Much healthier this month (though a round of tummy bugs hit the kids and I have a little cold, it’s ultimately not anywhere near as bad as much of the rest of the year ;p )

I finished the beta feedback both on the near future sci-fi/dystopia novel and for the choose-your-own-adventure fairy tale novel. They took up the lion’s share of my month though.

I also entered Hanabi to Kitsune and Glass Bones in the Aurealis Awards, which requires ecopies, so I decided rather than badgering the publishers for ecopies I’d just makes one of my own stories myself and practice my ebook formatting skills. I’ve recently bought and almost finished reading The Zen of Ebook Formatting by Guido Henkel so they should be pretty schmick ;p

On the very last day of the month, the Pacific Monsters anthology from Fox Spirit Books launched, containing my horror story Mudgerwokee. A promotional blog post is already up on the publisher’s website by me, and I’ll do one here soon too.

All last months goals and my progress:

  • Finish Nothing Charming first draft – I wrote a new 1,000 words, but that was all I could scrape in before the month ended
  • Complete beta reading the near future sci-fi novel I’ve been given – done!
  • Beta read choose your own adventure fairy tale novel – done!
  • Work on those re-submission rewrites I was given for Foxworth – been mulling them over mentally, but not red pen to paper editing has yet started
  • Use feedback on Not Human, Not Alien to polish the story – feedback read, should be easy to implement, but didn’t get the time. Need to write a suitable thank you letter too (even if I paid for it technically by backing a Kickstarter project ;p )
  • Write ‘Alone Time’ first draft – I have rough sketched the complete plot now, so ready to write. Expecting this to come in around 3,000 words as long as I don’t chase any rabbits ;p

Also, the results came in from the latest quarter of the Writers of the Future contest. I’d entered Mermaid In A Jar in it and received another honourable mention. Very happy to get another certificate, but really wanting to actually win for once (always an honourable mention never a prize ;p ).

Since this is the home stretch of the year, my goals are largely about trying to wrap things up, ticking off the last boxes. Because two-thirds of the month are school holidays (meaning both kids at home with me), and my other job is working in a video games store… at Christmas, you can see how I might not get as much done as I hope, but I really want to close out the year well.

  • Complete Nothing Charming draft (no, really this time ;p )
  • Resubmission rewrites for Foxworth
  • Complete revision of Not Human, Not Alien, if satisfied start submitting it
  • Write ‘Alone Time’
  • Read the three craft books at the top of my TBR pile
  • Start submitting Mermaid In A Jar

Stretch Goals:

  • Begin Revision of ‘Look Skyward’ (and give it a real name)
  • Work on beta reader feedback for Glass Slippers