A Whole Lot of Busy Going On

Way too much going on. We're still going through boxes in the garage (most of which are making their way into the house), and trying to prepare for the move to Mississippi. On top of all that, our young worker is installing new doors, new windows, painting, putting up lights and ceiling fans.

Enter 2010 BWG conference, Gator Bites, Swamp Lily Review, NaNoWriMo, and a host of other things.

Our conference is November 13th. You can go HERE to learn more about it.

Gator Bites is a neat little brochure I'm putting together to promote our Bayou Writers. I have to give credit to Peter Cole out of Nashville and his Keyhole Digest for this idea. Brilliant! I hope you'll check out Keyhole Fiction and order some of their work--or even submit something to them. I'm excited about Gator Bites and thrilled that so many of our members contributed. I think it will be a great sampling of the talent we have in BWG. I can see how this tri-fold of micro-fiction and poems could be used to promote authors and writers' groups everywhere. Take a look at Keyhole Digest and what they have going and devise a way to use their ideas to promote yourself.

Now, let me tell you about SLR. Swamp Lily Review is an online literary journal I've started with my friend, Jan Rider Newman. I feel guilty including myself in the "started" thing because Jan is doing all the work. Every now and then I hear a loud boom and I know it's her banging her head against the wall as she works on our website. Who said building websites was easy? You can learn more about Swamp Lily Review HERE. Even though the website is still under construction, you can read our mission statement and our submission guidelines. One day, very soon I hope, we'll have a picture of a Swamp Lily. By the way, read those guidelines carefully. SLR is a lit journal celebrating Louisiana writers and artists who live and breathe in Louisiana.

Add to all of this, National Novel Writing Month. I love it. I look forward to it every year, but I never make 50,000 words. I only make it to 25,000 and stack those unfinished manuscript pages with the rest of my efforts. {deep, heart-rending sigh} I wanna finish--I really do. :-/ I'm honestly giving it my best shot this year. You're my accountability partners. :) Since I totally despise making a fool of myself, maybe I'll try harder if I know you're watching. This year I printed out a calendar and outlined the novel in each square of the entire month so if I follow it and write about 6 1/2 pages a day ... Yeah, sounds easy, doesn't it ... if I just follow it and WRITE only 6 1/2 PAGES A DAY ...

I just finished teaching my NF course for Lamar, and also taking two online courses through RWA: one on the ins and outs of self-publishing and one on short story writing.

Okay. That's what's going on in my life and what I'm doing during the month of November. And you can even add these few things: Need to compose a BWG Voting Ballot since we're voting for new officers on Nov. 6th. Need to create a President's Notebook for the new Prez. And ...Yikes! I need to finish the Prez's Message for the newsletter and get it to VP Jan right now. And hop over to the Bayou Writers' Group blog to post something new.

No wonder my husband says, "When we get to Mississippi, why don't you taker a breather and just read and write."

Sounds good to me--until I'm sitting all alone in an apartment, staring at a blank screen and wondering what my peeps back home are doing. :)

Here's a quote for busy people:

You never saw a very busy person who was unhappy. ~Dorothy Dix

Tell me what you'll be doing during the month of November.