2013 Writing Mindfully

Josephine Wall Painting the Dawn
Last year, my year of writing deliberately fell apart and I lost that sense of wonder, sense of joy for writing. I've given it quite a bit of thought to why this was so and decided that 2013 will be the year of Writing Mindfully. I will embrace the ebb and flow of my creativity and let my imagination take flight. I will study and contemplate, write and explore, find the joy in creating and editing, and not limit myself.

My goals for 2013

To help with writing mindfully, I will be using Bonnie Neubauer's The Write Brain Workbook: 366 Exercises to liberate your writing to exercise my writing muscles. 

 Instead of a daily quota for my novel writing word count, I'm going to follow James Scott Bell's advice and establish a weekly word count of 3500 words. Since I hand write everything, on average I usually end up writing 2 full pages at one sitting which is approximately 1000.   Invariably I only end up writing 4 or 5 days out of the week so having a weekly word count makes much more sense.

 Continuing my personal pursuit of  my DYI MFA,I plan on reading and studying the following books:

The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers by Christoper Vogler
Character, Emotion and Viewpoint by Nancy Kress
Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell
Art of War for Writers by James Scott Bell
Echoing Silence:  Thomas Merton on the Vocation of Writing by Thomas Merton

Along with reading The Writer's Journey, I plan on taking Mythic Structures courses offered online through Writer's Village University  and probably will take the F2K creative writing course again. 


Continue to develop and complete the first draft of Green Cross utilizing K.M. Weiland's suggestions in Outlining Your Novel.


Finish editing and polishing Eye in the Ashes and send out for beta reading.

I'm joining A Round of Words in 80 Days again in order to help me establish daily and weekly goals and have some accountability. However, I can't keep up with a blog check in twice a week so going to bring back WIP Wednesday for all things writing here on My Two Blessings. 

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4 comments:

  1. MollyDecember 30, 2012 at 10:22 AM

    I loved reading ALL of this - and have added several books to by writing reading list!

    I have never heard of Writer's Village University, but it sounds fantastic. I would love to hear more of your experiences with this online group - if you don't mind.

    I wish you lots of peace and joy while pursuing these 2013 goals.

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  2. SusanDecember 30, 2012 at 1:04 PM

    As soon as I saw the Thomas Merton book I had to go look to see if I could get it too. It looks perfect, and is now added to the books I'm going to buy with a gift certificate I received for Christmas for books! Thank you! I think it perfectly fits in with how I already feel, about writing and wanting to write from a truer place in myself, which I can only get to by retreating as much as I can from the world (while working and raising a family). And that writing is a vocation, a spiritual act also.

    I wish you lots of good luck and hope to see you published this year, you are working towards it so hard. Congratulations too on the progress you've made with your writing. I'm enjoying following your progress in this.

    Happy 2013 to you, Robin!

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  3. Michelle Stockard MillerDecember 31, 2012 at 12:27 AM

    I think I'm going to take your lead. I like the idea of a weekly word count. I think 2013 is my year. I've had some personal issues this year and now a negative force in my life has been removed (separated from my husband) so I'm ready for a new life and I feel like my creative energy is going to be much better. I will be doing ROW80 too and will also do the once a week check-ins. Hoping to do better with that this time around.

    You have a lot of great plans and, of course, I will be checking out the links you posted. I own at least two of the books on your list too. You are always so inspiring. I look forward to checking in with you each week (or as much as I can).

    Happy New Year, Robin!

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  4. Book DragonJanuary 3, 2013 at 7:23 PM

    I may have tons of reading challenges going on but I don't have this other stuff happening. And home schooling on top of it? Wow.

    Just Wow.

    Thanks for stopping by!

    ReplyDelete

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