You will never ‘find‘ time for anything.
If you want time, you must make it.

— Charles Bruxton, Notes of Thought 

I can’t believe I’ve been writing this blog for over two years now, and I really can’t believe that when I started, I was posting almost every single day!  My posts were super short in the beginning because I was finding my way in this new medium — and also because it was always my intention to write my novel and blog on the side.

Then over the months and years, in part because I lost my way with my own story just as I found my blogging voice, my posts have gotten longer and more detailed, with lots of images and links.  Now I often spend a few hours each night composing each weekly post!  And while I really love discovering and sharing the work of so many amazing dragon artists, my novel Finding Dragons has fallen to the wayside.

My amazing husband signed me up for the Finish Your Novel writing course I completed in January, and ever since I’ve been thinking about the concept Charles Bruxton articulates above — making time to work on my novel again, now that I’ve been re-energized, rather than trying to find the time between blog posting deadlines.

So with that in mind, I’ve made a new posting schedule calendar to follow through the end of 2018:

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  I’ll post one work of awesome dragon art during the first and third weeks of the month, including all my usual links to the artist’s pages, social medias, and galleries so you can find more of their work;

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• I’ll craft a longer feature on the Birthstone Dragons theme every second week, filled with lots of dragon artwork by tons of new and returning artists; and

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  I’ll find a writing quote and a dragon every fourth week for an inspirational post, and include an update on my writing progress for the month and what my goals are for the month ahead.

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I’ll be using my extra time in the first and third weeks of the month to actually work on my novel, and the writing thoughts and update post at the end of every month to keep myself accountable, which was the whole reason I created this blog in the first place!  Hopefully by the end of the year, I’ll have made some real progress, instead of leaving my story languish, still untold.

Ah… having a plan feels great, don’t you agree?

… … … But of course, as everyone knows, as SOON as you make a plan, something always finds a way to throw a wrench in the works!

As I was making my calendar for this new schedule, I realized something was slowly sneaking up on me… the 2018 April AtoZ Challenge!

Yikes!  How could I forget?  But I was able to make an easy adjustment.

I am going to start the new schedule in March — one dragon, March birthstones, one dragon, and a writing thoughts post — but instead of focusing just on my novel in my free time during the first and third weeks, I’m going to be finding and pre-writing my daily April posts too!

I found AtoZ in my first year of blogging, and the exercise definitely helped me create my blogging voice.  It’s a really fun event, and I plan to participate again this year, but I’ll be paring my posts down quite a bit compared to my last two years.

Theme announcements are still a long way off, but I’ve decided that each daily post in April will be similar to my first and third week posts — I’ll find and share one dragon with links to the artist’s pages and galleries, following the AtoZ format by the title of the work.  They’ll be random, but sometimes those are the best AtoZs!

All right.  Now that everything’s settled, I can finally tell you about this amazing artwork.  This is Morithias – Time Dragon by American professional artist Alison Theus, posting as beastofoblivion, of an original character by Heather Romero.  Morithias appears to be a time guardian, according to a cool movie poster mock-up Heather created… so maybe he’ll help me guard the writing time I’m now making for myself!

Check out Allison’s ArtStation page, follow her on Tumblr and Twitter, and see her gallery for more great work.  Heather’s gallery is also great and includes tons of Pokemon, and you can follow her on Tumblr as well.

Thank you as always for reading, everyone!  Wish me luck with this new schedule!  And most importantly, take care, and stay creative!

Image credits:
+ Bruxton Quote Image from PictureQuotes, sourced on WikiQuote  
+ Chinese Dragon Divider from FreeVector.com  
+ Morithias – Time Dragon by Alison Theus, posting as beastofoblivion, original character by Heather Romero