October 2023 Update

It feels a little like things are paused right now, because I’ve been focused on two other projects, and I was working extra for my day job, too. I’ve just started querying on my nonfiction project related to my day job, so it’s sort of “done”. The third romance I’m writing under a pen name is also wrapping up, but there are still several chapters left to write. I’m just feeling a little wrung out and stretched thin. And on top of that, since July I’ve lost two cats and had another diagnosed with cancer, so it’s been a rough ride. But a friend convinced me to start going to yoga, and I figure I’ll give that a shot, so hopefully I’ll be back to normal soon—which will mean posting here more regularly. It will also mean making much more progress on Ugliest, which is moving along, but slowly.

In the realm of good news, Uglier has gotten some recognition lately, which is really cool. It got a starred review from Kirkus Reviews a bit ago, and the made it an editor’s pick for their most recent issue of the magazine, out today. I also got some other good news about it, but I can’t share that for a bit. Watch this space.

I’ve made some decisions about social media. Partially because I was feeling overwhelmed and busy, I’ve not been active. But I have finally decided to officially give up on BookTok. My account is clearly marked, and no matter what I do, I can’t get past the about-250-views mark. Sometimes I’ll post it and get there in a couple hours, but other times it might take me a day or two, but whatever the timing, as soon as I hit 250, TikTok stops showing it. I also have an account for my romance pen name, and although I don’t get a lot of views, it’s not blocked like @kv_books is. And on my account related to my day job (@kelly_datascientist), I occasionally get 1000+ views (I’ve had one go over 8000, too). So it’s obviously @kv_books that’s blacklisted or whatever. But anyway, I’m trying to get back on Instagram. I took a bunch of pictures of books I’ve read in the last few months (fortunately, I am still reading a lot) and will be posting those soon, a few at a time. Maybe I’ll even make some videos.

In other news, I have some sales on my ebooks coming up. Always the New Girl and Binding Off are on sale for the first half of November, both for 99 cents (and 79 cents for Binding Off where possible). Ugly and Uglier are also going to be 99 cents for the entire month of December. I will be sending reminders about these out in my newsletter, so subscribe if you’re interested.

And just for posterity, here are a couple pictures of my old lady cats who are no longer with us. They’re both still so cute in these, even though they were difficult to take care of at the end.

Chloe the cat
Chloe
Zmije the cat in her cage
Zmije

The Spark Award and a Personal Announcement

I had a pretty exciting thing happen this past week. I actually found out on Friday the 13th, which was a good day also because I finally mapped out the rest of UGLIER, something I had been struggling with for months. But the best part was the email I got from SCBWI saying Ugly was the Honor book for the Spark Award in the Books for Older Readers category. They announced it this past Wednesday.

!!!!

For your edification, here is the Ugly cover:

Ugly book cover

SCBWI is the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and most people in the world of children’s publishing are members or interact with it to some degree. They give the annual Spark Award for non-traditionally published books, for either younger readers (board books through chapter books) and older readers (middle grade and young adult). There is always a winner, who receives $1000, but they also have the option of also naming an Honor book (optional in that they don’t always do this), so it’s basically second place or runner-up. No money for that one, but it’s still an amazing honor given that there are hundreds of entries of middle grade and YA books (fiction and nonfiction).

Those of you who know me will not be surprised that my brain went, “Well, you know they only picked it is because it’s LGBTQ-themed.” Fortunately, my brain then went, “You idiot, there’s no way yours was the only LGBTQ-themed book entered.” So then I felt good again.

Validated and Feelings

One side effect of this win is that it made me feel validated. I’ve felt like a fraud since writing Ugly because I know people would look at me and say that it couldn’t be authentic because I am not personally nonbinary, or out as gender nonconforming, or using they/them pronouns. Of course, I’ve been thinking about all that since writing it—in fact, when I applied for my MFA, I put my gender as gender nonconforming. Ugly was such a personal story and I really felt the process that Nic went through in exploring her gender because in writing the book, I went through the exact same exploration she did.

I’ve said since then that if I were young, like a teen or in my twenties, it would be a no-brainer—I’d come out as nonbinary. But as someone in my forties, it wasn’t so obvious. There are a lot of considerations and it would impact a lot of areas of my life. It would be difficult for my family and friends (even though I knew they would all be supportive). I’d have to decide if I should come out at work, and that would likely be awkward. It just sounded sort of exhausting—I’d be constantly correcting people. And one thing I’ve learned from reading LGBTQ books is that I would also be constantly coming out, basically every time I met new people and groups. This made me feel tired. So I never did anything about it.

