ROW80 round 2 check in - 4/8 - Easter gift

April 08, 2012

WooHoo - sold my first story. But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. First to the rest of the day.

So, that's it - Easter is done. Grandchildren over, ham and scalloped potatos and corn and asparagus. And chocolate of course. I had a spiral cut ham, with brown sugar glaze. Glaze was nice, but pre-sliced? Meh! Meant that by the time ham was heated through, most of the juices were in the pan around it. And it's not as if it's hard to slice a ham. Take a bit off the smaller side so it will sit flatly, slice at right angles to the bone, then release slices with a slice along the bone. Lots of leftovers for sandwiches and casseroles. It was nice to have the little ones visit and play - I saved toys from my kids for them. Fun ages, 4 1/2 and 2. Even swept the dust bunnies up before they came over.

So not as much as I'd hoped on my objectives today, but any progress is good, right? Hopefully this week I'll get a 100% complete on just one day. I'll update where I'm at so far while listening to Black and Blues on local campus radio - Carleton U - CKCU-FM

editing my WIP - I finished the pen and paper edit of first draft, page by page. Some stayed fairly clean, some had the margins full of scribbly notes. It took a few days to work at it, a couple of hours at a time, but the focus of ROW80 helped. It certainly was nice to see that "to be edited" pile eventually shrink to nothing, and be replaced by a treat. Now I have to go back on the computer and enter all those edits, page by page. Not that hard, the challenge will be to focus on that objective and not get distracted by all the sparkly things online.
Flash Fiction - I did another one last week for Terrible Minds - here's the link. And I found another flash fiction challenge I think I might like to try. It's also assigned on Friday, but is due Wednesday evening. The Site is called Flash Fiction Friday. This week's is a fairy tale, with some key words to include. So I'm mulling it over - need to find a twist. I like doing these little things, is a good exercise and nice to have feedback on writing while slogging through edits on a novel. And - the big news - by the way, did I mention that I sold my first story today? For a nominal fee - but it's a sale, so when I bravely admit to people that I'm a writer and they ask if I've published anything I can casually say that I have. The story is one of my flash fiction pieces, and will be in an online magazine in May. I won't say which story it is, or site until it's actually online, but rest assured I will send the link out then.
blogs - I am still caught up with the ones I follow. Thanks to the holiday weekend there's not a lot to catch up on.
social media - Twitter and F/B. No problem sopending time there, but not enough focused on the writing corner
exercise - no, not really today. Well, oher than chasing grandkids around.
reading fiction - next up is a re-read of Stories of Your Life, and Others, by Ted Chiang. A collection of eight short stories - read it for a local sci-fi club but need to do a draft review now. Next is People of the Wolf, by Gear and Gear. The start of a series they did about the spread of early people through North America. I need to read some of them as background for a story idea I have.
reading non-fiction - waiting for the newer, better, smaller edition of Guns, Germs and Steel form the library. Maybe will check out Lisa while waiting.
to do list - growing