Short check-in post today… though, despite the title, I’m still all here. But I have a special post for tomorrow that I need to work on (yes, a post on Monday–rules are meant to be broken, after all). Shan Jeniah tagged me for the Writing Process Blog Tour, and now that I have the questions to work on… off I go to type, type away.
Instead making of a big post for the holiday, let’s leave the grand goals check-list alone for a day and just say things are about the same as they were last Wednesday, maybe even slightly better.
And let’s end things with some Funny Little Bunnies.*
*Hard to believe there are so few videos related to Easter out there.
Okay… as far as ‘things’ go in life, breaking a nail isn’t high up there in the trauma dept. But it’s more annoying than you might think.
First, the cliché of a woman becoming a helpless, whimpering lump after breaking a nail is … *tries to not grind teeth* annoying. More than annoying, it sucks.
*hates this*
Breaking a nail isn’t the end of the world. We all know that. It’s annoying. If one has gone through the trouble of getting a great manicure, it’s expensive and annoying. But life goes on.
And it snags everything in its path…
Yeah. I was folding laundry today. This is Winter, season of the sweater…
So… I not only ended up with a broken nail; I soon ended up with a torn nail. It’s not as cool as it seems in this video. And it’s definitely not something I like to do with ‘fresh from the dryer’ clothes.
I hate breaking a nail. It’s annoying.
(but not as annoying is that first video)
ROW80
Wow… Where did the Round go? Thursday is the last day for this year in the ROW80. It feels like March to me. In lieu of the usual “things are going slowly, but at least they’re going” check-in, let me regale you with a quick Year in Review (especially since Wednesday will be a long enough post with the WIPpet)
Did I get anything that I wanted to get accomplished accomplished? Well, sort of… I’ve certainly gotten a better grasp on my writing habits and needs. I’ve discovered a pattern of blogging that doesn’t emotionally kill me.
And I’ve surprised myself too. A lot…
I’ve reopened Release. I’ve built a good solid framework for Swan Song. Perhaps there’s hope for me as an eventual publish author.
I sponsored for the ROW80 three times out of four. (I signed up for Round 1 of 2014 too. Maybe go for 4 of 4 next year?)
Of the four NaNoWriMo-style projects I participated in this year, all reached the “winning” wordcount, but none are what I call a novel. Will I still do them this coming year? I don’t know: I don’t follow rules well; I also rebel against deadlines and slow down during WriMos; the exception for this is when I am hosting sprints or somehow directly involved with helping others get their wordcounts up.
If I could sum up my year as a writer in one word: GIVE
All the best stuff happened when I gave of myself whether to my craft, to fellow ROWers, to local charities, to …you name it. The best words, the best feelings, the best experiences came from giving.
That didn’t surprise me at all. 😀
(Update for Wednesday– it may be an odd post. With Christmas for the Boodle and birthday stuff, I’d considered not posting. Thing is… I know how bad I am about habits. I’m posting mostly because I need to post for consistency.)
Photo credits:
Tattered and torn, 10 April 2009 (Photo credit: ed_needs_a_bicycle)
Between My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, The Magic of Christmas concert at the Palace today… even the book on my bed is about magic (it’s one of those compendiums of different magical practices around the world and through history). For weeks upon weeks, magic in one form or another seems to have invaded my life.
I’m starting to feel like Alanii, who is just discovering in Courting the Swan Song, that he’s not the talentless young man he’d been lead to believe he was. Not the place I’d thought I’d be at this point, but there are definitely perks….
Elements of Harmony: Courtesy of our Brony
The concert was, as always, wonderful. My Little Pony is a wonderful take on a show that could have easily failed for so many reasons (remake of an older, failed commercial enterprise, a show created by a toy company for the purpose of selling toys, etc.). And the book… well, it’s kind of dry, but packed with lots of stuff–story ideas abound.
Thing is, I need to start working some magic of my own. After several days of debating (plus Minecraft-ing to avoid making a decision, evading said decision via the generous application of housework and laundry, and…) myself (I lost the debate, btw), I have decided to go ahead and submit Release to Angry Robot. I’m not going to go overboard in trying to make the series fit with the pre-history I am writing in the Swan Song series. I am tweaking things, of course. Me, leave a manuscript alone for any amount of time without fiddling? Not likely.
The story of my life
Hopefully I won’t leave another typo on the first page of the manuscript this time as I somehow managed to do when I first tried submitting it to TOR a few years back. There is a definite curse to fiddling with things…
Yeah, magic. I’ve got that. 😀
ROW80 check-in
Not a lot of writing has gotten done since Wednesday. Most of the time, I’ve either been fighting with my laptop (either my typing has seriously deteriorated in the past few weeks, or the keys on the old beast are finally starting to not work right) or debating the pros and cons of trying to get Release published now. Granted, it’s a million to one chance that Angry Robot will buy the book; I still want it to be the best it can be for the submission.
Magic in its truest form
Thing is, I don’t know what that is. Still… So I keep wondering if I’m doing something silly by deciding to submit the manuscript. It’s hard to love something the way I love Release and still have a horrible feeling that it is ‘wrong’. But maybe what I really need to do is give myself the opportunity to let it go. And hopefully by submitting the piece, I will be doing just that.
As for the rest of my goals… Sponsor duties are on track. The exercise goals are more behind than I would like them. I’m adding smallish bits of activity here and there. Not as much as I would like, but some. It’s been a chaotic month already. At least I have one somewhat guaranteed ‘day-off’ coming up…. though then I won’t have ‘the answer‘ anymore. Still, like my gray hairs, I’m kind of looking forward to the next year of my life.
Speaking of new years… A new ROWnd for the ROW80 comes up in January. I’m on the fence about sponsoring again. I love the visiting and the support. I could do that for years. It’s that sponsor post… Anyone with an idea they’d like for me to write about?
Many Worlds From Many Minds 