Well, the old adage rang true this year – March came in like a lion and went out like a lamb. A sheared lamb, but a lamb nevertheless. It was supposed to be in the mid-70s yesterday, but I don’t think it even reached 60°. Thank goodness I had the kids dressed warm when we left to run errands. The day was mostly cloudy, but at least it wasn’t raining.
The last few days have seen quite a surge in views here, which has me pretty excited. I don’t know what it is that’s attracting so many lovely visitors (aside from posting more regularly than I have in a long while), but whatever it is, I’ll try to keep doing it.
I’d intended to post my March retrospective yesterday, but by the time I got home from running errands, all I wanted to do was kick back and relax. I put the kids down for a nap and then I kicked back and relaxed. I didn’t get everything done that I wanted to, but oh well. Today’s not looking much better on that front.
I’ve been editing The Lokana Chronicles again with Seymour’s help and I think he’s got me on the right track with the one scene I keep revising. It’s a major plot point, so it needs to be right, and I think he was correct when he said that it could be better. Still, I feel like I’m beating my head against a brick wall with it. It’s starting to remind me of “Final Entry,” the apocalypse flash I wrote back in October. He helped me with that, too, and it came out brilliantly thanks to his input, but it took a lot of hair-pulling to get it right. In the end, though, it was much better than my initial draft and I’m happy to have such an awesome guy in my corner.
Last night as I was perusing Facebook (I think), I found a link to editor Robb Grindstaff’s blog that contained guidelines for formatting one’s manuscript to industry standards. As I’d just been reading about what Safkhet Publishing had to say on the matter of authors and submission guidelines, I found the article quite helpful and spent the better part of last night formatting my work so that I won’t have to think about it later (unless, of course, someone’s guidelines call for slightly different formatting, which will hopefully only apply to page margins because they’re easily fixable with a couple clicks of the mouse). I love how much information is available on the web about agent and publisher expectations when it comes to querying because to someone who’s never done it before, it can be quite difficult to know where to start. Thank goodness for sites like P&E, QueryTracker, SFWA, etc. I’ve learned so much by looking at these sites and reading agent blogs that it’s just astounding. There’s so much information out there that you’re a fool not to take advantage of it. Researching this stuff has never been so easy!
Hmm, all this talk of hard work has me feeling a bit peckish. Time to go raid the pantry (or at least stand in the doorway and stare into its depths trying to make up my mind what to have)! After all, what writer can function without large amounts of caffeine? 🙂
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- The Lokana Chronicles (suddenlytheyalldied.com)
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Suddenly they all died. The end. 
Not really sure if it suits, but ‘in like a lion’ here. Temps yesterday were in the pleasant 70’s, but today, started out foggy, and ended up being 92!! Summer isn’t for another two+ months, but it’s here. Might be the precursor to a banner year for hurricanes too. Hurricane season starts June 1, but I believe it was last year, the first one showed it’s ugly head mid-May.
But for it being April 1, another ‘first’ down the drain, just like all the rest.
It is good to see you blogging regularly again, it spurs people on to see what you’re talking about and to respond.
Keep it up!!! 😉
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Yeah, I don’t know that that qualifies as “in like a lion.” Maybe it qualifies for your area? We had some storms and wicked weather to start of March with, but it was quite nice yesterday. April is starting off nice as well – today was sunny with highs in the mid-60s and it was gorgeous. On the other hand, spring is tornado season and when it stormed the other night, Seymour said he hoped the tornado sirens wouldn’t go off. They didn’t, which we were all quite okay with. I hate tornado season, but something tells me hurricane season would probably be worse.
It feels good to be blogging regularly again! I think 2010 and 2011 were probably my low points when it comes to posting regularly, although last April I posted quite a lot of poetry. As I recall, April is National Poetry Month, and one of the ways it was celebrated last year was by posting a poem a day throughout the month. I nearly reached my goal last year; I think I’ll try it again this year.
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I might have enough to go the month, but not near enough to do the whole year. My head, right now, is in ‘thriller’ mode, ‘fantasy’ rewrite mode, definitely not ‘poetic’ mode.
Lost my modem, missed a few posts, but I’ll get caught up one of these days.
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Oh, no! That sucks. At least it’s fixed now!
Most of my poetry comes to me as I’m driving down the road on my way to and from work. There’s just something inspiring about the sun peeking over the fields or twinkling through the frosty trees. 🙂
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Hurricanes and tornados! I’m not going to complain when it gets a bit windy here again! We’ve had a glorious sunny March, but they’re forecasting snow later this week and hose-pipe bans for the summer :s
Another great post thanks Kay 🙂
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Well, thank you for reading, Lindsey! 🙂
The topic of summer has been debated to death here – the general consensus seems to be that we’re in for a scorcher. Still, I guess we’ll all deal with that when it comes. In the meantime, I’m content to bask in the unseasonable warmth and soak up as much sun as possible. 🙂
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Nice tie-in, Kay. I love how you compared the weather to submissions. Folks, listen to her advice. Make your submission a fierce, lion-like, first impression that adheres to the guidelines, and it too will last longer on the ed desk. I hope you see some sunnier days, Kay!
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Thanks, Ryan! The sun is shining and it’s a beautiful day today, even if it is Monday. 🙂
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