Goodbye, 2006. It was a good year, in many ways. A lot I wanted to accomplish didn't get done. I found new friends and let go of old ones. I made decisions about my life that included major life changing events, and I'm happy with these changes.
One thing I decided is to quit my self-employment efforts, for the most part. I will still own my Klamath Design business but will not be looking for new clients. I am trying to sell my online news site, Happy Camp News. I've given five or six years to that project and feel it is time for me to move on and spend my time doing other things.
And the reason I'm doing this? Of course - it is for my writing. So many times over the last few years I've struggled to keep writing projects going but was flooded by other kinds of work. If I'm ever going to be able to get one of my novels to the submission stage, it will be because I give it the time it deserves.
I'm looking for a job outside my home - part time to start. I'm hoping that working for someone else will allow me to leave the work at the office and come home to quality writing time.
There have been other changes this year, including my new boyfriend, Bob, who has cheered me up considerably and brought new elements of activity into my life. He's a gold prospector - and I guess you could say my participation has been novel research as I had no less than three writing projects with gold prospectors in them: River Girl, Perfection, and my Hiram series of short stories (which I've considered reworking into a children's novel one of these years).
Anyhow, goodbye to 2006, welcome to 2007. Let's go have some fun and make this a year worthy of remembering fondly. .#
Saturday, December 09, 2006 ( 12:20 AM )
The O'Callaghans
I just got done with my first read-through and edit of chapter five of my 2003 NaNoWriMo novel, which I've re-named "The O'Callaghans". (It was "Curious Woman".) And so far, I love it. I don't know if anyone else will, but I'm enjoying it very much. It is slanted toward homeschooling families, since it's about one. I'm not homeschooling my children anymore, but it is a great representation of what life is like for homeschoolers. .#
Friday, December 01, 2006 ( 11:37 AM )
This picture of the beautiful south fork of Indian Creek, a few miles north of where I live, hides a link to a site I designed for South Fork Mining. I spent a few days in this location this year with my prospecting boyfriend, Bob.
NaNoWriMo came and left, and now I'm reviewing my year, thinking about projects that need to be finished. I started a novel based on my grandmother's life back in January and I'd like to finish that up soon. I'm doing a first read-through and edit of a novel I wrote in 2003, and I'm also reading through a friend's novel and doing line edits for her. I have a list of writing goals for 2007 and am already using that list for December 2006. There's lots to do. At this point I'm not making any resolutions, but I'll consider it during the coming month.
I finished reading three books during November: The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman, The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, and The Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene. And I added a page to this website that lists all the books I can remember reading throughout my life. It is still very incomplete but as I remember books I will be adding them to that page. .#
