I didn't get my Oregon Arts Commission application submitted in time, so I'll have to wait until 2014 to try for it again because they alternate yearly the areas they are accepting applications for.
Free Webinar for Authors:
I took the time to register for a free webinar on October 30th that gives authors advice on how to turn their book into a movie. I jumped at it when I saw the words "Self-published welcome!" in the Facebook Ad because self-publishing has been the only way so far that I have been able to get my books out into the world. Here's the link in case anyone else wants to register also: http://booktoscreenaccess.com/webinarregistrationvoyage. The times to choose from are 10 AM, Noon, and 6 PM your time. I chose noon because that is when my brain functions the best.
OOPS!
I just re-submitted my registration for the later time at 6 PM because I realized after registering for the Noon slot that it's on Tuesday which means I won't be home at that time.
On Writing:
I finally buckled down long enough last weekend to get my final short story edited, but it still feels incomplete in a way. I have an idea to expand it a little bit more, but I'm trying to decide right now if what I want to elaborate on might be another story in itself. It would kind of be Part Two on the edited story if I separated them because they are both interrelated.
I also got to work a little bit more on "The Shepherdess Princess," but didn't get as far as I planned added to it because I came across a couple more items to research in order to make the story historically accurate. When I couldn't find anything specific on the subject I was researching, I turned to the movie "Braveheart" because it's set around the same time frame as my story. I didn't watch the whole movie all the way through, but fast forwarded through anything that wasn't relevant to what I wanted. I did take notes on four scenes that had some relevance, though.
I also found another topic to research before I could move along in my story, so I've been mulling that over since I noted the information. I even bookmarked the page I found the information on to look back on it later.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Sunday, October 14, 2012
A Story Idea is Calling to me...
Written October 10th
In the next few days, I'll finish editing my short stories for my autobiographical novel. I've been thinking about what I might want to work on next. Do I want to go back to work on "The Shepherdess Princess," or work on something else? Do I want to continue the start I have with "Magic In Their Blood"? Do I want to go back to focusing on my poetry? After giving it some thought over the last few days, I find myself being drawn to a story idea I had for a romance novel that stems from a dream I had ages ago. I wrote the story idea down as soon as I woke up from the dream, so I wouldn't lose it. The last time I gave it any thought at all was when I was inputting the title and synopsis into my story idea file on my computer over a year ago.
I feel a kind of fear even thinking about starting this new endeavor because some childhood memories were mixed into the dream as well. Memories that I have tried to repress. Even now, just thinking about the details of the dream again seems surreal. Do I face my fears and give in to the Siren call, or do I ignore it and work on something else for a distraction? Would I upset my Muse if I don't do as I'm being led to do? I'll have to think about it a little bit longer before I make my decision.
Updated October 13th
It feels like my Muse, or the Fates are wanting to play with me. Now I feel like I want to go back to working on "The Shepherdess Princess." After talking to a writer friend of Facebook yesterday, I came to the conclusion that it's just fair that "The Shepherdess Princess" be the next book I publish. I have invested three years of my life already getting to this point. I can finish it by the end of the year if I concentrate on doing so, and I have several fans already eagerly anticipating its release. :) I can't let them down! My brother, Ray, told me this week that he thinks it should be made into a movie! He's helped me a lot with research along the way and other writing advice pertaining to some scenes, so of course I had to share some of the story with him.
What got me contemplating my next writing project was the thought that NaNoWriMo's coming up again next month. I've been thinking about participating again this year, and wasn't feeling like working on the same novel for it that I have over the last three years. If I choose to start a new project from scratch, I would only have two more weeks to flesh out the idea and start doing whatever research may need to be done for it. I haven't fully committed to the idea yet of participating in National Novel Writing Month this year either. 50,000 words in 30 days! I haven't been able to accomplish that yet.
Updated October 14th
I'm down to my last short story to edit before I'm all caught up with that project. I was also thinking of trying to face my fears once "The Shepherdess Princess" is done, and start work on the story idea I brought up earlier in this post. I'll have to cross that bridge when I come to it, though. I may feel differently about it when the time actually comes to start working on it.
