#FirstDraft60 Day 8: Week 1 Reflections #amwriting #nanoprep #nanowrimo
We hit the road running this week and haven’t had a chance to take a break—and the last two days’ posts are somewhat time intensive, I know, as I haven’t finished my SHAPE charts for either of my main characters yet. As we move on in the challenge, weekends are going to be our time to catch up—along with continuing to take what we’re doing daily and build upon it.
Here’s what’s coming up this week in FirstDraft60:
Today, it’s time to take a bit of a breather. That doesn’t mean that you must take a break from writing today unless you want to if that’s how you’ve structured your writing time for this challenge. But there’s a reason why we’re told to take a day of rest. We need to rekindle our flame, take care of ourselves, relax, and have a day on which we’re not pressuring ourselves to produce, produce, produce.
So here are a few questions to help you continue to stay in the “write every day” mindset by reflecting on what you accomplished in Week 1 of the challenge. Feel free to answer them here with as much or little detail as you’d like; or answer them on your own blog or on Facebook. Or just write the answers down in a private journal or notebook. The important thing is to actually think through and write down your answers.
Reflections on Week 1:
1. What was/were your goal(s) for what you wanted to accomplish in the first seven days of the challenge?
2. What did you actually accomplish?
3. What are you most proud of accomplishing in Week 1?
4. What can you challenge yourself to improve on in Week 2?
I look forward to seeing your answers and will be posting mine soon.
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KayeDacus.com 
I’ll try to answer these in more detail Sunday afternoon (it’s currently 1 a.m. Sunday and I really need to get to bed!). But here’s one easy thing to share that I accomplished this week—I tracked the time I spent on all writing-related activities. I need to get back in the habit of thinking of my writing as a professional—and that means making sure I’m putting in enough time each week as if this were a real part-time job. So my goal was at least 20 hours over the seven days.
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1. What was/were your goal(s) for what you wanted to accomplish in the first seven days of the challenge?
See above.
2. What did you actually accomplish?
I logged 20.5 hours of writing/story-related work. I got almost all of each day’s assignments completed—though SHAPE didn’t happen until Week 2 (while I worked on backstory for my hero in Week 1, which was a Week 2 assignment).
3. What are you most proud of accomplishing in Week 1?
Sticking with it, making both blogging and the writing/story-related work a priority.
4. What can you challenge yourself to improve on in Week 2?
Week 2 didn’t go very well for me. I only logged 11.5 hours and fell even further behind on projects. My challenge now is to get caught up in Week 3. And this comment puts me part of the way there!
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I didn’t get too far the first two weeks. I’ve been working 12 and 15 hour days! But, I’m going to do my best to catch up today. I LOVE the graph of total time for the week. Gotta try that. Like you stated, I need to treat this as a part-time job and put the work into it.
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Love your timesheet graph.
Here are my answers to the reflection questions:
1. What was/were your goal(s) for what you wanted to accomplish in the first seven days of the challenge? I wanted to do some sort of tangible work on my story every day. I accomplished that. Whether it was adding to my One Note story bible, or answering the four questions, or building my SHAPE files.
2. What did you actually accomplish? See above.
3. What are you most proud of accomplishing in Week 1? I think not giving up. Wednesday and Thursday I had a little bit of panic and negative self talk. Since I’ve experienced this before when writing I know if I just push through it, it will go away. This time I didn’t hesitate. I pushed it aside.
4. What can you challenge yourself to improve on in Week 2? This is going to sound a little esoteric, but whatever. I want to improve my ability to trust the process. I’m soooo itching to get to writing. But I need to trust this prep process, to let it work for me and not get ahead of myself.
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Reflections on Week 1:
1. What was/were your goal(s) for what you wanted to accomplish in the first seven days of the challenge? Since I am revamping my story I had wanted to work on plotting but didn’t really succeed there.
2. What did you actually accomplish? I accomplished a lot of research into a portion of the Regency period I am far less familiar with in an effort to decide if I’m to alter my time period setting – I am, but am now just debating exactly how far and how it will factor into my plot/hero characterization (and it does, just not sure how yet).
3. What are you most proud of accomplishing in Week 1? My research – once I got passed the first few dead ends I started to make headway and it was a really good feeling. And making the move to Scrivener rather than kicking it old school.
4. What can you challenge yourself to improve on in Week 2? I think I will borrow your keeping track of writing/prep time to help me stay on task better. Also, to guard my writing time zealously and not let anything derail me from it. I have been horribly sick the past few days and didn’t get either character assignment completed yet (though I am working on them now) but I was glad to discover that my mind was constantly on my writing/prep work even when I wasn’t doing it. It’s been a long time since that’s happened. Today is our Thanksgiving family dinner so won’t get much done from 5 pm on today but will buckle down and catch up completely tomorrow. 🙂
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1. What was/were your goal(s) for what you wanted to accomplish in the first seven days of the challenge?
I wanted to feel more grounded in my story, more connected to my characters, and have a better understanding of what the real plot is vs the backstory that makes up so much of my character’s personality.
2. What did you actually accomplish?
Through developing the characters I’m getting a sense of the key plot elements. I created a family for my main character that was more robust than the vague ideas I started with. And I learned that I have a lot to learn about my characters – also good to recognize!
3. What are you most proud of accomplishing in Week 1?
I’m proud that I was able to do all the exercises with a house full of company (although I didn’t technically do this in Week One, as it is Wednesday of Week 2 and I did Days 6, 7 & 8 today). I’m also proud that I didn’t let my nerves hold me back. Sometimes I worry that I’m a one-story writer. These exercises helped me see that if I put in the work, new stories will come.
4. What can you challenge yourself to improve on in Week 2?
I want to: a) Finish all exercises on their respective day (or catch myself up so I can do so next week); b) Work every day vs. doing multiple exercises on one day; c) Make time to read something new every day.
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Reflections:
1. What was/were your goal(s) for what you wanted to accomplish in the first seven days of the challenge?
Ok, I didn’t work on these in 7 consecutive days. (I wanted to clean out my inbox – procrastinating.) However, I’ve worked on this story and these characters previously, so I know quite a bit around them. Goals: Just to keep up/get caught up. I’m almost there!
2. What did you actually accomplish?
So I’m a week behind. I’ll get caught up by the end of this week. I only have 2 things on my calendar every night this week. What did I accomplish? I’m about a week behind, which is less than when I started on Saturday.
3. What are you most proud of accomplishing in Week 1?
I realized Kenny’s personality. I didn’t know she was an INFP.
4. What can you challenge yourself to improve on in Week 2?
I will procrastinate less this next week.
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I’m playing catch up so I completed most of week 1 in two days. Whew!
Reflections on Week 1:
1. What was/were your goal(s) for what you wanted to accomplish in the first seven days of the challenge?
Catch up as much as I can
2. What did you actually accomplish?
Got through all of week one with the exception of the SHAPE exercise. I’m still struggling with my storyline to know exactly how I want the secondary characters to function. But I’ll work on a few of the ones I do know.
3. What are you most proud of accomplishing in Week 1?
Getting it mostly done in 2 days.
4. What can you challenge yourself to improve on in Week 2?
Think through my storyline more, pick a direction and see where it takes me (even if I have to change it later).
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