Back to Work

Well, I enjoyed my ten days off from my book. Granted, it certainly wasn't exactly a vacation (trust me, I kept pretty busy!) It was, however, a break from from reliving the difficulties (and blessings) of my husband's health issues. It was good for me, I think.

I didn't exactly spend the time since I finished my rough draft twiddling my thumbs. I actually set a few goals for me to accomplish during my hiatus. And, if I say so myself, I did pretty well. I had set three goals for myself.

1. Submit at least three old writing challenge entries to magazines for possible paid publication: DONE - two last week, and one earlier today
2. At least start Rick Higginson's Marta's Pod: Not only did I start this fascinating, engaging manuscript, but I finished it--this morning, in fact. It was a pleasure to read and a very nice change
3. Participate in Jan's Master Class: I participated in this for two topics - the week before last, and last week. May yet do this week's, but I'm not sure. I definitely learned something :D

Anyhow, tomorrow, I head back to "the grind." I'm excited to get back into my manuscript and get it looking a bit more readable. I have a lot of work to do, but I have decided to focus specifically on the sequence and "breakdown" of it for this first month.

What does this mean, you ask? Well, I want to determine my "chapters" and their order. I did a lot of "blabbering" on paper, so several of my "chapters" have lots of different topics in them, and will need to be broken into smaller units. Also, I can't do this book entirely chronologically, as some of the things I cover happened years before Marc's surgery, so I need to figure out the order of events in the book, and thus the order of chapters. I plan to spend at least a bit of time on it every day in April (since I am definitely a routine kinda gal!).

I'm also very excited to start taking my very first online writing class: Take Your Book From Good To Sold, offered through Writers Online Classes. The class, taught by author Shirley Jump, runs from April 15 to May 15. (Come join me - it's only $30!) I'm sure the class will help me greatly in getting this book into decent shape.

Thank you so much, my dear friends, for your support through this venture. With God's help, I will get this done.