What Will You Cross Off Your Bucket List in 2013?

BUCKET LIST CHALLENGE BLOG HOP

With Dana Sitar to celebrate the launch of "A Writer's Bucket List"
http://writersbucketlist.com/challenge

   

HELLO FRIENDS - We all have our BUCKET LISTS

As writers, our lists usually involve publishing a piece of work, our ART. This is the year I plan to release my first novel,

“BREAKING CURSED BONDS”

 

It is a manuscript that has been on my writer's bucket list for a while now!

A work in progress for three years, finally I see the end of the tunnel. 

 

Now only two more items to check off my list in 2013!

#1 Sending free copies to a few choice friends and readers asking for some final feedback, and hopefully a review or two.  I have it formatted, so anyone interested, please send me an email.
 

#2 finalizing my cover design – currently there is a working option, but the final cover is not chosen, hoping for a few more choices.  I plan to use a designer to check the final file and formatting.

 

With all the steps below already checked off, and the last two soon to be done, I am confident I will be releasing the novel this year.  How do I feel about it? - SCARED!  It is difficult to let go.

My first work has been a labor of love, and I have enjoyed the process.  I have two more manuscripts in the works and hope to follow shortly with another release after “BREAKING CURSED BONDS”.  I hope you will enjoy my work in the near future.

 

THE PROCESS:

Working on my manuscript part time while working a full-time job for two years, I am now writing full time. I decided I needed to finish what I began, and give it my best effort.

I have a lot I can check off as accomplished, and that makes me feel good.

ü First Draft Finished

ü Requested Feedback & Comments from First Readers

ü Revised and Added Material

ü Printed and Made Corrections

ü Sent Copy to an Editor

ü Reviewed Editor’s Report and Revised Manuscript

ü Rewrite & Self Edit (this actually was done in a few cycles!)

ü Then it was converted to epub and mobi format to view and edit again, checking how the new material added looked.

ü Then I read it aloud and made more changes to dialogue

ü Again edited and checked for straggling mistakes not caught with built in spell and grammar checks

 

Best of luck to you and YOUR ART! Keep Writing.

 

 

Support our Blog Tour Host:

 

A message from Dana Sitar-

Thank you for your support of “A Writer’s Bucket List” throughout this journey. I’m so excited today to announce the book’s OFFICIAL RELEASE!

You can buy it here: http://e-junkie.com/danasitar

Today through February 12, the book is 30% off the list price. Get “A Writer’s Bucket List” plus a free copy of the DIY Writing “Brainstorming Workbook”, the “Bucket List Workbook”, and “Bucket List Exercises” for $6.95 -- so be sure to share the book today, so no one misses out on the discount!

How To Be More Productive (Book - "Extreme Productivity" by Robert C. Pozen)

Every day we are bombarded with meetings, get tons of email and face deadlines.  There are ways to help stay focused, so we can be more productive.
 

First and foremost you must know your GOALS. If you haven't already, write down your long term goals, yearly goals and then monthly & weekly goals. Breaking them down to the smaller element, helps you organize and identify your work.

· Prioritize your work

· Spend the most time on the most important tasks & goals

· Don't watch the clock, manage the clock

When you prioritize your responses to emails, or which meetings you attend, you in essence spend your efforts in the most critical places first. This will help you achieve your goals.

 

Many have used the 80/20 rule. Spend the first 20% of your time getting rid of the smaller stuff, or at least identifying them. Then spend the 80% of your time working on the most important tasks that are prevalent to your goals. 

 

Robert Pozen (lecturer at Harvard Business School)  uses the 80/20 a little differently.  He says you probably have to respond to only 20% of emails, and could disregard the other 80%.  Either way, 80/20 sounds like a good way to sort.

 

We all love to track. We watch the clock and think we spent so much time on something we must have accomplished a good days work. Not always so. If we waste our time working on reports that are not needed, or we spend too much time 'socializing' which sometimes is referred to as building bridges, then we have not always spent our time wisely.

Ask yourself the hard questions –

Will this task help me achieve my goal? Will this task make a difference?

