Okay, first of all…I HATE change. I especially hate technology updates. I finally get a website looking a certain way and (more or less) understand how all the various parts work, and then BAM! an update comes along and screws it all up.
If you’ve been to this site of late, you may have noticed the new wonky appearance and wondered what the hell happened. Well, I’ll tell you. Updates. Updates happened. I didn’t want these changes to be made, but I didn’t get much of a choice. Or any choice, really. I’m still working out how to correct things. If I do manage to figure these things out (at this point, I am unconvinced that I will…), I’m sure it’ll be right before the next update.
Because I am Sisyphus and this site is my boulder.
All right. On to other things. Namely, goal-related things, as it’s the beginning of a brand-new month. Today, I’ll be looking at the goals I set for myself last month and creating a list of goals for the current month.
January Goals
—Write the first draft of a blurb for the Terrible Romance Novel
Yeah…I didn’t quite do this. In my quest to procrastinate on this as much as possible, I wrote a bunch of fake blurbs and posted them on social media, but I didn’t actually finish a real blurb. I’m struggling to decide how much to put into the blurb itself. Like, what details to include. Because you don’t want to give everything away but you have to have something more than “There are these people, and they, like, do things and stuff happens.” Or so I’m told. I have a possible opening and closing paragraph. Just…nothing in the middle. But, really, how important can that be?
—Complete first draft of Part One of Full Circle
Yeah. I didn’t quite do this, either. (Do you see a pattern emerging here?) But I came close. Close-ish.
I accomplished other things. I added almost 13,000 words to the WIP (and I may even keep some of them when it comes time for revisions) and worked out a timeline solution that has held for not only hours, but days. I think it’s still a little wonky and I’m not totally happy with it, but it’s good enough for the first draft and right now, that’s all I need.
—Read four books
I read three.
—Log 93 miles (for the entire month) and complete at least one 15-minute yoga workout each week.
I logged 99 miles, but I only did three of the four yoga workouts. I was pushing hard to try to get Part One finished and everything else fell by the wayside.
—Clean out and organize the office closet
Didn’t even come close to doing this one. Didn’t even start it. In fact, I think I just threw more clutter in there.
February Goals
—Write a first draft of a blurb for the Terrible Romance Novel
—Work out the timeline for Part Two of Full Circle
—Log at least 87 miles for the month, and complete at least one 15-minute yoga session each week.
—Read four books
That’s gonna do it for me today because I have totally reached the end of my rope with this new look/format/whatever it’s called.
WHY YOU DO HAVE TO MAKE THIS HARDER TO USE, WEBSITE GODS?!?!?
Have I mentioned that I HATE change?
Tune in on Wednesday when I take part in the Insecure Writer’s Support Group. That is, if I haven’t thrown my computer out the window and run screaming through town in frustration.
Thanks for stopping by!
You probably already thought of this, but have you read other romance novel blurbs? Like the ones with the contemporary and/or quirky covers? They might give you some direction on what to include.
Well done on those fitness and reading goals! Yeh for progress! 🙂
Yeah, I’ve spent a couple of afternoons reading blurbs for a variety of novels in a variety of genres (just in case…). I feel like I haven’t hit upon the right hook yet. In my previous blurb-writing experiences, as soon as I came up with that hook, the rest of blurb wrote itself in minutes.
So yes, I’m falling short in most areas, but progress is being made. May that trend continue. 🙂
Good luck with your goals for the month.
Thank you!
Ugh, updates. Sometimes the best you can hope for is that they don’t break your stuff completely. Sounds like you did pretty good on your goals. Except for that closet one, which seems to have been negatively completed.
Good luck with the blurb. I still haven’t figured out how to write one either.
Oh yeah. The closet goal really didn’t work out. Not really sure what I was thinking when I made that one. My brain is always so much more ambitious than the rest of me.
Updates suck. They’re really good at introducing bugs into the system. I hope you work it out soon.
So, for Terrible Romance Novel, you say you have a first and last paragraph? Have you considered just using those two paragraphs? Of course, I don’t know how vague they are, but maybe they’re enough on their own. Possibly?
Sadly, as currently written, I do need something to go between those two paragraphs. Or something to replace them. I’ll keep playing around with it, though. I’m sure I’ll come up with something eventually.
Updates, huh? Argh!
I always feel like the best blurbs only cover about the first third of the book, leaving the rest of it a mystery for the reader to discover. I don’t know if that helps at all, but maybe it will give you a new way to think about it.
I’ve been trying to stay in the first third of the story pool, but I keep ending up feeling like I need to add more to it. I see experiments in my future…or some serious procrastination.
So sorry about all your website troubles right now! Know too well how time-consuming fixing those bugs can be. :/
And best of luck with all your goals! I’m always horrible at blurbs, so even though the middle is still MIA, I think it’s a good sign that you at least have potential first and last paragraphs already!
They are especially time-consuming to fix when you have no idea how to actually fix them. All I’ve managed to do thus far is figure out how not to fix them. Here’s hoping process of elimination pays off in the end…
Right there with you about change. I hate having to learn something new, technology related. All the best for 2020.
Thank you!