Welcome to
Dawn's Writing Journal!
My motto:
"'Spelling isn't everything. There are days when spelling Tuesday simply doesn't count.' ---Rabbit"
Just a few friends links:
Jonathan Fesmire
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1998
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1999
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Novels (roughly finished)
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1
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0
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Novels (revised)
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0
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0
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Word count-novels
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50,398
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9750
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Shorts
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2 1/2
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0
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Word count-shorts
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6471
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5000
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Word count-totals
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56,869
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14,750
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Submissions
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3
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1
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Rejections
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3
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0
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Sales
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0
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0
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Stories in training: Tune in a few days to see what I'm going to start next. ;)
Stories seeking assignment: A Devil of a Night (SS), Untitled SF(SS).
Stories awaiting rehabilitation: Erin Glen I (N), Jeriath's Myth (SS).
January 29, 1999:
I finally got UNTITLED off to Mr. Roth. I debated on a title, and couldn't come up with one, so I sent it UNTITLED. I hope I didn't break etiquette there or something.
Thanks to those who read it for me and offered some excellent suggestions. Also, I wanted to note that the re-write gained 300 more words, of which I added to my totals.
I've decided to lay off the novels for a bit. I'm going to focus on the shorts that I have planned. First on the list is submitting DofaN, then editing JM and submitting it. I have two or three shorts planned at the moment, so I should be busy for the next month or more. :)
I wanted to get in on this pro/semi-pro debate. As a newbie writer I'd be happy, at this point, with ANY sales I get. If I sell something this year I will scream it from the mountain tops until everyone in the world knows and until someone gets tired of the screaming and I get shot off with an UZI! No seriously, I will be really pleased what ever sales I get. Maybe in the future I will want to go strictly pro, but for now, anything that boosts my ego will do. :)
Welcom to our new NAW member, A.L. Sirois!
January 27, 1999:
I know, it's been a few days since I've made an entry. We went out of town and I wasn't able to do anything Monday or Tuesday. I did get a couple of readers for my story and it is finished being edited for the first time by me. Now I'm awaiting about six friends who should now have the story in their e-mail. If all goes well, this will be off to the editor by Friday afternoon. I'm still looking for a title too.
Oh about the last days entry, I should amend it just a bit. I don't write to an audience, except when I directly speak congrats to people or talk about their pages, etc. That came out as being pretty obvious, but I wanted amend it anyway. ::shrug::
Be sure to check this journal sometime after Monday night for the new page layout. I hope I have time to finish the last page before then.
January 23, 1999:
LOL to Ron, I love the recent entry. :) BTW-Something has been bothering me, what is a neep anyway? :)
Whose page was it? I'm pretty sure it was Tamela who was talking about whether we write on these pages as a letter to an old friend or whatever. I just write anything on these pages. I don't really think about writing to an 'audience' here, although that's what it's become since I joined NAW. I just post my news and use this as a means to keep in touch with other writers. I like it when they mention what I write here in other journals, it shows me they actually read this junk. ;) I think this page is becoming increasingly more as a personal journal rather than a news journal though, and I guess that's ok. :) The fact that some of us are newsy journal people and some are more personal adds a distinctiveness to our collective. Oh, no! Are we BORG? You will be assimilated...resistance is futile. ;)
In writerly news, no words yet, and no editing done yet. I've been playing around on the 'net too long. This week I'm going to start limiting my time on-line. I'm not getting any work done. Also I'm going to limit my journal checking to three journals read a day. I don't exactly like that idea since there are about five journals that I read each day. I guess I'll have to alternate. :)
January 22, 1999:
The weather men don't know a thing. The huge storm they predictid for last night is here now(12:00pm). That means I need to do a few things and shut down. I can't afford to lose another modem. We've already lost 2 56k modems to power surges.
Today I'm planning to simply edit Untitled SF. I'm hoping to e-mail to readers by the time I go to work(5:00pm), but I don't know. I was up late and I'm tired. I was also planning to send out DoaN to Talebones. If the weather holds, I'll do that quickly.
Last night I made some new and AWESOME pages for this journal. Be ready for the unveiling. I learned how to do a mouseover and an imagemap! (Anything is easy when you have AceExpert!)
