Mascot For The Week

Jade's Shepherd

She is my encouragement to work on the Shepherd novel this week! So, I've only written one page...it's only Tuesday.

If anyone wants to take a look at my crazy dragon egg addiction, aside from this little one, click to see My Scroll.

Now to finish dishes and then attempt to write!

Two Months - Really?

Where have the last two months gone? Oh, yes, likely lost in a fit of financial woes. But that's not the point. I should have blogged at least once in that time.

Well, I'm blogging now, and I'm going to ignore the constant nagging in my head about money. Really.

Miraculously, and I mean that, my study is mostly in order. I have gone through all of the boxes that had yet to be unpacked. The only things left to do (which mind you, I was supposed to have done by the end of the weekend - oh, 30 minutes ago), are sorting through endless papers, putting up some pictures, vacuuming my lovely unicorn rug that has been rolled up for years, and putting up my stuffed animal net (go ahead, make fun of me for having a bunch of stuffed animals at my age - I dare you). So, this means it's mostly serviceable to use, unless of course we have temperatures in the 90s again - no air conditioning in there makes it not so conducive to writing...the bedroom with the window air conditioner is much better. Thank the gods for laptops. But it's still sad that the study, the place I have set aside to do my writing, does not get used. =/

In other updates, I sent more queries out, received more rejections, sent even more queries out, resent rejected stories out, critiqued a few things - the usual. I also managed to push out a rough draft of a 28 page short story based off of the Wizard of Oz. This was just this past week - I managed to write it in 4 days! That's a feat for me nowadays.

As for the upcoming week, I have a grand goal in mind. My husband has taken a week off of work. This means I don't have to be the only one keeping an eye on the little one all day...which means I can write! My goal is to write 70 pages of the Shepherd novel. The number sounds frightening to me, but it might be doable. Unless life decides to throw more crap my way (give me a week off, I beg, I plead, please Life - just ONE WEEK). I will make sure to Twitter updates on page count progress throughout the week. *Points to the left side of her blog where the updates will appear if anyone has forgotten*

I will now stop typing, or this may turn into another rambling post since I am exhausted and can't think straight. I will have to update next before two more months pass - promise!

Happy writing!

Triannual Status Update - First of 2009

Okay, so no crazy, wacked-out blogging today. Really. I promise. Maybe. Depends on what you think is crazy. =)

You might think it's crazy for me to come back to my scary yearly goals list and pick apart what I've done and what I haven't. You may also think the goals list was crazy to begin with. To me, that's not crazy, that's just me being normal.

Here we go - what have I done this year so far?

- I have not written 4k per week - the baby chasing only leaves me so much writing time, and recently I have been concentrating on other things besides fresh words
- I have not critiqued 1 thing per week, but I am critiquing on a more consistent basis - so far a total of 3 things for the year, as far as I can see, so hopefully I can pick that pace up a little bit
- The allotted hours I had listed...yea...little one says "I don't think so, mommy." (except when she says it, it sounds like "Eh, ma, ga, mmm, eh.")
- Obviously Shepherd of Dreams is not finished, and it is past April 30 =( - the Daina's Dance rough draft I am thinking might be pushed to next year
- Track Word Count/Productivity - I did when I was writing fresh words, but have not been with the story revisions...oops
- Out of the 12 short stories that need to be revised and submitted - "Cold...Oh So Cold" was edited and is currently in a slush pile; "This Is Where I Stand" has been revised, I recently received some editing feedback, will edit it next week and it will be out in a slush pile then as well; "Path of One" has been revised and I received suggestions for the last line, so i just need to make a decision for that line, then it's going to a slush pile (likely next week); still have 9 other stories to deal with
- Haven't worked on any of the rough drafts of the 6 stories I had listed (or any other stories I didn't have listed, for that matter)
- All completed short stories ARE in slush piles - yay!
- I have submitted a total of 9 queries this year for The Mind Behind the Mind - 1 full manuscript request, resulting in a rejection; 3 rejections; 2 no responses, which looking at the websites means rejections; and 3 were just sent out last night
- Newsletters, magazines...? Remember, I'm not superwoman!
- Listerves, writing groups...see above
- More like once a month for the blogging, but I'm okay with that for now
- I haven't done much with my website - cleaned it up a bit once, but I have an idea for a Writing Prompt, and I really need to post it soon
- Backing up files has been pretty consistent
- My reading has plummeted - it may just be I really am not digging the third George R. R. Martin novel - political fantasy may be my brother-in-law's cup of tea, but not mine, and it could also be the fact that I'm too exhausted to read by the time bedtime rolls around
- Um, the study...the loveseat is cleared off, does that count? Still way too many boxes (and cobwebs), though
- I will not be attending the WPF Alumni Writing Retreat this year - money, alas money, is the main reason...if we are short $6k to paint the outside of our house, we definitely don't have the funds for me to go to Pennsylvania =(

