My 750th Post count party!

Hey there, friends and followers. Today is my 750th post for the Kelworth Files, and even though it’s not a hugely round number, it’s a cool one, so I thought I’d throw a little party for it. Help yourself to anything at the bar, and there’s some pretty good cupcakes and pizza out on the coffee table. 😉

In case you haven’t heard it, ‘post count party’ is a term I came across on the SDMB message board – the forum software keeps track of how many posts members have made, so some people make threads just to congratulate themselves on their five thousandth post or whatever – and the mods do not always take kindly to them. 😉

So, it’s been about two and a half years since I started blogging, and I’ve had a great time here. This may not be the most successful blog in the whole world, but I kinda like it, and the friends I’ve made. I should probably concentrate on keeping up with some of my favorite bloggers, rather than just sitting here and doing my own thing… (Checks a blog randomly picked from memory in another tab, Trisha’s WORD+STUFF…)

Oh, man! Overcoming Adversity is today! Maybe I should wipe out this post and start working on a flash fic… I signed up for that, didn’t I?  Okay, yes, I signed up for it, but it spans two days. So stay tuned for my flash fiction on the subject of Overcoming Adversity, tomorrow on the Kelworth Files! 😀 We now return you to your regularly scheduled party.

Yeah, hmm… I do want to keep doing the blog hop thing. ‘Blog hop’ as a term seems to be getting more popular than blogfest, doesn’t it? That’s a good thing to keep in mind as I search for writers’ blog hops in 2013.

I’m looking forward to the craziness of the A-Z challenge, and I’m wondering if there’s going to be a Platform-building Campaign this year. Rach from Rach writes hasn’t posted anything since October.

And on that somewhat sad thought my train of thought rumbles to a stop. Except I still have enough brainpower to ask – what are you looking forward to, blogging-wise, for the rest of the year?

Nanowrimo Spotlight #17: Trisha (Word+Stuff)

Hey everybody! First, some great news, I’m a Nanowrimo winner once again. (Does a little dance of joy.) I was the first person to ring the bell this year at the Night of Writing Dangerously fund-raiser in San Francisco, whoo-hoo! (No free T-shirts this year for bell ringers, but I guess they need to cut back on expenses. And I’ve gotten enough free Nanowrimo T-shirts!)

And it gives me great pleasure to shine the spotlight today on a dear Blogosphere friend, Trisha.

What’s the most unusual part of your writing process?
Umm, I can’t really think of something completely unusual, since I have found that writers always seem to have their own particular habits, so none of us are that unusual. I guess it could be considered unusual to always be changing your process, as I am? And to have a different process for each new project that I start? I also go through heaps of drafts by myself before showing my work to any beta readers. And yet this could be the same for other writers too, for all I know. 😉

Where are your backup files?
I rely quite heavily on Google Drive at the moment, and the only copies of my work I have (the work I’m doing right now that is) are at home and on Drive. I try to have most recent versions of all my novels on Drive. There is also a copy of my current work on my work computer but that is less frequently updated.

What advice would you give to all your fellow Wrimos?
The advice I’ve always given when it comes to NaNo is to ‘write now, edit later’. Basically don’t worry if it’s crap right now, ’cause the aim of NaNo is to write fast. You can fix it if it’s messy at a later date. I know that advice is not unique to me, but it’s something that always works for me. But I know some people are more perfectionist than that, even when writing a rough draft. I only indulge my perfectionist side on much later drafts.

Sneaky Ninja Question! What do you have in your pockets right now?
I’m sorry but I’m in my PJs – a new blue top and pair of white pants with red polka dots that I recently bought – and these pants have no pockets! Generally if I ever do have anything in my pockets, it will be a) a hair elastic or b) my iPod Touch.

Trisha is a Western Australian writer, singer-songwriter, fine artist and traveller who blabbers about all of the above, in no particular order, on her blog.

Crusader spotlight: Word + Stuff

Okay, first off, I’d like to shine this week’s Crusader spotlight on Trisha, over at W O R D + S T U F F, as she spells it.

There’s a lot of cool stuff over at Word + Stuff, including Trisha’s Crusader challenge entry, music spotlights, really cool blogfest entries, and a 200 follower competition. And no, I’m not doing this spotlight just to get another chance to qualify in the competition for mentioning it in my own blog, though the prizes are indeed pretty nifty.

I had a lot of fun exchanging thoughts with Trisha in the ‘Hone your Skills’ blogfest last week.

And speaking of blogfests… I feel like an idiot.

I was feeling so excited about the Snoop blogfest, went over to Alison’s blog to check on if there was a word count limit or other rules – and found out that I’d missed the date by nearly three weeks. I mean, I knew that I was absent-minded sometimes, but how the heck does that happen?

All I know was that somehow I got the blogfest connected with March 23rd in my brain. I knew that it was a Wednesday, and I actually rearranged my blog schedule and shifted the Wizard of Mars series away from Wednesdays so that I’d be able to do Hone your Skills and Snoop. Except – well, you know. Snoop came and passed me by, back when I was working out a few other changes in my Blog schedule, and getting up to speed with National Novel Editing Month.

I’d still like to do the Snoop challenge, even though it wouldn’t be a formal part of the Blogfest. But I think that I’d feel too ridiculous posting it tomorrow, and in any event, I have a Crusader Challenge to write! I may try doing it on April 22nd, if I can’t find anything else I’d rather do that starts with an S for the A-Z challenge. Or, I might just do it in a week, and slip it in before A-Z starts.