Facebook Promotion Payoff and a #ROW80 Update!

Adopting a Napoleonesque pose
at the Marine Corps Ball

A busy week gone by, and the little checklists have so far paid dubious dividends… Even the simple things, like “Drink 2 liters of water” are going undone, often as not. Of course, it was an odd week, what with an impromptu send-off party for a fellow officer headed to Afghanistan and my squadron’s Marine Corps Birthday Ball on Thursday night, but even so!

That said, I did get a good bit of writing done, so salvaged that end of things… I also did a little experiment, putting $5.00 of promotional money toward the Facebook post on Chapter 34 of The Perfidious Mister Wickham… The result? So far, with only about $2.50 spent, over 1000 people have seen the Facebook post, and over 100 have visited the book page – an all-time high!

With the book running an estimated 45-50 chapters, about $50 should theoretically bring in quite a lot of potential readers and future customers. Worth the price of admission? I think so, but does anyone else have experience with this feature on Facebook?

WRITING

- Posted Chapter 34 of The Perfidious Mister Wickham…

- Posted this ROW80 Update!

- Put up a new post on my GypsyDangerously blog…

- Wrote most of Chapter 35 of The Perfidious Mister Wickham.

- Wrote about a third of a non-fiction piece for Foreign Affairs.

FITNESS

- Attended yoga class on Saturday

- Tracked down a local rugby club to play for.

NEW ECONOMIC

- Well, old economic – put in an offer on a pair of little rental condos in Hilton Head!

- Reduce my personal carbon footprint – I got the electric motor and battery for my little dinghy, and took her out for a spin – read the wholestory here!

So, another somewhat useful week, but lots to do still – will put the little checklists to the test this coming week, where my big goal is to get Ho B-52 published and promoted!

Wish me luck!

Edward

Sunday ROW80 Update - Goals!

Thanks to everyone (Steph, Shan, and Gloria) who made suggestions on my last post regarding their approaches to setting goals...

I shall indeed plan to build on my past success (French, physical fitness) and work on areas where I didn't do so well last time around.

But, as usual, I'm going to build my goal set in a format that should appear familiar to anyone who's followed my past ROW80 adventures.

WRITING

- Post one Chapter of The Perfidious Mister Wickham each week.

- Post at least one ROW80 update

- Post at least once on my GypsyDangerously blog

- Finish The Artillerists (short story)

- Finish Ho B-52 (short story)

- Finish Merry Christmas, Mister Washington (short story)

PUBLISHING

- Publish Ho B-52 (short story)

- Start the Parasol Books imprint

FITNESS

- Run two 5K races

- One yoga class per week (flexibility)

LANGUAGE

- Teach French for 2 hours per week

- Teach Indonesian for 2 hours per week

SOCIAL

- Begin dating

- Go on 5 “bucket list” adventures

NETWORKING

- Spend 5 hour per week on Social Media (Twitter, FB, blogs, etc...)

- Join Lowcountry RWA

NEW ECONOMIC

- Join Air B&B

- Reduce my personal carbon footprint

It's an interesting set of goals, for an interesting time. So, I do hope you'll join me here occasionally to see how I progress through the next few months, as winter comes to the Lowcountry and my cozy little boat rocks gently at her moorings.

A Return to the ROW...

Thanks, Yoda... I'll get right on that!

When one is a writer, one is obliged to do certain things, one of them being to write.

This can be somewhat troubling at the end of a 15-hour workday in a week where that has been, in fact, one of the shorter days - when you come home to a boat that is simply a wreck (figuratively speaking) with company due to arrive in 48 hours, and still laboring under the malaise that results from a once-a-year cold...

Thank Goddess for a Round of Words!

And thank Goddess for calendars, which are an apparently recent invention which, properly utilized, might actually have resulted in my beginning this Round on the 7th along with everyone else, rather than fashionably late as I am doing today.

So, ahem, with little further ado, my goals. Actually, a glass of wine, and then the goals. Ah, better.

