October To Dos, and NaNoWriMo

October has a special feeling to it now that I'm committed to doing NaNoWriMo again**. I feel like I imagine a mother might feel in the last month of pregnancy, when she's scrambling to get a bunch of things done before she has to devote all her time to her baby. (More on the parallels between writing and motherhood another day.)

So here are the writing/creative things I want to get done in October, pre-NaNo:

+ Finish the two baby sweaters I'm making for my brother-in-law and sister-in-law's babies.

+ Get the short short "Marriages Mysteries" revised and send it out.

+ Get the longer short story "Trying" revised and send it out.

+ Send out my body image essay

+ Write a pitch for the Coupling column of the Boston Globe

+ Write a pitch for an article on simultaneous submissions and find some writing mags where it might find a home.

+ Write a pitch for Utube's first literary journal, Shape of a Box. (Love the concept!)

I'm slightly tired from just typing this all, but I think it can get done.

**I am not going to follow the NaNo rules 100%, as I did last year. I am in the process of completely rewriting my NaNo manuscript from last year. Basically I'm using the idea and the characters that came out of all that writing, but I'm not using the actual writing at all. I don't want to interrupt that process to start on another novel. So I'm going to continue working on my second draft of that first novel, with the goal of getting 50,000 words of it (re)written in November. In any case, November is going to be completed devoted to writing, and that's the point of NaNo, right?

To Dos

As readers of this blog know, I am an avid list-maker. I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed lately, and so I am hoping that making and posting this list of things to do will calm me down/organize me. Here goes:

* Promote the writing retreat I'm leading at the Boston Center for Adult Ed next Saturday. (Speaking of which, please check it out, dear readers!

*Look at some old stories to see if they are ready to submit: Rest of June, Darfur, Marriages Mysteries (by end of the month)

*Type up the notes from chapter 2 (of my novel). Continue writing it. I would love to have a draft by mid-October.

*Submit, submit, submit.


And in the spirit of patting myself on the back, here are some "recently dones"

* Organize lists of journals to submit to, and journals I have submitted to and been rejected from (wah.)

* Send first chapter of revised novel to writer's group

* Send essay on body image to MFA friends for review

Hope everyone has a nice (if rainy, in New England at least) weekend!

To Dos

Posting my lists of things to do has led me to a helpful discovery: What I expect to get done in a given time period is not equal to what I actually can get done. What I expect to do in one week generally takes me two weeks.

At work, I've had to start estimating the time a project will take before I start, in order to give a cost estimate to clients. That's a harder task than I thought at first, because stuff comes up and things change. But I'm getting better at it, and I'd like to apply that ability to my writing goals as well.

Why does it matter? Well, psychologically, it's nice to get done what you plan to get done.

So, this week, I plan to:

Finish chapter 3 of my novel. That's it.


Back burner writing tasks to keep in mind:
* Revise The Rest of Her and send it out
* Keep sending out Cartes as publications open their submissions
* Look into freelance opportunities that I've emailed to myself.

Non-writerly to-dos in the near future:
* Hang paneling in office
* Paint office walls
* Buy lights for office
* Start seedlings

Weekly to-dos

I realized with pride that I finished almost all of the to-dos I posted a week or so ago. So I'm inspired to post some more to keep myself accountable.

Non-writerly (in order of importance:
Organize tax info for accountant

Put up panellng in office

Scrub down upstairs of house


Writerly

Finalize short short and send out

Continue working on novel--try to get in a few pages every day, since I realized that when I took a break last week due to my insane flu, it was harder to get back into it.

Catch up on writing exercises for class

Things to do: A follow up

I realize I often post to do lists, but don't hold myself accountable by actually acknowledging whether or not I complete the tasks. So here goes, from my list posted earlier this week:

Monday
*Finish scenes from the novel that lead up to Emily going to New York. Fail! I did write, but I didn't get as far as I had hoped. We got a new dog, and I blame his distracting cuteness.

*Do exercise for writing class Success!

Tuesday
*Go to class Success! And I got great feedback on the chapter I had submitted, which I'll blog about later this week

[Non-writerly things to do: *Call heat guys* Success! Scheduled an appointment
*Call old eye doctor* Fail--I forgot, and will move task to later in the week
*Make aptmt with new eye doctor* ditto]

Wednesday
*Continue writing novel; devote at least one hour I believe I will fail on this, since I have plans tonight, which I forgot about when I wrote this list. But I'm OK with that, as I'm really looking forward to the social plans!

[Non-writerly things to do: *Send in medical reimbursements*]I assume I will do this.

Things to do

It's been a while since I posted a writerly to do list. But I took Thursday and Friday off this week, and the only way I will not squander it watching TV and knitting is to set myself a list of things to do. Here goes:

Monday
*Finish scenes from the novel that lead up to Emily going to New York.
*Do exercise for writing class

Tuesday
*Go to class

[Non-writerly things to do: *Call heat guys* *Call old eye doctor* *Make aptmt with new eye doctor*]

Wednesday
*Continue writing novel; devote at least one hour

[Non-writerly things to do: *Send in medical reimbursements*]

Thursday
*Finish application for fellowship program; ask for recommendations
*Draft query letter for Writer's Digest magazine
*Organize short story submissions, ie, Where to send next?
*Continue working on novel
*Contact freelance referral

[Non-writerly things to do: *Pack up everything in my office to prepare for renovations*]

Friday
*Finalize two short stories that are
just about ready to send out.
*Continue on novel
[Non-writerly things to do: *Potentially put up paneling and buy paint for office* *Buy wall plastic stuff for kitchen* *Buy grout for bathroom*]

Check... and check

A snowy weekend equals a productive weekend for bug. On the writing front, I:

• Read and commented on Jessica's stories
• Sent her my stories for her comments
• Researched a few more places to send my Cartes story too (which I will do tomorrow)
• Started to flesh out an outline of my NaNoWriMo manuscript. I only got about 5 chapters in, but I think I'll stop there and start writing those five chapters because I think that I need to get those down before moving on to the next batch.
  
• Researched some writing retreats and realized that I don't want to apply to any until I have a better sense of what going will help me accomplish that I couldn't get done taking a "staycation".

I also finished a very complicated hat that I knit for a sick coworker, and a hat that I knit for my cousin (though I may have to redo that one--it depends on how much it shrank during blocking. It came out way too large for some reason...). And I wrapped all my presents and sent out a few Christmas cards. (If you don't get one, please know that it's not because I don't love you! I only sent cards to people who live far away, who really love getting mail, or who I know I won't see for a while.)

Writerly list of things to do

Among the many Christmassy things I need to do, I'd like to get some writerly tasks completely too.

1. Apply for writing residency. This weekend.
2. Send Jessica two stories for her review. This weekend.
3. Read Jessica's stories. This week.
4. Start reading TI's thesis. This week.

There are other things on my longer term list, but I'd like to keep things as simple as possible so I'll leave it at that for this week.