End of the Quarter

Wow, it's April already. A quarter of the year has passed. I have to say that I'm fairly pleased with how the year has started. I made a list of long term goals that I wanted to accomplish this year. So far, I've been able to cross off three of them as accomplished.

The latest accomplishment is finishing up Blood Diamond and submitting it to The Wild Rose Press for their Jewels of the Night series. I got it in by March 31, which means if chosen, my story will go in a drawing to kick off the series. I recently received an email update regarding my submission. They are going through the entries as quickly as possible so that they can announce the winner of the drawing on June 15. Hopefully I'll know something sooner, but worst case scenario, I'll find out by then.

I'm feeling good and hoping for the best. My CPs all liked the story and had few changes to suggest. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but I've moved forward in a bid to keep myself from going crazy thinking about it. I'm back into Out of the Shadows, the first book in a five book series. It's an urban fantasy set in fictional Cedar Creek, TX. I spent most of yesterday working on it, finishing up chapter 15. According to my word meter on the left, I've cracked the 60% mark on word count. I've got 5 chapters left until I finish the first draft.

The concept has changed considerably since I began, so the revisions will be major but I'm excited about it. I had to go back and read a few passages to keep continuity and I really liked what I read. Of course there are things I need to add. That's just the way I write, but there's emotion there that I could still feel even after setting it aside for over 6 months. I'm excited about that.

I've also gotten sucked into another story idea. There's a call for novellas centered around the reunion of the Class of 1985. I graduated in 1989, close enough that the concept called to me. I've got the basics on my characters and I've decided that I'm going to experiment over the next two weeks. I'm going to work on my novel during the week and my novella on the weekends. I'll give it two weeks. My novel is the main focus since I want it ready to pitch at National convention in July. If I find it's sliding, I'll put up the novella until I get the novel finished. If it works, it may be the working model I use to continue the novellas, but also complete full-length novels. Wish me luck.

Oh, I did something different for the novella too. I made a playlist yesterday. I found the top 100 pop songs of 1985 and made a playlist with about half of them. I'm going to try it and if I like it, I may include choosing a playlist part of my plotting process. It was kind of fun.

So, as I go into the second quarter of the year, my goals are to finish and polish Out of the Shadows and plot and finish this new novella. That seems like quite a bit so here's hoping my second quarter is as productive as the first.

Have you been able to cross off any of your long term goals? Have you re-evaluated your goals lately? How do you feel about what you've accomplished so far?