Goals Summary 2022 – Wk #38
Someone needs to get ahold of whoever is in charge of time and tell them to take a chill pill. I cannot keep up with this calendar, folks. It’s going TOO FAST! Is Ricky Bobby at the helm of this year or what? Last Week Victoria Revision Pass Write 1500 words Read 20 minutes a day Prep Newsletter How’d I Do? Victoria Revision Pass Hahahahaha *sobs* No. Write 1500 words Nope. Read 20 minutes a day Yep! I’m still working my way through The Story of the Hundred Promises, but the Ghost Files series premier came out on Friday and then Trev and I spent Saturday playing silly video games together and split a pizza. I have no regrets. Prep Newsletter Yes! The newsletter is written and scheduled and will be out before this post is published! Weekly Word Count: 870 Look. This isn’t the greatest word count ever. But it…
Goals Summary 2022 – Wk #37
It’s Monday, y’all. You know the drill. Last Week Victoria Query package Rough Draft Read 20 minutes a day Write 1,500 words Writing Admin How’d I Do? Victoria Query package Rough Draft Yes! This was one of those things that you dread and put of because you think it’s difficult, and then you sit down to do it and it’s cake. Read 20 minutes a day Yep! I’m making slow and steady progress on The Story of the Hundred Promises, and I also read a graphic novel, The Crossroads at Midnight. Write 1,500 words Not quite. Writing Admin Yep! There was a bit of time spent last week on short story submissions, revisions, and querying. I’d fallen behind on a lot of it because school started and I’ve just been so wiped when I get home. But I’m all caught up now! Weekly Word Count: 1,216 Honorable Mentions There were a handful…
Goals Summary 2022 – Wk #36
Well, as anticipated, the start of school threw me for a loop. Y’all. Kids are a lot. And add to it that I had to checkout a chromebook to every single student in three days? I’m exhausted. Or, at least, I was by Friday. Luckily, this weekend was very relaxing and I’m feeling fairly high energy as I write this. I promise that isn’t just the Cold Brew talking. Let’s take a look at what happened last week: Last Week Victoria Query Package Rough Draft Read 20 minutes/day Write some fanfic? How’d I Do? Victoria Query Package Rough Draft Nope. One might even argue that I actively avoided this. Read 20 minutes/day YES! And yes, I’m counting fanfic. If I tell students it counts as reading, then it counts for me too. I read A LOT of fanfic this past week (was it mine? Maybe….) Write some fanfic? Yes! I FINALLY returned to…
The Recap – August 2022
Oh, Blogland… How is it September already? Surely that’s illegal? It ought to be illegal for summer to go by without my enjoying a single hike! I want to talk to time’s manager! August Goals Read + Revise Victoria Read 4 Books Survive this month How’d I Do? Read + Revise Victoria Yep! I have read it through (twice!) and finished the first round of revision! Read 4 Books Hahahahahahahaha. No. Survive this month I suppose that, since I am typing this, I am technically alive, which would suggest survival. Sanity is a separate matter… Total Word Count: 2,497 If July was lovely, then August was…. bustling. Between twitter pitch events, day-job responsibilities ramping up, a writing conference, a family reunion, and a pretty ambitious set of goals, it’s a miracle I’m upright! It’s also been hot as balls this month and when I tell you I am sick of sweating… Anyway.…
Goals Summary 2022 – Wk #33
I’m sitting at my “new” desk (twitter followers know what’s up) and feeling unreasonably good considering I have to get up and go to work tomorrow. Let’s ride this good vibe right into a Goals Conversation! Last Week Finish Victoria Revision #1 Read a book Clean/Organize my office How’d I Do? Finish Victoria Revision #1 No. BUT I got about 80% through the first revision. I have to add a chapter in the last act so I slowed down a touch to draft that. Read a book No. Reading has been very slow this week, but I did read for about an hour last night. Clean/Organize my office YES! I spent entirely too much time on this, and basically came up with a whole new layout for my office. And, once I decide on something, I HAVE to do it. Things are moved and though the remodel/makeover isn’t quite complete, I am LOVING it!…
Summer Thinky-Thoughts
