FebNoWriMo 2019 - Hold On

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the February version of our monthly goals thread!

For those new to the thread, many of us participate in the annual NaNoWriMo festivities as well as the twice-yearly Camp NaNo - but that's not a prerequisite to join in. All are welcome to state their goals for the month: writing goals, reading goals, personal goals of all kinds. The writer's road can be a lonely one, but we're here to encourage, commiserate and cheer.

I'll start us off with my goals. I had a very successful January (after months of falling short) by making my goals small daily/weekly bites instead of giant over-arching ones. I'm feeling pretty good about that and will continue the pattern in February. My first two goals are unresolved ones from last month - the ball in each case is in others' courts at present, but I'm hoping there'll be some action soon so I can move forward on getting my series back out in circulation.

I'm doing a little something extra this month: participating in InCoWriMo, something that our fearless AW Admin started a thread about. Thanks to social media, it's easy to blast our thoughts and opinions out to the world at large, but making one-on-one, personal contact seems to be a dying art. I'd like to get more of that going from my end, at least - plus I think it'll be fun.

How about you? What are your plans for February?

[ ] Decide what to do with the first four novels of my series (depending on what happens with agent submissions from last month)
[ ] Crowbar final royalty payment from 2018 from my deadbeat publisher
[ ] Write 100 words a day[ ] Read three books
[ ] Continue reading one short story a week
[ ] Get 30 minutes of exercise every day[ ] Hand-write and mail 1 postcard/note/letter per day, as part of InCoWriMo (if any of you would like to be a recipient, PM me with your address)

Kjbartolotta said:

Yay!

Gonna sit out InCoWriMo for legibility reasons, though it's a wonderful idea (and I know a lot of the young zine kids who do things like this, some of the presentation they put into it is spectacular).

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I have a Chinese friend that sends out handmade New Year's cards every year, and hers are spectacular as well. I doubt I'll have the time and energy to produce notes as wonderful as hers, but it's the personal touch rather than the execution that matters.

Ugh, sorry about your cold, Jaymz. Hope you feel better soon.

Bunch of good goals for February here - go go go everyone!

We're only three days into the month, but I thought I'd update since we're technically at the end of the first week.

Got a turn-down on one of the three submissions my agent made back in December; she's still waiting for word on the other two, and announced that she was gearing up for another round of submissions. As some of you know, the rights to my epic fantasy series reverted to me in December (followed shortly thereafter by my publisher tanking), and I am concerned about losing what little readership I have if the series remains in limbo. When I first started the reversion process in September, my agency asked for the opportunity to try to find a home for the series, but didn't start actively looking until after the actual December reversion. I have no confidence my agent has the chops or the contacts in the genre to find a reasonable home for my series (and that's a whole 'nother story), so I emailed the CEO of the agency Thursday to let him know that I while I was willing to give them another week or two to get responses on the outstanding submissions, I did not want my agent to make any further submissions as I was planning to self-publish if the two outstanding submissions are rejected (which I fully expect to happen). The CEO didn't respond, so I'm waiting for that other shoe to drop. He had already contacted my former publisher - twice - regarding the January 31st deadline for payment of my royalties for the final quarter of 2018, but got no response from her. So...I've ticked off the first item on my list, and am in a holding pattern on the second. Meantime, I'm on schedule with my other goals.

[x] Decide what to do with the first four novels of my series (depending on what happens with agent submissions from last month)
[ ] Crowbar final royalty payment from 2018 from my deadbeat publisher
[ ] Write 100 words a day[ ] Read three books
[ ] Continue reading one short story a week
[ ] Get 30 minutes of exercise every day[ ] Hand-write and mail 1 postcard/note/letter per day, as part of InCoWriMo (if any of you would like to be a recipient, PM me with your address)

I do the same, bdwilson - although I always update on Saturdays.

How are you liking the Atwood class?

Here we are the end of the first full week of February, and I'm already slipping a bit on my goals. I expected this would happen to a degree, as I'm visiting my mother in Tennessee for her birthday and there is a lot of family stuff going on that is taking up most of my time, but yesterday my father-in-law passed away so as soon as I get back home I'll have to turn around and head north with my husband for whatever funeral arrangements have been made. I'm not going to beat myself up about it, but I'd hoped to do better.

I pulled the trigger on my agent and let her know I wasn't interested in her pursuing further submissions, so I will definitely be re-publishing the first four books of my series under my own imprint. I think my agency is going to make one more effort to get my 4th quarter 2018 royalties from my former publisher, but she has not responded to their previous two requests, nor to my personal appeal, so I think I can write off ever getting the balance of what I'm owed. So I'm crossing that off my list.

I finished two books this week - The Urban Bestiary and Congratulations, By the Way. The latter was so short that I'm not counting it again my goal books for the month. I've stayed on schedule with my m/s writing and short story reading, but not with the InCoWriMo writing (although I'm not far behind), nor with the exercise goals.


[x] Decide what to do with the first four novels of my series (depending on what happens with agent submissions from last month)
[x] Crowbar final royalty payment from 2018 from my deadbeat publisher
[ ] Write 100 words a day[ ] Read three books 1 of 3
[ ] Continue reading one short story a week
[ ] Get 30 minutes of exercise every day[ ] Hand-write and mail 1 postcard/note/letter per day, as part of InCoWriMo (if any of you would like to be a recipient, PM me with your address)

Thanks, bdwilson (and to the others who PM'd me). My FIL has been in care with dementia for years, so this wasn't entirely unexpected nor without a certain sense of relief. He was so unhappy and confused. We're headed up Friday for the funeral Saturday.