Friday, December 26, 2008

Shiny New Year

I perhaps should have named this blog "How to Post Irregularly and Expect People to Still Be Around When You Manage to Update Again."

Generally, I don't do New Year's resolutions. I've found that if I haven't forgotten them by the time I remember to write the correct date, I've put them aside anyway. Still, it's a good time to rearrange priorities and my writing, both of the blog and of fiction, are shooting to the top of mine.

A Writer's Block will still be about reading and writing with a heavy emphasis on my beloved urban fantasy. I will still post whenever I want, but it'll be with a minimum of once a week. Oh, and it will still have much to do about my shift--or lack thereof--from would-be novelist to novelist.

Welcome to my shiny New Year.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Post NaNo Update

Middle thing first...I'd never heard of Nathan Bransford the literary agent; now that I have, check out his 2nd-Sort-of-Annual Stupendously Ultimate First Paragraph Challenge. If you're another fledgling writer with a manuscript (and read this by Thursday, 4pm Pacific), why not give it a try?

First thing second, I made it just under 30,000 for NaNo. As much as "this is the year", I'm not all that upset. I like the story, I like that I can finished it with a lot more thoughtfulness, and I like that I can then go back and rework the themes and ideas that got lost in the mad rush to 50,000.

Last, but absolutely not least, A.J. Menden's Penominal Girl 5 has been nominated for Romantic Times' 2008 Reviewers' Choice Award for Best fantasy/futuristic romance. You go, girl! (And those of us who haven't already should give the publishing industry a push by picking it up and seeing what all the buzz is about.)