Actually, I believe I shall start this ROW with a recap of my previous round, since it has been just a while since last I wrote a ROW80 post - June 9th, to be precise, and it is already October. So, I've been away for a whole Round, (four months to the day) and what did I get done?

Well, not too much, and then again, a bit... I returned home from Afghanistan, took on a new and challenging job leading a little over 100 Marines, flew to Europe to visit my dear sister Kaiti in Geneva, bought a boat on which to live, (you can read all about my adventures in the life aquatic on my new blog www.gypsydangerously.blogspot.com) celebrated a 40th birthday aboard a cruise ship surrounded by nearly all of my 8 sisters and 3 brothers, met my new niece, Astrid, and received the following note from the editor of a distinguished military journal to which I had submitted an article:

Thank you for submitting your article on the Marine Corps’ Diversity Taskforce.  I have one question.  Are your really proposing that the Marine Corps resemble the gender demographic of the United States and be composed of 50% women?  Or is this a thinly veiled satire in the vein of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal?” 

To which, of course, I quickly replied:

While I am no stranger to satire and appreciate the comparison to Swift's masterpiece, the observation that the Corps would be different and improved if the demographics of female Marines more accurately reflected that of the general population was quite serious, etc, etc...

Apparently this answer satisfied the editor, (a retired Colonel) who observed that he enjoyed printing "contrarian views" and looked forward to seeing what sort of comments the article elicited from my contemporaries and seniors. I shall know next month, I am told...

But, back to last Round's goals... On the literary front, I was supposed to post one chapter of The Perfidious Mister Wickham each week, write a chapter of my Learning Indonesian book each week, and finish three short stories; The Artillerists, Merry Christmas, Mister Washington, and Ho B-52.

I was supposed to start a publishing imprint (Parasol Books), publish a collection of short stories, increase my strength and decrease my bodyfat, and study French for five hours a week, all the while improving my social networking.

Well.

I did get proficient enough in French to get paid for it by the military, and I did manage to put out a weekly update to The Perfidious Mister Wickham. I accomplished nothing with the Learning Indonesian book, and similarly made little progress with finishing any of my short stories.

Fitness goals were met, social media goals, not so much.

Which leaves me to contemplate what I should strive for in the next 78 days...

Suggestions?

Another #ROW80 Check-in from the Desert!

One of the several types of
aircraft we support here...

So, my Wednesday check-ins are proving challenging, which is perhaps a good reason to make more of an effort at doing them… 

My “battle-rhythm” here has my workload heavily weighted to Monday-Friday (even though we work 7 days a week, at least 12 hours a day…) But the two classes I teach, the squadron newsletter which I edit, and most of my other recurring tasks occur earlier in the week, so this week when Wednesday came around, I found I had very little to report…

By the end of the week, though, I’d paid the flood insurance on one of my houses, and goten a little information on another investment property that I’m interested in… I also had run 13 miles, including a 5K race which I finished in exactly 24 minutes (thus setting a baseline for future improvement!) I accomplished 5 solid workouts, and have been eating very healthy and drinking 3 liters of water a day…

Will work on getting better at spreading my various tasks throughout the week… C’est la vie!

I fell a bit short on a few of my target goals – didn’t get a chapter of the Learning Indonesian book written, but did get some other non-goal writing done… Also didn’t make any forward progress on the Parasol Books imprint, or do much in the way of networking, but overall, another generally successful week in most goal-specific areas:

WRITING
- Posted a new chapter of The Perfidious Mister Wickham - in which Wickham absconds to London with Lydia in tow!
- Completed most of a professional book review for the Air Force Research Institute… Will send it off next week…

PUBLISHING
- Put out the 11th issue of our Squadron newsletter – 6 pages of print & pictures!

FITNESS
- Added 5 lbs to my Bench Press…

- Bodyfat down by 1 percent – now at 15 percent… The goal is 9 percent!

LANGUAGE
- Completed my requisite 5 hours of language study, et ecrire un petit letre pour ma niece en Francais!

