Starcat's Writing Desk

I’ve had a super-relaxing New Year’s weekend, and I’m very thankful indeed! Now it’s time to jump back into the ROW 80 stream.

A funny experience: I’d set up a revision plan for my novel draft, Patterns In the Void. Or at least, I reported that I did, here on this blog (on December 18th’s update), and I checked it off my task list in my daily planner (on December 17th). I vaguely remember doing it, in the craziness of holiday preparations. But I couldn’t find the actual plan at all! Not on my laptop or email or phone or in my notebook or journal or on a random piece of paper – it just vanished! For a fairly organized (at least with files and paperwork type stuff) Virgo, this is highly unusual. I really don’t know what became of it. After an hour or so of searching, I ended up re-creating it.

I wonder if I’ll find the plan in some random location someday. Or perhaps it just wasn’t a good plan, so the Universe deleted it from existence for me. Heh heh. Who knows?

Onward and upward – here are my goals for this Round.

2017 ROW 80 Round 1 Goals

Promote and sell Heart of the Goddess book. Set up a timeline and task lists for all the items on my promotion plan. Get more reviews. Order book stock. Get my books in local stores. Do more giveaways and contests. Get the book on Ingram (so bookstores and libraries can order it).

Do revisions of Patterns in the Void and send to beta readers. Use the three-pass system to revise the manuscript, during the month of January. Get initial feedback from my guys in January (using the basic draft, not revised yet) and implement their suggestions in early to mid February. Do other editing as needed in the remainder of February. Get non-family beta readers and send them the manuscript in early March. (Target publication date is July 2017).

Continue my craft, finance, & business learning. Participate in In Arms Coaching program. Read at least 3 books about writing craft and/or making a living as a writer. Participate in Personal Finance Consciousness Circle (PFCC). Finish reading and working through the Barbara Stanny and Denise Duffield-Thomas finance books.

Build community for Feline Dreamers. Create and promote workshops and other events. Write sermon for UU service. Get 2 new speaking engagements. Make a plan for the debut of our podcast (Spring 2017).

Focus on blogging. Post to my Starcat’s Corner blog at least once per week, Feline Dreamers each month, and on this blog twice per week. Write, edit, and submit monthly guest blog posts for Kind Over Matter. Submit a guest blog proposal to Mike Dooley’s site. Keep a running list of blog post ideas, drafts, and picture ideas.

Winter Hometending. Clear off and de-clutter my desk and filing cabinets. Finish painting the stairwell and put up photos. Work on de-cluttering the basement.

Enhance my physical health. Devote time to daily exercise, including but not limited to walking, yoga, dancing, hula-hooping, and swimming. Stop eating sugar. Eat less in general.

Live my LUMINOUS spiritual daily life. Do things I love: write in my journal, read, do yoga, dance, walk, spend time with loved ones, and express my gratitude. Pay attention to my dreams and keep records of them. Set intentions before sleep and upon waking. Meditate and do my chakra clearing daily. Gather with my sisters on Full Moons.

Have a great week and good luck tackling those goals!

Another ROW 80 Round, that is…  Yesterday I was too busy recovering from staying up all night on Wednesday, the Winter Solstice, to post anything coherent. We hold a vigil all night, keeping the bonfire burning from sunset until sunrise when we greet the sun’s return. We hosted about 60 people this year at our annual Winter Solstice gathering! Though only a handful of us stayed up all night.

Now we’re settling into the final preparations for our family Christmas celebrations. I have about 95 percent of my gift wrapping done, which is very cool. I find it’s easier to do the holiday thing now that the kids are older. Tonight we watched White Christmas. I’m feeling quite merry, and glad that most of the busy part of the preparations is done.

Here are my goals for this Round and the results I’ve had with checking them off:

2016 ROW 80 Round 4 Goals

Finish and publish Heart of the Goddess book. Work on it daily (on weekdays). Finish the first draft (target of 120,000 words) by mid-October (I’m starting the Round at 101K words already written). Do first edit. Send manuscript to advance readers. Do copy edits and get ready for formatting process. Write marketing copy. DONE! I’m really happy with how the book came out, and I’m setting up plans for promoting it throughout 2017. 

