In Which I Say Stuff!!

Somehow, over the last few months I have acquired a couple of new followers. I've NO IDEA how this has happened, since apparently I am incapable of blogging and pretty much am only on twitter during school hols, but anyway, however you found your way here - hi! And thanks :o) And sorry. :D

Anyway, below is most of a post I started like two weeks ago, and then didn't finish. This is Me And Blogging at the moment - it's not that I don't think of things to say, it's just I never get around to saying them (although for a long time it WAS because I had nothing to say, mostly because I wasn't writing). So, without further ado, post:


So, it's been a long time since I actually had stuff to say on here. [no kidding; delaying this post by like 3 weeks made that even longer, woman!] I blame term 2 (I loathe term 2 with a passion; it's the busiest and most dismal term of all, not helped by ever-encroaching winter-lack of daylight) and the fact that my body has been preoccupied with other stuff. This, for example:



Rah. Crazy how much that thing messes with your brain.

But anyway, it's FINALLY holidays, and my brain is FINALLY kinda-sorta working again, and I Have Stuff To Say! Rawr.

First up, I just want to note that I've gone through and tidied all the meta pages; TBR Pile of Doom, Books Read, WIPs and Published Works are all now uptodate. Hurrahs! I just started Like Clockwork today, [being like 3 weeks ago] and I am LOVING it SO much. I honestly haven't been this enthused about writing since I wrote the first book in the series over a year ago. It's a really nice feeling. [but apparently not nice enough to get me past chapter one :P]

The fact that I have evil brain-washing clockwork fairies, plus friendship and learning to trust and broken promises and betrayals and assumptions-that-turn-people-evil, to look forward to helps. A lot.

[It does. Very much. But what DOESN'T help is realising that a few things need to be sorted out in the first book first. So drafting is on hold and I've just yesterday (like really yesterday) drawn myself up a revision timetable for Sanctuary, which has me finishing right on December, which is rather full of happiness. But more on that in another post.

For now, suffice to say that I am going to endeavour to post about once a week, now that I no longer feel like the living dead (just the living exhausted ;)), and if I don't, you're free and welcome to come after me with pitchforks, knives, and other uncomfortably pointy objects.

Thus concludeth perhaps the most pointless and rambly post I believe I've ever written. Oi.]

NaNoWriMo, Round the First

...In slightly unrelated news, I've finally finished chemistry - for good. This is a highly squee-worthy thing. Trust me.

Right. Nano.

As we all know, no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy intact, and my Nano plans are no exception. Recall, if you will, that my primary focus was to be Sanctuary, the MG fantasy novel, and that I intended to include assessment and possibly rewrites of TP in my Nano word count.

Ha. Funny.

First of all, I now have the opening to the first three books in the Edge & Gem series: Sanctuary, Finding Abbi, and The Danger Roads. This consumed me for quite a while as I struggled back and forth between them, trying to get the respective voices right, and getting over the fact that all three books, while centering on Edge, are from completely different POVs. However, I think I've finally settled down on Sanctuary, and will leave the other books for later. I have about 2.5k on the story so far.

Word count: well, if I include assessment etc, my word count is 7k+. If I don't, it's a hair short of 6k. Looking at my progress from last year, as of yesterday (the 4th) I was at approximately the same place. Last year, I had a run of about 4 days where I didn't write at all, between about the 10th and 14th; so if I can't write for the rest of this week due to exams etc, I don't think it matters. I'm pretty confident that I can get to the 50k without having to cheat by using things like assessment and TP rewrites. This is unexpectedly pleasant :)

The final surprise is that Jesscapades has taken off. I have about 3k of it so far, and even though it terrifies me because I have no plot, I'm really excited about it. (Not that, come to think of it, I have a plot for Sanctuary either :S *terror, terror*). The bad guys have show up as POV characters, there's intrigue everywhere you look and nothing is as it seems, and the Muse is firing on all cylinders. It's very exciting.

