#Writemotivation, #IWSG, Loneliness, and Cookies

 by MAJK

So I’m a day late for #WriteMotivation … Again.

K.T. Hanna made some awesome cookie badgesbut I don’t get any this round.

COOOOKIEE! OM NOM NOM NOM!

She also made the mistake of saying there were going to be different color badges and we could collect them like Pokemon. Naturally, the nerdy girl collector in me was like … OMG! I need to collect ALL the colors. So expect to see me killing myself for cookies in the coming months. Now, if only there were Dinosaur cookies.

When I joined #writemotivation a friend suggested I look in to #IWSG which is just what the name, Insecure Writer’s Support Group, suggests. It is a group of writers offering other writers encouragement and support. I love that idea. It’s part of why I joined #writemotivation. To encourage others who are struggling to creative the future books that I, My children, and mt grandchildren will read - maybe one of those will even be mine.

one of the best books for writers to read

Stephen King says in his book On Writing (which I highly recommend) “Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference. They don’t have to make speeches. Just believing is usually enough.”

Groups like #writemotivation help you set goals and push for them. From what I can see #IWSG provides some alleviation of that loneliness King spoke of, in the form of other writers sharing their struggles. When you can see that other writers, people you admire and respect, face similar doubts and fears about their work, it can make you feel less alone. I have several friends & acquaintances in the #IWSG group. I may be joining them.

In the mean time, If you write and are feeling alone, in need of motivation. Check out both groups #Writemotivation was started by K.T. Hanna and I’ve enjoyed it a great deal the short time I have been here. #IWSG also known as Insecure Writers Support Group was started by Alex J. Cavanaugh and has tons of great people in it.

Ok, Let’s take a quick look at my July wrap up. It’s not pretty but for a first try It’s not terrible.

Worf – Enlightened Klingon

Try to keep in mind that I had to modify my goals mid-way.

This week was also tough because my Dad, the great and mighty Klingon that he is, had been suffering slightly for quite sometime refusing to see a doctor and this week he wound up in the ER, first. Then they had to do surgery. I’ll spare you the details but he came through fine and last night when I spoke to him he was up and about.

Ironically, my youngest child was born in 2001

This is a big deal not just because he is my Dad but because he is the guy who gave me all of the geeky genes. He took me to the original Star Wars (all three) movies, watched Next Gen with me every night, introduced me to some of the best ever Science Fiction Novels, owned the vinyl record soundtrack to 2001: Space Odyssey, let me watch Close Encounters and Prophecy (against my mother’s wishes), and sat with me through Krull twice. He is the one who taught me the few Klingon phrases I know. He also joined my oldest son and I for the opening showing of Episode One, let me teach him to play an MMO (Star Wars, of course), and reads my novels looking for plot holes because he is that kind of geek. Can I just say that I love my Daddy and we’ll move forward because as you can see I get gushy over him. ANYHOW – that naturally impacted my focus this week.

Here I am all sad and blue
Because they said
“No Cookies for You”

Needless, to say I’m not getting any of K.T. Hanna’s cookies.

Writing Goals:

*   Complete the hook, the logline, and a short synopsis for the current WIP  –  Done

Hook: What if the homeless orphan girl you adopted turned out to be a walking time bomb?

Logline: A hardened assassin rescues a little orphan girl of an unknown species only to find out she’s the key to a madman’s quest for political and military power.

The Synopsis is too long for this post so I’ll post it another time.

*   Complete the hook, the logline, and a short synopsis for my Serial Fiction – Synopsis done, need to work on the others.

*   Finish the first draft of my current work in progress After the Return – not so much but partly due to several days of no writing at all. I need to make a commitment to write daily.

*   Find a better/ more fitting title for my current WIP – After the Return – STILL struggling with that but I am sure something will hit me – if not my editor may. Tracy Hickman had some great suggestions in the last Webinar, I attended but none of them was quite right. He did give me great brain storming ideas as did my fellow attendees.

*   Write a minimum of 3,000 words a week on my Serial Fiction – I’ve added 3585 words to that story since the last #writemotivation post so I’m feeling good about that.

*   Write a minimum of 5,000 words a week on current WIP After the Return – Not quite. I added 3285 since setting this goal but I think the measured goal really improves my drive.

Blogging related Goals:

*   Complete the necessary blog posts for #WriteMotivation on time everytime. – umm, yeah. I’ll be working harder on this one in August

*   Develop a comfortable and sustainable blog routine that does not eat my writing time – Mr. Awesome and I have planned time to sit down this weekend and work together on this. Schools is about to start so all of our schedules change. On the upside, extended family drama looks like it is finally settling down.

*   Post a minimum of 3 posts a week written by me (Fiction or non-fiction) -  Holy crap! I actually accomplished that and no I don’t count interviews because I do those to promote other writers so I feel they provide a chunk of the content. I owe Justin a thank you on that on for inspiring me.

*   Be more active in commenting on friends, team mates / tribe mates blogs – Doing bette r,  but not even close to where I want to be. This weekend I’ll be seeing where I can fit this in my schedule.

Social Networking Goals:

 *   Promote other authors and aspiring writers through my blog and Twitter – I think I can safely say I am doing that.

 *   Post in the Scribe’s Forge Forums once a week – Not this past week. As my littlest guy would say “Try Again!”

 *   Post to the Absolute Write Water Cooler once a week – not sure how I feel about this one. I have been so busy it’s been a while since I visited there. I think it’s a good resource but with my tight schedule it may prove to be a bigger distraction while working on this book. It sounded good when I thought of it but it may be impractical.

 *   Maintain a more consistent Twitter presence – hmmm I got so caught up in writing I was out more than in on Twitter… may consider using the mobile app while I work or something

*   Personalize Tweets for tribe mates – I need to figure out the best way to do this. I’m more than one tribe with some daily posters and reading all of their posts daily buries me. I think time wise I can couple this with my commenting goals but I may need to make this personalize a percentage of … or something along those lines.

As for the Physical and Mental health goals – yeah, those will be the same for August and we will talk about those next week  (insert sheepish grin) because I’ll have something good to say then… I hope.

All in all I think #writemotivation has been a good move. It’s been suggested I look in to #ISWG as well but I think I want to wait a month. It’s another encouragement group from what I’ve been told. Maybe I will just see if I can encourage people in that group and this one before deciding to join it as well.

Writer & Geek Eclectic

*~MAJK~*