WIP – Lena Corazon

January 7th marks the start of a new round of A Round of Words in 80 Days, “the writing challenge that knows you have a life.” For those of you looking for more information about the challenge, you can find it here.

I’m waving a wildly enthusiastic hello to all my old ROW80 friends, and offering the warmest of welcomes to all the new folks joining in on this round. This community is one of the most supportive and welcoming that I’ve found online, and is one of the reasons that I’m participating in my 7th (!!!!) round.

For anyone who may have missed my first post of the year, I’ve declared that 2013 will be my year to “stop the cray.” I’m pulling the plug on negative thinking, nasty energy, and all the habits that cause me to sabotage my own success.

To aid me on this journey, I’m blasting my anthem song for the year, “Strength, Courage, and Wisdom,” by India.Arie. As she sings,

It’s time to step out on faith, I’ve gotta show my face
It’s been elusive for so long but freedom is mine today
I’ve gotta step out on faith, it’s time to show my face
Procrastination had me down but look what I have found

With a little strength, courage, and wisdom in my life, I’m launching myself towards two giant goals for the year: (1) completing (at least) one novel and (2) finishing the first draft of my dissertation.

I won’t lie. Just typing those giant goals makes me want to do this:

But if there’s anything I’ve learned with ROW80, it’s that identifying small, achievable goals goes a long way to helping me conquer seemingly insurmountable tasks. With that in mind, here are my overall goals for Round 1:

DAY JOB:

Finish dissertation proposal and have quarterly meeting with committee
Complete preliminary archival research at 4 out of 6 locations
Continue to write rough sketches of research memos based on collected data

WRITING:

Write 2-3 poems each week
Revisit TELL ME NO LIES and THE PEACOCK QUEEN; identify what needs to be tweaked/fixed/written in order to finish first drafts
Figure out Ultimate Editing Battle Plan (and which novel I feel like hanging out with–or if the answer to this question is “both”)

SOCIAL MEDIA:

Write 1 ROW80 check-in post each Sunday, along with 2 non-ROW80 posts each week
Respond to all blog comments
Use weekends for catching up with Google Reader, Twitter, and Facebook
Visit 10 blogs each week to read, comment, and promote posts

SELF-CARE:

Journal daily
Read 1 novel each week
Unplug when necessary

So there you have it, folks! Is everyone feeling rested and ready to go? Anything special y’all are looking forward to this year?

Tell me all about it in the comments, and be sure to swing by and wave hello to everyone else participating this round.

I won’t lie — I absolutely love watching memes spread through the interwebz like wildfire. The Lucky 7 meme has been particularly fun to watch, because there’s nothing like seeing snippets from other writers’ WIPs.

Thanks to the ever-wonderful Rachel Funk Heller and J.R. Pearse Nelson, Lucky 7 madness has made it to Flights of Fancy. These are the rules:

1. Go to page 77 of your current MS/WIP

2. Go to line 7

3. Copy down the next 7 lines, sentences, or paragraphs, and post them as they’re written.

4. Tag 7 authors, and let them know.

I’m posting 7 sentences from page 77 of PATH TO THE PEACOCK THRONE, my fantasy WIP that I worked on during NaNoWriMo 2011 (synopsis here). I have resisted my inner perfectionist’s urge to tweak/edit/overhaul the heck out of it (’cause seeing excerpts in raw form is part of the fun), so be gentle. 😀

I hadn’t realized how thirsty I was until the waterskin touched my lips, and then I was guzzling down the clear liquid greedily, splashing the rest over my face. Flynne watched, a bemused expression on her face at my enthusiasm. “You’re going to have to freshen up before we reach shore. You’ve clearly spent far too much time among us.”

I returned her grin, her words filling me with a strange mix of pride and regret. I wasn’t ready to leave the Diomedea, but then again, when had anything happened to me when I was ready? My father had been taken long before his time; my home, brother, and very identity had been stripped in a single swoop, no warning involved. This voyage over the sea had seemed like the whole and sum of my world, and yet it was just a short break in a much longer, and much more scary, journey, an interim of sorts.

To continue the chain, I’m tagging the following authors. Go to it, friends!