Row80 Weds Week 5: Suspense!

Oscar Wilde once said, "The suspense is terrible. I hope it will last."

That's about how I feel as I set up goals and peer into the coming month. We leave Sunday morning for a trip that has no destination or end point. We may be gone up to a month (or back within a week). I think we start by heading north.

Here's my progress for A Round of Words in 80 Days since Sunday:

WRITING: Draft 1,000 words/week for The Seventh Tapestry. Progress so far: 1,170 new words. This new genre of romantic suspense is challenging me! I can't quite believe this new story already has 24K words.

RESEARCH: Continue digging into research that supports The Seventh Tapestry. Study craft of writing. Progress so far: Set up binder for travel with major revamp and drafting of entire book. Taking James Scott Bell's Just Write with me as well as research files.

MARKETING: Refine overall plan; carry out 2 activities/week. GOAL: To send newsletter and set up audio-recording before we leave on Sunday.

BLOGGING: Post minimum of 2 posts each week. Update: Not sure about this one. We'll have sketchy internet so I may only post short updates on our trip and writing on FaceBook. But today, I'm posting here AND on my writing blog.

COMMUNITY: Improve outreach through active participation in social media, online and F2F writing groups x5 activities/events each week. Update: Again, this goal may be on hold.

HOME-TENDING: Support healthy diet, exercise, and my family, keeping a balance between work/play. Update: Met weight loss goals for July. Today is our anniversary (43 years!).

You may not know this about me, but I am a shy person. I hate conflict and subscribe to that Victorian theory that sex scenes should occur off stage. So, my new story is romantic suspense. Ooops! Actually, it's kind of fun to work on writing more 'romance' and 'suspense' into my story. 

This week's WIPpet. As part of Wednesday's snippet from a work-in-progress (WIP), coordinated by Emily Wrayburn, here are 8 sentences (for the month of August) from The Seventh Tapestry. Poor Sandra, new at her job at the Museum of Medieval Art, is already facing some problems.

     A door snapped shut at the end of the hall. That’s strange, thought Sandra. I thought I was alone. She stopped at the employee lounge to grab a coffee and entered her office, automatically checking that her office files were as she left them, a single sheet placed cross-wise on the top file.
     They weren’t. 

     Someone’s been in my office, and I’ll bet it wasn’t maintenance. A shiver went down her spine. Only Mr. Hadley knew about her work on the missing artifacts.

WRITING TIP that inspired me this week? Someone nameless, maybe in the latest Writer's Digest, suggested IF you are on vacation, plan to write 30 minutes a day -- preferably before everyone else gets up. Works for me!

Why not check out what ROW80 writers are doing on the blog or on FaceBook OR read some snippets from other WIPpet writers here OR on Facebook. You know you can! And enjoy the summer. Play in the water. Sit on the patio and watch the sun set. Let those words flow. And just maybe leave a review for a writer you like.