ROW80 - Check in 6

Progress, progress, why do you avoid me so.

I'm still hit and miss with my goals. Sunday was taken up by knitting class so was fairly tired when I got home in the evening. Poetry goals went out the window on Monday after I decided to do my knitting homework instead and started stitching up a journal cover.

Last night, I managed about 40 minutes of studying and think that this current section is going to hurt. I hit a rut with the research which I'm rolling back to Saturday as I'll be able to spend a good few hours online and digging through my reference books for comparison.

Also got about half way through the current exercise but the focus is on building character through dialogue and I hardly write dialogue normally. I'm also not entirely sure who these people are as I kind of plucked them out of thin air for a previous exercise. Decided to skip to the next exercise and that curled my toes even more.

Although I did start adding dividers to my course folder so I can refer to earlier sections more easily.

Reading has fallen by the wayside so I'll make that my lunch break activity for the next few days at least. It's only a short novel so I should get a good chunk of it read and then get back to reading some horror.

Hope everyone is doing well.

ROW80 - Check in 4

Heehee, I'm starting to get somewhere. A quick flick through the current part of my course tells me I should be completing part 3 in around 3 weeks. At which point I'll sign up for an online course on English Literature as I honestly don't think my analytic skills and engagement with reading are high enough to tackle level 2 of my degree or at least not to a point to get decent grades. Also, as I need to choose my own subject at level 3 it might give me a better idea for my research paper  .

Goal: 1.5 hours studying on Thursday night.

Achievement: zilch on studying, I was a bit brain dead that night, my energy levels seem to be bouncing up and down all over the place this week. Although, I did send a critique through my poetry group and my poetry muse is starting to feel half starved to death due to lack of poeming. Which is a good sign, in a way.

Goal: Friday night off

Achievement: I met this one somewhat guiltily after skipping things on Thursday.

Goal: 3 hours of Studying on Saturday

Achievement: Around 2 - 2.5 hours studying. I created a new character to play with, typed up more notes, journalled and read a chapter of Muriel Sparks Loitering With Intent which I'm in two minds about. Also updated the learning log. Felt good to actually write something. So why so much difficulty staying on track?

Today's goals won't be met as I'm heading off to a suitably dark art exhibition. Perhaps study for an hour later depending on what time I get back and whether or not family are still visiting when I do get back.

Have fun.

ROW80 - Check in 3

I'm still off schedule as far as my goals go although I am slowly moving forward:

Goal : 3 hours of studying on Sunday

Achieved: I spent an hour typing up old course work and trying to get my folder in order as well as updating my learning log.

Lesson learned: Don't sit down to a 3 hour session late in the day, split it into a morning session and an evening session.

Goal: Spend Monday night working on poetry related stuff.

Achieved: I joined a poetry critique group called Internet Writing Workshop. Still getting used to how it all works.

I've decided to work with Stephen Fry's An Ode Less Travelled. It seems to cover most of the mechanics and poetic terminology.

Goal: 1.5 hours studying on Tuesday Night

Achieved: Not a sausage and no excuse.

Goal: 1.5 hours studying on Wednesday night

Achieved: 1 hour of studying. Trying to keep everything typed up as I go along.

ROW80 - Check in 2

This weeks been pretty much a wash out but there's always today and tomorrow.

I've fine tuned my goals a bit more:

Monday: Poetry Night
To join crit group
Sub 3 poems to market
Write one new poem
Read/work through a section of a poetry reference book (Either Stephen Fry's one or another one which I can't remember the title of)
Rewrite a poem
Read and analyse one poem for sound, structure and meaning.

If any of the above don't get done they'll roll forward to the following Monday

Study wise:

Tuesday: 1.5 hours of studying with 30 minutes reserved for supplementary actives such as journalling and freewriting.

Wednesday: As above

Thursday: As above

Friday: Night off

Saturday 3 hours studying with time for typing up work and updating learning log

Sunday: As above

ROW80 - Check in

Well, I don't have much to report. Something I was supposed to do today had to be done yesterday so I still haven't joined that crit group. Plus I was knackered on Tuesday night as I'd just come down with a cold and it was easier and less mentally challenging to flip through my knitting books and decide on all my hobbyist projects.

I'm still ironing out my goals, I think I'm going to make my studying goals time based. An hour and half from 8pm on week nights except Monday nights. With Friday night being my night off. I can't really base them on actual things to be done as each part is broken down into projects and exercises and some will take me twenty minutes to do and others could take me hours to do. But I want my degree before I hit 40.

