52 Weeks: Week 12 Update

Week twelve of the challenge was more of the same. Some days were good. Others we missed a few things while remembering others. We're beginning to settle into a summer schedule though, and I look for our hit and misses to become more hits and less misses.

I'm thinking on what I will do for cycle four, and I'll post on it tomorrow.

Follow Friday

Sorry for the lapse, readers. I've been distracted by housework and doubling up on workouts to recoup last week's lack of them in the mornings, and Hubby's new books came earlier in the week, so he's been wanting the "office" to work on lesson plans. (Writing them now means we see him more during the school year, which we all want.)

I'm actually trying to type up a really fast post, so I can bring something useful to you. But there are still lots of chores to tend and a grocery run to make. Therefore, I bring you a new category: Follow Fridays. Those of you on Twitter will recognize the phrase. Twitterers have been using follow Fridays to recommend users to follow for months; however, there really isn't a lot of space to tell your readers why to follow someone in 140 characters. So, I'm going to do it here. Plus, some weeks I'll bring you Follow Fridays for Facebook or blogs.

Today's follow Friday is @HisBoysCanSwim. Jane is a first time mother-to-be. She and her husband, Tarzan, are documenting the pregnancy and their thoughts regarding it and looming parenthood in the blog His Boys Can Swim. (Tarzan and Jane are pen names. They wished to keep the blog anonymous and personal at the same time.) Posts range from hilarious to touching, and the community is thriving and helpful.

52 Weeks: Week 11 Update

Week eleven was a trip. The reverse vacation turned out to something I really needed. I've come back to my old schedule energized and with better focus.

So, kicking caffeine completely was difficult, but I managed it. I did slip up Monday, but the rest of the week was free of a daily jolt. The slip up wasn't intentional, buy the way. I forgot to double check the caffeine content on green tea before I'd had some. Woops.

Things were hit and miss with the rest, and my workouts fell by the wayside completely during the change up, but we're getting back on track.

Reverse Vacation: Day 5

Mom was home and preparing for a trip yesterday, so I only did a half day. Still, it was enough to add the end of chapter nine and first half of chapter ten. The total days word count was around 2000 words.

So, what was accomplished during the reverse vacation?

1. All four previously rewritten chapters were polished up and are now ready for submission once the rest of the novel is rewritten and polished as well.

2. Chapters five through nine and half of chapter ten were rewritten, and I'm talking major rewrites! Events from the end of the book were bumped up to the first half. A few things from the beginning are being slotted for later chapters. A few minor characters have had their personalities altered, and I decided to venture into the villain's mind for the first time. (That's a creepy place, let me tell you!)

3. Some chapters are longer now despite cutting huge swaths of purple prose because they're two or three of the old chapters. Now instead of forty-two chapters where some are just a page or two long, I anticipate about thirty to thirty-three longer, tighter, and more in depth chapters.

4. One third of the novel was reworked: almost 10 chapters and approximately 28,000 words. Will the end product top out at 84,000 words? I don't really know, but I'm shooting for at least 76,000, which is about 24,000 more than the previous version. I'm no longer trying to cram the novel into the young adult category, and it's freeing both in word count and in writing some of the darker elements.

So, what's the conclusion? The reverse vacation was a huge success in my book. I was able to kick the last of the caffeine habit. (Being able to actually nap a couple of those first days was a big part of staying off java!) I rewrote the first third of Right of Succession and mapped out what I want to do with the rest. And finally, Hubby proved he could manage the girls and the housework at least to a passable degree for a full week without ripping his hair out by the roots, if he doesn't have grading or lesson plans due at the end of said week.

Reverse Vacation: Day 4

Yesterday was another productive day. I finished chapter eight and wrote the majority of chapter nine after tending to the house I routinely clean. Yesterday's word count topped out at around 2500 words.

The story has changed more this week than I thought it would. The plot itself is the same, but the timing of certain events has been shuffled about to a great extent. This has required a more extensive rewrite than I originally anticipated, but I think the effect is increased. I know the emotional content has definitely been upped a notch or three. The last full version I wrote was before Hubby and I were married, and I've learned a great deal about the dynamics between husband and wife.

And no, the book I'm polishing isn't a romance. A couple of the main characters are a young couple.

Reverse Vacation: Day 3

I only put in half a day on the novel yesterday. Our pantry was finally installed last week, so Hubby and I dressed the girls and headed off to Aldi yesterday morning. The nearest one is half an hour's drive away, so we go once toward the beginning of the month and stock up on nonperishable and frozen goods at some of the best prices we've found locally.

