Roh Morgon’s characters who impact and Roh’s Character Contest #1 is ending on the 27th… two days from now.  If you haven’t been to her blog, ‘musings of a moonlight writer,’ then you should head over there and try to pick up a prize while your at it.

I am working on an anthology project that will have me critiquing 92,000 words this month, and in my small group there is the potential for another 40,000+ words, plus I need to set aside time to work on my own fiction while maintaining a full time job, family, etc, so  I find myself strapped for time.  Beyond that, I am having a hard time focusing my thoughts on blog posts while so engrossed in line edits and story arcs.  Please forgive me if I am not as productive on my blog this month as I have been.

Interesting week, these last seven days.

• Won a contest I didn’t enter – tangible prize and everything (yay!).  The original contest I entered rolled into another contest, which was pretty cool.  Thank you to Lee Crystal and Outpost 13.
• Played drums at church for the third time in 12 1/2 years.  I had told the worship leader that I don’t like to play music that’s in 3/4 time, just 4/4.  Well, there were three 3/4 songs, one 6/8 song, one 4/4 song (yay!), and one song that had a repeated pattern of five measures of 5/4 time and then one measure of 3/4 time.  The worship pastor hates me.  I know it, deep down he hates me.  It was so stressful.  I was told by many people that I did great, but I still want to crawl under a rock to recover.
• Finished Diamond of Darkhold (which finishes one series I’ve been reading), reading Jumper: Griffin’s Story (which finishes another series for me), and have The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner in the queue (which will finish that series, again).
• Decided I am going back to school next year for a Master’s… unless something unforeseen comes up.  I have off-and-on wanted to go back to school for four years now.  I’m finally at the point where I am willing to dedicate the time and energy.
• Made five commitments on my time this weekend, overlapping commitments.  It will be interesting to see how I survive.  Two weeks ago I didn’t have many weekend plans and it was the busiest weekend I can remember.  Maybe the one will work the other way around.
• Finished one round of edits on a short story for the FSFW anthology.  Some friends, C. Michael Fontes and P. D. Wright gave me a little feedback and, as improved as it was, there is still a lot of work to be done.

It seems the more available time I believe I’m going to have, the more congested and busy my life becomes.  Early last week, I had three plans for my long weekend: get out of the valley for a day, mow my lawn, and visit my parents for a couple hours.  The rest of the weekend was supposed to be relaxing with chances to read and write.  Three days, three plans, life is good, right?  <sigh>

Saturday: gas up my car, drive to Santa Cruz with crying baby, drive home with moaning baby (it was really sad), drive to dealership for 30,000 mile service (which had a nice price tag attached to it), drive home, pay bills.  Time: 7 1/2 hours driving, 1 1/2 hours in a dealership waiting room, and 1 restful hour at home.

Sunday: mow lawn, no church (wife and baby not doing well), watch baby, clean stove, do dishes, watch baby some more, run to Target, watch Paycheck (I needed the break), play with baby (yes, watching baby is different than playing with baby… one feels like work while the other doesn’t), clean counter, watch baby again, rearrange electronics in house, get call about sick aunt who just had emergency surgery, crash in bed to critique a piece from writing group (1 1/2 pages critiqued).  Relax time: 2 hours even.

Monday: run garbage out to curb, hedge bushes, see aunt in hospital, Baby’s R Us trip, install electronics at parent’s house, kind-of almost watch Iron Man with parents, rib dinner with sister (fun, but not restful), gas up my car, gas up wife’s car, fruitless run to Borders, purchase at Borders.com (it was a good coupon, couldn’t give up at the store), go to bed with piece to critique (1 1/2 pages critiqued).  Total down time at home: 0 hours, 0 minutes.

No work on my manuscript.  No work on my synopsis.  No work on my short story.  Did not complete a critique for any of my three group members.  Little down time.  Three days which were supposed to be empty but weren’t.  I now need a weekend from my weekend.

I recently had a birthday.  I haven’t been excited or fearful of my birthdays in the past; however, I was blue for the whole day of my party (2 days before my birthday) and also on my birthday itself.  I told people I was tired, which wasn’t a lie, but that wasn’t the problem either – I was depressed.  It could be because I am the oldest of my current writing group, or the fact that people younger than me are complaining about being old, or just that I’m a father now and my priorities have changed. 

Last night and this morning I’ve been thinking about life goals.  I hate to admit it, but I’m getting old enough to think ‘old people’ thoughts.  So I created a series of questions for myself, based loosely on things I heard in a college class – 15 years ago <sob>.

What are you goals for:
• 1 Year
• 3 Years
• 5 Years
• 10 Years
• 20 Years
• Lifetime

What do I have to do:
• Today to accomplish my 1 and 3 year goals?
• This week to accomplish my 1 and 3 year goals?
• This month to accomplish my 3 and 5 year goals?
• Within six months to accomplish my 5 and 10 year goals?
• This year to accomplish my goals?
• Within three years to accomplish my goals?
• Within 10 years to accomplish my goals?

I have already started answering these questions myself, and I might share at some point, but I wanted to share the questions with you (in case you are tackling the same problems I am).  Feel free to share your thoughts as well.

To my wife on her first Mother’s Day, my mom, sisters, sister-in-law, extended family, friends, blog readers, and everyone else who has cause to celebrate, happy Mother’s Day!

Mariah posted a great little Mother’s Day video on her blog: http://mariahirvin.blogspot.com/2010/05/happy-mothers-day.html

Just added Google Friend Connect.  Don’t know if it works yet.  Please tell me if there are any problems.

I really, absolutely, and completely do NOT want to be at work today.  I am in a writing mood.

Yes, I ditched my RSS feed to io9.  I admit it.  I still love them so get over it.

I got rid of all my RSS feeds, dropped one of the two side bars, and went with a theme that allowed me to put a pic at the top.  Let me know what you think.

Like many aspiring writers, I have a normal job – a day job that pays the bills.  I leave the house for nearly 11 hours a day when you count in commute and lunch.  This means I don’t have a lot of time to write or edit.  Before the baby I would write about 500 words a day and not every day.  An average week for me was 2000 words and a really good week was 3000.  In the last two weeks leading up the birth of my son and the first two after, I wrote only 1500 total words – 1500 words in one month.  I told you that to tell you something else.

Yesterday I wrote 2500 words.  2500!  I know there are a lot of writers that do a lot more, you may be one of them – good for you, you little braggart.  This post is about me. 

The reason for so much production was the anthology.  The original date for rough drafts to be submitted for review was last night.  We have since moved that date out a week, but I still wanted to make the first goal.  I wanted to do it because I was wondering if I still had it in me to write.  One month is a long dry spell and I was worried. 

I was 4000 words into my short a month ago and 5500 words just yesterday morning.  I wanted to finish.  I had thought about the story many a times while commuting, cuddling my baby, or doing any number of other tasks, but I hadn’t had the chance to put pen to paper (or hand to keyboard). 

Yesterday I started at 6:50 am.  Every time I looked at the clock I would say to myself: “17 hours left”, “9 and a half hours left”, “1 hour 22 minutes left.”  The pressure felt good.  The writing felt good.  I submitted just before the original deadline (I actually had another week).  I haven’t looked over the last 2500 words, they may be trash, but I wrote.  I wrote, I submitted, and I made my goal.  For that I am happy.