Melinda Jones ~ The Sweet Escape
…wouldn't that be sweet?

Category Archives: Goals & Plans

Jan 21 2010

No Bang

by MJones

I am backing out of  the Original Fiction Big Bang. I would love to do it, but I have so much on my plate at the moment and some projects I NEED to finish. It’s not that it would be a waste of time, just that I need to spend the time I would put into poring over 20,000 words and put it toward other things. I have goals I’ve set for this year and I’m stressing myself out, trying to do everything that comes up. Rather, I need to pick things that are going to give me opportunities and things that are going to push my writing forward, both in skill/quality and exposure.

I’m not all that upset about it. I didn’t know, really, what I was going to write on. It just sounded like a good idea. And since I already have an original fiction project I need to be working on, it’s not like I’m abandoning anything. I feel good about it and feel a little less anxious removing that from my projects list.

I had a good talk with one of my writer friends yesterday. She is the second person to tell me that I should definitely un-fanfic my NaNo piece and try to turn it into a novel.

“Really?” I said. “I was thinking about never looking at it, ever again.”

“Well you are wrong,” she said, “to think that.”

So, maybe. I don’t know. It’s still unfinished and I’m really uninspired and unmotivated to finish it. I haven’t even planned out the ending. It would be totally easy to push out a few chapters and finish it off. I just can’t seem to get to it.

I’m considering writing a short story to enter into the Glimmer Train Short Story Award for New Writers Contest. 3000 words or fewer, due at the end of February, to be posted in the Glimmer Train publication in April. That’s more my speed, and I’m currently aiming at getting something published, even if it’s someplace small. Considering I’ve never read the publication, I’m not sure if my writing is skilled enough to be printed but I won’t know until I try, no?

I’ve totally lost my oomph for my writing prompt for the Author Culture  Spin the Wheel contest. Entries aren’t due till Feb 12th, though, so… if I just buckle down and write something I could get something out. I just do not have enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do, read everything I want to read, keep up on what my peers are doing and show support, write everything I want to write and still have a life.  I don’t like rushing through this process. Something has got to give.

Ugh. It is 6:45. Morning seems to be the only time I can get any time to blog anymore. I really wish my writing made money and I could do it full time! Till then,

Hi ho, hi ho,

Categories: Goals & Plans, Writers Write | 2 Comments »
Jan 17 2010

Bang!

by MJones

Well. Now I’ve gone and done it. I got an email in my box this morning about a  ”Novel Big Bang” challenge. It’s 20,000 words of original fiction. Rough drafts would be due in July. Posting would be in October. Since I have a hurking, lurking word count goal this year, that would definitely help. And it would give me great practice for NaNoWriMo in November.

I don’t have any idea what I’m going to write. It has to be original, no fanfiction. I’m scared! Lol.

Maybe I’ll use the prompt wheel and flesh some things out, see what feels like it could expand into 20,000 words. For NaNo I didn’t get my storyline until a week or two before it started.

I have no idea what I’m doing. *eep*

Categories: Goals & Plans, Writers Write | 2 Comments »
Dec 31 2009

On Pins & Needles!

by MJones

I feel… excited. Anticipating something great…

I keep a separate blog, a personal blog away from this one because I want this one to be specifically about my writing, focusing on it, keeping it in my face with pinpoint precision. On my personal blog, I don’t have too much excitement about the New Year. It’s coming, whether I get excited about it or not. That’s not to say I’m forlorn or depressed, I just didn’t really create a lot of things to be excited about in the next year. That might change in January but… I’ve become more  seat-of-the-pants in other aspects of my life, not just my writing. We’ll just see what happens.

This blog, though… SIGH (that’s a good sigh). I feel like 2010 is just going to be a great writing year for me. And I’m trying hard not to lose that oomph! and enthusiasm, because I need it. I waste so much time during the year feeling down and avoiding writing because I don’t feel like it, or because I think it sucks or it’s boring and not enough time just dang writing. Get it on paper, edit it later. Or not. Just write! These are the things I yell at myself while I’m watching the fourth straight hour of TV, staring at the Word icon, thinking I should open it.

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Dec 28 2009

New Year’s Resolutions for Writers & Bloggers [repost]

by MJones

Just found this excellent post that I’m planning to put to good use in 2010. Thought I’d share it!

It’s from Year Zero Writers

As writers and creators of content, more and more we’re finding it necessary to turn to the Internet to showcase our work. While we cannot be in several places at the same time, it’s possible for our material to exist in numerous corners of the Internet, all at once. In an age where Literary Agents and Publishers are holding back on marketing their authors’ books we simply have to turn to each other to propel our material to different audiences, something one person can’t possibly do on their own.

This is where you come in. Make a new year’s resolutions to help promote your writer colleagues fromyour little corner of our huge office we call the web.

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Categories: Authored Inspiration, Goals & Plans, Writers Read, Writers Write | 2 Comments »
Dec 22 2009

Going crazy, wanna come?

by MJones

Yeah. I’m about to lose my mind up in here, up in here.

I’m setting my literary goals for 2010, and thinking back to 2009. I started the year off with a goal to simply write, and write more. I had really started to get back to it in 2008, late in the year, after a long, decades long, really long break from it. 2009 was the Year of Writing for me, a year of putting my goals in my face and working hard at it. I set a goal for myself to write 200,000 words (or more). I stopped counting the words after 300,000. That doesn’t mean every word of that was good, but I wrote them and that’s saying a lot!

I’m pretty proud of my 2009 as a writer. Even if I tried to write something original and didn’t quite get out of the starting gate. Even if I wrote mostly Fanfiction. Even if my loyal reader count hovers around 10, maybe 20, I wrote. I wrote a lot. I wrote things with meaning, I wrote things that people liked, and I liked. I wrote things that made people laugh. I wrote things that made people cry, that made people hate my characters and love my characters and become intimately involved in the story line. And,

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Categories: Authored Inspiration, Goals & Plans, Writers Write | 2 Comments »
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