#NaNoProgMo January 2012: Week 1

I told myself I'd be better about making periodic progress posts for NaNoProgMo this time around. Easy enough, considering I haven't been making any progress!

Ok, that's not strictly true: I'm 1 hour into my 15-hour goal. Still, I haven't been working on my writing every day as I've meant to. I think setting my goal so low this month has made me feel like I can get behind, because catching up will be relatively easy. I was hoping I wouldn't take my half-hour a day as a maximum but as a minimum to get my momentum going. Um … yeah … I should have known me better.

Well, there's always next month!

I'm feeling discouraged about my mystery novel, the one I thought was almost finished last NaNoProgMo. I'm having Sam read it through for his second time after major revisions. I thought he might have some thoughts for tightening it up.

Well, be careful what you ask for, because he's only a third or so in, and he's already given me ideas for changing the whole direction of the novel.

The ambition of a writer who's also a mother

Up through my twenties, I had very little ambition. I mean, I wanted to be a novelist someday, but it wasn't urgent. I had no drive to make money, or impress people, or achieve much of anything.

For reasons beyond my understanding, that all changed when I started blogging. Mikko was three months old when I started Hobo Mama. Especially as the blog grew, I discovered in myself a passion to make something of myself, to be professional, to be taken seriously as a writer.

And yet, even now, even still, four and a half years later, I wrestle with that tension: ambition vs. motherhood, writing vs. parenting, success vs. fear. It's hard to say which will win, at any given moment and over time.

When I blog and when I work on my novel and other projects, or even when I do the business taxes for our family or work on my sewing, I feel the age-old guilt of a mother otherwise engaged. I am not paying attention to my children. I am devoting myself to something other.

But I also feel the spark of that other within me driving me on, compelling me to create, to do, to pursue. When I let it go for a time, I feel stagnant. But when I fall too headlong into it, it becomes repellant to me — what I become seems repellant to me.

Where does this tension come from?

NaNoProgMo: Ready to make some more progress on your novel?

Hosted by Lauren from LaurenWayne.com / Hobo Mama
and Teresa from Write On, Mom! / Mom Grooves

Well, I don't know about you, but December for me went into a big black hole of holiday festivities. But it's almost the New Year, and you know what that means: time to resolve to start working on your writing again!

I'd like to celebrate what our NaNoProgMos did in November, and invite you to continue making progress with us in January!

Impressive November progress

Here are the writerly participants who joined us for our November journey and their respective daily goals:

1. Lauren @ LaurenWayne. com / Hobo Mama = 2 hrs per dayVisit

2. Tree @ Mom Grooves . com / Write On! Mom = 1 hr. per day finishing novelVisit

3. Stephen @ Poptrope . net = 1 hr. per day finishing novelVisit

4. Zoie @ TouchstoneZ - 30 minutes per dayVisit

5. Moorea@ Mamalady- 30per dayVisit

6. From My Mind to the Page: 1 hr per dayVisit

7. Lisa @ My World Edenwild = 15 min/day or moreVisit

8. Renae - 1 hour per dayVisit

 



Here are some results and updates from all of us, as I could find them, in order as above:

Lauren @ LaurenWayne. com / Hobo Mama = 2 hrs per day: 60.25 hours. I made it! I can hardly believe it, but I worked over 60 hours on my mystery novel and the NPN cloth diapering book in November. Here are some posts I wrote about the experience:

• Progress on NaNoProgMo: Halfway or two-thirds? — what I learned about faling headlong into the world of my novel, the dearth of description, and the fear of failure
• #NaNoProgMo: Stop talking and do it:
  

  I'm 2 hours from the end of my goal on this last day, so barring major malfunctions (pray not), I'm confident I'll complete my 60-hour editing goal for November. It wasn't glamorous, but every day I sat at my computer, and I did it. I put in my time, and I made progress.
  …
  So, wherever you are in your progress today, I encourage you to figure out what you want — what you really, really want, right now — and do it. One foot in front of the other, in as little or as much time as you can commit, make tangible progress toward your goal.