Re-read draft of Patterns in the Void and make revision notes. Make a plan for writing the revisions during Round 1 of 2017. DONE! I’ve drafted a plan and I’m ready to do this thing. The tentative plan is to publish it in July.

Continue my craft, finance, & business learning. Participate in In Arms Coaching fall program. Read at least 3 books about writing craft and/or making a living as a writer. Participate in Personal Finance Consciousness Circle (PFCC). Finish reading and working through the Barbara Stanny and Denise Duffield-Thomas books. I’ve been working on most of this. I love my coaching program, and the PFCC. I haven’t been reading as many craft or prosperity books as I would have liked, but winter is here and I’m sure I’ll have more time to cozy up with some good tomes.

Build community for Feline Dreamers. Create and promote monthly online workshops. Create new low-cost offerings. Complete 5th video for Love Alike website. Write sermon for UU service. This is going very well indeed. I haven’t yet written the sermon, but I have been thinking about it. We finally filmed that pesky 5th video, yay! All else is going smoothly.

Focus on blogging. Post to my Starcat’s Corner blog at least once per week, Feline Dreamers each month, and on this blog twice per week. Write, edit, and submit monthly guest blog posts for Kind Over Matter. Submit a guest blog proposal to Mike Dooley’s site. Start and keep a running list of blog post ideas, drafts, and picture ideas. It’s going okay. Being super busy hasn’t helped me keep up with as much personal blogging as I’d like, but I’m keeping my hand in. I do want to write that Mike Dooley post soon! I signed up for another year of guest posting on Kind Over Matter – I love them. 

Prepare for the winter holidays. Budget for and purchase gifts. Make cards. Plan for Thanksgiving, Winter Solstice, and Christmas gatherings. Finish punch list from last year’s home decorating project. De-clutter the basement. DONE – with the exception of the punch list and the basement. I’ve made progress on both of those items, but there’s still more to be done, so I’ll continue them into the next Round.

Enhance my physical health. Devote time to daily exercise, including but not limited to walking, yoga, dancing, hula-hooping, and swimming. Stop eating sugar. Eat less in general. This one is up and down. I have some plans to do better with this goal in 2017. Overall, though, I’m blessed with good physical health, for which I’m very thankful. 

Live AUTHENTICally and spiritually in my daily life. Do things I love: write in my journal, read, do yoga, dance, spend time with loved ones, and express my gratitude. Pay attention to my dreams and keep records of them. Set intentions before sleep and upon waking. Meditate and do my chakra clearing daily. DONE – yet never really finished. 2016 was a hard year in many ways, but in others it’s been amazing. I love that I’ve been meditating and clearing my chakras every day, all year. Wow. It really makes a difference in feeling good on a regular basis.

Okay, lovely people. I’ll see you in the next Round. Happy Holidays to you!!!

When last I wrote here, I was waiting for the proof copy of The Heart of the Goddess: A Handbook for Soulful Living to arrive in the mail. Arrive it did, and it looks great. So, my fourth book is hereby published and available in paperback and as an e-book! I’m beyond thrilled about that. I know some of you fellow ROW 80 writers are interested in the topic matter, so please check it out here if you’re drawn to do so.

On Thursday evening I came down with a bad cold, which I think is my body’s way of telling me to slow down and relax. Luckily I didn’t have a super full weekend planned, so I’ve been doing just that. Sipping tea, gazing at the lovely Christmas tree, and perusing some magazines. I also finished re-reading my novel draft, Patterns In the Void. I actually like it much more than I remembered (I wrote it during NaNoWriMo in 2014). I’m going to enjoy revising it during Round 1, and getting it ready for publication this coming summer. My next (and final, for this Round) task regarding Patterns is to make a revision plan.

My biz coach has also been emphasizing the importance of taking time off around the holidays, something we entrepreneur types can have trouble doing. It sounds good in theory, but we have a new book to promote, and workshops and an online class coming up in January. We need to keep our momentum. BlackLion came up with the idea of using technology to schedule all our biz blog posts, emails, and Facebook promos through the end of the year in advance. We don’t usually automate much, as we like to keep things real and in the moment. But in this case, it will give us some much-needed time off, and we’ll still be around to deal with replies and queries, it’ll just take less of our time. I love the idea, and that’s what we’ll be doing this coming week – finalizing all of our content and scheduling things out.

