August Audit: Part Two

With just a few days left of the month of August I realised that I hadn't even made the smallest of headways into auditing my work, as I'd set August aside to do. Thankfully today, with a trip to our much loved 'Lollyland' I was able to get all my short stories catalogued, along with all the side bits I created for Finding Aphrodite last year and the background stories that have been created in anticipation of Adam and Eve for this year's NaNo. A sense of achieving something seems to be really important at the moment - even if it is a couple of lists of stories with the potential publisher box filled in with a series of ?s

It was an interesting activity to do on numerous levels. Firstly it meant cleaning out all the misnamed, and repeated files that contained the same stories. Secondly it meant filing everything away where it actually belonged. There were a few unfinished stories, that got a new 'unfinished' folder to live in, all the Adam and Eve stuff lives in its own folder, along with the Finding Aphrodite stuff. It was important for me, caught in a period of writing ambivalence and doubt to go back and see just how much work I have created since I made the decision last year to 'just write.'

I have been despondent more often than not over the last month, after the excitement and re-energising kick of the Byron Bay Writers Festival wore off. I've felt a block in getting anything on the paper, of committing time and effort to even arrive at the paper and my only saving grace has been my contribution to Captain Juan's adventures. Otherwise I may really have thrown in the towel.

Perhaps part of it is reminding myself that it's quality and not quantity that matters. Though I do have to also remind myself that I have to turn up to the page every day - even if it is for half an hour and I do have to make time for things like Fiction Friday. Claiming my writing space is becoming a priority again as other things have enroached on that sacred space.

At the end of the short story audit I found that I have 24 short stories - one of which has been published, another which is almost in final draft form and ready to be sent off, and several others that need a little TLC to get them up to scratch to find an audience beyond my blog and hard drive. In addition to that there are 7 stories contributing to the Adam and Eve concept which have all been written this year, and another two or three side stories from Finding Aphrodite.

Feeling rather chuffed with the fact that I managed to get it all catalogued, I realised that I have a number of articles published on my blog that probably could find homes elsewhere - so I'm now contemplating doing a catalogue of my online articles and considering where else they might be sent to be enjoyed (well I can delude myself!) by a wider audience than is available on my blog.

The other things that I wanted to do as part of August was print off my NaNo project from last year (that's tomorrow's to do) and get Evie sorted out and ready for sending off somewhere (which I have done - just have to round up the critiques that I was hoping for!) The final thing is to get 100 Years of Solitude completed in order to keep up with my reading schedule of two books a month. Granted it took me a while to get into it, but I'm rather fascinated and entranced with Marquez's writing, the weaving of magic and reality, history with geneaology.

All in all, not a bad run at the to do list in the dying days of the month. Sounds like my work ethic at play again - designate a large period of time to complete something in and do it at the very last minute.