First Quarter Report

Friday again, right after work. I really have to stop blogging at this time, the exhaustion just clings to me. I'm sure I'll be embarassed at the amount of typos I find in this post at a future date. Oh, well. I don't have enough brain power to actually write (haven't had any all week, and my word count of 0 is proof), so I figured I would blog. I intended to do a quarterly progress report of my goals at the end of march - so, I'm a week late.

So, let's look at my goals and what the progress has been (I won't address the ones with dates further out):

• Finish the rough draft of Shepherd of Dreams novel by April 30 - I am not at the point I should be for this one - little over 25k in, have made some progress, but no where near enough - hopefully I'll be done by the end of May, if not the week I am taking in June to write should get it done - if I don;t finish by June 30, I'm in trouble with myself
• Set up a monthly word count/productivity tracker - as mentioned when I posted the goals, this was created, and I have used it every time I write - there are some adjustments I need tot ake care of - it has shown me that I am progressively writing more each month - a good sigh, in my opinion, even if my numbers aren't at where I want them to be
• 10 hours a week OR 5k a week of new material - already said my count isn't where I want it to be - I'll get there, I hope
• Begin and complete 6 short stories - yea, well, I haven't worked on any shorts - been concentrating on Shepherd, which I might need to work on a short just to have a breather soon
• Revise the backlog of short stories that have been waiting to be looked at, and possibly get more feedback, then revise again - nope, haven't touched them - bad me
• Keep all completed short stories in circulation - another no - I did finally recieve a rejection I'd been expecting about 2 weeks ago, though
• Start querying agents and editors again for The Mind Behind the Mind novel - alas, I have not queried anyone because I still can't find that list! - I did revise my query letter and synopsis, and I have been planning to make a shorter version of the synopsis and send a particular query out, but I keep running out of time on my days off
• Critique 1 to 2 items a week - I was doing this, until I got urked at the Critters situation - I'll be starting this up again next week again
• Reactivate Critters - yes, I did this, and if you've been reading my blog, you know the trials, and I have an update - Wednesday the head person of Critters FINALLY contacted me (responding to the first e-mail), and I e-mailed him back asking for credit, and he gave it to me, since it was the writer that broke the rules first, not me, the reader - OK, so it took a while for him to respond, as he had spam and more spam to weed through after his vacation, so I will continue critiquing there for a bit, but I doubt I will ever want to do a RFDR for someone for quite a while - as far as the person that is reading my novel, she critted the one section, and now I haven't heard from her for like 2 weeks :/
• Blog and Update my Website once a week - well, you know how successful I've been at this one
• Keep up with my writing groups, newsletters, magazine subscriptions, and writing books - hahahahahahaha - I'm still behind on a million e-mails, and this is pretty much on my list AFTER e-mails

That's it. Am I proud of my progress? Well, it's not exactly where I wanted to be 3 months into the year (where exactly did those months go?), but here's hoping I'll get better. Maybe if I get the house cleaned once and for all, my brain won't slam the door on any productivity when it looks at the mess and doesn't want to deal with it.

Okay, the middle finger on my right hand is numb, so it's time to stop typing. Hey, at least I wasn't yelling or overly depressing in this post. It's the thoughts of spring, I think (even though winter decided to come back for a time where I'm at - bleh). Happy writing!

People

Warning: Bad language ahead

I think in general, I believe the human race is inherently selfish and greedy. I am not saying I totally lack levels of these two quailities (don't think that). I am just pissed off right now.

Interacting with people most of the time reminds me why I enjoy being a hermit. Playing EQ, you have jerks that kill steal, ninja loot, barge into your camps and push you out because they are fucking cocky and just because they are better geared than you and can kill faster and more efficiently, think it's their right to do as they please.

No, right now EQ isn't what set me off (although if this was last Wednesday and I was typing this, it would have been EQ). It's Critters. And I am seriously wondering why I ever went back. I actually had an offer (a week after my novel was out of the queue) to crit Shepherd, but that's going fine so far. That's not the thorn in my paw. I was doing an RFDR for someone. Going along, sowly getting through it - about 4-5 weeks in. Then I find out the person has another novel in the queue. You are not supposed to have anything else in the queue until all you readers are done with the first one. I was not done.

He claimed ignorance of the rules. And I think, an editor wouldn't buy that - "I'm sorry, I didn't know I shouldn't send my entire novel in single spaced, hand written," wouldn't fly. Ignorant people are a mondo thorn. And this just makes me wonder how many people are sending through more than one thing, getting lots of readers, and taking away readers from people that do follow the rules, like me.

