Image sourced from Wikimedia Commons

Image sourced from Wikimedia Commons

March was a fairly busy month, with two long weekend trips away (one to see my parents before they headed-off on an around Australia trip they won’t return from until Christmas, and the other an extended Easter holiday), the Aurealis Awards ceremony, and Xander’s last few weeks of his first ever term of school (plus first week of school holidays ;p ). Not that that stopped me, only slowed me down a touch.

Regarding goal #2 (being a killer president(not to be mistaken with president killer ;p )) I went to the Aurealis Awards Ceremony in my official capacity. I couldn’t help but bask in the glory of Vision Writers presence at the ceremony as our founders were MCs, past presidents and members presented awards, received awards, and my VP was a judge in the horror categories. If you want to read a more thorough run-down check out the post on the Vision Writers Website. I also did a lot of work on the upcoming Vision Writers anthology (mostly people and time wrangling, but you’d be surprised how much effort that can take sometimes).

Goal #3(work on my novellas) went swimmingly as I completed the first draft for Glass Slippers (though went quite over the projected word count ;p ), and finished my final revision of The Troll’s Toll before it’s upcoming publication(more to come on that very soon!).

Regarding goal #8(keep learning) I’ve been listening to podcasts nearly all month. A huge backlog of The Creative Penn podcasts, the new The Self Publishing Formula podcast, and the Kobo Writing Life podcast. If I haven’t learned a few new things in listening to easily 20+ hours of podcasts then I either am omniscient and all knowing, or too thick to learn ;p

No significant reportable progress on the rest of the yearly goals, but some pretty solid results on what I did get done.

In regards to my March specific goals:

  • Write Sugar Cane and Swamp Monsters (projected length 7,000 words): I wrote 6,000 words of it then realised that I was going to go waaaaay over the word limit for the anthology I wanted to submit to. Also my conflict at the start was poor. Very poor. And that’s being generous with myself. I’ve come up with a better plot outline and will work on it later in the year.
  • Write Glass Slippers (projected length 15,000 words): Finished the first draft at just over 30,000 words. It’s a pretty solid first draft, with only one trouble area I’m aware of ATM. Currently letting it percolate before revising.
  • Begin revisions on both Sugar Cane and Swamp Monsters and Glass Slippers: This was a stupid idea. Stupid. I realised if I did rush both first drafts and try to revise them for submission by the end of the month I’d just end up submitting severely sub-par work, so I scrapped this goal entirely, because there’s no point submitting junk. It doesn’t matter how badly you want to be a part of that anthology, you won’t be if you send the editor rushed rubbish. Better to miss out and not give yourself a name for submitting crap.
  • Help with the promotion of the release of Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #63 (which contains my story Gaps) and Leading Edge #68 (which contains my story Charming): Lol, neither ended up releasing this month. Leading Edge will be out any day now though – watch this space for further news!
  • Complete plot outline for first Charming Sequel: Yes and no. I realised what was wrong/missing in the plot outline I did last month. The problem is this needs to be two separate stories. I’ve got a very good idea for the first half of the split(needs to be properly outlined still), and last month’s outline mostly takes care of the second part(just needs irrelevant parts removed).
  • Complete plot outline for (working title)Kitsune In Space: Done, and I can’t wait to write this story, Japanese shape shifters in space, and a trans character = my hands up in the air like I’m on the best roller coaster ever. I also spent a whole day working on the kanji for the main characters names(this matters, here’s why).
  • Figure out the plotting problems with the end of Skeleton Romance(working title) so I can finish the novel: I’ve made a little headway on this, but nothing significant
  • Complete final revisions on The Troll’s Toll so it’s ready for editors: Yes I did this one! It’s being proofread/copy edited as we speak! You’ll be seeing and hearing a lot about The Troll’s Toll over the next couple of days/weeks 😀

All up I kept pretty busy in March, and April doesn’t look any quieter.