Category: All Write! (Page 4 of 8)

I feel like I talked a big game in my halfway check-up and then fumbled the ball.

As far as goal one – the revision of Written By The Stars – honestly, the size of the task daunted me. The current lesson in Holly Lisle’s How To Revise Your Novel is the world building one, and I need to assess the world in every single scene. Blearg! I’m going to really try and buckle down on this one.

I started the ‘Princess Paladin’ idea I mentioned in my last goals round up, and what I thought would only be around 5,000 words looks like it’s going to round out around 10,000 to have the ending that I’m looking for. Of course I’ve done the old writer trick of having an idea mid-writing and have chased the rabbit, so it might end up being cut back down to 5,000 but we’ll see. So far I’ve written 5,000 words of the first draft.

I’ve watched a few webinars in pursuit of goal four, but it’s just reenforcing my belief that there’s only so much that free webinars will teach you (not to mention 90% of them finish trying to put the hard sell on you of ‘you must sign-up within the next 48 hours for this amazing discount‘). After ten or so of them and reading 1,000+ blog posts with advice for writer’s you start to hear either a lot of the same or a lot of conflicting advice. One good one to check out for marketing though (with no hard sell involved, no sell period actually) is ‘How Not to Be An Evil Marketer‘.
Anyway, I’ve got to put some gumption into it for the rest of the year. How are you all going?

This month just passed I wrote a new short story ‘The Ashes’ and got excited about an old idea in a new time period. I also came up with two more hilarious ideas for short stories I will call ‘Princess Paladin’ and ‘Choose Your Underwear Carefully’. I also found out I’d had my flash fiction piece ‘Anything To Fit In’ recently published(you can read it free here). So my third goal is going quite well.

I’m stuck in the world building lesson for Written By The Stars’s revision. As you can imagine there’s a lot of world building with fantasy, and there are lots of checks the lesson has me make, so goal one is moving along, if somewhat sluggishly with the aide of goal four.

And now, the half way mark has been reached, so my mid-point check up:

In regards to goal one (final revision and editing of Written By The stars) I’m a bit behind where I had hoped to be on this project, but should easily have it knocked off by year end.

Goal two (finishing the first draft of Keys, Clock, Quests), yeah… haven’t done much with this goal at all sadly, but I’m only at the halfway mark of the year, still plenty of time to turn it around. I must admit though this one keeps being prioritised last. I suppose something has to be though…

Goal three (continuing to write and submit short stories), I’ve written a few, ideas for plenty, and submitted quite a few, even had two published so far (Nightfall in the anthology 18 and Anything To Fit In on the website 365 Tomorrows) so this one’s been going quite well.

Goal four (keep learning), I’ve done a few webinars (though I think I’m starting to reach the point where webinars don’t seem to be teaching me anything I haven’t heard before), have taken a couple of Holly Lisle’s courses (How To Revise Your Novel and How to Write Flash Fiction That Doesn’t Suck(the flash fiction one is free), continued to attend my critique group (this is one of my favourite leaning tools and I can’t recommend it enough – a good writers group helps you learn and grow through receiving feedback and giving your own). I think this one’s moving along nicely.

All up things are going smoothly, but I can do better ;p

How are you all going?

Well this month I attended the Aurealis Awards ceremony in Canberra for my piece ‘Short Circuit’ which was a finalist in the Best Fantasy Short Story category, but as far as progress on my goals for this year goes:

For goal one (finish editing Written By The Stars) I’m working through lesson two of Holly Lisle’s How to Revise Your Novel – which requires a full read through of the novel (after having done a full read through in lesson one as well ;p ) so plugging away on that goal. This also takes care of goal four (keep learning). Everybody loves two birds one stone!

Didn’t touch goal two (finish Keys, clocks, quests first draft) – I like to take things one novel at a time ;p

Goal three (keep writing and submitting short stories): I finished my latest novelette, Look Skyward, this month. I rounded it out at 11,300 words (I only wrote the final 4,300 this month) and I also wrote a 400 word flash fiction piece, Back To Work, about a mother returning to work after maternity leave.

I also made a few Found Fiction drops, both while I was in Canberra and around Brisbane. It’s lot of fun and I plan on planting a few more this weekend.

Not a bad month, but I think I can do better(long time readers will know I always think I’m under performing).

How are you going with your goals?