Ramblings of a Samurai and his Duct Tape

Evaluating Goals 2.0, Setting goals 3.0

I've looked back at the goals I set for this last month, and I was either extremely ambitious, or slightly deluded, or more likely a little bit of both. So I'm sure you're asking how'd I do?





Enter Round 2 of "DreamTime Dragon's Poem Contest" 


I came up with a little tale based on the prompt pic, but I couldn't figure out a poetic form for it. Halfway success.


Enter Round 2 of "Invalid Item" 


My entry is "D.J.I.N.N." . A little simple, but I feel it's also elegant and fun. Looking forward to finding out if I win. I also found out I didn't win in round 1, but after taking a couple steps back from my entry and rereading it and some of the other entries, the winners deserved it more then mine.


Get to the point where I've submitted 50/100 reviews.


Nope! I was too focused on the other goals I set, and anther phantom goal I'll be mentioning at the end of this post that I didn't give enough effort to these goals. I did make progress though, so I'll count it a halfway success for the one and failure on the bonus reach.


Enter and win "The Writer's Cramp"  at least once this month


Didn't feel any inspiration from the prompts I checked. There was one prompt I saw that inspired me, but it had already expired. C'est la vie.


Write Poverty Essay Scholarship


I worked on it, but then had technical difficulties with the scholarship search website on the submission deadline day. Kinda sucks, but I ended up applying for a few more scholarships.


Enter round 2 of "Invalid Item" 


I entered with "Chosen by DaShire" , but I lost. I ran out of time but I did pump out my submission the day before it was due. I had to cut down on the outline I wrote up for it though and negate a good portion of story, for which I think the piece suffered. Also while I figured out the villains, I never really figured out who the hero was. I started to as I wrote, but not enough. It was while I was figuring out this tale I set the phantom goal.


Enter round 1 of "The Pressure Valve - closed for now." 


I didn't know enough about this genre and while I kind of figured it out, I ran out of time to write my story.


Make some progress on my Novel


I've decided to put that project on hold, give it some time so that I can go back and start it fresh in couple months.


Write an entry for "What a Character! : Official WDC Contest" 


Completely spaced on this one.


Have something to submit to Writer's of the Future Contest.


I was planning to combine this with either my novel work or one of my contest entries, but since I didn't work on the novel, and my contest entries weren't up to snuff, I didn't do this one either. There's always this next quarter though!





And now the PHANTOM GOAL!


While I was outlining for the story contest entries, I realized I don't really know how to outline all that well. I started researching it, found an author's blog where she talks about story structure, and a group here on WDC that is working on novel writing. Through these 2 avenues, I ended up buying two books. One based off the blog, and a novel writing guidebook with letters to the reader... I don't know how to really describe it. But both are guiding me, and I hope to produce something from them.








And how about some new goals? I wasn't planning on setting them with this post but I might as well now that I'm rolling. This will be a series of Quarterly goals (End of September) since I overloaded myself with this last month.





Continue work on my Phantom Goal!


Lol, I just like saying that, but I've already detailed some of it, and the rest I'm keeping somewhat under wraps.


Blast past that 50 review barrier.


This and all my other goals will take a backseat to my daily Phantom goal progress. I'm close enough to finishing this I feel 50 is an easy target, and I can probably make 75 even by the end of September rolls around.


Enter some more poetry contests.


"Invalid Item"  and "DreamTime Dragon's Poem Contest"  and who knows, maybe I'll find another contest I want to enter. But three rounds for each of these over the next quarter, I'll figure if I enter at least half the rounds this will be a success. So 3 poetic entries will be a win on this goal over the next three months


Writer's of the Future Contest


If I'm diligent with my Phantom Goal work, I'll have something that I can edit into proper shape


Enter more Scholarships!


Gotta pay for that schooling somehow!








Considering all that I have going on over these next 3 months, I think these goals are enough. Let's see...


Vacation in two weeks;


Packing up my whole apartment and storing most of it cause I'm going back to school;


School starting in September;


Plus work itself and oh yeah;


Flying out to San Diego in mid August for my cousin's wedding!





I'm going to be more than a bit busy!