Melbourne Zoo/Supanova - April 2012

(this post contains a lot of photos and will probably chew up a fair bit of bandwidth. But the pictures are cool. So there.)

This is a writing check-in and fun post all in one. I have done some writing this week - around 1,000 words worth - but a death in the family this week meant that a lot of the time I was meant to spend writing and marking assignments was lost (it wasn't someone I was close to but it has been hard for other family members). Ah well, sometimes these things happen and all you can do is try to work around it. As far as my novel goes, I think some scenes are becoming a bit clearer, but others still need work. I am starting (slightly) to break myself of the habit of picking at one section at the expense of finishing the story, but it's a slow process :) I did manage to do a painting last night, though, since I couldn't concentrate on either writing or uni stuff:

I spend most weekends at home either writing or painting; ie. being a desk hermit. Today, however, I set aside my anti-social tendencies and went gallivanting off into the city, more specifically, to the Melbourne Zoo for a friend's birthday party and to Supanova. Here are some of my favourite photos from the zoo:









After I left the zoo, I headed over to the Melbourne Showgrounds for Supanova. I didn't get to spend as long there as I would have liked, but I did get to chat with two awesome authors, Michael Pryor (writer of The Laws of Magic series and the Extraordinaires series, and wearer of wicked top hats) and Ben Chandler (The Voyages of the Flying Dragon series). If you like reading YA fantasy, especially with a steampunk setting, check out their books. You won't be disappointed.

Tomorrow will be spent catching up on assignment marking, since life (or, more specifically, death) prevented me from getting it done during the week, but at least today was awesome :) Anyway, I'm off to slather more deep heat gel into my knee (old karate injury always plays up if I walk around all day) and head off to bed. Adios.

Judgemental Dog has been temporarily usurped by Imperious Meerkat*:

ROW80 Round 6 Goals + 1st Update

I know, I missed the goals post and my first check-in is late because of work... And this check-in will be a bit short since I worked all day... Retail on Easter Saturday with a lack of staff... It was like Armageddon :| *dies of exhaustion*

My main priorities for this round are a) to revise my novel outline and b) to just write more of the damn novel. My novel is at around the 35,000 mark (I wrote a lot last round, but much of that was for a different - now abandoned - story idea, and several sections got cut because of plot inconsistencies etc). I haven't made as much progress on it as I would have liked; sometimes I'll punch out a few thousand words over a couple of days, and then I'll barely write anything for a week. In a few past ROW80 rounds, I've tried setting goals like "I will finish these four chapters" or whatever, but it just doesn't work; I always just ended up faffing about with other random scenes and completely ignoring the ones I was meant to be working on, which of course brought on the old writer's guilt we all love so much. For this round, I'm going to just try writing 500 words a day; doesn't matter what chapter or scene, just as long as I'm adding to the manuscript. Wednesdays are going to be a non-writing day, though, since I spend all day at one job and then rush home and go straight to my other job. I will have neither to the time nor energy to write, so it's probably better to just accept that I won't get anything done on those days.

My novel outline is also in pretty dire need of attention. I've had a few plot points that have been bugging me pretty much since I wrote the first version 2 years or so ago, and though I think I've finally found solutions to these plot holes (more like plot craters in some cases), it will need a pretty heavy rewrite. But it has given me some ideas for how I can expand one of the sub-plots and make the world seem richer, so hopefully once I spend some time with my outline, I'll be more excited about tackling the novel itself.

In the break between rounds, I did a little bit of writing, but mainly just a few random snippets. I did get to have a go at using my new Derwent Artbars, though. I also wrote a review about them, including a few drawings; you can see it here (hey, I may not have been working on my novel, but at least I was still writing :D).

So, goals:
-Write at least 500 words every day except Wednesdays
-Expand and revise novel outline
-Create more artwork (focus on painting but also wax crayons)
-Continue job hunting (especially towards end of semester)
-Keep up to date with assignment marking

Anyway, my dodgy knee is aching like buggery after running around (it was that busy I was literally running for most of my 9 hour shift), so I'm off to go marinate my leg in deep-heat gel. Mostly I'll probably only update once a week, but if I have a good week progress-wise, I may pop in more often :)

Judgemental Dog drives a hard bargain: