ROW80 Round 4 - Final Update

Here we are at the end, not just of ROW80 Round 4 but also of 2011 (where did the year go?).

When I look back at where I was writing-wise at the start of the year, I'm amazed by how far I've come. Even though I completely bombed in NaNoWriMo (which was to be expected), the amount of writing I've got done this year has made me realise that I can do this writing thing after all. I think having the ROW80 challenge has been a great motivator in allowing me to encourage - and be encouraged by - other like minded people struggling along on the same journey. Having my writing workshop group with my former TAFE classmates has been awesome as well (even if I had to miss the last few meetings of the year due to work and uni), as critiquing other people's writing and receiving constructive feedback on my own work makes me want to challenge myself to make my writing better. I'm looking forward to both more ROW80 and more workshopping in 2012 :)

As far as goals go, it's been a bit hit and miss this year, but to be honest, I think I was aiming too high in some cases. I achieved all of my academic goals, but I think a lot of that was because there were tangible deadlines for those, and tangible consequences if I missed those deadlines. I guess because there were no real ramifications if I didn't finish a chapter of my novel, I didn't always try as hard to write as I should (sure, some days I wrote heaps, but not enough to make up for the days I didn't).

As for my final check-in: I still haven't touched my thesis, and I probably won't until at least the end of December. But this week I have been smashing out more than 1,000 most days on my novel (bringing me to around the 25,000 word mark at the moment), so at least I feel like I'm getting something done. It's been one of those rare times where the words and the story just flow, and though I'm not happy with all of what I've written, it's at least enough to get the gist of the scene down on the page so I can build on it as a foundation for the better bits. I can always demolish it and rewrite it later (another issue I'm trying to get over; the need to endlessly revise and pick at a single chapter or paragraph instead of getting more actual writing done).

I've also decided to set another goal, even though it's not ROW80 anymore, and it's a fairly big one. I want to hit 30,000 words of my novel by the end of 2011. It will be a bit of a slog, but I've decided that if I can achieve this goal, I'm going to buy myself something really cool (though at the moment I have no idea what that really cool something will be). Will let you know how that goes in my goal-stating post for Round 1 of 2012 :) If I can maintain the momentum I've had over the last few days, I should be home free.

As a parting gift for ROW80 2011, I leave you a little something I made in Photoshop (while procrastinating, of course):

May His Furry Judgemental Holiness inspire you to greater creativity and productivity!

Just you watch, Judgemental Dog. I'll show you.

(show Judgemental Dog some love. Follow him on Twitter or Like him on Facebook.)

Check out how other ROW80ers fared here. See you next round!

ROW80 Round 4 - 10th Update

So... My brain appears to have gone on strike.

Since I got my results two weeks ago, it's like the old grey matter just went, "You know what, I don't have to do work anymore, so screw it, I'm not going to." I've chipped away at revising my thesis, and while there really isn't that much I need to do to it (essentially all I'm doing is cutting out big slabs and writing the odd transition sentence to make sure the bits still flow smoothly), I think I hit that point where I just couldn't bear to look at it anymore, so I'm probably going to leave it for at least a few days before trying to tackle it again. Then I'll hopefully be able to knock it over in a day. Lately I've just been finding it a real struggle to even open the damn document, let alone concentrate on it.

I have also managed to do a bit more work on my novel, though not as much as I would like. I think I've added maybe 2,000 words to it over the last two weeks, but considering what I'd done before that, I think that's a pretty solid effort. I've worked pretty much all day every day for the last two weeks, so when I do come home I've usually been too tired to write (I know, I should write anyway, but anything I write when I'm that tired is crap anyway).

Something pretty cool happened, though. I got a signed copy of The Extinction Gambit by Michael Pryor, one of my favourite authors since I was a young teenager. As if this wasn't awesome enough, I got a mention on the dedications page! As you can imagine, I sat around being smug for a bit before I even started reading.

(P.S. The book was awesome, as I knew it would be. If you or your children like young adult steampunk fantasy, you need to buy this book. Or the Laws of Magic series.)

