Monday, February 3, 2014

I Can Haz Productivity: January 2014 Month In Review



This month has been crazy. First, there was coming down from the holiday buzz (all the eating, traveling, and family fun). Then, of course, there was #PitchWars.

Pitch Wars was an amazing experience. My mentor and teammates were amazingly supportive and insightful. I’m so glad I got to participate in the event and meet so many lovely new writers.

Part of the contest involves getting feedback from a pro author, your mentor, and making changes. It’s sorta like a revision boot camp.

I have some revisions – alright, a lot of revisions – to make and I’m still working through the details. But one thing is clear, my MS will be stronger because of the help and insight I received. I can’t thank my mentor and teammates enough. And none of it would have been possible without the tireless efforts of Brenda Drake and her team.


What else, what else…? Oh yeah, then snowpocalypse hit ATL and the entire town locked up. It was unreal. I’m lucky in that my Day Job boss let me work from home so I missed all the traffic gridlock. My hubby was in the thick of it though. His commute mutated from a 25 minute ride to a 3 hour ride. He was one of the lucky ones.

Friends were reporting on FB that they took 5 – 10 hrs to get home. And some didn’t make it home at all. Some of my friends crashed in hotels or in stores like CVS. Kids were stuck overnight at schools. It was a disaster.

Here are some shots from the roads around my house. This was taken of google maps on Tuesday. Nearly all the major roads around ATL were red. Sorry notsorry, for the glare.


After my hubby got home on Tuesday we hiked to the nearest gas station to buy some food. We had a lot of stuff but felt like we should get a few essentials. Here’s my hubby holding our bread triumphantly.


The traffic on the road was terrible. Cars were sliding into each other or spinning out, unable to get traction at all. We spotted this lone parks employee trying to help by dumping buckets of sand under the wheels.


You don’t realize how hilly ATL is until the hills are converted to death traps by an inch of ice. On a major hill by my house we spotted this evacuated accident. The eeriness of the abandoned scene reminded me of The Walking Dead. I wonder if they will throw in some winter weather next season.


Many cars were abandoned in the street or pulled into strangers yards and left empty.
Several friends reported walking miles home after they gave up on traffic.


Right now a lot of effort is being focused on blaming someone for the disaster. I don’t really care much for that. It seems more important that we learn something from this than hang someone for it….but that’s just me.


With all this activity where does that leave my writing? This year I changed my daily writing goal to 800 words a month. I didn’t hit my goal – but there were words. A lot of words actually.

I had to plan my writing around contest activities and blog tour deadlines. So what did my month yield? The productivity is as follows:


25 + blog posts (crazy, I know. But I start a class in a few weeks that will surely suck up a lot of my free time. I needed to setup a lot of posts over the next few weeks).
0 novels read
2 Friends MS’s CP’d
And words, lots of words *does happy dance *


For a grand total of 14, 154 words. Next month will be better. It’s my birthday month, and the Olympics are starting (I LOVE the Olympics). I start a class and I should finish my revisions. A lot of exciting activity ahead of me.

This brings my total ‘tracked’ word count for the year to 14,154! That’s a great start to 2014…wait. 14k in 2014….that’s awesome. I need to play the lottery. *grabs purse and runs to the door*


How are your writing goals coming along? How do you determine you daily word goals?

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