This is mine, and I'm owning it:

<div align="center"><a href="http://www.laurenwayne.com/p/national-novel-progress-month.html" target="_blank"><img height="241" src="http://images.hobomama.com/NaNoProgMoNov11-cert-Lauren.jpg" width="350" /></a> </div>

Tree @ Mom Grooves.com / Write On! Mom = 1 hr. per day finishing novel: 6.5 hours. Woot!

• NaNoProgMo…. How’s your “Prog”?:
  

  I want to encourage everyone participating with us for NaNoProgMo (or anyone who wants to start now!) to pick up your proverbial pen and finish the month writing. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done or have not done so far. I doubt anyone can be as far behind as I am, so let’s bring up the rear together!

• NaNoProgMo and Beyond!:
  

  I came nowhere near my goal, and that bums me out. However, I’m not one to dwell on the negative and I’m really good at praising the tiniest victory in myself, so I give this month a huge thumbs up. I’ve re-connected with my novel and we’d been estranged for oh so long.
  …
  What’s pertinent is this. Progress will continue. My novel lives, my writer self lives. Time to settle into the long term care and feeding of both.
  

I love that last thought! That's what progress is all about — nurturing the writer that you are.

Here's your certificate, Tree!

<div align="center"><a href="http://www.laurenwayne.com/p/national-novel-progress-month.html" target="_blank"><img height="241" src="http://images.hobomama.com/NaNoProgMoNov11-cert-Teresa.jpg" width="350" /></a> </div>

How to support bloggers

Want to make your favorite bloggers happy? There are many ways you can support your must-read bloggers and show you value their writing that won't cost you a penny. There are other ways that cost you some money but are cents well spent.

Is this a self-serving post? Well, as much as I appreciate any support for little ol' me, I also use the techniques below to support my own favorite bloggers! I hope this can be a resource for all of us to spread the love around to the writers we admire.

I'll also include three linkies for anyone who's interested in linking up or supporting those who do:

• One for blogs on Kindle
• One for blogger-run businesses
• One for affiliate links from relevant bloggers

Read on for the linkies and more information!

Comment

This is probably the most important way to show you care — and one of the most natural. If you read a post that resonates with you, say so! If you have a follow-up question, ask it. If you have a different perspective to offer, do so gently. If you have advice to share, most bloggers will appreciate it. There are commenting challenges, such as at Adventures in Mommyhood and IComLeavWe, which makes it fun to join the crowd in commenting. But even apart from those, you can make it your own little mission to spread some comment bliss. Writers love to know there are readers out there.

Email

Even more direct than a comment, sending a note of encouragement and appreciation can mean so much to a blogger.

Promote blogs on your blog

If you have a website, put other bloggers' buttons in your sidebar or on a special page. Add their URLs to your blogroll.

Connect

Follow your favorite bloggers on Facebook, Networked Blogs, Google Friend Connect, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, YouTube, Flickr … wherever you are that they are, too. Interact with them on the sites that are meaningful to you. This is beneficial for you in that you get to build more connections with the writers you like, and it makes your beloved bloggers feel the warmth of your presence.

Social media-ify posts

Pass around the posts you enjoy. Share them on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, StumbleUpon, Pinterest, etc. — whatever will get some more eyes on the article. (This can help build your own community of like-minded folk as well!)

Link back

Write posts building off what someone wrote that interested you. Participate in link-love pursuits like blogging carnivals. Share relevant articles in a link round-up like Sunday Surf. If a subject comes up in a post and you know someone else who wrote about it, link away. Bloggers always appreciate good linkage!

Link up

If bloggers offer a linky for Wordless Wednesday, giveaways, or bloghops, join in! Fill up those linkies and make a blogger feel popular.

Click on their ads

Only if you're interested, of course, but if you see an interesting ad in their sidebar or in their feed, click through and check it out. Those clicks are being tracked by someone, and it can help boost their revenue (as with Adsense) or their reputation with the advertiser.

Review their blogs or products — with Kindle linky!