By the time we returned home, it was nearly time for the girls' nap, and by the time I got to Mom's house, it was almost lunch time. The lack of caffeine has left me in something of a fog, so I decided to go ahead and eat a bit earlier than normal. Thankfully this seemed to jump start my lagging brain.

I managed about half the word count I hit Tuesday, but it was enough to finish off chapter seven and make it two or three paragraphs into chapter eight.

Plus, the girls are getting some bonding time with their daddy. All in all, I'm very satisfied with the reverse vacation so far.

Reverse Vacation: Day 2

Day two of the reverse vacation saw more progress. It's perhaps not as impressive as yesterday, but still, progress.

I finished the last of chapter five. Then I combined previous chapters seven and nine to make the new chapter six, and began rewriting the old chapter ten as the new chapter seven. All in all, it was only 2300 new words. It's a paltry sum, and chapter six takes up the majority of the new word count. However, it was one of the more difficult chapters I'll have to write this week. I've completely changed several characterizations, and balancing the new interactions required a few false starts.

I'd hoped to get more done, but a sleep deficit I built up this weekend thanks to some disturbing dreams caught up with me early in the afternoon. I decided to take a quick nap to prevent writing gibberish and didn't wake up until three hours later. So, although I didn't produce as much new verbiage as I would have liked, I believe it is at least high quality work. The test will be in the reread at the end of the month.

Reverse Vacation: Day 1

So far the reverse vacation is going well. I got to Mom's house early yesterday morning and got to work. By lunch I'd gotten the first three chapters polished. I got chapter four polished, figured out how I'm going to rearrange the remainder of the novel, and rewrote about 90% of chapter five by the end of the day.

The rearranging is extensive. The last draft had forty-two chapters, and upon rereading, I found I could consolidate several of them. For example, chapters five, six, and eight of the last draft are now chapter five, and chapters seven, nine, and ten will be chapter six by the end of today.

I'm so excited.

52 Weeks: Week 10 Update

Wow, a whole week without a post. It wasn't intentional. I got a little carried away with getting the house prepared for out-of-state family coming in for Brother-in-Law's wedding, what with Hubby being home to help me and all, plus two doctor's appointments.

Week 10 went pretty well. A thing or two still slipped our minds, but all in all, it's been the best we've kept to all the goals every day in the last few weeks.

I managed lowering my caffeine intake down to just one cup a day well. Today is the first day being off of it totally. We'll see how that goes.

We didn't necessarily have a "formal" workout every single day, but I think taking the girls to the park and running after them for an hour and completely reorganizing the house counts. I mean, if they have it in the selections for cardio workouts on SparkPeople, that counts right? In any case, it was enough to cause the hamstring I blew out in karate 10 years ago to act up for the first time in four years. Last time it was climbing up and down ladders to help my parents paint their house. This was a bit more intense and condensed into just Thursday morning instead of spread out over several weeks. This morning is the first I've been without pain in my left leg since Thursday evening. Hopefully the chairs where I'm spending my "reverse vacation" won't irritate it again like the pews at church did yesterday. (Penalty of being short. Another inch or so shorter, and my feet would be dangling.)

In case you're wondering what "reverse vacation" meant, Hubby's home for the summer and has decided he would like to take care of both girls and the house for the week while I get out of the house during the day. It's kind of like swapping places. He's taking up my role for a week, and I'm going to go, either to a coffee shop or just Mom's house while she's at work and work on finishing the final rewrites and polishing on the novel I've been trying to get ready to submit since the girls were born. (Don't worry. I have Mom's permission to use her kitchen table as a desk this week.)

So, that being said, I'm going to get off the main computer, save my work to a zip drive, and get going. I'll let you know how it goes.

52 Weeks: Week 9 Update

Week nine of the challenge was busy, but better than the last few. We still missed an item or two a few days out of sheer forgetfulness in the face of overly full schedules, but we kept to the goals better than in weeks past. (The students may be out of school, but the after year clean up and building prep for next year took longer than expected.)

This is another big week for our family. Hubby's little brother is getting married on Saturday, and there will be a lot of out-of-town family coming to visit. However, we have things better planned out this week since we know what to expect. Hopefully this will help us keep to the plan a little better.

The biggest success of the week is that I've stabilized my caffeine consumption to only two cups per day: one in the morning and another in the early afternoon. I'll cut the afternoon cup this week.

And it's the beginning of the month, so I owe you a weigh in. May was something of a disastrous month for anyone on a diet in our family. Three birthdays, a baby shower, two graduations, and Mother's day made for a lot of celebrations. Plus the overfilled schedules made fitting in workouts particularly difficult. That's why I'm pleasantly surprised to have held steady. I was certain I would have gained back a pound or two, even with cutting back as far as food goes.