Tag: submissions

Surgery and Other Updates

by eileentroemel, posted in Crochet and crafting, Life, Writing

Last Wednesday I had sinus surgery.  It was a day surgery where they cleaned out my sinuses, straightened a deviated septum, narrowed some bone in my nose to alleviate some of the allergic reactions I have, and removed a bone spur.

Each hospital personnel who entered my room for the first time commented on my list of things I’m allergic to.  It doesn’t build confidence when the anesthesiologist asks what does work for me.  Shouldn’t he know options?

Fortunately, everything went smoothly.  The surgery was successful and I was home and tucked into my recliner before too long.  Thursday and Friday were uncomfortable but Vicki was around to bug me and make me drink but let me sleep.  I accomplished almost nothing for those three days.

Monday I had the stents taken out.  I was told by someone it was extremely painful so I was a little apprehensive.  I was pleasantly surprised when it was nothing more than slightly (very slightly) uncomfortable.

I left the doctor’s office being able to breath which was very nice.  I came home and wrote.  My afternoon was spent at my computer working on the next Wayfarer novel.  Tuesday I was supposed to meet up with my niece but she couldn’t meet so I slept late, got up and dressed and sat down to the computer again.  I spent four hours working on the Wayfarer novel. I’m two or three scenes from being done, drawing the final plot lines together, making them solidify into a really good (I hope) conclusion for this group of plot lines.

Wednesday I came back to work.  I expected to be over tired and grumpy by the end of the day.  I certainly didn’t want to fall back into the work day routine but it was nice to see my faculty and student worker.  It was good to get out of the house and my head.

I’ve been working on my basket patterns.  I wrote them more than a year ago and never got around to publishing them.  I was less than happy with the pictures I had.  While I was off, I went through the patterns, edited them (thankfully) and I’m down to half a one left.  Once I get the last one done tonight, I’ll work on pictures – hopefully better than the last one.  I’ll do a few group pictures and individual ones.  I think the baskets will be a pamphlet, though I do have a couple places I may want to submit them to in an attempt to get them published.

Once the baskets are done, I have a bunch of fleece I want to get made up.  A few pieces I’ll be keeping but most I’ll be setting aside for the sale we’re having next month.  Once I’m through those pieces, I’m going to look at the themes for the crochet magazines and see if there’s anything which inspires me.  

A New Scooter!

by eileentroemel, posted in Life, Writing

I ordered my new scooter yesterday!  My DVR counselor pushed the paperwork and got all of it done so I could get my scooter on order!  The scooter should be here in a week to ten days.

I still have to go back to work with the manual wheel chair next week but there will be an end in sight for the pain I’ll have to cope with.

This morning I slept late again but am now tackling my to do list.  I’ve gotten a couple done and am now working on the computer.

Last night I finished watching Land Girls which is a BBC show based during WWII about the women who relocated to work on farms while the men went to war.  It was an interesting show and highlighted some interesting aspects of life in the 40s.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like there will be more seasons of this.  Now I’ll have to look for something new to watch.

I did get some writing done yesterday afternoon.  There’s a story I’m playing with which is coming in spits and spurts rather than waves.  I’m not sure it will amount to more than an outline / rough draft.  Normally I can see or feel where the story is going, with this one I can’t.  Time will tell on this one.

I made progress with some of my other projects.  One of the publishers got back to me with a tentative yes on two articles.  Progress all around on many things.

No More Excuses

by eileentroemel, posted in Writing

My big thing for not submitting more is I don’t have time.  This is true.  Time is my most limited resource.  However, it’s an excuse.  So this week I went out to some of the publications I know I want to submit to.  I didn’t take time to research new ones because that eats up that precious commodity of time.  I got a list of what they are looking for and I started looking at my done pieces.

I found several that I’ve already written which I can submit to these publications.  I’ve been a bum this week.  I’m fighting a sinus infection/cold and mostly just want to sleep.  However, editing doesn’t take that much effort.

I printed off several of my articles I think will work nicely for these publications.  I’ve gotten one edited.  In fact I was quite pleased because while I was trying to breath, I got an idea for a completely different opening which I like MUCH better.  In about 30 minutes, I made the edits.  It took me another 20 minutes on the computer but when I was done, I had the edits entered and the piece submitted.

Will it get published?  No idea.  I’ve got my fingers crossed and I hope so.  Next I’m going to go back to my pile of articles and work on the next piece.  I don’t know if it will take as little time but if I can get several submitted maybe I’ll get lucky and get another published item or two.

