We’re retaining a little snow but the beach was glorious today. Five degrees Celsius and a bit of breeze. Really nice for a walk.
I thought about my work in progress and did manage to get another 1000 words done today so far. I have a few scenes to add to it, then refine. I’d like to have it into a market by February end.
I am impressed with the amount of snow we had this week.
Happy Chinese New Year! We are experiencing a few days of below zero cold! But the sunsets are great!
Creative – Have been reading a bit more lately. I think it’s important to read within your genre as well as outside it. I find as a busy professional single mum with a child to raise, I’m already heavily scheduling time to write my creative work in. Therefore, it’s even harder to find time to keep up with reading!
It is easier because my genre is science fiction and fantasy (SFF). I do love getting free books, like the ones http://www.tor.com gives away monthly. These give me a feel of some of the best writers and novel series out there. There are real disadvantages to writing without knowledge of what else is out there.
Projects on the go:
Got an idea for a tv series yesterday… which I may write up. I’ve wanted to have a pitch ready for a full new tv series for a while. The ones I have now don’t have pilot scripts with them.
Got my first short story drafted for 2019. It’s not done yet and was helped (research-wise) by a Monty Don British gardening show I watched in the middle of the night…so that tells you it’s going to be a fantasy story.
It’s been a foggy day here. Plus we had some bad weather that brought down one of the gigantic trees on Larch Street.
Creatively still awaiting word from some magazines, and sent out a new story today. I was struck by how much work rewriting is. Typically I do a rewrite when a story comes back unsold. Also, on tv shows I’ve worked on, the scripts have usually been rewritten maybe 10 times. This is beyond the legal drafts and polishes specified in the contracts, these are the showrunner or story editor passes. So, I’ve always been sceptical of the school of thought that says write it once, then revise once and you’re done. Maybe, too it’s about the style of story one is telling. So some stories are not that complicated I guess.
I’ve been busy lately. The creative work got pushed to the back burner for a while. However, I completed and sent out two new stories in the last couple of months. So that’s progress. I received good news regarding a reprint of a story. Plus, an editor has asked me to rewrite a story that he liked but found some difficulty with, so I’m hoping I ultimately sell that. I’m pleased to hear from a Canadian magazine that my story is in the last selection round there. Crossing my fingers because if I get into that magazine, it’s a new one to me and very well distributed. December 9th – I had another ‘2nd round’ email which makes me very happy as this one was for a prestigious USA magazine!
This morning I received my contract for the poem “Dangerous Gods” to be published in Polar Borealis #8 this month. So I’m excited about that.
Also, it’s the holiday season and I’ll take some time off my day job to work on creative endeavors.
It’s been a sad month really. My father died and although he was 89 and had a full and interesting life, I still mourn him as does my kid. I did the tribute for him and the PowerPoint they used at the funeral. I felt like that was a fitting response. He had a good funeral, which tells you how old I’m getting. No one young can understand the concept of a ‘good’ funeral.
Here’s one of my favorite photos of Dad, that I’d never seen as a kid.
I’ve been busy and haven’t updated the blog in a while. I just found a new app to do images with so have been playing with @canva. I hope it’s better than @piccollage, which I love but isn’t that sophisticated. So here are some images from our summer vacation. It was a bittersweet vacation. I love seeing my relatives and friends, but my father’s 89 and slipping away from us now due to cancer. So it was sad but I was very glad I splurged out to take us there. Plus, we did a lot of enjoyable visiting.
