Pushing Forward - A Goal/Progress Update

We're halfway through the year. NO- I can't believe it. It can't actually be July, can it?

Yup - that's "The Nile" for real (photo credit)

I know - denial is a river in Egypt.

ANYhow, I guess I should look through my yearlong AND monthly goals (hope you agree).

I have four 2012 overarching goals: to 1)learn a lot about the writing craft and apply it, 2)restructure Ailing Body, Nourished Soul and get it out, 3)work on planning, etc., the second tween bib fiction devo book, and 4)continue to build my name recognition/platform.

I've taken a LOT of classes so far this year, and am learning tons (check out my writing craft recap posts - another coming this Thursday!) AND am beginning to apply it to my writing. As far as ABNS, I've JUST submitted it to a contest whose first prize is a publishing contract and some cash (it's still open - check it out here). We've worked a bit on the second tween bib fiction devo book, but are waiting until we sell the first before we do much work (and speaking of, I'm planning to send a proposal to the same publisher who's hosting that contest :D). And for building name recognition/platform - I think I'm doing pretty okay there.

Okay - enough of the overarching stuff - how about goals for June? How'd I do?

And here are my June goals, right from last month's  goals/progress post:

• Keep up in the FREE ACFW online course, The Snowflake, by "The Snowflake  Guy" himself, Randy Ingermanson. I have heard SO much good stuff about this method for planning a novel, and I read his wonderful post about it - and am TOTALLY intrigued. Looking forward to working through this with him. I know I will learn TONS!
• Work on what I've learned in my classes this year to Handmaiden to A Princess, "fixing" another 60 pages of the manuscript. That brings me very, VERY close to the end of what I've got written so far.

Photo credit

 I DID keep up in the Snowflake class, though I must admit that first week was a doozy (over 1,000 emails). I learned a TON - mostly that I'm DEFINITELY a plotter, and I need to go through EVERY STEP of Randy's method (he covered four, and there are a total of ten) to get my book idea , etc. in shape. I WILL work on that - eventually. And you can pester me if it's been a while and I haven't mentioned it.

As far as editing - I made it  through ALL the pages I had left in Handmaiden to a Princess - Just out of those 60 plus pages, I cut at least TEN PAGES out. And it's tighter. We'll see if I'll actually be able to use any of it once I have my story REALLY figured out.

So, how about my July goals? Check them out below:

• Keep up in the FREE ACFW online course, Description, Dialog and Dirty Words by Publisher Jeff Gerke (sound intriguing, doesn't it?)
• Keep up in Writing and Researching Historical Fiction (runs July 9-August 5) at Savvy Authors - sounds like one I can use. Yathink?? ;)
• Fix up and send out the proposal for Jennifer Slattery and my tween bib fiction devo book to Write Integrity Press.

Considering it's summer, I'm thinking that's plenty. Thanks for reading, and cheering me on!

 
Traveling Rough Roads With God's Strength