Hi, Writing Group! My March Progress.
- J.H. Jones
- Apr 1
- 2 min read
I think of you as a member of my big, bold, extended writing group, and I promised to share my progress with you this year. I've been busy during March--lots of things to share:
Nonfiction: I made good progress on my new ebook, From Draft to Craft: A New Writer's Guide to Feedback. (BTW, I did some crowd-sourcing on the title and I'm very happy with the result! Thank you if you voted or shared your opinion.) Last month, I mentioned the idea for this book sprang from my own (painful) experiences of getting feedback. If you can relate and you're a new writer, this book will help you:
Appreciate the value of reader feedback
Overcome your fear of sharing your work with others
Learn how to give useful comments on other writers' works
Understand how to listen to feedback on your own works
So what did I do in March? After sourcing a reader and getting some thoughts, I put the work-in-progress through the editing process. I also engaged a terrific graphic artist and launched the design of the cover.
Right now, I'm planning the next phase, which is to do the final-final checkity-check of the manuscript, and work out the details for self-publishing and marketing. I'll have an update next month.
Fiction. An experiment took me for a ride! This story started as a vague idea from some research I did for my gothic mystery. After reading about native peoples in the 1800s in the Catskills, New York, I started to scribble a few thoughts for a story and played around with some fun concepts. Before I knew it--swoooosh!--I wrote a mini-book #paranormalromance. (And it's got a teensy bit of spice, too!) You can listen to a 30-second snippet here. This was not planned, and the genre is very different for me, but what fun!
During this month, I'll edit the work, and begin to outline how I'll share it later this year. If you like #paranormalromance and have a suggestion about where you'd like to access this book, let me know in the comments.
Recharging My Creative Batteries: There's nothing like a good dose of nature to refill my creative well. So one afternoon, I headed north to a wildlife sanctuary and had a nice long walk. My whole purpose was to reflect on my progress to date, while listening to the sounds of the birds and the wind rustling through the dead leaves. I used my phone to take a few pictures and nothing else. When I returned home, this picture sparked some ideas for a weird story:
If I've identified these enormous fungi correctly, they're called Giant Funnels.
I had such a positive experience taking time away from my computer that I've blocked my calendar with another recharging day in April. Stay tuned!
So, how was your month? Did you make progress on the work you wanted to? What's one writerly thing you accomplished this month? Let me know in the comments! And look for my next update in early May.
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