Excuse Me? It's MARCH???

First up, welcome to all the new followers! It's nice to know you're out there, somewhere, lurking around the cyber-corners of my blog :o) In fact, I love my lurkers so much that I'm thinking of possibly holding a contest just for them... We shall see B-)

Anyway. Secondly.

IT'S MARCH. WHAT THE????

Someone, please, tell me how this happened? I mean, it was January a minute ago - wasn't it? *sigh*

So, in the month that totally disappeared while I was blinking, what did I achieve?

In non-writerly news, I survived my first month of teaching without anyone dying, and we had puppies!! YAY! PUPPIES!! Only two, which was a bit disappointing, but on the other hand having two makes them really easy to look after, so you know. Silver linings, and all that :)

In writing news, I actually MADE my 10k goal, which I am in total shock about, because I totally didn't think I would. The first few weeks of school were insane, and I was worried for a while that I'd never write again *melodramatic swoon with hand to forehead* But behold, I pulled back from the brink, and Words Did Happen.

11,120 of them, in fact. Wootery!

Even more wootery, 10,123 of them were on Sanctuary, which I call a Major Win. I cracked the 26k mark in the novel, which theoretically is halfway... But in actuality, Edge rambles. A lot. So who knows how long the story will drag on for o.O At least I know I'll safely be able to cut the rambling and still have a decent length novel.

Also, we are yet to get to the clockwork fairies, which makes me sad, but at least is giving my alpha reader an excuse to keep reading >:) bwa ha ha. And, although clockwork fairies are not yet in evidence, we DO have weird shadows, missing unicorns, and a strange force that pulled the MC across the boundary into the Land of Death, which Isn't Supposed To Be Able To Happen. Bwa.

Anyway. The other words: 837 words on my pep talk for NaNoEdMo (yes, yours truly was invited to officially cheer on the NaNoEdMo-ers in March), and 160 words on a short, Lightning, which the computer subsequently ATE. I was Not Impressed *eyebrow*

I also did a minor amount of editing on Hunter Hunted, and I did another round of edits on Leaving, a short set in the Shard universe and featuring Jess as a minor character. Yay!

Things I learned this month can pretty much be summed up in the post on why writers need to Slow Down - creativity needs time to brew, but don't waste your time at the computer. When computer (and brain) minutes are sparse and precious, know what you're writing before you sit down to write. Talk to your characters whenever you get a second, and talk through the next step in the plot with them. That way, when you sit down to write, you'll be able to dive right in, instead of wasting precious time trying to figure out what you're supposed to be saying.

I haven't seen a lot of progress reports around for February yet - is everyone else, like me, having trouble believing how fast it went? :D But do share: what did you do in February? Are we considering it a success, or a write off?