A Real Fraud

But that made me feel like a fraud. One time, an agent responded to a query on Ugly with the question, “Is this Own Voices?” I answered that it was complicated, and I explained that I was not out as gender nonconforming or nonbinary because of my age, but that Ugly was still as authentic as a story could be. She didn’t respond. So I knew for sure that my book would not be respected in the publishing world or the LGBTQ community. And it was frustrating because Ugly was straight from the heart and incredibly realistic. Also, the Own Voices idea always frustrated me because it was itself a binary concept (which I think is one of the reasons many have moved away from using it). Real life is much more gray.

Back to the present. Even though the Spark judges didn’t know how I identified, they obviously felt like the story was authentic and believable, and that felt good to me. For some reason, this recognition emboldened me to finally make the leap.

Coming Out

I have decided that I am gender nonconforming and have started using they/them pronouns. I’ve already come out in some spaces and will be continuing to do that. I’m honestly not entirely sure exactly what this means. Although the terms ”nonbinary” and ”gender nonconforming“ are often used interchangeably, to me they are two different things, and I am still trying to figure out which term best fits me.

But however that ends up shaking out, they/them pronouns feel the most accurate. So I will be using these going forward.

Pivoting and Staying Busy

If you know me at all, you’ll know I keep myself pretty busy. It keeps me from getting depressed. But I’ve taken on a crazy amount lately, so I didn’t finish reading a book this week and don’t have a review.

I’ve decided to branch out into picture books. I want to write and illustrate biographies of women in STEM fields, though I might do some fiction, too. But since I’m new to them, I have a long way to go. I’ve been reading lots but decided to join some online communities related to picture books to learn more rapidly. I did Storystorm, which is a month-long challenge to come up with an idea per day (technically just the first 30 days) in January. I also joined the 12x12 Challenge, where you try to write at least one picture book manuscript each month. This is focused on the writing part, not the illustrating.  But there’s another online school called Storyteller Academy that focuses on picture books, both writing and illustrating if you want. I signed up for that, too. For this there are actual courses and you take whichever ones you want. I signed up for several for this term: Drawing, Illustrating, Character Design, and Writing Picture Book Manuscripts. I also started taking a weekly class in watercolor painting (finally; I’ve been wanting to do this for a while). Add this to my BFA program, where I’m doing 18 credit hours this semester, the weekly data science class related to work that I’m taking, a really good playwriting class I’m taking, that I have to send ten pages of the in-progress Sadie Speaks rewrite to my book coach every week, that I’m also working on a romance and meeting my critique partner weekly, the two monthly critique group meetings, and the fact that I’ve got a full-time job, and it all adds up to me being crazy busy. But I love it. So.

Two of the classes I’m taking for the BFA are perspective and topics in color, and I’m loving both of them. The perspective class is great—I’ve always been decent at perspective, but I am learning more about measuring, which speaks to the math-minded person I am. And the topics in color class is also fascinating. We’re studying color mostly via acrylic painting, and there’s something very satisfying about mixing paint. I’m learning a lot, even though I still don’t think acrylics will be my medium of choice. As much fun as the process is, the end result doesn’t please me the way watercolor does (though I know you can water down acrylics and use them like watercolors, but I’m still thinking I’m leaning toward watercolor proper).

I’m going to share an abstract painting I did for my topics in color class. We had to take a photograph and make an abstract version of it. I used this photograph of a sunset in Oklahoma City on New Year’s Day 2020:

Oklahoma City sunset

And this is the painting, which I like even though it’s not exactly fine art:

Abstract OKC sunset

I’ll also share a drawing I did for my perspective class, which has lots of problems but is still kind of cool:

Perspective drawing of railroad station

No Real Update Update

So I am in a major reading slump. It’s taking me forever to read anything. Thus there was no review last week, and none this week. Instead there’s a boring post about nothing. Despite all that, I did go to picture book school—my friend lent me her entire picture book collection in an attempt to get me to love them as much as she does. I’ve read about 20 of them so far. I enjoyed some of them, but I’m not in love yet.

I did submit all my final work for my MFA last week, so I am completely done with that with the exception of my final residency and my graduation reading, which is January 10th.

