2013 Progress

For a long time I have felt that there hasn’t been much active progress happening in my life, even though there is.

I have to remind myself that I am a new-ish mother, who works full time, tries to write, raise our daughter, and also be a wife who has a household to run. There are certain things though that need to give a little when I’m active or focused on something in particular. This is a juggling game that I seem to get quite good at sometimes, and not so much at others.

At the moment, I’m pretty focused on my best friend’s wedding, and getting organised for that at the end of this month. It’s a damn scary thought imagining him getting married, but in the same breath, I’m just so damn pleased for him – and the fact that the woman he loves is ready for her ‘happily ever after’ with him. I can’t wait to get down to Queenstown, near where the wedding is, with my little family, and have a few days down near where I grew up. Some places are just better to be absorbed within. There is no point talking about the fresh mountain ranges, the glistening rivers, the miles of grassy-rocky valleys, or the glaciers. There is also no point in talking about the enormous lake that has been described as a giant sleeping in the Southern land. This being the same lake that reflects the landscape and therefore utterly immersing you within it. No…. That is a magical place that one must visit themselves and revere within its beauty. A surreal place that I’m looking forward to introducing our daughter to.

Work has started again on Venetian Nights. At the moment I am reading through everything I have written so far, and adjusting parts of the storyline and my planning. I’m pleased with the progress to date – and feeling more and more excitement to get this project back on track. One day I would love to go and experience Venice in all it’s glory. In the meantime, I just have to use my imagination of what it’s like in reality, and hope that I’m on the mark. I do know some wonderful people who have spent time there though, and they will definitely let me know if I’m going off-track or not.

Car hunting continues! Perhaps we will have a new one this coming week – but perhaps not. It’s a complete pain in the ass, but a necessary evil. My mother in law has been a wonderful help by loaning us one of her cars to tide us over, but the time has come where we need to be settled with our own things again, and time for her to have her car back. But I will be forever grateful for all her help! We couldn’t have done it without her.

And now, I must fly again. Its Sunday night here, and I have to prepare for the Monday-it is onslaught tomorrow. Our office is in upheaval at the moment, so things should be a bit of entertainment.

Au revoir, and goodnight.

 

 

Lucky Number ‘13

And so we see another year out, and welcome another year into our lives. Every New Year starts out with a wealth of positivity and dreams of good fortune. I am no different in the hopes and dreams of my endeavours. And so, I lay before you all – a list of thirteen goals and objectives that I hope to meet or obtain for this 2013^th year. No – these are not resolutions, because I am not one to make resolutions… but these are the things that I would like to accomplish this year.

Whether they happen or not is a different story, and you can be sure that it’s a story that I will one day tell.

Some of these objectives are biggish, and some are a lot smaller. But regardless of size, they are still progress.

So here are the Lucky Thirteen for the 13^th year:

1. Write Venetian Nights. Currently 5k into it, and I can’t wait to get this highly charged thriller out to readers.
   

   Draft working cover

2. Renew my commitment to Parchment Place. Everything lapsed in 2012 due to the arrival of Abigail, but 2013 is the year to re-establish my blogging drive.
3. Read a minimum of 50 books (I managed to get through 52 in 2012 – but I did read a big chunk of those while on maternity leave!)
4. Buy a new car (Somebody smashed into me in 2012, and wrote ours off…. Actually, my husband and I wrote both our cars off within three weeks of each other.)
5. Read, review, and make a few decisions about the Talent Trilogy, and decide what work takes priority.
6. Put together my graphic design portfolio, and do the odd piece of work for people in that field.  
7. Publish, or secure a contract to publish a piece of my longer work.
8. Clean up my email accounts, and unsubscribe me from stuff I never read. All it does is clog up my virtual world.
9. Take Abby overseas – preferably to Bali, but anywhere will do. (I’m feeling the need of a Balinese holiday this year)
10. Make it through my best friend’s wedding with Abby in tow, and me as the best man. (Yup – you did just read that correctly.) And also make it through my Mum’s wedding in April.
11. Teach Abby all that I can possibly teach her, and have fun doing it.
12. Let go of Mediterranean Dreams. Seriously.
13. And lucky number 13 – Win the lottery.  (You always have to chase after something a little unrealistic, but something that could potentially be real… right?)

So there you have it. That’s the 2013 list…

Now let’s see how much of that I can actually achieve. (I can’t believe that it has actually taken me 6 days to get this post up on my blog! – but at least it’s there.)

And to launch the year off – I thought that I would share Abby’s favourite new song with you all. Quite appropriate, I think! 

 

 

Things are happening

It astonishes me how neglected I have been towards my writing and my blog over the last six months! To bring it back to life a little, over the next wee while I’m going to have some guests hanging out here with me at Parchment Place, who will not be at all dull or boring. I’m sure there will be entertainment all round for the masses.

Abby officially turned six months old on Sunday, and to be honest, that scares the crap out of me. I simply can’t believe how fast it’s gone. It was also Father’s Day here in New Zealand – so a couple of weeks ago, Abby and I had a special photo-shoot for the occasion. Here is a picture of the gift Abby gave her dad for his first father’s day. I find that a little bit of effort goes an awfully long way, and her Dad loved it. That said, he still said that the best present was her of course!

