2012 Visions of Writing

As I sit here on the 31st December 2011, I ponder my goals for 2012. I think that this is a perfectly normal thing for any human to do on the last day of the year. Reflection and planning.

Inspired by my dear friend, Kim Koning, I created myself a writing vision board for the year ahead, to help keep me focused. Kim uses hers as a desktop background on her computer, and I’m thinking that’s a pretty good move.

So here it is:

My 2012 Writer's Vision Board

My ‘Writing Vision Board’ for 2012 consists of the following three goals.

1. New Novel: Tijuana Nights (New thriller)
2. Personal Goal: Project 2012 – First Draft to Submission
3. Project Completion: Talent Revolution (Final Instalment of UF Trilogy)

Now is a good time to sort out what you would like to achieve in the year to come. I know what I want to achieve. I don’t know if it will happen, but at least I know I have the goals and plans set in place to assist me on my journey.

Besides, little Bumpkin will also take priority over these goals. But regardless of what happens, these goals will eventually happen – they just may take a little longer than anticipated.

This is not the busiest writing year I have ever planned, but it will certainly be a chaotic one with a new baby in tow.  I’m really looking forward to the challenge.

Bring it on. It’s going to be a hell of an adventure.

 

2011 – Over and Out

Goodbye 2011!!

A friend of mine wrote a ‘wrap up’ blog for the year, and I thought it was a great idea – so here is my wee wrap up blog post for 2011.

This has been an awfully big year. I started the year forming a new team at my work, to take over all of the contract management and technical responsibility at my Evil Day Job. While it’s been full of huge challenges, it’s been great. Our team is humming along, and standing strong.

My husband and I at my 30th birthday

Then I turned the big three-oh. This meant having my enormous immediate family staying with us for a week, drinking a heck of a lot of booze in the hot summer sunshine, and generally having a blast. To top it off, we had a big garden party that raged throughout the night and into the late hours of the morning. It was a hell of a bash, and an awesome way to end my irresponsible 20s, and enter the 30s.

Straight after my 30^th birthday, I thought that I better get a little more serious about building my authors platform online. So I started my Parchment Place blog.

The big Christchurch quake rocked our entire world in February. Many dead, many grieving, and many homeless – including my friends, and members of my family. Some of whom are still suffering, due to another series of quakes that hit again on the 23^rd December.

When the February quake struck, two very special people had a big idea. Cassie Hart and Anna Caro put the word out on Twitter to compile a charitable anthology for all proceeds to be donated to the Red Cross Earthquake Appeal. So while our friends and family were trying to sort out their issues in a quake stricken zone, I put my hand up to help them find authors, rally support, and generally be supportive to them throughout this enormous task. And so – Tales for Canterbury was born. Eventually Cassie said that she expected me to submit a story into the Anthology as well… so before I knew it I was dragging an old story out of my dusty and very musty literary drawer, cleaning it off, and sending it through to her. And to my greatest surprise… they accepted it. So then I was officially published along with some pretty incredible writers.

The last time I had a hangover was in May, when I drank a little too much gin and tonic with my father when he was staying with me. Then I found out that I was pregnant, and so I stopped all intake of alcohol and nicotine immediately. Pregnancy wasn’t an accident… but I didn’t expect it to happen so damn quick either. I thought that it would at least take a few months… but I guess our little Bump was in a hurry to get the show on the road.

In the meantime on the writing front, I was busy trying to finishing off a novel, and start the editing of another one. But during this time, I was also quite unwell with the pregnancy, and that seriously hindered all writing ability… and eventually I stopped trying. They say that every single pregnancy is different – and no two are ever the same. It was a bad time for me. Emotionally, I was wreck… physically, everything was changing, and in the middle of all this I felt enormous pressure from my family. Each of them trying to give me advice… ringing/emailing me constantly… and with each passing day, I was becoming more and more reclusive.

