In which Heather plays catch-up

I didn't mean to take a break from blogging this week. It just sort of happened. I usually write my posts late at night, or on my lunch break at my day job, so since I wasn't really turning on my computer, and I haven't gone to work in 4.5 days, I haven't blogged in awhile. Oops.

I do have a lot to share, though! I'm going to write everything out in a list, because I love lists.

1. It's Sunday, so I feel like I should start with Sunday Funday. A lot of people were on hiatus this week, but there are two epically awesome posts that I need to point out: Shannon's story that she wrote when she was 11 (Earth Had a Snack) and Frankie's untitled story she wrote when she was 10. Both of them are awesomely hilarious, and even better they started a blog war! You should also read this fun post at Book Dreaming, which highlights some quality student writing samples (and enter her contest while you're there!)

2. OK, the big news: I FINISHED MY FIRST DRAFT!!! Woot! This actually happened a few days ago (almost a week, in fact), and I tweeted about it (reason number 900 why you should follow me), but, as I said before, I haven't had a chance to post here in awhile. So I took a few days off to let it sit and remove myself from it a little (and stuff myself full of lasagna, cinnamon rolls, and creamed chip beef). Then today I went out and bought some poster board so I can make character and location boards. I'm going to diagram the important locations so I can keep all the mapping straight as I edit, and write out character traits and find pictures of the people who look like my characters. It will provide me some happy inspiration as I edit.

3. I got the pieces from the other nine writers for my conference in January. I have to say, at first I was a little intimidated. Some of the titles are incredibly literary, and the topics are serious and arty. I'm the only YA author in my group. (There are three groups, each with ten writers, and I know that at least one of the other groups has a YA author in it because I know her.) I hyperventilated a little, thinking that I would just be a failure at life. Clearly, everyone was going to mock me, I was going to be the joke of the conference, and all of my writerly dreams would be shattered into a million little pieces.

Then I realized I was being ridiculous. Not only did I get into the conference, but I got a scholarship. Clearly, they want me there. Maybe it's the very fact that I bring something different to the table that made them pick me. But no matter the reason, I obviously deserve to be there. Also, once I started actually reading the WIP samples, I felt a LOT better. They were great samples, but I felt like my writing was on par with theirs (considering that mine is YA and theirs isn't). So I'm back to looking forward to it!

4. My friend put together an art show, and I agreed to do PR for her. But then one of the artists dropped out, and she asked me to record some of my writing (they have headphones so visitors can listen to audio), and maybe even display it. I'm pretty excited, but I'm also kind of freaking out. I mean, this is an ART SHOW. So my little YA WIP wouldn't be appropriate, even if I did feel like I wanted to display it. I've decided to write a 2,000 word short story. I want to go for the literary fiction genre, because I think it will be fun to try something new, and that will probably appeal to the people who are at the show the most. I have some ideas, but I'm still nervous....eek! We'll see how it goes, though.

So I guess that's it! That's what I've been up to since Tuesday. Riveting, I know.