NETWORKING
- Still looking for 2 people to join my “Core Group” this week – anyone who does will get free books and advance copies of new material in exchange for reviews and critique… Are you interested? If so, leave a note here, or drop me a line directly to ehcarpenter@gmail.com

So, that’s it for my goals!

Another quiet week in Afghanistan – no rockets, no bombs, just a big windstorm and some heavy rain… So, no complaints!

I hope everyone has had a great week of writing, and I will try to do better about getting out and about and commenting on other people’s blogs…

Best regards!

Edward

Sunday Check-in from Camp Bastion...

Hmmm, you may be off to a rough start at ROW80 when you totally miss the first check-in, like I did on Wednesday! But, in my defense, I only missed it because I was so busy accomplishing all my weekly goals…

And it was an incentive for me to get my Sunday check-in done early, so here goes! A successful week in most areas:

WRITING
- Posted a new chapter of The Perfidious Mister Wickham - where we discover how Lydia and Wickham became intimately entangled…
- Wrote Chapter 2 of my Learning Indonesian book… The Indonesian alphabet!
- Did the last bit of research needed to finish up Ho B-52 .

PUBLISHING
- Did a little research into a logo and domain registration for the Parasol Books imprint.
- Brainstormed marketing ideas for the short story collection.

FITNESS
- Added 5 lbs to my Bench Press, which brought me up to 195 lbs, or 1.2 times my own bodyweight.
- Bodyfat actually went up this week, but I’m not worried, because the test for it is notoriously finicky, and I’m confident my diet/workout routines will get me where I want to be.

LANGUAGE
- Knocked my goal of 5 hours of training out of the park! Finished off the last part of an 80-hour training syllabus, and started in on another course. Je comprend l’Francais a peu plus bien maintenant!

NETWORKING
- Looking for 2 people to join my “Core Group” this week – anyone who does will get free books and advance copies of new material in exchange for reviews and critique… Are you interested? If so, leave a note here, or drop me a line directly to ehcarpenter@gmail.com

So, that’s it for my goals!

Otherwise, life goes on in the desert… A quiet week, which is always good when you live in a warzone! I hope everyone is having a similarly productive start to their ROW, and I shall look forward to perusing the results as part of my effort to expand my social networks.

Best regards!
Edward

#ROW80 - Starting Round 2 in Afghanistan!

Hello, fellow ROW'ers...

It's been a while (8 months, to be precise!) since my last ROW80 post - back then, I was in Germany, finishing up a 2-week long course in the Bavarian mountain town of Garmisch - now I'm writing from my latest home-away-from home at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan's Helmand Province.

That's life when your full-time job is as an officer of Marines, and writing is something you squeeze in where you can! Suffice to say that I've been very busy standing up a new unit and deploying with them half-way around the world - on top of that, I'm teaching a college class and a French class out here to help my fellow Marines and Soldiers advance their careers - so, why ROW80 on top of all that?

Simple! I really do need to get back to writing, and I've found that nothing is as good for maintaining accountability and progress on the literary front as weekly ROW80 check-ins!

So, here are my initial goals for this Round of Words...

WRITING
- Post one Chapter of The Perfidious Mister Wickham each week.
- Write one Chapter of my Learning Indonesian book each week.
- Finish The Artillerists (short story)
- Finish Merry Christmas, Mister Washington (short story)

- Finish Ho B-52 (short story)

PUBLISHING
- Publish a book of short stories
- Start the Parasol Books imprint

FITNESS
- Add 5 lbs per week to my Bench Press
- Drop 1/2 percent bodyfat each week

LANGUAGE
- Five hours of studying French per week

NETWORKING
- Work on establishing a better social media presence.
- Add 2 people to my "Core Group" each week.

A key difference in this round as opposed to previous iterations is that I have tried to tie the majority of my goals to weekly progress - rather than say, "I'm going to write 10 chapters" I've said "a chapter a week" - that gives me something to focus on and it's progress that can't be "put off" more than a few days. We shall see if that results in a more productive Round of Words this time.