 

If not then stay away and focus your time elsewhere. 

To be productive a person needs to manage their time, not be overwhelmed by tasks.  

Keep the perspective.  Step back and ask yourself the right questions. 

 

 

 Most important, always move forward.

CLASSIC READS - Some Things Never Change

Today more people can communicate their thoughts into words and those words can easily end up in books.  It is a liberating time, a cycle of change and freedom.  In many ways it is times like this, with so much change, that we need our classic reads.

 

 

The past few years have been dynamic for authors. There are more writers being published via eBooks and print on demand (POD).  Exposure of existing authors is heightened with the rampant growth of social media and marketing via author platforms. 

The classics help our society remember what we are gauging our future against. 

Classics are a reference to excellence that we can use as a measure of our own success today and in the future. 

The classics prevail over time and language, with truth exposed in the characters and story.  Some basic human truths make a story appeal over centuries.  No matter the date written, the human spirit is visible in a classic, and is readily identified. 

There are obvious classics which we have probably all read from Homer’s Iliad to Stephen King’s The Stand.  Some classic writers that quickly come to mind are listed below, trying to find at least one author per letter.  There are many more: 

 

 

 

Agatha Christie	H.P. Lovecraft	John Steinbeck	Sidney Sheldon
Arthur Conan Doyle	Harper Lee	Jules Verne	Stephen King
Bram Stoker	Henry David Thoreau	Kurt Vonnegut	Thomas Hardy
C.S. Lewis	Herman Melville	Leo Tolstoy	Truman Capote
Charles Dickens	Homer	Mark Twain	Udall, Brady
Dan Brown	Ian McEwan	Mary Shelly	Ursula Markus
Dante Alighieri	Isaac Asimov	Nathaniel Hawthorne	Uzma Sadaf
Edgar Allan Poe	J.D. Salinger	Oscar Wilde	Victor Hugo
Emily Bronte	J.K. Rowling	Percy Bysshe Shelley	Virginia Woolf
Emily Dickinson	J.R.R. Tolkien	Philip Pullman	William Blake
Ernest Hemingway	Jack London	Plato	William Faulkner
F. Scott Fitzgerald	James Joyce	Quinn, Spencer	William Shakespeare
Franz Kafka	Jane Austen	Ralph Waldo Emerson	Xavier, Francis
George Eliot	John Grisham	Ray Bradbury	Yann Martel
George Orwell	John Irving	Robert Louis Stevenson
H. G. Wells	John Milton	Rudyard Kipling

I had difficulty finding a classic author for the letter Z.  I humbly hope someday my name may be used to fill in this gap, not presuming classic status on my part. 

Please in the coming year look for my book debut…  

BREAKING CURSED BONDS by Elisabeth Zguta

Happy reading and writing to us all! 

Best of luck in your 2013 endeavors.

 

Enjoy the clip from the 2009 Wuthering Heights - one of the best versions on screen.  The rest of the clips that follow can be found on YouTube - find listed in my channel.

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSayPBDIpl739kcswMsFopA

 

 

Reviews.library journal.com Best books-2012-top-ten

Amazon best-sellers-of-2012 books

 

Visit the hoppers!

Participants in the Classic Reads blog hop (#NewClassicReads).

8 Simple Steps to Help YOU Write

The New Year has begun, now two days into it, and already I feel behind. I want to write at least 1000 words a day, but so far I have been doing housework, shopping and organizing. Sometimes I think I sabotage myself by noticing all the things around me that need to be done. It’s only the second day but my mind keeps telling me to get it right from the start. This is a new year with a lot of projects mulling in my head, and I want to make a good effort. I will use a schedule just so I don’t get into the bad habit of wasting time. So here goes:

 

· Write every weekday from 7 am until 1000 word goal is attained or noon, whichever comes last. I will test the waters to see if I can attain that in the allotted time. If I need more time I will adjust. If I am on a roll I will allow myself to continue. Writing new material more frequently is a major goal I have for this year. I am trying not to define it too rigidly but I need to discipline my writing time.

· Monday Wednesday & Friday afternoons are reserved to write blogs & catch up on social media.

