Sunday 20 January 2013

ROW 80 Check in 4, and First Non-Fiction Draft Complete!


Hello and welcome on this very nice night.

Why am I so happy, you ask? 

Well, I have just completed the first draft of my first non-fiction book!

The Five Day Writer's Retreat is all there! Everything I want to say, my action points, a whole lot of quotes, and some little digressions. 

And to be honest, I'm pretty proud of it. It has some really good advice which I was interested to learn about. (My creative youth gave me a brilliant example of how to set goals which was exciting to write, and I did a bit of research into a few areas such as nutrition for brain function which has pointed some things out I should be doing.) It's great when writing teaches you what you are writing about.

I want to go through a put a few more quotes in, and photos (though the photos are a bit of a discussion point at the moment because if it is an e-book, on computer they will look great, but on kindle or other grayscale devices I'm not sure they won't just be a bit irritating. Thoughts? Anyone read books with a lot of pictures on their e-reader?). It also needs a huge edit, as there will be spelling and grammar errors all over the place. But now that it is all there, the process of cleaning it up, giving it a shave and doing its hair, making it presentable seems rather fun.

I think the plan for the next two weeks is something like this: next weekend I'm going to attempt the insane task of writing for 15 hours a day Saturday and Sunday and see if I can completely discovery write a book from beginning to almost an end in that period. 

Therefore, I don't to start another new project this week. So, instead I'm going to alternate between editing this book and doing the preparation for my next top secret assignment.  Well, it's only top secret now because I'm really excited about it, and want to give the project its own entire post. So for now you will just have to wait in anticipation. 

So, ROW80 goals for this week:

5,000 words for 5 days:
Monday yes, Tuesday almost, Wednesday yes. Then Friday and Saturday together yes, and Sunday almost (finished the book, so didn't keep writing). During this period I have also edited away a lot of words as I went as well. However, succeeding in finishing the first draft was the main purposes.

3 articles:
Yes. 2 hubpages and 2 article directory submission. Go me. 

Blog posts:
I think I did 4 posts per blog, which is not everyday, but I think this might become my new goal. 4 is quite a lot, and now that I'm getting a steadier readership, I don't feel I have to post to hold onto readers (I was a bit anxious about this for a while, because my stats showed a great increase on the days I posted, and almost nothing on the days I didn't, so naturally I felt compelled to post everyday). You all happy with just 4 posts a week? Will give you a chance to actually read all of them :D

Other things:
So, have started putting together my new website for my company: thebuffygroup.com
Don't get too excited, as I'm currently playing around as I've never used WordPress before and is taking a while to adjust from Blogger. 

Blogger continues to irritate me, particularly Wednesday where I tried for over an hour to get my post to publish, and in the end had to email it to myself and do it at work because even the next day it still wouldn't work. (And wasn't my internet, as my other post worked). 

Still haven't heard from Telstra who promised super, duper faithfully to ring me in 'two to three days' last Monday about why they can't get my internet to work. Am going to ring them tomorrow and tell them not to bother, I'm changing providers. 

Still having issues trying to register my fitness blog....

And on that note, I need your help!

I have come up with a range of names that I could have for my new fitness blog. I'm moving my old one (Fitbuster) over onto its own domain, partly so I have more control and partly so it isn't '.blogspot.com.au'. So, all the content, and hopefully the appearance, will stay pretty much the same, I'll just rebrand it and build on it. 

My current choices (with input from friends and family) are below, please vote on your favourite in the comments! All advice greatly appreciated.

1. PersonalFitnessBaseCamp (this is my favourite at the moment, just to let you know).
2. BuffyFit (am afraid I might have trademark issues with this).
3. ThinkingFit.
4. FitTrack
5. GetFitHQ

So, what do you think? 

And don't forget to comment for the Goal Journal! Open until next Sunday when I will hopefully finish my 30 hour madness :D



10 comments:

  1. Congratulations on finishing your first draft! That must be a great feeling. Don't get your hopes up on hearing from Telstra, once it took them 9 months to respond to our call about a faulty line :| As for blog names, I like 'ThinkingFit', since fitness is as much about mental discipline as it is about physical exercise. Good luck with your goals this week!

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    1. 9 months?! That's completely ridiculous. Okay, am definitely going to see if I can change providers. One of the reasons I went with Telstra was because being so big you think it would have good customer service... there aren't really many other advantages (except the coverage, but I live in the city, so for internet it shouldn't be a problem).

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  2. Huge congratulations on finishing your first draft.
    Great progress on the other goals too.
    I like Personal Fitness Base Camp too but ThinkingFit is short and to the point. x

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    1. Yeah, I did wonder if Personal Fitness Base Camp was a bit of a mouthful. But am glad someone else likes it too :D

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  3. Wow, you are really cranking with your writing - good luck with your writing marathon this weekend!

    I like BuffyFit - might be worth checking into on the trademarks - I don't think you can trademark a common name, and Buffy was around long before the vampire slayer. I like ThinkingFit too - shorter is better, when it comes to domain names.

    You will love Wordpress once you learn it! So much better than Blogger. Good luck!

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    1. Thanks!
      I did a quick search and there is a trademark out on 'Buffy', registered last year by a cosmetic company in New York for their brushes. Who would have guessed? But it should be pretty obvious I'm not trying to steal their customers...

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  4. If you use photos that look OK in grey-scale, then your book should look fine on an e-reader. I've read quite a few books with occasional photos, and they work fine.

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    1. Good to know!
      I have been warned that adding too many photos can mean Amazon charges you more per download, so will also try to keep that in mind.

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  5. Hi Elizabeth, it looks like Kait has hit some trouble and we have no mid-week check-in. So no one is left out, please come over to our Facebook group and leave a link to your check-in post and we will be over to visit. The page address is https://www.facebook.com/groups/row80/ Alternatively, email me at katiecrcole@gmail.com and I'll pass your post on. I know Facebook isn't everyone's cup of tea!

    Should we have no Linky on Sunday, we'll just keep working this way until things sort themselves out.

    Cheers!
    Cate (Round 1 Sponsor)

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  6. Wow! What a huge amount of goals! How do you find the time?

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