Writing Status

Writing. Writing writing writing writing. Even my revised goal of finishing a draft of The Masque before Baby's Big Day seems less and less likely. I'll be very happy if I can finish my "Princess Incubus" short and submit it to a writing contest before Baby's Big Day. As for the on-line writing course for Strings of Betrayal, I'm slowly but surely getting caught up after lagging two months behind. And I still can't make up my mind about the fate of Human Dignity.

The good news? I go to my crit group nearly every Tuesday (there are some Tuesdays where I need sleep more than I need writing comraderie). I am being mentored by a published author on a monthly basis, maybe twice a month after the insanity that is May passes the both of us by. And as soon as I get the OK about using the author's name, I'll share it and my experiences with our mentoring here. I participate in the Forward Motion Think Tanks fairly often. I blog as often as I am able--which, you'll note, seems to be more often. And, of course, rarely does a day pass that I don't think about my various projects and manage to jot a note here and there.

So writing is still a part of my life despite the vagaries of my job and my pregnancy. It's not occupying the part I'd like it to play, of course. But I'm dealing with that necessity a bit better each day. It's still going to frustrate me. And maybe I'll figure out a way not to let it bother me quite so much by the time Baby and Baby the Second are out of the house. By then I'm sure I'll have a host of new Issues to work on. :)

As I go through these thoughts on my writing and it's place in my life in the past, present, and future, I'm reading with interest Holly Lisle's struggle with her own writing future. She seems to have reached a point where she doesn't want to propose (sell) a book and then write it. She'd rather do what us amateurs have no choice but to do: write the book THEN sell it. I confess that I'd rather do things that way for the rest of my writing career, but that's mostly because I'm an organic writer and I discover the books as I write them. Makes it hard to sell a book before it's written. As I will be providing only supplemental income with my writing when I no longer have to deal with the Dreaded Day Job, I may be able to get away with writing books then selling them. We'll see.

And that's the writing status as of today. Primary goal is to finish and submit "Princess Incubus". Secondary goal is to finish a draft of The Masque. Of immediate concern is finishing up my last couple weeks of missed assignments for the on-line course.