That's the update. I am no where near on schedule. I'm at least keeping up with submissions, and I think once I have a bunch of short stories off the revision pile, I'll feel much better. Should I be crazy and set some basic goals for the next triannual status update? Hehehe - why not?

- Revise, possibly get more feedback, and submit the following stories: "Dreams in Shadow", "Hell Hath No Fury", "Ode to Buses and Libraries", "The Awakening", and "Ancient Ways"
- Write 25-30k more for Shepherd of Dreams
- Critique 6-8 things
- Post that Writing Prompt on my website
- Finally get my study cleaned (this is I think the most difficult to do)
- Get through Storm of Swords and move onto something more to my liking for reading!

That's not too scary/crazy of a list...right? Baby willing, I'll try my hardest!

How are everyone else's yearly goals moving along? Please post to my comments so I know what everyone else has done this year. =)

Happy writing, all!

Waiting Over...For Now

So, I finally received a response from the agent who was looking at my full manuscript. I have struck out again! But in the way rejections go - it was a GOOD rejection. She suggested I submit to another agent.

This always makes me think when my writer friends and I talk about good rejections. Oxymoron-land here we come. It's a rejection, negativity inherently in the word's meaning. Yet we have to modify the word rejection with good or bad. I think it's our way of protecting ourselves from the horrid things rejections can do to writers. A rejection is like a drop of acid - it eats away at you, add a new drop and the deterioration accelerates. So we need to dilute the acid to save our souls from being eaten away too quickly, our muses from drowning in the vile stuff, and our drive to write from disintegrating. That is why the rejection needs to be modified with good once in a while, otherwise there would be no writers left. =P

Fun fun - the psychology of writers could be a study in and of itself.

With that said, I got a GOOD rejection because of the recommendation to send a query to another agent. Which I will do next week, along with queries to at least two more agents. One of these days my itch to send things out in threes because I think it's good luck will pay off. Really. I hope. Maybe...

*fights off the pessimism trying to burn a hole through her psyche*

Did I mention this was rambling blog day?

Waiting - I used this in my last blog title, and in this one. Kind of funny when I think of it. I have been revising a short story, "This Is Where I Stand". I started revisions just after my last blog post, and it is in great need of dialogue fixes and rhetorical question scrubbing, among other things. But one of my themes throughout the story is the repetitiveness of waiting - my main character is a Queen in Waiting (not a Princess, she will succeed the Queen because all the female warriors battled to see who would be the Queen in Waiting, and dear Zenya won). For example, here she is at a meeting with the current Queen: "She raises an eyebrow, but waits for me to continue. Now she's doing the waiting, but it's not the same. She's waiting for me to speak, waiting for the silence to break, waiting for her own death." The funny thing is, I forgot I had this repetitiveness with waiting until I started revising, so the title for my last blog entry was unintentional.

What does all this mean? Nothing really. I just think it's interesting how some things seem to converge - like I think about something and then that same word or subject is heard in a song on the radio. As if the universe bends to certain ideas, thoughts, or words at a given moment - as if coincidence wasn't really just coincidental, but certain things are more likely to happen at certain times so that same thing happens in many instances at that moment or over a short period.

I know, that doesn't make sense. Okay, it makes sense to me. But I doubt it makes much sense to anyone else.

What does this have to do with writing? Ha! I can actually explain that. You just thought I was speaking nonsense for the hell of it. Maybe I was and just decided to connect it to my writing - you'll never know! Anyway, when I'm writing, and especially when I write a scene I think turned out great, I wonder if it would have turned out different if I would have written it at any other time. When characters do things I don't expect, I think that just maybe this wouldn't have happened, something else would have resulted, if I wrote that scene or story at another point in time. The universe bends my writing to that point in time, just like other occurrences, so when I write something is just as important for the outcome as how I write it.

Well, I guess my craziness should be wrapped up. The universe just told me to go to bed by having the last lightbulb in the room burn out. Damn universe.

Happy writing (and delusions) to all!