Clayton's Conference 2009

RWAustralia Clayton’s Conference is over for another year. We had a lot of fun with the Inaugural Clayton’s Conference Awards. Some really great entries in all categories, as well as the weekend writing challenges. You all know how much I love writing challenges. LOL. So goodie bags are packed ready to send out, just need to print off Our Sponsor’s Information leaflet to go with each bag and I’m finished until next year.

On the writing front, not a lot has happened. ‘Robin Hood and His Merry Maid’ has been released by Kiwi Writers. I’d like to expand on this one, but I’m thinking instead of this short story being the last in the series, I’ll make it the first, which is why Robin goes on his lustful journey. All I need to do is keep it a bay long enough so I can get my editing done. I may write ‘Robin’s Adventures’ for NaNoWriMo this year. I have just over two months to get my act together.

Tannia Franklin did a ‘Time Management’ workshop with us over the weekend, I think I need to get some of that happening. Thanks Tannia. I’d also like to thank: Anne Whitfield, Zana Bell, Joanna Challis, Heather Brown, Rhian Cahill, Diane Curran and Valerie Parv, for taking the time to hold workshops and chats we us over the Clayton’s weekend. I also have a mile of people to thank for donations, I’ll do that tomorrow.

Okay, I’m off favourite son-in-law has just arrived. See ya.
Sandie

June Ends, July Starts

I’ve been slack AGAIN, and I’m not even going to try and say it’s because I’ve been writing and editing up a storm because that would be a half truth. I have been writing and editing but not near enough to reach my goals this month. The other half I’ve been procrastinating, mostly because my stupid computer has had major Male moments. Yes, poor excuse I know.

Anyway the month is over and I need to focus on moving forward. This morning I had a light bulb moment. I’ve been doing my reviews and thinking this is NOT working! Why? I don’t have enough conflict. I’ve also been going back over my notes from Bootcamp, which is why I had the light bulb moment. My conflict between my hero and heroine is wishy washy, dull, poring, bloody pitiful really. Aren’t I lucky July is editing month, as well as August and September, and the way things are looking so will October. Here’s my plan, I have the stories written. That’s a good start, now I’m going to go over each sentence, paragraph, page and chapter pulling them apart and putting them back together. I’ll make a list of the conflicts I have and how to improve them. Even the seven chapters I’ve already edited are getting another going over. WHO the hell said writing was easy?

In other news my new reviews for Fallen Angel Reviews are up on my review site. The Clayton’s Conference is coming together, hoping to have that sorted well in advance of time. I got the judges score sheets from the Valerie Parv Contest and my scores were much the same

as other judges so that was good. I’ve joined a group that is working their way through Donald Maass’s Writing the Breakout Novel workbook, now this I’m looking forward to, it should help me with my conflict problems. Oh and I got my books from Amazon that I ordered, so excited. I also bought a couple of books from Borders the other day, yes I’ve well and truly used up my book budget for the next few months, except for the Margie Lawson course I’m going to get. All I need is time to read them all.

Okay sitting here chatting like this is not going to get anything done. I’ll be BACK.

Happy writing.
Sandie

Thursday's Thoughts ~ Still Editing

Yes, I'm still around somewhere. Editing is moving along slowly. I've changed tactics for a while, instead of trying to edit three novels at once I'm working on the first fifty pages of one and than I'll move on to another one.

So for the moment I'm editing 'We Were In Love', I do believe I'm getting somewhere with this. Chopping the first two and a half chapters is working well, even if I'm still not sure where I'll find all those lovely missing words now. LOL. But I will press on and hope for the best.

I also had two more stories jump into my head the other day, Lord I do wish they would stop doing that, anyway I made some notes and I'm hoping that will keep them a bay for a month or two, like until June would be good.

It would have been my Dad's 83rd birthday yesterday so my sisters and I took Mum out for morning tea. She has settled into the nursing home really well, which is great and one worry off my mind. One of my nieces and her partner are thinking of buying my childhood home, I'm keeping my fingers crossed on this one. It would make Mum very happy if she knew the family home was going to stay within the family, we should know for sure by next week I think.

I've also been fighting migraines the last couple of days, I woke up Tuesday with a dozy, yesterday morning wasn't too bad but by the time I got home from having the morning with Mum I went down like a tonne of bricks again. This afternoon I'm feeling a lot better.

That's where I'm up to at the moment. I hope to have the editing finished on 'We Were In Love' by Monday so I can work on at least one other before the Valerie Parv contest entries are due, even if I'm still not sure if I'll enter it yet.

See ya.
Sandie

Monday Madness ~ Editing

Yep, you guessed it I'm back editing. Just to make things interesting, I'm not just editing one novel, no, I'm editing three. Well the first fifty pages of three anyway, of which I'll pick the one I'm going to enter in the Valerie Parv Awards.

So the Romance 109 Bootcamp finished at the weekend, and it was fantastic. All I need to do now is use the information I learnt and use it to better my writing. My fellow bootcampers and I have started a critique group so that should be helpful and interesting.

I was on you tube earlier and come across this video, plus there are more so I thought I might post a different one each day for a while. they look like they will be very helpful with my editing at least. This first one is a problem I think I may have. LOL.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNRM4c8M--Q


Happy writing & editing.
Sandie