Other than that, I’ve been busy with NaNo and my art classes. I did finish NaNo—I got to over 50,000 words, although I’m still finishing up the draft. I finally figured out some of the things I was stuck on, so I need to go back and redraft, but I feel good about the story. For art school, I created the following drawing (it’s big—18” x 24”):

Drawing of my house

Also, for your amusement, I had an assignment where I was supposed to take some identical objects and modify each of them in three different ways. This was what I started with:

Bottles

I had trouble with the last one and eventually came up with this monstrosity:

Weird doll

(The bottle became a skirt, in case you were wondering.) Here they all are together:

Weird plastic bottle assignment

Style

Not a lot has changed in the past few weeks. I got my thesis back from the second reader, so now I’m ready to finalize it and send it in. I finished my class about narrative distance and got some feedback from the teacher, so now I feel ready to tackle fixing Ugly. I’m pretty sure I’m going to try to do NaNoWriMo this year, after waffling about it for a while. I may not succeed—may, in fact, give up part way—but I’m going to start it and see how it goes. I’m going to be busy because I’m also taking two art classes. Being me, I decided to go for it, and I enrolled in a BFA program in Illustration. Crazy, I know. But I'll learn stuff.

I’ve still been working through a pen and ink techniques book, copying from the artist’s drawings. I’m getting better and learning some techniques, and developing my own style (slowly). I’ve included a few pictures below.

Drawing of trees on a hill

Drawing of small sailboat

Drawing of castle stairs

Writing and Education

I recently joined Sisters in Crime, a mystery/suspense/etc. writers’ group, just in time to attend there SinC Into Great Writing: Creating Authentic Characters webinar. I was excited about it because Lou Berney, the author I’m working with this semester for my suspense class in my MFA, was featured. But K. Tempest Bradford was also presenting about writing the other. I’ve heard of her but never seen her teach, which is a shame because she’s a great presenter. If you’re a writer wanting to learning about diverse representation and writing characters different from you, I highly recommend looking for her workshops. She’s very organized, clear, and deeply knowledgeable. She’s also a funny (not excessively so, but she kept it light despite the serious nature of the topic). She also talked about sensitivity readers. Apparently the going minimum is about $250/300, which isn’t bad to me. The next part of the webinar was a conversation about character with Walter Mosley and Lou Berney, which was also interesting. It really was just a conversation for the most part, with the moderator asking a few questions to get things going.

In MFA news, I sent my thesis to the second reader, which means there are no more changes to make. I also turned in the synopsis of rewritten Sadie Speaks to Lou last week and I’m looking forward to getting his feedback on it. If he doesn’t have recommendations for major changes, I’ll be able to submit two samples from the beginning of the book, which I’m hoping is two chapters each. Otherwise, I’ll have to revise the synopsis for the first submission. I just have one more submission to make in my research elective (though I do have half a book to read for it). So I’m really close to being done here.

Outside of that, I just started an online class called How Stories Get Told: Voice and Narrative Distance which I’m hoping is going to help me fix the narrative distance problem Ugly has. Because I think that’s the problem. We’re so buried in her head we can’t see the rest of the world.

I’m still internally debating doing NaNoWriMo this year. This is the month I need to do the planning if I want to make it work. I would be rewriting a romance of mine. I’m also trying to figure out if I’m going to cheat if I do decide to go for it. I already have some of the novel written (actually the whole thing, but only some of that is usable), so I could count the parts I pull in toward my word count. Normally, I’m a purist about it—I only start brand new projects and would never cheat. But it is 2020. So.

One issue is that I want to work on Ugly, too, so it will be hard to do both, which means I may not get to Ugly until December, when I told the agents I could get it to them by the end of the year. I’m also still actively working on the Now Would Be Good stories. I’m running it through my book coach 2500 words a week, with many weeks to go. On top of that, I’m taking another writing class on short stories that starts on October 13, so I’ll be trying to produce work for that. On top of that, I’m studying calculus to prepare for starting the statistics master’s again next fall. So really, if I were sensible, I would not do NaNo. But this is me, so who knows what I’ll decide.

An update on the expensive cat problem: my MacBook Air display died again, and this time they replaced it and two internal cables. So there really was something wrong with it that wasn’t from Maddox biting it. But I still installed a Maddox bite deterrent system:

Maddox Bite Deterrent System - cardboard taped to the corners of the screen

So far it’s working reasonably well. I’ve caught him biting the cardboard several times, but he hasn’t gotten past it yet.

Expensive Cat

There's really not much going on in my writing world. Still working away on the Sarah stories (Now Would Be Good). I worked up a new synopsis of Sadie Speaks to send to my mentor in a few weeks. I'm also really frustrated—I applied to a postgraduate semester in Writing for Children and Young Adults at the Vermont College of Fine Arts—I was hoping to work with a well-known YA author on Ugly—but they're taking a long time to get back to me. I think it's a rejection, which means I should get started revising Ugly again, but since I don't know, I'm stuck waiting. I'm kind of disappointed, though. I felt pretty confident in my application. But whatever.

