Monday, December 6, 2010

One Lovely Little Mess

So, like many hundreds (or is it thousands?) of others, I completed the NaNoWriMo challenge. Ta da! Thus follows pats on the back, applause, and general awe...

All of which makes me think that I deserve a break. But I don't.

The novel, my glorious story, is very far away from being actually finished. Revising is the next step, than editing, and than handing it out to those of my friends who are being conned into giving me their opinions (heh heh).

And after all of that relatively easy stuff, I have to go through the process of deciding what to do with the thing and how to do it...possibly publishing...query letters...

Ahem. Maybe I should shut up. I'm freaking myself out.

Anyway, to see to it that I don't chicken out and leave my manuscript in a corner gathering dust while I live out my life in snow-heaven (snow! :D), I am going to use this blog as an "accountability partner", if you will. All of you who would enjoy harping on me to finish, well, go ahead and do so :) (blog email: elizabeth.marie.inked@gmail.com)

Randy, over at AdvancedFictionWriting thinks that goals, penalties, and prizes are the way to go (and I happen to agree). My current goal is this: have manuscript through the first preliminary edits (I'm thinking three?) completed by the end of December.

I know, I know; I'm shooting for the stars here. Or am I? ugh. Tired of thinking.

I further hope to be handing my manuscript over to a real editor (a friend of mine) by the end of January.

I'm gonna need some real work ethic, writing tips, and a lot of support. The latter one means you guys :P Even if you're not reading this, I don't care. Just putting it up on the blog is going to help. Writing out what I've done (or not done, as the case may be) is going to force me to take action.

Life will go on, though: school, Christmas shopping (oh snap...), snowboarding (only four days to go! :D), chores, and my relationship with God. Also, I'm learning bar chords on guitar.

Life's one lovely little mess, isn't it? :)

4 comments:

Jenn Noelle said...

Caitlin!! You finished your book! That's awesome!!!! :D :D I'm excited for you...even though you have a long way to go with editing and all, that's still super amazing that it's actually completed! Heh, I've started plenty of books, but never finished any, sadly. So kudos to you. (: I really want to read it now. I like the way you write...it's very amusing and genuine.

Caity said...

Hey Jenn :) Thanks!! I know...the editing is going s-l-o-w-l-y, but I'm so glad I finished the book. Do you like to write? I do want my blog to be amusing, but it's a hard mix to come up with - deep, and yet funny ;) I love your blog, btw. It's so random and creative!

Jenn Noelle said...

Yessshh, I do indeed like to write, but only if it's something I WANT to write if you know what I mean. ;) And I don't do it nearly as often as I would like to. Hahaa--don't worry, you succeed with the deep-and-funny part of it, at least I think so. Ooh, thanks about my blog. I'm excited about it, though I haven't quite figured out where I'm going with it yet...it should be an adventure, as many things in life are.

Caity said...

I wish I could "like" your comment, just like FB ;) someday, blogger will come up with that feature haha. I know exactly what you mean with writing what you want to write! Even so, there are very few things that could keep me from writing...blogging is an adventure:) as much as i love planning things out, i usually have more fun when the plan gets thrown off track...lol