_Wishing everyone a very happy new Year.
Where we spend New Year depends very much on if I need to be selling my own novel or is I succeed in getting an advance from a publisher.
How much or if at all I paint, will depend on what i am reading and writing and how I am going with my fitness workouts in 2012. I loved my painting once. Without an art gallery I have no market for my art work now and no desire to paint cheapies for the tourist trade when i was at the top of my profession. I have no desire to trips around art galleries marketing my work now - so it does seem my focus is fully and near totally on my writing which travels a lot more easily with me than an art gallery.
I still see things I would like to paint but have no need of more art work in my home and as mentioned I have a total disinterest in marketing art now I do not have my Buninyong Gallery.
I will continue to paint one major art work per year, I have this year's work planned. This will be a challenging portrait within a landscape. I love to do this to prove to myself, the skill is still within me and I can return to it any time I choose. Right now I just want to enjoy the landscape, the people and write about them.
I am back from a great Christmas get together with all our family.
For some great Christmas cookie ideas, check out this blog.
My littlest Granddaughter made some Christmas cookies with her mum :-). My eldest grandson drove the 400k round trip on his learner license in his own car, Don't they grow up :-). My gift of my novel, to the novelist in the family, my eldest granddaughter, went over well and will be shared around the family. Great day :-). The junior, the little foster boy was happy, he has settled in well.
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As a writer I am always watching what the current best sellers are. This one also appeals to me as the grandparent of youngsters that this would definitely appeal to.
Books » Children's » Fiction » Science Fiction, Fantasy, Magic
The Gas Giants (Space Scout) By H. Badger
Kip can't wait to explore Vapod, a giant gas planet with cool flying aliens. But as soon as Kip arrives, the planet comes under attack. Can Kip save the day before it's too late?
Click link below to view more or order at a discounted price.
_In the busy lead up to Christmas, Reg and I went to the Ballet performance by the company our grand daughter dances with. They performed amongst other dances, The Grinch. So the following lines from Dr Seuss have added meaning to me as I can see them in my mind as I read them now.
And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more. ~Dr Seuss
Coming out of a full on weekend of editing and into a full week of editing - still postponing the clean up for Christmas - there is always Christmas eve do do that, :-).
As long as I can find clean undies, we eat healthy and there's no mold in the fridge, that's my idea of good housekeeping.
I have heavily pruned back from the 120,000 words in y novel to 116,500 words now. If it looks like telling not showing - I turf it out or write it better. _
_I just read the first chapter of the wonderful classic "Anne of Green Gables"
It broke so many editing 'rules.' Used words like 'little' and 'very' and two uses of 'very' in the one sentence. And guess what - it was the BEST written chapter I have read in a long while. I am beginning to think I should throw out some of the rule books.
For example, AutoCrit tells me I use see/saw/hear and feel words too often. Well - heck - my characters are in touch with feelings s the feel and they are in a wonderful landscape of inland Australia and living by working with the elements of that landscape do they need to 'see.'
If L.M.Montgomery is an example of what not to do, please may i one day write as well as she did. I thought her writing beautiful.
A friend is doing a writing challenge in 2012: write your world.
The goal is to write 500 words a day about the world around you.
Write about your life interests? I do that. I call it blogging :-)
It is great writing expression and practice. A bit like talking to myself at times.
As a carer I don't socialize much so I 'blog it,' then turn that into an income that pays the grocery bill while I write the novel.
_You write to communicate to the hearts & minds of others what's burning inside you and we edit to let the fire show through the smoke.-Arthur Plotnik
I finished my word review edit of the 5,500 word Prologue at 5.30 am today and reg (husband and good reader) found 5 typos - Oops I've fixed.
Now I am reading the reference book "The First Five Pages," again. as these are what may make or break my goal of getting published.
An interesting thing happened in letting someone proof read a section of my novel - they came back full of that religious crap about how a woman's role is home with her children and she would not, could not do certain things because they were a man's job and she would not have the strength.
Sheesh - no wonder I wrote feminist attitudes into my novel - I so would love to breakdown those sorts of narrow minded attitudes. I would never have walked away from the religion I once had if it were not for so many so called good God worshiping people using the religion to condone racism, sexism, religious bigotry - all the things I feel are evil and have nothing whatever to do with a God.
Lol - I see another 'passionate,' novel in me, this time not about racism but on religious bigotry. That might also be after the one on Dementia lol, how does that sound as an unusual subject for a novel? lol.
