#PiBoIdMo Update – Plus…

The last fortnight has been busy.

I’ve kept up with my #PiBoIdMo – a picture book idea every day – just! The first week I was on a roll, but there have been times where it felt like I was just going through the motions, this fortnight. The occasional good idea, and a lot of rot. Then Saturday, I had three beaut ideas fall into place.  So I ended the week feeling satisfied with my efforts. I’m currently sitting on 29 ideas (because I’ve been writing them all down – even if they don’t excite me) and I know I’ll meet the challenge of 30 ideas for November – though I will keep looking for one idea a day until the end of the month.

After my poetry post on Tara Lazar’s inspirational blog, I had a number of people asking about a Month of Poetry, so I have now set things in progress and am keen and eager for a month of poetry (#MoP) in January. You can read more about this here; http://monthofpoetry.wordpress.com.

I also got on something of a roll with my WIP – a verse novel. I had hoped to finish the rough draft of this using the creative enthusiasm #NaNoWriMo participants tweet (I am not one) to keep me at it. I realised this week that I won’t be finishing my verse novel in November – and that’s okay. I have written myself out for now, and need space and time to ponder ideas and fill with words again. That said, what I did write was satisfying and and exciting. There were moments of tears, and laughter – and I can see beauty in the poems on the page. I would rather write richly than rush it.

AND – in my timeout from my verse novel WIP I jumped back into editing a picture book manuscript that I wrote during #PiBoWriWee in May – one I had hoped would be warm and fuzzy with love. It was finished, but lacking warmth and cohesion. This week I fiound the missing pieces of the puzzle and am delighted with it. All heart! As one friend said, it is the kind of story that mothers will love to cuddle up and read with their child.

Which is not to say it is finished… Today I am looking forward to my first critique on it, with one of my GoogleWave crit buddies.

All in all a good fortnight of writing.

And I’m a little chuffed to say that I also walked to the top of that mountain behind me – in the photo where I’m looking slightly dazed. It was a 4 1/2hr trek that required the use of a GPS, since it was on an unmarked track, through thick (thick, thick) scrubby rainforest at the peak. Well worth the effort – though I could wish I had less scratches and embedded objects at the end of it. Those corkwood trees and spiky vines were everywhere!