Time to share how well I’ve stuck to the project list I made last November. The good news is that I haven’t added any more projects. Yay! The bad news is that I had to drop one. Ouch…
Updating my web presence: Cathrynlouis.com is live on Posterous, and all the links (yes, even on cathrynlouis.blogspot.com) are fixed. All that’s left is for the new relationships to ripple through Google, replacing the old ones. On the new site, the entries pop, each standing out as if on it’s own separate page. That’s what I wanted, so I’m calling it done. I love the new low maintenance SocialFollow Follow Me widget. I just update it once in my SocialFollow account, and the changes ripple out to all the places I use it.
Publishing Sparks: Hmmm… I envy everyone for whom learning is a smooth curve. For me, learning about publishing started off rather noisily, and then it settled down into a quieter, but still disruptive, bumper car ride. I’ve… finally… learned… enough… for… somewhat… smooth driving, and hopeful I can use my new knowledge when interacting with the industry. Though I wish it hadn’t taken so long, at least, I can say that I now know a whole lot more than when I started. Most importantly, I’ve found that giving voice to my desire to create an inter-related body of novels isn’t arrogance, but a definition of purpose. There is a thematic environment in which I’m choosing to build my stories, and I should say so. So am I closer to getting Sparks published? Let’s just say I’ve left the bumper cars behind. I’m hoping that riding the smoother curve isn’t as scary as the one I’ve shared once before.
Reviving novelTwo: Hit the ground running, and was thrilled with how well things were going for this next multi-year project. Got the plot and narrative structure figured out, butted heads with my antagonist; and now…grounded. Not blocked, just writing aimlessly, looking for the threads with which I can weave it all together. Sparks had two. For this new novel, I have to be patient and trust that I will recognize them when they leave my (virtual) pen. There’s progress, just unstructured.
Short stories: Not on a particular schedule, the stories are just written as they occur to me. Each day, what happens during my allotted writing time is a discovery and a joy. Sometimes it’s novelTwo, sometimes I work on a story. The stories are posted to my website rather than submitted for publishing because I’m trying to keep focus on my novels. I’ve already posted one this year, and there’s another circulating in my brain trying to get out.
eBook: It would have been fun to take the revision posts on my blog, add my personal notes to each one, pretty them up with pictures and create an eBook. The eBook occurred to me because I refer to those posts so often, I very much want them on my ereader. Once I put together the initial structure, I saw that doing it properly was a major project that would eat up my novel writing time for at least the next few months. I’m trying to keep focus on my novels, so I had to drop it.
Weekly blogging: Still at it – see you next week!