In the next few days, I'll finish editing my short stories for my autobiographical novel. I've been thinking about what I might want to work on next. Do I want to go back to work on "The Shepherdess Princess," or work on something else? Do I want to continue the start I have with "Magic In Their Blood"? Do I want to go back to focusing on my poetry? After giving it some thought over the last few days, I find myself being drawn to a story idea I had for a romance novel that stems from a dream I had ages ago. I wrote the story idea down as soon as I woke up from the dream, so I wouldn't lose it. The last time I gave it any thought at all was when I was inputting the title and synopsis into my story idea file on my computer over a year ago.
I feel a kind of fear even thinking about starting this new endeavor because some childhood memories were mixed into the dream as well. Memories that I have tried to repress. Even now, just thinking about the details of the dream again seems surreal. Do I face my fears and give in to the Siren call, or do I ignore it and work on something else for a distraction? Would I upset my Muse if I don't do as I'm being led to do? I'll have to think about it a little bit longer before I make my decision.
Updated October 13th
It feels like my Muse, or the Fates are wanting to play with me. Now I feel like I want to go back to working on "The Shepherdess Princess." After talking to a writer friend of Facebook yesterday, I came to the conclusion that it's just fair that "The Shepherdess Princess" be the next book I publish. I have invested three years of my life already getting to this point. I can finish it by the end of the year if I concentrate on doing so, and I have several fans already eagerly anticipating its release. :) I can't let them down! My brother, Ray, told me this week that he thinks it should be made into a movie! He's helped me a lot with research along the way and other writing advice pertaining to some scenes, so of course I had to share some of the story with him.
What got me contemplating my next writing project was the thought that NaNoWriMo's coming up again next month. I've been thinking about participating again this year, and wasn't feeling like working on the same novel for it that I have over the last three years. If I choose to start a new project from scratch, I would only have two more weeks to flesh out the idea and start doing whatever research may need to be done for it. I haven't fully committed to the idea yet of participating in National Novel Writing Month this year either. 50,000 words in 30 days! I haven't been able to accomplish that yet.
Updated October 14th
I'm down to my last short story to edit before I'm all caught up with that project. I was also thinking of trying to face my fears once "The Shepherdess Princess" is done, and start work on the story idea I brought up earlier in this post. I'll have to cross that bridge when I come to it, though. I may feel differently about it when the time actually comes to start working on it.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Writing progress, and birthday stuff...
I finished editing my second short story on Friday night, and went to work on the third one I had printed out to edit. It turns out, the third story didn't need editing at all after the re-read. I printed out the fifth and final story to reread and edit on Saturday, but I haven't got around to reading the last two stories for editing purposes yet. The novel I'm working on still has a long way to go before it's ready for publication because I have a lot of short story ideas left to add to the manuscript later on.
On Saturday, my partner-in-crime came over bearing early birthday presents for me: a funny b-day card, a purple sun hat, a stainless steel water bottle, a pair of shoes, and a Grande Soy Caramel Macchiato from Starbucks! The coffee was yummy, and helped dull the pain from women's problems. I wore the shoes for the first time yesterday, and they are really comfy. They're a size too big for me, but I didn't notice the difference after I walked around in them for a bit.
My mom gave me a card with $5.00 in it; one of my brother's supplied the cake, ice cream, and birthday pizza; and another brother gave me $8.00.
I also got to watch a couple movies we got from the library: "Becoming Jane" which is the story of Jane Austen's life up until she published Pride & Prejudice (Anne Hathaway did a good job playing Jane Austen), and "War Horse" which is about a boy being separated from a horse he raised and trained from a colt during WWI, and they spent the whole movie looking for each other. Some of my family members and I definitely needed tissues at the end of it. Ugh, happy endings! :)
I've had a song stuck in my head throughout the day with my own little revision tagged onto the end of it:
It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to,
Cry if I want to, cry if I want to.
You would cry to
If you just turned thirty-two!
LOL
Aside from being my birthday, it was Thanksgiving Day in Canada and Columbus Day here in America. One of my brothers and I spent some time the last couple days discussing why Columbus was credited for the discovery of the Americas when so many other explorers found it before him. I joked that when the Native Americans saw the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria there reaction would be like "Not white men again!"