At least 6 hours studying on weekends unless I'm out at an art/photography exhibition. Although this weekend is going to be hit and miss as I completely forgot we have friends staying.

I'm designating Monday nights my night for poetry activities so the first thing to do here is sub some poems out and decide whether I make time to write new poems or work with one of my reference books for a refresher course in the mechanics of poetry.

ROw80 - Round 4 - Check in 14

Good morning Wednesday, how on earth did you get here? I nearly missed prepping my check in post.

I'm getting more and more behind on visiting your blogs. Sunday ended up being a bit of a sleepathon again. In happier news I have 3 days off work coming up, a long weekend which will be given over to studying.

Goalwise, *refers to the task manager*

On Sunday, I finished heading up all my location sheets for the novel. I have over 30 locations and journeys to fill in with the cold hard details. Novel and pretty much everything else is being put on hold now while I concentrate on studying.

• I caught up on 3 of my poem a days
• Wrote in my writers journal for studies
• Plugged some more poem data into the database
• Read another writing related article, can't remember what now.

On Monday:

• Wrote in the journal again
• Wrote a poem a day, still behind on a few, will catch up on my break.
• Did yoga - decided to cut back to every 2 days until I have one less project whipping around my head.

On Tuesday:

• Began the 4th project for studies and somehow lost an hour.

I took a leaf out of Sharon Howard's book and dropped into my course forums and am now part of an email group with fellow students. So I don't feel like the only student in the world and it's been nice learning about other's experiences on the course. I'm also starting to figure my attitude and approach to writing and realised that there's this one huge area where I have a shortfalling, so that needs work. It's the same reason I'm detailing all the locations in the novel as well.

I've put up a good fight so far during November but it's time to admit I took way too much on. So I'm narrowing my immediate focus back down to studying, I need this next assignment done before feedback comes back on my last one.

Hope you're all doing great.

ROw80 - Round 4 - Check in 13

Just a quick update from me.

I finished and submitted my 4th Assignment last Wednesday, being excited that I had extra time on my hands I came home from work Thursday night and fell straight into bed. So Thursday and Friday I didn't get much done as I was feeling pretty run down.

I've missed a couple of the poem a day prompts, been missing yoga this week as well. Oops.

I made up on reading though and have headed up more of the novel's locations sheets, one more evening on this and I should have them all set up and ready to be filled in, added more developmental notes to the file as well.

In other news, I added my blog to technorati and set myself up on google+.

Also have two blog posts scheduled for the week. Still feeling a bit dazed as to where the week went. Need to have a goal review methinks.

Hope everyone else is doing well.

Row80 - Round 4 - Check in 12

As tomorrow is Remembrance Sunday, I decided to check in today as I have written a poem to go up tomorrow. I'm back moving forward with goals.

Yoga'd twice since wednesday.

Back to reading regularly, studying is going slower than I would like, I'm hoping to have the current assignment done by Wednesday.

For the most part I'm keeping up with daily journalling as part of my second module. There's something inspiring about writers who have kept journals for decades.

I've also been making notes on the novel and the novella. Started heading up my location sheets but haven't filled in any details yet. Keep finding more and more areas to research, is there no end?

I've missed 2 prompts on poem a day but enjoying the challenge and will catch up at some point on the 2 prompts.

I've been reading Write Good or Die ed. by Scott Nicholson which again is inspiring and has me thinking about my attitude towards writing and my perspective. Also hoping to knuckle down and clear my current reading pile soon so I can concentrate on the study books.

Have a great weekend

Row80 - Round 4 - Check in 11

Going to make this check in short. Did well on Sunday and worked on both study modules, did my reading and yoga and kept up with poem a day.

Monday and Tuesday - nada, zilch, zip

*Shrugs*

I'll climb back on the many wagons today.

Visit the other ROW80ers below:

Row80 - Round 4 - Check in 10

I'm on creative fire and the muse continues to douse me in petrol, she is so demanding. I got carried away and raised the stakes even higher. I decided to get on with my novella in waiting seeing as I'm still tied up on the re-planning of the novel but after looking at my notes I remembered there were some researchy bits to do before diving into a first draft. It's crazy, I give up trying to understand the muse, the more I try and concentrate on poetry the more I get pulled towards fiction and vice versa.

