2007 Wrap-Up

Let’s revisit my 2007 goals for a minute.  How did this year measure up to where I wanted to be with my goals?

1. Write a minimum of 1,000 words a day. I think it’s safe to say I bombed out on this one.  I did it for a while, slacked off, did it again.  I guess the success is in the effort.  I did try, but sometimes work and family stuff got too much in the way.  And let’s not even talk about the week I was literally in bed with my back.
2. Send a minimum of one query a week.   Same as above.  Since I started the Just Hit Send challenge at the AbsoluteWrite Water Cooler, I’ve done a lot better at this.
3. Develop a minimum of 2 greeting card ideas a week and send them out when I get batches of 5 or 6.
   
   I scrapped this one in April.  I’m not a greeting card writer.  I’m sure I could learn to be, but at this point, I’m not sure I want to.
4. Maintain a tickle file of article ideas that I add to weekly. I’m still doing this.  I have a virtual file and a physical “file.”  The physical file is a notebook large enough to write in but small enough to fit in my purse, regardless of which one I’m carrying at the time unless it’s a mostly-decorative one.

There were some great successes this year, too.

1. I was a writer-in-residence at the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow for a month.
2. I received an honorable mention on a fantasy short story in May.
3. I had a poem published on TheVerseMarauder.com in June.
4. I received an honorable mention on two historical romances in October.
5. I attended two conferences.
6. I had a poem accepted for publication in Writer’s Journal; publication is still pending.
7. I had four website reviews published in the OWFI Report.
8. I got an on-spec assignment for an article to a national magazine.
9. I had two speaking engagements.
10. An agent asked for a partial of KIERNAN’S CURSE.
11. I had a guest blogger article on The Commune.

This has been a very good writing year.  Next year, with a little more effort, will be better.

Filed under: writing , contests, honorable mention, Jen Nipps, jennipps, WCDH residency, Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow, writing

Tug of War

I have been remiss.  I have yet to mention anything about the WGA writers’ strike here.  I’ve been keeping up with the tug of war, though.  Perhaps waiting for an outcome before posting?  Who knows.

A search on Google will pull up quite a list of site references for the strike.  I’m sure there are likely some irrelevant results in there as well.  It seems there usually are, landing among the good ones by virtue of some keyword magic.  Interestingly, there are also some results that are videos on YouTube.

This article on Wikipedia seems to summarize it rather well, though it should be noted there is a notice on there that it has been flagged to be checked for neutrality.

On the news this morning, I heard where Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien, and David Letterman will resume their shows without writers.  The WGA has prohibited its members from writing for such awards shows as the Golden Globes, the Emmys, etc.

My take?

You’d think the powers that be in Hollywood would realize they’re up the proverbial creek without a paddle without writers.  True, there are non-WGA members who are willing (at the moment) to step up and fill in the gaps.  How long will that last?  How long will it be before they too decide they want the same things the WGA is currently fighting for?  Would it truly solve anything?  It’s doubtful.

Filed under: writing , Conan O'Brien, David Letterman, Google, Jay Leno, Jen Nipps, jennipps, WGA, Wikipedia, writers, writers' strike, writing, YouTube

5 Random Facts

I don’t know how random this will be since it’s on my writing/creativity blog and I only post things related to that.  It still covers a lot of ground, though.

Weirdits, aka plaidearthworm at Squiggle, tagged me with this last week.  I was sick with a head cold/sinus infection that wouldn’t quit so I’m just now getting to this.

First, the rules: 

Link to the tagger and post these rules on your blog. Share five facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird. Tag five people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

1. When I’m sick, I can’t string two coherent sentences togehter to save my life.  (WHich is why you’re getting this this week instead of last week.)
2. I want to be a creativity coach and will start taking classes to that end when I get a high speed connection and get off dial-up.
3. Sometimes I think about how neat–yet how much work–it would be to write for a TV show.
4. I have enough material for a short book of poems (about 80 pages) and have thought about getting it in print through somewhere like Lulu.
5. I didn’t write a thing last week and I feel the void already this week.

I don’t know who to tag.  Let’s see….

How about Rinda at The Write Snark, Carys, April, Kiz, and Lor at The Commune. 

Filed under: not writing, writing , Jen Nipps, jennipps, meme

The Residency Experience

Up until this point, my writing life can be summed up in six letters:  BES (Before Eureka Springs) and AES (After Eureka Springs).

From September 18 until October 11, 2007, I lived at the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow (WCDH) in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, as a writer-in-residence.  In the beginning, I looked forward to a change of pace and a break from the daily deadlines of my day job.  I especially anticipated the freedom to work on two large projects I had mostly neglected.

