Category Archives: Events
November Goals
I might have been on haitus from blogging, but I’ve been very busy writing. Part of my problem with blogging right now is that I’m writing things for my pen name, which is so completely different than anything I’ve written here. I wonder now what I should blog about, or even if I should keep blogging because I don’t feel comfortable talking about that stuff here. It’s weird and kinda stinks. Still, I’m going to figure it out. So, let’s talk November and goals.
November Goals!
- Write 65,000 words
- Get my novella to submission ready
- Figure out what to do about blogging
Last year I wrote over 200,000 during NaNoWriMo. That was an accomplishment, but not a good one. Yes, I wrote some great stuff, but it was kind of all over the place. This year I want to slow it down and really enjoy NaNo. I want to go have fun and not feel guilty if I don’t write between 7,000 and 10,000 words a day. If I only write the minimum, that’s okay!
The novella is almost at submission ready quality, so that’s not a huge goal, but I don’t want to lose sight of that goal.
Like I said above, figuring out what to blog about and where to go from here needs to be decided. I used to blog in detail about my projects but I don’t want to do that anymore. I’ll need to figure out another focal point. I think I’ve learned a lot while I’ve been away from blogging, and I could very well blog about that. However, I don’t think I’ll be blogging every day again. That takes something out of a girl.
So that’s me for the month of November.
How about you?
Hello NaNoWriMo!
So today is November 1st, which means my blog is out of hiatus and NaNoWriMo has begun. I’m nervous about both. For one, things are hectic as I get ready to move this weekend, and my project is something I’m writing for my pen name. So how do I talk about it without talking about it? I don’t know!
Sunday we had our regional kick off party at a great little used book store. There was a huge turn out and we had a lot of fun touching on all the major points of NaNo.
Unlike last year, I’m not trying to rack up a huge wordcount. I’m going for fun and easy this year. Yes, I’ll more than likely write more than 50K, but I’m okay with that. The point is that I’m not stressing myself to churn out more words than is smart.
And that’s me right now.
Are you doing NaNoWriMo? How prepared are you?
Fun Times at FenCon
I’ve been talking about going to FenCon for a while. This was a bit more involved than just showing up to the conference and going to a few panels. I had signed up for the Writer’s Workshop which would be moderated by Hugo award winning editor Lou Anders. I don’t write in the genres that Lou Anders publishes, but his feedback is still enviable. Now, because there were 20 other participants, this was a very involved workshop. We had to critique the other ten page submissions. The partials ranged all across the genre board and had a lot to offer. It was cool, and nuts, and very valuable.
Though FenCon officially started on Friday, the first session for the Writer’s Workshop was on Thursday evening. It was also the session when my submission was passed around the group. Now, it’s a little intimidating to have to sit there and hear what all these other writers have to say about your work and not be allowed to respond. Okay, you can, but it doesn’t serve a purpose because the point is to hear about how your writing went across. I heard a lot of positive feedback and found out I was doing a lot of things write and a few things I knew I needed to do differently were highlighted. It was super exciting. It also lasted super late.
Friday morning was another Writer’s Workshop session, but I had to work. I did pop in later that evening for a few sessions and to hang out with Michele Bardsley and do the Fresh Fiction happy hour. I rocked my new blood splattered heels. I think I attended three panels, one on a show called Sanctuary, simply because my friend Michele was on the panel. And then one on YA and the scary factor. And lastly, a comedy writing workshop with the guest of honor, Gail Carriger.
Saturday morning came way too soon. Since the convention was so close to my apartment, I decided to not stay there, which meant I had to drive back and forth. Ug. I should have stayed there for the simple fact that it’s nice to just shuffle off to your room instead of driving.
Oh well! I rocked my new blue pokadot dress. What was funny was a number of people approached me and commented about how they loved my costume… it wasn’t a costume. It was just my dress. There were a lot of really awesome costumes, and like an idiot I didn’t take many pictures. I totally failed!
The sessions on Saturday were really good. I kicked it off with the last Writer’s Workshop session. We ran a little long, and had to kind of revamp the process, but everyone got to hear what Lou had to say.
I went to a smattering of other sessions, Business of Writing, a Dr Who panel, a panel on horror, and I shopped! There were some great vendors selling some cool stuff. I got t-shirts. When I went to London I really wanted to find a Dr Who shirt, but I didn’t find one. It made me super sad! I found several at the conference but only bought one, and a Zombie Survival Kit shirt.
Saturday night was the obligatory party night. I took one for the team and made the rounds with some of the other girls. Okay, so we might have been That Group of girls people remember. We had lots of fun.
