And March is on!

It's here, it's here!!!
And I am tired.... lol I just realized about 15 minutes ago that it was actually the new month. Wooo, go go sleep deprived brain.
I went out with a couple of my friends last night, we had fun. I was sober and I still had fun, which is fantastic. We chilled at Sarah's for a couple hours, chatting, then went into town and played some pool, had a big of a boogie and then went down to the beach for a midnight swim. I was the only one who got in very far... lol the others just rolled their pant legs up and paddled. Admittedly the water was pretty dark, and there was a chilly breeze, the water was so nice tho! It's a very safe beach in the port though, it was refreshing, enlivening, took me back to my teenage years when anything was a possibility and ever suggestion was considered.
I think I'll be doing things like that more often.

Anyways.... I should really start something today! I have two weeks to write 10K, and in those two weeks I also need to get at least 25 hours of editing done. My brain isn't functioning well enough to be able to do the math there - other than to suggest that today, I really need to get a good start! I think I will begin with getting a good start on the fantasy challenge, and then move onto some editing later this evening, we'll see how it goes.
We're having a roast post for dinner tonight, followed by some home made dessert, and then a DVD. I'm looking forward to it. It feels like awhile since we just kicked back and relaxed for an evening rather than trying to get things done.

broken printer grrr

Why now??
It's quite frustrating, because I was planning on printing something out so that I could make some notes on it, work on it... but no. I can't print anything at all, it just refuses to feed the paper through. It thinks it is, but it's not. It's printing onto itself, not paper.
It's just over two years old, and has been worked really hard over those two years, printing many hundreds of photos, endless pages of assignments and novels. So it has done well, I just wish it could have held in there for a little longer.
The good news is that Simon said we can get a new one anytime, a better one ooooooo *giggles gleefully* How grand.

March is nearly here!

And it is going to have to be a big one - I signed up for NaNoEdMo a couple days ago which requires 50 hours of editing on your novel. It's a pretty big number, but I am well aware that I really need to get to work and get this done and am hoping that this will help to spur me on in a mad dash towards completion come the end of March.
Aside from this, I also, much earlier, had signed up for the March Fantasy Madness challenge over at Kiwiwriters. And I want to do that as well - we'll see how this pans out. My original plan was to have all my editing done by now, but the reality is that the wedding, pre and post, took up a lot more of my time and resoures than I ever imagined that it would. I've been quite sick, tired, trying to re-energize, but finding it hard to focus in on what needs to be done with the writing side of my life.
The editing was meant to be done. I was going to do that 10k in the first two weeks of March to kick start me back into the WIP, and all was going to be well, I was hoping to have the first draft finished by the end of March so that I could get into Script Frenzy come April.
It would have to be a hugely productive month in order for both the editing of one novel and the first draft of another to be complete.
So we'll see how it goes... lol, there is very little else going on in my life right now so it should be fine. But then, it's easy to say that now, and very easy for things to come up which get in the way - must focus, must try my best, and get myself back on track. If it comes to it I will once again flag Script Frenzy, though I was sad to miss out on it last year and feel ready to write the script that I have been wanting to since I did a paper on script writing, I wasn't brave enough to make it an assignment though because I wasn't sure I could pull it off well enough to get a good grade. It needs to be written though, if not this year, then next I guess.

Revision.

One thing which I have always remembered from one of the writing papers I did through my degree was a tutor who considered that the story you write the first time should never be the same as the final version of it - while I never really agreed with him on that (and cringed hugely at the requirement that the final version of the story we submitted for our final assignment be at least 60% different from the original) I can see now that there is some merit in the idea.
I don't necessarily think that the story has to be different, but I do think I am coming around to the idea that you need to think harder, push your story more, try different things out for size before you can really settle on how it will be in the end.
Revision he would say, was a re envisioning of the story - and I know he would have been happier if the original and the final product barely resembled each other at all, I know for a fact that those whose stories were so incredibly radically different from the originals got better marks than those whose stories did not change much at all.
Mostly this has arisen in relation to the novel that I am currently editing - after reading The Complete Guide to Editing Your Fiction by Michael Seidman, who has similar thoughts on making sure you really explore the ideas you have and try different things out to see what works best. I decided that my story was not 'enough'. For want of a better way to describe it. It's a good story - I know that because a lot of people have told me. I have a friend who has read it like three times now and claims she loves it, and thats wonderful. But I have decided that I want to make it the best story that I can, and in order to do that, I need to push it further. It needs to be 'more'.
The fear now is will I make it too much? Will it grow too out there, too over the top? When will I know that it's just right? I can't know until I try though, can I.
Originally I was worried about it not really fitting into a particular category, I think I was worried that 'Urban fantasy' just wouldn't cut it. But that's what it is, and I have decided not to try and force it into being something other than that. I could, but I don't think that would make it a better story, I think it would make it worse - thats pretty much how I felt when I did my final assignment for that tutor, who I loathed in so many ways, it was a creative writing paper, not a literature writing paper and he really went nuts on me over the story I wrote that was a 'genre piece', it's a good story, I liked it. I rewrote the other story instead, because I wasn't so fond of it, I rewrote it exactly how I knew he would want me to. And I got a good grade, and felt disgusted with myself.
I guess sometimes you have to write for a certain market in order to get the payoff, and as long as you LIKE the market then thats fantastic. For now I'm not going to force myself to write something I don't think I will enjoy simply to make it more marketable though. I'll write the stories/novels I want to, and see where it takes me. I am sure I will experiment with different genres and styles, and eventually there will be something that works for me. I am sure of it.

