Jaci Dawn

I started this 31 day writing challenge for no particular reason other than to type out a few short essays, and maybe – just maybe – come up with a novel idea for November. Why November? National Novel Writing Month, better known as NaNoWriMo, wherein the aspiring writer is challenged to punch out a novel of no less than 50,000 words in just 30 days.

I’ve succeeded three times (I think). Two of my short novels have promise and one just is stupid, stupid, stupid. They are all sitting on the back burner of my life, waiting for me to get serious and edit, polish, and publish.

Why the back burner? Because, at present, I have building my art business on the front burner. And standing firmly between the two ideals (writing full time and painting full time, or a combination thereof) is my Day Job. 40 hours a week that I sell my soul to a steady paycheck, and I cannot work on the things I love. So I steal time away from my husband and hide in my studio and plug out as much art work related work and snippets of writing that I can get in.

Sometimes, I give in and go downstairs to watch a movie with the husband, or a series of television shows. Weekends, of course, I use for the mundane chores, gardening, and beer tasting.

That said, I have gained two ideas for a novel in November: a mystery novel involving my very boring view and a YA novel about a teenager in denial about her magical powers (the latter is winning the popular vote). I am considering writing that nanowrimo novel on my blog so you all can critique as I go, complain about lousy plot twists, bad grammar, and poor dialogue. It could be quite fun – and challenging for me, as I’ve never fancied myself as one who can take criticism. 🙂

I am also working on a 31 day coaching goal of building up my art website, improving my online gallery, and finding an outlet to advertise and sell online (my original goal was Etsy, but now I am comparing websites like Redbubble and Zazzle in hopes of reaching my target in sales). That’s not mentioning the idea of getting prints made (giclée is sounding more and more like what I want to do, but finding an inexpensive printer and the right size card stock + envelopes is proving more difficult than I imagined). I’d like this all in place before the real Christmas rush happens (wish me luck!).

It’s taking longer than I anticipated to get all the paintings scanned an uploaded to the right gallery on my website (which is where I am going as soon as I finish this). I did get them all uploaded to Facebook – I just need to “boost” my different photo albums in time for Christmas to see if I can’t pick up a few sales – so I did reach that step in my list of goals.

Art in October. Novel in November. And I still have to find time to deck the halls for all the different Holidays!