Starcat's Writing Desk

Hi, I’m back! And I’m ready to retreat – not in the military sense, but I’m actually attending a retreat tomorrow. I’m so thrilled about it! It’s part of my coaching course. The last retreat I went to with these women was life-changing, and now I’m that much further along in my learning, so I’m very excited to see what I come away with after the next two days. Plus, even though the retreat is only 40 minutes away, I decided to stay over at the hotel (there are several women coming in from out of state) and treat myself a true mini-getaway.

Book writing has been going slowly – I had such a busy week last week that I didn’t get to it at all. I worked for my “bridge job” (part-time work not related to my callings) three days out of five. On Thursday we went back to the homeschool co-op we used to be part of, to help our friend with the final quest for Camp Half-Blood, a class based on Greek mythology and the Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief books. It was fun – the picture shows some of the “gold” coins the kids made. It was really good to see everyone. But that left one day for writing, and I wasn’t feeling well that day – there’s a lot of pollen around, and my allergies were acting up.

I’m back on track with working on the draft now (with a short break for the retreat), and I’m currently at 32,755 words. That means I’ve written 2,589 new words so far this week. Not bad.

Blogging is going well. I just sent in my Kind Over Matter post for June, and both my biz blog and personal blog are up to date.  We did our workshop, and while we only had two participants (again – still working on getting the word out better), they both really loved it. So now we have another workshop ready to offer again in the future, as we expand our community. I’m up to date with my coaching course and ready to go rock the retreat!

I’m not even gonna mention the quitting sugar thing, except to say that it just hasn’t happened yet. It’s still on my list of goals, though.

Have a lovely week and do lots of fun creative work!

I don’t even really know how I’m doing towards my goals. Some days I feel scattered and unorganized, other days I’m off adventuring with no regard for my lists (like last Wednesday, when I didn’t remember to check in here), and on yet others I’m focused and on task. The hopeful thing is that I feel really excited about my current work in progress, and I’m one-quarter of the way through the first draft. After this week I’m at 30,166 words, on the way to around 120K total.

This week I finished reading Iterate & Optimize by Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant (excellent and highly recommended) and read How I Write: Secrets of a Best-Selling Author by Janet Evanovich (quite interesting, though it’s ten years old and the info about publishing is way out of date). I’ve lagged behind a bit on my blogging goals due to going out to play in the nice weather, though I did take a bunch of new photos while I’ve been out and about. I cleaned my room today and did some more de-cluttering.

I’ve been keeping up with most of the tasks on last Sunday’s mini-goals list – except for that pesky sugar thing. I hope to quit again this week. Sugar is the true gateway drug (just kidding). Anyway, I guess I’ll keep this short and sweet (sweet, get it?).

Here’s my mini-goals list for this week:

• Work on my Heart of the Goddess book draft every weekday.
• Finish preparing for this weekend’s workshop.
• Get back on track with blogging.
• Give up sugar again. (Note to self: You can do it!)
• Listen to live and recorded calls for my biz coaching program and do my homework.

Happy Mother’s Day to those of you who are Moms of any stripe! I’ve been enjoying some fun family time today with my kids and extended family. I also got to take a nap, which was helpful since I stayed up late last night watching Captain America: Civil War at the movie theater. No spoilers here, but I’ll just say it’s a fantastic movie, if you’re into that whole Marvel thing. Which I am.

I only wrote three days out of my intended five this week, but I added a weekly total of 4868 words, which is not too shabby. I’m 92 percent of the way through reading Iterate & Optimize, and I’ll finish it up this week. I purchased a self-study course called 100 Review Book Launch, and I’m excited to start it.

The copy is ready for our next workshop, and we’ve started publicizing it. Blogging is pretty well on track, and I’ve still been keeping up with my biz coaching course work. All is well in my creative world.

Here are my mini-goals for the week:

• Work on my Heart of the Goddess book draft every weekday.
• Continue promoting the workshop.
• Revise and make new plans for Feline Dreamers and set priorities for next steps.
• Give up sugar again. (Note to self: Yes, for real! This means me!)
• Listen to live and recorded calls for my biz coaching program.

Have a fantastic week full of writing and playfulness!

This week has been going well so far, in terms of writing and other projects. It’s been sort of grey and rainy, which makes me feel like staying in and working on my book. I’ve added this hiking picture because I feel like I haven’t been getting as much outdoor time this week as I’d like, though. Inspiration!

