January report... And Feb goals...

Sign up for Missouri writer’s conference. This April conference is with in driving distance – no need for overnight accommodations and they have fiction and essay presenters who I can learn from and one of my dream agents taking pitches. And I get to meet a cozy mystery author I love.

**Done - and paid for. I'm excited about this conference!

Send off a short story to Women’s World. This is a tight market. 800 word stories have to be emotional, tightly written and satisfying. I’ve learned my draft is way over the story limits and my challenge is cutting word length.

**I've sent one and started a second. This is going to be an ongoing goal to send one a month.

Commit to attending RWA nationals. Still working out the money bugs on this one. But as Kevin Costner’s character learned in Field of Dreams, if you plan it, it will come. (Paraphrasing just a bit.)

**Off Topic - I watched Field of Dreams last night. I love the part where Holly Hunter is taking on Censorship. Still working out money, but commited to go! NYC, here I come.

Volunteer to give a coffee talk presentation for our local chapter. Generational Characters. This one is harder. I’ve got a topic, some of the research material, and the date. Now to just write the darn training. You would think since I used to do this for a living I wouldn’t be so nervous.

**I presented on this during my day job so I've got a better idea where the session will go, but no training package yet. Soon. This is a continual goal - challenge for February.

So with the two ongoing goals, I'll add the following:

Send off my Idaho cowboy story to the targeted line. I LOVE this story. I hope the editor loves it as well.

Enter Fire and Ice Contest as well as Chocolate Rose. Look at mystery contest and Great American Novel contests. Contests are a double edge sword for me. I love entering, but not finaling is a downer. So maybe I'll just final in all the contests I enter this year... Yay!

I'm attending a work potluck/party next week. In the Living Dangerously style, I'm going to talk to all level three managers in attendance about something besides work. I'm scared already. (grin)

So there you go. February challenges to keep me busy.

What's going on with your challenges? Did you keep your new years resolutions?

The Year of Living Dangerously – Cahoon edition

A few months ago, the PRO liaison for RWA issued a challenge. Make 2011 the year of living dangerously in your writing. She suggested trying a new market, sending your work out to agents and editors, or try writing a new genre.

I’ve been thinking about this challenge a lot. How can I stretch out of my comfort area and take a chance? And this is what I’ve come up with for now. I’ll update this list as new challenges arise.

Side note: I was listening to a speaker on making plans. She said you only have to plan three steps. Three. Because by the time you have accomplished those three steps, new pathways have opened up and it’s time to plan three more. Three that you might not have known about before you took those three steps.

January living dangerously steps:

Sign up for Missouri writer’s conference. This April conference is with in driving distance – no need for overnight accommodations and they have fiction and essay presenters who I can learn from and one of my dream agents taking pitches. And I get to meet a cozy mystery author I love.

Send off a short story to Women’s World. This is a tight market. 800 word stories have to be emotional, tightly written and satisfying. I’ve learned my draft is way over the story limits and my challenge is cutting word length.

Commit to attending RWA nationals. Still working out the money bugs on this one. But as Kevin Costner’s character learned in Field of Dreams, if you plan it, it will come. (Paraphrasing just a bit.)

Volunteer to give a coffee talk presentation for our local chapter. Generational Characters. This one is harder. I’ve got a topic, some of the research material, and the date. Now to just write the darn training. You would think since I used to do this for a living I wouldn’t be so nervous.

But I guess that’s what the year of living dangerously is all about. To stretch. To grow. And to take chances.

What challenges have you taken on lately?

Snow Day 2011

We got a storm last night that covered our area with three inches of snow. At least. So after riding to the store with my dh, I decided to avoid the roads (and the accidents) and stay home from work. I had a day to pretend I was a full time writer.

I don’t think I did very well. Not for what could have been an eight-hour day of writing, but I did get another big scene done for my work in progress. I read some work for a contest I’m judging. And I dug through my email, getting stuff deleted, answered, and filed. I realized I get over 200 emails on a weekday. And that’s in my personal emails, not counting what I get in the day job.

But maybe I did all right. I did some planning on the cozy mystery that I’ll be starting to write as soon as The Bull Rider’s Brother (BRB) is done. I’ve got the first scene started in my head. A Cambria business owner comes knocking on Jill’s front door needing help for her son. Or maybe that will be a later scene….the order of the scenes will come, eventually.

I was lying in bed Saturday morning and realized I’d missed a scene in BRB. And all of a sudden, a new character popped into my head and messes with my hero. Which he deserves. And then to add the new twist, I had to change the POV orders for my heroine and hero for the last two chapters.

Sometimes I feel my characters are in charge and I’m just doing their transcriptions. Especially when I’m at the end of the books. When I really know my characters and what they would do. How they live.

So maybe I didn’t get more words down because my characters were taking a snow day as well. Or maybe they thought I was still at the day job.

The picture in today's blog shows the woods that run behind my house. Where the deer hide.