late last night

I did two planks last night, each lasting to the count of twenty. it might not seem like much but that is a huge improvement in a short space of time. It will be interesting to see what happens in twelve months. I am expecting and astronomical twelve months.

This morning I cleaned the bathroom and put a new set of shelves in, well an old set revamped and into that shelving went all the makeup and hair accessories, nail polish, the usual paraphernalia that clutters a bathroom with a teenage girl and now it isn't. The bathroom is a delight to walk into, all fresh and organised and tidy.

Organisation seems to be the theme of the week. I am reading about getting organised on my fellow 12 x 12 and STYoff Write peers and the truth is that if we don't get organised early we wont last the distance.

So I have signed up for the 12 x 12 and paid my membership fee for a silver level. I have started my first manuscript for that and said hello to as many people as I could in the FB group and eagerly look forward to the forum on the blog.

I had a story accepted yesterday for an anthology and have decided that will be my last anthology submission for non children books. They have exclusive use of the story for one year and any monies from the anthology are supposedly going to a good cause but I would like to see that in writing. I am pleased that over the past six months I have had stories and art work in eleven different anthologies and some marvellous feedback from people about their response to my writing. Some of the anthologies fund the following year's anthology, some have been touted as 'advertising and exposure for writers' with no funds going anywhere other than the coffers of the small press(if any even sold), some have funded good charities and one was given electronically to people serving in the military. I will never know if my own writing had any impact anywhere from these anthologies except through friends who purchased some but it is good to have a portfolio of published works to put on my profiles. The best anthology to date was the first one in which I have a piece of art and a short story and which funded something very worthwhile. That one makes me smile the most.

So I am also doing a 52 week art challenge through FB with a weekly theme, last week being eggs and this week kids. I started drawing daily in November with SkaDaMo and then Hohodooda in December with holiday themed drawings and in January I was a bit adrift but still drawing daily then found the 52 week challenge and added it to my list of things to do.

On Sunday I WILL REVISE some of my PiBoIdMo drafts in ReviMo and spend an intense week revising with some amazing people in the kidlit world.
On Monday I begin the Picture Book Dummy Challenge which runs for six months and I expect to learn all about putting a picture book together in that time.

All these things blend together and overlap and all of them enhance my skills so that I will be a successful picture book author and published.

I also started learning Spanish, dusted off my clarinet and am now back to playing three notes and I am blog hopping and writing my own blog daily.

Not one of these will last if I don't stick to my organisational charts. I have them everywhere in the house. I planned NaNoWriMo in Novemeber and stuck to the plan and managed to write 104000 words which was one complete novel and 3/4 of a second novel.
Organisation is the key. Get organised, stay organised. On that note...