So, here’s what’s on the docket for this week, which is in practice the end of the Round for me, since I’ll be taking time off after that.

• update all content for promoting The Heart of the Goddess, our Self-Worth Tune-Up free online workshop, and the Alchemy of Core Beliefs online course
• finish book promotion plan and schedule the associated tasks and promos
• schedule all promotional content out through the end of the month (and thus the end of 2016!)
• make a revision plan for Patterns In the Void, to be implemented starting in Round 1
• continue with holiday plans and preparations

Oh, and finishing healing from this cold, of course. I hope you have a delightful week full of creativity, prosperity, and joy!

As I write this, the proof of my book The Heart of the Goddess: A Handbook for Soulful Living is making its way to me. I can hardly wait! I love this part – when you get to hold the book you created in your hands for the first time. Eep! So excited!

Looking at my mini-goals list from last week, I’ve been making excellent progress. I’ve started my promotion plan for the book (my least favorite part of being an author, I confess). If anyone has a good book promotion checklist or template that they’re willing to share, I would very much appreciate it! I also worked on copy for our upcoming workshop and online course. Our free virtual event, Soulfulness Week, went pretty well. We had quite a bit of engagement, with folks commenting in the Facebook group and watching the videos. No one attended the live online workshop component on Thursday, but we did it anyway, and recorded it. I don’t know if anyone has listened to it yet. I’ve been keeping up fairly well with blogging, which I often neglect during this time of year.

We’ve been making our holiday plans, including the budget and timeline. I’ve also been making great progress on crafting holiday cards. We had a fun time today at my Mom’s house, making cards together.

I’m 30 percent of the way through re-reading my novel draft, Patterns In the Void, and making revision notes. That feels really good! I haven’t read it for a long time, and it’s actually better than I thought. It will still need significant revisions, but it’s a solid story.

Here are my mini-goals for the upcoming week:

• Finish creating the book promotion plan and make a timeline for getting things done.
• Continue to read Patterns In the Void and make revision notes.
• Figure out some new ways to publicize our upcoming workshop and course, coming up in January.
• Continue my holiday preparations.

Hope your week is full of all good things, including an extra dose of inspiration!

I’m happy to report that I finished my final edit yesterday, and The Heart of the Goddess is in production! Which means, in this case, that BlackLion is formatting it and getting it ready to be published on Kindle and CreateSpace. Woo hoo! It also means that I’m pretty much done with my part of things, though I’ll have to look over the proof copy and such. And of course there’s the whole promoting it piece…

Tomorrow our free virtual Soulfulness Week gets started, and I’m really looking forward to that. I feel like I’m making good progress on my goals list for Round 4. The only thing I haven’t done at all is to read Patterns In the Void and make a revision plan. Perhaps I’ll do some of that this evening.

On this week’s to-do list:

• Make a promotion plan for the book.
• Make plans for winter holiday stuff (to-do list, budget, gift shopping needed, etc.). I want to do most of my shopping online this year, if at all possible.
• Start reading Patterns In the Void and making revision notes.
• Work on website copy for Self-Worth Tune-Up workshop and Alchemy of Core Beliefs course, both of which are coming up in January.

This week is already feeling much more spacious now that the book is off my plate. I’m so psyched! Oh, and I think I’m addicted to this writing-and-publishing-books thing. As I was finishing the final edit, I was already coming up with ideas for the next book – which also made me think “what am I, crazy?!” because it take so much effort and work and focus. I mean, I’d already decided to take 2017 off from writing a new non-fiction book, so I can focus on building the business and selling the books I’ve already made…but here I am with new ideas. That’s a sign of addiction, right? I can stop anytime I want to! Um, maybe. Heh heh…

Have a fantastic, productive week, and for those of you finishing NaNoWriMo, rock on! You’ve got this!

I haven’t posted in a while, but happily that’s because I’ve been so busy working on my goals. I’m one-third of the way through my final edit of my book manuscript (The Heart of the Goddess: A Handbook for Living Soulfully). I’ve written the blurb for the back, and all the front matter and such. BlackLion has been working on the cover, which is coming along nicely.

On Tuesday we made 6 videos – five for our upcoming Soulfulness Week free virtual event next week and the final one that we’d been putting off for the peaceful parenting project for some time. Yay! BlackLion edited all of the Soulfulness Week ones and added music and an open and close (so fancy!).

