Some fails.  Some successes.  June was very busy, though I didn’t get quite as much done as I’d hoped… that seems to be a common theme… This time I blame my body.  I had a huge chunk of time that I could have devoted to writing while travelling – whether that be my Nano story, blog posts, Workshop writings or something completely different.  Unfortunately, I slept away at least half of that time and then was sick the following week I should have spent catching up.  For one of my regular posts, I created a list of 30 things to do over the summer.  I’m crossing them off as they get done.  Hopefully I’ll cross at least half of them off!

Creativity Workshop

It was a rocky start through the first part of the Creativity Workshop.  I had pretty much ditched any hope of catching up on that section of the workshop.  For part two, I’ve been doing better.  Though I’ve not yet got any completed stories, I’ve got notes for four stories, some of which I hope to return to in the future.

Book Camp

At the beginning of the month, I spent an afternoon in Halifax for BookCamp.  It was a great afternoon hanging out with like-minded, book-loving twitter folk at St. Mary’s University.  I learned all about the Halifax Public Library and their online catalog  It’s a great system and even though I can’t use it in a more official capacity, I’ve already used it more than once to research books I might be interested in borrowing or buying.  If, after using their social catalog, I still want to read the book I go to my local library or Amazon and place my order.  If your area does not use a social search/catalog, I highly recommend using this, or another like it, to research books!  We had a discussion on new technologies in Publishing and a great session, via Skype, on the pros and cons of DRM and marketing your work.  After, many of us gathered at the Rock Bottom Brewery for drinks before heading our separate ways.  It was an awesome day and if you ever hear of one in your area, I highly recommend participating in whatever way you can!

Published

Lightening strikes thrice? (frice?)

At the beginning of the month the contributes of the new 6Sentences anthology “The Greek Bike” were announce and once again my piece was chosen to be included!  As usual, I went in an interesting direction.  Be sure to check it out and let me know what you think of my piece!

And the month closed on a high note as well with publication in “The Mysterious Dr. Ramsey“.

Journaling

Journaling this month has been… meh.  I took a week off to focus on my writing – finishing my Nano novel.  (Forgivable… I’m trying this journal thing to help me write; I’m not going to feel back if I skip it to actually write!).  Then I took a week off because I was sick (semi-forgivable, I could have at least written something).  Lately, I’ve been sporadic.  Unforgivable.  I must get back on the wagon!  Those times I actually DID I think have been very interesting… lots of weird and wonderful things have come out of it.  Hopefully usable at some point in the future!

Nano progress and other writing

So… actual creative stuff…

I’ve mostly kept up with my photo a day project.  On the home stretch now!  I’ve broken the 300′s!

I’ve contributed each week to the Velvet Verbosity 100 words challenge, producing five drabbles over the month.

For the Creativity Workshop, I wrote brain stormed three, very interesting, stories.  I hope to expand them at some point.

The NaNoWriMo story is done!! I finished writing it near the beginning of the month and I had it typed, edited and posted in it’s entirety on a couple of fan sites.  The other two sites I’ve been posting it had I’ve still been doing it post by post on Wednesdays and Saturdays, or when my main readers have had a chance to comment on it.  I did rush it at the end and my only revisions were basically spelling, grammar and flow.  It will never be publishable so I didn’t really spend a lot of time on it.  I now just have one piece to maybe do before I throw in the fan-fiction towel.

Worked on a couple of pieces for Six Sentences challenges.

Goals for next month

Continue to work on the Creativity Workshop and have 4 short stories (exploring themes and symbolism etc, in a ‘love’ story) drafted.

Continue with the Velvet Verbosity Challenge; having 4 new drabbles written

Finish my Birdhouse cross stitch piece.

Continue the Photo-a-Day project

I’d love to set more goals but with everything else I need to get done over the month to prep for August it’s unlikely I’ll be able to do anything other than keep my head above water.  Yes, I know ‘it’s all my choice’ but there ya go. : )