Christmas – Page 5 – Linda Nelson

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving Holiday.

I know I did. This was the first year in a long time that my son has been home for the holiday. It was so good to have him here.

Main Aisle, Macy's 1st Floor, Black Friday — Main Aisle, Macy’s 1st Floor, Black Friday (Photo credit: LarimdaME)

On Thanksgiving night we went out and did the unthinkable and went Black Friday Shopping. What an insane idea that was. I didn’t know that there could be that many people living in the area to fill a store up the way it was that night. I mean everyone was parked everywhere, on the grass, in the road, and up on the highway. Then there wasn’t one single shopping cart to be found in Walmart. People were sitting on them waiting for 10 o’clock to come around so they could turn in their tickets to get their TVs they were waiting for.

I only managed to find three out of nineteen items I had on my list. I should have printed out a map of the store before going. Then I would have known where everything was going to be. Maybe next year, even though Mike said there won’t be a next year. I guess he didn’t have a good time being my personal shopping cart. But he was a good trooper none the less.

ROW80 Update:

This year I did not officially take part in NaNo WriMo. I was too busy struggling to get the first draft done for Road Salt.

So, I am happy to announce folks, the first draft is done. I made it to the end of the story. I even formatted the file for Smashwords and I think it passed the vetting process on its first time around. Now I have to begin the edit process. Hopefully I can have the first edit done by Christmas.

I did not make my end goal for word count on the first draft. One of the problems I have when I write is that I tend to write very tight, almost too tight. When I go back through the story I am sure I will be able to make my end goal after answering the same questions for each chapter.

Who
What
Where
When
How
Why

If I can answer all the above I am sure that there won’t be too many gaps in the story. This is what I did when I did the last edit on Friends of Choice. Just by answering those questions I was able to add another 14k words to the manuscript.

If anyone is interested in being a beta reader for me and giving me some constructive criticism on Road Salt you can view the first draft on Smashwords for free… https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/258513

The more ideas I can get on this story the better. I do know that I need to delve deeper into my characters for this story. That will be what my main focus will be on while I do the first edit.

It really isn’t supposed to be an entertaining read, but if I could make it entertaining that would be all the better.

Stop by to support other Round of Words in 80 Days participants found here on the Linky List of other ROWers

During the last round of Round of Words in 80 days I never really made any of my goals consistently.

First I tried to blog more, but that got in the way of my regular writing time.

Then there was the inspirational post about keeping a log about what our daily activities are throughout a day. This was to help us discover if there was any where one could become more efficient in their daily writing activities.

What I discovered was I was doing more blogging, but less writing and not setting aside any time for the other things I like to do in my daily life.

So for the new goals this round I will include the things that I like to do besides writing. Hopefully I will be able to find some kind of consistency with not just my writing. That means I now need to set aside time for knitting mittens and hats for my grand-daughter for Christmas. And then there is my other favorite thing to do – World of Warcraft.

Blizzard Entertainment just released a new expansion for World of Warcraft. I now have a Panda Monk named Musuu. I love that panda. It is kick ass with round house kicks and fists of fury. So I have to be able to find time to play this game too, maybe a minimum of three nights a week and one day on the weekend.

Knitting will be for only an hour or two a night. The rest of my time I will try to dedicate to writing.

Blogging will become limited to three nights a week instead of everyday.

Fridays will still be set aside to recap my favorite books of this past year.

If I can write a minimum of 500 words a week, that would be good for me.
Maximum word count will be set at 5k in a day. (But if the muse takes over, I promise not to argue with it.)
Post on Facebook at least once a week.
Post on Twitter at least once a week.

Hopefully I will be able to finish up Road Salt before NaNoWriMo happens next month.

Stop by the Linky List to see more ROW80 Goals for round 4.

Oh and I almost forgot to mention the Book Signing Event – I will be hosting my very first local book signing this Saturday at The Toadstool Bookshop in Peterborough, New Hampshire. I will be there with my friend, Linda Kepner.

<- See previous post for more information about this event.

I’m excited and nervous. But I am sure it will be fun.