The #NaNoWriMo Challenge Revisited.

So, what has the last week held for me with regard to writing?

I was reading Plato's The Republic and discovered it held references to a number of themes I'd touched on in the novel I drafted in November for the NaNoWriMo challenge. It was clear that it would help me with the editing if I finished reading Plato's work before I started. So, this week I finished reading and then reviewed The Republic.

I wrote another post for the blog, a piece about emotion in writing that will appear on 26 January.

I revisited two short stories; one a piece of erotica that I'm still unsure about placing, though it's a finished tale now. The other was a dystopian science fiction piece, which I'm still considering for submission. Can't make up my mind whether to send it to a contest (there are plenty listed under the 'Writing Contests' tab above, so I've no excuse on that score) or to one of the many magazines (Duotrope, of which I'm a member, lists over 3,770 journals that take stories or poetry, so no excuse there, either).

And, I finally made a start on the editing process of the NaNoWriMo novel. My first read through is a simple one, highlighting anything obvious that needs attention but without actually making any alterations. I've done the first five chapters so far. Of course, there's a lot of work to do before it'll be ready for publication, but I'm enjoying the work and surprised at just how good some of the text is, considering the speed with which I produced this first draft. More on that as I progress.

I've also done a little work on various websites I visit, some of the social networking sites I belong to, and have read this month's Writing Mag, highlighting those portions I need to revisit. The current Writers' Digest is still only half read, though.

So, that's the end of this writing week. Let's see what the new one brings.

The picture is a reminder of the summer to come; something to warm you in this cold part of the year.