I love doing A Round of Words in 80 Days.

I discovered some years ago that I much prefer jobs that take me from one (or several) projects to another. I like the ebb and flow of sometimes being very busy, then having things slow down for a while. Someday, I’d like to be able to keep up a round of writing a rough draft, setting it aside while I work on another project for a few weeks or months, then looking at it again for a series of revisions and rewrites. But for now, I’m at that stage where I’m finding my voice and figuring out exactly how and what I want to write. For example, when I started writing in the setting of Kingdom Come, I thought I had to include each one of the eight spouses’ stories. Now I know that, even when writing polyamory, I need to focus on just one or a few.

I’m also “Getting the Crap Out”. I thought it was a Ray Bradbury quote, but I can’t find it now. Anyway, the advice is good. Write. Write a lot. Let yourself write the stuff that might not be your best work, but get it out of your system. Sometimes the stories I like best turn out to be unappealing to anyone else. Sometimes a little side story I did just for fun turns out to be far more popular than I ever could have predicted. My Marie Antionette story What Would Have Been received initial praise, but I can tell from the very low number of hits that few if any of those people have chosen to continue reading subsequent chapters.  The two stories I’ve done purely on a whim with the theme Fairytale Collateral Damage have each received far more hits than I’d hoped.

Other than during NaNoWriMo in November and the Three Day Novel Weekend over Labor Day, I don’t have regular bursts of bustling productivity. Actually, since the novels produced at those times are still in rough draft form (some have beta-reader comments) one could argue that my productivity is questionable. I’m kind-of on a treadmill, writing as much as I can, hopefully gliding into some revisions and polishing soon. But when I fall off that treadmill (like when this semester’s teaching job turned out to require a lot more time and attention than I anticipated) there’s no reset button to help me get back on…

Except for ROW80.

The round officially began yesterday (Which was my 17th wedding anniversary, so I was justifiably otherwise occupied) and the first link-up is tomorrow. I’m using this as a re-boot, with a twist…

Goals for this Round:

• Continue with the regular blog stuff. SciFi Question of the Day, Interviews, and What Would Have Been.
• Link up with Write On Edge as often as possible, but don’t panic if I miss a week here and there.
• When the whim strikes and I have the time, indulge in a short story here and there.
• Write the short stories I’ve promised to a few friends.
• Edit the stories I’ve promised friends I’d edit/critique.
• Allow myself the necessary time away from writing necessary to fulfill my commitment to teaching. The first semester back is busier than ever because I’m have to recreate a lot of my previous material for the new version of the computer programs I teach.
• After the semester is over, that is when I will decide how much writing, editing etc I do, and which projects I will work on. I’ll write new goals in May.

The best scientist is open to experience and begins with romance – the idea that anything is possible.
Ray Bradbury

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