Well, that's that! I wish you all a wonderful and productive Round Two, and look forward to popping in to your blogs to check out your progress as the Round progresses!

Best regards,
Edward

p.s. If you are a Jane Austen fan, I cordially invite you to take a peek at the prologue to The Perfidious Mister Wickham - not a continuation, nor an adaptation, this unique work looks at Mister Darcy, the Bennet family, and a wide array of late Georgian and early Regency historical and literary figures through the eyes of the eponymous scoundrel! See what wickedness Wickham was up to before he arrived in Meryton, how he seduced (or was seduced by) Lydia Bennet in Brighton, and what became of their scandalously patched-up marriage after their carriage rolled away from Longbourn.

A New Nephew (Circle of Life, Part Two) + #ROW80 Update

Among the other things that have been keeping me very busy lately, to balance out the sadness of losing one of my Marines, I have the joy of becoming an uncle (again!) to the lovely and very talented Kieran Andre Carpenter.

He's a snuggly little lump of joy, and I try to get up to Charleston at least for a day every weekend or so to take a turn carrying him around (he sleeps best when he's being held) and taking his 2-year-old brother out looking for worms, feeding geese, or on trips to the park and aquarium.

Now, on the writing/publishing front, the free release of A Matter of Honor went well - almost broke the 1000-copies-downloaded mark (994, so close!) - now it's back to releasing a chapter a week of The Perfidious Mister Wickham, and finishing up a handful of short stories.

A quick review of my ROW80 goals reveals:

 WRITING
- Write 10 Chapters of The Perfidious Mister Wickham - 90% complete!

PUBLISHING
- Publish A Matter of Honor - Complete!

ADMINISTRATION
- Create a Kickstarter Project to support The Perfidious Mister Wickham - Complete!

I've been making progress on both my fitness goals, but have fallen off a little on the French studies, and have been even worse with the networking end of things. 

Will try to focus on those weak areas, as well as getting even more of the important stuff (writing!) done in the weeks to come.

Wishing everyone a wonderful and productive week!
Edward

#ROW80 Round Three Goals...

Well, I'm afraid I stumbled at the finish of the last ROW80 round, and I'm slow out of the gate at the start of this one, missing both a final post last round, and a timely opening post this time... Which just shows why now, more than ever, ROW80 is an important tool for me to help focus my limited time on the things that matter when it comes to writing, publishing, etc...

What's the difference between this and the first two rounds of ROW80? Well, I've just completed (more or less, still waiting for one shipment of stuff to arrive) a move from Jakarta, Indonesia, to Charleston, South Carolina... I've also started a new and highly demanding position at work, have some work to do on my new house, and am a bit behind of where I'd like to be on my Perfidious Mister Wickham project. Last but not least, I just had a new little nephew born, so I'm spending a good bit of my weekends helping take care of my brother's two-year-old son so he and his wife can get a bit of a breather.

Looking back at the last couple of rounds, I've tended to over-commit by about 30 percent, so my goals this time around reflect the fact that I set some initial goals, and then sculpted the original set by about three-quarters...

All that said, here's my list of goals for Round Three of ROW80.

 WRITING
- Write 10 Chapters of The Perfidious Mister Wickham
- Write 3 Chapters of my Learning Indonesian book
- Finish Charming
- Finish The Welsh Mouse
- Finish The Artillerists
- Finish Merry Christmas, Mister Washington
- Finish Intercepts

PUBLISHING
- Publish the German Translation of Happily Ever After
- Publish A Matter of Honor

FITNESS
- Score 300 on the Combat Fitness Test
- Bench Press over 100 kg

LANGUAGE
- Five hours of studying French per week

NETWORKING
- Execute my “Social Media Plan”
- Build my “Core Group” to 25 people

ADMINISTRATION
- Re-Design my blog
- Create a Kickstarter Project to support The Perfidious Mister Wickham


Those are my goals! Looking forward to keeping you updated on my progress through the next couple of months, and following the progress of my fellow ROW writers...

