Book-in-a-Week

I just hooked back up with a friend online (we had been regular chatters for a while and then lost contact when she had her kids) and she has directed me to the monthly challenge of book-in-a-week. Many of you are familiar with NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month which is through the month of November) and know that I've participated in that challenge mostly as a cheerleader for my friends who write and participate or as a mentor for Mr. Hughes' class. Grant it, the 50,000 words in 30 days seems daunting but it really does help produce the beginning of novels or at least several short stories and it does get you writing for a whole month. You know that becomes a habit if you actually write every day since it takes 30 days to make a habit and 30 days to break it.

So what's so special about book-in-a-week? Reading over their FAQs, I'm more inclined to write consistently during the week having to be accountable for pages and not not word counts. The minimum challenge is to write 10 pages (that's 250-word pages) in the 7 days, which technically comes out to 2500 words in a week and if you did that every week, yes it would take you longer to write a novel but you would get it done and it wouldn't be at a frenzied pace like NaNo is (averaging 1667 words/day can be overwhelming depending on what is going on in your life and we all know November is full of holiday prepping and time away from your desk for whatever reasons, so sometimes the goal isn't being met or can't be met due to outside influences and circumstances).

Even though I won't participate in the BIW challenge this month (it starts next week), I will do so on my own, setting a goal to write 10-20 pages a week on Imogene and hopefully by the end of November I will have her story finished so in the first part of the year I can revise and shoot for publication next summer or fall. I want to get back to Imogene's story, so this may be the perfect challenge for me to do.

GOALS: 10 WEEKS, 20 PAGES A WEEK, Starting Sunday September 9, 2012, ending Saturday November 17, 2012 (by my calculations, that is 50,000 words - hopefully the story will be longer than that - I'm shooting for between 75,000 and 100,000 for this one but it may not need that much to be completed; the challenge is on).

If you would like more information about book-in-a-week, how to join, et cetera, you can go here and kind of amble around checking things out.

So, even though unofficially I won't participate this month, I'm going to start the challenge next week and work on Imogene for 2 months - with a goal to have Imogene completed before Thanksgiving. Will post my weekly counts on my Sunday This and That column so my week will actually start on Sunday and end on Saturday (as opposed to starting on Monday at 8 AM and ending the following Monday at 8 AM). Good luck to me and see you all in the postings - E :)

Writing, Blogging and Sales Goals

With the new year upon us, I have come up with some goals for writing, blogging and sales. I have decided to forego the usual resolutions this year and set goals. My long-term goal is to be able to only work part-time or not at all on my now full-time job by the year 2015. That goal had originally been set for June of 2013, at the time my youngest would graduate but I don't feel at this time that this is an attainable goal. In other words, I need to have books supporting me instead of me supporting them in order to quit my job or cut back to part-time hours. So I have set the following goals for both my JGDS series (you can check out the JGDS blot here or the JGDS website here for more information) as well as my other writings:

1. Blog at least twice a week. (CORRECTED SCHEDULE)
(Blogging schedule will be something like this:
Mondays and Thursdays - Writing announcements and other info.
Tuesdays - open or repostings or linking back to other's blog postings of interest
Wednesdays - special postings from students (Wednesday Weekly Young Writers Writing Questions (WWYWWQ) - I will try to answer students' questions about the writing process or problems they encounter during their writing class, writing club or just in general to their personal writing.
Fourth Monday and Wednesday of month - Guest posts
Fridays - Book reviews

2. Have guest bloggers at least twice a month as well as appear on other's blogs throughout the year - (I'm scheduled to be on Barbara Ehrentreu's blog on the 26th of this month; will have a promotional post for Karen Cioffi up on the 3rd of January and am trying to have Leslie Dubois author of Ain't No Sunshine guest in February, who will also be an exhibitor with me at the SCASL conference in March. I'm trying to schedule the other who will be at the SCASL with Leslie (aka Sybil Nelson author of the Priscilla the Great series) author, Sarah Renee for February as well. This will be a bit trickier since I'm late on schedulding guests for January but hopefully starting in February I will have at least two guests a month.) Schedule will be guests the last week of the month, Monday and Wednesday, and I'll have librarians, teachers, YA and children's authors (hopefully).

3. Hold more contests to hopefully draw in readers and boost sales.

4. Write the next four state stories in the first three weeks of January (clear the table of what will be coming out for the year)

5. Write something every day - whether it be 15 minutes or an hour, but I will write every day. (I started a new story on Friday, December 30th, that I'm anxious to see where it goes, so that may be something I'll work through and possibly publish later this year).

6. Do whatever it takes to have consistent monthly sales of 15 of each title available. (This number seems low but considering my sales goals last year for the 10 titles available were extremely low, this is jumping point. I'd really like to see 25 of each title sell each month but I don't want to be disappointed too much when I don't meet my sales goal. The biggest problem with my numbers is that I can't accurately gauge my total sales since two of my books are still under 4RV Publishing and won't come out of contract until May of this year and June of next year, so the only sales I can depend on right now with those two titles are actual in-person/email/paypal sales directly through me. I'm hoping by having my QR codes available at live events for instant availability of the stories will help boost the sales some as well as offering a giveaway related to the book if purchase is made from the QR code at the event.)


I was shooting for five goals but ended up with six. This will be a start to the year and in six months, I can always re-evaluate and see where I need to make changes or adjustments.

What are some of your writing goals/challenges this year? Leave a comment and be entered for an ebook version of one of my non-state books - "The Proposal" (an April Fools Day story), "The Tulip Kiss", "Bride-and-Seek" (available soon), or "Butterfly Halves" (available soon). Comments made through the middle of January will go in the random drawing. The more individuals who comment, the more drawings I'll do - up to 4 total. See you in the postings - E :)