I've also done a bit of random stuff here and there, in between assessment, which has bumped my overall wordcount up a bit. I'm looking forward to next Monday, when all the stressful part of uni will be over and I can get serious about writing. For now though, back to work, and essays :S Blech!

:)

September: A Month in Review

So, it has been a month of Not Getting Terribly Much Done in the way of writing, but on the other hand it was also the month of Lots of Assessment, and that was mostly all Done, so it's not like I've been slacking :)

While I haven't written much, my word count for the month is more than the month I set my minimum standard by (last December, 6119 words), so I'm happy :)

This month I have:

* Written a total of 6,700 and something words. This has included:
* 3 complete chapters of The Project, plus bits and pieces in other chapters
* The first chapter of (temporary title) Night in the Shards, the second book in my secret assassin series. (No, book one is not written yet *rolls eyes* I'm going to work on it for some of NaNo)
* Some initial work on a non-fic book I'm writing - more on that later this month :)

I have also:

* Submitted a short story to a Christmas anthology
* Begun plotting the first Edge and Gem book, now titled Sanctuary, in preparation for NaNo
* And completely reorganised, sorted, and pared down my stories, creating a new system of tracking progress that's much more efficient, and streamlines the whole process for me :) *happyhappy*
* Oh yeah, and I got an honourable mention in Allegory for Sea Foam and Blood B-)

And now, blessedly, it is October, bringing me one step closer to my longed-for November, which shall contain both NaNoWriMo, and the End of Uni Woes for another four months :) May October fly speedily on shiny gilt wings!

June in Review

So, happy July everyone! Already - can you believe it? I'm not sure I can. The year is half over, and it feels like it's only just begun.

Anyway. What did I accomplish in this last month of the first half of the year? Let's have a look:

* Finished 1 short story, Not Fantasy. Would like to have done more, but that's okay. It's been a busy month.
* Made two submissions, SFB and Shoe. SFB required MASSIVE rewrites to get it to a sub-able stage, and I'm awfully proud of how it's turned out :)
* Very, very nearly made my goal of 15k of writing, almost all of which was done on The Project.
* Outlined a story that's been bouncing around for a while, temporarily titled Fairy Tale Ending.
* Finally, after much struggle and heartache, pegged down an outline for The Project. Am immensely happy about this.
* Began a new play, Where Your Treasure Is.

As for the year as a whole, I'm rather proud of the work that I've done so far. I think I've come quite a long way from the writer I was at the end of December - some of the highlights being the completed first draft of my first ever novel, To Be An Evil Overlord... and my entry into the world of submissions - thus far I've made 5 submissions of plays and short stories :)

I've learnt important things about structure, I'm slowly learning to pare back my overwriting, and I've managed to write more than one short story that has not only stayed short, but that I'm actually quite proud of. My total word count for the year so far is nearly 74,000 words, which is fast approaching last year's total of 102,000, which included 50,000 for nano in November. I've got plans for Nano, outlines for novels, I'm learning to recognise which stories will work and which won't, and I've discovered that I really do have something to say after all - to which end I've started and been running with reasonable success (I think ;)) this lovely blog (yes, despite the archive record, this blog was only started at the very beginning of the year).

So, what would I like to achieve in the second half of the year?

* 2 submissions per month, which is what I've so far been achieving since I began submitting in late April.
* Finish and complete at least one revision of The Project. I'm working on a TP blitz at the moment and hope to have a draft done in mid-August.
* Pare back my writing even more - stop over-writing - learn to recognise what is significant to the story, and what is not.
* Win Nano again. I'm fairly sure I'll be starting my mid-grade fantasy series for this, as it will be a big incentive to actually be able to complete a novel in under 50k.

I'm sure I'll think of more goals month-by-month, but for now, those are the big things.

And more than anything, I hope I'll continue to grow both as a writer and as a person, and that I will never lose sight of the bigger picture and what I have to say.

Thanks to all of you who read my often-rambly comments here. Your support and comments make this endeavour worthwhile :)