Best to all,
Edward

The Perfidious Mister Wickham & Another #ROW80 Update!

Well, it's been quite a week here in Jakarta... I completed my check-out from the Embassy, have written most of my final reports, and spent last night watching international rugby and encouraging my friends and teammates to help me get rid of the last of my liquor stash, a rather impressive collection of rum, gin, tequila, and assorted wines. Oh dear.

But the big accomplishment of the week is that after 3 days of spending every spare minute coding HTML, I have a website to showcase the serial release of my first novel, The Perfidious Mister Wickham. I'd cordially invite you to check it out and give me some feedback!

Getting this website up and running was a big administrative goal of this ROW80 challenge for me, and getting it knocked out brings me up to a 66% completion rating on my goals for this period. I'm also back on top of the French study and fitness goals, and have the translated material and cover art for the German translation of Happily Ever After (Und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind...) So my plan is to get that uploaded to  Amazon next week and I'll have finished all my publishing goals for this round!

Which leaves the writing as the big area that I need to focus on in the next few weeks - but with at least one round-the-world flight (Jakarta-Dubai-DC-Charleston) flight coming up, I should have a little time to get caught up.

Just ten more days to go in the ROW!

Best to all,
Edward

Terra Cotta Warriors and #ROW80 Update!

Well, it's Sunday here in China, which means it's time to check in with my ROW80 progress. I'd like to say that I've got lots to report, but... Still lagging on my French / fitness goals, but looking forward to getting focused on both next week when I'm back in one place for a few days.

Looking back over my original goals in writing / publishing / artistic / networking, I see that I'm sitting at:

WRITING - 12% Complete - Behind on finishing up Charming, The Welsh Mouse, The Artillerists, and Merry Christmas Mister Washington and logging the required number of chapters for my two non-fiction works-in-progress. In my defense, I just wrote 2700 words of a brand new short story inspired by my latest travels, and completed a similarly inspired flash fiction story.

PUBLISHING - 50% Complete - Got Lethargica launched, and the German translation of Happily Ever After is nearly complete, thanks to the awesome efforts of Sabine Ströbele. Once I have the translation in hand, I'll be able to format and upload it to Kindle, and see how well it's received in Germany.

ARTISTIC - 100% Complete (video trailer and cover art for Lethargica) - and a bonus here as the draft cover art for A Matter of Honor and The Perfidious Mister Wickham have also been created.

NETWORKING - 50% Complete - got caught up on Author Karma, but still behind on building my Core Group. I did get some bonuses here as well, getting onto Triberr and Klout, and also found some Twitter tools to help me improve my use of that platform. Wrote a guest post, got all my critiques in on Author Salon, and have an author interview pending.

PROMOTIONS - 100% Complete - Ran 3 KDP Select promotions and blogged about the results, which I'll use to hopefully improve the sales rank of future releases and promotional days.

Last but not least, I have built a good bit of the framework (websites, write-ups, Twitter accounts, Facebook celebrity pages, etc.) necessary for a couple of upcoming Kickstarter projects; one of the being a serialized release of my first novel, and the other being a test for an alternate payment model for future short story releases.

The bad news - with 69% of this round behind me, I've only accomplished about 43% of my original goals; the worse news - the thing that has suffered most is the thing that should be the most important for an author - writing.

So, I clearly need to get focused and knock out some of these unfinished projects.

Wishing you all the best in the coming week,
Edward

Goals Matter!

Goals matter, and my goal is to make it into Amazon's "Top 100" with my newest short fiction release, Lethargica. The graph on the left shows the progress to date, and how much time remains.

How can you help?

Click here to download your FREE copy now if you haven't already - you don't even need a Kindle! Select "Send to my CloudReader" and read it on your computer. It will also be archived for you, and you can always download to a Kindle device, iPad, or smartphone later!

Copy the Tweet below (in red) and send it out on Twitter:

LETHARGICA is 5-Star #shortfiction for the #Kindle! Get your #free #ebook today at http://amzn.to/IRYIQk Thanks, and please RT!

