Snippy Winds, Snappy ‘Tudes, & Happiness Along the Way

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Ooh, the weather has a bite to it. Don’t let the sunshine deceive you, the wind will slap reality through to your bones.

Yes, I chose to walk up and down West Broadway on Friday. It’s good exercise. And you can be certain that it’s at a brisk pace to match the brisk wind. You can also be certain that my period stops along the way were primarily for the shop heaters with a far second for actual shopping.

Rather than deal with that, why not work on various writing projects from the comforts of ANY indoor location? I’m not picky, at this point.

WRITING:

I’m having a nice time revisiting Aaralyn’s Song. I’ve been fighting off the urge to entertain the new ideas that keep popping into my head. I think I get at least two ideas a day.

To keep myself occupied when I’m not working on WIPs, I’m writing ahead for my FRIDAY FORAGE series for the month, WHAT YOU KNOW. My original plan was to write these posts in advance. Alas, life got on the way.

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WHAT YOU KNOW: 5 GENRES

READING

We’ve made it to December, yo!

This month is all about revisions for me. I spent the last week taking stock on all my current writing projects. More specifically, the ones that I’ve actively tackled within the last couple of years. Sure I have others that are on pause from yesteryear. I don’t want to use the terms ‘orphaned’ or ‘mothballed’. I’d rather think of them on the publishing highway stuck in traffic while these others are in the passing lane. –> Spent the last eight hours running errands and commuting so forgive the lame imagery.

Anyhoo, I counted the active projects and I have TWELVE that I’ve written in the last two years (maybe three) with six of them in the revision stage and three of them closer to spit-shiny than the rest. Can you see why I decided to revise before coming up with something new? Sheesh.

That said, I decided to create a mini-series this month entitled WHAT YOU KNOW. I’ve noticed patterns in my writerly world and I wanted to share some of them with you.

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A Lil’ Writing Here & There, A Lotta Blog Hoppin’ Everywhere

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WRITING:

So, I haven’t been all gung-ho on the PlotWriMo scene. I have, however, been using key points to help my WIPs.

Speaking of, I got great feedback on Aaralyn’s Song, my Camp NaNo baby. I think the month away while focused on NaNo really hit the spot and I have renewed energy for this series. There’s more of an edge to the story now and I added new characters and character connections that I think work well.

Case in point, imagine your foster mom was Old Mother Hubbard, only in this story, she’s a cross between Alfred Pennyworth, Alice Nelson, Mrs. Garrett, and Kato. If you don’t know any of these names, clearly you are not a child of the 80’s or campy nostalgia. I recommend a heavy dose of retro tv to whet your appetite.

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December Goals

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WRITING:

SavvyAuthorsEntangled Smackdown and NaNoWriMo.

When my butt wasn’t kicked, I, too, kicked butt when it came to November’s writing challenges. A couple thousand words shy of 75K, the writing continues.

Plenty of writerly activities to keep me busy during the zaniest month of the year. I can already hear those sleigh bells as I draft this post.

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NaNo, Where’d Ya Go?: The Next 5 Steps Post-WriMo

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Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

Or turkey. Or something vegetarian. Heck, for many of you out there, yesterday was just a Thursday. No matter what you did or whom you were with, hope it was a good one. 🙂

As for NaNoWriMo & SavvyAuthorsEntangled Smackdown, I won because I met the word count goals, but the story ain’t over yet, kiddos. Here’s the skinny:

Week One: 17,850 words

Week Two: 16,383 words

Week Three: 18,820 words

Week Four: 15,822 words

Running Total: 68,875  words

These numbers are up until yesterday’s total. Scrivener seems to be messing with my mind because the project stats show the figures and the session word count. The session number made sense so when I went to plug in the project total into the NaNo site, it said I wrote more than 2K above my total which I still don’t get. Wrap your noggin around that one.

Either way, I’m still rallying to up the count and will continue until the story’s done–dur. That would be the wise choice, yes?

After a month of slaving over the words, we’re left wrought with emotion. To borrow a line sung in a show I watched, once upon a time, “Where do we go from here?”

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