There is so much to see, hear, and explore when traveling. Each place has its own culture and history, which gets built into the towns and cities of the area. Yet through all of the differences between where I live and where I've been, there are still similarities. That's where my inspiration lies. 


No matter where you are there are tales of people falling in love, betraying each other, wars that were fought, and all of the human interactions in-between. Even though that group of people lived in a land 100s of miles away, across an ocean, and stayed therefore 100s of years to grow their own culture, we're still fundamentally human. Our emotions, the things that are at the forefront of the books that we write and the art that we create, are universal throughout. A piece of music made here could make someone on the other half of the world cry in sadness, or joy. 


The travel is all about seeing how different other people live and how differently they were influenced by their culture. The inspiration is the fact that despite the fact that they are so different they are also so much the same. We can connect with people at the same level through art no matter how far they are. And that's beautiful. 

I present to you Eight Sentence Sunday, a blog hop hosted by Weekend Writing Warriors. I've been trying my hand at free writing lately, and this is my favorite piece from this week.

Check out more at http://www.wewriwa.com/.

I present to you Eight Sentence Sunday, a blog hop hosted by Weekend Writing Warriors. I've been trying my hand at free writing lately, and this is my favorite piece from this week.

Check out more at http://www.wewriwa.com/.

1)      Finish MM – Still behind. This is my MAJOR focus this month! I’ve planned some write-ins and accountability times with friends and it’s already helped make slow, yet steady, progress. (I think that might be my mantra for the year. “Slow and steady progress is perfectly fine.”)


2)      NNWM Plotting – I’ve been doing online research. I have a couple more books that I should read soon. Ideally I’ll be doubling down on this once the first draft of MM is done.

3)      Short Stories – Been a bit distracted. I’ll be back at it this month!


4)      Critique Group – I’m caught up, though people haven’t been submitting often. I think we’ll need a discussion about everyone’s vested interest levels again soon. Until then I have a friends novel that’s ready for a full beta read, so I’m working on that currently. (In turn she said that she would be happy to beta read MM when it’s ready. A worthwhile trade.)


5)      Author Visibility – Totally dropped the ball on this. Gotta post more cat photos!

How are your goals going?

I started 2016 with seven writing goals:

1. Finish the three novels I started in 2015.
2. Write and submit a short story each month. (These can be separate stories.)
3. Edit a novel and send it out.
4. Do all the “homeworks” from season 10 of Writing Excuses.
   
5. All of the NaNoWriMo’s.
   
6. Join and continuously participate in a critique group.
   
7. Author visibility.

I have decided to add one new goal since then:

1. Listen to all of the currently getting posted Youtube video’s of Brandon Sanderson classes.

 
Progress so far this year:

1. I finished a rough draft of my novel Conwomen. I still need to finish Animal Companions and Mind Magic.
2. I have written three new short stories and have submitted two of them to different markets. One came back with a rejection. I suspect that the one that came back will need a radical rewrite, but it’s not going to get done this month.
3. It’s going. I’m progressing so quickly as a writer every time I look at a novel I see new things that need to change. As long as I don’t forget about the overall goal of publishing novels it’s ok. When I get something published I want it to be the best work that I can create at the time.
4. I have a handful of these done. I have not been keeping to my original goal of one a week. I should probably aim for two a week from this point forward to catch up.
5. I finished the first Camp NaNo with many new words written. This month is the second Camp and my goal was 50k new words. This has been waylaid by Pokemon Go coming out this month. Not only am I a huge fan, but it’s been a great game for the SO and I to play together.
6. The critique group was started in Jan and the group is phenomenal. We balance each other well and all give excellent critiques. We are going to be taking breaks for each Camp, official NaNo, and less official JuNoWriMo. (I did not participate in JuNoWriMo, but the other three members of the group did.) During other months of the year we’re each submitting 5k words for critique, and then critiquing everyone else’s submissions.
7. I finished this website!
8. I’m half way through the first class. They started to get posted two or three weeks ago, so I’m not too behind, yet.

 
Quantifying goals for the month:

1. Read both Animal Companions and Mind Magic, and then write an outline for the rest of each novel.
2. First I want to finish a second draft of my story about self driving cars. After that I’d like to put together a first draft of a story I’ve been brewing about medical pies. Stretch goal of a first draft of an undecided second short story.
3. I’m going to let all of my novels sit for the month. Brewing and growing needs to happen.
4. I aim to do two Writing Excuses Season 10 homeworks per week for the rest of the month.
5. Working on it. (I’m writing this at a Write-In actually!) My goal was originally 50k new words with a focus on finishing Animal Companions. Now I’m thinking about 35k new words with a focus on some new short stories and the Writing Excuses homework.
6. Break month. I posted one short story last month which will cover the first month of August when we’ll really be getting back into gear. (I thought I’d be nice and give it to everyone ahead of time so that they could fit it in when they can, but I don’t think that anyone will be getting to it early.)
7. I want to make a FB Author Page and Google+ Author page, and then add links onto this website. I should also add new pictures to each page on this website, and add at least one excerpt.
8. I want to catch up on all posted classes, and take notes on each of these classes.

 
What are your writing goals for the month?