Books I've Read: We Fell Apart

I've read a bunch of other books by this author, so when I found this one in the bargain bin at The Warehouse, I decided to give it a whirl.  

When Matilda gets a letter from the father she's never met, she jumps at the opportunity to visit him.  Her mother has recently moved to Mexico with a new lover, leaving Matilda behind with a former boyfriend.  With a few months before college starts, Matilda is searching for connection and this seems like an opportunity to finally connect with her father, a celebrated artist.

When she arrives on the island, she finds no father.  Apparently he left to sell a painting.  What she does find is Meer, a brother who is almost exactly the same age.  Meer is lovable as a puppy and Matilda finds herself instantly bonding with him.  Also living in the house are Brock, a former child-star battling addiction and seeking meaning in is post-Hollywood life, Tatum, a brooding, intense boy with a love of water, and June, Meer's mother who seems startled by Matilda's arrival and not at all welcoming.

Without her father,  Matilda tries to navigate life in this strange place while trying to find answers to her myriad questions.  But the more she discovers, the more secrets she stumbles upon.  And with each new secret, she becomes more and more certain that something weird is going on in the house.  And that everyone in it is lying.

I enjoyed this book.  The three boys Matilda finds at the house are well drawn and very distinct.  I did feel like June might have been a little over the top as the kind of wicked stepmother, but once the big reveal was ... revealed toward the end, her character made a lot more sense.

So, it you're a reader who likes twisted families with secrets, a touch of romance and wealthy people behaving badly, this might just be the book for you.

But don't just listen to me,  Here's the blurb:

The invitation arrives out of the blue.

In it, Matilda discovers a father she’s never met. Kingsley Cello is a visionary, a reclusive artist. And when he asks her to spend the summer at his seaside home, Hidden Beach, Matilda expects to find a part of herself she’s never fully understood.

Instead, she finds Meer, her long-lost, openhearted brother; Brock, a former child star battling demons; and brooding, wild Tatum, who just wants her to leave their crumbling sanctuary.

With Kingsley nowhere to be seen, Matilda must delve into the twisted heart of Hidden Beach to uncover the answers she’s desperately craving. But secrets run thicker than blood, and blood runs like seawater.

And everyone here is lying.

Weekly Goals 27-7-26

 I don't have a huge number of goals this week.  The weekend was predictably exhausting, so I'm sitting her on Monday morning struggling to even think about what the week ahead might bring.  I am taking the day off today, so hopefully by tomorrow I might have a better idea what's needed.

I'm doing a beta read for a friend, so I'm hoping to finish that this week.  Then I can turn my attention to the new book I may have accidentally started.  I'm really not sure what it is, or if it's anything yet, but I'm sure it will come to me.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 24-7-26

 

It's the end of the week, so what am I celebrating?

It's the weekend!

Well, sort of...  I don't really get a real weekend this week because we're playing a concert in Christchurch on Sunday afternoon, so I have to go down there on Saturday evening.   On the plus side, I'll have time to catch up with a friend who recently moved down there.

It's been as busy a week as I suspected it was going to be and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by the amount to stuff I learned about our new system in just a few days.  Luckily I have a bit of time to practice before we get the live site, and then a couple of weeks to build everything on the live site and get things tidied up so they look the way I want them to look.  

No new rejections this week, which is good, I guess.  Although, with so many queries still outstanding, I'd rather know for sure they're passes than to keep waiting, just in case.

I'm hoping next week will be more manageable in terms of the workload, so I'm hoping to get caught up on some things.

I had a great idea for the opening lines of a new novel.  I just need to figure out the story to go with them...

What are you celebrating this week?

Weekly Goals 20-7-26

 I had a pretty quiet, restful weekend which is what I needed.  I started beta reading a book for a writing friend, but that was pretty much the extent of my writing work.

This week isn't going to be a good one for writing either since I have three days of all-day training sessions for using our new ticketing system, and concerts on Friday and Sunday.  It's going to be busy and exhausting.

As a result, my goals for the week are very small.  I plan to do a little more work on Rebecca's book where I can.  That's it for writing related stuff.

In life-related stuff, I just need to get through the week.  Trying to find time to do anything outside the training is going to be challenging, but I may just have to pull some late nights.  especially since I'm teaching at the gym during a few of the lunch breaks I've built into the schedule.

My son's band is playing on Thursday, and I really want to go, but I'm not sure if I'll be up to it after the three days of training and 4 classes I will have taught by then.  I guess we'll see.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 17-7-26

 

It's the end of the week, so what am I celebrating?

