Weekend Writing Warriors – Love is a Masterpiece 5

Welcome friends, followers, and Weekend Writing Warriors!

Continuing with sentences from ‘Love is a Masterpiece’ this week. Last time, Geoffrey interrupted Cassandra’s attempt to run away from the line of couples waiting to go into the Goddess Frigga’s Tunnel of Love.

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Soon Geoffrey was exchanging stories with them all, as Cassandra stood back and watched.  The pocket watch man’s name was Julian, and he’d been married to mousey girl, Faith, for one week to the day.  The teenagers were Henry and Raven, and they were from the East End.

“Do you mind if I ask you about your gifts?”  Faith asked.  “It’s a horribly personal question:  what do you pick as a sentimental sacrifice for a goddess?”

“It’s hard to find something with the right emotional impact to show the value of a life full of love,” Geoffrey said.  He produced a canvas and unrolled it to show an oil painting of boats in a harbour and gulls in the air.  “It doesn’t look like much, but my grandfather’s best customer gave him this thank you gift, and passed it on to my father as a housewarming gift.”

Visit the other Weekend Writing Warriors at http://www.wewriwa.com/.

Follow Fest

Well, I seem to be following Natasha Hanova to some interesting blogfests recently, and one of these is the Follow Fest 2013! Check the linky lists to find tons more great authors.

Name: Chris Kelworth

Fiction or nonfiction? Fiction, if you please!

What genres do you write? Mostly science fiction and fantasy. I’ve dabbled in modern romantic comedy, I guess.

Are you published? Nope. Need to submit my writing places for that. 😉

Do you do anything in addition to writing?

Well, I do a lot of other things, but not really ‘writing biz’ stuff.

Where can people connect with you?

Right here at https://kelworthfiles.wordpress.com/ , and there are options in the sidebar to follow me via wordpress.com or NetworkedBlogs

You can follow me on twitter @ChrisKelworth

Facebook doesn’t do the follow thing, but you can friend me on Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/chris.kelworth

Is there anything else you’d like us to know? If you’re doing Nanowrimo this year, I’m going to be looking for new Nano spotlight interview participants soon!

What’s up Wednesday, September the twenty-fifth

My second week for the  What’s Up Wednesday blog hop, checking in and spreading some encouragement for keeping at the writing thing. So:

What I’m reading:

Finished new issue of F&SF magazine on my kindle, and started a new Audible book, the first in the Secret Circle series. I actually started reading that via Kindle on my Android, over a year ago, but couldn’t really follow it, so I decided to start it again as an audiobook.

What I’m writing:

Well, let’s see. I’ve been outlining some ideas for the Steampunk Roswell thing, and editing some stories! A revised version of “Love is a Masterpiece” should be heading out to the critters.org workshop tonight, so if you’re a critter, please look for it and give me some feedback! I’ve also spent some time wrestling with revision plans for “Gotta Have That Look”, and I’m bound and determined to submit “Tough Love” this week, possibly to “Writers of the Future.”

What inspires me right now:

Castle’s back on the air, and “Agents of Shield” have landed! Also just loving the google hangouts thing; going to join in a Nanowrimo hangout tomorrow.

What else I’ve been up to:

Still ‘Drawing on the Right Side’ of my brain. Think I’ve got the last bugs out of the Android Song Rater for now. Planning for Nanowrimo and attending the Reversed Polarity Doctor Who convention in Toronto, which they annoyingly scheduled for the first 3 days in November. 😛

What about you? Click here to join the hop or check in with some other great writers.

Weekend Writing Warriors – Love is a Masterpiece 4

Welcome friends, followers, and Weekend Writing Warriors!

Continuing with sentences from ‘Love is a Masterpiece’ this week. Cassandra ran away from the line of lovers in the park, while Mother wasn’t there to watch over her and before Geoffrey could meet here there, but…

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Geoffrey was sprinting to intercept her, his arms spread wide, a big grin on his face.

Cassandra slowed down to a jog, then a walk, turning towards Geoffrey. She couldn’t outrun him in the dress, and didn’t want him to realize that she had run away. He reached her in moments, hugged her tight, and swung her up in the air for a moment, which made her gasp. “Sorry I’m late. Is your mother holding our place?” He let go with one arm to wave towards the line.