January 21, 1999:
The weather here has been gorgeous lately. Yesterday it was up to 77 degrees. I know I shouldn't brag, I know several of the NAW members are experiencing still more ice and snow. Living here in Alabama does have it's drawbacks too. Like the fact that from January to April 'Mother Nature' teases us with Spring Fever. This week it might be really nice, but next week it will probably get cold again. Ok, so it's not cold by your standards, but cold none the less. AND the constant fluctuations in temperatures can really reak havoc on the sinus' trust me. I'm from Nebraska, so I can surely sympathize with Ron(the Mailbox story was funny :) ), Zette and with Tamela and the others who brave the snow everyday to go about their lives, that's why I moved south. :)
Writerly news today: I plan to send out 'Devil of a Night' to Talebones either today or tomorrow. As far as writing to day goes, I have just one thing to say, "I don't want to!" The novel is not going well, one short in progress is not going well, and the other short is in edit mode. Editing always puts me in a foul mood. ::sigh:: I wish I could break out of this. I need to get out and enjoy this nice spring air while we have it. It drives me crazy. I know it will be gone soon (It is cloudy today and the forecasters are predicting a huge storm tonight), but I just can't get my self out of these blues and out of this chair!
::kicks self in the fanny:: More to come later today, I'm sure. :)
**********
Well, I didn't write today as far as my works in progress goes. But, those of you whom I e-mailed today got some long letters. :) Thanks to Erin for cheering me up. I'm going to spend the weekend in edit mode and also think about the next project. I think FR and Sandman stories are going to be archived for awhile. Who knows, I may excavate them later. ;)
I'm getting excited. I'm working on an awesome new page layout. Each month I'm going to change at least the background and archive that months journal. Prepare for an awesome sight. (or is that site?) :)
January 20, 1999:
Things are not going well today. It was supposed to be my day off, but they called me this morning and asked if I could work this afternoon. I, regrettably, agreed. This makes all my plans for the day to be shortened. I did try to write. I got 200 words in on FR before I went blank. I think this novel is heading for a huge crash and burn. It's a great idea, I'm just taking it down the wrong track and don't know what to do with it. ::sigh:: So, I left the writing for today, did another 1/2 page of editing and read another chapter in my creative writing how to book. The chapter on novels I was really expecting to help, but it was too vauge. I guess there's only so much you can put in one book. I'm having serious problems with plot. I get a great idea, even some great scenes, but that's about it. My brain goes into shut down mode. I thought I could plug through like I did with my first novel, which turned out ok. But this one is not going right. ::sigh:: Maybe I should concentrate on shorts for a while.
January 19, 1999:
It's already the 20th now, but I'm writing this under the 19th because I never made an entry about yesterdays stuff. I'm going to make an entry later, when I finish writing today.
I didn't write today, I said I was going to write on my novel, but I never got to it. It was a lazy day and I didn't feel one hundred percent. I read some and napped some. I started a new book, Myths and Their Meaning. I found this little treat on my bookshelves (I have a bunch of books that came from my mom's house). This one is a text book and was in it's third printing sometime in the 1930's. It's a wonderful book though, I'm enjoying it. I figured, hey, most of our modern fantasy comes from myths, right? Right now I'm still in the first half of the book on Greek and Roman Myths. I can't wait to get into the rest about Celtic and other old world myths. :)
Oh, and I also began revising Untitled SF. (Yes, I still have no title for this puppy. I have no clue.) :) I didn't get much done, hardly a page. I told myself I was going to have a better attitude about editing though. I will make lots of changes and that doesn't mean that my writing is horrible. It simply means that I'm making it better, the more changes, the better right? :)
January 18, 1999:
To start things off this week, I read a story at Mind's Eye Fiction. I'd been seeing this story advertised as an editor's pick, but hadn't read it before. The story is I Like Cats by Elisabeth Leslie. It's under the Horror section. I liked the story, very well written. Check it out for yourself. :)
Great news today! With 700 more words added to my short, it is finished at 4,700. I'm setting it aside for a day or so and will edit this week. It still needs a title, maybe I'll get suggestions from some readers.
