Originally published at K.T. Hanna - The Scribble Muse. You can comment here or there.

#Writemotivation is back for 2013 with a brand new Goal-Check Month!

What is a Goal-Check month? 

Apart from the general cheering we do on a daily basis, a Goal-Check Month is where you set goals for yourself and hold yourself accountable to them. You let us know what those goals are, and report during the month on how you think you’re going with them. This helps hold yourself accountable.

The aim here is not to compete with each other – it’s to compete against ourselves (and that pesky inner-critic and procrastination demon that try to defeat us when we least want them to).

Buttons and an amazing sense of accomplishment will be your reward! Shiny, colourful, cookie buttons – collect them all – and in March have all the cheering, cookies, caffeine and zombie dinosaurs you can eat/carry 

Though these goal-check months technically have rules – don’t worry – they’re completely doable.

The Rules:

1. Make a list of realistic goals for the month – and achieve them.
2. Make a Blog Post every week (preferably Monday, but if you don’t post on Mondays just add it to the next day you would normally post  ). This is to help us keep tabs on our own progress, and for others to cheer us on if it’s a difficult week. Please link to the post in the #writemotivation hashtag
3. Visit your #writemotivation team mates blogs, and participate in the #writemotivation hashtag to cheer people on
4. Please fill in the form here:

Once this done you’re ‘registered’

It’d be nice if we all subscribed to each other’s blogs, but I don’t want to make that a rule, just a courtesy.

Sign up and let’s keep #writemotivation going. Kicking butt has been difficult for me what with the baby and the selling and buying of a house. But I’m really looking forward to March, not to mention cookies, caffeine, dinosaurs and zombie cheerleaders! 

Here’s to a fantastic March 2013!

This is our icon. Please give credit for it:  Header image and thumbnail photograph by Hugh Lee and licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. Hover credit is fine.

Header image and thumbnail photograph by Hugh Lee and licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. http://www.flickr.com/photos/sahlgoode/

Please link back to this post if you’re blogging about it. Sign ups will close at midnight CST on February 28th and I’ll post the participants list and their goals up on March1st.

Any questions, please ask below. Here’s to a fantastic month of goal achieving!

Originally published at K.T. Hanna - The Scribble Muse. You can comment here or there.

So, it’s that time of year again.

You know the one. Where we all make a heap of goals for ourselves that are hopefully achievable and jot them down. Okay, some of us might not make them completely achievable, but striving for them is part of the fun.

2012 turned out a bit unexpected for me life wise, but damn good for me writing wise. I wouldn’t change the year for the world. I think 2012 was indeed one of the best years of my life.

I’m planning on making 2013 a damn good one too.

I’ve divided my goals into 3 categories. Writing, Life and Internet – because let’s face it, I do best with lists and categories.

Writing Goals (order subject to change due to PlotBunny Migration (PBM))

• Finish drafting AI 3 (20-25k)
• Edit AI 1 in full
• Send AI 1 to Agent of Awesome
• Outline Fod
• Plot Fod
• Draft Fod
• Beta SW, PD, TH, BB and anything else my CPs have for me
• Finish GG Plot/Outline
• Draft GG
• Outline Ana
• Plot Ana
• Draft Ana (or another WIP depending on PBM)
• Edit Fod in full (or another WIP depending on PBM)
• Send drafted WIP to Agent of Awesome
• Get my Personal Blog organized and relaunched
• Attend 2 Writing Conferences

Life Goals

• Work out a routine with Kami
• Work out a schedule for Kami, Work, Writing (yes, I work from home)
• Keep up with my friends
• Maintain a Healthy Lifestyle (food and exercise wise)
• Ready the House for Sale
• Move if the House Sells
• Stick to our budget
• Read more books

Internet Related Goals

• Launch the new and improved #Writemotivation initiative
• Organize and maintain my Google Reader
• Be more consistent about following Blogs
• Keep up with #Writemotivation
• Keep up with my internet friends and Writer community
• Create my FB Author Page
• Maintain a blog schedule

So there we have it. My goals for 2013. Perhaps a bit lofty considering I have a bundle of joy to slot into my life, but she will have nap times. We’re hopefully moving in the first half of the year, so I have to realize that for a few weeks, I’m likely to get pretty much jack and shit done. But that’s all good. I can deal with that.

Working from home is both a curse and a blessing. Blessing because of the obvious – Kambria time is especially important, but also a curse because I’m my own master and have to allocate time not only for working on my writing, Kambria and the house, but also to the job that earns me cash.