In terms of my writing – well – now that I have started to catch the train relatively consistently, I am starting to power through some work! It’s fantastic, and I’m feeling really good about the progress that I am making with my edits. I have decided to change the name of The Mediterranean Source to Mediterranean Dreams. I am a bit sad about losing the old name, but too many people didn’t quite ‘get it’ in terms of the storyline, so I’m changing it up. With the title Mediterranean Dreams it sort of collectively shows that each of my characters in the book all has their own dreams and goals. So that being said, I think that this new title fits a little better.

I have also been working on new cover design for it – not with self-publishing in mind at this stage, but more to keep my head in the editing/revision game when I have had interruptions or not any long amounts of dedicated time. This book is definitely one that will be going out on submission to publishers as a first option. Call me lazy, but at this stage in my life I simply cannot be bothered with the work required to self-publish. Perhaps if I didn’t have a baby, or worked and travelled long hours, then I would probably consider it as more of an immediate option. One day it may even become an option… but for the moment, I’m sticking to traditional.

The Nights Series that I have been thinking about and planning seems to be growing and growing. I’m looking to getting this backlog of work out of the way before I officially start. I did start writing Tijuana Nights back in January, however, that has been put on hold until I work a few things out with the series idea. Let’s just say that Mack (McKenna) my main character is full of klutzy awesomeness.  She is a right piece of work, but I feel my character planning of her needs to be a bit more rounded out with the planning of the series. After all – most books are character driven with a character journey. So I guess this means she is going to have a few journeys throughout this series.  

I think that’s about it from me at the moment. I will start coming up with better blog posts shortly about all sorts of interesting things, so there will be some decent fodder to read, instead of all my updates! I will also have a few guests here as well. Onwards and upwards – time to reopen Parchment Place properly for business.

 

Some days are better than others…

Some days really are better than others. So here is a quick update of my news over the past couple of weeks:

Since I have been back at work, I have been trying to settle in. Some of my colleagues say that it doesn’t even feel as though I have been on leave for six months. There is only one new person at the ooffice… but a few of the old staff have left, so I miss their presence.

I also miss Abby! But she’s having such a great time in care, that I really needn’t of worried like I did. But I do feel as though I’m missing an appendage of sorts. I’m pleased that she did have a good routine already set in place, and that with the help of my Mother in Law – we taught her how to take a bottle. She seems to be happy as to be away from me during the day.

Abby has been the utter centre of attention for everyone as we have had lots of family visiting over the past couple of weeks. Was really lovely to see them all, and for them to finally meet Abby for the first time. I can’t believe she is now five months old already! Motherhood is sweeping by very fast.

I had my very first car accident yesterday morning… What a great start to the week! A chap was pulling out of his driveway, and didn’t see me driving past, and smooshed my passenger doors with the nose of his great big Mercedes. So this afternoon I have to go and pick up a rental car to tide us over while ours gets fixed. (What is really annoying is that we only just sold my husbands car on Sunday, so I could have been using that!)

I have started catching the train to work, and each time I feel utterly elated at the amount of writing work I am accomplishing again! After 6 months of basically having a break from it, I am now immersing myself into my writer’s world for at least an hour per day. And it is FABULOUS! I’m smashing through my editing during my dedicated train time. Feels amazing.

One of my Critique partners has moved to China, so that’s a bit tough. Gonna be awesome for her – and it will start to feel a bit better when she’s back up and running online again.

Another Critique partner is about to release her next book, which is exciting!

Anyway – I better get back to the Evil Day Job (which is actually going quite well) and earn my keep.

P.s. Can’t wait to get this damn book off my desk and onto the desks of publishers.

 

Up, up, and away!

Blimey the year is passing so quickly!

In two weeks I am back at work after being on maternity leave for six months. Can’t quite believe it myself.

When I first went on maternity leave I had all of these goals and plans that I would work towards achieving while Abby was still young and sleeping lots. Lets just say that didn’t quite work out!

I knew that it was going to be tough going having a wee baby – but I didn’t expect her to only sleep in 45 minute stretches during the day. Hence why I haven’t achieved many of my writing goals this year. However, having Abby around has been totally awesome, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. Now she is starting to sleep for a couple of hours in the morning, so I’m getting much more done around the place!

Going back to work will be a shock to the system though! But it’s going to be great to see all the awesome people I work with again. My husband is now working in the area where we live, so that means that I’m going to be travelling in and out of town on the train, which I am really looking forward to. I used to travel on the train a few years ago, and the amount of writing and ideas that I generated was amazing. So I’m hoping to get back into that groove again. Fingers crossed.

So…. Abby is going into care when I go back to work, and this means that she’s in training at the moment. Going to sleep without a feed, and also taking a feed from the bottle. This has been a huge struggle so far, but we seem to be having little successes every now and then – so we’ll just keep on at it. That daughter of mine loves her cuddles and feeds with me… so I’m not surprised she’s being defiant about it!

I have been reading a crapload of books lately too. I think this will also slow down when I get back to work, but it’s been great. Since my writing outputs have been slow, it’s really given me some awesome ideas to work and play with for future books of mine. I’m looking forward to getting them out there!

And on that note… I should probably be off. Abby will wake again shortly, and I will once again be entertaining her. Having a daughter is a pleasure. Being a writer is awesome. I only wish that I could do both full time. Going back to work pays the mortgage. Here’s hoping I win Lotto on saturday!

What’s everyone else been up to lately?