Holiday Busyness

by eileentroemel, posted in Life, Writing

I edited and refined two stories to submit to a contest.  I don’t know how either of them will play for the company but they are strong stories even if one is a little controversial.  That’s what I did with my morning yesterday. 

A friend came over and she graded while I worked on editing and crocheted.  I made her a lovely cowl and then worked on editing.  It was a good day, yesterday. 

I work two days this week and have the rest of the week off.  I’m looking forward to the time off even though it will be busier than I normally like to be.  Vicki will be home and I wish Gin and Stephanie could come home but we will video chat with them for the holidays. 

I have five days off but each and every one of them is booked so full, I could wish for a vacation from the holiday.  Hopefully it isn’t too crazy but I have the feeling this is a futile hope.  I have all this stuff to do with Vicki and at the same time I have all this stuff in my head I want to get done. 

I’m looking at getting one book out in January – I’d like to get the fourth Wayfarer book out – Wayfarer Negotiator.  I am working on edits right now which always takes a bit but hopefully shortly after the Christmas holiday, I’ll have time to finish refining it. 

It will be on to the fifth book after that.  It needs the edits on the computer and all the extras.  Hopefully that will happen shortly after I get four done.  However, I have the Defenders third book to work on.  I want to finish that before I dive into more stories.  Once those are done, I’ll dive into my pile of starts or my ideas and see what comes out as interesting. 

Over the five days off, I’m hoping to get my craft room organized so I can have my yarn organized and easily accessible.  I know I want to work on a few smaller projects but I also have three larger projects to do. 

At some point I’ll find a balance amongst all the things I do – I hope.  If I don’t, I guess I’ll continue with the craziness of working like a mad woman on crocheting to get things done and then switching to writing and so on.

Editing

by eileentroemel, posted in Writing
This summer I had a long list of things to get done.  I’ve done almost none of them.  My only excuse is I got distracted and overwhelmed by the moves going on in my life.  Now at this stage I just want a bit of peace before the next semester begins.  I have about three weeks before work becomes totally crazy. 
My romance novel I got some of the prep work done for self-publishing but I also found one more place I may submit it to.  I will have to read through carefully to see if it fits the guidelines.  If it fits the guidelines, I’ll submit one more time before I attempt to self publish. 
Moon Affirmations I’ve submitted to one more publisher as well.  I’m hoping to hear sooner rather than later on it to see if they are interested.  I hope so if not I will be going the self-publishing route on that one too. 
My Magic series (working title – fantasy novel series) – I finish editing what I think will be the first novel.  This story I started in November 2010 and I’ve been working on sporadically since.  The story in its entirety is 600 pages plus and I’m not done with the story.  In the last two weeks I’ve edited the first 200 pages.  As I read I thought what was I thinking and rewrote about ten pages of material to make it better adding in a couple of scenes and filling out other scenes.  I think total page count now is just over 200.  I’ve got all these edits in the computer (need to make a back up of these edits – soonest possible). 
Next I’m moving on to the second book in this series (or the second 200 pages).  I am going to edit it while I let the first book sit and stew for a bit.  Ideally I’d like to edit the second book quickly (maybe a week) and then read through the rest to see if I can work on the tail end to finish the story.  I think this is too much to hope for before the semester starts though.  It may have to wait until January. 
Each time I come back to this story, I fall in love with it.  I enjoy the characters, the plots, the world I’ve created.  It is one of my favorites right now.  I haven’t decided whether I will try the traditional publishing route with this or just do self-publishing.  I do know that I’m going to be very protective of it.  Right now it feels like a new born baby (yup almost three years old but still newborn to me). 

Hopefully I will continue to make progress for the next three weeks.  After that all bets are off as I will be in SUPER busy mode with two classes.  Oh and one other thing I want to get done in the next three weeks – read the four books I bought for my two classes – should be fun huh?  I’m actually looking forward to the grammar book – yup geek I know.  I found another book I really like too.  It is The Emotion Thesaurus:  A writers Guide to Character Expressionby Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi.  It gives a definition of an emotion, physical signals, internals sensations, mental responses, cues of acute emotion, cues of suppressed emotion.  It will help in editing to liven up stale description – so if I say a character was shocked – instead of saying shocked I could say they character suddenly stiffened – it sounds simple but when you are doing an initial writing saying the simple term is easy and then making it better as you edit is not always easy so this gives a list for the emotions.  I think it will be a good reference book.  

