Writer Recharge: Week Two!

Once again hosted by Alison Miller, Liz Parker, Elodie Nowodazkij Sara Biren, and Katy Upperman, Writer Recharge is your chance for a four-week jump start in the middle of a cold, dreary winter. Set goals for yourself, check in once a week, and connect with other recharging writers.

Finished Week Two of Writer Recharge!

WRITE/REVISE: I completely rewrote a story (a different one than I originally intended because my thesis director wanted to see this one), changing the narrative style from third to first person. It really, really made the story click. I'll still have revisions to do, but I'm happy with its direction. This story had stumped me for over a year!

• This week, I want to revise/rewrite my currently untitled story about two brothers (the one I thought I'd work on last week). 
• I also have more edits for "The Asteroid Theory" from my advisor (including, unfortunately, a likely title change. *cries* I had such a crush on this title, too...sighhhhh) to do.  

READ/REREAD: I finished DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE! The last 25% of the book got a little crazy and I loved it! Didn't make much progress on THE SECRET HUM OF A DAISY, though, but started another thesis book instead.

• This week I want to finish the other thesis book I'm reading, IF I KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO BE THIS BEAUTIFUL, I NEVER WOULD HAVE LET YOU GO.

SELF: I didn't make it to the gym because I have to walk there and our temperatures have been in the negative degrees lately. But I did do yoga in my apartment for an hour yesterday, so I count that as a success!

• This week I'm going to try and keep up with the yoga and maybe run at the gym on one of my days off this weekend.

Good luck with your writing/reading/other goals this week, everyone!
 

Writer Recharge: Week One!

Once again hosted by Alison Miller, Liz Parker, Elodie Nowodazkij Sara Biren, and Katy Upperman, Writer Recharge is your chance for a four-week jump start in the middle of a cold, dreary winter. Set goals for yourself, check in once a week, and connect with other recharging writers.

 
One week of Writer Recharge down, and here's how I'm doing:

WRITE/REVISE: I solidifed my revisions on my short story "The Asteroid Theory" and am sending it to my thesis director.

• For this coming week, I want to revise/rewrite my currently untitled story about two brothers. 

READ/REREAD: I read about 60 percent of DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE for fun and am
really enjoying it so far!

• This week I want to finish DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE and THE SECRET HUM OF A DAISY. 

SELF: I totally didn't make it to the gym...oops. My mom visited me at school and we went to a Garth Brooks concert. We did walk to Dunkin Donuts for coffee, though, so that's something!

• This week I'm going to TRY and get my butt to the gym! 

Good luck with your goals for this week!

Writer Recharge 2015!

This blog has sort of been on hiatus since I started year two of my MFA. Thesis is in high gear, and I didn't want to split my focus between that and blogging (I tend to obsess over each blog post's formatting/content/font/picture for waaaay too long).

But I couldn't pass up Writer Recharge! I've done it in the past and it's been so helpful.

Once again hosted by Alison Miller, Liz Parker, Elodie Nowodazkij Sara Biren, and Katy Upperman, Writer Recharge is your chance for a four-week jump start in the middle of a cold, dreary winter. Set goals for yourself, check in once a week, and connect with other recharging writers.

Our lovely hosts gave us a bunch of different categories of goals to choose from. My goals are almost all thesis related (I'm writing a short story collection about families), and this came at the perfect time because I need to be done drafting all stories by March. I'd like to get a head start on revisions too. 

WRITE/REVISE – Finish a draft of every thesis story (1 or 2 left to draft, depending on page count). Completely revise 2 stories for thesis (ones that haven’t previously been revised). 

• For this coming week, I’m in between story ideas so I’ll focus on revisions. I’d like to solidify my short story “The Asteroid Theory” and send it to my thesis director by next Monday. 

READ/REREAD – Read 3 books for thesis bibliography (THE SECRET HUM OF A DAISY, IF I KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO BE THIS BEAUTIFUL I NEVER WOULD HAVE LET YOU GO, and one other) and start the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy for fun. I’ve been thinking about reading it for a while and just got my hands on the first book!

SELF – Start running at the gym again (twice a week at least). 

I'm going to try to focus completely on my projects, so these posts might be short. But I can't wait to see how everyone else does with their goals this month! 

Writer Recharge/What's Up Wednesday combo!

Hi everyone! Today I'm doing a Writer Recharge update AND a What's Up Wedneday post. Hooray for multitasking!

What I'm Reading
SO MANY THINGS. I finished Annie Dillard's book of travel essays. Wasn't impressed. It was well-written, for sure, just not my style. I also finished THE MAZE RUNNER and will hopefully post a review at some point! ALSO I read Nathan Englander's short story collection WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT ANNE FRANK that I had to read for class. It was REALLY good. The stories were long but seemed to fly by.

Now, onto what I'm currently reading! I'm almost halfway through Claire Messud's THE EMPEROR'S CHILDREN for my Contemporary Novels class. Started another book of travel essays (SEEK by Denis Johnson) and Alice Munro's "last" short story collection (she insists she's retired from writing now...we'll see!) DEAR LIFE. And my fun book of the moment? LEGEND by Marie Lu. THIS IS EXCITING! I'm on a dystopian kick right now and am loving this one. :)

What I'm Writing
Guys. I FINISHED MY CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE CORRECTIONS! It's not due until Sunday. I also
finished revising a short travel piece and turned that in to my professor (early!). According to the Writer Recharge post-it note hanging above my desk, I only have two goals left: to revise my completed short story and to finish another one. I'm hopefully going to focus more on the revision so I'll have a solid story to submit to literary magazines and all that jazz. Maybe I'll post a snippet here soon!  