Here's a random surreal savanna scene I painted with my new Winsor and Newton watercolour paints, while avoiding editing my thesis:

Anyhoo, it's bedtime for me. The long days and ridiculour hours at work and the crappy diet have taken their toll (I just realised that for the last four days or so I've eaten nothing but Vegemite toast and curry 2 minute noodles) and I feel like I need to sleep til dinner time tomorrow. Hopefully I'll at least be able to bring home the last week of ROW80 with a burst of productivity. And I'll try to visit some other ROW80 blogs so I can catch up on how everyone else is going too lol

I'm sorry, Judgemental Dog. I promise I'll do better next round.

Check out how other ROW80ers are going here.

ROW80 Round 4 - 9th Update

Though I've worked almost every day, the last week has been fairly good for me in terms of general productivity (even though I've dropped off the ROW80 radar a bit; don't tell Judgemental Dog or he'll nip me). Earlier in the week I wrote almost another whole chapter for my novel, and though I had to get rid of a few hundred words of stuff I already had, at least it feels like I'm finally moving forward with it.

Now that our new store is open, I'm doing customer service instead of nightfill, which means I'm not lifting and carrying heavy stuff anymore. This certainly seems to be making a difference to my knee, which, though it's still a bit dodgy and achey, seems to be getting better more quickly than it was.

I've been continuing with workshopping my writing group's submissions, and with revising my thesis. Speaking of which, I just got my results for my Honours year: High Distinction for my thesis, and High Distinctions for all of my units, giving me a HD/H1 for Honours overall. This means that if I want to do my PhD in the future, I can :D And I'm also hoping it will give me a bit of an edge when applying for jobs. To celebrate, I decided to crack open the big tub of Connoisseur Chocolate Obsession ice cream that's been sitting in the freezer for nearly a month.

This is basically me right now:

Also, a big bunch of art supplies (mainly watercolour paints) I ordered a while ago arrived this week, and though I haven't really painted anything serious with them yet, I've been having fun experimenting (in case you didn't already know, I'm a bit of an art supplies addict, with several desk drawers full of coloured pencils, paints, pastels and other assorted crap). Here are my new goodies:

(the black tubes were freebies; glad I didn't pay for them because the paint they contain smells utterly feral)

So I'm in a pretty awesome mood at the moment. Basically, imagine me doing a happy dance like this dog:

In light of his mistress's good mood, Judgemental Dog is being a bit more lenient this week:

See how other ROW80ers are going here.

ROW80 Round 4 - 8th Update

It's a bit of a mixed-bag in terms of my achievements this week. Last Sunday and Wednesday I did a fair bit of writing, and probably got around 2,000 new words in total, but aside from that, I've barely touched my novel. I did scribble more random notes for the other novel idea that has been pestering me (the weird Western/Samurai/Steampunk/Fantasy whatever it is one), but it's not as much progress as I would like to have made. Still, at least it's some (and certainly more than I've made in the last several months). I'm working almost every day now, so finding time (and energy) to write will become more of a struggle.

I'll soon be starting the revision/editing process for my thesis. My Honours supervisor wants to see if I can get it published in an academic journal, which means I need to get it down from 75 pages to around 20-25; most of the editing will just be cutting stuff, though some bits will need to be rewritten for the sake of flow/clarity. I'm aiming to have a revised draft ready for my supervisor to look at about two weeks from now. While I'm at it, I'll probably try polishing my conference paper I wrote last semester for an assignment to see if I can get that published as well. Not a huge task in terms of word count, just a lot of shuffling, cutting and rewriting.

I've also made a start on workshopping some of the pieces submitted by my writing group, which I haven't had time to do before now; I'll hopefully be able to start emailing some back this week and be up to date by our next meeting in mid-December.