It's the weekend!

And boy do I need it.  It has been a crazy busy week at work, and next week is going to be even more so.  I feel like I'm not going to get any real chance at downtime until the Christmas break.  And that feels like it's a long way away.

No new rejections this week which is nice.  Although, I don't have a huge number of outstanding queries that aren't old enough for me to call them rejections purely based on the fact it's been 5 or 6 months with no response.

Film Festival tickets went on sale this week, and after a very frustrating day of trying to book and the system crashing, I managed to get tickets for everything I wanted and can go to.  Annoyingly, the orchestra is playing both weekends, so I'll be working and traveling when some of the films I most wanted to see are on.

And that's about it for celebrating this week.  I've been so busy I haven't even managed to do flash fiction this week.  I suspect it might be a while before I manage a full week of that again.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've Read: On the Subject of Unmentionable Things

I admit it.  I picked this one up because of the cover.  It was just too pretty not to.  Thankfully, it turned out to be a pretty good read too.

Phoebe lives in a small town with her parents who are caring, but very busy with their business and one another.  She's a star journalist on the school paper and has a good group of friends who support and love her. She's a good girl who follows the rules, sometimes almost too well.

What no one knows about Phoebe is that she's Pom, the anonymous person behind a blog that's frank and open about all things sexual and doesn't shy away from difficult questions.  Phoebe's research is thorough and she started the blog out of a curiosity about sex and recognizing that the sex education taught in schools was not useful for real-life teens.

When one of the town's conservative mayoral candidates stumbles upon the blog and decides it's an affront to morality, she tweets about it and the blog goes viral.  With a sudden explosion of followers, Phoebe finds herself - or her alter-ego, Pom - in the firing line as the candidate demands Pom reveals their identity.  Suddenly the mayoral race becomes much more interesting as Phoebe fights to protect the things she believes in while desperately trying to keep her true self under the radar.

This was a fun read that deals with some important real-world issues facing us today.  It shows the power of social media and the responsibility people using it have.  It also shows how the clear abuse of power and platform can polarize people and spur them into action.

I just wish the characters had been a little better drawn.  I found Lydia, the Mayoral candidate almost cartoonish in her "bad guy" role.  And I never really warmed to Phoebe as a main character, which is a problem in a first-person narrative.  I did like her boyfriend, Jorge, and I thought the editor of the newspaper was a better villain than Lydia in many ways.

But overall, I enjoyed the book and the questions it posed about modern society.  Well worth a look!

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:


A girl rewrites sex education, one viral post at a time, in this fiercely honest and delightfully awkward novel by the award-winning author of Words on Bathroom Walls.

Phoebe Townsend is a rule follower . . . or so everyone thinks. She’s an A student who writes for her small-town school newspaper. But what no one knows is that Phoebe is also Pom—the anonymous teen who’s rewriting sex education on her blog and social media.

Phoebe is not a pervert. No, really. Her unconventional hobby is just a research obsession. And sex should not be a secret. As long as Phoebe stays undercover, she’s sure she’ll fly through junior year unnoticed. . . .

That is, until Pom goes viral, courtesy of mayoral candidate Lydia Brookhurst. The former beauty queen labels Phoebe’s work an “assault on morality,” riling up her supporters and calling on Pom to reveal her identity. But Phoebe is not backing down. With her anonymity on the line, is it all worth the fight?

Julia Walton delivers a brutally honest novel about sex, social media, and the courage to pursue truth when misinformation is rife. Who knew truth could be so scandalous?

Weekly Goals 13-7-26

 Despite the freezing weather, I had a good long weekend.  I saw a couple of movies, which was good and I went to the final of the Song Quest, New Zealand's competition for opera singers which was fun.  The guy who won was 19 and already has the most amazing control of his voice as well as stage presence to burn.

This week is going to be all about getting stuff done because next week is crazy busy at work.  I also start teaching two extra lunchtime classes at the gym for the next few weeks which is going to add some complexity to my life.

I don't have a new book idea that's clamoring to be told yet.  I have several pieces of new books spinning through my head, but nothing that's ready to be written yet.  Which is probably a good thing, given how busy the next few weeks are going to be at work.  So, I'll stick to my daily flash fiction and wait for something to spark.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 10-7-26

 

It's the end of the week, so what am I celebrating?

Long weekend!

