Photo by Renato Brancaleoni "Brickslaying"Dear Friends,
It has been much too long since we've hosted a Milestone Monday here-- a day devoted to hearing from our readers about their recent accomplishments. I aim to remedy that right now!
Consider this practice for putting yourself into the spotlight, but in the gentlest and most supportive space possible, here with your very own tribe of fellow and fella introverts.
Have you recently completed a piece of work that you are quietly celebrating? Sold an article, essay, book? Started a blog or launched a new website? Agreed to do a school visit with live children (shriek!) or to do a book signing or book launch? Have you asked someone to be your (gulp) writing buddy or read a new piece of work aloud?
Let's hear from you! And to further entice you, if you post an accomplishment here, we will enter you into a drawing to win a copy of the most lovely CDs I have heard in a long time . . . Prayer Cycle: A Choral Symphony in Nine Movements. The compilation features such talents as James Taylor, Ofra Haza, Alanis Morissette, the late Musrat Fateh Ali Khan, the American Boychoir with Devin Provenzano, and the English Chamber Orchestra & Chorus. One reviewer notes that if this music fails to move you, you have no soul. :-] Lovely world music to recharge by.
I'm unfurling the long red carpet right now. Violets, are you ready?
In full celebratory mode,
Mary Hershey
16 comments:
Actually, it's just the opposite for me today. I set out to write a piece for my local paper and am having a hard time getting it right. We all have those moments, I'm sure, where...well, let me speak for myself, I think I suck! (I wrote for a paper for 7 years, still...)
I look forward to hearing about all of your accomplishments, though! (If I get my article published, I'll let you know.)
I like the idea of Milestone Monday! Sharing our triumphs online--that's lovely.
I just signed the contract for my first YA book--a hi-lo (high interest, low vocabulary) medieval fantasy for reluctant readers and fantasy lovers. It's called Dragon Speaker: The Last Dragon, and will be published in Sept 2009 by HIP Books.
I also just got two offers from two different publishers for an edgy YA manuscript, and now I'm weighing things and deciding which press to go with. It's incredibly exciting and exhilerating!
I received another "good" rejection on a full -- one of those ones that is encouraging in a twisted way -- which is not exactly a milestone, but it still feels like I'm getting somewhere. Slowly. :)
My new website www.austencats.com is up and runnning. PURR AND PETULANCE is a website for Jane Austen lovers, cat-lovers, and anyone who loves to laugh. It features cats paired with quotes from PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. Finally, Chick Lit meets Kit lit! Please stop by and enter our caption contest. We will donate $25 to United Animal Nations in the name of the winner.
Over the weekend I received the first request by an agent for a partial--the first 50 pages and a synopsis of my novel. From a real New York agent! I'm thrilled to pieces. (And this is my first comment here, so that's an accomplishment in and of itself...)
First of all, let me say how much I love SVP -- I'm ever so slightly over the line introvert/extravert line into extraversion, but I'm enough of an introvert that I need alone-time recharging.
Second, I've recently had a "come to Jesus" meeting with myself, and admitted that my current process doesn't work for me--all my processing power goes to keeping track of everything I need to know about my story instead of actually writing it.
Since acknowledging the problem is the first step towards addressing it, I consider this a serious "yay me!" victory.
Wow, so many great things to celebrate here! And first time commenters, too! Congratulations on all your progress, everyone!
I read Donald Maass' book and bought his workbook. I've been working through the exercises and writing scenes (?) from my new WIP. SCENES OUT OF ORDER. This is new, huge, and rather scary for me--but very, very cool.
I re-committed to my fiction writing by acquiring a (gently used) second laptop that is for nothing but fiction. All that's loaded on it is Word. No email, no internet, no spreadsheets, no work writing. Just fiction.
After a year of procrastination, I put up a page on mediabistro's Freelance Marketplace. Blatant horn-blowing is hard work!
Okay, I have all 12 verses written for a picture book based upon the Christmas carol, The Twelve Days of Christmas. Yay!
Now I have lots more research and writing to do, but I'm glad to have reached this milestone.
I started a blog in November and began a weekly series this year called Marvelous Marketers where I interview agents, editors, authorsand illustrators on their marketing tips/secrets(Shrinking Violets Robin is actually one of my interviewees next month :) My visitors has gone from 30 a day to about 300 a day and I just started 4 weeks ago!
Oh, my gosh! What an amazing line-up of accomplishments! Love hearing this stuff, everyone! Thanks for all your sharing here-- and keep it comin'.
Rock stars, every one of you!!
Mary Hershey
It's kind of spooky that you would have Milestone Monday this week, because on Monday I signed with the fabulous Diana Fox of Fox Literary. I could not be more thrilled.
Kudos to all the brave and hardworking Violets, and thanks again to Robin and Mary for this wonderful blog. It's become a daily must-read for me.
My big accomplishment? I got my power back today after 7 days and five hours without it! Which means I can now start revising my second novel, which was what I was going to do the day the ice storm hit and took out my power. :)
I also have my author website up now, though I'll continue making it even better over the next few weeks.
My website is up finally! It has taken me so long to get this finished (on and off again) that I could have finished a novel in the same time period. If I hadn't been finishing a divorce in the same time period. I am relieved to have this website running and myself out on the web - even for an extrovert (don't tell), this is daunting, to have a 'presence' out there!
~Thalia
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