Another Month Has Zoomed By

January disappeared on me before I even had the chance to realize it was here, and now we're almost a quarter of the way through February! I miss the days of my youth where time just seemed to exist in endless quantities.

Well, January pretty much consisted of me dealing with my little one's new favorite thing: temper tantrums. Yup, that's right, she wants what she wants NOW and if she doesn't get it then she decides to bang her head on the floor.... She is not making life easier, I'll say that much. And I spent a week dealing with my husband's computer that managed to collect the Sinowal Trojan - it's still not fully off, and I will likely have to do a wipe and re-install of the entire OS (for now I'm waiting on a response from the tech gurus at Bleepingcomputer.com).

So, where did all this leave me? With not a single new word written. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. And six days into February with no new writing to show for it either. I did critique a lot again. Had to have a novel critiqued by the end of January, but I was even four days late on that because of the damn sick computer.

Let's see...I also revised "Ancient Ways" and got that into a slush pile, which was just returned as a rejection this week and has now been sent out again. I also sent out my three queries for Mind.

Oh, yes, I do have a bit of good news! A story I submitted to the Writers of the Future contest earned me an Honorable Mention. I know, it's not a publishing credit, but I have to savor every scrap I get.

I've also been thinking about the MFA. Aside from still needing to send in my acceptance and write the essay for the Scholar's Discount, I think because of the little one's new temper tantrums (did I mention she's also not napping until like 7pm? sigh), I am going to have to take it at a slower pace than originally planned. If I'm allowed to, I'm just going to take one online reading course during the June term, as well as next January term, then go back for my first residency and the heavier load in June 2011. I hate to do it, but I think it's the wisest path (see, there's that Wisdom goal peeking in). I still intend to get the F in between my MA - it'll just be a little longer than originally planned. This also means I can ease up on my Before June Battle Plan.

Anyhow, goals for this month, even though it already feels like the month is almost over.

- Study - clean, organize, file the papers away, put pictures up...finally make it usable for a writing hideaway! (Yes, I still haven't done this - I hate cleaning SO much.)
- Finish the rough draft of "Love Fades" and send it out for critiques.
- Dead as Dreams rough draft - right now any progress would be good....
- Revise "Ode to Buses and Libraries," then send that out for critiques.
- Edit and Submit "Ode to Buses and Libraries," depending on when I get it revised and critiqued.
- Start revising "Hell Hath No Fury".
- Continue critiquing - I'd like to get through another 180 pages of a novel I'm critiquing by the end of the month.
- Update Blog and Website bi-weekly (likely opposite weeks).
- Send out three more Queries for Mind.
- Keep my completed short stories in slush piles - all are currently in circulation as of yesterday - let's hope for an acceptance somewhere!
- Continue reading Storm of Swords and resist the urge to pick up some already read Ursula K. LeGuin novels (I blame Cheryl for this itch!).

That seems doable. Maybe. It would be nice if I managed to get some downtime this month. I haven't played any video games for two weeks, and my body is yearning for a break! Break or no, I have to keep going and start crossing things off my scary To Do List. Happy writing, all! ;)