Update on Goals

My goals for this year began as: 

• Graduate from college. (Accomplished)
• Write a new manuscript, something I haven't had time to do since I started college.
• Take a vacation someplace out of Arizona. (Accomplished)
• Hug my daughter every day.
• Learn how to make book trailers and post them to YouTube. (Accomplished!)

As I continue through the year, my evolving list of goals reads:

• Write a new manuscript, something I haven't had time to so since I started college.
• Hug my daughter every day.
• Support my daughter as she takes her turn at college.
• Finish editing The Siege of Kwennjurat and get it published.

My new manuscript, Crown of Tears was finished on August 25, a personal speed-writing record for me.

Our hugs have increased to multiple hugs per day, and let me tell you, my daughter gives really good hugs. On the school front, I check with her every day about her homework, asking about her assignments and following up to make sure she is turning them in on time.

I've finished the major rewrites on The Siege of Kwennjurat, and it is now being copy edited. I'm pleased to announce that it will be released on October 24th.

I learned new things about ebook formatting from my friend Green Tortuga, and am now in the processing of reformatting my ebooks to make them look better. Now that I've learned how to put pictures into ebooks, expect to find maps in the fantasy books after the reformatting is complete.

I also learned something from my new friend Paul Carroll, author of Balor Reborn. He taught me how to make video trailers for my books, and I started in with a trailer for Tanella's Flight. Earlier this year I had decided I wasn't going to be able to get to that this year, but things worked out otherwise. This shows me that what "they" say about goals is true. If you write it down and read it often, a way will be opened up for it to become accomplished, even when you don't know how it is going to happen. The trailer for Tanella's Flight can be seen here. You cal also view it below.

I'm still 3/4 of the way through knitting the same pair of socks. I haven't knit more than a couple of rows all month. However, I did begin work on another project that got put off because of school. Some two years ago I was involved in a quilt block swap with 11 online friends. We each made twelve blocks, sent them to a central location to be sorted, and received back twelve unique blocks, one from each friend. During August I embroidered each friend's name on her quilt block, and over this weekend I designed a reversible quilt, cut and sewed the back of the quilt, and have machine-quilted half the blocks. I also sewed two pillow cases from extra material that matched the back of the quilt. I expect to finish up the project in the next two or three days, and I promise to post pictures when I'm done.

I've read 33 books containing 3340 pages for pleasure reading this month. No, I'm not just reading short, 100-word books; some of the Mark Twain "books" on my nook are only a very few pages, but since they have a separate title page and a separate entry in the table of contents, I count them as a "book", even though they are sometimes only two pages long. I've also been reading 300-400 page novels, in fact, I re-read The Hobbit and all three of The Lord of The Rings during August.

~Marie

My Life

I'm not sure whether blogging about my goals for the year have made me stick to them any better, but things are definitely happening for me.
My goals for this year began as:

• Graduate from college. (Accomplished)
• Write a new manuscript, something I haven't had time to do since I started college.
• Take a vacation someplace out of Arizona. (Accomplished)
• Hug my daughter every day.
• Learn how to make book trailers and post them to YouTube. (Deferred Indefinitely)

As I continue through the year, my goals now read:

• Write a new manuscript, something I haven't had time to so since I started college.
• Hug my daughter every day.
• Finish editing The Siege of Kwennjurat and get it published.
• Support my daughter as she takes her turn at college.

The new manuscript, Crown of Tears, was started this morning. As I like to write over my outline, the combined word count for the outline and manuscript already exceeds 2,000 words. My office is hung with ten maps for Crown of Tears, and one for The Siege of Kwennjurat. My daughter says it looks like a copy of "National Geographic" blew up. She wants to edge all my maps with yellow.

The daily hugs have gone a long way to defusing tension between my teen daughter and myself. I'm about two-thirds of the way through The Siege of Kwennjurat, and still plan to release it this fall. 

My sweet daughter starts school in about three weeks. We're going shopping for textbooks and school supplies next week.

I'm 3/4 of the way through knitting a pair of socks. My arthritis is now moving into my hands and wrists, making it more difficult for me to write and do my handcrafting. This is a very sad thing for me. I've ordered dictation software to handle the writing challenge, but I'm still looking for an app that will create hand-knit items for me. I don't think I'm going to find one. In July I read 25 books, for 4696 pages. In May 2011 I started the complete works of Mark Twain, which is about 6,500 pages and includes his essays and letters as well as all of his works of fiction. I just passed the 5,000 page mark, and am getting excited about finishing up. It's been a fascinating ride, and I now understand why people say the man is so funny.

~Marie

News and Resolution Update

First, the news.

Christopher Wilke wrote a review of Assignment to Earth, which can be found at the League of the Iron Quill.

The Moms Place is now available in all formats. Links to both books are on my website, am-jenner.com.

I was out of town at my sister's wedding when it was time to publish my resolution update, and it's taken me a week or so to recover from my trip and get all the loose ends at home tucked back in again. I have not been neglecting my goals, I've just been too busy to write about them.
My goals for this year are:

• Graduate from college.
• Write a new manuscript, something I haven't had time to do since I started college.
• Take a vacation someplace out of Arizona.
• Hug my daughter every day.
• Learn how to make book trailers and post them to YouTube.

College graduation was May 11, so that goal is now retired.

My darling daughter and new partner Jenna helped me plot a new book, Crown of Tears, which I will be writing for Camp NaNoWriMo in August.

I just got back from my vacation in California, where I visited with family and a large sentient rodent.

I continue to hug my daughter on  a daily basis.

The book trailer project has been put off indefinitely.

As I continue through the year, my goals now read:

• Write a new manuscript, something I haven't had time to so since I started college.
• Hug my daughter every day.
• Finish editing The Siege of Kwennjurat and get it published.
• Support my daughter as she takes her turn at college.

In June I read 17 books, with a total of 5335 pages. At the half-year mark, this brings my reading total to 120 books and 25,903 pages read for pleasure. None of the reading I do for school or work is included in this total.

~Marie