Last night, I drove my daughter and her boyfriend to prom. To prom. I can’t believe it! It seems so cliche to say, but it really does seem like only yesterday she was six pounds, thirteen ounces, in my arms. And now she’s sixteen, and going to prom.

I drove them their in our ’70 Bonneville convertible, which my husband bought and restored almost 20 years ago, and finished just in time for our wedding.  Normally he would have had the honor of being the chauffeur, but he had to work. I’ve only driven it once or twice, and that was before our daughter was born. Like writing new material when you haven’t for a long time, it was scary at first, but by the time I pulled out of our street, no worries!

Isn't she lovely? Oh, the car, too...

Both driving that car, and sending my daughter off to her junior prom, were new beginnings of sorts – which brings me to this week’s ROW80 check-in.

I’ve finished the How to Write a Series workshop, one of my primary goals. I’ve also completed the print publication of Time’s Fugitive, another of my major goals. So now it’s time to move on to my other goals, one of which is planning my next book. I’m going to jump back into Holly Lisle’s How to Think Sideways workshop with this one, so I’m going to modify the goal to reflect that. But it’s really the same – still about planning the book.

Here’s the rest of the skinny:

• Upload Time’s Fugitive print book to Lightning Source – Done! Proof received and approved, and coming to an e-retailer near you!
• Complete Lesson 4 of How to Write a Series (which will finish the workshop) – Done!
• Cover for Hangar 18: Legacy – Done! Cover reveal coming soon!
• Write two guest blogs I’ve promised people – got one of them done, still need to email it to the blogger
• Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts – still not there, but better – 3 intervals, 1 short workout done
• Track exercise and consumption – still only about halfway there
• BONUS: Develop list of things I can tweet about my books – No
• BONUS: Write content for author newsletter – No

Overall goal progress:

• Release Time’s Fugitive, in both ebook and print – Done!
• Complete Holly Lisle’s How to Write a Series workshop – Done!
• How to Think Sideways workshop – complete through Lesson 8 (1-4 done previously)
• Release Hangar 18: Legacy – OR – release Times Two (Time’s Enemy/Time’s Fugitive box set) as an ebook – Cover design for Hangar 18 done! Also got some great feedback from first beta reader – thank you, Carey!
• Bonus: Both of the above – on hold until other goals accomplished

I’d love to hear from you! Have you started anything new this week? How are you doing in this round of ROW80 – or if you’re not a writer, or not doing the ROW, for this spring?

One day last week, I was eating lunch with the girls at work, when a woman from another department stopped by to say hi. Apparently, she’d emailed one of my coworkers earlier this week about the “snatchin’ shoes” she’d bought that weekend. “I want to see your snatchin’ shoes!” my coworker said.

One of the other ladies’ eyes went round. “You want to see her what!?”

Apparently, she’d misunderstood, and heard “snatch and shoes!”

The conversation degenerated from there, especially when a third coworker described something she’d misunderstood: she’d woken up that morning to find three ducks in her yard fighting. She grabbed her camera and took some video, before she realized only the two males were fighting. 😀

Similarly, I’ve been misunderstanding some of my ROW80 tasks, although with much less comical results. I underestimated the amount of time How to Write a Series Lessons 1 and 2 would take – there’s a lot of work in planning a series, especially when you haven’t written Book 1. (Yet, that’s the best time to plan, so good on me!) OTOH, Lesson 3 dealt with planning subsequent books in a series after Book 1 (or more) is already written, so there wasn’t much for me to do at this point, and it went quickly.

However, I made up for it by (again) underestimating the amount of time proofreading would take. Fortunately, it all evened out.

Here’s how my week’s progress went:

• Complete print layout and print cover design for Time’s Fugitive – Done!
• Complete Lesson 2 of How to Write a Series – Done!
• Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts – uh, two and one. Still need to work on this.
• Track exercise and consumption – not quite – missed yesterday.
• Bonus: Upload Time’s Fugitive print book to Lightning Source – no, b
• Bonus: How to Write a Series, Lesson 3 – Yes!
• Bonus: Cover for Hangar 18: Legacy

Here are my plans for this week:

• Upload Time’s Fugitive print book to Lightning Source
• Complete Lesson 4 of How to Write a Series (which will finish the workshop)
• Cover for Hangar 18: Legacy
• Write two guest blogs I’ve promised people – this has been hanging for way too long
• Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts
• Track exercise and consumption
• BONUS: Develop list of things I can tweet about my books
• BONUS: Write content for author newsletter

Overall goal progress:

• Release Time’s Fugitive, in both ebook and print – Ebook done. Print almost done.
• Complete Holly Lisle’s How to Write a Series workshop – in progress, should be done this week.
• Bonus: Any planning/outlining of new book, beyond workshop exercises – on hold until other goals accomplished
• Release Hangar 18: Legacy – OR – release Times Two (Time’s Enemy/Time’s Fugitive box set) as an ebook – on hold until other goals accomplished
• Bonus: Both of the above – on hold until other goals accomplished

I’d love to hear from you! Have you ever heard something you thought you understood – then realized you didn’t? Do you have trouble estimating the amount of time a task needs? How are you doing in this round of ROW80 – or if you’re not a writer, or not doing the ROW, for this spring?