Yes, it's Matariki here, the Maori New Year, so we have an extra day to the weekend.  Unfortunately there's another freezing weather bomb upon us, so it's not the best weekend to have an extra day off, but I'm sure I'll find some way to make it enjoyable!

Had to take the cat to the vet this week which was an adventure and a half.  She does not like it one bit!  But, on the plus side, she seems to be fine now and has even forgiven me relatively quickly.  She's slept on my bed the last two nights.  Almost makes the hefty price tag worth it!

No rejections so far this week which makes a nice change, although I'm not really expecting anything other than rejections at this stage.  So disappointing.  But, I guess that books goes back in the trunk with all the other ones I haven't managed to get a bite with while I figure out what to do with the next one.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've Read: The Staircase in the Woods

 

I was excited when I found this one at the library last week.  I follow Chuck Wendig's blog and have been looking forward to reading this since he started talking about it.  

There are definite parallels to Stephen King's IT in this one in that it focuses on a misfit group of friends across two time periods, the first in childhood, the second when they reunite as adults to reckon with the terrifying event in their youth. 

As teenagers camping in the woods, this friend group discovered a staircase in the woods.  Just a staircase, no sign of a house or any other part of a structure.  One of their number went up the stairs and never came back.

Twenty years later, they gather at the behest of the one who stayed in town and find another staircase in the woods.  Determined to find out what happened to their missing friend, they all go up this time and find themselves in a strange, ever-morphing house where every room holds a new horror, some familiar, others strange.  With no windows and every door opening to only another horrific room, these four people must try to figure out the house's reason for existing if they are to find their friend or the way out.

While this was certainly a creepy horror story, it also had some interesting questions to ask about what makes a house a home, and whether a house can absorb the crimes and passions of its inhabitants.  It also plays out as kind of a puzzle as the characters, some of whom have been gaming since childhood, try to use gaming logic to figure out the way the house works.

The characters are for the most part well drawn and each has their own unique trauma, the thing that brought them together as friends in the first place and yet may be the thing that breaks them in this house of horrors.

I enjoyed it, even though some of the particularly gooshy things they saw in the house made my stomach turn.  I don't think I'm quite as good at dealing with truly horrific horror as I was when I was younger!

So, I'd recommend this one.  Unless you're particularly squeamish.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

A group of friends investigates the mystery of a strange staircase in the woods.

While on a camping trip, five high-schoolers bound by an oath to always protect one another discover something in the middle of the forest: a mysterious staircase to nowhere. One friend climbs up but does not come back down. Then the staircase disappears. Twenty years later it reappears, and the friends return to find the lost boy—and what lies beyond the staircase.

Weekly Goals 6-7-26

 I still have a bit of a cold, but I don't think it's bad enough to keep me from going to work.  I just feel like it's going to be a long day.  I also have a feeling my cat might be sick and I need to try and get a vet appointment for her.  I have no clue how I'll get her to the vet.  She's skittish at the best of times, and when she's feeling bad, she tends to hide, often under the house where I can't to her.  She is still coming in to eat, so I'll just have to try and get her into the cage when she comes for food.  Wish me luck!

I read through an earlier draft of Street Smarts over the weekend, one of the attempts I made at having Devon as the MC, and it wasn't as bad as I remembered it being.  I still think I like Arlo's POV more, but I think the structural things that are a bit of a problem in my Arlo version aren't such a big problem in my Devon version.  I'm waiting on another beta reader to comment on the Arlo version, but I feel like it might be worth spending some time finishing the Devon version too.  I wrote over 30K twice in her POV before switching entirely to Arlo's, so there's a lot of material there already.  Plus, she takes over his diary for a period in the middle of the book already, so it wouldn't be too hard to massage those sections into shape.  It's definitely something to think about...

I don't really have any other specific goals this week.  It's a long weekend for Matariki, so that will be nice, even if I don't have any real plans for it yet.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small things 3-7-26

 

It's the end of the week, so what am I celebrating?

It's the weekend!

Unfortunately I have a bit of a cold, so I think I'm going to have to put most of my plans on hold and just stay home to rest.  I have too much to do next week to be sick, so better to take the time to kick it over the weekend.

I was asked to beta read for a writer I beta'd for last year, so that ought to keep me busy, at least.  And I'm going to have to walk up to the pet store to get more cat food at some point, so that'll be some exercise since I don't think I'll go to the gym.

I got my anthology turned in on time, so we'll see what happens there.  The results aren't due until the end of August, so I have a while to wait.

