Starcat's Writing Desk

Hello lovely writers. This is just a quick update, in the midst of holiday preparations galore. I wrote 1465 words yesterday on my Patterns in the Void WIP, bringing my current total to 62,476 words toward a target of 100K. My progress here at the holiday-heavy end of the round is very slow, but at least it is happening. I have some good ideas for upcoming scenes, too, and I like the way some of the characters are stepping up.

I have gotten to a little bit of blogging this week. Other than that, I’ve mostly been working on de-cluttering, cleaning, and decorating our home. It’s looking good!

Our Christmas tree, all decorated. There are even some gifts under it already!

I’ve worked on a lot of holiday cards, which count toward my artwork goal. Drum practice has been going well.

On Friday, I was interviewed for a blog that is associated with the local daily newspaper. It went really well, and the writer/photographer who I spoke with was very cool. It feels like it was a good connection to make. I’ll post the link once it’s published.

Just keep swimming, everyone!

I confess, I haven’t worked on my novel in a couple of days. After the death of the refrigerator over the weekend, we took on another kitchen project yesterday. This one was voluntary, though.

As my holiday gift, Quester tiled part of our kitchen (behind the stove, sink and counters along the wall). It looks so great! It still needs to be grouted, but he did everything else in one day. Here, take a look.

Our floor is black-and-white, too, and most of our appliances are black, so it ties in really well.

Some of my rock collection got into the action, too, forming the border under the window. I love it!

I get to paint the whole great room next (we have an open concept kitchen-dining room-living room), but I need to wait for spring until that happens.

So needless to say, yesterday I was helping him move everything, which meant lots of cleaning and dusting, plus refilling the spices on the spice rack, de-cluttering the counters, and so forth. I’m really delighted with how it all looks! I also did some work on the holiday collage cards we make every year, which I guess fulfills part of one of my goals, so that’s good.

But my writing has been on the back burner so far this week. I did post a Starcat’s Corner blog post today, and the other night I got caught up on watching the Conquer Summit videos. I intend to get back to the blank page soon, though. My characters are calling me.

I hope your week is going well!

This was kind of a crazy week. On Friday evening my performance troupe had a gig at the First Friday Artwalk. An outdoor gig, with three 15-minute sets of drumming and fire spinning. Now, you should understand that we live in Maine, and it’s December. It was 28 degrees that night. Since there was no way we wanted to be hitting our bare hands on drum skins in the freezing cold, we did some “bucket drumming.” Five of us drummed with wooden drum sticks, flipped-over 5 gallon buckets, and milk crates to perch them on. Sounds cool – and you can wear gloves while doing it.

We’d done some rehearsing, as a group and separately, and it came out sounding pretty great! We even got compliments from a couple of musician friends of our troupe leader. We had our normal rehearsal today – indoors, with our usual hand drums – and that went well. My recent solo practice on the doumbek is paying off. I got a couple of compliments from our music director today, which means a lot since he only doles them out when we really deserve it.

Yesterday our refrigerator decided to die. We got it when we built the house, so it’s 14 years old. Luckily, my parents had given us their old one several years ago; we’ve been keeping it in the basement and using it as needed. We’ll probably still need to get a new one, as the backup fridge is quite a bit smaller (and we have two teenagers). But we’re fine for now. It took a while to make the switch, clean everything up, and all that, so it took up a big chunk of my Saturday.

Despite all that, and the ongoing holiday preparations and home de-cluttering, I’ve still been plugging away at my novel, Patterns in the Void. I’m now at 61,008 words toward a goal of 100K or so. Sometimes I feel great about the story, and other times I feel full of doubt, and not sure how good it is. I keep reminding myself that it’s just a first draft.

I hope your week goes well and that it’s full of creativity!

This week is going along nicely, after a bit of a slow start. I guess I needed a little break from my novel, but now I’m back at it. I’m at 54,979 words toward a target of about 100K. I also have a few scenes plotted out ahead, which include midpoint plot action for both of the main characters. Woo hoo!

The personal essay I wrote for my women’s group gathering was very well received. In fact, one of the women knows a local writer who might have some leads on publishing it, which is very cool. I’m making some new connections in the local writing and spirituality communities, which is wonderful. Lots of new opportunities along those lines (local and beyond) are showing up, and it’s both exciting and scary at the same time.