Anyway – this is my list as it stands right now. I hope to begin crossing stuff off soon. Must make my timetable (Excel here I come). #Writemotivation 2013 should launch at the end of this month and there will likely be a sign up shortly before that for February.

Here’s to a fantastic 2013! Hope everyone else has a great one! Have some chocolate to kick it off

Originally published at K.T. Hanna - The Scribble Muse. You can comment here or there.

2012 was a fantastic year for me.

I had a huge start to the year and got my agent through Brenda Drake’s PitchMadness. Judith Engracia is fantastic and I can still barely believe that she signed me.

About the same time, I found out I was pregnant. Now, this was a planned pregnancy, but we were getting to the end of our self imposed trying time and were nevertheless surprised.

I still managed to get in a heap of editing this year and write over 210k of new words in almost 3 full first drafts. I feel pretty good about the writing accomplishments. Needless to say the health and online goals didn’t really get done because having baby changed things a bit.

Writing: Considering I now know I’m a plotter and not a pantser (thank you vertigo 2011) – I don’t find these unreasonable goals.

• Finish edits on TDP Book 1.
• Paper Edit TDP 2&3
• Write WIPSW in Feb/March
• Query Agents with TDP Trilogy as of April/May – Queried in March, signed in April
• Attend OWFI-May3-5
• Query, Query, Query
• Finish Full edits on TDP 2&3 – had a baby instead
• Finish first draft of WIP YS or WIP FT
• Contemplate outline of BE
• Query, Query, Query – only sent out 10 in total…
• Keep up with all crit groups/partners – half way
• Participate in #writemotivation, #changewritenow and other blog related hop things – fell off toward the end
• STOP PROCRASTINATING – mostly
• Work on something writing/editing/revision/plotting related every day
• Write a song as I haven’t written any since 2007

I should add that I did write 2 complete first drafts and 75% of a 3rd… so technically that was in excess hehe

I’ve been more absent from #Writemotivation than I’d have liked to be in the tail end of 2012 – however we’ve been planning over direct messages bwah hah hah and we have plans for #Writemotivation in 2013. Hopefully launching the new and improved version by the end of January 2013 Stay tuned!

So really, I did extremely well all things considered. But really – as proud as I am of my writing accomplishments – 2012 was dominated by Kambria’s arrival.

Love her to pieces. Hope everyone else had a fantastic 2012.

I’ll be figuring out this year’s goals and posting those soon. Can’t wait to see what we’re all aiming to achieve in 2013.

Here’s to an amazing 2013 for us all.

Originally published at K.T. Hanna - The Scribble Muse. You can comment here or there.

Well, I only managed to half way succeed with my November goal for #Writemotivation.

On November 14th at 6:32pm I had a healthy baby girl. Kambria Rose Hanna was born weighing 8 pounds and 3.7 ounces, and was 20 inches tall. Her head was full of pretty brown hair and she was amazing from her first second of life.

Needless to say – with a newborn, there’s really not much else I’ve been able to do.

The routine has changed and pretty much become:

• sleep when baby sleeps
• feed baby when baby is hungry
• Change poop and pee diapers
• rock baby when she has the hiccups

There’s really not much time for me to do anything else. Slowly trying to get a handle back on time, but it’s mostly a blur – a tired one at that. But damn, she’s really just gorgeous. So, I can’t and really don’t want to complain lol.

However, this means I’ve accomplished relatively little writing wise. I have a few minor tweaks to make before I re-send my book to my awesome agent. It’s just been extremely difficult to get up the brain power to sit down and do anything. And of course, it’s only reasonable that I don’t beat myself up about it – but still, it’s hard not to.

Kami is only 16 days old. As she gets older I’ll have a bit more time while she sleeps longer. And my husband is fantastic about helping me. I’m feeling rather lucky right now.

In January we’re hoping to launch a #writemotivation initiative  for 2013 which will be much more hands on and hopefully reach out to more people to provide encouragement and well… that motivation we all so love.

I’m truly sorry that I haven’t been as active in the last few months, but the whole pregnancy thing threw me. It was a difficult pregnancy.

I hope that everyone had a fantastic NaNoWriMo and that we’re all looking forward to a productive December/Holiday Season. I’ve really missed everyone, but getting used to motherhood is an amazing thing!

Originally published at K.T. Hanna - The Scribble Muse. You can comment here or there.

So – a quick update about my #Writemotivation November.

I’m so jealous of everyone participating in NaNo! I really wish I could, but baby is more important. Naturally.