No new rejections this week, which is always nice, but I'm not hopeful about a request coming in from any of the outstanding queries at this stage.  I think I'll just shelve that book for a while and see if I can get Street Smarts into any kind of shape to query.

What are you celebrating this week?

ISWG - July 2026

 It's the first Wednesday of the month, so it's time for the Insecure Writer's Support Group.

Our hosts for the July 1 posting of the IWSG are Rebecca Douglass, Ronel Janse van Vuuren, Cathrina Constantine, and Jacqui Murray. Thanks so much to them!

This month's question is a really good one, and something I've been thinking about a lot over the last little while:

Is there anything you'd like to see changed, added, and/or rearranged about the book publishing industry?

To be honest, I'm not even sure where to start with this one. There are so many things that frustrate me about publishing.

The main one, I guess, is how difficult it is to get a book published that doesn't fit within a very narrow set of parameters. I understand that books need to be marketable, but everyone seems to be looking for the same books to fill the same narrow market. Which makes it difficult for anyone who writes something different to get a chance to even have their book read by anyone who can get it in front of a mainstream publisher.

I know tastes and trends will change and what's popular today won't be in another five years, but that's five years of our careers we have to put on hold in the hope the trends swing in another direction. And even if they do, it's likely to be in another wildly specific direction that only a small number of writers can fulfill. Not that everyone won't try to jump on board whatever that next trend is, but I'm not someone who can or wants to write to a specific market. Especially when that market is likely to shift long before that book is finished.

One of the other frustrating things is how slowly publishing moves. Even if your book does get picked up by a publisher, it's likely to be two years or so before it hits shelves, which is another reason I'm wary about writing to a specific trend. A lot can happen in two years and the last thing you want is to have written a book to a trend that's on its way out. How well that book performs in stores is likely to define whether or not you get to have a writing career.

I'm not sure I have any helpful suggestions about how to improve the industry because I know how difficult it is, especially now that anyone with half an idea and Chat GTP can "write" a novel. But that said, I'd have to imagine that in a world where you're wading through acres of AI slop, something different that doesn't follow the rules, that doesn't fit neatly into today's "popular" list, might stand out in a good way as being wholly and defiantly human.

What are the things you'd like to see changed about publishing?

Weekly goals 29-6-26

 I got the anthology as ready as it's going to be over the weekend, so that's been made available for the judges.  Now it's just a matter of wait and see...

I guess I have to decide on a new writing project now, so I'll give myself a week or two to let my brain do its thing.  I have my little MG novel I can work on if I feel like it, and Street Smarts needs some editing.

It's going to be a super busy week at work, so it's probably a good thing I don't have any major creative projects to work on as well.

I tried to go to the movies yesterday, but the session I bought a ticket for was cancelled.  Maybe next weekend...

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 26-6-26

 

It's the end of the week, so what am I celebrating?

It's the weekend!

It has been a busy week, so I'm glad to have some time out.  I also have the house to myself for the whole weekend because my son has gone to Sydney for a few days and my partner is housesitting up the coast.  Luxury!

Unfortunately, we're in the throes of a winter storm and it's wet and windy and freezing cold.

I finished the last story in the anthology.  It needs a little work, I think, but all the stories probably need a little tweaking and changing to make them work.  I plan to get this work done over the weekend so the collection is ready to be judged from the end of the month.  I did have a quick peek at the other entries yesterday, just to see how many people are close to the finish line, and it looks like quite a few writers might have fallen by the wayside.

I was long listed in the Australian Writer's Centre Furious Fiction Showcase for the third time this year, which is nice.  I really enjoy this super-short flash fiction contest once a month.

I had a rejection on a partial for A Stranger to Kindness which is disappointing.  I think it's time to stop querying this one.  Clearly no one is interested in this story.  Which is a real shame.  I still think it's the best thing I've written.  And I really feel like Street Smarts is going to be an even tougher sell, if I ever get to the point of querying that one.  I think I need to restructure it a bit so Arlo and Devon meet sooner than they do now.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've Read: Hood

 

I have to admit I found this one a bit of a slog to get through.  Maybe it was because I was on tour when I was reading it and consumed it in tiny bites, but I suspect I just didn't enjoy it much.

Set across a variety of different time periods, the book follows Pen through the week directly after her lover of 13 years is killed in a car crash.  Not that Pen has ever really admitted to anyone that Cara was anything more than a friend.  Still largely closeted, she teaches at the Catholic school she and Cara once attended, lives with Cara's father in the home she grew up in and hasn't even told her mother she's gay.

