Category: newsletter

Posted in newsletter, Resources, Updates

Accountability and Productivity Proclivity: January 2023

Posted on by Hayley Green

Photo by Jess Bailey on Unsplash

Hello Family, Friends, and Fans!

As promised, I will discuss my goals and the methods I use to finish and meet those milestones this week.

To be clear, I am not getting paid or compensated in any way for the promotion of the products and books. I am suggesting them simply because they have helped me, and I want to share resources that might help you!

Goals

My goals are as follows:

  • Write 2 chapters of my current work in progress
  • Write a blog post weekly on the 3rd; 10th; 17th; 24th; and, if applicable, the 31st of each month
  • Do all of my homework assignments for the week
  • Read ahead in the school textbooks
  • Keep track of my word counts every day
  • Do at least one Spanish lesson every day
  • Read for fun and to learn every day
  • Hang out with friends at least once per month

Productivity Tools:

The first tool is a book. I read The 12-Week Year for Writers by Trevor Thrall et al. It’s available on Kindle Unlimited, and I found it immensely useful.

The basic premise is setting deadlines in shorter lengths of time throughout the year, which will help motivate the writer and help with procrastination. It offered a 12-Week deadline, 4 times per year, with a break week to evaluate and plan the next deadline sessions.

While this structure is beneficial for me, I had to tweak it. 12 weeks was too far away for me to really fathom how close I was to my goals, and I am on 8-week terms for school. So I decided to make my deadlines every 8 weeks and have six of these in an annual year with four weeks of rest.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to be more productive. There’s a best-selling version that is geared toward the general public if writing isn’t your cup of tea. But the basic premise is the same.

It even suggests a way to make sure you’re focusing on your goals daily and making progress, which was invaluable for me. Feel free to tweak this method to fit what you need, with weekly check-ins and setting aside time for your goals.

The second and final tool I will suggest is the “Go Girl Planner and Organizer for Women” This planner is uniquely suited to working with the first tool because they are set up much the same way. The “Go Girl” phrase is not stamped anywhere on the outside of the planner, and a simple stamp of two “G”‘s is stamped on the cover. Please keep in mind that this planner is not just for women and that men can use it, too.

Thanks for taking the time to read this!

Until next time, F3’s!

Posted in Updates, Book Stuff, newsletter

Reading Fling: January 2023

Posted on by Hayley Green

Photo by Seven Shooter on Unsplash

Hello Family, Friends, and Fans!

This week has been hectic, and I remembered that I had to write and post this five minutes ago. That’ll teach me to not look at my calendar.

Just to be clear: I am not getting paid by any authors, publishers, or third parties for recommending these books. I am doing so simply because I’m enjoying them.

Books I Am Reading:

  • The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. Yes, this is an old one, but I find the ideas and the research fascinating. I am also looking into productivity methods I can use in conjunction with the ideas behind The Happiness Project.
  • Once Upon a Bet by Penelope Bloom. I am a huge fan of her books because they have a good bit of spice mixed with hilarious, if vulgar, humor. It always puts me in a good mood.
  • Drummers and Demons by D. Gabrielle Jensen. It’s a bit violent, but I love the original lore of the book and the unique cover designs. It’s part of a trilogy.

Thanks for reading! I promise to be more detailed in the next 17th post.

Until next time, F3’s!

Posted in newsletter, Updates, Writing

Sneak Peek Week: January 2023

Posted on by Hayley Green

Photo by Joakim Honkasalo on Unsplash

Hello, Family, Friends, and Fans!

As a part of my goals for 2023, I decided I would do weekly posts on the 3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th, and, if applicable, the 31st of the month.

Here’s the catch: instead of making every post a “Writing Quest Update,” I have decided to make each week a different theme.

  • 3rd of the month: Writing Quest Update. Features updates on my personal life, my writing life, and my professional life.
  • 10th of the month: Sneek Peek Week. You will receive an excerpt or snippet from something I am working on, and I will talk about some struggles I face while writing.
  • 17th of the month: Reading Fling. This will include a list of things I am reading and book recommendations.
  • 24th of the month: Accountability and Productivity Proclivity. This will feature my goals and progress toward them as well as productivity methods and resources.
  • 31st of the month (when applicable): Frivolous Fun. I will post a fun poll, meme, or question just for laughs.

Snippet from Poseidon’s Pearl:

Leading up to this quote, the merman Prince River has been away on a trip and has returned in need of help. He saved a human from a riptide and needs help keeping her safe. So he goes to his best friend since childhood, Harvey, who agrees to help River.

This excerpt shows a little about River and Harvey’s dynamic.

*** Subject to change when published

River’s Point of View:

I breathed out a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Harvey.”

“Anything for his Royal Highness,” he called from deep inside his room. He preferred not to have bioluminescent jellyfish, just the algae.

“I thought I told you not to call me that, sarcastic or otherwise,” I said, a smile stretching my face. It felt good to be back home.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Royal-pain-in-my-ass.”

Writing Troubles:

I started the draft of Poseidon’s Pearl back in 2017. I went on to start and stop a couple drafts before buckling down and writing the 62k manuscript in 31 writing days. These days were not consecutive, and it took me three months to pen the first draft. This manuscript was the first novel-length project I had outlined and written to completion. But I had no idea how to edit.

For years I tried a bunch of different editing methods, interspersed with some life events that left me with long stretches of time that I didn’t write.

But then, once I figured out a method that worked for me, I dove head first. I went from the third draft to the fifth draft in about a year. But I neglected drafting other projects in favor of focusing on schoolwork, Write of Passion, and dealing with the dung bomb that was my life.

This means that my creative writing muscle was atrophed. That is, I could no longer write for hours on end, churning out 1,000-2,000 words per day. Now, getting 500 words of fiction is a challenge.

