2012 Plan of Attack

A new year and another attempt at the Write1Sub1 challenge. My goal for 2011 was to write and submit one story monthly. I fell off the wagon in the spring but revamped later in the year to complete about 20 stories but really struggled to submit. I got four individual rejections and two published (they were twitter fiction pieces). It might not be what I set out to accomplish but I still submitted at least 7 stories and that was 7 more than ever before.

 On to 2012 I’m going to try the monthly version of short stories again. Plus, I’m adding the Novel Challenge, a shoot off form of W1S1 from the Absolute Forums. Seeing others work towards similar goals has been all the difference in plugging away. I need a firmer plan than last year so here’s how I’m going to do it.

• 12 Shorts: work on a short story collection from a flash I wrote during StoryADay.


•  1 Novel: finish my NaNo first draft by January, let it sit while I work on some wonky world building and have it ready to query by October. That will have me ready for NaNo 2012.


• Speaking of NaNo I want to start planning a little earlier this year, August, so I can really crank out the story come November.


• Alex, another writer participating in this December blog chain mentioned blogging goals and think that is a great idea. So I’m going to post once a week, I can’t promise to do that on all my hibernating blogs though. 

That’s it for now! I think this is the end of the blog chain so check out Dawn’s post before me and Samuel’s who got us started.


What about you?  Are you making plans for 2012?

Written in December: NaNo Came and Went

The National Novel Writing Month blew through and I didn’t even post a token update! That doesn’t mean I forgot the challenge, I won my second out of three attempts and changed my genre from regency to fantasy this year. The past two got too bogged down my large gaps that led to research binges so I thought redoing a fairy tale story I started as a teen would be easy. Sounds great, right? Two words... 

World Building 

Yep, still needed to research not just the sayings and cultures of a bygone era but everything! It wasn’t that bad- somehow I was able to avoid the siren’s call to truly research everything. Still I have huge gaps to think about so finishing and editing it should be interesting.

 I also wrote some twitter fiction (10) and 4 other stories around 50 words plus I subbed one so I made my monthly goal!

The new year comes with its own Plan of Attack!

Now comes the hard part- finishing it!

GoodReads Review: The Giver by Lois Lowry

The Giver by Lois Lowry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Had to read it for a class and was pleasantly surprised. The ending is why I gave it four instead of five stars (just because I hate ambiguous endings) but it is the first of three.

Warning spoilers below!

When Jonas began to see beyond the Sameness and get snatches of color, like Fiona's hair or the apple he started down a path to becoming an individual. I didn't realize that his father actually released the babies himself. His callous manner when "releasing" the extra baby was probably the most chilling scene to me. I think mostly because it showed that was just how the people were raised to feel it was normal.

Jonas returns at the end of the trilogy in The Messenger. I'm not sure if I'm going to read it yet... I'm still digesting The Giver.



View all my reviews

eBay Regency Book Sales are Back!

I sold three boxes of books last week and have three more on eBay this week.  It's nice because I can finally get back into my closest where my overflow was piling up.

22 Books: 25 Regency Historical Romances Layton & more! Is over on February 5th and has four Edith Layton books.  I usually like her but only kept a few of my favorites.  

40 Traditional Regency Romances Including Hazard & Buck is also over on February 5th and these were harder to part with because I love the old school Regency Romances.  I've read all of them at least twice but didn't make the keep pile for one reason or another.

Here are two reviews (don't read if you don't like spoilers) of books from one of my sales.  They are from An Evening at Almack's a lovely Traditional Regency review blog.

The Merry Chase~ Judith Nelson

Play of Hearts~ Corinna Cunliffe

Once I've cleared out all my books I'm going to read through my favorites pile one more time and cut again.  Got to make room for more don't I?

Write1Sub1: Month One

I thought doing Light Ray would be a breeze but between weather and car woes this month has been very unorganized.  I did submit a short this month, my first attempt ever and I'll be finished with my short, titled Road Rage for the moment, today or tomorrow at the latest.

What I've learned so far:

• Create a writing schedule that is realistic.
• Stick to it.
• The more I write the more story ideas I come up with so write them down!
• Reading about others success is inspiring so I'm visiting W1S1's blog & group on AW.

For my other January goals, well I didn't complete them all but it is better than last January!

1 down 11 to go!