Summer Project-Along!

[bookselves]

So! If you're in the northern hemisphere you have until Sept. 21 to finish a summer project!

Is anyone else in? What are you working on?

I have one big secret one, which I will entitle "Get a new job" & another personal project which is to finish painting some walls & furniture in my house & getting some art up.
_________________
"My power doesn't come from other people's lust for my awesome vagina, thanks." - Enzyme

So, I have a blog now.

[PurpleDoor]

I have a big one: finish dissertation. I have a rough plan right now, which is:

By July 6: get draft of final chapter to my advisor
By July 20: finish any edits my advisor requests, email committee to set up a defense date.
Sometime between August 5th and August 25th: Defend. During this time, also get the diss. into "official" university required format (already done most of it, but there's this pesky business of the last chapter...)

Ideally, revisions from committee/defense will be minimal, and I will have the dissertation filed by August 31st.

I have to finish by about September 15th to avoid registering for another quarter, so that's mega motivation!

Aside from that, I need to get a job, but I think I talk about that enough on the job hunting thread :)

[Pearliepie]

I have a huge pile of projects that I've been neglecting, so I have a pretty long list.
July 4: Wet bag for diaper bag AND finish baby jacket DONE
July 9: Baby blanket
July 31: Scrapbook for Em
Aug 3: secret present
Aug 10: letter project
Sept 21: Finish studio
*unpack remaining boxes (5 of them)
finish embroidery/sewing area
paper craft area
*loose paper drawers
*all drawing/coloring items
*sketch books and fancy paper
sort misc. supply shelves
hang artwork

Plus a bunch more stuff if I finish any of these early.
_________________
We are none of us alone
even as we exhale it is inhaled by others
the light that shines upon me shines upon my neighbor as well
in this way everything is connected

[PurpleDoor]

Bump!

I have progress to report: I emailed a draft of the final chapter to my advisor yesterday (July 9th, so a little later than planned). It definitely still needs work, but this is a big step. I also got permission to schedule a defense. Drawback is that due to crazy travel schedules of my committee, I won't be able to defend before August 29th (at the earliest). I'm shooting for that.

This weeks mini-project is to get the finished chapters of my dissertation into the university-approved template and get them off to my committee.

Hopefully my advisor will get her edits back to me soon and I can have a much closer to finished draft done by the 20th. I basically need to have it ready to go to committee by the 30th.

[bookselves]

Amazing purpledoor! You're celebrating this step right?

I am midway through painting a damn accent wall. Yeah!
_________________
"My power doesn't come from other people's lust for my awesome vagina, thanks." - Enzyme

So, I have a blog now.

[PurpleDoor]

[cloverilla]

Moving:

1. Pack and get rid of junk: today, tomorrow, friday.
2. Clean old apt: friday, sat.
3. Movers come: sat.
4. Get rental car, pack remainder of stuff in the car, drive to new city, locate self in temporary house: sun.
5. Start new job: monday.
6. Find apartment: through end of july.
7. Move to new apartment: beginning of august.
8. Decorate and furnish new apartment, obtain cat: end of august.
_________________
Love my fade, but Glitter is forever. LOOKY, UPDATED BLOG!

[madgeylou]

congrats, purpledoor!

my summer project is writing another book. along with keeping up with blogging, making dresses, and doing odd jobs to fill in the gaps financially. it's gonna be a busy couple of months! in a good way.

the thing is, i tend to fall in love with one project at a time and go all in on it for a while. then i need downtime to charge back up again. then i can move on to something else.

this is good in some ways -- like i can write a pretty significant bit, pretty quickly. but bad in others -- like when i focus on a book for a few weeks, or even a column for a few days, i end up feeling behind on all the other projects.

so ... i'm not sure what to do about this. any ideas?
_________________
Specializing in dresses and sanity

[PurpleDoor]

[PurpleDoor]

Bump! I got my first round of edits on the last chapter back from my advisor. My goal for this week is to go through them all and then get a revised chapter back to her before she leaves the country for 3 weeks, with the ultimate goal of getting the chapter to committee by August 15th.

How's everyone else doing?

[madgeylou]

purpledoor, sounds like you are making things happen. very cool!

also, i took your advice about the list of different todo lists -- i've been using trello to organize them and it's working really well!

i haven't gotten as far on the 2nd book as i wanted yet, have had some other important stuff come up. but i'm making headway on my outlines. so far i have a good outline of the top-level sections, and the chapters that will be in each section, and a few detailed mindmaps for the first few chapters.

my goal will be to use this week to catch up with dress-making and wedding stuff, then switch my primary focus to writing.

- finish all the mindmaps by next friday, august 3rd.
- have a first draft done by august 17
- send to beta readers and also edit thoroughly myself
- goal to have it in the kindle store by the end of august.

this is pretty aggressive but if i focus i can make it happen. i'm aiming to write about 25,000 words and i can knock them out quickly once i'm in the zone ...

[PurpleDoor]

bump bump.

Getting ready to send a draft of Ch 3. off to committee today. Next up, get through the edits suggested for the 1st two chapters, and start putting together my defense talk.

My new job is starting just a few weeks after the defense so YIKES! I'm freaking out but confident that I can power through and do it.

[PurpleDoor]

Hey, what is up with the summer project-a-long? Madge? Bookselves?

I have my defense scheduled for next week and am editing my brains out this week. Soooooo close!

[bookselves]

My new job thing is funded!!! We have to find a location & then we can get going.

I still need to paint my bedroom but I think I can def. get that done by the 21st.
_________________
"My power doesn't come from other people's lust for my awesome vagina, thanks." - Enzyme

So, I have a blog now.

[PurpleDoor]