Post this link on Facebook and invite your friends to get their copy: http://www.amazon.com/Lethargica-ebook/dp/B007Z9AKJK/

E-mails to friends, recommendations on Goodreads, blog posts - the sky is the limit! Anything and everything you do to help will be greatly appreciated.

As you can see, we're making great progress - less than 100 downloads, but already the title has moved 34,000 places up the charts! 

Thanks for your support, in any form, and have a great day!

Best always,

Edward

ROW80 Round 2 - Checking in from Kuala Lumpur!

Well, the first few days of ROW80 have been productive enough. While traveling around Malaysia, I've found the time to finish all the chapters of my novel that are required for this second round, so anything done in the next 70-odd days in that regard will be icing on the cake. I've also done a decent job of keeping up on the fitness and French study goals; knocked out a few more pages on "Charming", popped over to Author Karma and did my 30 minutes of networking, and have drafted an analysis of my latest KDP Select promotion which I'll post up here in a day or two. Major milestones listed below. Looking forward to seeing how everyone else is doing this week!

WRITING

- Write 6 Chapters of “The Notorious Mister Wickham” - 100%

- Finish “Charming” - 80%

NETWORKING

- Build my “Core Group” to 25 people - 8%

PROMOTION

- Run 3 KDP Select Promotions - 33%

ROW80 Round 2 Goals...

Well, it's that time again, I suppose, to jot down our goals for this second round of ROW80. As I've mentioned before, this round is complicated for me, because I'll be traveling for about 60 of the 80 days; in fact, this post comes to you from the Sultanate of Brunei, which is where I'll be until Friday, when it's off to Malaysia on the next stage of my journey.

So, outlined below are my modest goals for this round. I'm trying to focus more on the writing, and less on all the secondary, distracting, and yes, eventually necessary aspects such as the publishing, promotion, and networking.

WRITING

- Finish “A Matter of Honor”

- Write 3 Chapters of my “Learning Indonesian” book

- Write 3 Chapters of my “Short Story Publishing” book

- Write 6 Chapters of “The Notorious Mister Wickham”

- Finish “Charming”

- Finish “The Welsh Mouse”

- Finish “The Artillerists”

- Finish “Merry Christmas, Mister Washington”

PUBLISHING

- Publish “Lethargica”

- Publish German Translation of “Happily Ever After”

ARTISTIC

- Create the cover for "Lethargica"

- Create the video trailer for "Lethargica"

FITNESS

- 20 minutes of basic fitness per day

LANGUAGE

- One hour of studying French per day

NETWORKING

- Spend 30 minutes a week on the “Author Karma” page getting caught up

- Build my “Core Group” to 25 people

PROMOTION

- Run 3 KDP Select Promotions

ADMINISTRATION

- Create the “Perfidious Mister Wickham” website

- Create a “Short Story Contest” website

So, that's it... Let me know if you see anything that particularly interests you, and I'd be happy to discuss in more depth.

Best always,

Edward

"Ding-Ding!" - Round Two!

Just a short post today, declaring my intention to take another run at the ROW80 Challenge.

Last time, I hit about 61 percent of my planned goals, which were mainly focused on writing. This time, my focus will be on setting challenging but manageable goals and fulfilling them 100 percent.

Complicating things this time around will be my travel schedule - with trips planned to China, Australia, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Brunei, and Malaysia, I'm going to be on the road at least 60 of the 80 days of the challenge, often with little access to internet...

But I have no doubt that these upcoming adventures will inspire new stories as well.

I'll save my list of specific goals for a later post, but I'm already working on them, using the SMART criteria; Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Oriented. What methods do you use when setting goals?

Best to all,

Edward

23 Days to Go!

So, less than a month before the first round of ROW80 comes to an end... My round-the-world trip has set me back a bit on some of the planned goals, but has inspired two brand-new short stories, and has given me time to write about 6000 words of a forthcoming novel. I've also managed to snowboard in the French Alps, walk the ruins of Pompeii, and eat gelato in a shop once visited by the Pope.

