Writing

I have neglected this blog for the past week in favor of other, older, writing projects.

Since I allowed it to prevent me from updating this blog, I figured it was appropriate to post that information here, because, even though it doesn't have anything to do with construction (or deconstruction), I actually do my writing -physically- at The 123.

My office is on the second floor and I spend as much time there as possible during the week when the kids are in school. It's been amazing how much writing I can actually get done without the distraction of laundry and dirty breakfast dishes; I always suspected I could, but now I have proof.
I love my office :)

Go here: MKStover.com for my website. I don't have much content up at this time, but I do keep it updated. I post information about current writing projects and I will continue to add to it.

This past week, I have been working on this: Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

I was on the internet looking for the NaNoWriMo website (more about this in a minute) and this Amazon Novel contest appeared. So, knowing that this was something I should do, I signed-up, got a registration number, and was given 7 days to submit a manuscript.
That's a tall order, isn't it?

Good thing I already had the novel written.

I wrote Vultures in bits and pieces (with occasional phases of mania) over the course of a couple of years. It's been collecting dust now for at least the last 18 months, maybe even closer to 2 years. I had worked on it for a very long time and I was just not sure of the overall effect. I queried an agent once about it, but she was not interested (at least she responded) and I just pushed it out of my way and went on to other things. Not very persevering, huh?

So last week I opened the Vulture zip folder on my hard drive, pulled the printed copy out of the file drawer and sat down to read it for the first time in a very long time.

I'm glad I waited that long. The time away from it gave me a new perspective; I was able to approach it as a reader and not the writer. That helped tremendously (and the time gap helped sever the emotional attachment -but maybe that's too much information).

Anyway- for the last 7 days I have been (maniacally) proofreading (again) and cutting (again) and editing (again) this old manuscript. I was surprised to find that there really wasn't all that much wrong with it: basic grammar issues and a couple of small chronology problems.

*Thanks to my family for helping with the week's volatile overtime work schedule*

I will post more information about this as it progresses.

As for the NaNoWriMo: that's short for National Novel Writing Month. The idea is to crank out 50,000 words in November. I've known about this Novel writer's craze for several years, but I think this year I will participate to get a jump on my next novel. I'll post links to this, too, as Novemeber approaches.