What a week it has been. Wow!

I'll say it again. Wow. What a week it has been.

Saw my mentor the very lovely Louise Cusack a fortnight ago to sit down with a mind to layout the 2010 writing plan. Having finished my edits on Firewalker I was umming about what next. I have six ideas that perpetually play around in my head and figured a break (for awhile) from the Elemental Worlds was a good idea. Louise agreed and without further ado, I began researching, mulling and forming ideas for a book from the kernel of an idea. The goal was to start the dirty/zero draft beginning of March. The goal is still there, however it may now be slightly delayed.

On Wednesday morning I opened my emails and discovered I had made it into the 2^nd round for the RWA Australia Emerald award. I was floored. Completely gobsmacked, speechless and stunned. I stayed like that for most of the day. I think writing this post it is only beginning to sink in as I realise I now have until the 17^th to get Firewalker scrubbed and polished and sent back out again.

It was the first time I truly felt like I may be doing something, albeit small right. My goal for 2009 was to write and edit and submit a book to the Emerald. Purely for the feedback it offered after the first round (I actually had to go look up what happens next on Wednesday much to my partner’s amusement). Making it to the 2nd round had not really been on my radar. The warmth and support given by members of RWA has been amazing and I am truly humbled by it all. 

So, Firewalker is back in front of me and I’m madly getting it ready for my two readers. Then it will be a life of red frogs, coffee and no sleep as I absorb their feedback and embrace the art of polishing (it's a challenge even in my housework lists). This was the plan for Firewalker – only to be done in two months time. My pushy salamanders, mermaids and elementals are making themselves heard.

Congratulations to the other wonderful ladies who have made the 2^nd round with me. I know we are all now heads down not coming up for breath except for occasional feeding.

Storytelling

The plan was to blog weekly and already I've veered away from the plan. There is a good reason for it. I’ve been busy. Finishing the draft for FireWalker. Yay!

I made the deadline, with a couple of days to spare, being prepared for the meeting tomorrow with my mentor. For a day or two in there, I thought I wasn’t going to make it. Going away for the long weekend made it dodgy. I surprised myself and wrote while away. Only had one day off last week and that was due to the 6 hour drive on the back of a lack of sleep the night prior.

My tally for the first week for the RWA NaNoWriMo was about the 16,000 mark. I knew it would be high and this week balances that with only about 9,000ish. There are still days left so we’ll see. The tally I set includes playing with a novella. I’ve yet to decide which one I want to play with. So many ideas, only so many hours in a day.

I was very fortunate to be one of the guinea pigs for the now very popular and successful Year of the Edit series of workshops run by the Qld Writer’s Centre. We had the very talented Kim Wilkins as our tutor. I’m pulling on my notes from that year to work on the scene map and commencing the structural edit for this book. I know a lot of people would say it needs to be ‘frozen’/placed in the drawer etc for a bit but I’ve discovered I’m an odd duck. Well, I already knew that but as I discussed the story with my partner, (who also write) he was amused to see how I really do not have any memory of writing some of my scenes. Even ones with my favourite characters are forgotten about. It means as I edit I am reading my story with a ‘first time’ overview. To edit a story detached and methodical are two words that are heard over and over and well, over again.

It leads credence to my theory I am first and foremost a storyteller. If I had lived a few hundred years ago, I would have been quite happy being a travelling bard, telling the stories, slightly different each time. Possibly, I may have had to be male as well, but that is another post for another time. Now in this day and age, stories, to a degree, need to become a static document, captured in time for repeated reading pleasure. It will be interesting to see how detached I will be as in the past my modus operandi was to abandon the baby aka story altogether. It was told, out of my head why would I want to look back at it?