Aug 5, 2013

Leap into the unknown ....

As far as "leaping off into the unknown" goes, I've had my share this year already. Not only did I start this blog in January, I have also chopped the head off a good number of other things.

First of all, I joined the group of Fiction Friday writers, discovering a new prompt every week and daring to write non-fiction for the first time in my life. It was quite the experience and I like what I did with those non-fiction prompts. In a way, it's enabled me to shed some light on certain things and to shake some stuff off. It's therapeutic to some extent and I know there will be more.

Next, I joined a number of communities, both on Blogger and on Facebook, expecting nothing but hoping for the best. Not all have proven to be interesting or useful or even helpful. Others have given me so much more than I could ever have expected. One of these Facebook groups (yeah, I can hear your comments all the way across, Facebook of all things!) has turned out to be the best thing I could possibly have gotten involved in. Not only did I find an incredible vibe there, and a bunch of awesome people, but they are also giving me the push I need to do what I want most: get my work published.
That's right, you read that correctly. I am going to get some of my work published because of/thanks to a Facebook group. These folks are fabulous and they are intense. They want to make it work and they will drag you along if you let them. I let them. In November of this year, the group will publish it's second anthology. I will be part of that. One of the short stories featured, will be mine. And there you go, Facebook isn't all bad, mom. It's getting me published!

This group has other plans on the table aside from this second book. There will also be a "Flash It!" anthology before the end of the year, which will feature 2 of my flash fics. A flash fic, for those who are unfamiliar with it, is a short stand alone story, written in 1.000 words or less. If you've been reading my blog, you might recognize the stories, I have edited 2 I had already posted here. Let me know if you find which ones they are. I'll be sure to keep you updated on a release date for this anthology as well.

Aside from these project, I have also participated for the second time in the Writer's Weekly 24-hour Flash Fic Contest. I think this story is much better than the one I wrote for the Spring Edition and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a positive outcome. Maybe I'll win something this time. The votes should be in by the end of this month at what time I'll post the story along with its prompt.

Next to all of those projects, I also enlisted in the summer edition of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). This usually takes place in November and you have one month to write a 50.000 word novel. Being a single mom with a full time job and a horribly long commute, I didn't think I would manage 50k in just one month, but the Camp version allowed you to set your own word count. I set my goal to 15k, hoping I would be able to juggle everything I had committed to.
I have no idea how I did it, but I did it and I got to a total word count of 16.451. That makes me a very happy camper. In more than one way. Not only did I reach my goal, the cabin I was part of, reached it's total word count, despite the fact one of the cabin mates balked out. One other mate didn't reach her goal, but the rest of us made up for that.







Now, I'm on vacation and I'm looking forward to a relaxing time with my son, possibly a few days at the beach, but not sure if and when and I'm hoping I can continue working on that novel I started. It's well on its way, that's for sure. And I am pretty confident this will be my first ever (self) published book. I will be sure to keep you updated about that, but now that I've found the drive to do this and the support I need to pull me through the hard times, I am definitely going to make that childhood dream come true. Finally!


And for those of you who are interested in that anthology I was talking about: here's a link http://writersanarchy.com/

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