I've been seeing other authors making sales, it's difficult to keep up with all the news so I'll just say a generic Congrats! :)
January 16, 1999:
Later that day amendment: I got my first submission back in the mail. Neither rejection or sale. It wasn't even a request for a re-write. They didn't even open the package. It says it was refused because they aren't taking any submissions until Mar.1. :( Not sure how to tally this one. I'll probably just wipe the submissions slate clean. I guess one thing on my list of things to do Monday is to find a new market for this story. :)
I'm really amazing myself again and again. Today I told myself, "Dawn, you are going to put that fanny in that chair and do writerly stuff for three hours." And that's just what I did, in between short breaks of changing over laundry. I spent an hour writing, an hour reading and then another hour and twenty minutes writing again. I lost track of time and just kept writing. I added 2500 words to the short today! I think that's a record for words in one day for me. The short is now 4k and looking like it might grow another 1000 before it's done. That means one more day of writing. It looks like I will make the Jan. 31 deadline. Look out Mr. Roth, it's coming. :)
I've enjoyed reading my new book I talked about yesterday. It's basically a textbook, but the author makes it fun to read. I'm learning a lot! I think it's a must for any writer, beginning or 'experienced'. When I get my Amazon.com bookstore, I will definitely pick this one. :)
January 15, 1999:
Sorry, yesterday I should have included Tippi in my HANG IN THERE yesterday. ;->
No writing done today, but a great brainstorming session. I'm through the block I reached yesterday. This story is becoming so complex that it is quickly becoming a novel. For now though I will tell the 'short' version and think about writing a novel of it later. I'm also apprehensive because I feel like it is spinning wildly out of my control. The plot is going deeper than I'd ever imagined and I wonder if I'm good enough to write it at this point. Plot wise, this is my best story yet! There are very few holes in the outline, and growing more complex by the day now. :)
I read Dorothy Rothchild's entry for today, and I want to say something about her list of books. The fact that most of them doesn't appeal to me is beside the point, what I want to say is that Writing down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg is an excellent book. I read it for an internet coarse last year and I liked it. I had to look past the Zen, uh, stuff, but other than that I enjoyed reading it and it did help my writing. Enjoy reading it Dorothy!
Speaking of reading I got some very nice things today. All the 1999 calenders were 1/2 off so I picked up a Word-a-Day calender. I've been thinking about getting some vocabulary builder things and this looks great. I'm looking forward to try and incorporate the words into my writing. :)
The other thing I got today was The Complete Idiot's Guide to Creative Writing. Somebody's web page suggested The Complete Idiot's Guide to Getting Published and I did see it in the store, but I thought that this one was more fitting to some struggles I'm having now. I plan to get the other one later.
It still amazes me that I'm buying non-fiction books and plan to read them! This is coming from a lazy-brained, should be blonde(pardon the expression) slacker. All through school I cared little about academic pursuits, or anything for that matter. In college I only tried to make good grades for scholarships(I am proud to say I maintained a 3.0 AND received a Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education{really a thought-provoking degree there eh?}), but my point is that I would NEVER have opened a non-fiction book for the purpose of ACTUALLY reading it, unless it was for a class. The fact that I'm buying non-fiction with the intent of reading it just floors me. And, to top it off, I'm considering learning French! It seems so wierd that I'm choosing to learn. It's all because of my writing. It started last year when I took the afore mentioned internet class. I actually started putting aside the children's books(Winnie-the-Pooh, among others :)) and chose to read books that are stimulating and thought provoking to read. I actually picked up a fantasy book that was more than 150 pages(It was WeaveWorld by Stephen King, something over 500 pages I think. I enjoyed it). That was actually a criteria of mine for selecting a book before. A book must have been: 1)appealing on the cover, 2)shorter than 150 pages, 3)a topic that interested me and 4)grabbed me in at the beginning and was NOT a challenge to read. Which was why I read alot of children's books, i.e. The Black Stallion Series (which was a very good series :)). It's about time that I put them aside, it's been three years now since college and I've done little or nothing to excersize my mental capabilities. I guess that's a sign of maturity, laying aside childish things and taking up adult things. It's been a long time in coming, seeing as how I'm 24. ;)
Anyway, sorry for the long entry today, thanks for reading my verbiage. :)
January 14, 1999:
1000 more added to the short today. I was hoping to do more, but I hit a spot and I don't know where to go from there. I know what's going to happen later, but I just don't know how to get there from where I am now. I'm going to take a day and think it over. Anyway, tomorrow I'm going to be out-of-town all day so I won't be able to type. I will take my journal and work on outlines and stuff.
I forgot to mention Tippi in my congrats yesterday. Also, a non-NAW member, Jonathan Fesmire told me today that he sold a story to MZB! Congrats to all on their sales!
I want to send out a huge HANG IN THERE for Vera. I know things are rough for her right now.
