A.K.A. Where the Heck I’ve Been

Ahem, Or Rather:

( via Bohemian in Suburbia )

Greeting, interwebbies!

Miss me? I’ve certainly missed you.

It’s funny how life swerves into the fast lane when things start piling on the agenda. I got super busy with school, travel, and a few familial situations, that the blogging fell by the wayside. Mea culpa, my lovelies.

It’s September.

New month.

It’s that time of year (my fav!) with crisper weather.

( via parls )

And a boatload to discuss, plan, and do for the next thirty days.

Let’s get to it.

So, I finished one of my WIPs. Yeah. That happened.

( via BroadwayBox )

That’s right. You go, Mon! I typed THE END on 349 pages of my MG Adventure Marty McKeen: Protector of the Realms. As of three days ago, I printed it out and seeing it on paper is AHMAZEBALLS! It’s a standalone novel with series potential. And I gotta say, I’m jonesin’ to get started on Book Two because how can I NOT use this title –> Marty McKeen & The Rise of the Narwhals. A thousand yesssssses!

Anyhoo, with that, I have the opportunity of attending this year’s Western Canada Children’s Writers & Illustrators Conference. Excited, too, because one of my fellow #wipmadness writers, Denise Jaden, will be speaking and doing manuscript consults. Three reasons I’m jazzed for this event:

1) I can’t wait to finally meet her in person!

2) It’s in my neck of the woods.

3) More importantly, it’s in my budget considering I’m heading to school full-time, starting tomorrow. (Eeps. More on that in a bit.)

This writing experience has given me renewed energy to plough through WIPs that I’ve put aside for various reasons. I hope to keep the momentum going.

I recently attended a webinar hosted by Joseph Michael, the Scrivener Coach, and have since purchased his course, Learn Scrivener Fast, in hopes of using the program to its fullest potential. It can be as overwhelming a program as it is amazing and I hope to use it in all aspects of my writing.

Now, onto school. Since January, I’ve dipped my toes in the educational pool, but have only taken French each of the previous two semesters. Now that I’ve got two more classes added to the fray, I need to remain focused on my short and long term goals.

SEPTEMBER GOALS:

1) Keep writing. Well, that never stopped entirely, but with Marty, I now have four completed works. I’ve sent two of them for competitions, but I want to polish them all and shop them around now, too. So, I suppose we need to add

1a) Revise, revise, revise… and polish to the shiniest shine. My writing gets better each day, but it takes practice. Therefore, when things get murky, refer to #1.

2) Read. Whether it’s my coursework, fiction, non-fiction, English, French, or Spanish, it doesn’t matter. Reading makes me a better writer. After reading exercises my brain, refer to #1.

3) Blog. I need to start my FRIDAY FORAGE Series back up again. At the very least, I’ll have some sort of Week in Review post. Social media will keep me going and keep me accountable for #1.

I think these are good goals for the month. There’s enough variety to keep me interested. I have Summer Symposium action happening at SavvyAuthors mid-September which will work nicely with the conference. The fact that I’ll have the steady writing practice from my creative writing class, I’m sure I’ll be plenty busy for September and beyond.

Come back next time when I talk more about the highs and lows of my summer. Thankfully, the good outweighed the bad, and for that I’m forever blessed.

See you then!