Insecure Writer's Support Group

Today's the first Insecure Writer's Support Group of 2014! Woo!

Tomorrow is my very first day of my MFA in writing for children's and young adults. It starts off with a 10 day residency (11 if it's your first semester) which includes readings and lectures and workshops and other awesome stuff I'm excited about.

I'm actually not really nervous at all. Anything I am nervous about is just logistics stuff, like lunches and dinners and whether I'll have time to work out in the morning before I go. But I know all of that will be resolved probably after the first day. 

Mostly I'm just excited to get going and meet a whole bunch of new, awesome writers.

I also have a friend from one of my classes last year who was also accepted to the MFA program, so it will be nice to know someone who'll be going through the same program as me. At the very least it means I'll already have one friend.

I dunno. I guess this isn't a very good insecure writer post, because I'm feeling pretty secure. I think. Of course maybe tomorrow morning I'll suddenly be nervous or scared or something. I guess we'll see.

But, because the residency is pretty much all day for 10 days, I won't be blogging at all until it's done. So I'll be on hiatus for the rest of this week, all of next week, and at least part of the week after.

Wish me luck!

In Which I Look Back At 2013 Goals

Another year, another list of goals met or failed.

Looking back at this time last year, these were the goals I'd made for myself for 2013:



2013 GOALS

1. Revise All That Remains
2. Query All That Remains
3. Take at least one writing class before querying ATR
4. Start another novel
5. Lose weight
6. Read 62 books
7. Revise Break Free (again)
8. Seriously consider getting my MFA

1. CHECK (mostly). So I did revise the crap out of it. Then I started sending it out. But, as these things work, I'm back to doing some revisions on it. All for good, exciting reasons, but still.

2. CHECK. I did indeed start querying ATR. On Halloween as a matter of fact. It's going really well, though I did take a short hiatus over December and probably won't start again until after my residency (or maybe not until I hear back from some agents. We'll see)

3. DOUBLE CHECK. I took 2 classes this year, a YA novel class and an advanced children's writing workshop. I met some great new people which has been one of the best parts of the classes

4. CHECK-ISH. I've written 15 pages on my next WIP. So, not a lot, but still. It counts I guess.

5. UNSURE Probably I should have written down my starting weight somewhere... But probably I haven't lost anything significant

6. HUGE CHECK I smashed my goal out of the water. As of writing this post I've read 103 books and I'm on schedule to finish 1 or 2 more before 2013 closes out.

7. CHECK It was just a small revision, but I still got it done.

8. BIG CHECK I considered it hard, applied and was accepted. My first semester and residency begins on Thursday, the 9th. I'm so excited! My workshop faculty for the 10 day residency includes Anne Ursu, which will be awesome. And I'm excited to see who I get paired up with for a mentor.


So, looking at all that, it seems 2013 was pretty successful. I have to think on some goals for 2014 (and the next few days/weeks could change things one way or another) but once I get back from the residency I'll make my 2014 goals list.

How about you? Did you meet your 2013 goals? Are you making goals for 2014?

Friday Fun

Hiya ape-friends!

Yvie here for the first Friday fun of 2014!

Yes. 2014 is looking mighty fine

Let's get this year started off right!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Which It's 2014!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

 

 

 

Let's PWN 2014!

In Which I Received Books!

Well Christmas has come and gone for another year, as expected. I hope everyone had a good time with their friends and family.

As usual, my fam goes a little cray cray with the gift giving, so I ended up with a lot of books I'm excited to read. Of course, first I have to finish the library books I have checked out. Until then, my new shiny books will have to sit prettily on  my end table.

I mean, look at them!

Awesome, right? I don't know how I'll pick which one to read first.

How about you, did you get any books or awesome gifts for Christmas? (Twin, Brother and I also got a sausage maker attachment for Twin's mixer, so we spent Saturday playing board games and making up some bratwursts. It was awesome)

In Which It's Christmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

In Which I Am So Busy

I am ridiculously busy and probably will remain so for the next month or more. Outside of the holidays, which is, of course, taxing my time some, I have workshop pieces to critique for the MFA residency before the 9th (10, 15 page critiques to dole out) a manuscript I have to read for a friend (paying what I owe and all that), writing group critiques and revisions on All That Remains.

...and as I wrote that last bit, I totally just realized I forgot to print off my own 15 pages for my critique at the MFA. Nice move, Sarah. DERP.

I plan to keep up blogging here and there, but don't expect posts from me on the actual holidays and also I'll take a short hiatus while I'm at the MFA residency, just because it's ten full days of stuff and I won't have much time to check emails, let alone respond to comments etc (and I hate writing posts when I can't respond).

I wish I had more time. There are some great movies out right now that I'm worried I won't get a chance to see (Though I did get to see Desolation of Smaug this last weekend. Holy frickin crap how great was it? (spoiler: so great))

But Christmas Eve is tomorrow, which is awesome. I actually prefer it over Christmas day because my family has a delicious meal of crab legs and poté , and clam chowder throughout the day and we'll open one present each and play games and sit in the hot tub and be fat and merry.

yum...Poté

Christmas day, while full of awesome presents and stuff, is a bit too much of "we're required to go see other family" and while I enjoy seeing family, sometimes I wish I could just spend the day relaxing.

Anyway, this was a really roundabout way to say my posts will be sporadic for a bit.

What about you? Have you seen Desolation of Smaug? Do you have any Christmas traditions?