On impulse, Cassandra headed toward the man in the pocket-watch and his lady friend, who were now ahead of the line’s end.

Visit the other Weekend Writing Warriors at http://www.wewriwa.com/.

A change in the Calendar of Goal Tracking letter lineup.

Okay, I guess it’s nearly 21 months that I’ve been working on my ‘calendar of goal tracking’ productivity trick. 🙂 Over that time, I’ve added a few new letters, and one multiple-letter code, to record new activities that I’ve been time-slicing, but I’m not sure that I’ve ever completely redefined a letter, until now.

Ever since the ‘Team Ambitious’ critique program started up, I’ve been spending a lot of time working on critiques for my Odyssey friends, and learning a lot from them. However, I think I’ve noticed that I’ve been spending less time and effort on drafting and revising my own pieces because of this, and that really does need to change. One of the places to get that change started, I think, is on the calendar. Somewhere along the way, I told myself that working on somebody’s critique was enough to get me an ‘E’ for the day. That stops as of yesterday. E is only for editing my own stuff, just like W is only for doing my own writing, and so on.

But I wanted to keep tracking the Team Ambitious critiquing stuff, and I fussed over what letter to use. T is already in use for the Thinking Sideways course, and A is for my Art exercises, so I couldn’t use either of them, and trying to use them both together could be really confusing. C is for Cleaning, and so on.

But I’ve made a decision. O was originally for Outlining new story ideas, but I’ve never really used that much, (even though I have some outlining to do soon on the Steampunk Roswell/Area 51 idea!) As of yesterday, O stands for Odyssey stuff instead.

And hopefully that’ll mean a few more Ws on the calendar, and some E’s that actually mean my stories are closer to getting submitted!

I join “What’s up Wednesday”!

I’ve been meaning to start doing blog posts for What’s Up Wednesday for a little while now. This is a little weekly blog hop for writers, sort of a friendly check-in and a way to spread some encouragement for keeping at the writing thing. So:

What I’m reading:

Some great short stories on my Kindle, from the new issue of F&SF magazine. I loved ‘Hhasalin’ – so sad! I wish I could write an alien story like that. Also Angel graphic novels, I just started “The Wolf, the Ram and the Heart” over the weekend, and more vampire stuff on audio: I finished “Vampire Diaries Nightfall” today while stuck in traffic, and I’m about two thirds of the way through Charlaine Harris’ “Dead Reckoning”

What I’m writing:

Umm, not that much, since I finished off the first draft of ‘Return to Civilization’ and got it sent off to Team Ambitious. I’ve been letting my ideas for the Steampunk Roswell/Area 51 story percolate, and I really want to start that soon, maybe this weekend!

What inspires me right now:

Seeing the stuff that my Team Ambitious classmates are coming up with. Making preparations for NaNoWriMo; only 42 plotting days until November 1st! And the ‘Repeaters’ exercise in my How to Think Sideways lesson, where I’ve finally passed through the ‘How am I ever going to do this?’ stage and gotten to the ‘Wow, this is cool stuff’ bit! 🙂

What else I’ve been up to:

Let’s see, got back to ‘Drawing on the Right Side’ of my brain, which was fun. Still reading slush for James Gunn’s Ad Astra and working on the Song Rater app for my Android phone. Updated the iPhone 4 to iOS 7 today, which looks pretty cool except I lost my podcasts and have to download the new podcast app, and I met Mom and my brother for some great burgers this evening.

What about you? Click here to join the hop or check in with some other great writers.

 

Weekend Writing Warriors – Love is a Masterpiece 3

Welcome friends, followers, and Weekend Writing Warriors!

Continuing with sentences from ‘Love is a Masterpiece’ this week. Cassandra and her mother have come to the park, where Cassandra’s supposed to meet Geoffrey and other couples are lining up.

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“It seems soon to be proving your love,” the man with the pocket-watch said. “But I wish you the best of luck.”

Cassandra nodded politely, and stepped sideways, just a little out of the line, to check for Mother. She was already nearly out of sight, just rounding the corner where the line of waiting couples approached the shallow canal. This might be her best shot. Cassandra hitched up the hem of her dress a little and ran for the busy street on the edge of the park. There would be horseless hansoms there, and she had a little money. She wasn’t sure where she would go, but the longer she could stay away from here . . .

