Annual Writing Roundup, A New Round of ROW80, and OFMD Part 2
new round of A Round of Words in 80 Days!First, the annual writing roundup. Here's what I wrote or edited or published in 2022...
2022 Writing Roundup
January: The 2021 writing roundup
February: I reposted a poem about birds!
March: A new joke!
I also took part in CampNaNoWriMo, to finish the story I hadn't finished during NaNoWriMo 2021 (the first time I didn't finish NanoWriMo, but see November!)
I also shared my new schedule, which I'm now going to update. Here goes:
Monday to Friday
6.30 to 8.30 a.m. wake up, breakfast, school run (Tuesday to Thursday, catch train to office, edit WiP on commute)
9 to 11 a.m. work
11 a.m. work meeting online
12 p.m. lunch (adding, on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays, cooking/baking, laundry; on Wednesdays, blogging; on Thursdays, checking thelitforum.com or running errands)
1 to 4 p.m. work
4 to 6 p.m. work (if possible, take a walk; read on commute)
6 p.m. dinner
7 p.m bedtime prep for the kids
8 to 9 p.m. reading or playing cards with the elder child
9 to 10 p.m. drafting current WiP, reading (trying not to stay up too late!)
April: My first time participating in a Write...Edit...Publish challenge in four years!
May: I have a poem published in Poems for the Ride!
June: My query letter was featured on Nathan Bransford's blog!
I wrote a short story ("These Winds Are In My Heart") for the inaugural D'Ancey LaGuarde Literary Tribute Competition hosted by Alice Fraser!
July: A snip from Larksong!
We got a dog!
August: I took part in the writing exercise on thelitforum (I only managed 2 or 3 of these exercises in 2022)
I updated my family tree of characters and thought this would be the final update for a while, but see December!
September: Druid's Moon release day!
I submitted Little Upon the Earth, but Exceeding Wise to the Surrey International Writers' Conference
October: I posted a writing wrap-up by decade
November: I had an amazing NaNoWriMo!
(This meant that I had time to fall down the Our Flag Means Death rabbit hole; my utter collapse is still going strong! See photos below)
New desk!
Writing, with a bit of Our Flag Means Death marmalade!
December: I prepared an extensive update of the family tree of characters!
It was also the anniversary of the publication of Summer Fire!
Overall goal list and my 2023 goals for A Round of Words in 80 Days
Keep up with blogging and thelitforum (plus the reading, knitting, baking, printing photo albums, etc.!): I'm keeping up! I know I owe some comments!
Check all "writing to do" and type up all notes on paper and collate all story ideas and ideas from dreams, and all story drafts and research and Save to Scrivener notes in my emails, ideally into my lovely new Kate Davies journal... Organize all Scrivener files: Er, this is moving very slowly, but I'm happy to report that it is moving. My gmail labels are getting more organized by the day!
Figure out what to do with the orts, such as the CampNaNoWriMo2015 story The Heathen in the Hold, and others, including items such as this post-apocalyptic story idea I wrote in 2010, based on a dream, the idea mentioned in my 2016 recap, and all other such half-formed notions: This is not moving at all, except for The Heathen in the Hold, to which I add a few thousand words a year during CampNaNo
I finally typed up all of Larksong!
Here are my overall goals by story, taking up the list of Works Completed and In Progress from the bottom of this blog (the last few are all ideas, except for the two completed romances, so I've not copied them here; other ideas and completed short stories and early novels should be added to this list eventually, for the sake of completeness – collating all of this stuff is another ongoing project!):
Works Completed and In Progress
(most of them! the ones in bold are what I'll be working on for the next few months)
• A House Is Not A Home (short story, Annie and Alfred, dystopian future, written 2021)***: submit somewhere
• Blackbird’s Song (short story, WWII, George and Alice, written 2018)***: submit somewhere
• Summer Blaze (short story, travel romance, Valentina and Justin, written 2018)***: re-edit and submit somewhere
• The Tattoo (short story, dystopian, Geneva, Marie-Anne and Michel, written 2017)***: submitted to Pulp Literature...
• Little Upon the Earth, but Exceeding Wise (short story, murder mystery on board ship, 1493, Rosa and Baha): submit somewhere
• Where There's Life (short story, magical realism, library card for Alexandria, written 2014)***: included as part of the Writers on the Moon!
• He Ain’t Heavy (short story, 1910s Montreal, Charles and Oliver)***: submit somewhere
• Eyes of the Sky (vignette)***: submit somewhere
Writers on the Moon
• The Flight of Time (contemporary romance, Stephanie and Taylor, written NaNoWriMo 2022): write synopsis and submit to Harlequin
• The Future in Time (contemporary mystery, Christianne and Rory (third sequel), written NaNoWriMo 2021): finish drafting
• Amelie and Angus offshoot (need a title!; inspired by piña coladas by faeeebaeee): finish drafting
• The Antipodean Time (contemporary new adult romance, Kimberley and Simon, written NaNoWriMo 2019): edit on paper
• A Stitch in Time (contemporary new adult romance, Amelie and Angus, written NaNoWriMo 2018): edit on paper
• The Handful of Time (Christianne and Rory (sequel), written NaNoWriMo 2017): finish second round of edits on screen
• The Charm of Time (contemporary romantic mystery/suspense, Christianne and Rory, written NaNoWriMo 2016): re-edit opening and keeping sending queries!
• Mystery at Bertram's Hotel (working title, mystery suspense romance set in WWII Switzerland and France, Phillippe and Milly, written NaNoWriMo 2015): find title! Edit on paper!
• Peter and Penelope (no title yet, romantic suspense, WWII, Gallipoli, written NaNoWriMo 2014): type up! (on backburner)
• Larksong (historical romance, c. 1914 Montreal, Alice and George, written NaNoWriMo2013): keep editing and finish research
• Captive of the Sea (historical romance, 1471 England, Magdalena and Santiago, written NaNoWriMo 2012, typed up 2013): review beta notes and submit!
• Rome, Rhymes and Risk/Verse, Venice, and Viziers (historical romance, 1493 Mediterranean Sea, Ayten and Devran): keep editing (on backburner)
• Out of the Water (historical romance, 1492 Spain and Constantinople, Rosa and Baha): keep querying (on backburner)
• The Face of A Lion (historical young adult, time travel, Austin and Kedi): keep editing (on backburner)
• An Arnavutkoy Spring (historical romance, 1910 Istanbul, Klara and Sevran): keep editing (on backburner)
I also have ongoing blog post ideas that may become essays, on truck stops, on "Can you love the art but not the artist?", and so on.
Now for some Our Flag Means Death! I've been collecting screenshots for two months now, and have finally ordered some real prints from a few of my favourite artists
Two more that I want but can't afford at the moment:
Me hugging the office fax machine after having read the brilliant piña coladas by faeeebaeee for the first time
Rereading Shakespeare after having read the brilliant In Favor with Their Stars by mxmollusca
I found a package of mixtape notecards!
Playing cards with Ed and Stede
Pirate questions!
Have you reviewed the past year or prepared a look-ahead for this year?
I hope you have some exciting things coming up!
Comments
Thank you for the wonderful memories. And congrats on all the wonderful progress you've made.
I like doing review posts because it makes me feel like I'm actually getting good stuff done, which is sometimes difficult to appreciate in the day to day :-)