Round 1 Check-in 2/5/19

Calling all supportive people in our ROW80 community!

I’m letting you all know that I’m looking for sponsors for Round 2 (which starts on April 1st… funny as that may sound).  If you’re interested in doing a little extra for your fellow RoWers, this is an excellent way to get really involved in our friendly writing community.  If you’d like to know what being a ROW80 sponsor entails before jumping in, here’s the lowdown as Kait set it up: So you wanna be a sponsor

Don’t feel obligated to jump in and volunteer, but as a community, we are our best when we’re helping each other.  We pick each other up, propel each other to greater heights, and we do it because of all the people who care in our group.

Oh, and this is a check-in.  Let us know how you’re doing (and there’s thing you’d like changed or fixed in our community).  You can let us know in the comments or on our Facebook page.

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New Year, New Round… New Choices

Some holiday cheer borrowed my personal blog

Good morning, RoWers!

Well, perhaps it’s not morning where you are… it’s not really morning still here either. So that’s “OK”. We’re live now.

Today is the first day of Round 1, 2019.  A new day, a new year, new words, new commitments, new ideas…  are you ready?  Our first check-in comes up Wednesday.

Now, many of you have posted your goals for this round of words (I haven’t… just like this post, I’m running bit off schedule). If you haven’t yet, feel free to go ahead and do so now.  The linky and the post will remain active for another few weeks.

If you aren’t sure of where to start and what to do, well, here’s a good place…

ANYWHERE

Seriously, start writing.  Start creating.  Or, in the words of my husband, “Do anything, even if it’s wrong.”  You can toss out a page of crappy first draft words, you can edit them, you can save and frame them as a memorial to the moment you decided to BE a writer instead of dreaming of one.

Thing is…  you have to start.

So start today.

Round 1 * 2019 * Goal Post

Yes, you did read that right.  We’re heading into another year of the ROW80, the Writing Challenge that knows you have a life.  That’s eight years of words, creativity, community, support, even friendships… It’s been a wild ride, and we’ve changed, evolved, grown, shrunk, and rebuilt the engine a few times along the way.

What we’ve always done is set goals and support each other as we progress toward achieving those goals.

Which comes to today’s post…  the super-popular Goals Post!  (you have been waiting for it with abated breath, right? 😉 )

Setting goals these days might seem daunting.  We’re already so very busy.  It’s not the goals…  we know where we want to be in by the end of 80 Days (usually), but the “How do I get there?” can overwhelm us.  We can know all about setting S.M.A.R.T. goals, we can even have some great goals and strategies in mind, but we just-don’t-start.

Goals do us no good when we procrastinate and devote our energy towards things that don’t help us achieve them.  So..  may this, along with the links above, give you the tools and the determination to make Round 1 the start of a great new year of creativity.

Because you may wish to refer back to your goals throughout the round, I suggest you leave a link on the linky.  But as always, you can leave a comment or post in our FB group.

Round 4 Check-in 12/16/18

We’re almost there, folks!  The end of Round 4…  the end of 2018(!) is in sight.

Now, what that means to you with regards to your Round 4 goals and progress…  it may mean “End in Sight”; it may mean “Time to get working”….

It might mean relaxation, because you’ve met your goals.

Here, at the ROW80, it means we’re thinking about changes and how to best implement them for next year.  Wednesday I suggested a possible change we could try: accountability partners.  I’m glad our Mythic Writer, Kim came up with such a cool idea; the response has been enthusiastic.

Since Wednesday though, I’ve fielded a few questions about how this system would work.  I will make a page with the rules and the pairs (if they wish to be listed), as well as contact info if you’d like to get an accountability partner mid-round (or in case you feel you need to change partners…  hopefully you won’t).  Until then…  here’s the general groundwork I’ve envisioned:

• partners will be paired on a semi-random arrangement
• partners are responsible for arranging and agreeing to the level of contact they have between them; we can suggest, but we can’t demand you check-in at least every other day or that you choose to focus on your word count and edit totals over social media engagement
• you can request a different partner if you are having problems, but I’d like it if you try to work things out between yourselves first.

That’s it.  No more rules unless you set them yourselves.

The intention is for you to feel more inspired by the direct support.  Just remember your partner will your support as well.  Knowing that someone has your back might get you poking at those Works In Progress more often, editing and even submitting and selling (if that’s your dream).  We can all use a little extra support here and there.  Hopefully this addition to our regular check-ins and sponsor visits will give you that.

Have a great few days, folks.

As always, leave your check-in in the comments section or on our Facebook page, where Shan does great things with them.

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If you would like an accountability partner for Round 1 2019, you can msg me at mousefir (at) gmail (dot) com. Or directly on Facebook. 

Round 4 Check-in 12/12/18

As we close in on the end of this final round of words for 2018, do any of you have any thoughts on what we (your hosts, Shan, Denise and I) could do better to help make the ROW80 better for your needs.  Can’t promise we’ll be able to enact any of the suggestions, but who knows…  maybe you’ve got the perfect idea for our group.

I had an idea I’d like to toss to you all…  Since we have a smaller membership and we haven’t been using the linky, we’ve not needed sponsors for visits the way we used to.  We still need to keep supporting each other….  some of us more frequently, some of us a bit less.

So, what about one-on-one accountability partners?  People who’d like to be involved in this option would let me know, and I’d randomly pair you with another person who has signed up.  You’d set a schedule for checking in with each other (maybe you’d like to send your partner a text with your wordcount and pages of edits each day, maybe you’ll chat in Skype or Twitter about story problems you are dealing with….).  The point is, you’ll be boosting each other directly.

I know some of you already do something like this already in various forms.  But as our Mythic Writer, Kim noted in her end of NaNo check-in, we may not even know we could be getting this level of support in our group.  I’m just saying…  let’s do it.

And…  as always, we’re here for your regular weekly updates and check-ins too, here or on FB.

Have a great Wednesday

It’s THAT Goals Post — Round 4

Writers Write

GOALS!

It’s a little thing we do here at the ROW80 a few times a year (well, four to be exact).

Are you ready to post yours? Have you checked out goal creating strategies—a quick Google search will find you more than a few ways to set them.  Myself, I think simple is best, though many people love setting S.M.A.R.T. goals.  But if the process confounds you, you can always go back to basic and learn about goal-setting techniques.

Whatever method works best for you, use it.  Or as Yoda says:

Not that optimism doesn’t have it’s place, but…  it doesn’t get words on the page.

Anyway…  here’s your linky. Leave us all a note about what you’ve got planned for the next round, visit a few folks… who knows, you may get more great ideas.

Round 3: Post Your Goals

A series of goal posts… (cred: Bureau of Land Management via Wikimedia Commons)

Sorry for the delay in posting this, everyone…  power issues at home.  Now that I’ve relocated to a cafe and some solid wi-fi however, let’s get this post … posed, eh?

Are you all looking forward to the next leg of your writing journey — Round 3 of A Round of Words in 80 Days?  I hope so.

So clean off your to-do list and get posting them so we, your fellow ROWers, can help support you along the path.  If you need help planning for the upcoming 12-week journey, check out these links:

• Setting S.M.A.R.T. goals
• Why type should you set?
• Goals vs. Objectives

Once you’ve checked out the resources and devised your persona plan for the upcoming ROWnd, link up your posts here at our goal linky (or our FB page):