Over the past month, I have worked on building two new scenes based on the gaps and timing errors that I discovered when I placed my chapters into my Excel spreadsheet. These new scenes have required me to go back and research the years I am writing about, including popular music of the period, specific dates, and historical events.
The extra work made me happy. I learned key facts, revisited songs that I heard when I was a child, understood what those songs referenced, and felt inspired to more fully develop my characters based on what I had learned. At times, it felt like my characters were jumping up off the page and saying, “Hey, let me do that!” or “Hey, that is the instrument, I like!” After of few months of drudgery, I am feeling excited about further developing my story.
Creating the two new chapters allowed me better to develop some of the relationships, create a more defined aura of the period, and insert material necessary to build a base for later chapters.
My Writing Goals for 2024
Continue to develop my poetry and connections with other poets:
This past month, I attended the Cannon Mine Poetry group reading hosted by Larry LaVerdure. I also attended the Colorado Poetry Center reading which featured Veronica Patterson at the Boulder Book Store. I also met some local Hispanic poets at a local reading.
Finish my first novel and query agents:
Now I have two new chapters drafted.
Continue to work on my second novel:
I managed to do some research on photos of this period to help me visualize what my characters might be wearing.
Continue to work on my third novel:
I did some research and learned more about women in this field.
Continue to develop a network of kindred spirits in the world of writing and publishing:
Boulder Writers Alliance: I stopped in briefly at the BWA Happy Hour at the Hotel Boulderado. I also attended our Writers Who Read Summer Gab Fest. In preparation for our September meeting, I was delighted to read Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros.
Denver Woman’s Press Club: I tremendously enjoyed the Poesía Bilingüe/Bilingual Poetry reading at the Denver Woman’s Press Club which was sponsored by CALMA, Colorado Humanities, and hosted by the DWPC. Ricardo Bogaert Álvarez served as master of ceremonies and read from his own work. Six other poets performed their work in Spanish and English: Nicolas Cabrera, Ramon del Castillo, Carmelita Jaramillo, Anita Jepson-Gilbert, Ricardo LaFlore, and Gia Nold.
Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers: I read the newsletter and listened to a podcast.
Women Writing the West: I prepared my pages and read pages for the July meeting.
Document my writing progress through my blog and post it on the seventh day of each month, one blog per month in 2024:
Today is August 7, 2024. I am posting my eighth blog of 2024. Smoke from fires in Canada drifted into Colorado during July and was thick enough to hide the mountains from view. I even wore a mask to protect my lungs for several days. We also have been having fires in Boulder County because of the dry summer and elevated temperatures. Properties and lives were lost.
Writers who were born in August that I particularly enjoy:
Isabel Allende, James Baldwin, Barbara Ehrenreich, Herman Melville, Dorothy Parker, Annie Proulx
Poets that I love who were born in August:
Guillaume Apollinaire, Percy Bysshe Shelley
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