However, looking back at my writing goals for this round, I see that I have only completed 61 percent so far...

Time to get cracking on the following goals:

1. Publish 1 non-fiction book.

• Edit all material: 15 Mar
• Publish: 22 Mar

2. Publish 1 non-fiction article or essay online.

• Finish draft: 10 Mar
• Submit for editing: 15 Jan
• See published: April issue of “Current Intelligence”

3. Publish 1 more short story on Amazon.

• Cover art: 15 Mar
• Trailer: 22 Mar

As for the non-writing goals (fitness and language learning) those have sort of fallen off the wagon, but I will look forward to catching them up on the next round!

It's past midnight here in Jakarta, so I'm off to bed... Will have a more detailed update on Sunday, I hope! Until then, best wishes to all.

Cheers,

Edward

ROW80, Listopia, eTLC, etc

Greetings, fellow readers and writers, from chilly Newport, Rhode Island, with a warm welcome to everyone arriving from the Beck Valley Books blog hop, and of course everyone participating in ROW80.

First, a small request for everyone who is a member of Goodreads - would you please consider clicking this link and voting for Happily Ever After (#3) and Seven Lives to Repay Our Country (#6) on this list of 99 cent fiction?

And, before we go much further, a link to a little humor - this office really knows how to pull together as a team to accomplish their goal! Kudos to Nicole Basaraba for inspiring me to try to put a few smiles in my ROW80 updates!

ROW80 update: It turns out I've been both more and less productive than I'd originally planned; I'm ahead in some areas, behind in others, and in at least one case, have gone totally off the reservation!

1. Submit 1 book proposal - DONE!

2. Publish 1 non-fiction book.

• Translate all material: 10 Jan - DONE!
• Edit all material: 15 Jan - Rescheduled to: 15 Mar
• Publish: 16-21 Jan - Rescheduled to: 25 Mar

3. Publish 1 non-fiction article or essay online.

• Finish draft: 20 Jan - Rescheduled to: 20 Feb
• Submit for editing: 25 Jan - Rescheduled to: 25 Feb
• See published: Apr issue of “Current Intelligence”

4. Publish 1 more short story on Amazon.

This is the interesting one. The story I was originally planning to self-publish was just submitted to Glimmer Train's "Short Story Award for New Writers", where it will be competing with an estimated 4,000 other submissions for selection and publication. Yes, I really do think it's that good. If it's not selected, it will be a tough call whether to use it as a "control story" as I test the traditional publishing vs. self-published e-book route for short story writers, or simply to enroll in at once in the Amazon KDP Select program and let the market, rather than editors, decide how good it is.

That said, to meet the original goal, I now need to write, prep, and publish another story by February 21st, all while traipsing across the United States and Europe. Can I do it? Stay tuned to find out!

A few final notes. I've just enrolled Seven Lives to Repay Our Country in the Electronic Text & Literature Cloud (eTLC) - authors and readers, you might like to check out this resource for independent literature, and Wednesday is the time to join Novel Publicity's Author Karma event on Goodreads. Join the group, RSVP to the event, and meet a few more fans and friends.

Best regards,

Edward

Muse vs. Mechanics

This Wednesday Thursday Blog Hop / ROW80 update post will touch briefly on the question of Muse vs. Mechanics, which I deem an appropriate subject for a week where, on the surface, few of my writing goals were met.

I’ve seen several fellow ROW’ers who appear to use methods that appear rather mechanical to generate writing – word sprints, goals driven by word counts, etc. And while I’m hardly in a position to judge, I must say that I’m not sure this method would work for me. I tend to write the core material for most of my projects “as the spirit moves me,” rather than because I’ve sat down with some deliberate goal for X number of words in the next Y hours.

This week is a good example. While I have done very little on my planned writing projects (about 5 pages of translation, but that’s it) I have written 6000 words of a historical fiction novel, as well as completed a bit of research and framed the plot. This was for an idea that has been knocking around for some time, but had never been put to paper.

