March Madness Goals 2013

Wipes off a year's worth of dust, hey, I do have a blog! Cool!

So it's that time of year again when the almond trees start blooming and my eyes start watering. The best time of the year since Saint Patrick's Day and my birthday are just around the corner. And it's time for March Madness, both the basketball version and the ubercool being accountable for your writing goals one started by Denise Jaden. 

This is my third year attempting March Madness, and this year I plan to make it past the first round. I posted my goals there, but am reposting them here for my own sake. 

Goals

1. With my writing partner, Jenn B; complete a rough draft of our screenplay. The hope is to have a rough draft by month’s end, revise in April, and submit to a few contests by May 1^st.

2. Examine TV pilot ideas and see if anything worth pursuing. Depending on my writing partner’s time and energy, we may tackle one together and try to submit a pilot script to a few contests by June 1. I figure we can use March as to prewrite and then start a draft in April. That way we aren’t in the same stage of two projects at once and can broaden our scope.

3. Create and maintain a master document including notes, research, and other information for the screenplay and possible TV pilot. Once I find a template that works, I plan to apply it to all other works in progress. I tend to get a little carried away with folders, subfolders, and sub sub folders.

4. Design a writing schedule for the rest of the year including daily, weekly, monthly and so on goals and deadlines. And implement said plan. I even have a special planner for keeping myself accountable.

5. Work on other writing. I have a long neglected novel to give some way overdue tender loving care to. I also should work on another TV spec, but I’m waiting for the network upfronts so I know if the shows I’m considering writing for will be renewed.

6. Remember to enjoy writing and not allow myself to be overwhelmed by deadlines.

7. Read, blog, and exercise. I mean a writer has to do something besides write, right?

So it looks like March is going to be a good writing month. I just need to figure out some rewards to offer myself so I don't get off track or distracted....

Look something shiny. :-)

March Madness Goals 2012

It's that time of the year again for March Madness, but instead of hoops this March Madness is all about writing and reading and blogging. Thank you Denise for continuing to support writing and writers everywhere. I hope this is the year I actually achieve a goal or two. It's time to dust off my WIP and start working on my ultimate goal to be published (or under contract to be published) by the time I'm 40. (Which so happens to be a lot closer than I really want to admit, but that's a topic for a whole other blog entry.)

My Official March Madness 2012 Goals

Although this March is turning into one crazy busy month, I've decided to set some manageable goals for March Madness. So here goes:

1. Design a writing schedule for the rest of the year including daily, weekly, monthly and so on goals and deadlines.

2. Plan out structural bones of WIP novel and April’s Script Frenzy project. As a dedicated pantser I loath outlines, but I’ve found that if left to the ways of the pants I tend to not write. Decide if want to try more than these two projects. I’m leaning toward working on two screenplays at once – one with my writing partner and one solo effort.

3. Revisit the current draft of my WIP and see if there is anything salvageable. Thanks to my awesome writing partner and best friend, I was able to make the existing pages print out in book form.

4. Rein in my tendency to spend more time (okay most of my time) prewriting and filling in questionnaires about my characters and actual work on writing. And to that end, compile all my prewriting, research, and information into a single master document. I will try to not organize it in twenty different ways.

5. Try to blog at least once a week for the last three weeks of March, check in at least seven times at each check-in blog, and to make a decent dent in my to-read list. I’ve been meaning to read Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief for the last six years. (And this might just be my  manageable March Madness goal.



March Madness - Thanks Denise Jaden!



CEDA - Take Two

So CEDA (Create Every Day in April) was pretty much an epic fail, so let’s try CEDA v.2: Create Every Day in August.*

This CEDA is special in part because I can totally take part in Laurie Halse Anderson’s annual WFMAD in which one simply writes for fifteen minutes a day. I also like Laurie’s prompts so I plan to write on those in addition to dedicating fifteen minutes a day to one or more of my goals.

My goals for CEDA, v. 2

Write 1-2 chapters in my YA WIP.

Compile the bible for my YA WIP as well as the screenplay that Jenn and I started during Script Frenzy. (Just as soon as Jenn is done with her thesis, we plan on working on it as well as another screenplay.)

Work on prewriting of above two screenplays.

Write a short story. (Or a short film.) The goal is to write something from premise to a completed first draft.

Revisit previous story ideas and/or starts. See if there is anything that I want to work on now in addition to my YA WIP, the two screenplays, and the new short story. I probably should select a solo screenplay idea to work on in addition to the ones I’m co-writing with Jenn. Develop a writing plan for the rest of 2011 and perhaps for the next year or so. I’m still trying to figure out the ideal number of projects to be working on at any given time.

Respond to Laurie Halse Anderson’s daily prompts during her WFMAD challenge.

Write and post 10-15 blog entries.

Work on my new freelance writing career. (I suppose that means I need to finish working on the actual applications. I hate applications. (Note if you’re a fan of Left 4 Dead and Francis, you know he’d agree.))

And obviously writing for at least 15 minutes a day.

*Except for August 1^st, 2^nd, and most of the 3^rd, because my time machine is in the shop. Silly intergalactic travel—all planets need to agree to the Universal Driving Codes. And don’t get me started about the effects of wormholes, black holes, and solar storms, if you thought rush hour in LA was bad, you haven’t tried traveling in time and space during the Galaxy Games.

March Madness Goals

So a few days ago, on March 9th to be exact, I signed up for Denise Jaden's Awesome March Madness, I mean it's not the March Madness of basketball fame, but still it is very very cool. Plus it allowed me to set some goals:

So without further ado, here are my goals for March Madness:

1. Write at least one chapter in my current YA WIP.

2. Write and post at least 5 blog entries in my poor neglected Livejournal.

3. Write at least 500 words a day. So by the end of March I will have 15,500 new words. Of course, they'll be spread across a few different projects, but they'll still be new words.

4. Prepare for Script Frenzy. Get to know my characters - who they are and what do they want. Unless, of course, this is cheating.

5. Try to read at least half my current to-read pile.

6. Try to avoid overusing the phrase "at least."

7. Also I'm working on limiting my Pepsi intake to three can a day. (So far today, I've only had one.)

So without counting this sentence I am at 267 words. (Yes, I am ignoring the fact that I signed up for it on March 9, so I have eight days or 4,000 words to make up for.)

267 down, 15,233 to go.