Goals for 2012

Inspired by Rachel Stark at Trak Changes my first post of the New Year is going to be a list of goals for 2012.  However, I want to begin by briefly looking back over 2011.

Last year, I completed four short stories and got one of them to the point where I am submitting it to online and print markets.  I held three launch parties for Fjallind, Eonia and Tav’uran, as well as working on the Idhuan religion. In April, I attended Norwescon and starting in September I began attending the North Seattle Science Fiction and Fantasy Meetup group.    My fellow editors and I published the second issue of the Amber Grimoire in November.  I am amazed and pleased by the amount I have accomplished last year and am excited for the coming year.

My writing goals for 2012 are as follows:

  Write 4+ short stories
  Edit 4+ short stories to the point where I am submitting them
  Have 2+ short stories published, at least 1 in a qualifying market for SWFA
  Hold 4 launch parties, get 2+ new guests at one or more of the parties

  Publish The Amber Grimoire twice as was our original intent
  Attend at least 2 fantasy/writing conventions
  Improve my networking skills by:
    Read 1+ good books on online/otherwise networking
    Hand out business cards at conventions, etc.
    Add people to my Facebook and Google+ circles
    Find ways to promote my blog

I am excited about the coming year – I feel that it will be a good one.
What do you think?  What are your goals for 2012?

Eonia Launch Party

Idhua’s third country, Eonia, has been launched.  An archipelago off the eastern coast, Eonia has an eastern Mediterranean influence.  The room was draped in shades of blue and violet, and decorated with ivy and flowers, candles and a shrine to the Eonian sea goddess, Moriana.  The menu was consisted of flat bread served with hummus, homemade yogurt cheese with olive oil and sumac, black and green olive tapanade, cumin carrot spread, and herbed artichoke heart relish; a salad of romaine, radishes, sweet onions, cucumbers, feta, and mint in a lemon and olive oil dressing and a goat cheese and roasted mushroom filo roll.  After supper there was reading of The Amulet of Aranos.

The evening was concluded with an ice cream made of Greek yogurt, honey and orange flower water served with candied orange peel and pomegranate seeds.  Everyone wore Greek/fantasy inspired costumes, but sadly a great number of the pictures came out fuzzy.  Below are a few that turned out:

Writing.... slowly, but surely...

Writing the current country is coming slowly.  I have yet to settle on a name which I like for it.  For a while it was Anthuer – but I have several “A” names already and I didn’t particularly like the name anyways.  At the moment it is Tav’uran.  As I posted previously, this culture is built around their battles with demons and I have been playing with the idea that they leave a part of their name out in order to help hide themselves from the demons (or so the superstition goes).  The asterisk indicates where a syllable has been removed from a name to conceal the “real” name.  However, I am well aware that sticking asterisks into names is a fairly common and sometimes annoying fantasy trope, and I have not decided whether to stick with it or not.

At any rate, the story is coming slightly faster than the “facts” about the country – mostly because I had so much of it figured out ahead of time from my dream.  I am almost done with the first draft of it.  It would be good, I think, to work on the county entry before I start rewriting the story, so that I can allow that work to flesh out the world of the story.

All the writing has been slowed down, as I am still in beading mania, (as of tonight I have the bulk of it done and tomorrow will start actually sewing the dress again,) and am preparing for Norwescon.  Once all that excitement is over it will be time to buckle down to rewriting the Eonian tale besides finishing Tav’uran or whatever it is going to be called.

Finished Eonia

  This week I finished my fourth country "encyclopedia" entry and short story.  The country is called Eonia and is based loosely on Greek and other ancient Mediterranean cultures.  The rough draft of the short story "The Amulet of Aranos" has taken me longer than I would have liked, mostly because I wrote it going in one direction and then when I shared it with my lovely writing group, Phantasme, the ladies there pointed out the direction that I should be going, or I seemed to want to go.  Of course they were right, so I went back and did a massive rewrite, and then a less massive rewrite, and am finally ready to share it with them again.
  I will be continuing to edit and refine "The Amulet of Aranos" but I am also going to begin my next country next week.  It is a north-eastern country in Idhua - just about directly across the continent from the first country I did, Lendhlay.  It is as yet nameless; I had a name for it that no longer fits, so I am going to have to think about that for a while.  Here is a map of Idhua with the finished countries shaded in: