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:

Book Review - The Road by Cormac McCarthy

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Picador; 3 edition (14 Dec 2009)
• Language English
• ISBN-10: 0330468464
• ISBN-13: 978-0330468466

Book Review - The Road by Cormac McCarthy

The book takes us to "post-apocalyptic" America. The disaster which happened long ago is never explained in the book, left in its wake is a burnt smouldering world. The two main characters are father and son and we are never given their names. The book paints an extremely bleak picture of a nameless, faceless world. Even the father son relationship is stripped down to its bare essentials. I really enjoyed it.

Rating 4/5

Visit The Official Website for the Cormac Mccarthy Society for more about the author

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.

Book Review - Creative Spirit by Scott Nicholson

Book Review - Creative Spirit

Thoroughly enjoyed reading this, the characters were well developed with their own motivations and personal conflicts. Plenty of action and plot twists.

Rating: 4/5

• Format: Kindle Edition
• Publisher: Haunted Computer Books (15 Aug 2010)
• Language English
• ASIN: B003ZSHPJS

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.

My Top 5 Favourite Blogs

My top 5 favourite blogs in no particular order are:

Ghost Hunting Theories - Run by Autumn Forest. Always great fun and worth keeping an eye on for paranormal research and theories.

Spooky Reads - Great UK based blog for horror book reviews and occasional author interviews.

Poetic Asides - Run by Robert Lee Brewer. The poet's best friend, covers rules for many poetic forms, weekly prompts and yearly challenges.

Writer Beware Blogs - Anyone who exists to warn writers about publishing scams is ok in my book

A Round of Words in 80 Days - Run by Kait Nolan. Excellent motivational community of writers, keeps me firmly aboard the writing wagon.

So what are some of your favourite blogs?

Other Top 5's
Stephen King Books
Ghost Stories
Poems