Because I was bored, I drew/painted a little steampunk dragon:

My knee is also taking its time to recover (having a job that currently involves lifting/carrying boxes all day doesn't help), but the support tape and the exercises seem to be slowly strengthening it. After examining my MRI report, the physio thinks that instead of damaging/twisting a ligament (as originally seemed to be the case), the crappy general structure of my knee and resulting wear of the cartilage resulted in my kneecap partially dislocating. Unfortunately it's something that can't really be fixed by surgery, though hopefully the exercises will help it become less severe and/or frequent. And at least it wasn't a full dislocation (I had that happen once to my other knee as a result of a karate injury; there's a level of "OMG WTF OW" I never want to visit again). Our new store opens next Thursday, so after that I should be just doing non-weight-bearing duties like customer services instead of nightfill.

Hopefully if I finish this chapter tonight, Judgemental Dog won't force-choke me...

Check on other ROW80ers here.

ROW80 Round 4 - 7th Update

Even though I finished all my uni-related stuff last week, I still haven't done much since the last check-in; my brain was still recovering from this year's workload, and I've had to work a fair bit (made more difficult by the fact my job is essentially lifting and carrying stuff and my knee is still dodgy). I also spent the weekend with my nan, and generously helped her to eat the tray of chocolate fudge she'd made (because I'm a caring granddaughter). However, today I opened my novel document (for the first time in a few months, I think) and have so far written 500 words. I'm hoping to get another 1,000 tonight. A lot of my time today was spent simply staring at the existing pages, hoping to get into the headspace of the story again, but I'm hoping that will get easier as I write more.

I did do another painting though, copied from a photo on the internet of the Nakagusuku Casttle ruins in Japan:

I still have an anxious wait ahead until I get my uni results, but for now I'm off to keep attacking my novel :D

Settle down, Judgemental Dog, I'll get some writing done eventually...

See how other ROW80ers are going here.

ROW80 Round 4 - 6th Update

First up; this post has a lot of pictures. But they're cool pictures, so it's okay.

The biggest news I have this week is that I have finally finished my thesis. 75 pages, 19,451 words of academic wankery. Here it is in its bound and printed glory:

I also got the hardcover copy of Belvedere, my illustrated children's book in the mail the other day:

And, the little watercolour paint set I ordered many weeks ago finally arrived last week, so when I've been in a procrastinating mood, I've been having a play with my new 'toy'. Here are a few paintings I've done:



I also discovered Jerry's Artarama, an online American art supplies store where I can buy like double the stuff for half the price I could find it here in Australia, or even on eBay. I know where all my Christmas money will be going...

Anyway, I've just finished marking all my assignments for the semester, which means I officially have No More Academic Activities, so I'm off to write my novel, or paint a picture, or die of exhaustion. And nuts to Judgemental Dog if he doesn't approve.

See how other ROW80ers are going here.

ROW80 Round 4 - 5th Update

Short post tonight; I'm still finishing off the full draft of my thesis, which I have to send to my honours supervisor by tomorrow (the final thesis is due Friday, so that gives her time to give me feedback and then me time to make any required changes). I'm now at just over 12,000 words (probably a bit less because I don't think tables are meant to be included in word count), which is 2,000 over the required minimum, so at least I don't have to worry about waffling for the sake of word count. I don't really have that much left to do; just another paragraph or two in my Results and Findings section, and then my Further Research and Conclusion sections, which shouldn't take too long, though I need to add a few references in at various points. I also have to format it properly, since at the moment it looks like the Frankenstein's Monster of text and layout.

I just hope my printer can survive spewing out the 60 or so pages :D

Also, the MRI on my knee showed some bad swelling inside the joint, but no signs of any injury that might have caused it. It's good in a way - a torn ligament or damaged cartilage would have been very bad news - but at the same time I'm kind of annoyed that I still have no idea what happened to my knee or why; it seems as though I must have twisted some small inner muscle in the wrong way and that was enough to aggravated it (though in that case I have no idea what the loud snap was). I'm on crutches for the rest of the week (and therefore can't return to work, so no money for me :( ) and I'll be seeing a physio later in the week. My knee feels slightly better - probably because with the crutches I got yesterday I've actually been able to rest it more - but it still hurts and feels wonky if I put much weight on it, and trying to straighten it is still very painful.

Anyhoo... Back to thesis-writing I go!

She'll be right, Judgemental Dog. She'll be right.

See how other ROW80 folks are going here.