_My Novel Dreaming Billabong is back from the proof readers and is ready for submission to a literary agent or publisher and it is time to make the new twelve month goals which will see either the sequel written or a stand alone novel.

Now I am about to launch an ART SALE

Kathy Shell Artist/Author 12 Months and beyond, action plan.

FEB:, I list art for sale free shipping in Australia and internationally at cost.
Also Pitching my novel to publishers and agents - ongoing until success.

MARCH: I continue to sell any remaining unsold items but no new listings.

APRIL:Easter: Wind up - Sales CLOSED - Planning new Novel & Travels

MAY till January 2013 Write new Novel

FEB 2013 - Possible Second chance offer art sale -IF, I do another.

I had a great morning in the painting studio with the rep from Pack and Send who will be getting costings to me fairly soon of the shipping of my large Moorcroft Vase, Art Easel Kits, Metal detector, Framed ad unframed original Oils and watercolour paintings, Wholesale quantities of scrapbooking papers and prints.

I will be focusing the next fortnight equally dividing my time between pitching my novel and getting these 'out there' where people can see them on line.

_Have you been to any Seminars?
You can apply all this information for writers to Painters and Sculptors, we all have the same time restraint issues of a labour intensive job and the need to allocate time for public relations work as well.

While I still have not put pen to paper and created any more cartoons since I went to the Cartoon Writing Seminar last Wednesday I have applied all the business skills for Authors training I received in the latter part of the Seminar and 'that's OK,' because I already could do cartoon sketches it was best to focus on those areas I could improve on first.

The move I have made towards doing the actual cartooning is to allocate 4 hours a day by 5 days a week to my blogging, short story, essay length, cartooning and author promotion skills. Or 20 hours per week.  I will be focusing on the A priorities fist, and that is those skills I need to improve and the most urgent ones.

So I have allocated the time to do the cartooning, as it moves up the priority ladder it will be done, within that 4 hours, Monday to Friday.  I am allocating  2 x 4 hour work sessions from 8 until 12  at each end of the day.

One will be treasured and maintained 7 days a week or 28 hours a week just for my novel writing with a bonus additional 2 x 4 hours cribbed off the days I take a break from the small writing work.  That equals 36 hours Novel writing time per week and I'm sure I will crib a little extra time and make that a 40 hour week as I am serious about my novel writing. If I was painting this would be time allocated to my major work of art.  I set this full time working week for it as non negotiable.

I need to work on this further to allocate enough exercise time and have a balanced lifestyle. Yes, good time management is a valid seminar topic for writers and i have attended and even given a few of those throughout my creative career. Get the time management right and you can create well and stay reasonably healthy.

Summery:
* I work a part time 20 hour week at smaller PR size and income generating creative work.
* I work a full time 40 hour week at my major creative work this is currently my novel.
* I allocate 10 hours minimum to the study and improvement of my creative work. For a writer this is reading a novel for at least one hour a day and brushing up on grammar,
* Fitness activity, healthy meals planning and sleep. - Yes this is why I need to plan or something gets left out. All my social activity needs to be fitted in around training =, fitness or meals. I do turn the TV off unless it is educational and facebook for me is an educational and promotional medium it is not for wasting time playing games, when I play games it is with real life to my face friends and family members.

Set your goals, plan the actions to achieve them then plan your time so you can achieve what you want to do,



My next Seminar is Feb 11 on submitting my novel to an agent or publisher.

Why Writer's Conferences are Important.

Have a Happy New Year of reading and writing and everything else you desire.

I have begin to pitch my novel to publishers. So you can guess what my New Year goal is.

Dreaming Billabong

Author Kathryn Shell

Children begin and then try to stop an escalating culture of payback in this compelling story of treachery and love during European settlement of Australia.

Young adults will relate to Jarrah and Emily being torn by the demands of adults. Most readers who enter this journey though the life of the cattle king, Alan Fife, will see a little of their own struggles for identity and acceptance within this historical crime fiction that is told mainly though the lives of the children. Seniors will relive the 1950s period of Australian history.