On the days when I wasn’t working on the novel, I got some more de-cluttering done around the house. I need to decorate for some upcoming holiday events we’ll be hosting, which is a great motivator for reorganizing, deep cleaning, and getting rid of unneeded things.

There are some areas I’m a bit behind on at the moment, like blogging and craft learning, but I have plans in place to fit them in. Basically, I went through my planner and for every item that wasn’t directly related to holiday preparations, family and household stuff, gigs, or ROW80 goals, I took those things off my plate until after the new year. Even if they do sound good, they can wait. I swear that I can “do it all,” but probably not all at once.

(Just kidding about the do-it-all thing. I’m still practicing the art of saying no. I’m learning.)

Have a great week and I’ll see you at the Sunday check-in.

This is the view outside my front door just moments ago. It’s a good day to stay indoors, warm and cozy, and do some writing. And cooking.

My NaNoWriMo novel is on track. I’m at 46,449 words as of right now. I’m also working on a personal essay I’ll be sharing at an upcoming gathering of my women’s group. I’m not sure what I’ll do with the piece afterwards, but if I can find someplace to submit it, like maybe a magazine, I might do that. Or I’ll use it as a guest blog post, or something. The working title is “A Tale of Loss and Belonging.” I’m pleased with how it’s coming along so far.

I’m also making butternut squash and pumpkin pie in preparation for tomorrow’s festivities. Our extended family will be gathering next door at my Aunt’s house for a delicious meal. I’ll plan to do a longer update on Sunday, but this is where I’m at for now. Watching the snow fall outside, knowing I don’t have to go anywhere today, and enjoying my creative time with words and foods.

I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving with those you love!

I’m cranking along on my NaNoWriMo novel, Patterns in the Void, which makes me a happy kitty. I’m now at 42,459 words. I’d been sort of pondering what to do about the novel post-November, as it definitely won’t be finished. I’m aiming for more like 100K words, which is average length for my genre (urban fantasy).

After talking with Quester about it, I decided to just keep working on my novel every day, even when we reach the busy month of December. Furthermore, I’ll continue to write for at least a couple hours every day, beyond my daily journaling and regular blog posting, on into the foreseeable future. It’s the obvious next step, truly.

These days I feel more than ever like a real writer, with a real career. Sure, I’m not selling enough books to make a living, not even close – yet. But I’m confident in my abilities, and that includes my capability to learn how to successfully publish, market, and sell what I write. Especially when I devote more time to it.

So, it’s time for this deeper commitment to myself, my passion for the writing life, and my Muses. I’m really thankful to ROW 80 and NaNoWriMo for helping me get to this point. It’s exciting, and a bit scary. But I’m ready.

I can do this.

I’m trucking right along with NaNoWriMo, and I’m on track to win, with 34,093 words written thus far. This week I’m working on Edmund the Magnificent’s back-story. I’m sure I’ll make the 50,000 words by the end of the month, but I’m trying not to worry about my actual target of 100,000 words. December is a busy month for me, but I don’t want to lose momentum on the novel. I guess I’ll just make a new plan when the time comes.

I don’t have much to say other than that. I’ve been getting in some drum practice, and mostly keeping up with blogging. There are quite a few things on my list that I haven’t gotten to, but NaNoWriMo is my big project right now.

And since that’s going well, I’m content.

I’m having a good writing week. I did some plotting on my NaNoWriMo novel on Sunday evening, and since then I’ve been fleshing out the scenes I planned. I guess I’m a “plottser” – I plan out the major plot points, but then kind of do the seat-of-the-pants thing as I fill in the other action. It’s fun.

My next guest blog post on SoulFire Om has been published.  I’m keeping up on most of my other projects, though my main focus has been on the novel. It’s November, so I expected that would be the case.

This evening BlackLion and I had some free time together, so we went and got dinner at Panera and had a Feline Dreamers summit. We went over our 2014 business plans to see what we’d accomplished so far, what we still want to do in the next couple months, and what our plans for 2015 might look like. It was a whole lot of fun! We shared ideas, consolidated some things, and did some blue-sky brainstorming. One of the strengths of our partnership is that we have lots of creative ideas, and we’re constantly learning more about how to manifest them.

I think 2015 will be amazing! Keep an eye out for Feline Dreamers; we’re going places!