Hello, and Hello! It’s been a while, Dusty Journal. Business took me by surprise in March. Some kerfluffle with with routines (trying desperately to build one) and hospitals (being a patient in one) kept me away these past months. Pardon me while I air your curtains; they’ve taken on the air of a complacent poet. In the intervening time when I was not strapped to a gurney, I launched my spiffy new portfolio site and started taking commissions for graphic design work.

With the new month comes a new round of ROW80, the third round of the year, and by coincidence, my third round participating. For those of you unfamiliar with A Round of Words in 80 Days (or ROW80), it is a writing contest where you set your own goals, writing or otherwise, for the next 80 days. Participants check in by blog once or twice weekly on check-in days (Wednesdays and Sundays), and share their progress (and their encouragement) with fellow ROWers on the site’s linky list.

I last participated in Round 1 of ROW with some rather shaky progress. My goals were disorganized (writing….and drawing! and, and, and goal setting! and time-tracking!!1); my health was crumbling (though nothing like what it became in late March). I did manage to proof, edit, and release my second collection of poetry Manifesto For All. But with the book nearly finished at the end of 2011, the wrap-up took a tremendously long time.

In the past, I’ve talked about hows, the whys, and the wheretofores of my productivity. I am a graphic design freelancer; it is vitally important that I know my creative process in and out, so that I can carve a portion of that time out for writing. In January, I declared that I had no idea when I was at my creative peak. That’s easy to answer now. Mornings from 6am to 8am, with an extra burst of productivity from 10am to 2pm. Afternoons and evenings are completely bust. I’ve discovered how I can track my creative time (tiny boxes on a page), and how I can schedule work (make a list! lists are amazing!)

So what’s in store for this round? Focused goals. A laser-guided lock on writing (and finishing) a set of poems for my next book of poems.

That translates into three simple goals:

1) Write 100 poems or 20,000 words–whichever goal I hit first.

2) At least ten “modules” of creative time during the week (painting, drawing, design, etc).

3) 1 blog post per week, and at least 3 responses to fellow ROWers progress reports.

So that’s it! I will take the rest of the first week to plan out the contours of my poetry project, write an update that explains the ins and out of the project for Sunday, and schedule commissions for the rest of the month. I will be updating progress on Sundays. To all of you–ROWers, writers and artists–I wish you good luck and good health!