It is still Friday in California, where I live. At 8:58 pm, I know that in many parts of the world it’s already Saturday. I didn’t put this week’s Writing Festival Friday online this morning for two reasons. One was that I had to go into work early this morning, so I was a bit rushed. The other was that the person who won last Wednesday’s drawing hasn’t sent back the interview yet.
I think I’m expecting a bit much to get an interview back in just two days, so I’m going to post them when they come in. Hopefully the person who won will send us the interview answers sometime this week. Whenever she does, I’ll include them in the following Writing Festival Friday posting.
The weekend looms ahead. I work weekdays and have weekends off, so I’m looking forward to two days of revision work on The Scribe of Irohila, a middle grade novel. How about you? What are your current projects? Tell us about them and about your writing blogs and websites in the comment section to this post.
To enter the drawing, post a comment to this blog post any time between Friday and Wednesday morning, October 10. Writers of all genres are welcome, published or unpublished.
On Wednesday I’ll choose another winner by holding a random drawing from all the people who comment on this post. When I choose a person, I scan their website(s) and write a few interview questions, and send them. Here on the blog, I post the name of the winner so people will know that week’s festival is finished.
Linda, my work is somewhat seasonal, so I’ve learned to schedule around the seasonal fluctuations as much as possible.
Now, when I’m a multi-million-bazillion$$$ selling author, my life should be so much easier 😉
Meredith
@ Mel – You sound like a busy and productive writer. I’ve only written one horror story, but also consider romance a horror. I’ve actually got a few novels I need to include romance in, and I find it very challenging!
@ Meredith – That’s fantastic that your memoir is 80% done. Your job sounds time-consuming and tiring, so I know it is a challenge to write in your spare time.
My writing projects:
I belong to a weekly critique group. Last week was my turn to be critiqued, and I still have to re-edit my 2,500-word essay. The essay is part of a memoir I’m writing, maybe 80% finished.
As of last week, my writing website is finished except for the last page of links. That’ll be done … when it’s done.
I’m in charge of poetry programming at our local library, and I have a program coming up in 3 weeks. (I guess that counts as writing-related.) I need to teach myself Word or Publisher or whatever is loaded on the library computers to make fliers this week. OK, that’s writing-related because I’m learning a new writing-related tool, right?
And then there’s my barely-paying job (as opposed to the non-paying ones above). I work 60 hours/week until the end of October, and then it’s 80 hours/week through December 24.
So to answer Kim’s question — yeah, sometimes, but a gal’s gotta do what a gal’s gotta do.
Hello! This is space_samurai from Piker Press land.
Currently, I’m working on a short story that was started back in April, abandoned for various reasons and then picked back up on a whim after reading over the unfinished stuff sitting on my hard drive. It’s a horror story. It’s also kind of a romance — which is weird for me. I don’t do romance. Then again, I suppose a romance story would be a horror story to me. 🙂 My goal is to finish it before November so that I have a clean slate to work on my sci fi novel for NaNo. I’m still making a few notes for November. I’m also considering producing a podcast on writing, but knowing nothing about podcasting, I’ve got a lot of research to do before I roll that out.
I’ve published two short story collections via Lulu, a number of short stories, poems and anime and manga reviews for Piker Press and tons of short pieces on my Livejournal. I’ve been writing pretty seriously since I was about ten, and I blame it all on Stephen King.
You sound busier than I am, Kim! Publishing a fiction digest like you do – that’s a huge thing in itself. Then to balance other fiction writing projects, you must be busy writing a great deal of the time every day. I don’t know if my imagination would stretch that far. But I’ve learned: the more you do, the more you can do.
My current projects include my blogs, a new site for children’s writers that I’ll announce here at this blog in a few days, editing one novel, writing another, and getting ready for NaNoWriMo.
You really want to know what I’m working on? Okay:
1. a fantasy novel that requires research into environmental changes as related to weather. I am five chapters in.
2. Revising a short vampire story.
3. Working on a short story for a themed contest I entered.
4. Episode 2 of a serial novel for my Between the Cracks Digest
5. Starting the wheels turning for a fantasy novella
This is just the writing stuff. I also have interviews and book reviews to finish for my next Between the Cracks digest.
I’m making two uTube trailers for ebooks that I have coming out. I also belong to 5 writers’ critique forums, 3 of which require
that I review other people’s works every week. I also have a week long on-line conference this week. And I just got accepted as an iStockphoto.com photographer and I need to go through my portfolio to upload pictures.
Phew. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. Sometimes I feel like I do too much. But I want it all! lol. I can’t imagine cutting any of it out. I wish I had more time for my novel, though, as that seems like the most important to my career.
Does anybody else feel overwhelmed by their projects sometimes?
Thanks so much, Donna. I love your interview. I think we can learn from new writers too. Everyone is fascinating, and I can think of questions to ask newbies. We all have our own special reasons for being attracted to the writing field. So tell your friends they are definitely welcome to sign on even if they haven’t been published or won contests. Yet.
Hi! I won last week and it was a real boost for me. So I do hope Margaret wins this week! I tried to talk a couple of my writing friends into commenting, but they don’t think their writing sounds “impressive” enough. I think we can all learn from one another’s efforts whether we are published or not.
Like your new “look.” The pinkish color was lovely–it’s the color of my own blog. But I do like the sharper, cleaner lines of the new look too.
Great progress, Margaret! Thanks for signing in. The way this is going this week, you may win by default. I may spend some time today telling people about this festival. Or I may wait until next week. I’ve got a lot on my to-do list right now.
I am still working towards a book or books of poems but that is still a ways away as I do not have enough poems that I think are suitable. I did start putting my kids poems in a folder so I’ll have them together. Maybe the next thing to do is to put the adult poems I’d like for a book in another one …
I’m also working on a MG chapter book/novel that is about 10,000 lines and a series of stories that may or may not become a book.