Revised goals in no particular order:

Keep up with daily writers journal for second module
keep up with yoga
Complete assignment 4 for 1st module
Keep up with poem a day
Read other writers journals for second module.
Start reading The Creative Writing Course Book for second module.
Begin typing up location sheets for novel
read and critique at least one poem a week for poetry module
Continue with the necessary prep work for novella
read one writing related article a week
Read one poetry related article a week

Daily journal: Kept for 5 out of 7 days
Yoga : Twice since last check in and had to cut yesterdays session short because I really struggled with it. Nonetheless I noticed a significant physical improvement on Wednesday night and minds focused as soon as I inhale.

Assignment 4: Half way through, taking longer than expected, should be finished by next weekend but will be missing tomorrow's deadline.

Poem a day - 4 out of 5 poems written. Still need to do day 3's one, had me stumped and not had a chance to get back to it. Even scribbled down a couple of extra poems.

Reading through the Kindle sample of Diary of a Disappointed Man and have another 5 required reading books on order. 2 journals, one poetry antho and 2 creative writing books.

Read and critique one poem - Did half today, will finish up tomorrow.

Location sheets for novel - I printed out the spreadsheet in preparation for beginning this.

read one writing related article - Think I read a couple.

In addition I typed up my post on task managers which is scheduled to go up tomorrow. Did more updating on my poetry tracker software and some other writing admin tasks. The day job is starting to look like a holiday.

When this month's over, I'm buying a bottle of champagne.

Thanks for keeping me going everyone:

Row80 - Round 4 - Check in 9

Not really sure how it came to be November, the perpetual darkness is hanging over the country and it's starting to smell like winter, summer's going to be a long time coming. Goal wise I'm muddling through.

Yoga's on track although I did miss a day. Readings on track.

The big woohoo: I've finished filling in the timeline data for my novel. YAY. Spreadsheet complete, next up start typing up my location details.

Poem A Day begun yesterday and I'm on track. I was in the mood for ghosts so have decided to try and incorporate a supernatural theme into all the prompts. I've decided not to post the poems online this time but I'm sure a couple of them will sneak up here in the new year.

Studying is slightly behind as I decided to take Monday night off and recharge for November madness. I've been keeping a daily journal for my second module and did some prep work on dream recall in preparation for the first exercise and have a huge list of books to purchase. For my poetry module I'm not as far along on the current assignment as I would like to be. If I pull out all the stops I should still have it handed in by Monday and then it's one more assignment to the finish line.

I'll be reviewing and adding revised goals on Sunday's check in.

Hop around the linky with plenty of caffeine on standby for the nanowrimoist's and general row80ers;

Row80 - Round 4 - Check in 8

It's the last check in before November madness kicks in. For those of you doing Nanowrimo, best of luck. I will be doing the more civilised Poem A Day hosted by Robert Lee Brewer. If it's anything like last year, I'll be kicking up all sorts of dust along memory lane, writing some doggerel and hopefully some gems. I like to think of it as yoga postures for the muse.

Speaking of which, yoga's back on track, only missed one day I shouldn't have and I'm now keeping my yoga journal in the same notepad as my writers journal. I thought it might be a good way to see how yoga feeds the muse and it's more practical to keep everything in one place rather than trying to remember what journal's for what. I can always type everything up onto the computer if I need to separate them.

Thanks to my task manager refusing to let neglected tasks fall to the bottom of the screen, I finally chose a poem "Living" by Denise Lervetov to read and analyse and have added the notes to my writers journal as well as transferring it onto my learning blog. I love the simplicity and use of colour in the piece.

I finished the rewrite of one of six poems for my current assignment, typed up a commentary of my working outs. I think it went through about 6 drafts before I was fairly happy with it.

Also studying wise, I received my new course materials and fired of my student profile to my new tutor. Hoping to get some time in today to read through the requirements and make notes this time. Honestly, I'm useless when it comes to note making. I'm also feeling weird about embracing short fiction again but it's the nature of the education system to focus on short stories rather than teaching novel's right off. Hopefully I'll get some stories that are slushpileable out of it.

I finished reading and reviewed The Road by Cormac McCarthy which is scheduled to hit the blog this coming Thursday.

I'm still updating databases, read another writing related article and have been neglecting the novel's spreadsheet. Ahh, there's always something that doesn't get done.

I must admit I'm starting to get used to all this juggling, I'm toying with the idea of writing up a blog post on the benefits of using task managers but have no idea when I'll fit it in at the moment.

Hope you're all having a great weekend.