This makes grieving challenging.  How can you be a widow when you've never admitted to being in a relationship?  

Pen navigates the week as best she can, doing all the practical things she can to distract herself from the 
Cara-shaped hole in her life.  Yet, occasionally, memories bubble up and blindside her.

These flashbacks show the relationship through the 13 years the two women knew each other.  It becomes clear that Pen was actually obsessed with Cara's older sister, Kate, and only met Cara when Kate tossed a casual invitation Pen's way one afternoon.  Thid history makes things charged when Kate returns from America to attend Cara's funeral.

I know this book is set in a different time, and in Dublin where the influence of the Church is far-reaching, but even with that knowledge, I found it difficult to understand Pen's reluctance to admit she was in love with Cara, that they were a couple.  Or that everyone around them didn't see the truth, especially Cara's father who shared the house with them and surely knew they were sleeping in the same bed.

Pen is stoic to the point of obstinance and I think that's why I found it so difficult to get into this story.  Cara was clearly not a nice person, running out on Pen often to have affairs with men and other women.  Yet Pen remained a dependable presence, always there to take Cara back when she'd had her fun.

So, while I found many things about this book interesting, it wasn't an enjoyable read.  I didn't like Pen and the way she let herself be treated like a doormat, denying who she was and constantly putting herself down for being large.  Books about grief and dealing with it are hard enough even when the person grieving is someone you like.

I did find it interesting how the flashbacks were told in present tense though, while the rest of the book was in past.  Something to play with at some later point, I think...

I'm not recommending this one, I'm afraid.  It's well written and a definite picture of a place and time, but it's hard work to get through.

Don't just listen to me though.  Here's the blurb:

Penelope O’Grady and Cara Wall are risking disaster when, like teenagers in any intolerant time and place—here, a Dublin convent school in the late 1970s—they fall in love. Yet Cara, the free spirit, and Pen, the stoic, craft a bond so strong it seems as though nothing could sever it: not the bickering, not the secrets, not even Cara’s infidelities.

But thirteen years on, a car crash kills Cara and rips the lid off Pen’s world. Pen is still in the closet, teaching at her old school, living under the roof of Cara’s gentle father, who thinks of her as his daughter’s friend. How can she survive widowhood without even daring to claim the word? Over the course of one surreal week of bereavement, she is battered by memories that range from the humiliating, to the exalted, to the erotic, to the funny. It will take Pen all her intelligence and wit to sort through her tumultuous past with Cara, and all the nerve she can muster to start remaking her life.

Weekly Goals 23-6-26

 I wrote another story for the anthology yesterday afternoon.  I'm not sure it's any good, or if it fits the theme of the song very well, but we'll see.  I have one more to go to finish out the collection and I hope to get through that one on Friday when I have the day off.  Which gives me the weekend to read through and edit the whole lot.

The thing that's impressed me the most most about writing these stories is how easy it has been to just sit down and bash out around 2500 words in three or so hours.  I think having a deadline helps.  I've had no real idea what these stories were going to be until I sat down to start writing, and the writing has just flowed.

I wish writing a novel was so simple.

I need to think about wha I'm going to work on next.  I might take a couple of weeks off from writing anything other than my little flash fiction pieces.  The Film Festival is coming up and I'm heading into a super busy time at work, so probably not the best time to start a new novel.  But sometimes I find being so busy is a great time for being creative because everything is already at kind of a peak.

I guess I'll wait and see if anything grabs me and demands me to write it.

What ar your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 19-6-26

 

It's the end of the week, so what am I celebrating?

It's the weekend!

I didn't get much of a weekend, so I'm looking forward to this one.  Even if I do have quite a lot on already.  

I have two more stories to write for the anthology, so I'm hoping to get one of those written this weekend.  I have next Friday off work, so I'll get the last one written then, and hopefully have a little time to go back through the whole lot and do some editing before the 30th.  

It has been an interesting project.  I like some of the stories more than others, but overall, I'm quite happy with them.  They've given me a chance to explore different topics and voices and styles.  I don't know what I'll do with them once the competition is over, but we'll see what happens.

I guess once I've finished the anthology project, I'll need to start thinking about writing a new novel.  I still have an idea, but it hasn't fully come together yet.  I have an interesting main character, but none of the other parts of the story or other characters have revealed themselves, so I'll need to wait for that to happen before I can do much more than noodle around with the voice and stuff.