I'm also trying to decide if I'm going to do NaNoWriMo this year. If I do, I'll be working on my second romance. It isn't totally planned out yet, which means I'll need to spend some of October prepping it. I haven't done NaNo since 2017, when I wrote Ugly.

I'm going to be running a sale (99 cents) on my book for a week in November and featuring it on Bargain Booksy again, on November 10th. I'm hoping to get a few more sales than I did when it was still $4.99.

Now for a little rant. This guy:

Maddox biting computer
Maddox trying to bite my work computer

Is in big trouble. I have a Macbook Air that I bought in July of 2019, and about four weeks ago the screen died. I fortunately have Apple Care, because they counted the chipped glass from Maddox's bites as accidental damage, so it didn't qualify for repair under the warranty (even though the tech at the Genius Bar agreed with me that it was unlikely to have actually caused the damage). That was $100. Within 3 hours of getting the repaired computer back, this monster bit the corner again, chipping it. Then, last Wednesday, the screen abruptly died. So, either his biting really is causing the damage, or I'm just really unlucky (no, I'm definitely unlucky, either way). I have an appointment at the Genius Bar Thursday. I'm hoping Apple Care will apply again and it will only be $100 again.

Sigh.

Bookshelves

It feels like there really is not much of interest going on right now. The thing I’m most excited about is the bookshelves in my bonus room that are finally ready for use. Here’s a picture of them before the top was finished (the railing is because there are stairs leading into the room):

Bookshelves with closet

And here is a picture of the top, finished except for a final sanding and painting:

Bookshelves with top compartment

I’ve started loading the shelves, but it’s a real struggle to decide what goes where, between the shelves downstairs, the shelves in the office, and the new shelves. It’s a nice problem to have, though.

In other news, I have finished my thesis except for formatting. I had a few minor edits from my advisor, and I’ve done them, but the thesis requires specific formatting and I’m working on that. I’ll get it to her in a few days, and then it will be officially done, except for printing and submission to the college library. I’m not exactly sure how that’s to be done remotely, but I’ll find out.

I ran Finding Frances through a promotion that went out to 75,000 people, and at least one person bought it. Maybe just one, but still. I’m still struggling to get enough reviews to try for a BookBub deal (supposedly having 20 gives you a much better chance, and I currently have 16).

August 2020 Update

I don’t have much to report about my writing. I did sell a couple copies of Finding Frances in June, and one in July. It’s pitiful that this is exciting, but there you go.

The final semester of my MFA has officially started. The main work is preparing my thesis, but I have that almost done. My mentor has the full creative thesis now and will be giving me feedback on it, and I have a few little tweaks to make to the critical part of it, and then I’ll submit that to her later this month. I’m also taking two classes in addition to the thesis. One is on suspense and thriller novels with Lou Berney (author of The Long and Faraway Gone, one of my favorite such novels). He’s got me reading a handful of novels for the first packet and then writing a short paper about what suspense is, and then for the second packet he’ll read a synopsis of my rewritten Sadie Speaks, and then pages from the novel for the two later packets. The other class I’m taking is on research for writing, with Jeanetta Calhoun Mish, who’s Oklahoma’s Poet Laureate. I’m researching Irish history now, because I’m thinking of writing stories set in Ireland in various points in history, since I spent so much time and effort delving into it in college. I don’t know if I’ll ever really write it, but if I want to, I’ll have all my research ready.

Other than working on that, I’ve been drawing more. Here’s an oil lamp I did in stippling (which I will probably never do again—tedious) and a mannequin I did using hatching.

drawing of oil lamp

drawing of artists mannequin

I’ve also started studying math again, because I’m planning to start the stats degree back up next fall, because I need that much time to study. It’s amazing how much you can forget when you don’t use it… I'm using Khan Academy as a starting point, which is pretty amazing. I'm guessing it's getting a lot of usage during the pandemic.

The only other thing going on is that I’m getting some work done in my bonus room, the room over the garage. It has a slanted ceiling but is otherwise a decent-sized room, and I’m getting bookshelves installed on the long, tall wall, along with a closet built at the end of the wall. The idea is to make it count as a bedroom. I’m not sure it will work, but I am sure I will have a lot more bookshelf space to store my many boxes of books. They’re starting the work tomorrow, and I’ll post pictures once it’s done. For your amusement, I’ll post a terrible but related poem I had to write for my residency (the assignment was to write a ghazal, which is an old Arabic poetry form—I didn’t do it quite right, but I got most of the elements right (writing about a desire with lots of repeating words and naming yourself near the end)).

