RoW80 Round 3 Celebration Post!

L.S. Engler

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Sep 22

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2–3 minutes

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“‘It’s hard to scrape a respectable living out of the burned cinders of a fallen empire,’ said Knolan quietly, before he lifted his chin to cling to whatever dignity remained after a statement like that.”

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to my last post of A Round of Words in 80 Days for Round 3! Did I reach my intitial goal of finishing the rewrite of my book? Not even close. Did I maintain my goal of at least a page a day? Nope! Did I even maintain my soft goal of getting to a certain chapter by today? I sure didn’t. Is that okay? You bet your sweet bippy it is!

Because the beauty of RoW80 and its loose approach to goals is that, even though I didn’t make any of my frequently revised goals, I still wrote significantly more than I would have if I hadn’t been trying at all. Even more, I really fell in love with this particular WIP all over again, and, if you ask me, that’s more satisfying than a mere word count, page count, or other conclusively countable measure of progress. This was my first official round of RoW80; I didn’t join the last one until well towards the end, and I have to say, it’s a brilliant experience. Not only have I really been able to connect to my writing through it, but I’ve been able to connect with some really fabulous people, too.

Ultimately, I managed to get through about 80 pages of Serpent in a Cage, which is not as impressive as it sounds because these are small pages in the travel notebooks I like to use. It’s about five chapters, though the original draft, at this point, it was actually twenty chapters, so I’ve been trimming a lot of fat. It’s about one third of the way through the entire plot. I plan on continuing through the break, and hopefully that should get me in a good shape for having finishing it be my goal for Round 4.

So, fellow RoW80s, how’d you do? Did you make your goal or did you have to edit a lot as you went along, like I did? Any plans for Round 4? How was your Round 3? Anything particularly exciting or funny or teaching about it for you? Tell me all about it! Let’s break out some virtual champagne and cake and enjoy the success of another great Round, and many more to come!

Round 4 begins October 3rd! See you there!

10 responses to “RoW80 Round 3 Celebration Post!”

Marji Laine

September 22, 2011 at 9:21 am

Congratulations on a job well done and a article well-stated! You’re exactly right. If we don’t aim high we won’t get off the ground!

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1. L.S. Engler
  
  September 22, 2011 at 9:47 am
  
  Well said, Marji! And it’s better to get off the ground if only a little than not at all! Thanks for stopping by!
  
  Reply
Lauralynn Elliott

September 22, 2011 at 10:02 am

Isn’t ROW80 wonderful? Where else can you change your goals as often as you need to? Where else can you not feel like a failure when you don’t meet every goal? Where else can you find encouraging people who will support you no matter what?

Okay, I asked a lot of questions. LOL. Good luck with Round 4. I’m sure we’ll all do fine and get a lot accomplished. I’m all about the champagne and cake. 🙂

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1. L.S. Engler
  
  September 22, 2011 at 10:56 am
  
  Considering how many times my goals have shifted through this round, I definitely consider that a major bonus to how RoW80 works! Sure, I wish I could have done better, but, on the same token, I still did pretty well, so I can’t complain! The support network is also incredibly great, too. I can’t imagine how sad and lonely my blog would be without you guys.
  
  You can never go wrong with champagne and cake! Thanks for stopping by, Lauralynn; Round 4 will be great!
  
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Elizabeth Anne Mitchell

September 22, 2011 at 11:57 am

Well done, and well said, L.S.! I didn’t make all my goals, but I am so much farther along than I would have been. Even more importantly, I feel so much less alone and beleaguered than I did 80 days ago.

Round 4? I think I’m going to resurrect the dissertation, among other things. Gulp!

The group is fantastic–bring on the cake and champagne! Looking forward to Round 4!

Oh, and I finally got your lovely award up on my pages–soon I’ll write the thank-you post, I promise!

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Marie Andrews

September 22, 2011 at 11:59 am

I didn’t meet all of my goals either, but progress is key, and I definitely did that. Like you I’m not beating myself up about it. This is the time to celebrate all the little accomplishments. And also to say thank you for the times when you stopped by to offer support. I’ve really appreciated all the wonderful camaraderie that has developed from ROW80.

Looking forward to cheering you on again next round!

Marie

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kerrymeacham

September 22, 2011 at 12:54 pm

ROWnd 3 was great. Woot, woot!!!! Okay, we’ve celebrated. What’s up for ROWnd 4? Just kidding L.S. Cheers to a great first round. ~clink~

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Em

September 22, 2011 at 1:10 pm

I think that is something to keep in mind – I didn’t meet all my goals towards the end but I did A HUGE amount more than if I ahdn’t been taking part.

Well done on all your accomplishments and see you next round (and at NaNo!)

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Jody Moller

September 22, 2011 at 10:56 pm

I love this post. It describes exactly what i loved about ROW80. You can miss your goals but everyone is so encouraging that you still feel good about it 🙂 See you next Round 🙂

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yikici

September 25, 2011 at 11:57 am

It seemed as you were writing this post with me in mind! 🙂 I had to re-juggle my goals a few time; I did not do as I had intended for my WIP -but my word counts surprisingly made me smile -so yep ROW80 is great all-rounder! 🙂 See you next round 😀

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