And Round 2 officially begins.

This whole process of setting goals and measuring accountability has kept me thinking and working in a more balanced way toward my writing goals. But family commitments this last month have blasted a hole in how much stamina I have for writing -- and my other passion, quilting.  I've added my goals for Round 2 to the ROW80 goals page here. and will report this first week's progress already one day late.

WRITING goals for April: Make significant progress on revising Years of Stone. Progress: Completed 10 pages of 195 (I work single spaced, but still, that is waaay behind what I wanted).

Goal for Blogging: Keep them current with at least one post a week. Writing blog: posting daily with a poem a day for National Poetry Month and the A to Z Challenge.  Travel blog 1x post. Goal re ROW80 2 posts/week. So far so good.

READING goals for April:  Read 4 research books and 4 indie-published books for the round. Read and crit 2 subs for NOVELS-L on The Internet Writing Workshop. Progress: Happily finished B. A.Shapiro's The Art Forger and will post reviews today.

MARKETING goals for April: Revise marketing plan. Prep for reading at open mike for Get Lit!, signing at Auntie's book store, and visit to Southside Book Club (book club questions). Progress: None yet, but I'm carrying a bag of marketing articles around with me. Need to work on promo for the signing and questions for the book club.

COMMUNITY goals for April: Stay connected to other writers through ROW80, GoodReads, Twitter, Facebook, and that A to Z Challenge. Progress: read others x 10/daily. Twitter x2 daily. Progress: So far, hanging in there.

A word about TWITTER. I swear I shall master more of Twitter this round. To be considered for an audio book at ACX (another great resource for audio books through Amazon), you need to post a profile. ACX suggests describing your fan base, as in 5,000 Twitter followers. Aargh! How could someone reasonably follow 5,000 people? I don't understand enough about Twitter nor its special language. Progress? Not sure at all about this one.

Kore (Camp 2004)

Kait Nolan's introductory post on ROW80, "Remember to be Kind to Yourself," really struck a chord. So often, my writing comes between commitments that I make to others. The writing itself NEVER goes smoothly. Well, sometimes. But I must lay the table before the muse visits and then hope she decides to stay. Laying the table for me means settling into the writing, making a commitment every day, and priming the pump with research, reading, and dreaming. Sometimes my creative energy gets used up in helping others. This I choose to do. But I find it a little harder to come back to find my table, crumbs strewn, and the muse gone.

So I resolve to be kind to myself this round.

I hope you read Kait's article HERE.

Drop in to read what other ROW80 writers have posted HERE.

In writing this update, I found my letter for today's A to Z Challenge, "G" for Greece. This picture of a Kore, from the Acropolis Museum, in Greece, suggests such inner calm and strength. Kore, defined as Persephone, the goddess of spring and the queen of the underworld.

How appropriate for writers and for this day and this time.