Or wait for another idea to grab hold.  That often happens when I'm noodling.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've Read: Fugly

This book was not what I expected at all.

The main character is Beth, a first-year university student, still living at home.  She's fat and from the very first page you understand how being fat makes her feel.  She's angry at herself for being fat, but also hates the way people look and act around her because she's fat.  She has an unhealthy relationship with food and no one is looking out for her at all.

Her father recently left and her mother is suffering from depression as a result.  Her younger brother is running wild and no one is doing anything about it.  The only thing that makes Beth feel better (other than chocolate) is going online and trolling girls whose feeds are full of themselves being happy and beautiful and thin.  When she gets someone to delete their account, she feels powerful.

While online, she meets Tori who is even more vicious when it comes to trolling.  She and Beth team up and find they make a great team, eviscerating beautiful people with abandon.  They chat and share and Beth soon realizes she's falling in love with this person who calls herself Tori.

But then there's the relentlessly perky girl at Uni who keeps talking to her too.  Never having had friends, Beth isn't sure how to react to this, but she likes it.

So, when Tori picks a target that's a little too close to home, Beth decides she needs to stop her trolling.  But, Tori doesn't want her to stop.

I have to say, rarely have I disliked a main character more than I disliked Beth.  From the very first page I thought she was whiny and all too ready to blame everyone else for her unhappiness.  Throughout the book she makes the absolute worst choices for herself and while I understand that the author was doing this to show the depths of her self-loathing, it didn't feel realistic.  I think even the most depressed person has some tiny well of hope in there somewhere.

So, reading the whole book and spending time with this awful person was hard.  Yes, se did learn some things about herself and made changes, but I feel like a lot of it was too little too late.. By the time she made those realizations, she was so deep in the mess she'd made for herself, I didn't feel like she really deserved any redemption or even a semi-happy ending.

So, unless you really want to spend time with someone who makes other people miserable, this is probably not the book for you.  I does offer some insights into a modern problem, but it isn't an enjoyable read at all.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

A wrenchingly honest, thought-provoking exploration of a girl judged and dismissed by society who must break the cycle of shaming that traps her in her real life and comforts her in her online one.

In real life, eighteen-year-old Beth is overweight, shy, and geeky. She's been bullied all her life, and her only refuge is food. Online, though, she's a vicious troll who targets the beautiful, vain, oversharing It Girls of the internet. When she meets Tori, a fellow troll, she becomes her online girlfriend-slash-partner-in-crime.

But then Tori picks a target who's a little too close to home for Beth. Unsettled, Beth decides to quit their online bullying partnership. The only problem is, Tori is not willing to let her go.

Weekly Goals 15-6-26

 I just realized when I opened up my blog this morning, I missed last week's regular posts.  I was away for work, and it was busier than I anticipated.  I didn't have time to even think about my writing life, really!

But, since I got back late on Saturday, I have managed to write a new story for the anthology.  That leaves me two more to write before 30 June.  Doable, I think.  I'm just concerned I may not get much time to go back over them, to check if they actually work together and if they are actually any good!

On the plus side, with having been away and doing so many extra hours, I'm owed a lot of time off.  There's never a really good time to take it, but I may try and take a little each week for the next few weeks so I can have that editing time I need.  Starting with taking half of Friday off.  I'd take the whole day, but I remembered I'm teaching a lunchtime class in town, so it doesn't really make sense to do that.

So, my goals for this week are to catch up on the stuff I didn't manage to get done while I was away and to write at least one more story for the anthology.  I also need to catch up on reviews for the others in my crit group.

what are your goals this week?

Weekly Goals 8-6-26

 I'm away on tour for most of this week, so I'm not going to set myself a ton of goals - I probably wouldn't hit them.

I managed to write another story for the anthology over the weekend.  I'm not sure it's very good, but again, a place to start.  I have three more songs to write stories for, so I'm no track to finish by 30 June if I write one a week.  I think I'll try to take a day off during the last week of June to do some serious editorial work on these stories before the final due date.

So, this week's goal is to write another story.  I think this one is the one I've been looking forward to writing the most and I already know exactly what I'm going to write.  Most of the others haven't been planned at all and I've just gone with whatever my mind came up with at the time.  My mind is a dark and spooky place sometimes.

I may discover I have more time than I think on the road, and I may get more done than I think I will.  But I'm not counting on it.

I am looking forward to catching up with my bestie in Auckland on Friday though.  It's been far too long since we got to talk for more than a few minutes.

What are your goals this week?