What I'm Up To

Writing on this blog seems to be inversely proportional to writing my novel as of late. I'm working on balancing this out some - as a goal mind you, not as a New Year's Resolution that I'm not good at keeping. I've got a lot on my plate lately, though, it seems. Between working more hours at my day job; working on my novel, hot dog articles, and other food pieces, as well as trying to keep some semblance of a social life, it's a difficult juggling act.

That said, I'm making some great progress on my novel. I'm still about 1/4 through the rewrite (which is what I told my twitter followers a couple weeks ago), but that's only because a week ago, I realized that some of my timeline didn't land right. I moved an important scene earlier, and that changed the build-up to it. Earlier this week, I finished those tweaks and I now feel that I can continuing pushing ahead and making more gains.

I'm not on track as I'd like to be to meet my 'finish draft 3.5 before I leave for Paris' deadline, but I still think I can meet my next goal of having a complete - almost final! - draft by April 21, 2010.

And let me tell you, I'm so glad I have this deadline. My writing partner and me set this deadline just before Christmas, and we're both trying really hard to meet it. But there's been other developments there, too. Our writing partnership has turned into a club! That's right, another writer has joined us. She's a newbie to the writing world, but she is incredibly inspiring. An idea struck her a couple weeks ago and she's been powering through the first draft of her novel. After a week of outlining, and then about two weeks worth of writing, she's officially about 17,000 words in already. See? Told ya so. Inspiring.

So, my Wednesday night Writing Club (which actually met Tuesday instead of Wednesday for this week only) is now officially a 'club' with three people. It's small, great group, and I know I wouldn't be as far along as I am now without them. And now I'm getting all cheesy, so I'll wrap things up.

I'm finishing up some revisions on Chapter 8 tonight, then it's back to Chapter 12 and continuing on to the rest of the novel this weekend.

What about you? What are your writing goals? Have you set any self-imposed deadlines?