Tuesday, January 02, 2007

On Lookng Forward

What I'm reading: The Perfect Fake, by Barbara Parker; The Rome Affair by Laura Caldwell

What I'm writing: Chapter 19; final edits for Second Chance Rose

It's hard to believe it's 2007. I can remember ringing in the year 2000--it can't have been seven years ago! I don't make resolutions anymore (except for my husband), but I do think about goals. This year, it's time to add writing-related goals to my list. Attainable ones, for starters. Write 500 words a day, minimum. Keep submitting. That's pretty much what it boils down to. Write better stuff than you did the day before. Keep learning new stuff. And now, there's the 'self promotion' angle, too. In light of that, I signed up for an on-line class on how to deal with taxes as a writer. After all, I did get a couple of royalty checks and one of the contests I entered came with a cash prize.

Yesterday's "Free for All" with Cerridwen readers & authors was great fun--too much fun, as I spent nearly all day on line. Didn't get much done with Dalton & Miri, but since they've finally taken the next step in their relationship, I can get back to working on things like the major plot developments.

The editor who's working on Second Chance Rose with me sent back my manuscript. She had one sentence she thought needed to be clearer. However, being a compulsive tweaker, I had to go back over every word and I found a lot more places where a word could be stronger, a transition could be cleaner, and a pronoun would work just as well as the proper noun. Now it's a matter of deciding when my changes aren't making things better, only different, and I can send it back to her. There's no firm release date yet, but it's going to be part of a print anthology. My first non-electronic publication, even if I have to share it with a bunch of other authors.

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