January 13, 1999:
First of all, congrats to Ron & Linda, Lisa, Mary Soon Lee, Tobias and anyone else I might have missed on all their sales. I hope everyone will be congratulating me this year on my first sale. :)
I did manage to get some writing done tonight. Only 500 words though. Now I know at least one reason that I like writing in the morning. James is not usually up then, or sometimes he's out of the house. I found myself saying, "Honey, does this sound right?" or "Hun, what's a good name for..." I think I'll stick to writing when he's not available. :)
January 12, 1999:
Although I didn't actually get any writing done today, I did do some much needed outlining and such for Untitled SF(until a better title comes along, that's what I call it). I also came up with the names of places and people. That's the biggest thing that I get stuck on when I'm writing, so with that out of the way I feel better. Tomorrow I plan to do some character sketches and maybe even start writing. (I have to work a now rare early shift, so I don't know how my day will go. It will probably be: get up, be at work at 7, come home at 1 and nap, get up, get ready for church, go to church, come back and piddle around all night(probably watch a movie), go to bed.) I generally don't write at night, when I do it is awful writing! I do my best work when it's one of the first things I do.
I now have our laptop (don't let the name fool you, it's like one of the first models) set up to be able to do my writing on it. It frees up the computer for James to do his work, (Although he still gripes that I'm using this one too much :)) and I was hoping it would get my mind on working, since it has nothing on it but Works and one game that I have no interest playing. It lost it's internet capabilities long ago too.(it has a 2400bps modem, yes I did say twenty-four hundred, not twenty-four thousand, as some people think, and yes it is very old!) It has helped somewhat, but I can't seem to focus for much longer than an hour and a half (that's my 1500 words/day).
Anyway...(Sorry I babbled so much today, I guess it's because I didn't write today...it had to come out somewhere!) :)
January 11, 1999:
I 'surfed' around all day, read many journals. One thing I was looking for was to see if anyone was published and if I could read their story on the 'net. I found that Tobias Buckell had a story in Jackhammer this week(I would have surfed in there later anyway, but I'm glad I discovered it anyway). So I hopped over there and read it plus the other two. Toby's story, Experiencing the Now, is very good. I liked it. I have to say though, that Wind and Bitter Ashes by Marie Wendel was the best of the weeks picks(was that why it was first?). I also liked the third story as well. Congrats to the authors on three great publications! :)
I haven't gotten to writing yet, I plan on writing on my novel today. FR may be put on hold for a two weeks. I'm considering doing a fast job of writing my (as of right now) Untitled SF story. It may end up going to Kurt Roth's anthology before the end of the month, I don't know yet, we'll see. I'm sort of eager to get this story out. I had put it back in the queue a month or so while I finished up Sandman and touched up others. I don't know, it may still be kept back there...
1550 words added to my novel today. Again, I didn't felt like writing but forced my way through until the last 200 words. I was begining to enjoy it, but I had other things I wanted to do too. :(
It's official, I've decided to put all other works on hold and write this short story for Kurt Roth's anthology. I think it will be a good story and I hope Mr. Roth does to. ;)
January 9, 1999:
I didn't write yesterday, I went to bed late, woke up late and barely had time to check my e-mails and such before heading off to work. Then, after work, I had a 'job' interview. I'm thinking of quitting my current job to be a full time babysitter for a newborn, due in February. :) The meeting went well, the parents are very nice.
Anyway, today I added 1500 more words to my novel. I began to get excited about the story. This novel is F/SF and I got to the SF chapters today. It was a refreshing change. :)
I'm noticing one problem though: this is not going to be a novel length story. It might make it to 30,000 words, but unless something surprising happens for me, it won't make it to 40k. At first I was frustrated with that, but I realized, there's nothing wrong with a novella. :)
January 7, 1999:
Wow! I amaze myself sometimes. A whopping 2000 words added on my novel today. I just felt like keeping going after I made my minimum today. Also, I added a chapter that wasn't in my origonal outline of the first six chapters, but I think it fits in nicely. The next chapter will be added in as well, making eight chapters instead of six. The problem is that after those chapters, there is a big hole in the plot. I don't know what I'm going to do with the characters after they face the big problem. I've been thinking about it for a month now and haven't come up with anything yet. I'm hoping that it will come out when I get to the problem. :::crosses her fingers:::
Oh, yes, I forgot to mention that I did get my story in the mail on Tuesday. It may take a while to hear back from this editor, the response times are fairly high on this one.
I'm hoping that by the end of January I'll have my other short polished up plus the one in the works finished and polished up to be mailed out. January seems to be slipping away fairly fast though. Then in February I have a story planned for Pulp Eternity's contest (Technology: The Price We Pay, deadline October, 99) that I'd like to have roughly finished and have some readers for it so I can revise it and send it out by May at the very latest. It will be my first SF story.
