Not Doing a George R. R. Martin, Honest

Write Like the Wind

Well, I've ducked out yet again on my responsibilities this month, and I am horrified to find that I haven't posted a new blog post since last month, and my last update for anything was probably September. 

Here's what's going on...


Real Life

In my day job, as some of you may know, I'm writing a doctoral thesis. It's pretty epic - I have to get it down to 80K words with 10% allowance either side of the word limit. My amazing friends in my writing group contributed to my fees, and I've been working flat out to pay off my tuition. I am now ALL PAID UP! Yay! And I have something written for every chapter of the thesis. 

The title is: 

LAND OF THE RAVEN AND THE WOLF: 
Family Power and Strategy in the Welsh March c.1199-c.1300
[A Comparative Study of the Cantilupes and the Corbets]

I know... not exactly snappy or sexy. But the etymology of their names let me get the ravens and wolves in there to dress it up a bit. 

I've completed Chapter One: Personal Networks of Power and am nearly done with Chapter Two: Territorial Networks, then I have the Power & Piety and Visual Representations of Power chapters to revise and complete, the Historiography to finish and the Conclusion to write. Not to mention all the stuff going into my Appendices. 


I've been doing my fictional writing around my archive work and drafting all these chapters, but now sadly the time has come for me to focus solely on this and get my career kick-started. I am hoping to publish two academic articles this year based on my research, one of which needs to be done and ready for publication by Christmas/January as it's been accepted.The other article is going into a volume of conference transactions which I am co-editing, and I'm also co-organizing our second international conference to be held in June 2014. 

The Worlds in My Head


Meanwhile, I have three writing projects on the go: 

and

... And I have written at least a paragraph for each new chapter of these. So, ooh, a whole 800 words right there. 

For the reasons why BOOK OF CHANCE is taking me the longest to get anything done, see my post on the difficulties of world-building here: Welcome To My World Part I. I'm really having to think about it.

To be honest, in view of working stupid numbers of shifts to keep myself financially afloat and finishing the PhD and teaching Undergraduates and doing the Heritage and Community projects I'm involved with, the LAST THING I want to do when I get home is tap away on my laptop. Again. 

So I'm writing some bits 'n' pieces longhand on the train to work, or when I desperately need to. 

In the meantime, I'm still writing very below-par Horror stories for the Horror Smackdown, just to keep my creative juices flowing until I can finally get some time to my damn self and write something half decent!! 

I solemnly swear, dear readers, I will not make you guys wait for six damn years for the next installment. 

Nope.
Not impatient for my next #GoT fix at all. ;)


 

Comments

  1. Good luck with all your endeavours. You're a very busy lady.

    Ken.
    PS The video is brilliant. Very meaningful for GoT fans like me.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Can't wait for The Crows!!! :-D

    ReplyDelete

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