In today’s check-in I’ll have to make some adjustments to my initial ROW80 goals. For starters, my initial goal to revise my WIP as part of this ROW80 round has not been feasible. Let’s face it, I’m launching a major project in DIY MFA and I’m preparing for the arrival of baby Peanut. And this is in addition to my teaching schedule and my regular responsibilities. Revising my fiction is just not in the cards right now.

Second, I’m really excited about how DIY MFA is going and I don’t want to lose momentum. Speaking of DIY MFA, if you haven’t checked it out yet, this week is a good one to do so. Not only am I giving away a FREE workbook to all mailing list subscribers, I’m also going to be launching a FREE webinar this November and will be sharing details on the site soon!

Back to the ROW80 Check-In. From here on out, I’ll continue with my plan except for the WIP revisions. This week, I wrote a ton of DIY MFA content (at least 2k not counting blog posts, though I can’t give exact word counts because a lot of it included revision and formatting/design.) This coming week will include a lot of webinar work as well as marketing so I suspect the word count this week will also be a tad fuzzy.

Anyone out there doing NaNoWriMo this November? I’m not but I’ll be cheering you guys on!

So I missed ROW80 Check-In last night.  Oops!  I guess I’ll just post it now.  Here goes…

Last week has been a slow slog.  I’ve been working hard putting together the first DIY MFA workbook, which will be available starting November 4 to anyone who signs up for the newsletter: Writer Fuel.  This workbook has gone through several rounds of revision in just the one week, but it’s finally looking to be in good shape.

This coming week promises to be full of new DIY MFA content because aside from the posts and Writer Fuel content, I’ll also be working writing content for a webinar that I’ll be offering in November.

So that’s it.  A slow week last week and I don’t have exact word counts because I was doing a lot of revising, editing and formatting so it’s hard to tell how many words I actually wrote.  But otherwise, it was a productive week.

How has ROW80 been treating all of you?

I hit the wall this week.  Not so much burnout but struggling with some personal things and the writing had to go on the back-burner.  I wrote practically zero content for DIY MFA (other than my regularly scheduled posts both here and on DIYMFA.com).  I still have not edited any chapters of my WIP because that’s lowest on the priority list right now.  OK, so I did launch the DIY MFA newsletter, Writer Fuel, but other than that, I have accomplished little.

The reason for this lapse so early in the challenge is that an vibrant member of my personal writing community passed away this past week.  I guess, as a writer, the way I grieve is through my writing.  It’s been difficult to write anything more than the bare minimum, given everything that’s happened.  But I know soon enough my grief will turn into determination and I’ll start writing in a frenzy again.  This time, with new purpose: because my friend would have wanted me to keep pushing forward on my work.  She would not want me to give up to grief.  Even so, I’ve given myself a week off becase right now it’s still too raw.

So there you have it, my ROW80 check-in (2).  Not much accomplished this week, but that’s OK.  All things considered, I think I’ll survive one week of not writing.

Hi all!

Been a super-productive week here at iggi&gabi.  For starters, I wrote about 7200 words of DIY MFA content (which is 2200 words more than my weekly goal.  Woot!)  I’ve also written a grand total of 7 blog posts (three here and four for DIY MFA) which is in keeping with my weekly goal.  The only thing I didn’t get a chance to do was revise my one chapter of the WIP.  I planned to work on it this weekend, but unexpected developments in DIY MFA forced me to put that chapter on hold for another week.

On Friday I decided that a new feature in DIY MFA–Writer Fuel–was ready to launch this week (instead of at the end of October).  Writer Fuel is a weekly boost of inspiration delivered via email to help people jump-start their writing.  This new part of DIY MFA launches on Friday and will continue every Friday, just in time to help inspire some weekend writing.  To receive Writer Fuel, just sign up for the DIY MFA mailing list on the DIY MFA site.

Overall, it’s been a good week and today I was super-tired and in need of some serious relaxation.  Luckily, I had planned a spa day for today (my mommy-to-be present to myself) and this couldn’t come at a better time.  After a few hours of major relaxation, I came home ready to dive back into work again.  If you’re ever feeling burnt out in your writing, I highly recommend this.  Even if you don’t want to go to an actual spa, a bubble bath, some scented lotion and a self-manicure can work wonders!

Write on and keep rocking the ROW80!