March goals and JHS

Way to go Raven you work so hard chica!
Ink/Raven - thanks. I am feeling better. Good enough to write a post ahead of schedule for The Freshman Writer and coming up with more ideas for my parenting site. I also want to apply (again) to about.com for a topic that's right up my alley since its related to my day job. Yay!
Other than catching up with plurk and twitter, I've caught up with Moms like me and want to flesh out more stuff for this month. This ahead of time stuff really works. lol

I forgot that I have really good news... The Freshman Writer has had over 1,000 hits. Yay!!!!! Now to get my portfolio hits even.

Another celebration, I JHS to about.com again! Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Lets see here. Need to get going this morning so won't do individual hugs, cause everybody gets 'em either condolance hugs for not feeling well, or stuff not going great and congratulations hugs for successes. Not to mention hugs to those who haven't been here in a while. So everyone consider yourself hugged.

As for me, I did NOT get a query out. I did NOT send my book proposal out. I did Not get either of my blogs updated as planned. I did not get as many stories written for DEVOTED as I needed.

But, I did update both of them and almost got on a roll with the scholarship blog. I did remember to comment on someone's blog everytime I blogged. I did attend a writing class and actually eked out a 200 word memoir on time. I did write a couple of stories for DEVOTED. And my first ever magazine published article is coming out next month with a short bio. Yay!

Now on to April. Most of my goals will probably carry over. I'm going to get them done. Honest I am. Sooner or later. But, the goal will be to get them done in April.

Post up on my scholarship blog, 5 tips for scholarship success, here.

Skyraven said:

Nothing doing for me this weekend as I've been knocked out with a cold. Just trying to keep up at this point and get my strength back. Having chicken soup and lemon tea.

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Hope ya feel better soon Skyraven. Hot herbal tea works wonders for me.

Feel better soon.

Sounds like everyone did real well in March. Kudos to you all! As for me, I'm just wishing there could've had about 20 more days in this month, oh well.... Congrats everyone on what sounds like a pretty productive month for all...

afternoon all. Another crazy day. Not as far as I would have liked by this time. received word back from the gal at equus, she'll let me know on the query as soon as she hears back from the editor. They've had lots of staff reduction but at least she didnt' tell me they've taken everything in house - yet!

is anyone else not looking forward to tomorrow? Hubby pulls pranks on the whole town ... so embrassassing!

Now on to April. Most of my goals will probably carry over. I'm going to get them done. Honest I am. Sooner or later. But, the goal will be to get them done in April.

Post up on my scholarship blog, 5 tips for scholarship success, here.[/quote]

When is your scholarshop book due for release? Mine is coming out in November; maybe be can do cross publicity? Who's your publisher?

March was an... odd... month and I have several carry-over goals/assignments. But financially I had my best month of 2009 so far. (Hopefully only 'so far' and I haven't peaked yet. LOL

I actually have four assignments all due very shortly. I set my autoresponder on my email early (I leave Friday for my working vacation). I didn't blog as much as I wanted to, but only because I was working on paying assignments. I feel like the blog *could* make me a lot of money if I get my writer's course going but, as always, I don't want to take time away from 'sure things.'

Oh! I sent an edited sample to DS because I applied for a copyeditor job. DOH. They are still processing my app. The tone of the email really turned me off, to be honest. That whole "you are just a name/number/email address" tone of it... I thrive on personal relationships ... I don't need handholding, but I need to form relationships with clients. I also don't do well w/ too much structure where everyone is treated the same--because everyone is not the same. Besides 6 weeks to hear back is pretty crazy.

Dawn

Are we going to post an April Goals and JHS? If so, I've got some goals! I was too late to post them here in the March one....

Whew. I've been crazy busy the last few days writing web programming stuff and haven't had time to stop by. But I have to say, I've read more than a few "gee, I didn't finish my goals this month, but NEXT month, I'll do them FOR SURE."

Come on writers, write!