Speaking of inspiration, here are this week’s celebrations so far:

• I’ve added 3,583 new words to the Heart of the Goddess book this week, for a grand total of 25,288 out of 120K or so. Getting there!
• I’m 82 percent of the way through reading Iterate & Optimize, and I’m learning a lot.
• Tonight I attended an AWESOME event that is all about cool women entrepreneurs hanging out, networking, and making friends. It was my first time; my biz coach invited me. I loved it SO much and I’m thankful it’s a monthly event.
• Listened to a recording for my biz coaching program and took lots of notes.
• I’m so thankful for my lovely menfolk, who are my muses and inspire me every day.
• Blogging is on track and going well.
• BlackLion and I had some cool new ideas for our newsletter and blog, which we’ll be implementing soon.

That’s all for now. Hope the rest of your week goes swimmingly!

I had quite a busy week. I’m a Pagan, and this is a holiday week for me and my clan. Today we spent time dancing around (and drumming for) the maypoles at the beach, enjoying a huge community potluck, and laughing with friends. Mayday, or Beltane, is about celebrating the fertility of spring and nature becoming green and lovely again. Of course, this is Maine, and it was actually kind of cold on the beach today. But that didn’t stop us from having a lovely time!

This week I also went to the beach with a friend who is moving away. We had a picnic and a fun walk. And I drove up north a couple of hours to visit with some other dear friends. With all that adventure, I’m surprised I had time for any writing.

But I did! I completed my monthly post for Kind Over Matter, wrote 4433 new words for the Heart of the Goddess draft, wrote a blog post for Feline Dreamers, worked at my bridge job, and kept up with my coaching course. I’m at 74 percent of the way through Iterate & Optimize, which isn’t much further than last time, but that’s okay.

I’ve been exercising a lot, though I’ve also been eating sugar recently and need to ditch it again and get back on track.

Overall, life is going well and I’m excited about my creative projects. This week I have more time to work on stuff (um, hopefully!), as my schedule isn’t quite so dang full.

Here are my mini-goals for the week:

• Work on my Heart of the Goddess book draft every weekday.
• Write copy and content for our next Feline Dreamers workshop (on 5/21), and publicize it.
• Give up sugar again.
• Listen to live and recorded calls for my biz coaching program.

Have a fun week and get outdoors in the lovely spring world (or fall crispness, depending on where you live)!

The title, above, is my basic report on my week. I had a lot of fun, and was also productive with my writing. A win for sure! I’m trying a new way of scheduling my time, and it’s working really well thus far. It’s also showing me where I tend to get over-optimistic about how much I can accomplish in a certain period of time, so I can tweak my writing and creating schedule as I proceed forward.

One of the things that is working for me right now is that I’ve become a coffee shop writer. My son and I are currently sharing a vehicle. One or two days each week, I drop him off at college (he lives at home) and then go to a coffee shop for a couple of hours and work on my book. I love it! I confess that I don’t drink coffee. I’ve never liked the flavor, and I don’t do caffeine very often. That said, I do enjoy chai tea with almond milk, so that’s been my drink of choice as I write there. It’s fun to go into a completely new place, by myself, and just focus on my writing. I’m much less distracted, even though there is a lot going on around me – I am writing in a notebook, so the internet isn’t there to tempt me away from my focus. I love that I’m learning new techniques for focused writing.

This week I added 5878 new words. My running total for the draft is 17,266 words, on the way to 120K or so. I’m 72 percent of the way through reading the most-excellent Iterate & Optimize. Exercising and getting outdoors has been going really well, especially now that the weather is warmer. I’m on track with blogging, and keeping up with my coaching course. Things are chugging along well!

Here are my mini-goals for the week:

• Work on my Heart of the Goddess book draft every weekday.
• Brainstorm with BlackLion about new ideas for Feline Dreamers, and begin putting them into action.
• Keep up with blogging – my May post is due this week for Kind Over Matter.
• Listen to live and recorded calls for my biz coaching program.

That sounds like plenty. I’m keeping it real and not trying to cram too much into one week! I wish you a delightful week of writing and fun.

In terms of getting stuff done towards my goals, I’m just going to pretend that last week didn’t happen. Because mostly, it didn’t. This week has been much better.

Here are my Wednesday celebrations:

• So far this week, I’ve written every day on the Heart of the Goddess book. I’ve added 3721 new words. It feels good, and I’ve got some momentum on it now. The grand total so far is 15,109 words.
• I’m 52 percent of the way through reading Iterate & Optimize.
• I finished the annoying personal paperwork that I mentioned in my last update.
• Exercising is going well. The weather has been nice, and I’ve been taking some lovely walks. The photo is from today’s jaunt to the beach.
• My biz coaching program has been going well. I’m learning more and more every week, sometimes every day.
• All of my daily practices are going along fine.
• I’m trying a new way of scheduling my time, which so far is working. It’ll go nicely with the bullet journaling, too, when I get to that point.

