Always quirky, sometimes sweet speculative fiction

Month: October 2017

September Goals Round-Up 2017

When I set my goals at the start of last month I completely forgot to take into account the fact that approximately half the month would be lost to school holidays. Add in the hideous flu strains swimming in the Aussie air at the moment and I’m impressed I got anything done.

The biggest thing I did do was rage-paused editing Written By The Stars. Rage pausing is kind of like rage quitting, but you will come back to it, more like shoving it in the deep freezer in the garage(the one you can fit a human corpse in if need be) rather than drenching it in kerosene and throwing a match on it. It mightn’t sound like a good thing that I rage-paused Written By The Stars‘ edits, but when I stuffed it in the freezer beside… nothing. Nothing is in there.

>.>

<.<

>.>

Anyway, when I put Written By The Stars in the deep freeze I got out Lovely/Lonely (formerly known as Skeleton Romance) and edited it instead. And I completed the edits. Yup. Completed them. It’s ready for beta readers. The fact I can edit my more recent book in less than a month but the older book has taken months and not quite reached the 1/3rd mark is irrefutable evidence that over the last five years my writing has changed and advanced a lot.

My other goals (and progress on them) for September were:

  • Finish Nothing Charming first draft: Not quite, but I did write another 5,000 words
  • Beta read the non-fiction book and the near-future sci-fi book I’ve been given: I completed the non-fiction book but have only just started the fiction one
  • Using group feedback, edit Mermaid In A Jar so its ready to submit to publishers: Edited and submitted, just waiting to hear back
  • Write one of the new short stories rolling around in my head, ‘Bards vs Beasts’ or ‘Alone Time’: Nope. Failed to do anything more than just roll the idea around in my head while driving a few times. I have decided however it’ll most likely be ‘Alone Time’ that I’ll work on. Perhaps it’s because Mudgerwokee will be coming out soon, but I’m in a horror/dark fantasy mood ATM

Is anyone else sick and tired of being sick and tired? Apart from two flus(one of which is currently still with me, bleh), during the holidays Harley’s sleep pattern got a hiccup. The sort of hiccup which means I’m not even getting five straight hours a night anymore. Often not even five hours total between the two kids patterns sometimes. I don’t think that’s helping my poor immune system fight these viruses.

On the plus side, nearly all of the holidays were sunny and we took the kids to a lot of fun places. I also received another Honorable Mention from the Writers of the Future contest (this time on Foxworth)(though I swear, one of these days I’m going to win the damn thing), and got my first ‘if you do these rewrites, please resubmit’ rejection. I’ve only had ‘yes’, feedback rejection, and form letter rejections before. I have now collected at least one of every kind of rejection except the ‘please forget about our magazine, never submit here again’ kind, and TBH I’m quite fine to never get one of those ;p

I also got an email from the Kickstarter campaign I backed which had the bonus of giving me a story critique and I’m doing one last polish on Not Human, Not Alien before sending it in for critique. I love working with new editors 😀 (even though it’s a ‘critique’, not an edit, I’m still getting an editor’s feedback, and that always helps me grow)

For October my goals are:

  • Finish Nothing Charming first draft
  • Complete beta reading the near future sci-fi novel I’ve been given
  • Work on those re-submission rewrites I was given(might take a while, I have to figure out how to integrate the changes without changing the story from what I want it to be)
  • Use any feedback on Not Human, Not Alien to polish the story and start submitting it(if the feedback comes back this month, editors are busy people and I’m not a demanding person ;p )
  • Write ‘Alone Time’ first draft

And stretch goal:

  • Continue editing Written By The Stars

Now to go take a bunch of flu meds and see how well I can self-edit when dosed up ;p

Hope you guys are all staying a lot healthier than me <3

Vision Blogging: Nameless Roses

original photo by Lukas Roberston on Unsplash

We had a great turnout at the Vision Writers’ Group meeting this month. For a while now we have been averaging 6-7 people a meeting, but we were back to nearly filling up the table today. It was a good mix of veterans and the newcomers of this last year, and two first timers.

As usual there was heaps of good advice, but I decided to go with some advice around avoiding naming your character for stylistic or big reveal purposes. You can check out the article over on the Vision Writers website.

A Rose By Any Other Name – Or Without One?

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