The Bibliophile's POAM (Plan of Action - March)

bibliophile - n. a person who loves or collects books, especially as examples of fine or unusual printing, binding, or the like (I was reading this post when I found this.)

Guess what today is? Do you know what today is (besides Ronald Weasley's birthday)? It's March the first, the first of March. I love the first of March, the first of any month really. It feels like a fresh start (kind of like New Year's twelve times a year), a time to set new goals and think back on others, on what we accomplished and what we need to work on. Hence I have broken this post into three parts.

New Year's Resolutions

Let's go back. Say, about two months. I posted this post. Contained within that post were my resolutions for 2011, all six of them. Since it's been, as I've said, two months, I think it's about time for a progress report. And, it being the first of the month, I think now is the perfect time to do it.

1. I will write everyday. This one is going okay, I'm not perfect, but I do write something almost every day, whether that be a poem, a blog post, a piece of a blog post (lame), a new sentence for editing, or maybe even new words for The Lullaby. I'm starting to build that habit they so mysteriously speak of. A-
2. I will write a blog post or in my journal every day. Totally BOMBED. I know I've been blogging but the main point of this resolution was to get me to write in my journal. -checks journal- My last entry was January 5th: a lovely total of nine words. F
3. I will learn to vlog. This has been going slowly, but then, I didn't expect it to happen overnight. I have posted one video on my YouTube channel but it's a slideshow so technically not a vlog. I do have one planned for when I reach 500 books (only 51 more to go). Until then, I need to learn to speak naturally to my camera. C
4. I will become more organized with when and what I write (or edit). I've sort-of been working on this. As a matter of fact, this post would go towards that, as well as this one. I have a schedule that I write to every week as well: Tuesday (or Wednesday's if Biggest Loser takes over) is to write my Poetry Peak poem, Wednesday is the day to start my short story (which can take me anywhere from one to five days), any other time is for the WIPs (somehow it seems more detailed in my mind). However, I have yet to set aside specific dates and times for individual WIPs besides short term. B
5. I will become better at critiquing others work. I think I forgot about this one. Which is definitely not good. This is important. My main career choice is an editor (because I'm realistic) and an editor has to be able to do this! I can fix mechanics all day long, but I need to be able to point out plot holes and flat characters. F
6. I will not give in to peer pressure or do anything that I don't want to do (excusing homework assignments). So far, I've been lucky enough not to need it. NA

What do you think of my grades? I think this is the worst progress report I've ever gotten. What would you have given me?

February Schedule

We're zooming through time again. Imagine that we're in a little shuttle. You can even make launching noises if you want to. Now, we've landed, right smack dab on February. For February, I didn't really set goals. I gave myself more of a schedule, which I will admit I fell a little behind on. But that's okay, because I let you zoom around in a space ship, right?

• Week One: Read Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maas. This took me two (or was it three?) weeks to finish. It was very informative but it was just a slow read; I didn't really expect anything else.
• Week Two: Apply changes to Thinking of You to computer document. I think I finished this one on time but my perception of time really sucks so I can't be sure. I fell behind on my goal on a few days but I pulled it together in the end.
• Week Three: Rewrite scenes written in present tense. I still haven't finished this. I mean, I've finished most of it. I only have three pieces left (which is really just one scene broken up by a few good paragraphs). I've been having issues with my writing, so the beginning was hard to start (excuses, I know, but I feel I must justify myself).
• Week Four: Plot out everything that happened. I didn't even get to start. I have a feeling though that I might not be doing this for a while.

March Goals

We've returned to the Now. Now you're sitting on the edge of your desk chair (preferably the rollie kind) with bated breath, waiting to see what genius is about to spew forth from my fingertips. Terribly sorry to disappoint. It's just me and my goals here. No genius in sight.

1. I want will get to 35,000 words on The Lullaby. This will be amazing for me because it means I'm halfway through the rewrite. It also means that I will have surpassed my original rough draft's word count. It shouldn't be that hard. I only need 21,274 words which equals to 709 words a day (today was not included in that calculation). Easy as pie.
2. I will finish the first round edits for Thinking of You and then I will set it aside until July. Bet you didn't see that one coming. The thing is, I haven't gotten that much work on The Lullaby done in a while, and this first round of edits shouldn't have taken two whole months. I have too many things going on, and I'm not getting any of them done because of it. My brain is overloading and when it does that, I find it's better to put something away and focus on one thing at a time.
3. I will finish plotting out (as much as I plot out) Royally Burned. I know that I just said I need to put something away and focus on one thing but I want to write the rough draft for Royally Burned in June for WriDaNoJu. I know I've said previously that I would use WriDaNoJu to finish The Lullaby but I don't know if my brain can do something so much like NaNo with an already existing project (it's that OCD thing).

It doesn't seem that hard, I just have to remember to focus, focus, focus (now I sound like Rebbsie XD). Do you have any goals for March? What are they?