So, I e-mail the head person, as I am now to pissed off to critique this person's work, and I know my anger will be blatant in the crits if I continue. No response. E-mail again. No response. Say, fuck it, and tell the person I will no longer crit it because I was too upset with his actions, and ask nicely if he will give me partial credit for the 25-30k I did crit. And spent a lot of fucking time critiquing. Then I e-mail the head people again, this time through the Help form (which I have used twice before, and twice before never got a response from). The person e-mails me back, said they won't give me credit for anything, if I want credit, I have to talk to the head person at Critters. Which I have. A number of times.

See why I hate the world right now? I spend all that fucking time, and now I am being fucking ignored by the people who run Critters. Is that fair? No way in hell it's fair. The person I was doing the RFDR broke the contract first by breaking the rules - I shouldn't have to slog through 30k more of writing for someone who I don't think deserves it after trying to get more than their share of readers.

What does all this mean? Life is unfair and I hate people. I wish I could just seal myself up in my house for the rest of my life and not deal with anyone. And I wonder why I have social anxiety disorder (undiagnosed, but I'm pretty damn sure that's what it is). Oh, it also means that once my one reader is done, I think I will be saying goodbye to Critters for good. The unresponsiveness I have been getting for the last two weeks is enough frustration, and I don't need it.

I guess I should eat something today...maybe that will make me feel better. Not. I hope everyone else's writing lives aren't as fucked up as mine.

It's About Time...

...I blog a little at least. Please bear with me, as I may seem more down than usual (I know, can I be any worse, you wonder), but I am tired and that tends to make me blah.

Last few weeks I've been working extra hours, which end right now, as I blog (just finished work today, even though I'm still here waiting until the husband can pick me up). So, I wrote nothing.

I have happily made a dent in my piles of papers. Still can't find that list of recommended agents though.

I should be registering for the writing retreat in June, but I am not sure how I would get from the airport to Greensburg at this point (I wanted to do the whole come early with a few others and have some writing time before the retreat - I still want to, but the others are another matter). So, I'm kind of frustrated with that because I don't want to take the train - 2 hour layover in Chicago does not appeal to me or my laptop.

Another reason why I haven't been encouraged to write is the lack of having anybody to critique my current novel project. It's like after graduating, the fake floor opened and I fell through. You think that you'll have the friends and critique partners you had for Seton, but then you realize, they're too busy, and without the carrot of school deadlines, they barely have time to write their own stuff let alone exchange things to critique. I do feel kind of abandoned, but then again, I've always had self-esteem issues. I need the feedback on my writing, so I can improve, and it always amazes me when some people can comment on certain things, and then my mind can latch onto a comment and it just blossoms other ideas - crits are my spark. Not to mention, if I know someone is expecting words to critique, I don't want to let them down, so it's way more encouragement to actually get it out. So, yes, I did mention I joined Critters, to try to get critiques from somewhere. Critters seems to be worse than I remember it. I'm not sure if it's just morphed since I was last part of it, or if it actually was always that way and I see it differently since I've been through the WPF program. I'm not saying its bad writing or that every comment given is horrible. What it is, is a crap shoot. Last week my RFDR was up (Request for Dedicated Readers). Do you want to know how many offers I received to critique my entire novel? Zero - exactly zero. How many crits of the chapters that were posted with the RFDR request? Two. The first one made my jaw drop as they obviously didn't read past the first chapter, and every note was pretty much saying my grammar sucked (not in those words, but pretty much saying they didn't understand what I meant in almost each and every sentence was a bit disconcerting). I mean, my grammar can't be that atrocious if I was able to get through the program (and I know Tim would have cut me a new one if it was that horrible!). The second one was a decent crit. He at least read all four chapters and made some good points. SO. No dedicated readers, and only one decent crit. Needless to say, if I wasn't in the middle of doing an RFDR for someone else, I think I'd leave Critters to continue on its merry way without me. Or am I really that bad of a writer that no one thought the novel was worthy enough to give feedback on and everyone is afraid to tell me?

Yes, a tad depressed right now. And feeling no one understands me. I try to explain my feelings and am pretty much just told they aren't valid. I think I'm in the No One Cares mode right now - self-pity is the pool of scum I'm sitting in. Bleh. See, I probably shouldn't have blogged. I wanted to at least let the few people who still read this know that I'm alive.

I hope everyone else's is going far better than mine (I swear, I sound like a broken record, to use a horrible cliche). Until next time...