They overflow from shelves and boxes. Books for me.
On tables and cabinets. History, math, linguistics for me.

Fiction, lots of fiction, of all different types.
Boxes of books, as far as the eye can see, for me.

They’ve come shipped from all over the world.
From Glasgow, Edinburgh, Pilsen, Milton Keynes, for me.

Even some from the Isle of Skye, in Gaelic.
The cats nestle amongst them, I read for me.

But they’re everywhere, too everywhere.
A place for them is what I need, for me.

A call to my contractor
And he’ll do some measuring for me.

A little bit of work in SketchUp
And they’ll be a virtual drawing for me.

A couple of weeks of sawing and hammering
So they can fit on the shelves neatly, for me.

Then you can call me keeper of books.
Shelves of books, as far as the eye can see, for me.

First Royalties

Not a lot to report at the moment. My MFA residency started Friday, so I’m busy with that.

I did make a post to Facebook post (my first ever) about Finding Frances a couple weeks ago, and a couple people bought it. But still, getting it in front of people is nearly impossible.

I got my first royalties check, which came as a pitifully small direct deposit. But it did come, and I’ve now made actual money from Finding Frances.

royalties payment direct deposit

The only other thing going on is I’ve decided to start drawing again, which means I’m practicing with books and an art teacher. A couple of the books I’m using are about drawing cats, so here are a couple of the ones I’ve copied from one of the books:

Kittens

Notes from Lockdown

Story Genius book coverThis won’t be a very exciting post. Not a lot to report. Like everyone else, I’m stuck in lockdown, going stir crazy. I usually do most of my writing at Starbucks, so it’s been a challenge to learn to work at home. Especially when I’m working from home for my day job, too. I just sit in the same chair from 7 am to 8 or 9 pm, swapping out computers at about 3:30. One nice thing that is helping me not go crazy is that some of my writing friends and I meet on Zoom every day and chat and do writing sprints. It helps to talk to other people.

What I’m most busy with is my thesis (specifically the 15-20 page paper about a craft element in novels). I had to totally rewrite (well, reorganize) it this weekend. It’s due a week from Friday so I’ve only got one weekend after this one to finish it. It isn’t the final final version, since I can still work on it during next semester, but I don’t want to have too much to do on it.

I’m also working on planning out the final-to-be-written Sarah story, which will be the second-to-last in the collection. I’m using a method outlined in the book Story Genius (pictured here), but I signed up for the Story Genius Workshop, which is a self-paced online class that walks you through everything step-by-step. There are videos explaining everything, and then long worksheets to fill out. They also have the option to pay extra for a coach, someone who will give you feedback on every step. I applied for that and am waiting to hear how much it costs. We’ll see if I do it. One interesting thing about this process is that it is going to require me to change some things in the earlier story, especially the long first one.

I’ve also got Ugly out with a bunch of agents, though nobody’s biting. I keep getting form letter rejections. The gatekeepers hate me.

Heading Home

Time for a somewhat rambly post.

Yesterday my third MFA residency wrapped up. It was a good ten days, but now I’m sitting at the Oklahoma City airport waiting on my already-delayed flight. And there’s three more hours for it to be delayed even more. It’s likely snowing in Seattle so I’m really hoping that I get in and home okay. I can’t wait to see my kitties.

On the writing front, it seems like everything is focused on promotion for Finding Frances right now. One of the classes I’m taking this semester is “Professional Writing,” which is going to basically be the instructor helping me figure out how to promote Finding Frances and how to sell Ugly. I’m supposed to be figuring out possible venues for my release party. I was hoping to have it at Barnes and Noble in Issaquah, but I’m not sure they’ll work with my publisher. So I’ve got to find some backup locations. And I’m also trying to find ways to get reviews. In other promotion efforts, I signed up for a blog tour starting release day and running for four weeks (a “book blast” where they’ll put info on my book on several blogs). I also signed up for a review tour, also four weeks, where I’m supposed to get reviews. I have no idea if these will really give me a return on the money I put in, but I have to try something.

The other extra class I’m taking this semester is in pedagogy of creative writing. I am supposed to observe a class and also teach one before the end of the semester. So I have to figure out what to teach on. I’m a little nervous about this—it should be on some element of craft, but the field is wide open. I did ponder doing one on outlining at various stages of the writing process. I’m not sure if that would count.

