Best month yet

Have been consistent in forcing myself to submit two items a week this month. It seems to be paying off already. May be beginners' luck but I am developing a thicker skin and writing faster.

I spend less time agonising over query letters and just get on with the job.

I have given myself a financial target to aim for per week. No slacking, then?!

I read guidelines very carefully before submitting. When I know my piece matches them exactly, I proofread one last time -- you can always tighten your writing --and send it off.

So far, I have one full page spread published on an article done as an interview, one application in applying to be contributing editor in the Work at Home section of Garden and Hearth, a web site I really enjoy visiting and would be proud to work for, one short story going the rounds, one interview commissioned and waiting to happen, two articles to write on spec for high paying blog sites, and two ideas for ebooks that I'm dying to develop.

That's just for starters. Didn't I say ideas beget ideas?

The novel is moving again --not with nano rapidity but bumbling on, better paced and more suited to publication. Stronger plot, less waffle.

Prophetic Title

Just looked through my first two posts. No writing, no business, huh!

I've been scribbling like a maniac for months --am even about to sign up for nanowrimo, mad as I am, in an attempt to push out more words on my novel. It should be easy for me now --2000 words a day -- a dawdle, surely?

I doubt it as I keep blowing up with mental exhaustion. The one thing that is true is that ideas beget ideas. The more ideas I have, the more I find.

This can obviously be a problem in itself. It can lead to total paralysis. Every time you start something, you have a feeling that another idea would be better, faster to do, more saleable. You name it, there are as many excuses for getting tied up in non-achieving tangles as hours in the day.

One thing at a time. Keep it tight. Finish it. Submit it. Move on.

Fast and furious is my new watch phrase for October.

Having said that, I have signed up for a writing course, a week-long writing conference and still have to phone round to get insurance for my car....

No writing, no business

With the demise of Suite 101 as we once knew it, I had no reason to keep up the articles.
What do I know of business anyway?
I know how to query, how to sell, how to write but....
it may be biological clocks ticking. I just felt the time had come to follow a dream for the next couple of years.
Have been very remiss about money-making this year in the hope of completing and publishing my first novel.
Financially I have been helped (or is that hindered?) by having lots of teaching work offered for this year and next.
Somehow I just could not summon up the energy to follow up my writing leads as well.
Better luck from now on, I hope.
This, I hasten to add, is not my first attempt at writing a romance novel.
I have already three efforts under my belt which I may revisit one day.
The problem has been knowing where to start when it comes to the editing.
The Chris Baty advice in No Plot , No Problem is
Rewrite the Whole Thing.
I'm sure he is right.
However I am just finishing first draft, have two months to go before submission --do I have time?
The second problem was wobbling between genres. The romance novel has certain requisites which I had to meld to my story which started as a cozy mystery.
Now I may have too much plot --time will tell.