Twice Forthnightly – Going Home has a blurb! Oh and I won Nano

So, this weekend I made this biiig decision regarding Going Home and got sucked into editing the book so I actually almost forgot it was still NaNoWriMo. Luckily I pulled my head out of editing long enough to finish NaNo. It’s weird, I’m super happy to be done with it and excited about the story I wrote but at the same time that post-NaNo high is totally missing because I’m in over my ears in the slightly more stressful rush of “omg, my release date is in less than two weeks”. It’s very exciting and also scary and very busy-making. So without further ado, this week I have:

• Won NaNoWriMo! Yay! I snuck in just above 50k, but I’m still very happy.
• Made some mockups of my cover for Going Home, then realized that my skills with that are not at a level I’m likely to be satisfied with and thus set off to find a cover artist on Fiverr (because that’s about all I can afford right now, sadly).
• I started running Going Home through Pro Writing Aid. So far I’ve only looked at the section for over-used words but I plan to look at the rest this week. It’s been interesting and I’ll post about my experiences with the free version with of the program in the second half of the month.
• Started in the  Think Kit’s December blogging challenge. The first post, A Thousand Words, was posted a couple of hours ago.
• Finished the synopsis for Going Home

That’s right, you hear right! I have a blurb! Finally! Here it is:

Orryn ran away from home as a young teenager. After years spent trying to forget, she is forced to face the memories she’s been hiding from.

Thea never understood why her sister left. Her childhood was happy and she lives her adult life surrounded by people she loves, but she never stopped wondering.

When the two sisters meet again, a struggle to mend the bond they once shared, and reconcile their differing memories of their childhood, begins.

In a world were blending in is valued above everything else, scars can be a dangerous thing to show. After years of drifting and hiding, Orryn returns to her homeland and must choose between baring her scars and losing her sister a second time.

So, with the release of Going Home just around the corner that’s where my focus will be this week. I will:

• Keep working on the text with Pro Writing Aid to see if it can help me iron out any last minute kinks.
• Purchase cover art from Fiverr
• Once I have cover art, contact those blogs I have bookmarked who wanted the cover with the review request.
• Start working on my title page and similar things
• Finish the last exercise in One Year To a… and post about November’s chapter
• Do my daily writing, to get back into the habit

Now, dear reader, I must finish here. I have an Arabic short story that won’t read itself no matter how sweetly I ask it.