Goals for Fourth Round of ROW80, Wendy Mass, and the Novella is Complete!

oals time already!


(thanks to Magali Studer for the lovely drop cap!)

We're entering the final round of A Round of Words in 80 Days (time flies when you look back!), so let's see how I did...

Here are my goals for ROW80 Round Three, with the completed ones marked:

Blog and craft-related goals

mail completed craft projects -- done!
complete current knitting project and send -- done!
update list of books read
catch up on blog comments!
schedule advance posts for during vacation

Open for guest posts!
If anyone would like to write a guest post for this blog, please let me know!
It's always fun having visitors, and exciting to see the comments coming in while I'm away.


Current writing goals

enter handwritten edits to first three chapters of Captive of the Sea and Out of the Water
prepare synopsis and query letter for Captive of the Sea
edit synopsis and query letter for Out of the Water
enter handwritten edits to The Handful of Time (working title) and reread


Long-term goals (i.e. items that likely won't be achieved during this round but will ideally be done by the end of the year)

query Druid's Moon some more
query The Charm of Time some more
enter handwritten edits to Mystery at Bertram's Hotel
do required research for Mystery at Bertram's Hotel and Captive of the Sea, and come up with proper titles
think about short story anthology some more and fix cover mock up

Actually, with a day or two of doing nothing else, I could get all of the first two sets done. It's just a matter of scheduling...


I can't believe I actually said that. It's true, but there's no way in this current cycle that I will be obtaining a day or two of nothing else going on.

Which means that all of these goals still stand (I may have completed the current knitting projects, but that doesn't mean I'm not starting new ones!). For the blog-related goals, I'm going to add -- sort photos. I think there are a few weekend trips I haven't chronicled here yet, not to mention the Tolkien Maker of Middle-Earth exhibit. Which is moving from the Bodleian to the Morgan Library in January! Go see it if you live in the States!

Part of that -- the fact that none of the writing goals got met -- is for a very good reason, though: in August, I started and finished a novella! I've done a few rounds of editing, and as of Monday, Summer Blaze is in the hands of beta readers. Here's the opening:

This trì nìthean gun iarraidh: an t-eagal, an t-eudach, ‘s an gaol / These three come unbidden: the fear, the jealousy, the love.

Summer Blaze Chapter 1

When Amelie asked if I wanted to join her and a few of her friends on holiday in Turkey, I was all for it.

The starting year of uni was tough. I was proud to be the first in my family to go to university, and really proud that I’d got into Oxford. But the work was difficult, my English wasn’t always good enough – especially to understand the older tutors, who mumbled their way through lectures and assumed we knew everything already – and the Portuguese-speaking community was really small. None of them were my type, either. And no one else from Brazil in my programme.

Then, in my second year, I met Amelie at a bossa nova class, and my social life improved rapidly. She was friends with everyone!

And the Turkey trip was going to be excellent.

Then I found out that her boyfriend was coming along.

He’s a great guy, Angus. Or bloke, as they say around here. He came down from Scotland once this past term for a long weekend, and I hung out with them most of the time. In the beginning, his accent was hard to make out. But he was real friendly, and told funny stories, and I got used to it fast. He’s not like any of the caras back home. Not all into cars and designer jeans and showing off. He has got a motorbike. On the Sunday, a big group of us went out to a riverside pub at a place called Godstow. I was in the car with everyone else, and could see Amelie on the bike up ahead, her arms around Angus’ waist. The ends of his longish hair stuck out from under his helmet and fluttered in the wind of the bike’s speed.

And now we’re here at our hotel in Turkey, a tiny place in a village called Ladies Beach, outside the town of Kuşadası. Their room is down one floor and across from mine, and if I sit by the balcony railing I can pretend to watch the sun set into the water, as the beach and the sea are just ten steps down the road. I can also see down onto their balcony, where Angus is hanging their towels over the railings, dressed in nothing but shorts. Amelie comes out and wraps her arms about his shoulders from behind, rises on her toes, and kisses his cheek. He hugs her back, and they watch the sunset with their heads together. The sky is a glorious pink and orange, the sun is a red ball sliding into the deep blue of the sea. I’ve never seen a sunset on the water before, only into the mountains. The colours are intense. The rhythmic clatter of cicadas is all around us in the tall pines, and there’s a constant shifting of chairs and clinking of cutlery as the waiters at the seafront restaurants prepare for the dinner service.

But my eyes are always drawn back to the tableau on the balcony. Yet still I’m not sure what I’m longing for. Is it Angus himself that I’m attracted to, or simply wanting the touch of someone? Someone for me, and me alone.

I slip inside to get dressed for dinner and to tell my roommate Gwyn that she’s missing out on a romantic sunset. Gwyn smiles knowingly; she’s only got one aim on this trip and that’s to have a wild affair – with anyone, whether a Turkish waiter, expat bartender, or fellow tourist.

What do I want?

On a tangent, if anyone's looking for some great MG/YA, the Willow Falls series by Wendy Mass is enchanting!

I've read 11 Birthdays and 13 Gifts so far, and can't wait to read the others! They have similar elements to Cecelia Ahern's magical novels.

If you'd like to write a guest post, let me know!

Do you enjoy books with magical elements?