Bumpkin's Big Foot

In the end, I didn’t want to talk to any of them at all. I just wanted to hide in my little hole, and wish like hell they would all piss off and go away. I just wanted them to let me be pregnant for a moment and get used to the whole idea that my life was irrevocably changing, and that both my husband and I had to get mentally used to it. But that’s not what families do. Apparently.

So you know what we did? Under the best advice given from friends, and our medical professionals – we ignored them. And this is the same advice I will give to all pregnant women who face the same issues in the future. While family is important… we are growing our own now, and it’s entirely up to us to walk our own pathway when raising a family, not the paths of those before us. I have learnt throughout this time that my wider family are never going to listen to me, since they will always know better (older and wiser, perhaps?), so I will just do my own thing, and learn from my own mistakes. This is the only way I’m only ever going to be fully satisfied as a parent, so this is how I’m going to do it. (Bugger the rest of the world. I no longer give a shit about their grand opinions and ways of how to do things. This is our family, and we will do it our way.)

When I finally realised this, my creative mind started to kick back into gear. I now know that it was the stress and pressure that stopped me from writing… and until I had actually dealt with that, I couldn’t release my mind from its little box and back into the creative world. But I eventually got there, and devised a NaNoWriMo plan to get an old manuscript – The Mediterranean Source edited into a more publishable state. (Don’t get me wrong, this book still needs further work, and hopefully over the next few days while it’s forecasted to rain, I’ll be able to do some work on it.) The point is… I managed to get there, and send it out to three amazing friends in early December for their final opinions on potential changes. It was a big goal, and while I ripped and shredded out more than twenty odd thousand words from this manuscript, I also rewrote just as many in some incredibly major plot alterations.

So here I am now, nearly 33 weeks pregnant, with not far to go. I have just managed to get through Christmas, which we were completely unprepared for… however, we managed to sort it out. Both Mike and I were totally distracted by the fact that Bumpkin will be born very shortly. We are mostly organised now and pretty much have everything that we need (if Bump comes early!). Bump’s room isn’t finished yet, but it’s not far off. Mike and his dad are currently building the wardrobe. The ceiling went up yesterday. And before long, it will be plastered, painted, and ready to rock and roll. Then I will have somewhere to put all of Bump’s stuff, which is currently stored in boxes all over the place. It will be good. A great start to the New Year, and new beginnings in 2012.

Here are some things that I learnt in 2011 that I never knew before:

• Turning 30 wasn’t actually a major. It was more of a great milestone, and one that I have great memories of.
• I never thought that my 30^th year would be such a rollercoaster of a ride.
• Getting pregnant was easy. Being pregnant is hard. Older people forget what pregnancy is like.
• Being published is not a life changing event… but it’s a pretty good one.
• The world is no longer an enormous place. Two of my best mates have also moved to Australia this year as well… and despite them now being in another country – I’m not sad! Well… not really. I’m so damn chuffed that they are living their own lives and dreams, and I’m even more chuffed that by having the internet… it’s almost as if they are sitting in the next room.
• I can do anything as long as I block out the bullshit and focus.
• Stress and pressure are only good in small amounts.
• I no longer have any tolerance for bad or rude behaviour. This is not a tolerance that I ever want to rebuild either.
• My job has been really good this year. I’ve really enjoyed the challenges, and the new team we have. I no longer tolerate the rubbish behaviour from my colleagues either, and they quickly know when they have overstepped the line.
• The hormone – Relaxin – is a total bitch to deal with.
• Taking everybody’s advice so you don’t offend people is impossible. Picking and choosing what advice you take is much more effective.
• It’s lovely getting to know your child as it grows inside of you.
• Three of my unborn child’s godparents now live overseas, and I’m okay with that. I know that this will be a good thing in the future, as the child will have supportive people in its life who live their own life, according to what they want to do.
• Pregnant women are hilarious. They no longer hold back, or have any qualms about saying it like it is. I’ve met some pretty neat people though our parenting class, who I never would have met if it wasn’t for Bump.
• Owning a Kindle has revolutionised the way I read.
• I have met writers who have deeply impacted my life in ways that I never could have imagined. By being with these amazing and incredible people, it has seriously helped solidify the fact that I am on the right career pathway in my life.

