Oh what an eventful month ;p As seems to be my habit I have yet another injury to report, this time spectacularly sprained ankle. Fortunately, unlike my repeatedly injured arm, a sprained ankle is GREAT for writing because it’s the perfect excuse to sit down with your leg elevated and get to typing.

As such, I met my main goal and completed the first draft of ‘Keys, Clocks, Quests’ at 130,000 words. Obviously there’s going to be some trimming before it’s ready. I have an editing plan set out since I’ve written this draft in stints across the last FIVE years, but I’m following the well-beloved advice of letting the manuscript ‘breathe’ for a while first. This gives me a chance to work on some other projects instead of going into full burnout on the project.

Speaking of burnout I am now 100% sure NaNoWriMo no longer works with my personal writing style. Something about the competition effect of it makes me forgive crappy writing too much(because who cares, more words) and push myself way to hard for the ‘win’. It took me more than two weeks after NaNo was done to write the final 10k words because I felt so burned out, for the first 9 days of May I was only writing 100 or so words a day and those by great force of effort. If I ever say I’m going to do NaNo again, remind me of this moment please.

On the plus side though, I did have that moment of pieces falling together perfectly during the final battle when things I’d been putting in on a whim suddenly converged with one another for a perfect recovery from the blackest moment, enabling my hero to defeat the big bad 😀 I even started writing it with tears of excitement in my eyes!

I started working on T-J’s novel too. It’s an amazingly clean draft for a first timer (and I know what they look like usually thanks to the massive amount of critiquing I’ve been doing over the last six years at Vision Writers Group meetings). Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s perfect – there’s still pleeeeeeenty of notes. Let’s hope my marriage remains intact after he’s read all my comments ;p

On the ‘keep learning’ goal I set for the year as a whole, one of the courses I did was significantly more basic than I’d expected. Anyone who’s listened to the podcasts I have for even one year (significantly less time than I have) would already know all this info, and for free. Luckily I picked it up for a song and got a bunch of bonuses some of which have proved more useful, so I’m not pissed.

Also re: learning I’m still tracking along well with the 5 Year Best Seller course and I attended 4 different webinars, but they were mostly on book marketing, not craft ;p

June Goals:

  • Complete an early stage edit of my husband’s book, I Am Not Liam Neeson
  • Do all assignments in the Margie Lawson course I’m taking
  • Beta-read a friend’s novel
  • Use beta-reader feedback on Lovely/Lonely to edit the novel
  • Use Beta reader feedback on Nothing Charming to edit it
  • Write at least one new short story

Well damn son, I do set me some lofty goals. Especially considering I have Harley’s third birthday party to plan and a house which is, thanks to my sprained ankle and a lovely cycle of colds working through the kids, a little bit messier than I’d like it to be >.> Plus I’ve been invited to an old friend/coworker’s wedding <3 but he knew me back when I was skinny and stylish so I have until September to drop a few dress sizes and look suitably smashing.

For those who want to see what I read through May, these are the books I read:

  • The Red Queen: OMG what a massive book! And that satisfaction of finishing a series you started when you were 14 *ahhhh* at long, long last
  • The Journey: an Obernewtyn prequel short story, might not have great appeal to those who haven’t read the series though
  • The Dark Road: another Obernewtyn prequel short story which confused me, and broke my heart… but I enjoyed ;p
  • Last Dragon Standing: another great ending to a cool series. No disappointment here (except that it’s all over now and I didn’t realise it was the final book when I grabbed it)
  • Artemis: no idea how it took me so long to get to this book considering how much I loved The Martian
  • The Speed of Dark: I loved so much of this, but very mixed emotions about the end, read my review if you need more info.
  • Redefining Realness: Janet Mock’s biography of going through childhood and her teen years as a trans woman.
  • Write To Market: I’ve heard about this book a million times, finally got around to reading it

I also kept up to date with all my favourite short fiction podcasts (Podcastle, EscapePod, Psuedopod(who released a cool 3 part novella this month, definitely check it out if you dig horror), Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Apex Magazine, and Toasted Cake). I also found a new one, Glittership which is a queer SF/F short fiction podcast. I’m working thru the available back episodes and loving it.

I’m always looking for good fiction podcasts so if you know any feel free to share them with me. I’m also curious about serialised novels via podcast, but don’t know where to start, so if you know any good fantasy ones feel free to link me 🙂