New Goals for ROW80, and Open for Guest Posts!

ew round of A Round of Words in 80 Days starts on 2 July!

"What Is ROW80?

A Round of Words in 80 Days is the writing challenge that knows you have a life.

We are all different and we all have different demands on our time.  Why should we all have the same goal?  The simple answer is that we shouldn’t.  If you want to be a writer, then you have to be able to roll with the punches and adapt to your changing circumstances.  If that means changing your goals when your life blows up, so be it.  ROW80 is the challenge that champions the marriage of writing and real life. For more on why I started it, see this post.

So here’s the skinny:

• We have 4 rounds a year, each running 80 days.  
• Your goal can be anything you like as long as it is measurable (e.g. number of words/pages, specified amount of time to spend on writing per day/week, number of pages edited, etc.–for more on what makes a measurable goal, see this post).
• Once you have settled on a goal, you write it up on your blog (yes, you must have one) and link to it on the Goals Post at the beginning of each Round.
• If your goal changes before the end of the 80 days, simply write up a new goals post and link to it on the latest check-in day post here on our blog or in our Facebook Group.
• We have check-ins twice a week on Wednesday and Sundays where you will update us the same way (e.g. write up a blog post of your progress and link to it on that day’s Post).
• On Twitter we use a hashtag of #ROW80 if you wanna come hang out; feel free to host sprints, share links.  See the next point…
• And if you happen to find us after a round has begun, just write up your goals post and hop on in whenever.  We’re a friendly bunch.
• Be sure to grab the ROW80 badge from the sidebar on the ROW80 Blog (right click, save image location, then chuck it in your blog’s image widget or grab some basic image html and use a text widget)."

I've got a list as long as my arm, so I'm going to break it down into three parts:


Blog and craft-related goals

mail completed craft projects
complete current knitting project and send
update list of books read
catch up on blog comments!
schedule advance posts for during vacation


Current writing goals

enter handwritten edits to first three chapters of Captive of the Sea and Out of the Water
prepare synopsis and query letter for Captive of the Sea
edit synopsis and query letter for Out of the Water
enter handwritten edits to The Handful of Time (working title) and reread


Long-term goals (i.e. items that likely won't be achieved during this round but will ideally be done by the end of the year)

query Druid's Moon some more
query The Charm of Time some more
enter handwritten edits to Mystery at Bertram's Hotel
do required research for Mystery at Bertram's Hotel and Captive of the Sea, and come up with proper titles
think about short story anthology some more and fix cover mock up

Actually, with a day or two of doing nothing else, I could get all of the first two sets done. It's just a matter of scheduling...

Open for guest posts!
If anyone would like to write a guest post for this blog, please let me know!
It's always fun having visitors, and exciting to see the comments coming in while I'm on vacation.


One of the many books to add to my Books Read list is Ask A Policeman, a collaborative anthology by members of the Detection Club, which included Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and many others. The previous anthology of theirs that I read was The Floating Admiral. Looking forward to reading Six Against the Yard. The books are fun, intriguing, and witty!

Have you read any good mysteries lately?