So… I think that’s probably it for this year. December has been a slow blogging month for me. I have no doubt that with the continuing distractions of the final stage of this pregnancy, etc, it could get even more sporadic. But I’ll try and keep it up.

In the meantime… I’m really looking forward to starting a new book in the New Year, editing another… and writing on. On the other side of life, I’m really looking forward to meeting our child.

Remember to set goals, not resolutions. J

2011 – Over and Out.

 

Monday Musings

Goals... not resolutions

There are some super duper exciting things going down for me on the writing front in the New Year. For the record, I don’t do New Year Resolutions. I don’t believe in them. Every new year people make resolutions to change aspects of themselves they believe are negative. So, for the past few years I haven’t made any resolutions. I set goals instead. And no, they aren’t goals like ‘land a husband’, or ‘lose weight’, or ‘quit smoking’, or ‘give up drinking for 3 months’, or whatever. They are goals that I want to work towards. Goals that I have been working towards for years. These are goals that are ‘achievement’ goals towards my own hopes and dreams. Do I want to set myself resolutions to look like a magazine model? Oh yeah, sure, why not. But no matter what I look like, it’s not going to give me any life satisfaction if I can’t actually achieve what I have been working towards for years, now, can it?

So… as part of my goals to eventually become a full time writer – it means that I need to blow the dust off some of the old manuscripts and ideas that I have been hoarding around, and turn them into something useful. I did start doing this job this year, I must admit, but while I have the momentum going, I’m going to keep it up. I cannot become a full time writer if I don’t have books out on submission.

So for my 2012 writing goals – I would like to achieve the following:

Firstly, I’m going to write a new thriller. I know that I still haven’t finished off the urban fantasy trilogy, but I just feel like this is a book that I need to get off my chest, and so I am going to go whereever my Muse is directing me. I just feel as though I need to listen to the old Muse every once in a while. If I don’t, they’ll probably abandon me, and then I’d be really annoyed – because it’s just so hard to find good staff these days!

Secondly, there is going to be another round of fairly serious editing of another manuscript (thriller) that has been sitting in my literary drawer for years. This has all come to a head from Merrilee Faber and her brilliant idea of Project 2012: From first draft to submission.

Thirdly… if all goes well, I will have two completed and edited thrillers ready for submission by the end of next year. Hopefully – all going well that is!

In the meantime, this is what I’m thinking about:

• Juggling my writing year with Bumpkin on my hip who is meant to arrive in February. Obviously Bumpkin will always come first, but there are still goals that I would like to achieve along the way. However, I have made an agreement with myself not to be dissapointed or to beat myself up if my goal line has to move about a bit. That can’t be helped, so I’m not going to worry myself over it.
• 

  New pool to wallow in

  After last weekend’s success with the paddling pool, when I eagarly went to uncover it on weekend to dump myself in it, part of it had slowly deflated over the week, much to my disappointment. So, instead of using a pool that is going to deflate every week (and we will be going into water-restrictions for our area soon) my dear husband felt it best that we go and buy a new one, that won’t deflate as easily. Happy birthday to me. I can just tell this thing is going to be my saviour over the next couple of months.

• I’m still not ready for Christmas, but like it does every year – it will come, and it will go. This year I have been more than distracted by everything else going on in my life, and frankly, everything else is a hell of a lot more exciting. I would much rather nest, and get rid of junk in my house. I would also much rather potter about in my pool and cool down when I need to. It’s amazing how other priorities just take over. And Bumpkin is a pretty damn big priority right now, and one that I am more than happy to turn my attention and focus on, and get ready for at my own pace.