Does this mean I’m abandoning my ROW80 goals? Not at all! It’s just been one of those weeks (on the road, sick, etc.) which made rigid adherence to planned activities difficult to encompass. The “goal” projects are still important, and I’ll look forward to reporting progress on them this Sunday, but I’ve gotten a lot farther this week following the Muse rather than the Mechanic.

Curious to know your thoughts on this subject, and wishing you a great and productive run-up to the weekend.

Best,

Edward

A Round of Words Check-In, 1-15

So, one week down, and what a week it's been! Rescued 3 tiny kittens and found them all new homes (two are still with me until Monday, the little scamps) finished several online courses that were prerequisites for the training that I'm doing back in the US in the next few weeks, and have booked the flights that will take me around the world during January and February for training in South Carolina and Rhode Island, rugby in Las Vegas, and a wedding in London, among other things... Also scored a try in the Jakarta Komodo's opening rugby game of the new year, and sorted out boots and jerseys for the 14 orphans that I'm sponsoring to play junior rugby.

Despite the overall busyness of the week, I'm happy to also be able to report progress on the writing front, thanks to my ROW80 goals set last week. I've only listed the ones that are due, overdue, or completed.

1. Submit 1 book proposal

• Finish Description: 9 Jan
• Finish Market Overview: 10 Jan
• Review and describe competition: 11 Jan
• Write Outline of Content: 12 Jan - Overdue
• Write Sample Chapter: 13 Jan - Overdue

2. Publish 1 non-fiction book.

• Translate all material: 10 Jan

I did miss the Wednesday check-in, which is too bad, because that is a regular blogging day for me, though it's usually tied to a blog hop that I participate in. I think that I can roll a ROW80 update in during future weeks without much trouble, though, so look for my first Wednesday ROW80-related post next week.

A reasonably good week; although I fell short on 2 goals, I did make progress on both - about 50% complete, and with a bit of luck, I'll be able to finish them both tomorrow.

A trend I noticed last week when I went around other blogs was that people are using ROW80 to motivate and track other goals, including health, fitness, and networking. I think that's an admirable and very useful approach, so I'll sketch out a few similar goals here and update them along with the writing projects in the weeks to come.

5. Health & Fitness.

• Bench Press 100 kg : 23 Jan
• Gain 5 kg: 10 Feb
• Run 6-min miles: 31 Mar

6. Learn French.

• (sub-tasks to be described later)

Well, that's it for me tonight, as it is late night in Jakarta. Time to give my kittens a bedtime snack and tuck them in, then do the same for myself.

Best to all,

Edward

A Round of Words Check-In, 1-8

My progress for this first check-in consists of having sat down, put on my "project management" hat, and sketched out actionable sub-goals with deadlines to achieve my targets. For people who have goals that are more vague than "write x number of words", I think this is a good idea. My results are:

1. Submit 1 book proposal

• Finish Description: 9 Jan
• Finish Market Overview: 10 Jan
• Review and describe competition: 11 Jan
• Write Outline of Content: 12 Jan
• Write Sample Chapter: 13 Jan
• Review: 16 Jan
• Submit: 21 Jan

2. Publish 1 non-fiction book.

• Translate all material: 10 Jan
• Edit all material: 15 Jan
• Publish: 16-21 Jan

3. Publish 1 non-fiction article or essay online.

• Finish draft: 20 Jan
• Submit for editing: 25 Jan
• See published: Mar issue “Current Intelligence”

4. Publish 1 more short story on Amazon.

• Finish draft: 1 Feb
• Editing: 7 Feb
• Cover art: 10 Feb
• Trailer: 13 Feb
• Pre-publication promotion: 14-21 Feb
• Publish: 21 Feb

As you can see, some of these tasks are running parallel, and some sequentially, as certain items (such as the book proposal) have a waiting period associated with the post-submission results, and others (such as the non-fiction book) strengthen the case for subsequent tasks, i.e., the book proposal.

Looking forward to your thoughts / questions,

Edward