I had a terrific meeting today with a copywriter who is helping us with some marketing copy, as part of my business coaching program. She’s amazing! I’m so excited about what we came up with.

Tonight BlackLion is going over see our friend at Tinkering Gnome computer repair, as his computer suddenly decided not to work. Yikes! It has all the videos and my book cover on it, as well as a bunch of photos. Hopefully all will go smoothly with fixing it or at least recovering what we need immediately. Thankfully all of my writing content gets backed up regularly, so that won’t be an issue. And I know, I know, the videos and photos should be backed up as well, we just haven’t had a good place to store backups lately. Ah well, it’s like cars – things break down now and then. I’m usually pretty Zen about it. If all else fails we can re-record the videos, and we have all the raw photos from the book cover photo shoot on a disc, so it can be recreated too.

Tomorrow we are hosting Thanksgiving Dinner for 12, which will be a whole lot of fun, with yummy foods. I’m looking forward to that.

I’ve been doing Gratitude Wednesdays (when I’m around to post on Wednesday, ahem), and tomorrow is a huge Gratitude Day, so here’s my list!

I’m so thankful for:

• my amazing family and friends!
• our tech-savvy friend at Tinkering Gnome and her flexibility in helping us out in a pinch.
• being *almost* done with my part of book production.
• all of the positive response we’ve been getting about Soulfulness Week! So excited!
• delicious food to enjoy together.
• my warm home during this cold snap (which in Maine means now through March, heh heh).
• the amazing tribe of biz women I belong to, and how we all uplift and support one another.
• my love of writing and creativity. It’s such fun!
• the way I always have good books to read – I’m a bookworm and also a book magnet.

Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it! And a productive week to all who wish it. Blessings!

I’ve always kind of hated that phrase, “now more than ever.” It became really popular after 9/11, and I just rolled my eyes, thinking of it as a sort of catch-all for “things have changed and we don’t like it.” I actually refused to say it for the short time that the public radio station I work part-time for used it as a tag line (though I don’t think anyone ever noticed).

This past week, though, I’ve felt like it’s one of those times where “now more than ever” kinda applies – particularly for people like me who are unapologetically liberal, pro-choice, pro-diversity, hippie Pagans.

I’m finding that my upcoming book, The Heart of the Goddess, while I didn’t write it to be trendy or because I foresaw this sort of thing (I really thought we’d be celebrating our first woman President), is resonating with many people. People who are in my camp are really trying to figure out what to do next, to make sure our values of tolerance, love, human rights, and supportive communities are nurtured and not trampled on. People are frightened, upset, and angry.

The values of the Divine Feminine, which I talk about in the book, are compassion, creative expression, holistic health, intuition, respect for diversity, communion with Nature, spiritual connection, and collaboration. Sounds like things we need more of in our lives, right?

So, what about my ROW80 goals? Thankfully, this was a week where I have my draft out to advance readers, so I didn’t have a bunch of book stuff to do. I did quite a bit of work on my business, though. We’re continuing to promote (and get) pre-orders for the book. BlackLion and I are making plans for an upcoming free virtual “Soulfulness Week,” and working on our road map for 2017, which includes a Facebook ad campaign. So it was a productive week, despite all the weirdness in the news.

I feel like the work I’m doing is vital, yes, “now more than ever.” Even more important, I love what I do. I’m so thankful for my freedom, creativity, and ability to devote my time to my passions. Onward!

I’m not doing NaNoWriMo this time around – I didn’t last year, either. I have a few friends who are doing it. I have to admit, I feel a tiny bit envious. I’m already putting it in the plans for November 2017. Yeah, I know, that’s a whole year away. I’m a Virgo, and an entrepreneur, and it’s the second-to-last month of the year – so of course I’m making my 2017 road map already. It’s been important to me, these past couple years, to focus on writing projects and other work that builds my business. This coming year, I’ll be focusing on getting our existing books, courses, and other offerings out to a wider audience – that will leave room in my writing schedule for some play time, which for me means fiction.