What Inspires Me Right Now
My motivation has returned now that Spring Break is getting closer. The one thing I don't want to do is lug home a bunch of schoolwork, so I have myself on a pretty ridiculous reading schedule to make sure I get everything done early. My "currently reading" shelf on GoodReads is pretty full!

What Else Is New?
My car was a brat today (okay, maybe I might've accidentally left one of the little lights above the rearview mirror on for an undetermined length of time) and was pretty much completely dead. So I called AAA and they got the battery charging up, and then I sat in my car and let it run for 20 minutes before heading out to do my errands. NEVER AGAIN will I use those little lights.
I bought two new bathing suits at Target (gotta get them before they're picked over!) last weekend, which means it's time to get back in shape. I had a really good run on Monday and ended it with more energy than I started with...that NEVER happens!

Okay, this post has been long enough. Tell me about your week! :)

Writer Recharge: Week 2!

Week 2 of Writer Recharge and I'm finally making some progress! I finished the first draft of my travel essay for class and sent it out to my classmates. I'm getting workshopped on Thursday, so keep your fingers crossed for me!

I've kept to my writing schedule on Tuesdays so far, even though I've also squeezed in Tuesday morning errands the past couple weeks (what SHOULD be a quick trip to the store in Pittsburgh is always such a project...so many stoplights and too many carts in the checkout lines. This is why I shop at 9 AM).

My critical paper on THE CORRECTIONS (a huge book I finally finished reading on Saturday) got bumped back to March 3, but I'm still going to work on it this month.

The next goal I'm tackling is my 750-1000 word travel essay. I wrote one about contracting food poisoning abroad, but the word count fell short so I'm going to work on expanding it.


How are your Writer Recharge goals coming along?

Writer Recharge Update: Week 1

I joined Writer Recharge, a February motivation challenge to get writing. I've got a long way to go (and a short amount of time) to accomplish my goals, but I'm slowly making progress.

This past week I've focused on writing an essay about my trip to South Africa for my travel writing class. I have to submit it on Thursday to be put up for workshop the following week. I've written eight pages so far, and my goal is to hit at least eleven or twelve before sending it out to workshop.

I'm trying to stick to my writing day schedule. Tomorrow will be my second Tuesday where I writewritewrite all day. I made my haircut appointment for 9:30 AM so I can have plenty of time before my night class to write.

How is everyone else doing with their goals?

Writer Recharge!

Several of the writers whose blogs I follow are doing a Writer Recharge this month, and with so many things on my plate writing-wise, it's the perfect time for me to join in! Here are the details in case you do too:

January is in the books and you’ve had to deal with:

a) polar vortices

b) ice storms

c) mountains of snow

d) gray skies and general malaise

e) all of the above

We thought our writer friends might be in need of a little boost. A jump start, if you will. A recharge.

We’d like to invite you to join us for Writer Recharge 2014, a month-long motivational challenge similar to last summer’s Ready. Set. Write! So many of us benefited from setting goals, connecting with other writers, and social media-based accountability. So, let’s do it again! Whether you’re delighting next to the crackling fireplace of a Shiny New Idea with a warm cup of tea and or spinning out on the ice-covered roads of revisions in an attempt to avoid the snow-packed ditch, we want to write with you! What do you want to accomplish this month? Hit a daily word count? Revise a certain number of pages or chapters each week? Complete a draft by the end of the month? Let’s get this party started!

Writer Recharge 2014

Your hosts and cheerleaders:

Alison Miller, Liz Parker, Elodie Nowodazkij, Sara Biren & Katy Upperman

Your timeline:

First week of February: Post your goals for the month on your blog, website, or Twitter. Use the hashtag #WriterRecharge. Link your blog post at sarabiren.com.
Every Monday in February: Update your progress via your blog or twitter. Link your blog posts at Sara’s Monday posts.
Throughout the month: Use the hashtag to connect with other writers, have writing parties, and cheer one another on!
February 28: Post your final update via your blog or twitter.
Anyone who uses the hashtag or links their blog posts will be entered to win one of five query or 3-chapter critiques. 

My goals for the month:
-Stick to my brand new writing schedule (Tuesdays and possibly Fridays are my writing marathon days)
-Revise my "Big Sister" (still untitled at this point) story after it is workshopped
-Finish writing "House" (again, still untitled) story
-Draft my long travel essay (15-20 pgs)
-Write/revise/submit my short travel essay (750-1000 words)
-Write critical paper on THE CORRECTIONS once I finish reading the book

Basically, this is just a broken down look at my syllabus for the month of February. Posting about my schoolwork will (hopefully) give me the motivation I've been lacking this semester. I haven't been this excited about the stories I've written in a while, so hopefully that means something good! 

Thanks for the motivation, Writer Recharge ladies! Anyone else joining? :)