End of February - How Did I Do?

It's February 28th. Time to see how I did with my monthly goals.

1) Enter Grand Beginnings Contest.
I'd already gotten a start with this one and entered in January. I have to wait until April, though, to see how I did.

2) Finish Erin's Rebel revisions.
I completed this one and got a request for a full from Medallion Press after they'd looked over my partial.

3) Start first draft of Katie Rose.
I'd just started writing the opening chapters, when I got the request for Erin's Rebel. I had to stop working on Katie Rose to get final edits done for Erin's Rebel, but I will come back to Katie once the other manuscript has been sent out.

4) Begin World-Building for Futuristic.
I've gotten a good start on this beginning with naming my planet. I chose a Greek name, Cynara. It's a myth name, but there's no meaning. I thought it sounded perfect for my fictitious far-away planet. Now, I'm reading World-Building books and designing what Cynara will look like and what kind of aliens will live there.

Well, there it is. I think I did well on my February goals.

Next, I'll post my goals for March.

Building A Planet

I decided to take a break from working on my two Civil War romances and start some preliminary work on a futuristic romance I plan to write.

Since this book will be set on a far off planet 300 years in the future, my first step is to build a planet.

I first came up with a name for the planet that I'll use in the book's title, as well as in the two other books I plan for this trilogy.

Once the name was settled, I started to build my planet with the help of Writer's Digest books, Worldbuilding by Stephen L. Gillett. It's kind of fun building your own planet.

Next, I'll be researching the types of aliens who'll live there.

What I'm Reading

I just finished a great historical romance. Although the book has a 2003 copyright date, I just got to it. I have a very large to-be-read pile, but I get to all of them eventually.

YOURS UNTIL DAWN, by Teresa Medeiros is the story of a nurse, Samantha Wickerham, who arrives at the country estate of Gabriel Fairchild. He's a Naval war hero who's been scarred and blinded while serving aboard a British ship. Unable to control his whims since he's been blinded, his family banishes him to their country estate with a staff of servants. They've been unable to find a proper nurse for him, who can deal with his tantrums.

Samantha is determined to persevere, and as the two battle wits, they begin to first, respect one another, and then fall in love.

There's a surprise twist at the end that I won't reveal, but if you love historical romance, this is an entertaining read.

Revisions Done!

I just completed my self-revisions on Erin's Rebel. Of course, I still have to send chapters to my critique group. I only send one chapter every two weeks, so that will take awhile.

Still, it feels good to finally have this book in order.

I also finished revisions on the outline of Katie Rose. I want to start writing the first draft by the start of March.

And I plan to enter Erin's Rebel in my Hearts Through History chapter's Romance Through the Ages Contest.

I feel like my goal sheets are really keeping me focused. Every thing's starting to come together in my writing life.

Contest Woes

I just got the results of the final contest I entered last November. I didn't win or final in the first two and the scores were mixed. With this final one, I came one point from winning. One point! It was the GOTCHA Contest that was for the first 15 pages of a manuscript, no synopsis.

One of the judges gave me a perfect score. This was a first for me. And the fact that she was a published romance author made it even sweeter.

While she thought the entry was perfect, the other three all found something to nitpick about. Although, I did get fairly high scores from all of them. That's how I almost won.

Even though it would have been nice to win, I can't complain too much. It's the chance you take every time you enter a contest. Some judges will just love your work, while others may out-and-out hate it.

And, I've already entered two more contests for the new year with the revised chapters my critique group helped me with. They are great! They tell me, not only, what I need to revise, but what they like about the story and characters. And they all seem to like this story, so this gives me the confidence to keep plugging away at it.

I've entered two more contests for the new year with the revised chapters, so maybe I'll do better in the next contest. After all, I was only one point off.

And not winning won't stop me from submitting my work to publishers. You never know which editor will fall in love with your work.

My February Goals

It's February 1st and I have a list of plans that I want to accomplish this month.

1) Enter the Grand Beginnings Contest. This contest is for the first five pages of a romance novel. Five pages happens to be the entire first chapter of Erin's Rebel.
I got a little ahead and have already mailed the entry out.

2) Finish my revision of Erin's Rebel. As of today, I've got about 14 chapters left to revise. I should be able to finish up before the month ends.

3) Start first draft of Katie Rose.
I'm a little behind on this one. I still have to make revisions to the outline. I want to get that done before I start the first draft to avoid having to go back and do another major revision like I did with Erin's Rebel. I think my goal for this month will be to finish revising the outline.

4) Begin world-building for Futuristic trilogy.
I'm hoping to at least get a start on this, but it will depend on how the outline revision of Katie Rose goes.

Well, these are my plans for this month. I'll let you know how I did.