Sunday. It was so tempting to not go. Though panels started a little later, I was still dragging! It was really a good thing that I did because I went to two very good panels on wrecking a writer’s group and publishing scams. They didn’t say anything I wasn’t already aware of, but it was good to hear it from people who have been through things I haven’t.
All in all, FenCon was very enjoyable. It’s a good convention for the price, even better if you’re local.
Pictures of Paris!
Okay, not yet! But – in preparation for uploading tons of pictures while I’m there, I’ve begun a flickr account which is linked in the upper right hand corner with the rest of my linkage.
I’m hoping to take lots and lots of pictures – and not run into uploading issues. I know that you’re kind of limited on the amount of stuff you can upload, and I have a tendency to get snap happy.
Anyways, link is up, will be adding stuff middle of the week probably.
Weekly Check-In
Despite this being the last few days of the Savvy Boot Camp, it was a lazy week. I read Kiss of Snow instead of sleeping, and slept instead of writing, and as soon as the clock rolled over to June 1st all responsibility to write like the wind was gone. We still don’t know the results for who won the boot camp, but it was a close race to the end. June is the month that I want to do revisions rather than writing, but I’m still writing. I got off to a good start, but I’ll talk about that below.
I haven’t been talking about A Round of Words at all, and for that I fail. I haven’t forgotten that I’m working on that challenge, but I haven’t been as mindful of updating my progress on it. I solved that yesterday.
Blogging.
Judging by the twitter conversations and the comments left on Suzan’s blog and here I would say that the Let’s Talk About Sex series is off to a good start. We discussed underwear and what that says about your characters. Suzan took the girly side and I discussed all things buff and hunky. This week we’re talking about heat levels and language particular to the romance genre. While a lot of people already know this stuff, not everyone does and it’s good to talk about it. We’re also having a blast while we’re at it, so that’s all that really matters.
Revising.
I started revisions on Rescue Me – again. These were pretty light, going over what one of my critique partners suggested. A lot of it was grammar, and of that commas. I have comma issues. I conquer the apostrophe and now the comma and I are at odds!
I’m really happy with Rescue Me. I have it up over at Book Country for review if anyone is a member there and feels like giving me some feedback. I plan to submit it next month after I take my submission package class and hammer out the submission details. I’m less confident about those, but that’s the reson behind taking the classes!
This weekend I broke open Decoy. I’m almost halfway through it and hoping to be done with this first pass in a few days. It’s kind of ugly at this point and there’s a lot of red, but I’m hoping that in the end it will pay off and it will rock. I’m crossing my fingers that I finish this draft Tuesday or Wednesday and then the super picky stuff starts.
Plotting.
Um, I’m kind of stalled out on plotting. I’m worried that letting an idea stew this much is a bad idea. I get bored of the shiny and move on to something else. I still like the idea and I want to write it but it’s not a driving desire of want any more. I’m afraid that this is bad. Very bad.
I replotted my superhero story I was supposed to write during Boot Camp. It’s a whole new idea and more naughty than the original, but again I waited too long to write it. So I’m going to write the naughty one and just go for it. If it flops in the draft process it flops and I’ll move on.
I plan on doing more reading this month to get myself in a place to write certain things. We’ll see how this goes!!!
Writing.
Yeah, so since it’s June I’ve slacked on writing….
Project: Booty-Call Bust
Genre: romance
Type: novella
Progress: I had an idea for this while watching Deadliest Warrior, of all things. The story is actually at a very interesting part, so it shouldn’t be hard to jump back in and hopefully hammer it out soon. My problem is that I’ve been distracted by being lazy. And revising. I’m going to attempt to write 1-2K a day on this a day this week in tandem to doing revisions. It’s not a lot, I know, but I want to keep the ball rolling and finish this sucker.
What I read.
- Kiss of Snow by Nalini Singh
#ROW80 Check In
I haven’t done a proper accounting of what I’ve been doing as far as my ROW 80 goals. Though I’ve been working on them, everything has been overtaken with my Savvy participation. It’s worked because the goals have matched up, but I haven’t been focused on this. There’s two weeks to go, so here’s hoping I can do a good showing of myself over the next two weeks.
ROW 80 Goals…
1. Finish Casual Love
The story is done. This week I’m going to do a read through and begin writing the new beginning. I’m disappointed that I need a new beginning, but it will be stronger if I start the real tension earlier in the story.
2. Finish at least two short stories.
I’ve finished two: Rescue Me and Decoy. I’m working on a third with a ridiculous name because I couldn’t come up with something that worked. Names are difficult for me. *sigh* I’m hoping to finish it by the end of ROW. I’m well into the story, but thanks to June and the boot camp I’m a little burned out on solid write, write, write!
