Mauve roses and swans: alberta’s check in

So. How did my goals shape up last round?

Reading: I made time to enjoy reading everyday – as I always used too before taking up writing.  The garden, well it would have been every day if the weather had behaved for more than two days at a time!

Writing: Despite having to shift some of my goals to help my sister, it wasn’t too bad. JuNo helped keep me up to speed on The Ancestor’s Tale and I was on track at the end of the round. I had begun to edit Blue Moon and made the decision to layer it into a denser work and aim for finishing next year.  I had worked on Purple Turtles (short stories) some, already written, were polished and with the aid of a short story a day challenge I produced enough 1^st draft copy for the next collection.

Networking and blogging dipped and soared but certainly improved overall. I joined three triberr groups and began commenting /joining in more on various facebook groups. So last round was satisfactory from my point of view.

During the break: I finished JuNoWrMo early, discovered where those sprints on Twitter were, with help from fellow ROWers.  I finished and uploaded Ellen’s Tale video to YouTube.  And I finished the twisted fairytale workshop on Savvy authors. I have spent a lot of time playing with new camera to get to grips with taking pics, with digital camera, without glasses and without bendy knees:( last time I took pics on reg basis I had SLR complete with a  truckload of lenses, a darkroom and 20/20 eyesight:) Thought you might like to see my mauve roses.

and a very windy day on one my dog walks must have been about 30 swans on the reserve that morning – was difficult holding camera still or even standing upright:)

This round’s goals:

Really more of the same.  I was going to do a nano boot camp in aug but with JuNo under my belt I have decided to push ahead this month, with my own little nano.  With Ancestor’s Tale 50000 started, will keep going.  So have tracked down these neat word counter bars to keep me on track.  Ancestor’s Tale is going well and in the way that stories have sometimes, almost completely changed its framework:)

Blue Moons, I will continue to work on it, drafting as the words come to me.  Researching: have planned three days on the east coast end of Sep to fill in gaps. (hence camera). This is promising to be a complete departure for me and it’s exciting.

Purple Turtle: needs polishing and editing.  The fairytale workshop has given me 4 more long short stories and these have my friend from forever/editor leaping about in excitement (I have mentioned before she isn’t keen on my series, not her cup of tea) she likes the shorts and in particular the magic.  Her idea is, that with a bit more effort on my part:(  I could produce a vol.of fairy/mythic/magic tales, before the collection that I had been polishing – demanding or what? But she’s the boss so this round I’m working on them. I had six already either done or WIP.  They were due to go in the collection. Then the 4 from the workshop, they average about 4000 words each so I have about 40,000 words already; so not too many more to make a book.

Have booked a couple of Red Carpet Days to showcase people’s books.  If anyone else would like to showcase any publications, do a guest blog or be interviewed about their books please say.

Still looking for a tribe for my kiss a frog blog.

With the problems with my sister’s training I scrubbed the idea of another book tour like last year. Four weeks takes a great deal of time. So am looking into showcasing the Sefuty series and/or the short stories on a couple of sites later this year. Just 1-3 days at time.  If anyone offers this kind of thing would love to know.

Trailers: I have begun thinking of a trailer for The Storyteller’s Tale – more difficult as I have to find a way of showing someone hovering on the edge of madness.

Workshop: I was hoping to be doing another workshop now on the language of love but it has been postponed for a month due to small numbers.  It interested me because its about all the other love – friends, parents, child, God, nation, animals etc – I have felt for a long time that despite its richness we have somehow constrained ‘love’ it’s been hi-jacked by the romance writers and devalued by the chocolate firms! So was looking forward to finding other ways of describing this amazing emotion. Anyone else interested pop over to savvy authors and sign up.

Networking: have made a laminated list of things to do on different days to see if this will help me keep up, and make the most of the opportunities.

Although this seems a lot of goals they are all, I believe, manageable because I have set no deadlines/word counts for any.  It is, work on them when I can.  My sister still needs my help, so long term deadlines are out.  If I find a chance to race ahead I will but if it isn’t to be, it isn’t.

I hope everyone had a good break and have come back refreshed and raring to go.