However, I did manage to finish my round of Edits and send them to my super awesome agent. So happy with it too. I’m stoked about changing the category. I think it left much more room to enhance important details that weren’t so vital for the previous category.

So, that’s probably my #writemotivation for the month, but I will be cheering everyone on. Not to mention I’ll make some updates about baby.

WHO IS DUE IN less than 8 days as I type this.

Getting so nervous and a little overwhelmed. But so excited.

And then today is election day. Sending my blood pressure soaring. *sighs*

I think I’ll go have a cupcake now and cheer on my fellow #writemotivationers!

How is your NaNo November going?

Originally published at K.T. Hanna - The Scribble Muse. You can comment here or there.

It’s here – November 1st – another #writemotivation goal check month 

I’m pretty sure I’ve managed to transfer all the information correctly– everyone’s name should link to their website, and their twitter handle to their twitter handle. This month, we have 20 participants! This is AWESOME, especially considering it’s NaNo month. Get ready to cheer everyone on! 

This was the initial sign up page if you’d like to nab the badge! Please remember to give credit for the image. Also – no more sign ups for this month. We’ll have another in January to celebrate the new year. There will likely be a slightly different, more involved format to our 2013 year. Stay tuned! Sign up post will be in mid-December 

Please note: even if you aren’t signed up for #writemotivation on the list, feel free to take part in the hashtag and cheer and be cheered. Beware of flaming zombie dinosaur cheerleaders and flying cookies … I think that’s our latest addition

For a refresher -

The Rules:

1. Make a list of realistic goals for the month – and achieve them.
2. Make a Blog Post every week (preferably Monday, but if you don’t post on Mondays just add it to the next day you would normally post  ). This is to help us keep tabs on our own progress, and for others to cheer us on if it’s a difficult week. Please link to the post in the #writemotivation hashtag
3. Visit your #writemotivation team mates blogs, and participate in the #writemotivation hashtag to cheer people on

Collect them all!

In the next week or two I will have some #writemotivation cookie buttons worked up  Collect one every month to have a full set – like pokemon, only cookies 

