Freedom From The Mundane - A Writer's Blog

Sunday, May 01, 2005

April's GDR Review

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Writing so late last night was good from a productive point of view. From a parental angle it wasn't so smart as it was my turn to get up with Laura. 8am she came into the room and I felt I had only been in bed for half an hour.

I dragged myself up and stuck on the Boomerang TV channel, which always shows Looney Tunes cartoons, and I slept on the couch while she watched TV and drew pictures.

Eventually I got dressed and was about to take her down to the shop with me for some essentials when the heavens opened. It got heavier and heavier and when Gail got up I decided to brave the weather and go myself. It was quite invigorating and helped to waken me up.

I returned with the Sunday papers and other odds and ends and set about making breakfast; rolls and Lorne sausage with cups of tea. At last, I started to feel alive.

My poem was available on the Poetry Super Highway website for 24 hours (PST). I downloaded a lot of the others; well all of them actually. 88 poetry e-books that I hope to enjoy and learn from. I had a quick scan of the first few downloaded. Some were of a high standard and other less. I'll work my way through them all and see how I feel about them afterwards.

I got my contract renewal notice from my editor at KIC. I have to renew if I am to keep Hunting Jack on the website until the last subscriber completes and if I am going to refresh the marketing campaign. Given it will take me quite a while to re-draft the book to get it into a novel worth pitching, and also that I intend to write en e-book on the history behind the story itself, I think I will renew but not for the production of more issues.

With neither me nor Gail having the energy to cook, the nation of India provided us with our culinary delight for the evening. It really hit the spot, although the missing Nan didn’t go down to well. I had a wonderful Chicken Bhuna with all the trimmings. It was nice but not hot enough.

I read through and tidied up issues 71 and 72 of Hunting Jack and got them sent off befire I hit the sack exhausted. Only 9 more issues to go!

I totally forgot about the review of my April GDR (I thought May 1st was Monday - doh!) so here it is:

April GDR Review

Fiction
* Write 13 issues of Hunting Jack - 7 written, 5 sent
* Write 3 new short stories - 2 written and in WIP (Monday Mornings and Whisky Snatching)

Poetry
* Write 4 new poems
--4 complete - The Old Lady of Edinburgh, Boxes, Rules, Pound of Flesh.
--4 WIP - Bohernabreena, Brunette, Scotland Neglected, Swally.
--15 poems pulled out of retirement and given an overhaul so they can be submitted.
* Find markets for children's poems - done but no submissions made as I want to write more first before submitting.

Non-Fiction
* Travel article on Edinburgh Literary Figures - not complete due to time constraints.
* Sitcom script for BBC Last Laugh competition - ditched - no time to justify it.

Marketing and Promotion
* Leaflet re-distribution for Hunting Jack - still sitting on this and have relied on other media for promoting HJ thus far.
* Promote web design services - did more online submissions.

Reading and Research
* Read more fiction - read a lot of poetry and several short stories. All of it online as my books are all still boxed form the house move.
* Catch up with KIC e-zines - done (over 150 issues!!)
* Read notes on Buddhism - done but unsure where to go with it for now.

Technical
* Web Development manual - no more chapters written.
* Complete design of new site for client - client pulled out of project.

Things that turned up
* The Blind Man of Cathkin Street became free to find a new publisher after not winning the 2004 Summer Ghost Story Competition. Submitted to The Edge Magazine.
* Created chapbook of selected poems for the Free for All on May 1st called Brick by Brick.
* A Bond of Faith rejected by Open Wide Magazine.
* The Oasis rejected by the Summerset Review and resubmitted to One Story e-zine.Successes
* Not really a success, but definitely not a failure was the experience underwent after my first post at the poetry-only forum. I arrived at a new horizon, which will mean many hours of in-depth study and reading of poetry and where I should take it from here on. I researched poetry; how to read it and how to write it. Need to get more reading on this.
* Two new subscribers to HJ.
* Completed house move.

Failures
* Three rejections, one from a paying market. All had quick turnarounds though.
* Failure to complete sitcom script.
* Failure to complete Edinburgh Literary Figures article.

Statistics
Fiction - 10,000 (last month 13,800)
Non-Fiction - 0 (last month 11,100)
Blog - 16,600 (last month 22400)

Summary
Last month I deliberately set out to spend more time focussing more on fiction and poetry and although the numbers were down I achieved it. Moving house in the middle of the month was largely responsible for the drop in word count, although this was somewhat compensated for by the fact I have learnt bucket-loads over the past 30 days; particularly in the field of poetry.I am also glad to have spent time investigating digital cameras and going on two field trips with my camera in and around Edinburgh. Some of the pictures were used in my e-book, Brick by Brick.All in all, a good month for poetry and for keeping story's in the submission cycle.
Colin 10:31 am

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