August: editing and education

Hello, hello!!

I hope you're all still doing okay in this one of a kind (PLEASE be one of a kind) year. I can't believe how fast it's going by considering I haven't done anything big or noteworthy. I have done nothing for so long that the other day I got excited to have the house to myself for the night. I'm daydreaming about taking weekend trips in my own state. Freaking odd, I tell you. I'm grateful to be an introvert and all the extroverts, hang in there!

I got some good work done on a couple of my goals, but I gave myself a small break after Nanowrimo so I don't burn out, and it was kind of a tough month- my old cat, Fuzzy, died of old age. He was almost seventeen, so he lived a nice long life, but he was my writing buddy and I miss him a lot.

When I did work, I focused on mostly editing. I edited a couple short stories I'm going to submit, and lots of old pieces just to practice, and I'm reworking my Runeless outline in preparation for the next draft of that. I also took another few classes that were amazingly helpful through Hugo House, including finishing another Masterclass. I'm slowly working my way through all of the writing lessons they have, when I finish them I'll do a review of what I thought of them all if anyone is interested.

Numbers:

Words Written: 26,100

Days Worked: 26/31

Progress:

The House on the Rocks- I didn't do much on the actual book this month, but I did work on my query letter to submit it. (Why is it so much harder to write a page pitchign the story than to write the entire novel??) This month my goals are to finish the query letter, make my hopefully final edits to the first few chapters, and start actually submitting it! Wish me luck!!

Runeless- One more chapter done, only four more to go! I'm getting so freaking close I can taste it. I just can't wait. This is the most ambitious project I've ever attempted and it's taught me so much, and it needs a lot of work before i can share it but I can't wait to start editing. I'm goign to do another chatper this month, and then antoher in october, and then I'll finish the draft this coming Nanowrimo!

Resources:

I joined the Pacific Northwest Writer's Association (or PNWA) last year, and I've been finding they post really helpful content recently. They have monthly emails that offer great writing tips and helpful prompts on a variety of subjects, and different online classes that they've been running that don't cost much during the pandemic. I went to their conference last year- which is coming up later this month!- and it  was an amazing experience that I recommend to anyone who can make it. They've moved it online because of Covid, and some of the classes look super helpful so I'm optimistic it's going to great again. I'm going to miss Pitchfest, I don't see how they could really do that online and it was the most helpful part of the conference last year, but I am looking forward to being able to attend the classes from my house instead of navigating through dozens of classrooms.

See you next month!! :)