Lesson learned: I need balance between drafting and editing works so I don’t have to start from the beginning in terms of my creative writing muscles.

Thanks for supporting me! Until next time, F3’s!

Posted in newsletter, Updates, Write of Passion News

Writing Quest Update: December 2022

Posted on by Hayley Green

Photo by Syd Wachs on Unsplash

Hello Again, Family, Friends, and Fans!

How is it December 3rd already? Time has flown by. But that means I’ve been keeping busy!

As always, here is an update on what has happened this past month.

Write of Passion

As an inexperienced technology person, I have accidentally deleted all of the past issues of the Write of Passion Literary Journal. I am genuinely sorry for those whose work is no longer available. I don’t have the energy to try and restore it, and I am closing shop as a small press. Fractured Realities and Shadows Redefined will both stay available for purchase.

But this is not the end of Write of Passion. For now, it will lie dormant as I focus on school. However, it will get a reboot. It may not stay a small press, but it might pivot to something new and exciting. Stay tuned.

Writing Journey

I have been editing or writing something down almost every day and have been tracking my word count. For November, I wrote more than 30k words. That’s a lot when I was also doing schoolwork, dealing with many appointments and social gatherings, and not participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). However, this is a huge difference between the month before (12k words) and the month before (around 5k words).

I want to get this book to you as soon as possible, so I have to start taking my writing just as seriously as my education. I’m doing overhaul edits with it right now, and the trilogy for the same couple turned back into a standalone with the secondary characters’ stories as the second book in the series. I’ve never set deadlines for myself, but I think I need to start if I ever want to get this book to you.

I’m also dealing with some pretty serious burnout and some major changes in my life, such as finding a new living situation. So taking care of myself is my first priority, followed by school, then writing.

Do you have any pointers or tips to make setting deadlines easier or how to calculate deadlines? Are your deadlines flexible or solid? Do you use milestones? I would love to hear how you set your goals!

Thanks for taking the time to read this! I’ll be back on January 3rd, 2023, with another update! Stay tuned!

P.S. 2023?! Just twenty years ago, it was the eighties! I also don’t know why I think the eighties were twenty years ago when my parents hadn’t even met. I certainly do have an “old soul.”

Posted in newsletter, Updates, Write of Passion News

Writing Quest Update: November 2022

Posted on by Hayley Green
https://pixabay.com/en/pencil-notes-chewed-paper-ball-1891732/
Photo via congerdesign via Pixabay

Hello Family, Friends, and Fans!

I chose this image intentionally, because the month of October was all about scrapping ideas and making new ones. Topics this article will discuss are the course I am taking in Entrepreneurship, Write of Passion, new schedules, and, of course, my writing journey.

Entrepreneurship Class and Write of Passion

I was excited to take this class because I felt like it would help me figure out how to fix my problems with Write of Passion, and help me figure out how to get it up and publishing again.

What actually happened is it showed me that the Write of Passion literary journal and anthologies were a lot of work for very little gain. If someone dropped the ball, there would be a ton of work that someone else needed to deal with. I was honest with myself and realized that it would not be possible for me to keep running it as is.

I have some plans in the works for the future of Write of Passion, but I am not quite ready to share them yet, as I must inform some of the team of the changes, before I announce it to the public.

In short, Write of Passion will be pivoting in a new direction.

New Schedules

The month of October was an experiment where I attempted three different schedules.

The first had me working from 9 to 5 with two fifteens and a thirty-minute lunch break. As I am not a morning person and am super lucky, I do not have to keep to this schedule.

The second was adjusting the other way and being a night time person, starting work at 3:30 in the afternoon and ending around 10:30 at night. In order to keep this schedule, however, I had to drink a scary amount of caffeine a day and I was not comfortable in doing so.

The third one, like Goldilocks, was a happy medium and the perfect solution. At 11:30 in the morning, I practice my Spanish. From noon to 1:30 in the afternoon I read for fun. I then have three blocks of time separated by thirty-minute breaks that end at 8 at night and then I watch my favorite TV shows and head to bed at 10 at night.

Writing Journey

I learned that I get in the mood to write by reading a chapter or two in a writing reference book. I also figured out that I am best at writing in the evenings.

One of the writing reference books that helped me was called Paused to Prolific by K. Webster. She suggested having several projects going at once, and I have found that immensely helpful for the way my brain works. I do not get paid to recommend her book. It helped me, and I want that for others.

Now I am working through three projects and counting school writing as my last project, with school being the priority and then rewarding myself for doing schoolwork with writing on a fiction project.

I tripled the word count output I had for September this past month. And I am celebrating by, you guessed it, spending more time writing my fiction works.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Merry writing, F3s!

Posted in newsletter, Updates, Writing

Writing Quest Update: October 2022

Posted on by Hayley Green
Photo by Dan Meyers on Unsplash

Hello Family, Friends, and Fans!

Mental Health:

I’ve got to be honest with you: September was rough. Mentally, physically, and emotionally, I feel like I was run over by a bus, then stomped on by a stampede of Clydesdales, and finally got peeled off the sidewalk piece by piece with a snow shovel. In other words, I’m not doing so well.

What has gotten me through each and every day was the promise that tomorrow is a new slate, a new day, a new chance. Even if it did suck, again, there was always tomorrow.

Writing:

I have been slowly working on the third draft of Poseidon’s Pearl by reading and highlighting everything I want to change. And then a peer reads my writing and now I have to fix a major plot hole in the setting, in River’s character arc, and basically re-write the book. But it will be SO MUCH BETTER when I do. And I’m saving all of the old versions, too, so if I think I over edited it, I can just pull up a previous draft and go from there.

I am also drafting the first draft of the sequel novel to my published short story. The story of the one Pyro that survived. More to come on this later.

Thank you for keeping up with me!