August Attitude

Where has the time flown? The eight month of 2011 is here. August is the waning of Winter in my Southern Hemisphere and the waning of Summer in the Northern Hemisphere. I don’t know about you but August and April tend to be times of planning for me. Perhaps it is because they are both “in-between” months – neither are quite Summer or Winter. But this year I have decided that August is going to be my Attitude Month.

What does this mean? An Attitude Month?

An Attitude Month is a month where no excuses or procrastination is allowed to rear their heads. An Attitude Month is a month when I get real with my writing. If self-doubt, perfectionism or procrastination come looking I am going to rebel with Attitude.

So for August I have decided to submit the current WIP that has been holding me ransom these last few months. Then the plan is to start on Book 2 of the series. I have given myself deadlines until December 2011.

Deadlines are only effective if they are met and if someone holds you accountable.

So over the next few months I will be working on and finishing:

1. The Black Prince (15/09) – Book 2 in the Raven Chronicles (Supernatural Horror)

2. The Ring of Fire (15/10) – YA Dystopian

3. The Gemini – Mythological Fantasy  (15/11)

4. The Dream Catcher – Fantasy (15/12)

At the same time I am going to be forging ahead with Shadows, my suspense thriller with an end date of 01/12.

First task at hand is to finish polishing The Raven’s Court (Book 1 in The Raven’s Chronicles) and submit by 18/08. My betas are chomping at the bit to get their claws on Raven’s Court so I dare not leave them waiting.

How will I be attaining these goals? Word Count! Word Count! Word Count! I am going to aim for 6 days writing per week with a minimum goal of 4000 words per writing day. Another way that I am going to forge ahead is by taking up my Morning Pages again. I have been very lax this year with Morning Pages and after the very strange dreams I have been having lately I realised that I really need to get into that daily habit again of “stream-of-consciousness” writing. But this month I am going to be doing it longhand with the old fashioned pen and moleskin method. Tried, tested and true. There is something magical that happens when your pen scratches away on a blank page.

As for procrastination I am going to employ Anti-Social. This is a nifty little download (unfortunately only available to Mac users at the moment) that shuts off Twitter and Facebook for a solid 8 hours. Four of my projects require intensive research so I will be leaving the internet on but will not be able to access the social networks for at least 8 hours every day. During which time I will be working on my writing goals.

Then on the third weekend of the month I will be attending my second writers’ conference. I am looking forward to this year’s conference because of the focus it has. Both the three authors attending and all the workshops are geared towards suspense writing, fantasy, paranormal and YA dystopian fiction. I am also looking forward to this year’s conference because I am not the newbie. I know what to expect and I know what to look forward to. On top of that I get to attend with one of my favourite people and dear friend. Conferences are so much more fun when you get to share the experience.

So that is what my August looks like so far.

We all have the same 44,640 minutes this month. We can choose to waste away or procrastinate the time away. Or we can choose to use the best of that time to run for our goals, achieve our dreams and form our own path to success.

What are your goals for August?

What are you going to do with your 44,640 minutes?

What is your August Attitude?

Today’s thought ~

Attitude sealed with concrete determination is the brick that lies in the foundations of success.

Kim

Related articles

• Time Saving Steps for your WIP (kimkoning.wordpress.com)

• Forgiveness and Procrastination (colleensharen.wordpress.com)

• Common causes of unhappiness and smart ways to cure them #4 (dialoguewithyou.wordpress.com)

• Three Ways to Overcome Procrastination (divamm.wordpress.com)

• Creating Bite-sized Life Goals (marcia-richards.com)

• July Writing Goals: End of July (shannagermain2.wordpress.com)

• Note to Self: Get Serious About Your Writing (donweston.wordpress.com)

• Picking up the Pace (ericswett.wordpress.com)

• New Attitudes; New Altitudes! (montagprint.wordpress.com)

• The Challenge (anotherpieceofpie.wordpress.com)

• August Theme for NaBloPoMo and a Writing Contest (blogher.com)

• Why I’m Dragging My Feet (kimberlyabettes.wordpress.com)

• The Power Of Writing And Why I Write At Least 750 Words Every Morning (healthmoneysuccess.com)

• When Willpower is Trumped by Bad Habits (zenhabits.net)