Time To Make This An Active Blog Again

Have been very busy with my writing. Just not here on this blog. Just a thumbnail sketch of what I've been up to.

Did a comprehensive rewrite of "Let Sleeping Dogs Lie". A publisher, through a writer friend, who will remain nameless for the time being has been interested in my first manuscript. I kicked my own butt to fix all the issues in the story that I felt needed to be dealt with to show I'm serious about writing. This was a massive undertaking and meant rewriting a great deal of the story. Much happier with the third draft. This bit of news is still on going. The initial submission included only excerpts. They've since requested the full manuscript. I'm still waiting on pins and needles for a reply.

Second item on my writing agenda was NaNoWriMo 2012. I thought I'd give it a try this year in spite of an extremely tight schedule. I kept up and decided not to let my three participating children show me up. The result is currently called "The Shadow Sleeps". I can now call myself a NaNo winner. I posted it entirely on www.writing.com today. Didn't set up the restrictions correctly but I'll get to that in fairly short order. Not before tomorrow. Easily the roughest draft I've ever created. Won't be editing that for a long while. There are more important things for me to do.

Third item was to get this blog back in action. Posting this is at least a start.

Future work is to turn "Rat in the Shadows" into a full manuscript. That is the one that I believe has the highest chance of being published out of my existing projects. I did start a manuscript for a book to fit between the new prequel "The Shadow Sleeps" and "Let Sleeping Dogs Lie", but that will rest for the time being. Finally item on my to do list is write an article showing how I work and make a bit of cash on MyLot. Hope to use it to recruit some referrals.

My next update should be posted here a lot faster than this one.

Busy Week But Good Things Happening

I am absolutely tickled that both of my writing children managed to join up with Book Junkies on Facebook and were welcomed enthusiastically by the gang there. I am going to add a page here for resources and Book Junkies will definitely be a part of that. My daughter writes as Antonia and my son as Sheldon. I won't add their full user names here.

Got a surprise bonus at work on my first March check. With it we paid our last installment of our bankruptcy. Right after that I was awarded call of the month for January which also gives a substantial bonus in the form of gift cards. I have the biggest bonus coming before the end of the month. Maybe it isn't all writing related, but after a very tough winter it is something to get excited about. It will all help give some of my writing time back to me.

Last item of note is the subject of guest writers on this blog. I don't want to make it a focus for this blog but I think entries written by friends who have gotten published to inspire my readers could be quite useful. When I have a little extra time I'm going to run it by some of my friends and see if we can't develop something worth putting on a separate page here somewhere.

New Page Added

I added a general review page to the blog today. I don't want them to be the focus here but it is worth having them so I added the page. I also added a rating which I'll explain if anyone cares to ask. Slight modifications have been made to other entries to accommodate the change.

Work was a circus this week so I didn't get as much done as I would have liked to. Not a problem though. A couple of issues there are being worked out and it should in the long run increase the amount of time I can spend on my writing.

Keeping My Writing Going

My work and home life are not always conducive to writing and for years I struggled trying to light a fire under myself to keep writing. I found a secret to keeping the creative flame burning. I keep a journal. I do force myself to write an entry for every single day of the year. I can't completely explain why it works but it has a lot to do with me never letting the flow of words stop.

Outside of that I try to grab every bit of inspiration that comes my way.

Aiming For a More Active Blog

I added a review today again but that isn't going to by the focus of my blog. I want to spend most of my time here talking about my own writing and where I am trying to go with it. Don't get me wrong. I love to read a good book and I always have an opinion. I will be putting all these reviews on their own separate page. Likely will add some kind of rating system. I tend to be overly generous in that department. Anything I would give a low rating probably shouldn't have ever been published. Chances are I won't finish reading it and never rate it anyway.

Currently I am reading a book by a Book Junkies friend. I can only access it from my laptop and it is long. If that person is reading this, relax I am enjoying it and will likely put up a review in a couple of weeks depending on my time.