Name/Site	Twitter	Goals for November 2012
K.T. Hanna	@KTHanna	1. Have a healthy baby girl! 2. Cheer on fellow #Writemotivationers when energy permits! 3. Try for a blog post per week 4. Keep up with other #writemotivation blogs
Andrew Patterson	@DyadicEchoes	1) Survive NaNo. I’m starting something new for NaNo and completely different from HJ. 2) I’m supposed to have HJ done by the end of the October. Not sure I’ll make it so I might be finishing HJ at the same time I’m doing NaNo. 3) Blog as I can! 4) Throw chocolate dino zombie #writemotivation cookies at everyone.
Leigh Caroline	@leigh_caroline	1. Crits paused except for internship. Anything anyone wants done can wait until December. 2.Nanowrimo- WIN this year! (Then I’ll be at 5/10 nano wins!) 3. Job. Pretty please universe?
Brenna Braaten	@brennabraaten	1. Win NaNoWriMo (obviously the most important one) 2. Blog at least twice a week 3. Do one Vlog for the month 4. Write a little bit every day on STAR RUBY 5. Comment on at least five blogs per week
Heather Jacobs	@stateofego	My goals are going to be pretty simple: - Continue to work on WIP We the People Rewrite (getting a minimum of 300 or more words a day) - Continue blogging weekly for Geeks Unleashed. - Keep up on Motivation Blogs - Continue my politics series of blogs on my site
Lauren	@chickwith_stick	1. Write 30K, with a minimum of 1000 words a day. 2. Get in the habit of writing daily 3. Decide if WIP is able to be finished at this time 4. Get to know people in the writing community
Candace Gauger	@okauthor	Just one goal for November, reach the 50K mark, minimum, on my nano novel Dark of Duck.  (sucky name, I know)
Lisa Wilton	@ltwilton	Finish 2 short stories for competitionsComplete 50,000 words for nanowrimo
Rebekah Loper	@RebekahLoper	1. Complete my first draft of Undoing – whether it’s 50k or 100k. 2. Keep up with my NaNo daily updates on the blog. 3. Write 200 words a day on Stars for the Dead. 4. Keep up with blogs & twitter. 5. Survive November.
Cheyenne Campbell	@chylu	1) 50k on WIP (which will bring the word count to ~70k 2) Query MS#1 x3
Cate Russell-Cole	@cateartios	My goals are finishing three critical tasks which are dragging on. I want to focus on them in the NaNoWriMo period. I have joined Nano, but as a non-fiction writer, I don’t really fit. The word counts for these books is much less and the tasks are different.1. Give “The Little Book of Back Care” it’s own angle; update the content and place back on Amazon Kindle. Update in Thomas Bowker. 2. Complete the last four chapters, edit, register and upload to Kindle “Avoiding Back Pain: A Simple Guide.” 3. Complete the forward and final compilation of “Phoenix Rising: Conquering the Stresses of the Writer’s Life” which is to be released in January 2013.
Valerie Lawson	@litbeing	1. Write at least 12,000 words on nanowrimo project each week. 2. Write blog post at least once a week. 3. Read and comment on other blogs. 4. Exercise four times a week.
Jamie Dement	@I_am_LadyJai	1) Progress 2) Read another book 3) Provide unending support for #writemotivation 4) Write blog posts for both #writemotivation and a few others, if I can think of some.
Michelle	@MichellePierce	1. Finish Buzz articles by November 12. 2. Hit 50,000 words by November 30.
Sue Ann Bowling	@sueannbowling	1. (and the only one.) Get through at least the first draft of edits for Rescue Operation, and get them to my editor. (and I hope respond.) She’s had a quick look, so I know what to work on, but it’s going to take some new sections from the villain’s POV plus rewriting for more show and less tell.
Lauren Miller	@lmillerbooks	1. Write the 1st draft of Aurorae Rising (my 2012 NaNo novel).  My novel is about a delivery guy who is charged with the strangest errand of his life — escorting a sealed package along a cross-country airship race to a foreign land. 2. Blog weekly for #writemotivation updates. 3. Try to attend at least 2-4 real life meetups with other Wrimos this year to network and encourage each other along this November. 4. I read and review pre-release books for a magazine.  I need to sit down and actually read all of my backlog of books which are due in mid-December but if I can knock it out this month then things won’t be so rushed around the holidays. 5. I really, really would like to try and be a NaNo winner this year.  My biggest challenge will be getting past week 2-3 when the novelty has worn off.Thanks for reading!
MAJK	@Safireblade	1) average 1700 daily words on Pyromancer (working Title) 2) complete MS for ATR entirely (2500 daily words average) 3) hand ATR off to editor 4) average a minimum of 1 post of To Live a Dragon’s Age weekly (700-1500 weekly average 5) post an encouraging comment to at least 5 other writers blogs per day
Misa Buckley	@MisaBuckley	Win NaNo!
Nellie	@solimond	1:  Keep up with NaNo and use the blog to keep track, maybe even give a six sentence snippet with each post. 2:  Work more on expanding the world that I’m basing my story on.  (Most people would do this as prep, you know before NaNo.  Not me, OH No!). 3:  Keep to the blogging 3x a week. 4:  On top of NaNo, keep up with the flash fiction contests all week. 5.  Actually pulling out my older NaNos and work on editing them, even if it is a page at a time.
Becca	@Callmebecks	1) Make progress on PD edits!

If you have any questions just let me know in the comments below and I’ll do my best to get them answered.

Otherwise! Have a fantastic November. Go NaNo participants! YOU CAN DO IT!

Here’s to achieving our goals

Originally published at K.T. Hanna - The Scribble Muse. You can comment here or there.

We’re already at the end of October. Funny that.

I had my birthday on the 21st, and had a truly great day with well wishes from fantastic friends all capped off with a lovely family dinner.

I’ve not been as active in social media as I’d like to be this month. I’d like to apologize for that, but the last month or so of pregnancy has hit me really hard. The pelvic issues I have get worse with each passing day – so much that I can barely move now.

So, I’m officially counting down to baby’s arrival on November 14th. And I can’t say I wouldn’t be ecstatic if she didn’t decide to come sooner. At this rate, I’m not even sure I’ll be able to walk into the hospital come d-day.

Edits are going quite well. I’ve done the bulk of the additions I wanted to make, and just have to comb through the rest for consistency checks and minor details. Hoping to have this done by the end of the week.

My parents arrive on Thursday night. Not entirely sure I can go greet them at the airport. Yes, my pain is that bad.

And then of course, there’s still the #writemotivation sign ups for November. Need some extra cheering on for NaNo? Come and play with dinosaurs, cookies, fire and zombies. Not necessarily in that order

How was your October? How are your goals for 2012 going?

I think I’m going to eat some chocolate.

Originally published at K.T. Hanna - The Scribble Muse. You can comment here or there.