Besides that, my faculty mentor is looking at the writing I’m planning to use for my thesis (I don’t have to produce any new creative writing this semester since I’ve done it all already) and I have to write five short papers and one big one, 15-20 pages.

That’s what I’m looking forward to this semester. I’ll be busy, but it should be good.

Moving Along

I don’t even remember why I missed posting last week. I think I was studying for the math class I just finished. I took the final for it yesterday. This was just a precursor—a review class—of what’s to come in August, when I’m starting the real classes. It’s going to be tough, but I’m hoping it’s worth it to my money-making career. 

As far as writing goes, I’m waiting on edits from my editor for Finding Frances. She should have them to me by the 29th, if not sooner. Then I’ll have 30 days to follow her suggestions (whatever they are; I have no idea what to expect). Apparently after that, things move fairly quickly. I’m hoping the book’s out by November. 

I’ve also got two partial requests out on Ugly, which is good, even though I’ve gotten about fifteen rejections. 

Waiting on the Editor

I’ve heard nothing from the editor about Finding Frances. I don’t know what that means, because I expected to hear something sooner, but I don’t really feel like following up yet, so I’m leaving it. Hopefully she just hasn’t had a chance to take it to the senior editors yet. Or who knows—maybe the process takes a while. Me = clueless. 

This month has been really rough. For reasons that I would be hard-pressed to explain, I’ve decided to apply to an online MS in applied statistics program (okay, there is a reason—I want to get better at stats for my job). I have to take a semester off from the MFA because of insufficient vacation days for the next residency, so I plan to start the stats degree this summer and take classes in the fall, then switch back to the MFA for a year, then back to the stats degree. I know, I know—I might be crazy. Anyway, the application requires the GRE, which I took today. Studying for that thing has sucked up so much of my time, and I still was disappointed by my score. Such is life. 

I went to Starbucks immediately after the test and managed to write another annotation, though it took me hours. I still have to write 1 short paper, 1 3-5-page paper, and rewrite another short paper, all by Friday. My poor little brain. 

Writing in 2018

2018 was a tough writing year in some ways, but also good. I had a bunch of rejections on Finding Frances, but I finally heard back from the editor I sent it to in September and she requested a full. This is the last shot for that book, but she sounded really interested in the sample she read, so I am hopeful. I should hear in the next few weeks. I’m sincerely hoping that even if it’s a no, she’ll give me some feedback on it. I’ll be setting it aside, but it would be good to have some pointers on what to try next, when I do decide to crack it open again.

I also spent a good portion of the year frantically working on Ugly, my 2017 NaNoWriMo book, trying to get it ready for the PNWA conference in September. I had several requests on it, which is pretty exciting since those were my first pitches on it (six pitches and six requests, including four fulls). The five I sent are all still out there (I skipped one of the agents because she doesn’t like something that appears in one of my other books, so she probably wouldn’t be a good fit for me). I didn’t send them until early November so I’m not expecting to hear anything for a bit. 

Also, of course, I spent half of the year on the MFA, which was great. I got two short stories done, both of which I’m happy with. One of them is going to be expanded a bit, but I like the short version and plan to enter it in some contests. I’m looking forward to the residency coming up and starting the next semester, especially the playwriting course (should be fun). I already made up my reading list and just need to get my faculty advisor to approve it or make her changes to it. This semester my mentor is Allison Amend. She’s written a few novels for adults. Still, I’m hoping to learn a lot from her, even if she isn’t focused on YA. 

I also judged for the mainstream category of the PNWA contest, which was a challenge and time-consuming, but also beneficial. It still took up most of May. I was bummed not to final in any of the categories I entered, but such is life. 

I was bummed not to do NaNoWriMo this year after a five-year successful run, but I had to prioritize the MFA. I may be able to do it 2019 because I won’t be doing the MFA that semester (I don’t have enough vacation so I have to wait until 2020 to start back).

Not directly writing-related but still significant to me, I also lost my favorite cat, Marvin, who would have been my muse if I’d had one. But I got a new little guy (Maddox) who’s actually a lot like Marvin. Not that he’s a replacement, but still. He’s affectionate but not overly so. 

Marvin made creepy by a Happy Light
My favorite picture of Marvin
Maddox posing for the camera by the window
The new guy, in a rare moment of calm

I suppose that’s it for 2018. I’m hoping 2019 has more actual good news in it than 2018 did, instead of just prospects.