My goal is to make at least one sale(or one contest prize, yeah right, well maybe an honorable mention or something) this year. :::keeping fingers crossed:::
January 6, 1999:
I liked what
Linda Dunn had to say in her journal today. She related writers to mountain climbers. I feel like right now I'm setting my sights so high that I'm afraid I can't reach them and scared to persue it. Last year my novel made just over 50,000 words. I was hoping to make 60,000. This novel that I'm working on now I was hoping to make 60,000 again, but after writing nearly three chapters that are 4600 words, I don't know if this story will even make it to 30,000 words. I guess I shouldn't worry about it, like Ron Collins said on his page, numbers don't matter, telling the story is all that matters. And then there's what others have told me, if a story is only so long, then that's how long it should be, adding more just adds junk to it.
I think I need to just forget about word numbers and write the story the best way I can. If the story is 5 words or 500,000 words long, so be it.
I added 1500 words to my novel today. I feel good about the direction it's going, but I'm worried about this last chapter. It turned out being omniscient. I switched between several characters. Not really sure if I did it right or night. I might have to re-write the entire chapter later, but uh-well. C'est la vie, right?
January 5, 1999:
Whew! My entries have become so long, I'm going to have to put each month in mothballs. :)
Another 1500 words added to my novel today. It is not even 10am yet and I plan on revising some today as well. I've decided it would be best to write some on my current novel as well as work at least one hour revising my first novel. This way I won't get tired of doing one thing all the time. I had planned to write a novel/revise a novel...But I think this way might be better.
Also hoping to get my story out today, I spent about an hour revising it last night, but still need to make changes on the 'puter and print it out.
January 4, 1999:
It's 1:00am and I'll likely be adding more to this entry in the morning (or afternoon, whichever). Thanks to Vera for creating the new Not-A-Webring page and thanks also to John Aegard for creating the logos! I think it looks great! I like it better than the list of links.
As of right now, everything is about ready for my short to be mailed out today, except one thing. I had someone read the final copy and they found a few things that needs touching up. I'm glad I asked him to read it! :)
I'm going to start something new for Mondays. Each Monday I'm going to browse the web (mainly a couple of my fave e-zines) and read a story. I prefer to pick stories of people I know via the internet. If I like it I will give my kudos. If not, well, maybe I should keep those opinions to myself. :) I will tell you one thing though, there are few stories I don't like as far as speculative fiction goes.
Now it is 10:30am. I just read a weird story at Gothic.Net. I thought I would check this e-zine out, hadn't ever been there before. The story is: Teeth by Nicolas Antosca. I'm not saying it was a bad story. I think it was really good, just weird! :) Check it out! Gothic.Net's website is really cul. The first page is awesome! You have to 'excavate' to find the links! :)
Ok, ok. Of to write I go...
Ok, I confess, I never got to writing! I got on AOL Instant Messager to see if my mom was on. I good friend of mine that I hadn't talked to in a long time was on. He's a computer genius! He helped me fix this page so that it now looks good on Netscape. :) Now I'm off to see my family to have our Christmas and won't have time to write today. :( I will take my writing notebook with me and work on outlines and character sketches though! :)
More bad news though, I didn't get the story in the mail today. It will be off tomarrow, most definately!
January 2, 1999:
Started my novel today. I was hoping to add more than 1500 words today, but I was so sleepy! I went to bed at 12 and slept later than I planned- 9:30. Then I took a nap after writing and was still sleepy at work tonight. I think it's from eating all that holiday junk. My pants wouldn't even fit today!
I am excited about the writing I did today. There were a few things I knew I needed to develop in the first chapter, but couldn't quite figure out what I wanted to do. I just decided to go ahead and write and they naturally came out! I'm very pleased about that, two big obstacles overcome. :) Yay!
Oh, and I almost forgot, I got the cover letter on a short story typed and printed out. All I need to do is print some lables to go on the large envelope and get the SASE ready. I hope to have it sent out on Monday. I hope they like it!
Also, a fellow writer told me that I've been doing my word counts wrong. All last year I went by what the word processor told me, he said that I should go by printer's words. Anyway, I'm going to start doing it that way now.
January 1, 1999:
Ok, it's time for my goals. This year I hope:
1) to have two novels written (not revised)
2)EGI(from last year), and the next novel revised and ready for publisher
3) at least five new shorts (hopefully more), including two for a contest (deadline Oct.)
4) and do a better job sending shorts to editors, at the very least 5 editors per story.
I can't wait to get started tomarrow on my next novel, Fantasy Realty. I also have plans for January to send out my two shorts again(after just a bit of touching up on one) and finishing the one in progress and sending it out as well.
Journals in mothballs: 1998
If you'd like to see my first novel journal, click here!
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