I have a mild suggestion for those who have trouble meeting goals, and this might be cheating a little, but I like it: Set a number of different types of goals. Set some really high, and set one or two a little low. Then, once you reach those little goals, you'll find reaching those higher goals even faster!

As for me, March was my best month yet for writing income, I'm happy to say. Now if I throw in my earnings from web programming too, I'd have a hard time beating that in April. I still have one more day of working on the web programming, and one more day yet before I have to post goals for April, so I'm back to work!

Scriptor - thanks I've been drinkin tea and am eating well. I was still feeling chilled today so I didn't drink much water, but had some gingerale today. Other than that, I went to work and concentrated on the day job. I'll be going to bed early today so that I can get some rest and not be so foggy in the brain like I was today.

Jen, congrats on the co-mod! That's great! After the fracas a few days ago, I think it's a good decision.

Dawn, I received my DS nod about three weeks after I applied, and then I couldn't find anything on the apply board that I could write! I mean, really, if you can make a Guitar Hero guitar from scratch, you have more skills than you need. There are some really out-there article listings on DS. But congrats on the high-paying score for clients!

I've been working on my book proposal, trying to get the sample chapters ready. Does anyone else get really jazzed about their project just from working on the proposal?

Hey, everyone! Here's the summary of my March goals and where I ended up:

1. Post to the blog weekly, plus write 4 extra posts to keep in the hopper. (done)
2. Write and upload 6 new pages of content for the website. (wrote and uploaded 5 pages)
3. Submit 4 personal essays for publication. (submitted 2)
4. Explore Demand Studios and Associated Content, and make a decision about whether to pursue those or not. (joined AC, 6 articles published; decided to hold off on DS)

So I guess the results are mixed. I'm happy with my progress on the website; even though I was 1 page short of my goal, I feel like the site is in a good place for me to leave it alone for a bit while I concentrate on other goals. I've picked up some momentum on the blog, and I'm seeing some traffic come in as a result. I need to do better on the personal essays, so that will be a major goal for April. And I'm happy with how AC is going so far. I know I won't get rich off of it, but I figure it's an easy way to get more experience in SEO writing for a few bucks here and there. I decided not to sign up for DS right now, because I'm not sure I have much interest in the kind of "how-to" writing they're looking for. So I'd say that overall for me, March was a pretty good month of getting my feet wet and laying the groundwork for more writing in the future.

Here's to a productive April for all of us!

March was a nightmare on many levels for me, so I'm going to pretend this month never happened . . . didn't exist . . . there is no March 2009 for Jenn Hollowell!! I'm in the midst of writing out my OCD to-do list for April, though, and I am confident I will not have to pretend this month does not exist.

Here's my March wrap-up.

• Query $80/day with NO carry-overs. - DONE
• Submit TutorialBlog.org articles every Monday and invoice them every Friday (2 articles due 3/9) - DONE
• Send 3 book-related submissions to agents/publishers. - Sent 1
• Update all blogs at least 3x a week. - Not done
• 2 Bukisa articles a week - Not done
• 2 eHow articles a week - Not done, but I did add some
• Daily entries on Refilling the Well - DONE until I decided to shut it down
• Finish and submit article for Writers' Journal - DONE (article went out yesterday afternoon)
• Expand submissions to include national magazines since I want to get into at least one this year - DONE w/2 queries sent
• Update my websites. - Partially done. Updated 2 pages on jenifernipps.com, but didn't touch Creative Tips
• Make it to the next round of judging in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest (as if I have any control over that; I'll hear by 3/16, I think) - Didn't make it

wrap up for my march goals ...

ravenlea said:

Query three times a week - sent 7 out of a possible 12
Send out five short stories this month - managed to send 7
Re-Beta Blood Sisters and find out what I'm missing - had two people look it over for me, onto the rewrites (again!)
Finish Unnamed WIP (I'm so close!) - done!
Blog three times a week -done !
Break into a hunting magazine - not even close
Put up at least three Examiner articles each week - started off good, but fizzled at the end
Claim at least five Demand Studio articles each week - claimed about three per week

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all in all, not too bad. here's looking to a better April!