I got a lot done this week, but not what I'd intended. I got a call from my good friend, work-from-home guru, Kristie T. We had a phone-lunch on Thursday. In the course of our conversatin, she asked me to write an article for her webmomz newsletter. I wrote the article that same day, though I don't know if/when she plans to publish it. Still, the last time I was asked to write something was a children's book in 1999 about a Millenium Bug, but that guy dropped the project when his stuffed animals didn't sell. It's a long story.
So, anyway, while I've written a complete draft of Wilson's Garage, I didn't do anything for research on places to submit Song. However, submitting my article to webmomz qualifies as submitting a piece this quarter, so I can give myself until June now to send in Song. I love my logic.
For week 5, my goal is to work through at least two re-write's on W.G. Seems do-able.
This was a really great writing week for me! Even though it wasn't easy, I wrote every day, and completed a draft of the five major sections of Wilson's Garage. Unfortunately, a planned meeting with Joe Brandon for technical advice didn't work out due to bad weather, but I'm confident that he can help me out even if we can't meet in person.
For next week, I'd like to put it all together in time for my bookclub meeting on Wednesday; hopefully, I can convince someone to read a draft for me. For the remainder of the week, I'd like to get a cover letter put together for Song of Life.
I think I’ve figured things out sufficiently that I can now post on Sunday nights as I’d originally planned.
I only wrote 5 days this week. That’s a little disappointing, but I got a lot done on the days I did write, so I don’t feel too badly about it. I finished a very rough outline of Wilson’s Garage and wrote one more short section of that as well.
This week, I also selected The Song of Life to be my first story for submission. I got in two terrific re-writing sessions on the piece. It’s always been one of my favorites, and I’m feeling confident that if the stars line up correctly, I could make myself send it out.
For the coming week, I’d like to work through Song one more time and do a good bit of market research for that one. I’d love to complete a rough draft on Wilson’s Garage, too, but that might be a bit much considering my time constraints. I guess we’ll see!
Wow, it's 2005. That means in about a month it will be two years since my generous pal, Colin, offered me this space on Gungeralv. And so far, I've done nothing with it! In my defense, I didn't know what to do with it, since journaling really isn't my thing. However.... Last fall, my friend and mentor, Eleanor Cummings, invited me over to pirate from her vast collection of writing and publishing books. I took a big box full (as much as I could carry) and have been reading fairly non-stop ever since. The advice I'm getting from these books is telling me that if I "write every day" and "submit something somewhere quarterly," then maybe my hobby will transform into a profession. Okay. But easier said than done. I know me. I need to hold myself accountable somehow, or it won't happen. So that's what I'm doing here. I doubt anyone (except perhaps my host) will read this, but that's not the point.
So here goes:
In the first week of January, I wrote 6 out of 7 days and completed the first page and the ending of a new short story for pre-teens tentatively titled, Wilson's Garage. It's not a lot of writing, but it is well written for a first draft. My goals for this week are to complete an outline of the story while it's still fresh and then select something from my archives to rewrite for submission this quarter.