Row80 - Round 4 - Check in 7

Is it just my imagination or are these check in's coming around quicker every week?

Hmmm, not entirely sure what I've done since last check in. Oh wait, I know.

I got back on track with yoga even though I'm still feeling run down. Although I'd missed it for a week, I was quite pleased that my fitness levels hadn't taken a step backwards and I'd forgot how chilled it was making me feel.

I haven't touched the novels spreadsheet in a while. Thinking of going back to devoting one night a week to the novel.

I've begun the rewrites for my 4th assignment and it's turned out tougher than I expected. Trying to nail poetic form and getting my line breaks in order is proving tricky with that particular poem. After reading C. M. Cipriani's post on comfort zones, I went and signed up for my 2nd module. So I'll be juggling the two for a couple of months but in theory I have time off work in November and again at xmas so I can dig myself out of a hole if I need to. Also, it should shave a bit of time off my overall degree. I'd like to complete it this side of 40. :-P

I've decided to do Novpad again this year. I miss writing new stuff and the prompts last year generally came through during my lunch break. So that shouldn't bog me down too much in my evenings and I can test my study skills when it comes time to rewrite them all.

Reading wise, I'm about a third of the way through Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

I got round to reading a writing related article as well over on writer's digest, it was about using freewriting as a way to develop a draft which I can actually see me putting into practice when I'm at that stage with the novel.

Hope everyone's doing well.

Row80 - Round 4 - Check in 6

Ok I think it's time for a goal recap before October runs away with me:


My original goals were set out below:


1) Keep up with my 6x week yoga routine
2) Continue with studies
3) Complete spreadsheet data for novel in progress
4) Keep up with my daily ghost themed blog postings throughout October
5) Get up to date with backlog of poetry rewrites
6) Start submitting poems to the markets by the end of the year
7) Overhaul my website by the end of the year. I might save this for the christmas break seeing as I'll be off work for two weeks.
8) Write at least one new poem a week (may start this once October's out of the way and my blog schedule isn't so intensive)
9) Read and critique at least one poem a week
10) Get back in the reading habit.


Goal 4 got abandoned after my internet shenanigans.
Goal 7 I'm dropping as my xmas break will be after round 4 ends.


As for the others


Haven't done yoga for a week now so definitely starting again today. Been feeling not right since Thursday and had 2 nights where I was waking up every hour. I might just be run down.


Progress over all has been slow since last check in. For studying I still need to crack on with the assignment, I did start going over my feedback from previous assignments and typing up a master document. So hopefully I'll have a bit of a guide to refer to for future rewrites.


So far this round, the spreadsheet has progressed from Chapter 5 to chapter 14. Also noticed a few plot holes and  been making relevant notes in the edits file.


Rewriting poetry is still hit and miss, I unexpectedly did a rewrite yesterday afternoon and have placed it with two others into a folder to be reworked and hopefully subbed out. Ideally, I would like to see what's salvageable from my old work and maybe put a collection together.


I've submitted a few poems this round to one market, hopefully I can get into a regular vibe with this now.


I wrote about 4 new poems so far this round. All shorties.


I'm back to reading, I finished Creative Spirit and have now started The Road. Also read a chunk of a poetry pdf I'd forgotten I'd downloaded. So far this round huge fail on the critiquing at least one poem a week.


Overall, I'm on track with most of my goals but moving slower than I would like.

Row80 - Round 4 - Check in 5

I've donned my camoflaged suit, grabbed my torch and been delving through the unknown depths of my hard drive and neatening up the folders and sub folders of poetry and ebooks and I have no idea what else. I've deleted around 6000 redundant files and software since Sunday. Added the data for around 9 poems into my story tracker software .

Yoga'd on Sunday, missed it on Monday because I was lost in my hard drive and now I won't be getting back to it til Thursrday.

Studying: Also took a detour on Sunday when I started rounding up all my files to prepare my assessment folder and I have decided which 6 poems to rewrite for my current assignment so I'll be cracking on with that.

Reading: back to reading on my lunch break and am now down to the last 10% of the current book I'm reading, hopefully I'll have the review scheduled to go up on Thursday.

Novel: Timeline data is plugged into the spreadsheet all the way up to chapter 11. Working on this when I've not done much on the important stuff in an evening is really moving this along. I'm passing the halfway point and the spreadsheet will be complete. Then a girls gotta tackle all her location details and characters sheets again, maybe I'll dawdle along on the spreadsheet a bit longer.