If bloggers have products online (like a poetry book) or have
their blogs on Kindle, a lovely thing to do is write a nice review (if you like it and it's in a reviewable place). This goes for Etsy and eBay sellers as well, or even places like Yelp or Facebook place reviews if it's a local business. It can take a little time to write something up, but it makes a big difference in alerting other people to what you love about this blog or its related products, and it gives a huge boost to the blogger you're reviewing.

Is your blog on Kindle? I'm making my way through reviewing the blogs I love, and I'm sure others would like to do the same. Link up if you have a blog on Kindle. Put the link directly to your Kindle blog page. (I reserve the right to delete from the linky blogs that would not be of interest to my readers here or at Hobo Mama.)

Sunday Surf: Mystery plotting, indexing, & Google nonsense

Links I've read, from Writing Tidbits:

Yea, I’ve gone up in page rank!

I don’t know where else (or why, but whatever) to brag about this. I just got an email from a possibly suspect ad company telling me “because you’re PR 4, we’ll give you this rate, blah blah blah,” and I was like, I’m PR 3 (for www.HoboMama.com). But I went to check — herehttp://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.phpwww.HoboMama.com). But I went to check — here http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php — and I am 4 now! Woohoo!

Yes, this is out of 10, but 4’s pretty good for a blog. Most blogs I read (Hobo Mama included till just recently) are 1-3, and there’s no shame in that. (LaurenWayne.com is a 2, and NaturalParentsNetwork.com is a 3.) It’s just kind of fun to have moved up a notch!

In case you were wondering, Google, which sets the PR algorithms, ranks 10/10. ;)

There’s a PR checker I usually prefer, by the way, because it doesn’t have captcha, but it wasn’t working today so I’m not sure if it’s defunct. In case it works later, it’s here: http://www.page-rank-calculator.com/ A little easier to deal with.

4 DAYS AGO

google page rank blogging

Occupy Google Reader: Changes to the RSS feed irk the ‘sharebros’ - Arts Post - The Washington Post

The protest, organized throughFacebook, brought Google Reader fans — or “sharebros,” as they’re sometimes called — together with signs like “Google: Don’t Mark All as Read,” and “We are the 1000+.” There were 10 protesters total, if you count one protester’s daughter, a toddler.

Funniest & aptest protest ever. ;)

5 DAYS AGO

google reader google rss feeds

So You Want to Write a Book With MS Word

Comprehensive resource of links and tutorials for laying out a book in Word. Doing so is one of the most frustrating experiences, but at least here are some tips.

5 DAYS AGO

publishing self-publishing design layout Word

Official Google Blog: More spring cleaning out of season

Google Friend Connect—Friend Connect allows webmasters to add social features to their sites by embedding a few snippets of code. We’re retiring the service for all non-Blogger sites on March 1, 2012. We encourage affected sites to create a Google page and place a Google badge on their site so they can bring their community of followers to Google and use new features like Circles and Hangouts to keep in touch.

On the one hand, what do I care about GFC? It’s just used to boost giveaway sites now as far as I can tell. 

On the other hand, how in the world does Google equate GFC with Google+? They’re entirely different models. It’s like saying, “Twitter’s shutting down; go use Facebook instead.” GFC is primarily for public followers on public blogs. G+ is all about using your real name and having circles of friends. I don’t doubt that people are figuring how to use G+ for business, but if you want to keep a separation between your professional & personal life, right now G+ doesn’t offer many options.

Why does Google keep fixing what ain’t broke? And why do they do that to the exclusion of things that are broke, like the Blogger commenting system that users have been complaining about for years? Huh?

via Jennifer

5 DAYS AGO

google google friend connect google+ blogging

Index a Book Using Word and Excel

Sounds like a decent way to work on an index. I need one for the cloth diapering book and am hoping the actual indexing feature in Word will help me out. But if not, this sounds like the way to go.

6 DAYS AGO

index nonfiction writing writing tutorials

How to Make Your WordPress or Blogger Blog DoFollow | DoFollow Blog Directory & Compendium

How to make links in comments “dofollow” on Blogger and WordPress. This can help add comment love to your site; however, it can also open you up to more spam comments.