What is a Goal-Check month? 

Apart from the general cheering we do on a daily basis, a Goal-Check Month is where you set goals for yourself and hold yourself accountable to them. You let us know what those goals are, and report during the month on how you think you’re going with them. This helps hold yourself accountable.

The aim here is not to compete with each other – it’s to compete against ourselves (and that pesky inner-critic and procrastination demon that try to defeat us when we least want them to).

To that end we try to add a little incentive every month. This time around – we’re going to add buttons again. Shiny, colourful, cookie buttons – collect them all – and in November, it’s double incentive to finish NaNo! You know, all the cheering, cookies, caffeine and zombie dinosaurs

Though these goal-check months technically have rules – don’t worry – they’re completely doable.

The Rules:

1. Make a list of realistic goals for the month – and achieve them.
2. Make a Blog Post every week (preferably Monday, but if you don’t post on Mondays just add it to the next day you would normally post  ). This is to help us keep tabs on our own progress, and for others to cheer us on if it’s a difficult week. Please link to the post in the #writemotivation hashtag
3. Visit your #writemotivation team mates blogs, and participate in the #writemotivation hashtag to cheer people on
4. Please fill in the form here:

Once this done you’re ‘registered’

It’d be nice if we all subscribed to each other’s blogs, but I don’t want to make that a rule, just a courtesy.

Sign up and let’s keep #writemotivation going. Though I won’t be able to participate this month (Baby Girl is due mid month), I’m really looking forward to others kicking butt in November, not to mention cookies, caffeine, dinosaurs and zombie cheerleaders! 

Here’s to a fantastic November (NaNo) 2012!

This is our icon. Please give credit for it:  Header image and thumbnail photograph by Hugh Lee and licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. Hover credit is fine.

Header image and thumbnail photograph by Hugh Lee and licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. http://www.flickr.com/photos/sahlgoode/

Please link back to this post if you’re blogging about it. Sign ups will close at midnight CST on October 31st and I’ll post the participants list and their goals up on November 1st.

Any questions, please ask below. Here’s to a fantastic month of goal achieving!

Originally published at K.T. Hanna - The Scribble Muse. You can comment here or there.

October. Half way done already.

I took a sort of mini, unannounced hiatus. Right now, I have multiple countdowns running.

2 days until November Goal check sign ups for #Writemotivation begin

6 days until my Birthday.

16 days until Halloween.

16 days for my self-imposed edit deadline.

17 days until my Parents arrive for 2.5 months.

30 days until my scheduled c-section, where my life will change forever.

So, it’s not like big things are happening, right? And with the added lack of energy this close to the end of pregnancy? Yep, you got it, even writing a blog post has become difficult.

But I will persevere!

Nursery is about 99% complete. Just two more loads of washing to do and everything will be prepared. It’s getting so close to time now… it’s almost surreal.

#Writemotivation has been helping me edit some. Not as much done as I would like to have, but I’ll get there. 1 chapter a day is doable, right? RIGHT?

Although I’ll sign up for November – my goal will probably consist of: have a healthy baby. LOL. I don’t expect too many people to sign up – it is NaNo month – but we can combine it and use Writemotivation to spur on some serious NaNo butt kicking! YES! I will however still contribute cookies, caffeine and flaming zombie dinosaur cheerleaders!

How has everyone else’s October been? Mine is just hectic as hell.

Originally published at K.T. Hanna - The Scribble Muse. You can comment here or there.

Hey there everyone – Today is the last day of September 2012 #Writemotivation month.

I hope everyone had a very productive month and got to all of their goals. Even if you didn’t make the progress you aimed for – always remember that ANY progress is progress and there’s always next month.

The important thing is: Don’t give up.

Remember to stick around the #Writemotivation tag, since we always tend to hang around there.

I’ve been extra busy this month – who am I kidding lol. Preparing for baby is ridiculously involved. At least it is with two future OCD parents. I’m guessing she’ll get some of that too haha. However, if she were to arrive tomorrow, we have everything we need to take immediate care of her. So this makes me smile.

In November I’ll enlist lots of help for #Writemotivation as I will be juggling a newborn about half way through the month. Should have the sign up for November out there by mid October – give or take a few days.

If you reached your goals in September – make sure you snag this little #writemotivation badge for the collect them all sort of vibe

I want to thank everyone for all the encouragement you share with each other, and the cheering and cookies we fling around.

Here’s to many more months of productivity spurred on by flaming zombie dinosaurs!

Tell me how your September went!