Visit the other Weekend Writing Warriors at http://www.wewriwa.com/.

A delayed drawing and what else I’ve been up to lately…

Hello again, dear friends and followers. Sorry I haven’t been updating more often, but I guess I got out of the habit when I was off at Odyssey.

So, first off, I wanted to share another ‘Right side of the brain’ drawing tonight. I did this at the end of August, another perspective exercise, featuring the corner of a room:

I do like the way it came out, though sometimes I worry that I’m not getting too much from these exercises the way I come back to them every few weeks. I need to get started on some more drawing for September, maybe I’ll get some done this weekend.

So, what else have I been up to? Well, reading some cool short stories on my Kindle, (and out of the free copy of Asimov’s Magazine that Sheila Williams gave us when she came to lecture at Odyssey; that was my ‘to read in line’ staple back when I was at Fan Expo.) Also keeping up with Team Ambitious, the Odyssey class of 2013’s online critique circles project. Back when I was in New Hampshire, doing two critiques a day didn’t seem like a lot. Now, with a full-time job, getting two finished in two weeks can loom large.

I’m back to the ‘How to Think Sideways’ course again, working on my Song Rater app for Android, (that’s going pretty well, except that my Singleton appears to be losing data!) still reading slush for James Gunn’s Ad Astra, and I finally mailed off a cheque for my tenant’s insurance. Oh, and I think I’ve managed to fight off an ear canal infection with the help of some over-the-counter meds. Fun stuff. 😉

 

Weekend Writing Warriors – Love is a Masterpiece 2

Welcome friends, followers, and Weekend Writing Warriors!

Continuing with sentences from ‘Love is a Masterpiece’ this week. We’ve just met Cassandra and her mother…

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“We were supposed to meet Geoffrey promptly at two. What time is it now?” Mother pointed at the last man in line, who’d been whispering in the ear of the mousy woman next to him.

He looked up, retrieved his pocket watch, and consulted it. "I make it a quarter to three."

You stay and hold a place in line," Mother told Cassandra. "I'll find out if Geoffrey is doing the same thing further along."

Cassandra nodded and breathed a sigh of relief as her mother paced up the line.

Visit the other Weekend Writing Warriors at http://www.wewriwa.com/.

IWSG: There’s always more goals to reach for

Hey there, welcome to the August 2013 meeting of the Insecure Writers Support Group! I’m still struggling with my insecurities about knowing when my stories are ready to submit, but rather than ramble on about that, I thought I’d share another source of insecurity; monthly to-do lists.

I’ve been coming up with to-do lists of creative goals for several years now, a habit I picked up over at Stringing Words. Almost always, because I’ve got an optimistic and competitive bent, I come up with a long list of around a dozen projects, and most of the time I leave several of them unfinished to roll over to the next month.

I’ve talked with Elizabeth about this, and she always tells me that’s a great spot to be in. “Aim high, shoot for the middle” is her usual catchphrase, and I try to take that advice to heart. But sometimes it’s hard for me not to look at my end of month progress reports and feel like a failure, or get this insane determination to push harder next time, even when I don’t have the energy to keep up that pace.

For August, I had ten goals listed. Five of them, I definitely accomplished, including one where I definitely went above and beyond the target. One more I feel very confident in marking as a win, even though there might be a technicality that a nay-sayer could argue. (That goal was to stay caught up on the Ad Astra slushpile, and two new stories came in just before midnight on August 31st.)

For one more item on the list, I pulled a late substitution, and instead of revising “Gotta Have that Look” to submit to critters, I did some superficial edits to “Love is a Masterpiece” and sent that in instead, because I wasn’t feeling confident on where I wanted to go with GHTL. Two more goals I made progress on, but definitely didn’t finish; fanvidding and my “How to Think Sideways” lessons. And the last one, submitting a manuscript to a paying market, I can’t even give myself a partial.

So I was looking at that list and giving myself something like a seven out of ten. Elizabeth and Rinelle both cheered me on when they did their own end-of-month updates, pointing out that I’d accomplished a lot, and I know I have. But it’s hard to feel that way somehow.