August Goals

Cape Cod Weather: Beeeautiful. We still have the air conditioner running, but I don't think we need it today. It's 57 degrees now without humidity, going up to a sunny 74 later. Rain tomorrow. Maybe. We'll see.

I've been a bad blogger this summer. Too much company, too many obligations.

What's worse, I've been a bad novel writer as well. I've only worked sporadically on the 3 WIPs I have seriously going, and not a lick on the 2 manuscripts I outline this spring and wrote a page or two for. I've written magazine articles for CWO, and researched a bunch of other stuff and assigned articles to other writers, and edited their finished pieces.... so I am working with my words and my keyboard.

Just not "writing."

What's up with that?

It could be simply that I'm too distracted to focus on manuscripts. I don't have a few hours strung together to fully immerse myself in anything. The alternating-days-at-sailing worked well for the kids, but not for the mom/taxi driver. I'm actually glad my son took a month off from karate, as the schedule on Tuesdays was just too tight. And July was non-stop company, starting with 4th of July weekend, through the visitors who left August 4th. I actually called and cancelled my friend who was coming today through Tuesday. (hope I didn't cancel the friendship!) July wore me out.

I also think I'm a little paralyzed with fear about my upcoming debut novel. What if it gets panned? What if I have more than one entry to send to that blog, "The Wost Review Ever." (which can be hysterical and bittersweet and philosophically uplifting. Visit it here)

My writing plan for August:
1. Finish re-polishing the mermaid story (with rewrites suggested by nice-yet-rejecting agent), so it's ready to send out in September.
2. Take hard look at MS#1, to determine if it's worth the effort to salvage in an earlier iteration than what I submitted to my editor. All her main plot and character problems were things I'd changed in response to various rejection and crit group feedback.
3. Find a new critique group. Check if the one at the library has changed members at all. (like, that annoyingly snarky guy who didn't take off his sunglasses the whole time, is he gone yet?)
4. Finish outlining second book of Jillian's story, including character and plot twists.

Okay, overly ambitious considering I've done very little this last month and the magazine has a September first release date. (if you haven't gone to read through our summer issue, take a couple minutes to click through it. the link is here)

But better to have goals than not. Oh yeah, and my other goal is to relax. Now that I have no company for the next two weeks, and a week in Vermont to look forward to, I need to unwind a little. My jaw has been clenched a little too tightly. Not that I don't like the sharp-cheekbone look. But I need to smile more. There's a goal right there.

What are your goals for the rest of the summer?