My main project is my novel, Let Sleeping Dogs Lie. My goal is to complete a rewrite using suggestions and critiques made by friends and online acquaintances by the middle of the year. After that I hope to be annoying potential publishers with it. For anyone interested, first chapter is publicly available through a link on my Pico's Stuff page. I will let any readers know right here on my blog how it is coming along.

I write short stories and articles whenever the inspiration strikes me. Any updates will show up here as soon as they happen.

With a little less on my plate my Writing.com friends should start hearing from me again as well. A fresh new week starts tomorrow. I want to make the most of it.

Pico

Major Reorganization

With some difficulty I reorganized Pico's Stuff today. I have not yet included links to my short stories but I feel good anyway. Links to my novel first chapters have been added and all the articles that I have currently online have been added as well. My public short stories will be added later. To some degree I have a better idea of what I'm doing so maybe that part will go faster.

Managed to clear off a whole bunch of personal schtuff this week and I am hoping to be writing here more regularly as well as producing some real writing. Still have some technical things to deal with today but I am getting to the bottom of the pile.

Added An Interview Link

Last evening I was invited to participate in a blogtalkradio interview with my friend Kitty Sutton. Unfortunately with the time zone I live in and my schedule I was unable to participate. I would have really enjoyed that. Not all is lost though. I am tickled to be able to add the link to the interview to the review page on my blog here. I would encourage anyone interest to click the link there and listen. It is under the review for Wheezer and The Painted Frog. Right now that is the only review there but that will change with time.

Blog Name Change

I thought I chose a good blog name with Pico's Place. Turns out I probably should have researched things a little more thoroughly. I wanted to access it from work on a break, but couldn't remember the exact web address. I Googled it and came up with a whole bunch of stuff that really wasn't what I had in mind. Turns out there is an adult content website named Pico's Place already. Arrgh! All the other reference on the first page that came up were from clubs. At that point I pretty much decided a name change was in order. I appreciate the little bit of brainstorming my friends helped me with on Book Junkies. I brainstormed some more with a few friends at work and came up with From Pico's Pen. I think it works. I don't want to constantly be changing the title. I did check Google and I can live with what came up. Someone would have to come up with an amazing title for me to even consider changing it again.

Got a Little Inspiration

With the blog up and running here a bit of inspiration crossed my mind. I couldn't leave it alone. When I was growing up my siblings and I often licked our plates after meals. Terrible etiquette, but I thought it would make for a good tongue in cheek article for Hubpages. I wrote and published it there this evening. Even got a couple of the kids to model for some pictures. My daughter says she felt like an idiot. Hopefully my readers will take it in the spirit it was written.

For the curious, here's the link: http://picodoll.hubpages.com/hub/How-To-Properly-Lick-Your-Plate

Got a bit more work done this evening as well. Managed to attach my Google AdSense account to this blog and to my Hubpages account. That turned out to be easier than anticipated. I wasted a lot of time last week trying to figure that all out. Now I know where I need to go and it was like falling off a log.

I also added a hits counter. It remains to be seen whether that was a good idea or not.

Finally Got the Basics Set Up Here

I'm really not happy with how my blog here looks but at least it has all the functional parts I wanted. It has been hard to get after this stuff due to time constraints. Thanks to the boys who shoveled the driveway for me I was able to get quite a bit done today. I created all the pages that are in the right hand column today. That was quite a bit of work.

My writing has not been completely dead in the last little while. I did actually publish my first Hubpage article and started a second one. If you go to the Pico's Stuff page you will be able to see the link for that article. I haven't successfully linked in my Adsense account but at least I was able to regain access to that. I will update that list whenever I write something new besides boast about it on the home page here.

I expect to be writing in here regularly from now on. Just getting this set up and started was a major goal of mine for the new year.

In spite of what this blog looks like I am going to go boast about it on line. Maybe some of my friends will visit and tell me how to make this place look fantastic and worth visiting.