            In 1877 free settlers arrive to the semi arid inland of Fife Springs north-west of the Great Dividing Range.  At first they coexisted with the Woggan-Wandong people. Then the children, Alan and Charlotte, witness the development of intolerances and see these emerge as bitter altercations that sow the seeds for the white Australia policy.

            In 1945, Jarrah, and his two cousins of mixed Scottish and Woggan-Wandong heritage have their childhood wrenched from them by the danger and cruelty of the stolen generation phase of Australia’s history. They each emerge triumphant by drawing on their strengths and instincts to survive.

            During this post World War Two period, the second rush of Australian settlement takes place. Migration from Europe and the catch cry of ‘populate or perish’ have a tumultuous effect on the quiet peaceful inland Australian country town of Fife Springs.

            Two children Emily and her brother Harry have had their childhood traumatised by the crime of, and resulting loss of a parent. They are thrust into an environment with hidden dangers.  Payback continues and the children, one urged on by the ghost of a massacre the others aided by the dreaming spirits and nature, struggle with a culture of revenge that has harmed their family for generations.

            Woggan-Wandong means The meeting of the Spirit Ghosts.

_I was very quiet in my blogging over the past week as I worked hard to complete the last edit of my Australian novel.
The work is complete save for minor changes following the proof readings.

I already have a rough draft for the sequel and part of the first chapter written.

Today I returned to one of two non-fiction books I had already begun writing.
The second non-fiction Book I plan to write concerns travelling Australia and earning your living as you go.
The third book will concern earning your living as a free lance creative person, author and artist.

I plan to write at least one non-fiction work per year though may well work on all three of these non-fiction works simultaneously while taking a short break from writing and editing my novel although I only plan to complete one non-fiction work per year and I will be publishing extracts from these self help books, as free exerts, within my blogs.

I may even publish some of my non fiction works for free or at least, at cost price as these works  - my non fiction come from my love of writing. 

Have a Happy Creative Christmas.

_
Lovely morning here in the Goulburn Valley and they cut the oats nearest the caravan today so my concern about a grass fire has been eased.
Image in my post is of an en-plein-air landscape of a Queenslander style home in Cloncurry, Qld, Australia. Most Australians love the character of these homes. Cloncurry has had the highest recorded summer temperatures in Australia, but remains one of my favorite places to visit - just not in summer :-).


My Creative Art & Writing Inspirations, Dec 6th 2011 www.kathyshell.com‎_

We watched the strip of oats nearest the caravan being harvested this morning and I am at chapter 16 of a 20 chapter draft edit of my current novel and planning an art work and another fishing tour...

I love a novel that deals with real life issues - good and bad - in a sensitive and believable way.There are several books that are my inspiration as to how to tell my story which is based on a true passage of time and varied events interwoven into fiction. There is beauty and cruelty in true life.

Do you know any books that can deal with extremely violent and troubled issues and yet do so in a such a gentle way you do not need to look away, just be moved by the circumstances and end with a feel good or bitter sweet experience?


Read Life Retold as Fiction www.kathrynshell.com‎

My 1011 NaNoWriMo month came to an end 15 hours ago and I went to bed feeling fantastic, slept the best I have all month ans woke feeling terrific, lol It is a good feeling knowing we forged ahead - however much for the month.

My WIP  (Work in Progress.)

At one point today, I was brought to tears as I edited/rewrote to better effect a passage. That makes my novel a three hanky novel so far. lol :-).

I have just completed the edit of the 11,500 word long chapter 7 where I deal with the internal within the mind of many of my characters. This is the chapter before a big action chapter. This was the one I needed some beta readers for and thank those who helped me :-). I was anxious that this more talk less action, but getting a gimps into the mindset of all characters, chapter not be too long yet not leave out essential information.

I will put this chapter aside now until I am alone tonight and can listen to it in my Read4ME program and hear my typos so I can fix them.