For the month, writing became my job.  I pushed myself to do as much as I could.  I had two goals: to edit “Kiernan’s Curse” (a historical romance set in Ireland at the beginning of the Middle Ages) and to complete the first draft of “Devon’s Wish” (another historical romance 100 years after the first, following the same family).

I thought I had set my goals too high.  True, I had a month.  At the outset, that seemed like a long time but when broken down into daily and weekly tasks, it didn’t look like much time at all.  Was it enough time to finish two large, barely begun projects?  I doubted it.

As the days passed, I averaged a chapter a day on the new draft and anywhere from half a chapter to a chapter and a half on the edits.  In the middle of the residence, I took a day off to do a community outreach program at a senior citizen center.  (I presented the Idea Pocket, a concept I developed to encourage the development of creative thinking skills). 

Without the stress and pressure of the day job, my productivity soared.  (As a side note, so did my marketing and submissions.)  A week before I was due to leave WCDH, I wrote the last scene on the new draft.  Three days before I was to leave, I completed the edits.  Then I made a mistake that took me closer to pure panic than I have ever been.

I deleted all of my edits!

I had one saving grace: I printed everything as I went.  In my last days there, I re-entered the edits for the first three chapters.  I had an appointment with a literary agent at an upcoming conference and wanted them ready on the off-chance she requested the pages.  (She did, but requested I send them via e-mail.)  I re-entered the remaining chapters after I returned home.

My time at the colony taught me some key things.  

• I can do a large amount of work in a relatively short period of time. 
• I need to be able to get out to reconnect with nature in order to feel whole and creative. 
• I need contact with people for the same reason. 
• Most importantly, I need to be around my family in order to feel whole and creative.

To answer any questions of if I would do it again, I plan to be there in October 2008.  I chronicled a lot of my residency, including an interruption by a squirrel, on my blog. 

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Originally published in the OWFI Report, December 2007

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To view previous entries about the residency, click on the “WCDH residency” tag in the right-hand column.

Filed under: revisions, writing , Jen Nipps, jennipps, WCDH residency

WritersWeekly.com: A Website Review

WritersWeekly.com bills itself as “the highest-circulation freelance writing ezine in the world.”  The site is part of the Booklocker.com family.  Angela Hoy maintains the newsletter and markets.

Features of the site include:

Newsletter:  The newsletter includes articles by freelance writers (WritersWeekly is a paying market), success stories, warnings against unethical agents and publications, and a listing of other markets.  The newsletter is released via e-mail every Wednesday.  For those who are a bit more Internet savvy, they also offer an RSS feed instead of e-mail.

Articles, columns, and interviews:  Articles cover beginning freelancing; fiction techniques; and interviews with authors, editors, and agents.  

Discussion forum:  Sub-boards on the discussion form cover warnings, freelance jobs and paying markets, freelance writing, interview requests/call for experts, and “Angela’s Books.”

Special features:  There are some special sections set aside for self-publishing resources, new writer resources, and free reprints.

E-courses:  WritersWeekly.com also has WritersWeekly University, which offers online classes covering various writing-related issues.  Each course appears to last from three weeks for “mini-courses” to six weeks for full-length courses.

Store:  Books are available to be ordered from Booklocker.com.

There are currently multiple broken links throughout the site.  However, since there is also the message board attached to the web site, most of the broken links may be there.  However, with that said, the broken links only count for 3% of the total number of links so it does not appear they would cause anyone much difficulty in navigating the site.

The site design is largely uncluttered and easy to navigate.  Text-based links prevent broken images from making a guessing game out of site navigation.  Visitors to the site can access most of the information without signing up/registering for the discussion forum.

Disadvantages to the site are few.  The main one is the visibility of the Booklocker.com name. 

Rating:  * * * *

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Originally published in the OWFI Report, December 2007

Filed under: writing , reviews, web site reviews, web sites, Writers Weekly

Interesting

I didn’t write anything yesterday, so I’ve been determined to get some writing done this morning.

So far, I have managed a whole 7 lines.

I keep getting interrupted, distracted.  The others in this house keep coming in to visit or to ask a question.  The door to the laundry room, right next to my office (I like the sound of that – my office),  has opened and shut several times.  The little dog has come in several times, once demanding pets and scratches behind her ears.  (That’s not unusual, though.  She does that even during the day when I work from home and weeknights when I do most of the writing.)

Activities of daily living proceeding on Sunday morning.

Because of my day job, I typically write in the evening when they are watching TV and interruptions are few.  Since I didn’t do any writing yesterday, though, I thought to try for this morning.  I want to finish this chapter and be ready to start the next this evening.

Perhaps I will.

Filed under: writing , creativity, Jen Nipps, jennipps