Thursday, September 10, 2015

Moving and other projects...

I've spent the past couple of weeks packing and getting ready to move.  All the books I had to give away are gone.  I'll spend this weekend and part of next week finishing my moving.  It's been gradual.

However, my painting table will the last thing to go.  I'm at my old place working a Warmachine Paladin of the Wall figure with some base coats.  I tried stripping a Warmachine Knight Errant squad with Pinesol.  I've moved on to Simple Green.  I'll see if that works.  If not, I don't know what to do.  I want the figures stripped.  But I don't want to kill myself.  No longer being an analytic chemist means I don't have access to organic solvents that would easily strip paint.

That's okay.  Otherwise, I'll have to give up trying.  I also have a 18mm fantasy orc football to finish for Mute Bystander.  I've had it for over 2 months.  Real life and my father's death got in the way of my painting.  I recently finished painting a 18mm SYW Reichsarmee infantry brigade.  I have another 18mm SYW Reichsarmee to prime and paint, also.  Then, there's the six month backlog of Warmachine Mercenary figures to assemble, prime, and paint, too, lol.

However, I did finish a novella about the Mongol invasion of Russia in 1223.  I wanted a novel.  I got a novella.  That's how most of my recent works have turned out.  I started writing it back in November 2014.  I got side tracked when I spent three months editing my first novel.  It's now on its third draft.  I then went back to writing the Mongol invasion novella.  I tried writing 1,000-1,250 words a week.  Steve King recommended writing a 2,000-3,000 words a day for an aspiring writer!

Again, life got in the way.  I took care of my dying father and ran errands for my parents.  It consumed much of my time.  I finished the Mongol novella last week.  I went ahead and line edited and revised the rough draft.  I'll bring it a local writers group for reading and critique later.  Have worked critiqued is my main stumbling block.  I can only have about 2,000 words read and critiqued each week.  It's good to have someone else give you feedback on your work.  I found it has been critical to my growth as a writer.

Given the fact I can only have so much critiqued, it governs what I can revise and edit each week.  Once I've have the individual critiques back, I edit and revise that particular section electronically.  Once I have a work critiqued, I then go back and edit it as a whole.  But I allow time between the completion of a critiqued work and the editing/revising of a particular piece.

My apologies for the boring litany of a writer, but it's whole I spend a good part of my time.  There's also keeping track of queries and rejections.  I have a pile of them.  A good piece of advice from a profession writer friend of mine was keep your day job.  Few make money being a published author.  No matter what someone may tell you...

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