Horray for photos!

So, I scanned in some of the pics I got yesterday.... so keen to share am I!
They aren't very high quality but they will certainly do for now. Prepare yourselves for a slideshow, and after this... I will try and stop talking about the wedding!

photos

Once I scan some in I will put a couple more up, we got some absolutely stunning pics from my friend Tamara today, who works for our photographer and tagged along taking plenty of her own - they are so good!!! I can't imagine how his are going to be better but she is sure they are lol.
I can't think about anything else right now, despite the fact that I have this big post in my head from pre photo time today about my editing situation. That post will have to wait until tomorrow. Tonight, my head is reliving the wedding and glorying at how amazing these photos are!

whats that word again? derailed? distracted? off target?

So, almost a week after the wedding and I feel like I have done nothing since - I can call it recovery time, I can call it slacking off, I could make many excuses - but the reality is that I just have not done a thing. The house work is getting done, the little one is being looked after and amused, I started reading a book on editing, but that is about it.
And I feel a little disappointed in myself, because I was sure that I was going to be getting back into things straight after the wedding and it just hasn't eventuated, and I have nothing/no-one to blame but myself.
And what am I going to do about it??
I'm not sure.
I feel a little lost I think, I'm lacking a little direction, unsure of where exactly I want my life to go from here - I mean, I have a list of goals and I could work my way down them and that would be all very well. But I feel like right now is a good time to reassess things, and set myself on a course of action I will truly be happy with.
Parts of me are toying with working on a couple short ideas, polishing short stories, submitting, hoping to get something, anything published and I realize that is the part of me that wants a little instant gratification, a quick fix to me feeling like my writing is going somewhere. On the other hand I really want to finish rewrites and editing on the first novel so that I can get that out into the world. But right now I am feeling a little conflict over that as well.
I could take it in so many directions. I could increase the NZ content and boost it's chances of selling within NZ, or I could boost the 'romance' side of it and submit to any number of places which publish romance. There are other directions I could go with it, and I just can't say right now which one is the right path for the book. I don't know who I could possibly ask who could give me the right kind of advice on it either.
I think what I really need to do is sit down and thoroughly explore what it is I want from my writing - why am I doing this? What are my goals within writing? Do I want to sell books, or write the books that I want to? are they part of the same goal?
And in the meantime - how on earth am I going to make some money?? Writing is not one of those careers you can hedge your bets on, it's never guaranteed that you'll make anything from it. So while I am sitting around, waiting to get pregnant and become a mother for the second and first time, what do I do??
It's complicated. The fact of the matter is that it's next to impossible to get extra hours of childcare, I have 18 set hours and trying to find a job which works within that schedule is impossible. Not only that, but the jobs that I have applied for, which would have been wonderful, seem to think that I'm not worth employing, or maybe that they couldn't pay me enough or that I would take off at the next best offer due to the fact they aren't highly skilled jobs and yet I am, in several areas, highly skilled, well educated, really, who takes a uni graduate with a double major seriously when they are applying to be a check out chick, or work behind the counter in a retail store? So do I work nights and miss out on quality time with my man? Do I work weekends and miss out on the only time we really have together as a family? What is more important, making some extra money (feeling like I am bringing some financial benefit into the family), or ensuring that our little unit is as solid as it can be? Do I lie my omission about my quals? I just don't know, I really don't. Maybe I should become an Avon lady.
All I can do is hope that a solution presents itself in the near future. Something is bound to come my way right?
The path of my novel has got to become clear soon as well. And I shall try and avoid distraction, get back to work on the big projects, and work on the small ones in my downtime. Number one priority is getting this edit complete so that I can get it out in the world and get back to working on the WIP. There is a massive list of things that need writing/rewriting/editing/submitting this year, and I need to get on top of it.
if only I knew for sure which way to take this novel....