RoW80 Update: Those Few Bad Days…

Isn’t it awful how just a few bad days can throw you off your game? And those few bad days can easily happen in between RoW80 updates! But, just as those few bad days can put you off your goals, a few good days afterwards can set them right again, and I’m going into the upswing with having today off and finally getting to the post office to send out some of the copies of Soulless and Bowlful of Bunnies that have been sitting in my living room, waiting. Monday, I didn’t get any of my little daily goals on HabitRPG done…none of them. Yesterday, I got a few of them. Today, the goal is to get back to smashing all of them down, and not just because I’m very close to leveling up. Its time to get back on track, and, really, it’s all rainy out, so my original plan to run some errands is currently on the shelf.

But what about my RoW80 goals? How have they been measuring up? Let’s have a look:

Goal One: Marketing. I’m starting to feel a little burned out and disenchanted with the whole marketing bit, but we’ll see how I feel when I start flinging out free copies in a week or so. Most of the sites I stumble on are pure crap (seriously, who designs these websites? Blind people?), but there are a few gems out there. Right now, I’m kind of digging Fiverr, which is like a low-key Kickstarter where everything is five dollars. Once I work my way through it, I want to put up some ad space on the blog up there or something, but it’s also a cool place to find some unique services and opportunities.

Goal Two: Short Stories. I just finished another one, which I’m going to type up today and potentially send it off to Ruthless Peoples. Trying to decide whether or not to go ahead and withdraw a piece submitted in January, since I still haven’t heard anything and it might be a good idea to try it elsewhere. Next, I might focus on sending in another Horror Told in 100 Words for Horror Novel Reviews, on the theme of “Creation” since I already submitted a “Destruction.” I was really thinking about how incredible this goal has been going, even though I’m falling short of my “story per day” mega-ambition. I’ve sent out five stories since I’ve started this, four of which are entirely new, and that’s really pretty awesome. I’m looking forward to seeing how many more I can pump out before November, when I shift my focus on NaNoWriMo and Heartless.

Goal Three: Madeline. Oh, Madeline…she’s fallen through the cracks again. I swear, my progress with this book is just like the character herself, going in sharp rises of productivity to stomach-wrenching drops of inactivity. Right now, we’re in an inactivity state, but I hope to change that a little bit today. And, since it’s Wednesday, I’ll follow the trend of including a little snippet for everyone to enjoy. Let’s see…today is 09/10/14. 9+10+14=33. 3+3=6. Six lines from page two! Well, more than six lines. The first part of the book is pretty big paragraphs. The whole of the book is pretty big paragraphs, in the style of 19th century works, so here’s a paragraph from page 2.

     Besides, he’d remind me, the parties our parents held were not the grand affair I seemed to think they were. I was too young to see them for what they were, dull, dry affairs, somber and grim. With Father’s illness, he was rarely up to the task of entertaining, and Mother certainly couldn’t keep up after he’d passed on. I do remember hiding in the dusty velvet curtains and watching her pretend, a glass of brandy in one hand catching in a beam of light from the windows, cubes of ice clinking as she raised a toast to an imaginary guest. Then she would dance, swaying and twirling as though our father’s spirit had her hand, until she fell to the couch or sometimes even the rug in a deep, exhausted sleep. Sometimes, she made Roderick dance with her and called him by Father’s name, or, occasionally, by he name of some secret lover–and I was either to pour more drinks or bring around the carraige or other such tasks more suitable for the servants who had left us long, long ago.

My second goal has consistently been my strongest, which is awesome, because I feel that is the most important one right now. How is everyone else doing? Did you check out my fellow RoWers here?

Happy writing!