year in review, year to come

Strange days, the weeks around Christmas and new years. I find it difficult to keep motivated due to the disruption in schedule (and a nice cold I’m working on – achoo!) Certainly not a time to start anything new. So I thought I’d review:

For the coming year:

  • Attend the HNS conference in June
  • Have a proper second draft in time for this conference if it kills me
    • To this end, write a bit every day, even if it kills me
  • Keep meeting with critiquers and critiquing in turn
  • Guest blog post(s?)

And this is just off the top of my stuffy head.

Happy holidays to those that celebrate. Don’t worry, I’ll see you one more time before the new year, with a tidy link dump for next Wednesday.

ch-ch-changes

So, I went to my first writer’s conference last weekend.

I could do a blow by blow of the size (small and manageable), facilities (well-appointed community college), instructors (sterling), and classes (many and varied), but I thought it better to address the immediate impact it had on my approach to Inspired Melancholy.

The question of whether to blog at all has gnawed me since I started this thing. Despite reminders that authors need to self-promote I’m also aware that the prime concern is finishing the book – ya gotta have the goods before you sell them, you know? So I’ve gone about this rather half-assed, with infrequent posts under a hard-to-Google title.

The session I attended on blogging for writers convinced me that yes, I need to continue, but not as I have been.

In the coming months I’m likely going to change the URL to something easier to find (with redirects). I’m also going to take you down the research rabbit-hole with me, so alchemy and Elizabethan occultism is forthcoming.

Stay posted.