederacy and liberation of the slaves, Sorcerer-Emancipator Lincoln turns the baleful eye of liberty on the home country?

Of course McClellan might screw things up a bit, but that dynamic duo of U.S. Grant and W.T. Sherman sure are tearing things up in Wales with the assistance of the Frederick Douglass Division of freedmen. Woe to those whose efforts disappoint the Wizard of Washington...
Click to expand...
Please write more of this. It sounds awesome!
 
Ok. All of the links are now part of the first post, so I'm done editing it. Like Andrew, I'm off to a brilliant start on word count (2820) but no virgins or Londoners have thus far been harmed. :)
 
I'm in a strange spot right now, sort of between projects. Ash and Flame is basically finished, outside of line edits on episode five and a final second edit on episode six. That means there's not much writing left for that project. I'm at a good point to pick up on Strife again, having finished the major plot points on the first novel.

In the meantime I found a short story submission that's right up my alley, so for the first time in months I'm writing a short story. I've got two weeks to finish it.

So, all that said, my goals for July:
  • 15k words
  • Finish and submit my SF future war story
  • Publish episode five of A&F
  • Finalize edits on episode six of A&F and publish
  • Start rewrites on Strife - I'd like to finish 3-4 scenes
  • Finish beta read of a friend's novel
 
I want to think July will be SUPER PRODUCTIVE, but the truth is, I get lazy in the summer. I do ridiculous things like sit outside and read books and take my kids to the park. So... you know... I am gonna set a lower bar this month.

1. Write at least 3000 words.

2. Finish Phacelia's Birthday, my solarpunk siege-bandit-queen novelette-in-progress.

3. Submit at least two reprints for consideration. Time to revisit 2013's sales. -.-
 
Edits/rewrites of Halloween book 1 are progressing well. Last night I finished off one of the major storylines of the book. There are only 2 days or so of internal chronology left to the book, but they are a busy 2 days! I don't know if I am quite to the 3/4 finished mark yet, but I'm getting close!

I have 4 days off for the holiday (US Independence Day) weekend and very few plans. I'm hoping to get through a few of the remaining chapters, maybe even up to or through the big Halloween trick or treating chapter I need to partially rewrite. I'm not holding out hope for that, but it sure would be nice to get through that chapter.
 
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