satyapriya

Inspired by MasteryGirl's latest book launch yesterday afternoon, yesterday morning I took myself to Le Wholefood Merchants café, to do some writing planning for 2018. This, of course necessitated, a new notebook, and new pens. Every new project needs new stuff like that. Which is why I have about 20 notebooks with 10 pages filled out.
All my new textas were pink and purple, because I was in that sort of mood. I even bought the Barbie-pink texta.
My new notebook is dusky pink with a gold pineapple on the front. It's very stylish, in a girly way.

So, I have three rewriting projects for 2018.
1. The spiritual memoir, which was dubbed, at the end of 2016, both 'witchy memoir' and 'how to be a new age wanker'. I thought they were separate projects They aren't. Last week I got chatting to a lass on facebook, in the Melbourne NaNo group, and she does book covers as a hobby. She offered to come up with a few for me, so I had to think up a title, lickety split. The working title is now 'In and Out of the Cauldron'. I'm not sure about that, but it's better than 'confessions of a witch'. I aim to have to offering to pro publishers stage by the end of 2018.
2. Children's books. A friend reminded me that I have 3 children's books I wrote circa 2002, when TwentiesGirl was in primary school, around Grade 3-4. Her friends enjoyed the books, and I thought little more about them. Prompted by this friend, and the interest of MothraBabe, I'm now looking these short books out. Rewriting, spiffing up, and out into the world they will go.
3. The short story collection, which now has the working title of 'The Communicant, and Other Stories'. That's in process with CDX Design. Launch aim date approx. March-April 2018.

Then there's new writing. To keep going to memoir group, I need to have memoir things written. I need to start something new, as I'm still not ready to tackle the rewrite of the TwentiesPerson memoir. I have the choice of writing stuff that is so hard, and so secret that it will never be a publishable thing, and a lighter(so I suppose) account of what I know of my mother's life, which is already titled 'What Lila Said'.
I want to participate in NaPoWriMo in April, too.

Writing all this down like this, I feel my stomach knot, and my mind whirl, and the panic set in. Too much, too much. Yet, if I take it slowly, and ask for help, I might just come through 2018 with at least 2 new books in the world, and a third with publishers. Plus new poems, and a memoir project done.
And retain my sanity.
It would make me feel really good to have done all this, and not copped fibromyalgia flare-ups, anxiety, or sleeplessness from the stress of what I'm going to attempt.
So, help I shall need. This means you, PizzaBoy, MotorCycleMan, MasteryGirl, OopsIHadABaby, SnakyPoet, and many others whose handles I can't remember off-hand(somewhere on my computer is a list of all your handles).
Please, please, help me get safely in and out of my shell.

What a busy writing day it's been. I met with Saraswati at 11.40am(ten minutes after she finishes teaching yoga), and we wrote for two hours. She's writing about 'yoga off the mat', and I'm still deep in A TEAR IN THE AIR land. Through the worst of it now, I think. The Ordeal is done with, and now I start the return journey to the ordinary world.
Then, pick up a new thumb drive, one that can attach to my key ring. I'm fearful that if my computer gets stolen, my months of hard memoir work will be gone. With a thumb drive in my purse, and another on my key ring, I can back up each time I finish a café or friend's house binge writing session.
I'm home now, and have just copied all my poems from The Followers project of several years ago into a file. Over the next week, I'll go through them, rewrite if necessary, and do a coupla paragraphs to talk about the experience of The Followers. Then, send them to snakypoet, I guess, who once again is assuming editor hat. I might even find some title suggestions in amongst the poems, because so far, we are scratching our heads.
I'll be glad to knock off writing for the day, and tend to a few other things. Pets, husband, adult offspring, the state of the house, reading, meal planning. Gosh, even down time for day dreaming. I think I've forgotten how to do that.
It looks like I'll finish A TEAR IN THE AIR this month (and about darned time). I know it's only first draft stage, but I'm going to seek appropriate beta readers for feedback while I attend to other writing projects. THE STORIES SO FAR has languished for a few months. It's now time to turn my attention to it again, and get it out in the world. The dreaded synopsis, and all that jazz, to try some of the smaller presses like Ticonderoga, and such, to see if their keen on my collected published short stories.
Then it will be time to take a look at the ambitious goals I set myself in December at the break-up party of the Secret Keepers Memoir Group. We each listed three projects we'd go crazy on this year.
And that should be enough to be going on with for the rest of this year.

Surely some poetry must come out of me soon. Surely.