A New Year is Fresh, With No Mistakes in It...

Well, I survived the madness that is Nanowrimo--but not without totally scrapping the original story I had been working on during day 3. My mind kept going to the characters from my current work in progress (completely written, but working on typing it up and editing it) so I started Nano all over and began writing the sequel to it. That worked out much better, and I didn't find myself struggling quite so much with scenes.

Oh, I still had tough moments, but nothing like I had been, and certainly nowhere near as horrible as 2009's debacle.

However, starting over put me three days behind on word count, and I had to skip a lot of naps (not easy for a pregnant lady with an active toddler to give up, mind you!) and pull some long sessions in the evening to catch up. But, after a few days, I finally managed to. Yay me! I'm still so proud of myself for catching up and managing to win Nano after all of that!

But on to my writing goals for 2011...

Yes, I am resuming my list of writing goals for the year. I never managed to do it last year, due to circumstances, but I need something clear to strive for, writing-wise, this year--something that I can focus on besides the loved ones that I've lost the last two years, and the general worries and stress of day to day life.

So, in light of that, I've not only decided to resume my writing goals for the year, but I've also decided to keep it (somewhat) simple. My writing goal for this year is to finish typing up my work in progress, Anemone's Song, and edit it. That's it. That's what I want to accomplish writing-wise this year. Anything else is just icing on the cake.

And really, considering that I will have a new baby and a toddler to care for, it will be no small feat if I manage this. But I caught up during Nanowrimo, didn't I? When I get discouraged or need motivation, I will try to remember that

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Wondering (Once Again) What I Got Myself Into...

I feel so incredibly tired after taking my daughter trick-or-treating tonight. Granted, with a new baby on the way, that's not too surprising, but I'm determined to stay up a little longer and see if I can make it to the official start of Nanowrimo.

I'm a little apprehensive about doing Nano this year; I spent most of October wavering back and forth about whether I would participate or not. Last year was very tough, and I almost didn't make it through the week three slump. I blame it now on not knowing my characters well enough before I started, and for not having a good plan of where I was going in terms of scene progression.

And THAT I blame on my book, Anemone's Song, which I had just finished writing only weeks before Nano 2009 began. So I was burnt out and didn't plan much for last year.

This year...eh, I didn't plan at all. And that's not for lack of ideas. I had a few neat ideas rolling around in my head, but I never managed to settle on one of them.

So, that's why I'm totally winging it during Nanowrimo this year (heaven help me!). This has the potential to be very painful for me. But I hope I'm wrong about that.

If nothing else, maybe I can manage to do some typing on Anemone's Song during November, and begin editing it, since I'm not taking things so seriously this year. (Famous last words, right?)

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Happy Easter!

For all of those who celebrate Easter, I hope that today was a very peaceful and joyous occasion for you. For my own family, we had a good Easter, if a rather uneventful one. And yet, that does not bother me too much. My days are so hectic since I started working again that I can use some peaceful, uneventful weekends. There's time enough for the craziness of easter egg hunts and the like next year, when our daughter is old enough for them.

My daughter is one year old now. She had her birthday last weekend, just before Easter. It is hard to believe that a whole year has gone by already. She's growing up so fast.

In terms of my writing, I haven't been able to do as much as I'd like since my evenings are so hectic after work, but my daughter is starting to sleep until mornings now, and so I'm able to get a little writing in again on some nights. I'm trying really hard to finish up my novel, Anemone's Song, and I'm looking at markets for my short story about the vampire cows. I'm really hoping to get published this year, whether it's a short story or a novel (looking doubtful on this front, given the current pace of my writing), or poetry. I just hope it's soon.

You see, I have really been wanting to re-dye my hair red. I have this obsession with red hair since I think it's so beautiful, and I used to dye it back in college. Long story short, I went back to brown, my natural color, before I got married, and so I've been a brunette for a couple of years or so now. But I really want to dye my hair red again. Only I decided that I won't allow myself to dye my hair again until I get published.

I'm hoping it will serve as extra motivation to get more writing done and to keep plugging away at trying to get published. I'm just afraid that now that I've promised myself that, I'll never have red hair again...

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To Market, To Market...

As I sat down to update this blog and pondered what to write about, my daughter decided that she wanted to climb into my lap and volunteer her services. Being that most people are not fluent in reading baby gibberish, however, the backspace key came quite in handy.

I have been perusing markets to submit my short story to, seeing as it didn't win the contest. I have found some promising leads; one in particular seems like it would be a perfect match. They are not open to new submissions until March 31st, however, so in the meantime, I'm going to go back over my story and see if there's anything I want to change. I felt like I pared my story down so much, cutting out a lot of good description and dialogue, just to meet the word limit for the contest. This particular publication, however, has larger word limits, and so I might add some things back in.

I don't want to add things just for the sake of adding, though. I think I will have to get some outside opinions on this.

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Just Call Me Grumpy.

1418 words in the past couple of days. Not bad. I just hope I can keep it up. In the meantime, I'm trying to get a job. There is a position I particularly want that I have applied to recently, but I am trying not to get too attached to it in case I don't get it. And, considering the current state of the economy and the fact that a lot of people are out of work, there's a good chance that I won't.

Man, am I pessimistic today, or what?

There's just a lot of things going wrong lately, I guess. I need something to go right. Maybe the weather is part of it, too. There's nothing like cold weather to make you feel like saying, "Bah humbug!" to everything.

Well, I'm going to try to apply to more jobs and do some more writing, if my daughter permits me to. She's gotten a real attitude lately, heaven help us, when things don't go her way. Plus, she's become real clingy. I can't wait for this stage to end.

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