Wednesday, October 19, 2011

#ROW80 - Patience

Well, I got better as far as my sniffles go.  I'd like to say that the goals came easily as a result, but they didn't.  Life through the curve-ball.  This time, in the form of a car accident.  I was rear ended.  But it wasn't serious (don't you worry).  There's some minor body damage, but no injuries except for the other driver's pride.  That, and my time.  If you've ever been in one of these things, you know how much of a pain the whole insurance process can be.  Not time-friendly, to say the least.  Anyway, here's a look at the goals:

  • Lesson Learned - Patience is the name of this game.  Good stuff seems to happen of its own accord, in its own time.  Usually it seems to have no link to what you've actually be doing.  More on this in a bit.
  • WIP Pages - 6/6.  The number looks more mundane than the execution though.  I'm in the final throes of this novel, and so two consecutive days I had two page days.  Battle scenes tend to go quickly.  But then events conspired to take away three days of writing in a row.  I buckled down the last two of the week to eek out the goal.
  • Blogging - 3/3 on both blogs.  Need to sit down and write my monthly personal post.  I have a good Depression anecdote to relate there.  On the blogs, I may have used a bit of a cheap trick to squeeze in the goal this week.  I had a couple of short "filler" posts.  That is, they usually link another article and only include maybe a couple paragraphs discussing my thoughts.  It's more like a glorified comment, but a good change of pace every now and then.  In bonus points, I had a guest post go up this week.
Pretty solid work.  Not as easy as I'd hoped.  It was more like a burst of creativity that was snuffed by life, and then leveled back out into the usual slow burn.  Bursts are nice when they happen, though I wish I could have capitalized on it to get through this ending.  

I need to pay attention to my lesson, though.  Patience.  Totally not one of my virtues.  Yet completely key to this whole indie author thing.  So many of the successful indies are slow to take off, and then BAM, lightning strikes.  In reality, you could probably trace it to small steps of success, and I've had a lot of those these last few weeks.  

I went up with a favorable review on one book blog recent, and I have another one coming.  Also, my mother informed me last night that one of the English teachers at her school is reviewing my book to see if it is "appropriate" enough to add into their collection at school.  I don't see why not.  I purposefully strive to keep things mostly PG-13 in my stories.  My theory is that vulgarity needs to be used sparingly (in most genres) to remain effective.  Otherwise, you're just being crass (and a poor writer, shock jock style).

In any case, these are all really great steps.  And it takes time for word of mouth to percolate.  You go several weeks without anything "happening," only to find out that it really has been.

Patience.  This is not a sprint, it's a marathon.  Writing is my dream career.  Not a short, 6 month contract job, but a career.  Something that I want to do for the next 30+ years.  I took me about 10 years to get to the point where I could write something worth a fig, and even now I have plenty to learn... Patience.  And perseverance.  You only fail when you stop learning.

We'll end with a look at the word counts:

  • Project Fiction: 2,272
  • Since last check in: 5,544
  • Grand Total for Round 4: 14,690

8 comments:

Juliana said...

Wow, sorry about the accident.
But I can see you managed to keep up with your goals nevertheless ... good job!

"Patience. This is not a sprint, it's a marathon. Writing is my dream career." I'm with you on this one. Sometimes it's so easy to panic because it's so slow, but then I breathe in and out and try to shove in my mind that this business IS slow ;)

Keep it up!

Hannah @ Dragons and Whimsy said...

I may have a spot in the first week of November for a little interview for you? Need to give it a few days to hear back from the people who I'd planned to have on then back in August (!!) but if I don't I'll send you an email. Of course, feel free to say no, but an interview should be easier for you to get out than a guest post and I'd love to have you along if I can. Just letting you know!

But yes, good blog review coming soon. ;)
Once Upon A Time

Matt said...

@Juliana - Thanks! Breathing is hard sometimes... :-)

@Hannah - Awesome. Feel free to hit me up. I'd love to. And thanks again for the read and (forthcoming) review!

Nadja Notariani said...

You just Shut Up over here, Matt. We're on the same wavelength still (I seem to be falling behind), as I'm only in the beginnings of a head cold right now. So I don't want to hear any of this 'I just got rear-ended' bullschlaka! Nein! Das ist sehr schlecht! (very bad!)

But you may absolutely stay on the 'good things are happening' wavelength - if we're going to be on the same track...heh heh. Congrats! I'm very excited for you.

Matt said...

lol. You gotta take the good from the bad, I suppose. Just drive around with a foam pool noodle on the back of your car and you'll be fine. :-)

Lena Corazon said...

Patience? Do we have to? I feel like I'm so bad at trying to do that, and yet I know I'll only finish [insert project here] if I work at a (slow) steady pace. I totally agree, though, on the need for perseverance if one is going to approach writing as a career, rather than some fly-by-night sort of thing.

Sorry to hear about the car accident - I got rear-ended a couple of years ago, and you're right, it was a huge time drain. It was also my first accident, so I was extra flustered.

Hope you have a great week!

Tia Bach said...

Great points about patience. One of my last ROW80 updates had the same idea... Pace, don't race. Good luck, I know patience is a very difficult, but worthwhile, skill.

Matt said...

@Lena - It was my first, too. I wish it were just simple, but insurance never is.

@Tia - Thanks. I'll be keeping my foot to the pedal... evenly. :-)

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