Even though I’m not tapped into the NaNoWriMo energy, I’m making some good progress. I’ve finished my first edit of my The Heart of the Goddess book draft, and built the Resources section as I went. I’ve found three advance readers (so far) who have the time to read the book pretty quickly and give me feedback. By the way, if you have the time and interest in devouring a book on the resurgence of the Feminine Divine in the next week, let me know!

My learning goal is going well. I’m participating in the Personal Finance Consciousness Circle, and reading the Denise Duffield-Thomas book, which is excellent. BlackLion and I are working on our Feline Dreamers community-building plans. I’ve been blogging pretty steadily. I’ve actually done some winter holiday preparations, which is good, because it’s sneaking up on us.

I just started my yearly “Pagan Lent” plan, which means that I give up refined sugar and alcohol from Halloween/Samhain until the Winter Solstice. I’m on day 6 and it’s been no problem at all. I think my body is used to it, as part of the yearly cycle. I also added a daily dance session, for exercise. I’m on day 2 of that. My spiritual practices continue to go well.

So, things are going great so far toward my Round 4 goals. Here are my mini-goals for the upcoming week:

• continue to promote pre-orders for The Heart of the Goddess
• get a couple more advance readers and send them the pdf
• make plans for our Facebook ad campaign that we’ve been working on
• work on the holiday collage cards
• make plans with BlackLion for our Soulfulness Week (part of our community-building work)

I wish you a productive week full of words, especially those doing NaNoWriMo or otherwise tracking their word counts!

I had to take some time away from The Heart of the Goddess book draft, after finishing it up. I set it aside completely for about a week. That’s normal, right? Now I’m halfway through my first edit, and creating the Resources section as I go. I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging, but wow. I’m impressed with the quality of this one. I think it’s my best yet – which makes sense, I guess, as everything improves with practice. This will be my fourth book, and it’s twice as long as the others. I wasn’t sure how it would go, this longer version, with more intermediate content. So I’m really super pleased that it’s coming along so well.

Blogging has been going along okay, though I skipped last week, aside from one post here to check in on Wednesday. I was just too busy to get to it. BlackLion and I are working on our road map for 2017 for Feline Dreamers, which is fun. We’re promoting the pre-orders for The Heart of the Goddess. I’ve been participating in my biz coaching program and the Personal Finance Consciousness Circle. Things are going well on all fronts. I’m very thankful!

Which reminds me – here’s my Wednesday gratitude list!

• So happy that I love my book draft, now that I’m in editing mode.
• I love my friends – they’re so supportive and fun and caring.
• Delighted to be selling pre-orders for the book – it’s my first time offering this!
• My fall biz retreat was FANTASTIC. Super inspiring.
• I’m thankful for hot tea, crisp days, and my cozy home.

Have a great week, everyone!

I did it! I finished my book draft of The Heart of the Goddess on Sunday! My final word count, toward a target goal of 120K, is 122,145. Yes!!! I wrote about 4K words on Saturday, and the same on Sunday, to finish up. That’s a lot, for me.

After celebrating with friends, I worked at the radio station on Monday, noticing how freeing it was to get ready in the morning without the self-imposed pressure to work on the book first. Yesterday, I sat down with a list of smaller writing projects to catch up with…and I just couldn’t function. I had no inspiration, no desire to work on anything, and just wanted to relax and veg out. So I did. That big final push depleted me creatively, and I needed to recharge.

Today, I feel a bit better. I wrote my Kind Over Matter post – using the topic of why it’s important to take time to celebrate and recharge (how “meta” of me, huh?). I’m here writing this post. I decided to blow off my personal blog until the weekend.

For the next two days, I’ll be at the fall retreat for my biz coaching course. I’m so excited! A room full of heart-centered women entrepreneurs, breaking through inner blockages and planning for a kick-ass 2017! I can’t wait.

Here’s my Wednesday gratitude list:

• Finishing my book draft!!! That’s the big one for this week.
• Learning and incorporating a new meditation that’s just perfect for my daily practice.
• The retreat that begins tomorrow!
• A fantastic private call with my biz coach this morning, to start getting pieces in place for the planning I’ll be doing over the next couple of days. She’s so inspiring!
• Living in such a gorgeous place. Autumn in Maine continues to amaze me, every year.

Have a beautiful rest of the week and I’ll hopefully be back on Sunday with another update. I wish you productive writing days!