When it rains, it pours, apparently, because I’m back today with another blog tag! This one was created by Deborah O’Carroll, and I was tagged for it by my good friend Daley Downing @ The Invisible Moth. So let’s dive right in…

Rules:

1. Link back to the person who tagged you
2. Share the picture
3. Answer the questions (naturally…) or even pick and choose which ones you answer
3.5. Tag 3 other writers and inform them that you tagged them (via comment/message/email or hey, even carrier-pigeon or smoke signal; I’m not picky)

The Questions:

1. Dust-bunnies and Plot-bunnies: Reorganize Your Writing Goals (Or Make New Ones)

I laid out a few writing goals in my 2018 Goals post, but now that we’re three months into the year, I think it’s time to give them a good reevaluation.

• My first goal for this year was to publish Esmeralda’s Story, and I was actually able to do so this February! The novelette is currently available only on Kindle, and you can find it here on Amazon. So, that’s one less thing to worry about this year.
• My next writing goal is to write and revise at least one book. I’m a notoriously slow first drafter, even more so when I’m legitimately busy and also procrastinating at the same time, but even so I’ve been able to make some progress on my current WIP, and hopefully over the next few weeks or months I’ll be able to finish it up. But we’ll see…
• My final writing goal for this year is to blog more consistently. I’ve been trying to write at least one post per week, and although there have been a few rough patches, I’ve mostly been able to stick to that goal.

Sometimes it feels like I’m accomplishing exactly zero things, so it was nice to take this little look at what I actually have done this year! Now, on to the next question…

2. Which Stage Are You At? Expound!

a. Remodeling layouts (planning the story)
b. Painting the walls in colorful hues (writing)
c. Polishing the windows and scrubbing the floors and putting flowers in vases (editing)
d. Blueprints (not to the cleaning or remodeling yet… just drawing up plans for the very beginning inklings of a story)
e. Some combination of those things (cleaning out a closet)

I love these neat metaphors! I would say that I’m at the ‘painting the walls in colorful hues’ stage, or slap-bang in the middle of writing my first draft of what I hope to be my next novel. I’m just over the half-way mark, at almost 30,000 words of what I hope to be at least a 50,000 word draft.

3. Treasure From the Back of the Closet (Share one to three snippets you love!)

His earliest memories were of her voice; sweet, mellow, rich and dark in tone, not like any other voice he heard around him. She used to sit beside his bed and sing him to sleep, her voice coloring his dreams long after he had sunk into slumber. In the blurs and shadows of his past, she was constant and clear, a rock in a sea of memories. He had hardly yet begun to appreciate his youth, but she made him wise beyond his years. She was everything.

He never wanted to be apart from her.

He realized after a few moments that they had stopped shouting. The silence of the twilit city, made up of a hundred thousand different sounds, pooled around them in the growing gloom. Chelsea’s heartbeat pounded against his shoulder, and every breath she took seemed to catch in her throat and shake her body like a trembling leaf. He couldn’t tell if she was crying or not. Her limp and dirty hair, which not so long ago had been neat and brushed and washed, hung in strings down her shoulders and back. He pristine white gown was gone, replaced by a shapeless gray dress which felt like it was made of potato sacks. She was gripping his hand, and her fingers were icy on his skin, but even in this state she felt like safety.

He pulled her through the garden gate into a blooming world carpeted with green; neatly trimmed hedges and soft moss and flowers fed by the rain, flourishing in color.

3.5. Bonus: Do Some Actual Spring Cleaning of Your Writer Self! (and share a picture!)

Eh, I’ve been cleaning up my room off and on over the past few months, but  it’s  still extremely messy  in some places, so I’ll spare you from any horrendous pictures… 😅

Thank you so much for this awesome tag, Daley! I would tag all my fabulous blogger friends, but I think they’ve already been tagged, so, if you haven’t yet been tagged, but would like to participate, consider yourself tagged and just head on over to Deborah’s original post to grab the questions for your own blog! ^_^

Thanks so much for reading! See you again soon.

🙂