This blog will be written on Wednesdays - my other site will have posts on Mondays & Fridays.

 

· On all other days I will edit my current book manuscripts in the afternoon - taking one chapter per day.  So on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday & Sundays, and any other time I can spare in between, I will be editing.

 

I hope my husband understands I have no time allotted for cooking or cleaning. I will try hard to get groceries and do laundry. It won’t be easy and unfortunately I am one who gets distracted easily. I hope the schedule will work because I really want to forge ahead with full steam this year. In order to help myself I will be taking the following steps.

 

8 Simple Steps to Help YOU Write

1. Do not open email until the writing is finished.

2. Do not go on the internet until the writing is finished.

3. Do not go on the phone or text until the writing is finished.

4. Utilize story boards and outlines to help the story stay focused.

5. When stuck and waiting for the right idea – jump ahead and work on another part and revisit the scene later after time to incubate.

6. Do not stop to research a point– instead make a note and jump over that spot to the next lines. Later go back and research and revise as needed. Use the NaNoWriMo approach –keep moving forward and then revise and update the ideas later during the rewrite and when there is time to delve into the research. Use the editing time allotted.

7. Remind myself that good work takes time to develop.

8. Keep a positive attitude.

Happy writing to all!

 

Look for my post on Friday Jan 4th at my other blog site. http://zguta.wordpress.com

2013 - A New Year & A New Attitude

Writing Resolutions Blog Hop

 

http://megwaiteclayton.com/1stbooks/blogger-ball/ 

 

 

2013 Goals

 

There are so many things I want to do in 2013 and I could go crazy listing them all. To accomplish the entirety, I could micro manage myself to death, but through the years I have found doing that only gives me fuel to doubt myself when the list is still wavering with a long tail of unattained accomplishments at the end of the year.

 

So I decided to use a different approach this year.  I really need some positive feedback and a way to bolster my attitude and stay focused and positive. I will still have my BIG GOALS, but this year I am going to break things out into smaller activities, so I can see that my efforts have accomplished something, even if I don't finish my book or get published in 2013.

 

After working three years on my novel and still at the editing phase, I am feeling a bit deflated. So in 2013 I will write down each small step in my final edit. I am hoping this will encourage me and keep any momentum going.  I also plan on working with another person in a writing group I follow, hoping we can cheer each other on. We want to try to write 1000 words a day.

 

Supporting each other during the weekly and daily struggles, I am hoping that we can each accomplish much this year. 

 

Best of luck to all other writers out there…

I hope we can all share and support each other in 2013. Writing can be very lonely and overwhelming, with the end never really in sight. Together we can take small steps each day and work towards our big goal.

 

Resolution #1 -  WRITE EVERYDAY

Resolution #2 -  ACKNOWLEDGE EACH SMALL STEP

 

 





Christmas - Past & Present

Each year it seems time passes by quicker than the year before.  I wonder if it has anything to do with the way our society multi functions these days. We text as we walk, we listen to music as we work, we watch TV as we work out on our treadmills...you get the picture.

 



Long gone are the days we actually did one thing at a time. Once in a while it may happen, but too rare to notice. Every part of our day becomes listed in a schedule to make us proficient in our outputs.  

Now that the holiday season is upon us once again I wonder how fast it will go by, and I am trying to slow things down. 

I want to take the time to notice once again all the wonderful parts of Christmas.  I am not worrying about gifts, or cards, or parties.  Instead I am looking forward to the conversations.  I am anxious to talk with my children again… my grown children that is.

 



I sit here now soaking in the warm memories of the years gone by, and hope to get it out of my system.  No more thinking about the little children running about my feet, the smiles gone by and the wishing that I could freeze and relive those times.  I want the chance for this year’s festivities to have a life of their own, and not be shadowed by yesteryear’s memory. 

 
So here is my pledge – to let the past stay there, and open up the door to a new Christmas present.  To enjoy the moments as they happen, and hope that time slows down enough for me to appreciate and savor the conversations.

I sincerely hope you also take the time to live in your moments, and enjoy your holiday. 

Here's to Christmas Present!