I wish you a week full of words and imagination!

It’s Sunday evening already, wow! I had a fun weekend. On Friday afternoon, BlackLion and I went for a walk on some trails by the Saco River, a few miles from our house. Quester came home from up north, getting a ride with a good friend of ours, who stayed the night. We had homemade fried rice for dinner and then played Mexican Train Dominoes and Cosmic Wimpout, two of our favorite games. On Saturday we played Dungeons & Dragons with some other friends, and had a great time. Today we enjoyed some poetry writing and fun games at our Sunday workshop. So, lots of playfulness, which is inspiring. I’m pretty tired tonight, though.

This week went well in terms of working on my goals. I worked on my Heart of the Goddess book draft 4 out of 5 days this week, and I’m now at 11,388 words. I’m 36 percent of the way through reading Iterate & Optimize, which is fantastic. BlackLion and I made a promotional video for our Heart of the Goddess program, and I’m pleased with how it came out. I like making videos; they’re fun. I wouldn’t have said that just a couple of years ago. I feel more comfortable now with being on camera.

I worked on some de-cluttering in my room this afternoon, and got a ton of paperwork sorted and filed. My desk is looking much better. That feels good. I’m keeping up with blogging, and took a bunch of photos during our walk on the river.

Here are my mini-goals for this week:

• Enroll 10 people into our Heart of the Goddess spiritual mentoring program, which begins the 18th.
• Work on the Heart of the Goddess book draft 5 days this week.
• Finish some personal financial paperwork – wait, it is still called paperwork if it’s done online?
• Get more exercise.

I’m off to bed soon with a book and a cat or two. Blessings for an inspiring week ahead!

I just found out about bullet journaling recently, and I’m geeking out on the whole idea of it. I haven’t started one yet, because I really love my Leonie Dawson 2016 day planner. But I can see myself adopting the whole system at some point. As a Virgo, hardcore journal-keeper, avid doodler, and curator of ideas, it lights me up on several levels. If this appeals to you like it does to me, watch the two videos in this link – yes, even the 30 minute one. I usually have little patience for videos, but I was avidly paying attention the whole time. I told you I was geeking out!

Anyway, it’s our first ROW 80 check-in today, and things are going well this week so far.

I worked on the Heart of the Goddess book draft on Monday and today. Here, as promised, are some word counts. I started the Round with 8,356 words already written. On Monday I added 905 new words. Today I wrote 1077 words. That brings me to a grand total of 10,338 words written on this draft so far. Not a bad start at all.

That’s pretty much all I have to report. I did a bit of blogging, and we’ve been planning our next steps in regard to videos, but that’s about it for now. I’ll start up again with the Wednesday celebrations next week. I hope your writing and other projects are going well!

Round 2 begins! I’m excited to harness the active energies of spring and move toward my favorite season, summer. I have some ambitious writing goals for this Round. They’re also really fun, so hopefully that will keep me motivated.

I’ll come up with some more specific word count breakdowns around my main writing project soon.

Without further ado, here’s the list. Wish me luck!

2016 Row 80 Round 2 Goals

Draft Heart of the Goddess book. Work on it daily (on weekdays). Finish the first draft (target of 120,000 words) by the end of the Round.

Re-read draft of Patterns in the Void and make revision notes. Make a plan for writing the revisions during Round 3.

Continue my craft & business learning. Participate fully in my In Arms Coaching biz program. Read at least 3 books about writing craft and/or making a living as a writer. Check out a couple of writer podcasts. Keep notes on ideas to use, and begin implementing them.

Build community for Feline Dreamers through strategic use of video. Send show proposal to Conscious Consumer Network. Do weekly Blab chats, building our audience. Complete at least 2 more videos for Love Alike website. Make promotional videos for our programs. This will all involve writing, in the form of scripts and outlines. 

Complete various behind-the-scenes marketing tasks: Add my author name domain to my website(s). Decide if we still want to create weekday Fae Musings e-mails for our Feline Dreamers subscribers, and if yes, do so. Update our freebies for folks who sign up for our Feline Dreamers list. Add new folks to both of our mailing lists.

De-clutter and organize my life, creating beautiful spaces. Clean and organize my upstairs desk and filing cabinets. Finish our “punch list” for the rest of the downstairs project. Finish de-cluttering and organizing the eaves. Create the photo gallery for the stairwell wall.

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. Write book reviews for Facing North website. Start and keep a running list of blog post ideas, drafts, and picture ideas.

Make inspiring art and music. Practice zentangling. Create new scrapbook pages and art journal pages. Take nature photographs to use on my websites and blog posts. Practice drumming regularly.

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

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.