So…. on that note, there are some interesting things happening. I’m really really looking forward to them. In the past I have written a few books a year. Next year – I’m planning on writing just the one, and editing two. I think that’s pretty reasonable, bearing in mind that I’ll have a newborn Bumpkin on board as well. I’m looking forward to it.

Who else has goals lined up for next year?

 

Monday Musings

Dear God,

I would like to thank you for the creation of the Paddling Pool. It’s a lifesaver.

Xoxo Me 

Link to a very 'NZ' video clip

Seriously. Paddling pools were created for people like me who either don’t have the space or the money to drop an in-ground pool in. Ah… but someone out there had the brains to think of folks like us. Especially the use of paddling pools in the hot Summer months for pregnant women.

So other than beaching myself in a paddling pool, this is what I’m thinking about at the moment:

• I am extremely grateful to a friend of mine who read through my manuscript in record time and gave me oodles of feedback. It was awesome. Now I just need to make a plan of when comes first…. and what I can live without doing. The feedback was great, and extremely constructive. Everything that she suggested potentially strengthened the whole storyline. Brilliant. I’m still waiting for more feedback to come in before I make any final decisions on what needs to happen. At this stage though… I’m rather happy with how it’s going, and I’m really really looking forward to getting this all completely wrapped up.
• I was to plan. I am feeling the urge to plan everything at the moment, from the amount of writing stuff I need to do over the next two months, to the things that need to happen in my house, to what I need to accomplish over the Christmas period this year. (And I would like it noted that I am SO not ready for Christmas, but damn do I need the break!) I’m guessing that all this planning stuff is in preparation of what I need to complete before Bumpkin arrives into the world in February, and completing commitments that I have already made. John Lennon once said that ‘life passes you by when you are busy making other plans’. Well – I don’t plan on planning for too long… I plan on spending more time executing the plan.

  

  Self portrait

• I’m at the nesting stage where my Mum would probably call me a ‘Broody Hen’. It’s funny you know… I have never felt this way about my house before. I have always been rather relaxed on how it looks (to a point) and have never really ‘stressed’ out over it before. But now I have the most insane urges to sort through everything, and rearrange everything room by room, and heaven forbid, if anyone gets in the way or in the middle of it. (I bite.Sometimes not as hard as I really want to, but I still bite.) Stuff is happening in my house that has needed to happen for ages, but we just haven’t ‘got around to it’. Now it’s all happening, and it’s great. I just need to make sure people stay well and truly out of my way so they don’t get offended by my natural maternal instincts.  This is just the way that women and all female animals for millenia have prepared for motherhood. “The act of nesting puts you in control and gives a sense of accomplishment toward birth.” The bizarre thing is… I instinctively know that if I cannot nest properly at home, or if I feel threatened… then I know that I need to go somewhere else where I can nest properly. ‘Broody hen syndrome’, I’m telling you. (Insane!!)  
• Speaking of my Mum… it’s her birthday today, and I really wish that I could be there with her having brunch and hanging out all day. However… life just didn’t deal me the winning lotto numbers in the weekend, so it couldn’t happen.

There are many more things that I could write about today, but I fear that I would probably just be rambling. So, for the meantime, I’ll leave you with a little chicken to fawn over. Have a great week!

 

Free Book? Go grab yourself a copy.

Golden Blood, by Melissa Pearl

Melissa Pearl is a YA Author from New Zealand. She has written this amazing series about these ethereal people who can travel through time to change history for the betterment of the future.

Since Melissa is about to release the next book in the series later this month – she is giving Golden Blood away for the next two weeks. I have just recently finished reading this fabulous little book, and I have to say – I recommend it to anyone who loves a bit of YA, mixed with urban fantasy, mixed with a little thrill. And if you like awesome characters who can ride a Ducati – then this is definitely the book for you!

Yes, I realise that I still need to formally review this book, but I’m getting there.

So – go an pick yourself up a copy. All the details and coupon code resides at Melissa Pearl’s blog – Giveaway Time!!

Grab one. You won’t regret it. And then, I want to know all your opinions on it as well.