This is it. The last Friday of my summer break. I go back to work on Monday… I have a lot of feelings about that. A lot of them are good. I’m excited to meet our new staff members and reunite with co-workers I haven’t seen since June. There will be tales of summer adventures, healing sunburns, and summer-bloomed freckles. And so many smiles. But I can’t deny a building sense of dread. It isn’t the work itself that I’m dreading, I genuinely like my job. Buying and processing books, helping teens find their next favorite book, and working with our Associated Student Body to make our school a place kids want to be. These are all amazing things I get to do for 198 days a year. But… Going back to work means I’m no longer just a writer. It means that I have to schedule writing time into…
Goals Summary 2022 – Wk #31
I’m off to a slow start this morning. I’m back home after an amazing weekend at the Willamette Writers Conference, and though I’m happy, my brain is, well, mush. So let’s take a bleary look at last week’s goals and see if I can come up with something to shoot for this week. Last Week Prep elevator pitches for Something Sulfurous and Victoria Prep additional Something Sulfurous pitches for #DVpit Draft packing list/pack for #WilWrite22 Enjoy #WilWrite22 How’d I Do? Prep elevator pitches for Something Sulfurous and Victoria Prep additional Something Sulfurous pitches for #DVpit Yes and No. I didn’t really prep formal pitches/elevator pitches for Something Sulfurous or Victoria. I talked about them more organically with fellow writers than I expected, which I’ll talk more about in my Conference Wrap Up post later this week. However, I did participate in #DVpit and did get an agent like on one of them, which I’ll talk more about later in this…
Goals summary 2022 – Wk #28
It was a pretty calm week. I don’t have a whole lot to talk about, but I’m sure I can still manage to ramble my way through this post. Let’s find out… Last Week Post 1 chapter of fanfic Read a book Finish slice of life fantasy story Finish The Hardest Decisions How’d I Do? Post 1 chapter of fanfic Yep! I finished one of my fanfics, so I’m posting two chapters/week until it’s all posted. Read a book Yep! Technically two, I think… Finish slice of life fantasy story No. I’m feeling a bit fizzled about this one. We’ll see if I can finish it. Finish The Hardest Decisions I decided not to look at this story this week after all. I want some distance before I dive back into it one last time. Weekly Word Count: 697 Initially I was disappointed by that word count, but when I compare it…
What is a Literary Agent & Why I Want One
Good morning, Bloggarts. It occurred to me that some of my readers might not know what a literary agent is, why a writer would want/need one, and what the querying process looks like. Since I’ve jumped feet first into this stage of my writing career, let’s talk about it! What is a Literary Agent? A literary agent is someone who represents authors and their work to the editors at publishing houses. Publishing is a giant business with only four major players (Simon & Schuster, Penguin, Hachette, and HarperCollins). Each of these big companies have smaller “imprints” which typically focus on particular genres of work. And at all of these imprints are Acquiring Editors. People who read manuscripts to find books they want the imprint to buy and publish. But, very rarely will an acquiring editor look at an “unsolicited” manuscript. Meaning, a manuscript that isn’t sent to them by a…
Mental Meanderings
Good morning, Blogland. We woke up early today so we could get our AC unit fixed (again), and now I’m sitting in my office sipping iced coffee trying to make sense of the putty in my brain. This is a good thing! This summer break has been very different than I’d hoped (so far). A lot less adventure and a lot more lounging, but it’s been good for my creative muscle. I’m reading widely, getting into a twitter routine that isn’t completely soul-sucking, and writing whatever clamors to be written. I’ve also been experimenting with poetry, basically since the pandemic started. Back in the summer of 2020 poetry was the only writing I could do. The words came in a trickle, and the best I could do by them was to arrange them in interesting little lines. Currently, I have folders of poetry organized by year (2020, 2021, 2022) for a…