NOW :-) Seeing as NaNoWriMo is over :) I begin the more balanced lifestyle goals and put away, a full months worth of washing, lol :-).

_Writers know when they need to stop and have a section of their writing constructively critiqued.  I went though that stage yesterday. I chose my own beta readers, though there are web forms that specialize in this.  I did not want my work read by a stranger as I want it published and wish to strive to guard the copyright.

My picture is of a crowd in a showground, the sort of area where store keepers need to know how to be aware of shoplifter prevention and this issue was dealt with in a chapter of my NaNoWriMo novel.  I was keen that it 'worked' as a part of a novel and not seeming like a lecture, so I had this chapter constructively critiqued.

I asked for a constructive critique for one chapter in my novel from a trusted proof reader and she felt my characters had expressed things well and it wasn't too long, the two main questions I had.  This was a quieter chapter prior to a big action chapter.  It is great to get some feedback part way though the novel's editing.

I was trying to express without preaching, the  'situation' the mixed race children in my novel find themselves in, where everyone in some locations assumes they are going to be thieves.

I have seen it so often from QLD though to WA…you set up a sales display and the first thing you are told is 'don't let the half cast kids come into your shop they are all thieves.'
Well I always did let them in, invited them to handle the best soft toys, was friendly to them…guess what..at the end of the say their mum would be brought in to my set up and it would be my store they bought at. 

I think in five years of trading though those areas I was shoplifted from once and had night time break and enters with valuables stolen, once from someone I didn't know and the other from a fellow store holder.   So I wanted to tell that experience in my novel somehow, try to put it right for those kids.  Yes of course many were making a game stealing from the stores but this was in retaliation, 'you treat me like I'm worthless and I'll show you what I think of you,' behaviour.

Cheers Kathy

_It is the last day of November and NaNoWriMo for us Aussies. My last day is filled morning and afternoon with appointments so it will be tonight before I hit the novel writing for the final time for the national novel writing month.

This morning I read some information about dementia and obesity.  If anything at all reminds me to balance physical activity and creative activity it is reading that your mind looks 8 years older if you are overweight and 15 years older if you are obese.

Does sanity return to my home from Dec 1?
No I like crazy too much.

_I hit my chapter near the end of the mid section of the book.  This is my big chapter where I handle the inner conflict of my boy hero now turned 13 and how his two uncles who represent the two different cultures he comes from (One third generation white Australian settler family and his Australian Aborigine family) are both pulling him in different ways and demanding he follow a different pathway than the one he has planned for himself.  Jarrah wants to be able to please and live within both cultures when he chooses. He also wants to choose to live 'between' the cultures, in a life style and place of his own choosing, with friends of his own choosing, and not having to conform to the one or the other cultural demands.

This chapter is already written...so this is 'just an edit', but I can see I have done what I stove not to do and 'harped.' In my desire to show racism from the viewpoint of the mixed culture individual who is affected by the conflicting laws and demands of different societies I have shown three examples and his reactions in three chains of thought.

All examples 'work'.  However I now see that I have 'over hammered my point.'

As a novelist I am here to entertain my reader and not lecture on society's morals.  I have to hatchet job this chapter...cut the words to one only example and soliloquies then move on into action quickly.  

Once again the words, 'do not insult your reader by assuming they were not intelligent enough to understand in fewer words.'

WOW!   Once more I see I have a huge rewrite ahead of me...extra months of work in finishing the final chapters to my satisfaction.  Yes I had 'something' I wanted to state about race relations within this novel but it has to come though subtly and by allowing my readers to make up their own minds.  No racist would read past the first blurb of my novel anyhow. I have already been told, 'if there are indigenous in it I will not read it.'  So 'I am writing a novel here, not preaching how I feel about life,' I remind myself.

I move onward today...knowing what I had hoped would be a few more days of work will be a month and possibly a few months work...but I have learnt a lot more about  'being a novelist.'