Weekend

by eileentroemel, posted in Crochet and crafting, Life, Writing

Bills are paid.  Grocery shopping is done.  I’ve done a small amount of homework.  However, I have two very long to do lists which aren’t getting done as quickly as I’d like.  I know I push myself (sometimes too hard) but I have a lot on my plate right now. 

Went shopping with Kelly yesterday and had a bit of fun wandering around the craft store, this was a good break for me as I was in a slump on the homework end.  It was good to get out with her and Vicki to shop in a craft store. 

Today is a study day.  I have a long list of homework I need to get done.  I also have to get some of my writing stuff done.  I want to finish off my grant and get it submitted so I can just be done with it.  I found another grant I want to work on but the deadline isn’t until June so I have lots of time to work on it.

One of the publications I have submitted to in the past contacted me to ask for submissions.  I’m going to get two or three things done for them this weekend.  Unfortunately the only payment I get is free copies of the magazine but it is publications on my resume.  I have at least one other submission to make today because the deadline is looming.  The articles all need editing and I have final edits on the grant material to do.  The other submission I think is ready to go – I just want to read through it once.  After I get these three things done, I’ll be switching over to homework and hopefully making good progress.

I’m supposed to go to my sister’s house today for a birthday thing for my nephew but it really depends on how much homework I get done.  If I make good progress I’ll go – if I don’t, I won’t be able to as I have so much to do. 

I did finish the capelet I was making for Vicki – I just have to sew the closing on it that we picked up yesterday.  I also worked on Kelly’s scarf that I ran out of yarn for.  I think by tomorrow I’ll have that done. 

I know it sounds like I had a tedious weekend but I had fun with Kelly and Vicki.  I also am getting stuff done which always makes me feel good.  Now if I can get just a few more things crammed into the too short weekend I will feel like I can tackle the week without a giant weight on my shoulders. 

Five More Work Days!!

by eileentroemel, posted in Uncategorized

Five more days!  Yet another countdown for me, I have five more work days to get through and then I will have off until the 15th.  This is very exciting for a number of reasons.  Vacation is always good.  Holiday pay is always good.  The two girls coming from Georgia is wonderful.  Time off is great.

One of my goals for this next vacation is to not set the alarm clock for at least two days.  I’ll probably do that at the beginning of the vacation because as I get closer to going back to work I have to work back into my normal routine. 
Fourth of July we will probably spend getting ready for the girls’ visit.  Then they come on the 5thand will be here until the 10th.  After that I’ll be in vacation mode.  This means I hope that I’ll be writing a lot.  My goal is to get several chapters done in my one novel.  I also want to start editing the first book. 
In addition to the writing, I would like to pull out my list of publishers and work on doing some submissions.  I haven’t done any in a while.  I have two articles ready for one publication and hope to meet the deadline on them.  After that I need to update my work list spreadsheet and clear out my emails of the rejections.  Then I have to look at my spreadsheet to see what old submissions I have that I haven’t gotten a response on. 
Hopefully in the cleaning and getting ready portion of the vacation I’ll have time to clean my office a bit so it is more organized and less chaotic.  If I get that done it makes it much easier to do the submissions.

Working on Writing

by eileentroemel, posted in Uncategorized

This weekend I was determined to get through my pile of submission guidelines.  I was supposed to submit something to every single one I had.  All you experienced writers stop laughing – I might have done it.  Okay so I didn’t.

I did go through and submit a large number of fiction and poetry to a variety of places.  It was so much easier now that I have things organized the way I want them.  I was able to just grab a stack and work.  However, submitting work is never as straight forward as just attaching a file to an email. 

No you have to research and look at the type of work that the magazine publishes.  Then you have to figure out which of your pieces best fits the criteria.  You have to read it and make sure it doesn’t need editing, make sure it follows the guidelines that they set down.  Some of these guidelines are as simple as we want fiction to as complicated as a nuclear bomb. 

If you are submitting poetry some want it in the body of the email, others want it to be one file.  You have to follow their guidelines to the smallest minute detail.  If you don’t, you are rejected.  Hell even if you do, you are often rejected. 

I got 35 items submitted this weekend and I’m only about a third of the way through my stack of guidelines.  One of which has already been rejected.  I’ve also discovered a new place to look for leads for publishers so I have to now find time for that too.  I know I got a lot done this weekend but I still feel like I have just scratched the surface.  Perhaps because my pile of guidelines is still too large and there seems to be no end to the possibilities. 

If only I could go without sleep I could get so much more done.