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Posts Tagged ‘vacation’

Blog Vacation

I’m taking an internet hiatus for a while. I’ll be around a bit, but probably not updating here much.  I’m going to resume the weekly Casimir Hypogean posts as well as the Neo-pro Interviews in January.  I have a ton of work to get done between now and the new year, so I’m taking a brain break from everything else.  Which is not to say I won’t post if I absolutely feel I have something to say, but I’m not going to try to keep myself on a schedule or add any more things to my to-do list.

For the next couple months, life has to be all about the writing. I’ll be back in January with new goals for the new year and a summary of how 2010 went.

Thanks.  Hope everyone has a great holiday season.

Exoskeleton Fail

I am back from vacation. I made the mistake of thinking 85 strength sunblock applied twice over (a few hours apart) would do the trick. Managed to burn myself so badly on the first day (snorkeling twice, swimming in pool, then a 2+ hour walk in the afternoon) that I spent the rest of the trip wishing I could levitate so my burn body wouldn’t touch anything. Yeah. Not fun.

I spent most of last week on painkillers swathed in aloe and hiding from the sun (though I probably made the burn worse by venturing out multiple times… it was too lovely there to be able to hide indoors. Which should mean lots of writing done, right? Not so much. See, the worst burn is my shoulders, arms, and… hands! Also, I scraped up a few knuckles on some rocks (but I got to touch a sea turtle, so it worked out).

I got a couple chapters done and an entire other novel outlined. That second bit was an accident, but I was so inspired by the landscape and the ideas hitting me that I had to at least get the gist down in outline form.

I can still finish the current novel by the end of the month. If I put my head down and go. (Burn is healing, the blisters have split, the skin is starting to fall off like crazy… TMI yet? *grin*). So that’s the plan. Write like the wind and get this novel done so I can start the next one.

Oh, and I averaged one rejection a day while I was gone. Gave me lots of admin work to do today. Got all but one story back out, it is in an envelope waiting on the mail tomorrow, so it is basically done and out. Nothing like a stack of “thanks but no thanks” waiting for you to return. Fun day I had today, heh. I’m really missing short story writing though. Haven’t gotten a new one out in a few weeks and it feels weird. I did get notice that yet another story is under “final consideration” somewhere, so that’s 4 now I get to live in suspense with. Strangely, I feel fairly calm about it. I guess I’m so focused on getting the writing done that once something is out the door, I don’t worry about it too much. It’ll either sell or it won’t. Meanwhile I’m learning some neat new tricks from some of the books I’ve been reading and (hopefully) implementing that stuff in my own writing.

So that’s the story of my vacation. Time to get back to work…

Vacation!

I’m on vacation.  Because I work for myself and can go on vacation when I want.  Seriously.  Also, I was stressing myself out with made up deadlines because I knew I was going to be gone for almost two weeks in the beginning of April and the writing was starting to be very very not fun.  When I did my writing schedule at the start of the year, I left room for 6 months of “off” time because I know how I write and function.  I wanted to make sure I worked out a schedule that left me time for the rest of the things in my life I enjoy doing.  I’ve gotten a bunch accomplished this year already, I can afford a couple weeks off, especially if I return to the writing revitalized and ready to tackle it.  (And I’ll admit, I haven’t totally been on vacation, I’ve clocked a few hundred words on a story because it was there and I wanted to.  And my brain is full of scenes and ideas for one of my novels, plus I’ve been reading a lot of thrillers and looking at pacing and mood in them.)

I’ll be at Norwescon from the 1st through the 4th.  I imagine it will be a different experience than last year.  I’ve sold a story, have a lot more knowledge about publishing and writing, and will actually know people this year.  I’m looking forward to it, as well as the workshop portion.  I’m curious how the stories will go over, both have now garnered a few very nice rejections from various places, so I’m interested to see what this batch of pros has to say about them.

Then I’m down to Cali to see family, during which I will ride lots of rollercoasters and get zero writing done.  But I’m back and resuming mad writing plans as of the 12th.

So, to restate my crazy plan.  Get home, write five novels and 16 short stories.  That’s it. Though it looks like two of those novels will be done first, since they are getting the most brain time.  Also, once I get back I’ll be making my first ever submission to the market that started the whole wanting to be  writer madness: “MZB’s Sword and Sorceress”.  Finally have a story I think might work, after about 19 years.  It’ll be an historic moment.  Or something.  And if I get accepted I’m pretty sure my head will explode.  Good times.