3. Do writerly things every day.
With a few exceptions, I’ve written almost every day of the last three months. That’s a major success I think. Building that daily habit is important. My day doesn’t feel complete unless I have written something.
4. Juggle revisions and writing.
This has been fairly successful. I do better by large when I can focus on revisions or writing, but I can do both. Right now I’m doing deep edits on Decoy while polishing Rescue Me and making progress on the zero draft of Booty-Call Bust. It’s difficult, but I think I’m learning!
#ToBeReMo Kick Off!
I forgot to mention this, but today kicks off another edition of #ToBeReMo organized by my friend Suzan. For the official sign up blog go here. Unlike December, I’m going for Moderate, reading 4-6 books. My brain is too fried from the Savvy Boot Camp to do too much this month.
I need to read young adult books and research material so I won’t be that interesting. However, Mira Grant’s Deadline and Ilona Andrews Magic Slays are on their way to my apartment right now so there will be some awesome reads in store.
So what are you reading?
ROW 80 Check In
I’m going t do a proper check in this week. I’ve been blogging less so I might as well do the proper check in, right? No excuses!
Okay, this last week was the kick off of the Savvy Author’s Boot Camp, which translates to uber focused writing and editing time. I’ll talk more about it tomorrow when I do my big weekly check in.
ROW 80 Goals…
1. Finish Casual Love
Done, and done, and done! I need to write a new beginning for it but I’m not ready for that. I’m still exhausted from just writing it. I’m kind of hoping that the last week of May I will have the three stories I have slated to write for the boot camp done and I can churne out a new beginning then, but in the meantime I should probably read over the book so I get a better handle on what exactly it is I need to establish in the beginning of the book. This is more on the revising of this book, but oh well.
2. Finish at least two short stories.
These are more like novellas. The first one I wrote, Rescue Me, is out making the critique rounds. I told the group origionally two weeks and realized that with the boot camp I should wait until June, so in a monthish I’ll circle back to this and work on it again. I have a general plan for the siblings of the sister introduced in this story in case I can write the whole family.
Decoy is what I’ve been working on in the last week. It’s pretty awesome. I’ll talk more about it tomorrow.
3. Do writerly things every day.
This last week was a return to the dedicated mentality of doing things every day. Yeah, I felt guilty for the two weeks I was laying around reading all the time but I needed that. It was writerly in that I needed my ‘word tank’ refilled. It wasn’t obviously writing or revising or whatever time, but it’s still an important part of being a writer. And I’m okay with that. This last week though has seen me at the computer until all hours of the night getting in those words and pages!
4. Juggle revisions and writing.
The boot camp has made this really happen. I revise during the day at lunch or before work, and then write and blog at night. It’s really working out well. The revision project this last week was a fantasy book I wrote last year called Maliginus. I’ve been writing on Decoy. Last night I did a quick pass through a short story I wrote during NaNo called Gentleman Pirates and Lady Smugglers. Sometimes I really surprise myself with my writing. All things are awesome!
ROW 80 Check-In
This is a difficult blog for me to write. When this challenge started I had a clear cut idea of where I wanted to go, but the best laid plans – well, you know how the saying goes.
So here’s what my goals were:
- Finish Casual Love
- Write Little Spirits
- Finish at least two short stories
- Write every day
- Juggle revisions and writing
And here’s what they are now:
- Finish Casual Love
- Finish at least two short stories
- Do writerly things every day (writing or revising or research)
- Juggle revisions and writing
I’m going to write more than two short stories. For the Savvy May Boot Camp I’m going to be emptying my idea closet and doing a lot of short stories/novellas to use some of these ideas. I’m hopeful that I’ll get through two to four short stories and perhaps a draft of Derby Girls or Space Particle.
I’m changing the #3 goal to writerly things because I have spent a lot of time revising, which is not necessarily adding words. The idea behind that goal was to develop the daily writer’s habit, not just to be a word factory.
So do you find yourself altering your goals to fit your needs?
#ROW80 Check In
I won’t do many of these Sunday check-in posts. Most of them will be rolled into my Monday check-in’s simply because not everyone really wants to know this much about how much I write, or listen to me talk about the glorious topic of ME.
But I’m having a little celebration over here simply because this week has been awesome.
First, I finished the zero draft of Casual Love, my novel length contemporary romance. It’s been a year in the making since the conception of the idea to actually getting around to writing it.
Second, I finished a short story I’m wanting to try to sell to an epub. If this ever sees publication it will probably be under a pen name.
Third, I’ve written every single day for two months straight now. How’s that for an accomplishment? I’m pretty proud of that. Now here’s hoping I haven’t jinxed myself! LoL.
Tune in tomorrow when I actually go in depth into talking about what’s going on!
