Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Cultivating the Crop!

(Photo by Chris Fries -- 2012. Amish Farm)

Around here, most of the summer has been spent struggling through a drought.  The ground has been painfully dry and farmers in the region have had to take extra irrigation measures to cultivate their crops.

I’ve had my own drought this summer – despite good intentions, my writing output has dwindled and I’m at risk of letting several things wither and die on the vine.  I need to start taking my own extra irrigation measures to cultivate my crop of writing.

One of those measures is to begin defining concrete and specific writing goals for each month, and to share them here for added accountability and weight.  I’m hoping that having publicly posted deadlines will help add some irrigation to my arid field of writing output.

So for the month of August, my ten specific writing (and blogging) goals are to:


  • Give my short story “Too Quiet” a final once-over and resubmit.
  • Finish the editing of the revised “Waiting Backstage” short story and resubmit.
  • Complete the requested revision of “Apologies” and resubmit.
  • Write at least one new short story or flash piece and submit.
  • Create at least one micro flash piece and submit.
  • Finish the outline for the revision of my WIP novel, and revise at least the first chapter.
  • Complete the post for Nicole’s Olympic Blog Relay and submit to her for posting on August 6th.
  • Vote on each entry in DL’s WRiTE CLUB 2012 competition (twice per week).
  • Add a new post on this blog at least once each week (preferably twice).
  • Read and comment on at least ten blogs I follow each week.


Maybe having defined and documented goals will help motivate me and – more importantly – help keep me focused on my writing amid the craziness of everyday life.

* * * * * * * *

In other blogging news, Gina at The Diary of a Writer in Progress recently gave me a couple of blogging award HERE – the"Fabulous Blog" ribbon and a "Be Inspired" award:



OK, the "Be Inspired" award, has a, ummm, less-than-inspiring badge, doesn't it?  But the awards themselves were kindly given and I will graciously accept them with a sincere "Thank You!" to Gina.

The rules for these are to simply thank the person who passed them on to me (done), and then pass them on to six other deserving bloggers.

So the six I nominate are:

 
Congratulations to each of you!  You all deserve the blogging recognition!


14 comments:

L.G. Keltner said...

Thanks! And yes, the Be Inspired Award could stand to look more inspiring. Oh well. Such is life.

Elise Fallson said...

Thanks Chris! Great minds do think alike! (: You've got some super writing/blogging goals for August and sounds like you really are on top of things. And good luck with your submissions!

Dianne K. Salerni said...

Wow, that's a lot of goals for one month. Good luck on them, and good luck on your submissions!

Jemi Fraser said...

That's a lot of goals!!! I hope you achieve them all. Summer can definitely disappear before we know it - hard to believe it's August already!

Tonja said...

Congratulations on the awards and thank you.

I need goals to be productive. I haven't accomplished much this summer, but I'm trying to focus on what I was able to do instead of what I failed to do.

Heather Murphy said...

These are great goals! I have confidence in you that you will succeed :)
Congratulations on the awards

Mina Lobo said...

Good for you, for setting yourself some goals! And thanks for the award (and for commenting on my blog's critique)! :-)
Some Dark Romantic

Jennifer said...

Wow that's a lot of goals for one month. Good luck in acheiving them! Congrats on the awards.

StratPlayerCJF said...

@L.G.: You're more than welcome -- you deserve them!

@Elise: You're welcome! And I appreciate the good luck wishes. So far it's the second day of August, and I've got exactly NONE of my goals completed yet. ;^)

@Dianne: Thank you! I think it helps to have documented goals, so that way I know exactly where I came up short... It's much better to have a specific awareness of failure than just a vague sense of inadequacy, don't you think? ;^)

@Jemi: Thanks, and I hope I can too. Yeah, and time sure flies, doesn't it?

@Tonja: You're completely welcome! Yeah, goals do help keep me focused. And even if I don't reach them, I end up doing at least something towards them, so they do help in that way, if nothing else, lol!

@Heather: Thank you very much for your vote of confidence!

@Mina: Thanks -- I think it will help keep me motivated, or at least a little more focused. And you're completely welcome on the awards -- you totally deserve them!

@Jennifer: Thank you! I appreciate it!

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

I'm impressed by that list of goals! Crap, I just want to finish my manuscript by tomorrow night so I can begin revisions in a week.

Georgina Morales said...

Wow Chris! Those are hefty goals for just one month! I'd be glad to do all of that in, say, three months... Good luck! Though I'm sure you don't need luck really, but my brain is too gone today to come up with a better line to express that good karma is flowing your way from here. ;)

StratPlayerCJF said...

@Alex: Thank you, Alex! But you crack me up -- the tireless, ever-present, amazingly-productive Space Ninja says MY goals for this month are impressive!?!?! LOL! Dang, Dude, compared to you, my writing and blogging activity is like that of a lazy, narcoleptic, sloth. ;^)

@Gina: Thank you very much for the luck and the good karma -- I'll take all I can get, LOL!

Nicole said...

Thanks for the shout-out, Chris! This post is so timely. I am stuck exactly where you are in terms of great ideas and dwindling output/time. Back to the drawing board to figure out my own irrigation strategies. :)

StratPlayerCJF said...

@Nicole: You're welcome, Nicole. And the best of luck getting your won crop cultivated! ;^)