Change

Well, Jenny changed hers and, let's face it, we all seem to copy off, I mean inspire each other around here. So I've changed to orange, because orange is supposed to represent and provoke creativity. I'm copying in order to be original.

Or something like that.

So many things make sense in my head, but then not when they're released into the world.

Odds and Ends

There was recent thread on an email loop I belong to. It went along the lines of "Our writing group needs to be able to meet online. But a lot of our membership isn't very comfortable with computers. So suggest a solution that is easy for computer illiterate types."

Excuse me? How many problems in logic can you see in those 3 lines? You have computer illiterates who want to meet online? And these are writers who aren't comfortable with technology?

I'm sorry, but in this day and age a writer must be comfortable with computers, the Interweb and all that goes with it. Fact of life. Tool of the trade. You don't have to know how to put a computer together or even how to program one, but you'd better be savvy with some kind of word processing software, email and search engines. Most agencies are moving to email queries and submissions only. How are you going to get your work out there if you can't navigate the Interweb?

And whatever happened to the past tense of so many irregular verbs? Words like "swam" and "sank" and "stank" and the like? All I see now are phrases like "The boiled cabbage stunk" and "I sunk the basketball." No, you didn't. You sank the basketball. You may have sunk many basketballs in your lifetime, but this particular one you sank.

Okay, I guess it was just odd and end. Thought I'd have more to vent about, but apparently not right now.

Carry on.

The Year Ahead

As we saw in the previous post, I was a big old slacker failure in 2008. (I'm giggling as I type so obviously I don't feel all that badly about it, which is probably a really bad thing.) So what should I expect from myself in 2009 that would be an improvement? Well, almost anything would be an improvement, wouldn't it? Okay, done beating myself up now.

Here's what I would really like to get done in 2009 with a bit more specificity:

--Finish revision of MMG in January (or be prepared to throw it in a drawer).
--Revise Vesta by end of April.
--Finish draft of TNN by end of February.
--Revise TNN by end of summer.
--Write rough draft of some other novel that I haven't thought up yet by end of year.
--Query Dan and other agents in March (only if MMG is submittable, otherwise wait for Vesta).
--Write flash fiction piece for anthology by mid-January.

Anyone else ready to commit to what they want to accomplish next year?

Year in Review

I just went back and looked at my goals for this year. They were not particularly ambitious. Yet I failed to meet a large percentage of them. Disappointing to say the least. Here they are, with the results, such as they were:

--Finish revision of MMG. (Um, no.)
--Query Daniel and lots of other agents. (No)
--Finish draft of Vesta. (Check)
--Work on short stories and submit. (Not a single one.)
--Possibly start TNN or another new novel. (Check)
**Win NaNoWriMo (Check!)

Holy jeez, that's just sad.

**Addendum: Ali pointed out that I won NaNoWriMo this year and didn't list it. I didn't because it wasn't one of my stated goals. The results are listed (finish draft of Vesta and start TNN). But it was a bit deal so I've added it to the bottom.