6 DAYS AGO

blogger wordpress tutorials blogging blogger tutorials wordpress tutorials

Online Stopwatch

In case you’re curious, this is what I use to time my NaNoProgMo hours.

6 DAYS AGO

writing time

Sandra Parshall: Writing — Clues Drive the Mystery Plot

Tips on cluing in readers.

1 WEEK AGO

novel writing mystery novels plotting writing

KILLER HOBBIES: How to Plot a Mystery

Good tips on mystery management, including not naming your characters all the same, keeping the cast down to seven (whoops!), and starting the plotting with the “Let me explain” bit and working backwards. I should have read this a long time ago!

1 WEEK AGO

mystery novels novel writing writing plotting

FeedBurner feed too big? How to fix it

My recent FeedBurner woe:


Click any image to embiggen.

The past few days, I noticed signs that my RSS feed for Hobo Mama wasn't updating, though it took me awhile to believe it.

I caught glimpses first in CommentLuv entries when I commented on other sites. It kept pulling up my "Gratitude Challenge" post from Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, even though I subsequently posted on Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I didn't really think much of it the first few times, or the first couple days — I just used Ping-o-Matic to give my feed a little boost and figured it would fix itself.

But after it had been a week, I noticed the delay wasn't just in CommentLuv. It was in the sidebar widgets on my other sites; it was in Google Reader; and — most obviously, now that I looked for it — the delay was on my feed's page itself.

I went to FeedBurner, through which I burn all my feeds, for the answer. I clicked right through to the humorously named "Troubleshootize" tab, hoping the humor didn't mean they wouldn't take this plight seriously.

#NaNoProgMo: Stop talking and do it

Recently my husband was talking with a friend about a direction he wants to take, and the friend said, "If you wanted to do it, you'd be doing it. You wouldn't be talking about it."

This has stuck with me. I might not be properly transcribing the words and tone intended, but this is how it's reverberated in my brain. Applied toward other people, it might come off as a bit harsh, but applied to myself: It's so, so true.

For years, I said, I want to write a novel…someday. When the stars aligned. When I had oodles of free time. When an editor called out of the blue and gave me a contract and an advance, work unseen.

I talked about writing a novel. I wrote plot notes. I brainstormed character names and traits with friends. I subscribed to Writer's Digest
for years and absorbed all the articles. I checked Writer's Market out of the library, repeatedly. I even took a leisurely nine months while Sam concentrated on earning money to try my hand at being a professional novel writer. I did not complete a novel in that time, not even a first draft.

One year, I heard about National Novel Writing Month from a friend's Facebook status update. It was already several days into November, but I was intrigued. Could I do it? I'd give it a shot.

I was cautious about sharing what I was doing. I told people, but not too much. I was afraid to jinx it.

In some ways, this was the worst time to try, finally, to write a novel. I had a young baby and a home business I was heavily involved in and a blog to keep up.

But I wrote that novel, my first to be completed. I stopped talking, and I did it.

In some ways, I feel guilty that I haven't written much about my NaNoProgMo-ing as I've gone through it. In other ways, it feels completely natural now to hold off on bragging about progress until I'm sure I'll make good on my promise. I'm 2 hours from the end of my goal on this last day, so barring major malfunctions (pray not), I'm confident I'll complete my 60-hour editing goal for November. It wasn't glamorous, but every day I sat at my computer, and I did it. I put in my time, and I made progress.

I'm still not done with either project (I'm waiting on a second read-through from Sam of my mystery novel, which incidentally is that first NaNoWriMo one), and I have lots to do still as editor of the NPN cloth diapering book. But I'm feeling more confident that I can continue to do instead of just promise to do.

So, wherever you are in your progress today, I encourage you to figure out what you want — what you really, really want, right now — and do it. One foot in front of the other, in as little or as much time as you can commit, make tangible progress toward your goal. It might be writing a novel. It might be querying magazines, or ramping up your blog. It might be unrelated to writing: pursuing a new relationship, or calling your parents more, or cleaning out the garage, or learning to run.