I also brought up the debauchery that would take place among the sailors because they were men with needs spending months or years together stuck on a floating pile of wood. Some ships would smuggle on women, but there wouldn't be enough to go around. Also, having women on board was considered bad luck at one time and some sailors were extremely superstitious. I blame the topic of discussion on the crazy hormones running through me at the time. :)
On Saturday, my partner-in-crime came over bearing early birthday presents for me: a funny b-day card, a purple sun hat, a stainless steel water bottle, a pair of shoes, and a Grande Soy Caramel Macchiato from Starbucks! The coffee was yummy, and helped dull the pain from women's problems. I wore the shoes for the first time yesterday, and they are really comfy. They're a size too big for me, but I didn't notice the difference after I walked around in them for a bit.
My mom gave me a card with $5.00 in it; one of my brother's supplied the cake, ice cream, and birthday pizza; and another brother gave me $8.00.
I also got to watch a couple movies we got from the library: "Becoming Jane" which is the story of Jane Austen's life up until she published Pride & Prejudice (Anne Hathaway did a good job playing Jane Austen), and "War Horse" which is about a boy being separated from a horse he raised and trained from a colt during WWI, and they spent the whole movie looking for each other. Some of my family members and I definitely needed tissues at the end of it. Ugh, happy endings! :)
I've had a song stuck in my head throughout the day with my own little revision tagged onto the end of it:
It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to,
Cry if I want to, cry if I want to.
You would cry to
If you just turned thirty-two!
LOL
Aside from being my birthday, it was Thanksgiving Day in Canada and Columbus Day here in America. One of my brothers and I spent some time the last couple days discussing why Columbus was credited for the discovery of the Americas when so many other explorers found it before him. I joked that when the Native Americans saw the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria there reaction would be like "Not white men again!"
I also brought up the debauchery that would take place among the sailors because they were men with needs spending months or years together stuck on a floating pile of wood. Some ships would smuggle on women, but there wouldn't be enough to go around. Also, having women on board was considered bad luck at one time and some sailors were extremely superstitious. I blame the topic of discussion on the crazy hormones running through me at the time. :)
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
A New Writing Project, and Other Stuff...
I haven't had a lot happening on the writing front lately, but I crashed through my writer's block last weekend with an ongoing project of mine. I have an autobiography type book full of short stories about events in my life that I've been working on from time to time, and I cut and pasted some new stories into the manuscript on Thursday from a separate file I had them in. I started editing the four stories I added on Friday and part of Saturday because I know they can be expanded on a little bit. I had previously submitted the four short stories to "Chicken Soup for the Soul," and had a certain word count to adhere to which made it difficult to get onto paper everything I wanted to say. Now that I don't have that constraint, I could edit it to whatever length it needs to be to tell the rest of the story. It's helped me get rid of writer's block in the past when I decided to take time out to focus on another book I want to write, and eventually publish. I have over ten story ideas to choose from if I want!
I got done editing the first story I worked on, and started editing a second short story right after the first story was fine-tuned. I have a total of five short stories I want edit when I have some time again. I think the second story I'm still working on doesn't need much more added to it, and have been thinking about sitting down to continue editing in the next couple days. It may have to wait for the weekend to come again, though.
On Another Note...
My birthday is next Monday, and I have no clue how I want to celebrate it. I'm going to be ordering the cake from a local store's bakery after volunteering at the library today. I know I want to have Rocky Road ice cream for sure, too.
I still can't fathom how time seems to fly by when birthdays come around. It's like the last year has gone by in a blur, and I still can't believe I'm going to be a year older than I am now in a few short days.
I got done editing the first story I worked on, and started editing a second short story right after the first story was fine-tuned. I have a total of five short stories I want edit when I have some time again. I think the second story I'm still working on doesn't need much more added to it, and have been thinking about sitting down to continue editing in the next couple days. It may have to wait for the weekend to come again, though.
On Another Note...
My birthday is next Monday, and I have no clue how I want to celebrate it. I'm going to be ordering the cake from a local store's bakery after volunteering at the library today. I know I want to have Rocky Road ice cream for sure, too.
I still can't fathom how time seems to fly by when birthdays come around. It's like the last year has gone by in a blur, and I still can't believe I'm going to be a year older than I am now in a few short days.
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