March Writing Challenge

I swear I'm experiencing dejavu! Seems like I just had one these writing challenges of mine. But I'm going to keep on keeping on until I GET IT DONE!

If I keep up with the determination and discipline of the past couple of days, I will! Practice makes perfect and education is power!

I learned a few things since the last challenge. First, it's not enough to write everday. You have to write everyday with PURPOSE! While blogging is fun and fantastic--at least I think so--if that's not the purposed project then that writing doesn't count--unless, of course, your goal is blogging.

Because I'm writing a novel and I blog regularly, I need to develop a schedule AND actually adhere to it. With the way that blog ideas appear so randomly in my head, therein lies the challenge!

Anyway, in the spirit of National Book Reading Month, I'm doing a couple of key things:

1. Increasing my daily word count goal from 250 to 1000!
2. Finish first draft of novel by 3/31!

If I meet the 1000 word challenge, I'll be done with the draft! Wish me luck!

Follow on twitter #lawritingchallenge

Are You a "Wanna Be" Fiction Writer?

If I hadn't already been a place of acknowledging that I don't spend nearly the amount of time writing as I do thinking about writing, this article surely would have hurt my feelings. Instead, it lit a fire under me! That same evening I scheduled an hour of writing time and stuck to it! If you are can't handle constructive criticism about yourself then you might not want to read this. However, if you're ready to make a change in your writing life then check this out and click on the links to the previous posts if applicable for your writing life!

http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/?p=8367


LaCharmine (L.A.) Jefferson
Author, Blogger, Avon Rep

Website: www.lajefferson.com

My Blogs:

L.A.'s Literary Love Life@ http://lajefferson.com

All Things Love @ http://all-things-love.blogspot.com

Naturally L.A. @ http://naturallyla.wordpress.com

Avon
Http://youravon.com/lajefferson

Follow me on Twitter @lajefferson

L.A. Jefferson Accomplishing Goals in 2012

Accomplishing goals is not something I do well. At least not as well as I'd like to. Aside from acquiring my college degrees by the time my youngest child started elementary school, I did manage to accomplish the goal of publishing my book, albeit with no time frame in mind which explains why it was a 10yr plus project. Therein lies my challenge:  Meeting goals ON TIME. However, a change appears to be on the horizon for me. Forget that I didn't make my 12/31/2011 goal for having my manuscript complete, in recent weeks I have accomplished two important personal goals.

Posted on the wall of my cubicle at work is a to-do list that I created to keep myself on track. At the top of the list was submitting my application for the 2012 Kresge Artist Fellowship due February 1, 2012. My goal was to submit my app by Friday, January 27, 2012. True to form, I missed that date, but I was on it the day the application was due! Who knew applying for a fellowship would be so stressful??? Although I didn't submit on the day I planned, I still applaud myself for seeing the application process through, not giving up considering this would be my third opportunity to apply for the $25,000 prize since learning about this opportunity for literary artist in the metropolitan Detroit four or five years ago.

The second goal I've achieved is becoming a literacy tutor for the Detroit Public Library Adult Literacy Program. I'm a week premature in declaring myself officially but it's as good as done. The Detroit Public Library requires its tutors to complete a two day training, which for me began last Saturday and wraps up this coming Saturday.

While this second goal has little to do with my building my writing career or platform, it's even more special to me than being in the running for the fellowship. For years I've been wanting to combine my love for reading with my desire to make a difference in my community. Becoming a literacy tutor will allow me to accomplish that. Because of my busy schedule as a mother of two and author, I hadn't been able to commit to the two day training session until now. Of course, there were things that I could've done on one or both of these days. But this time I'd firmly decided that NOTHING was of greater importance the training this training.

Now all I've got to do is transfer that same level of committment to completing my novel!

Reconciliation to Hell....Summer 2012
Free Excerpt

2010 Recap & 2011 Outlook

2010 has been the most exciting year for me as a new author. To just think there's so much that I didn't do but I'm still proud of what I did do. For starters, I dedicated significantly more time to my craft this year. I attended 2 major writer's events: Literary Meet & Greet and the Motown Poetry Jam & Literary Conference. Just recently I began setting aside time for writing AWAY from home. Having learned that under no circumstances am I going to get a lot accomplished at home because I'm surrounded by too many other obligations, I've concluded that I must get away. Borders Book Store has become my place of refuge. Being surrounded by what I love most--new books--I'm instantly inspired. And as long as I stay off the Internet everything I accomplish during those 90 minute to 2 hr sessions is significantly more than I would at home.

Although I wasn't successful, I set some pretty high goals for myself this year. One of them was entering the 30 day National Novel Writing Month contest where participants try to complete a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. As for my current writing project, the goal was to have the 1st draft completed by 12/31/2010. I haven't given up. There's still 2 1/2 wks left in the year and anythings possible, right? The ultimate goal is to be published by June 2011.

Since I've jumped into 2011, I might as well get into my 2011 outlook. Delegation, delegation, & delegation. Yep, I'm going to be delegating some of these self-publishing responsibilities beginning with my website. Admittedly, I like the layout & design of my website, but there's a lot more that I could do with the site IF I had the time to invest in it. My time needs to be spent writing & promoting my work!

As for writing goals for 2011, they are to publish my second novel, Reconciliation to Hell. Next, I plan to finish writing my first non-fiction book. Lastly, I plan to have my quarterly newlestter up & running--1st edition due 1/2011. Sounds like enough, right? And to think I didn't even mention the number of workshops, conferences, & writing classes I plan to participate in. Oh, and how could I forget book promotions!!!

I'm exhausted already! Wish me luck!

Knowing Your Limitations

Unfortunately, I had to resign my position of blogtalk radio host of the Michigan Literary Network show on Wednesdays. Truth is, I should have never committed myself to it in the first place. First off, the time of the show, 5PM EST is the worst time ever for me. I'm either still at work or leaving work. Even though I could host the show from my car, like I did the first time I hosted. However, that's NOT the ideal scenario for me, especially since I'm a doodler. I like to write stuff down while I'm chatting. You know, questions I want to ask or answers I may want to refer back to from a question I already asked, or whatever!

The next issue is where my priority needs to really be. Right now, my writing is writing. It took me forever and 10 days to finish Unfinished Business. I can't allow that to happen again. I'm currently working on two writing projects. One is another novel, tentatively titled Reconciliation to Hell (you'll hear more about that later). The other is a short story that I plan to submit to a contest in December. On top of those things, I'm a mother of a teenager and a 5yr old, and there's always something going on. While I could've used the exposure of the radio program, I just couldn't do it to my personal satisfaction--entirely too much going on.

My goal as a writer is to produce the best quality work that I can. This first project, I self-published. I hope NOT to go that route again. I need as much of my free time available to write and send my work out for representation, to hopefully get signed by a major publishing house.

In the interim, I'll always be a supporter of the Michigan Literary Network. I'll be listening to the show, attending writer's meetings and networking events, and listening to the blogtalk radio show!