Storybook Perfect

Always quirky, sometimes sweet speculative fiction

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2016 Round-Up and 2017 Goals

January 5, 2017 / / 1 Comment

I’m a few days late with this because I worked my ‘day job’ (which is a very weird term considering my *real* day job is caring for the kids and writing, more aptly it would be my ‘once or twice a week’ job ;p ) both public holidays, and the moment I came home on the second day we jumped in the car to head off for Xander’s birthday trip. I hope this busy-ness isn’t a sign of the year to come ;p

First, I’ll break down 2016 by the goals I set at the start of the year.

Goal #1 – Finish the edits of Written By The Stars. Gah, I did try a couple of times, but honestly I’m stymied by the same problem as last time, I just don’t know if I’m ‘fixing’ things that are good as they are and leaving things that do need repair. I think I need to just get some beta readers to go over it this year and use their feedback to help instead of boiling my own brain endlessly over it.

Goal #2 – Be the best president I can be of my writers group, Vision Writers. If being voted in again is a good guideline as to success in such a role then: success. 2016 saw a LOT of extra jobs in regards to this fall in my lap, several which I thought would be taken care of by others. Most of them were my own over-ambitious fault though ;p

Goal #3 – Work on my several novellas I published The Troll’s Toll and all the reviews on Amazon are very positive. I’ve got Glass Slippers almost to beta-reading point, and Skeleton Romance turned out to be a novel, not a novella. Quite happy with this one’s result.

Goal #4 – Keep writing and selling short fiction. I wrote 5 new short stories (about 50,600 words worth) and sold Glass Bones (being published very soon in the WARRIOR anthology from Ink and Locket Press), Hanabi to Kitsune, The Beauty of the Dance (published in Myriad Lands from Guardbridge Books) and God’s Chosen in Darkest Depths anthology from Vision Writers. Also published in 2016 (though not exactly ‘sold’ in 2016) were Gaps in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #63 and Charming in Leading Edge Magazine #68. I also have had the honor of having an editor approach me and ask me if I’d like to write a story for their next anthology (I’m currently working on the story).

Goal #5 – Finish one of the NaNo novels I started – dismally failed as I didn’t even try it 🙁

Goal #6 – Work with as many editors as I can. This went great. I worked with editors on Gaps, Charming (a whole team on this one 😀 ), Glass Bones, The Beauty of the Dance, and God’s Chosen.

Goal #7 – Find some dedicated beta readers. I didn’t get very far with this one sadly, but again, didn’t work as hard on it as I could have.

Goal #8 – Keep Learning. A good result and fairly easy considering how many editors I got to work with. Additionally I learned how to format an ebook and layout a print book, as well as discovering new story structures such as kishotenketsu. I also listened to a LOT of podcasts, including The Creative Penn, The Self Publishing formula, the Novel Marketing Podcast, and Writing Excuses.

So over all quite a good year. I wrote 134,000 new words and did a sizeable amount of editing and other writing endeavors. I could have done better on the novel side of things though.

As for 2017’s goals:

  • Publish at least three more of my Retailored Fairy Tales
  • Finish first draft, complete edits, and get to beta readers ‘Skeleton Romance’ (also give it a real title ;p )
  • Continue writing and traditionally publishing stories (won’t be hard with three sales already due for release ;p )
  • Continue learning
  • Continue being an awesome president of Vision Writers Group
  • Write at least three more Retailored Fairy Tales
  • Complete a novel (as in to the point I can resume submitting to agents)

So there’s a few very specific ones, and a few looser more general ones but I’ll certainly be kept busy.

Two Freebies For The Holidays

December 24, 2016 / / 0 Comments

For this holiday season grab two of my stories for free (or even three if you sign up for my newsletter also!).

God’s Chosen is my most recently published short story, released in Darkest Depths, and you can get THE WHOLE ANTHOLOGY FREE from the 25/12/16 to 28/12/16. Not just my story but also all the other tales by up and coming Australian authors.

God’s Chosen is the tale of Ryn, a young woman born into a modern day cult, and her fight to break free, no matter how badly her peoples’ God wants her to stay.

The Troll’s Toll, the first of my Retailored Fairy Tales novellas, will also be free. For those not familiar with my Retailored Fairy Tales, they are set in a world where witches will curse you for looking sideways at them, trolls charge bridge tolls(and accept princesses as payment), but you can hire a Prince Charming should your daughter have need of escaping either of the aforementioned predicaments.

As for the story itself: Lilly might be a princess, but she’s still the ultimate middle child, lost in a crowd of ten siblings. From his inability to ever get her name right Lilly knew her father didn’t care about her, but she never guessed exactly how little until the bridge. Without enough money to pay the toll, he uses her as payment to the troll that runs the bridge. Now Lilly must re-adjust to life as a troll’s slave, but the troll is not the worst thing in the forest…

  1. Grab The Troll’s Toll free
  2. Grab Darkest Depths (containing God’s Chosen) free
  3. Grab Stolen Hearts for free by signing up for my newsletter

And have a great holidays everyone <3

November Goals Round-Up 2016

December 2, 2016 / / 0 Comments
distraction thy name is Pokemon

distraction thy name is Pokemon

November was going pretty well, in fact I was even keeping a NaNo pace at the start. And then Pokemon Sun/Moon came out. I’m sure you can fill in the blanks ;p

As for the actual goals I completed Sugar Cane and Swam Monsters at 15,000 words, and I completed Glass Slippers rewrites at 39,000 words. The edits aren’t quite finished, I still need to do a read through and a scour through before it goes to beta readers, but considering how many new words went into and shuffling of scenes and ideas and subsequent fact/continuity checking this is still a pretty good result. Sadly, I didn’t get around to Charming Rivals or ‘Skeleton Romance’, though I did a lot of thinking about ‘Skeleton Romance’ and its climax.

For December I’m keeping the goals light as school lets out early so I’ll have both kids all day every day – except when I go to work! I want to:

  • Finish Glass Slippers edits and get it to betas
  • Complete edits based on writers group feedback of Charming Rivals

Stretch Goal:

  • Complete (or at least continue) ‘Skeleton Romance’ first draft

I’d love to have December as a ‘race to the finish’ but we’ll see how things go.

Keeping Pace

November 13, 2016 / / 0 Comments

If you caught my last post (October Goals Round-Up) you know I’m not doing NaNoWriMo this year because I’m supporting my husband in doing it. But I did a quick check on my word count for this month so far and I’m on 21,050 – technically on track for NaNo (well, off by 567 words, but the day is young).

I got there by finishing Sugar Cane and Swamp Monsters (which lets face it isn’t a short story but rather a novellete at 15,000 words), and giving in to the demands of my muse (who wouldn’t let me think about anything else) by writing out the first 3000 words in ‘Romance is Dead'(working title), and finally by adding the carriage heist scenes(and answering a few other issues my writers group had) in Glass Slippers which so far have come out at adding 9,250 words to the story.

Obviously much trimming will be done on these words in later editing stages, but I’m just amused that I’ve kept pace with NaNoWriMo despite not officially doing it. Sadly, since the rest of the month is the trimming sort of editing I doubt tomorrow will see the same thing happen, or the rest of the month.

October Goals Round-Up 2016

November 1, 2016 / / 1 Comment
Yes, I carved jack'o'lanterns again ;p

Yes, I carved jack’o’lanterns again ;p

I spent the first two weeks of October going over (and over and over) Charming Rivals, there’s something wrong with it I’m sure, but I’ve been suffering a lot of self doubt lately which I can’t seem to shake. I’ve done what I could and submitted it to my writers group for feedback so hopefully I’ll hear back soon if I’ve fallen short.

Then I had a dream. A story dream. I have them every now and then; a dream which would be an awesome story. I spent that day writing just short of 4,000 words of outline as well as some choice dialogue snippets which had to be preserved before wakefulness stole too much of them. The story is currently under the working title ‘Romance Is Dead’, but I’m positive someone in the same genre will have already used the title, so it’s just my reference point for now.

‘Romance Is Dead’ wasn’t my only idea this month, I also had two others, and figured out a way to make the long-shelved The Eighteenth Soldier work better so I can finally complete its draft with confidence(though I’ll probably change it to sixteen soldiers since I’m no longer trying to make it fit a theme of ’18’ ;p ).

I wrote 6,200 new words in Sugar Cane and Swamp Monsters. I’ve come across an unexpected thread in the story and am currently chasing the rabbit down the hole so might not keep all the words, but it’s fun none the less.

To be honest though, despite all that talk about working on Glass Slippers last month… well I didn’t even read the feedback from my group on it yet. I got so wrapped up in Charming Rivals, then ‘Romance Is Dead’, and now Sugar Cane and Swamp Monsters. I need to get myself into gear.

I think my biggest problem at the moment is a lack of confidence in myself. I keep thinking my stories aren’t that good, then it seems like all of them are sub-par. I keep forgetting several of my stories have been written ‘off the cuff’, self edited with no other eyes on them, submitted, and been accepted for publication. Two of those by the first place I sent them to. One of them even went on to be an Aurealis Awards finalist. So I’m not crap. Yet I’m having some trouble getting my subconscious to accept that fact. I’m sure every writer (heck probably every PERSON) goes through this. But it bugs me because now I’m not sure if something really is wrong with a story, or I’m just being silly.

Enough pessimism, my goals for November are:

  • Finish Sugar Cane and Swamp Monsters
  • Complete edits based on writers group feedback of Glass Slippers (and try to find beta readers if possible)
  • Complete edits based on writers group feedback of Charming Rivals

Stretch Goal:

  • Complete (or at least continue) ‘Skeleton Romance’ first draft

Though I may have to hold myself back from writing some of my new ideas also ;p

You may notice a lack of NaNoWriMo in my goals list. I’m not doing it this year. Why? Well partly for the same reasons as last year, but mostly because this year I’m supporting my husband in writing HIS novel! It’s a hilarious noir thriller called “I Am Not Liam Neeson”. I can guarantee if he finishes this he’ll sell his novel before I sell any of mine because it is comedy gold. And he doesn’t read my blog, so I’m not just saying that to pander him ;p

Vision Writing Prompt: First Line Fun

October 16, 2016 / / 0 Comments

I’ve been writing these every month, but I’ve been forgetting to cross-post them here. Oops ;p well, I’ll get back on track again now.

Writing Prompt: First Line Fun

September Goals Round-Up 2016

October 2, 2016 / / 0 Comments

cat-typingIt’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, maybe that’s why I suddenly feel like I’m this cat ;p

This past month I wrote the entire first draft of Charming Rivals (16,300 words), did a revision of Glass Slippers, and also wrote, edited, and submitted Hanabi to Kitsune (5,700 words). That’s 22,000  brand new words (there’s a reasonable number of new words in revision, but it’s much harder to track).

After several months and only really scraping together a couple of thousand words and almost the only editing I did was with professional editors for stories I’d already sold, to suddenly slam out 22,000 words and then some in one month feels like powering through.

Now to see if I can maintain the momentum.

For October I’d like to:

  • Revise Charming Rivals and start getting feedback on it.
  • Take the feedback from my writers group for the first 5,000 words of Glass Slippers and use it
  • After the above get feedback on Glass Slippers as a whole and revise
  • Assuming the above is completed hire an editor and begin the process of professionally editing Glass Slippers
  • Write the first draft of Nix, Naught, Nothing (the third Charming For Hire story from the Retailored Fairy Tales world

I also hope to find the time to tinker with the new My Book Table 3 plugin which I backed on Kickstarter. I want to check out this ‘beautiful page’ mode and see how sexy it is 😀

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The Beauty Of The Dance Out Now

August 10, 2016 / / 0 Comments
me with myriad lands

not the greatest photo ever taken of me, but too happy to care

Guess what I received in the mail today?

My contributors copies of Myriad Lands volumes 1 and 2!

Myriad Lands volume 1 contains my latest short story The Beauty of the Dance.

The Beauty of the Dance is set in a world where music and dance are the source of magic and power. In such a world what must being tone deaf and uncoordinated be like? Sune can tell you. Despite being an embarrassment to her talented, prominent parents Sune is smitten with one of the court’s finest dancers, Avalessa. When the object of her affections life is threatened by political intrigue and magical danger what can Sune do to help her beloved?

An Honorable Mention in the Writers Of The Future contest Q1 2015, this is one of those stories I had a marvelous time writing(I almost always do though ;p ) but also had a great time rewriting and editing (less common) with help from my fabulous writers group, Vision Writers, and the editors at Guardbridge Books.

I can’t wait to read the other stories in the anthology and I hope you’ll check it out too.

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Vision Blogging Double Punch

August 8, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Over on the Vision Writers website you can check out yesterday’s meeting takeaway post on ‘War and Commerce’ and the most recent writing prompt, ‘Weak Sauce’, too. Head over and give them a look through.

Mid-Year Goals Reassessment

August 5, 2016 / / 0 Comments

scrunched paperThis last three months – bleh! Scrunch them up and toss them in the bin!

Not only the loss of this time but a long term plan I sat down and worked out with a friend mean I need to do some goal reassessment. I know it’s not really mid-year, but shh ;p

So, most of my goals are remaining the same:

Goal #2 – Be the best president I can be of my writers group, Vision Writers.

Goal #6 – Work with as many editors as I can.

Goal #7 – Find some dedicated beta readers.

Goal #8 – Keep Learning.

A couple of goals are changing slightly, becoming more specific to fit my more accurate long-term plan:

Goal #3 – Work on my several novellas will remain basically the same, just more specific, with a set list of titles to focus on.

Goal #4 – Keep writing and selling short fiction. Same as above, I have a set list and order, though there is a tiny amount of wiggle room with this one should inspiration strike.

And a few goals have been tossed out for now while I focus on ‘the plan’. There is one new goal:

Goal #1 – Stick to the plan. Which essentially is, while I will continue to traditionally publish some of my short stories I will also be releasing several novellas and longer short stories set in my Retailored Fairy Tales world.

So keep an eye out, I’ve got a few more stories coming out this year (keep an eye out for the Kickstarter for the anthology which will hold Glass Bones next month), so if you’re keen to be updated don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter.

 

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