I'm starting to feel like Little Miss Productivity

Keep plugging away and if you've fallen off the wagon, climb back on.

ROW80 - Round 4 - Check in 3

After doing well over the weekend, I've hit the mid week slump. I can't quite get back into the reading habit. I've decided that if I'm going to do nothing else in an evening I'll at least fill in part of my novel's timeline into the spreadsheet. I've now added chapter 7, so far the timeline appears pretty stable but I'm inching towards the messy middle part of the story so we'll see.

Yoga's going well, I can actually follow my routine from memory now without having to look at the reference materials between each posture. I'm hoping to gradually start increasing my weekend sessions up to an hour.

On Saturday, I'm not expecting to get much goalage done as I'm attending a one day poetry reading workshop south of the river, should be fun and inspiring and with the invention of google maps I shouldn't actually get lost.

How's everyone else doing?

ROW80 - Round 4 - Check In 1

The first check in has rolled round, how did you all do?

I've scheduled all bar one of the blog posts needed for my writing prompt week. Then from Friday I'll be scheduling next weeks themed posts on haunted locations around the Uk. For now, I can have a night off blogging.

I'm still sticking to my 20 minutes a day yoga routine. It's certainly helping physically and mentally although I still get a bit wobbly.

Studying will definitly be tackled tonight.

I've filled in a further 2 chapters of timeline data into the novel's spreadsheet. Still 17 chapters to go.

I'm also transferring my to do lists into a new task manager that let's me set frequency and due dates and group by project. So hopefully by Sunday I'll have slots figured out for all the goals that I haven't got round to yet.

RoW80 - Round 3 - The Final Check in

Woohoo, it's the final check in and I'm still standing.

So what did I do? I completed my initial good reads reading challenge of 12 books and increased it to 17 books for the year. I'm about half a book away from meeting that goal.

I think I wrote at least 10 new poems this round maybe more. Without digging through the jungle of files on my hard drive I won't know the exact figures.

Completed about 80% of the spreadsheet data for my novel in progress.

Started a semi regular deep breathing exercise which grew into a regular yoga routine.

I committed to studying for a BA in creative writing.

As always during ROW80 the support and motivation from the community has been fantastic, hopefully I'll put that motivation to better use next round. My goals for round 4 will be the same as for round 3 but with the added goal of catching up on poetry rewrites. I need to start getting this stuff subbed out.

Hope to see you all in October.

RoW80 - Round 3 - Check in 13

All goals apart from my exercise goal have stalled. I've kept to the yoga routine every day since last check in, added in a new move, increased the level on an existing one and modified another posture to an easier version so I'll see how that goes for the next week. I've noticed that some of the stiffness has gone from across my neck and shoulder's.

I'll get back on top of studying today and hopefully figure out a bit more of the novel's timeline.

It's the final few days of Round 3, thanks to everyone whose stopped by the blog throughout this round. I hope you've all found much success with your writing.

ROW80 - Round 3 - Check in 11

Going to restate my goals here as I've still been slacking since getting back from holiday. Internet's still being tempermental, went down on me while I was updating the learning blog for my course and it's pretty much thrown 750 words out the window.

1) Keep up with studies
2) Read fiction/ poetry most days of the week
3) 5 minutes of pranayama at least 5 times a week
4) Write, rewrite and analyse one new poem a week (scheduled for Wednesday nights.)
5) Read one fiction writing related article at least once a week.
6) Continue with prep work for the 2nd draft of a novel.


Goal 1 - I did get all my coursework together and read some more of Ruth Padel's 52 ways of looking at a poem. I 've decided to go for a full BA in Creative Writing now and my assessment won't be til July, with 2 assignments still to go and the way I fall off wagons I think aiming for the March assessment will be cutting it fine. 
Goal 2 - Did read a chunk of Scott Nicholson's creative Spirit on Saturday while I had the dog glued to my lap for a couple of hours. 


Goal 3 - Every day for 4 days and added in a couple of yoga postures. Will add on more yoga once I've got used to the current exercises.


Goals 4 and 5, nothing on those


Goal 6 - I haven't even looked at the novel. I've switched the desktop computer over to my weak strength 3G network so if I get caught up on internet stuff today, I'll try and plug out the novel's timeline this evening and maybe do 750 words assuming the 3G isn't tediously slow.


For anyone else interested in doing a creative writing BA in home study, I'm studying with the Open College of the Arts

See the rest of the crew here: