I guess blogging isn’t my strong point. Too much to say or too little? I’ll try to do better. Promise! It’s autumn, after all, and I have more time to myself, so it shouldn’t be a problem. (Though, I’m afraid I am so many months behind on book recommendations, that I may as well just start fresh rather than try to make up for all the ones I missed. Sorry, guys! I’ll just have to give you some super awesome ones to make up for it!)
For those who are keeping score, I did win NaNoWriMo last year. By the skin of my teeth. 51,739 words. Haven’t really looked at it since, but it was a little disheartening, trying to keep up with NaNo while living in the dark and cold with a propane heater (we really shouldn’t have had inside) smelling up the house and no running water. Sometimes I still have chilling flashbacks of that stink and the whooshing sound it made in the morning when we ran it to try and take the chill off, along with the staticy AM radio telling us how many people died over night of CO poisoning and how few people got power back in the last several hours. Oh, and then a few weeks after the lights came back on, a hanging branch let go and landed on my truck. Not big damage, and the insurance took care of it, but it still made me want to go find Winter Storm Alfred and destroy him with a (propane) blowtorch. Can you really blame me for wanting to put anything and everything that reminded me of it behind me?
I won’t try to catch you up on my whole life, because a lot has happened and little has changed, but I have a few little highlights I’d like to share before I get down to business.
First item of note: I still haven’t gotten my manuscript (The Heart Thief) sent out. Pretty pitiful, I know, but I didn’t feel like it was ready, and I needed to let it age a little while, then go back and re-edit. I’m pretty glad I did. I’ve made what I think are some good changes, and I have a few more to do. It’s really getting there, though. Maybe manuscripts are like fine wine or smelly cheese? Who knows? But I’m happier with it now than I was when I set it aside last fall.
Next (newer) bit of news: I’ve written and am working on the 3rd (I think? I’ve lost track slightly, and it’s 2:30am, so I don’t wish to count) edit of a novella. Okay, it’s a novelette, but I strongly dislike that word, and I’m hoping the scenes I’m expanding will boost the word count a bit so it can be a true novella. I decided that I wanted to try to submit my writing to a literary magazine. I’ll tell you which if they like my stuff and want to print it. Two things inspired me to do this: My desire to get my writing out there and the passing of Ray Bradbury. I feel like, if I get some short stories published (that I am proud of. I never liked shorts as a kid, but there’s something to be said for them, when they’re done right. I’ve read some good ones, as opposed to the horrid ones I had to get through in high school, and I really have learned to appreciate them much more), it will start the launch of my writing career, and it’ll give me something to put in the dreaded “About me” paragraph of future query letters. I also am (as you may know if you’ve read my blog in the past, or if you’re super-amazing and decided to read all of my past entries) a huge fan of Ray Bradbury. When he passed, I took it pretty hard. One of the top things on my list of things to do was to meet him some day. I just forgot that idols are mortal, no matter how awesome they are. I decided that I would write every day, as he did, after that. I’ve not quite done it, but I’ve written or edited or brainstormed almost every day. Then, I decided, well, what am I waiting for? If my he got his start by submitting to literary magazines, why can’t I? The novel is the dream, but maybe I need to learn to walk before I can fly?
And, my final bit of blogging for the evening (night? wee hours of the morning?): NaNo is coming up again! I have a plan for it: An old plot idea that I came up with years ago. I dropped it because I liked it, but I didn’t love it, yet I wasn’t willing to make the changes to make it great. So, it’s coming back, 3 main characters shorter, several degrees darker and a lot more magical (in the “Hollywood witches” sense…I’ll explain what I mean by that next time, though I’m sure you’ve already got it). Barring snow storms, week-long power outages, falling tree limbs and other complications, I’m expecting this NaNo to be a big improvement over last year. I need it to be, or I run the risk of giving up on National Novel Writing Month.
Ink on My Hands 