The Berry Patch

What I Learned from my Sims 3 Writer

2012-01-08T12:12:00.000-06:00

My daughter received Sims 3 for Christmas and as much as I tried to stay away, I couldn't help it. The new version has writer as a career. *rubs hands together in glee* So here are a few things I've learned from playing Sims 3. My character's name is Stella.

1. Playing Sims is a time suck. I knew this before, but dang, hours will pass without anything really happening as you watch your little character run around the screen doing nothing as well. Unfortunately, time suck means time not spent writing. Time not spent writing means that the books don't get done, which means nothing to turn in, which means no income. Hmmm...

2. Stella starts out with a rapidly decreasing needs bar. She has to go to the bathroom, make food, sleep, shower, have fun and talk to other people. Otherwise she gets really cranky. Lesson: Take time to be a human. We need all these things too.

3. Writing without breaks makes for a cranky Stella who won't continue write until you give her some fun. Fun includes reading a book, playing video games or hanging out with a friend. Lesson: We need to have fun once in a while. Maybe it doesn't have to be a four hour marathon of Sims 3, but 15 minutes of doing something else every couple of hours should help.

4. If Stella doesn't leave the house for a while, she goes stir crazy. Simply going out to the bookstore or library or anywhere there are other people for an hour is sufficient for her to remedy the situation. Lesson: Leave the house and clear your head every now and then. Being cooped up is bad for your mood. Even better go out with someone and chat about stuff before returning home to work.

5. If Stella doesn't write, she can't pay her bills and has to get a job or her stuff will be repossessed. Lesson: If this is your career, you can't sit and play all day and expect to be paid. You must work on your book and finish it to reap the rewards of royalties.

6. Stella is loaded. She brings in 100,000 simoleons every week from over 20 books. But she's had no time to develop relationships. Granted there was that one guy, but the jerk ended up being in a relationship. Jerk. Lesson: It would be wonderful to earn tons of money from book sales, but without my family what would it matter. Keeping up relationships is more important than writing. At least to me.

7. Stella is loaded because she finished over 20 books. Lesson: Watching a Sim type is not the same as doing the work yourself. Unfortunately we can't speed up time until we are finished a book. We have to put in the real time and that means not procrastinating by playing games or watching TV or whatever it is that keeps up from writing.

So my Sim has taught me quite a bit about what kind of writer I want to be. I need to be more balanced in my approach to writing. I need time to play and take care of myself and my family. But I need to make writing a priority in my life and not keep shoving it to the space that should be reserved for playing Sims. I figure I'm going to use working on my Sims family (she cloned herself :) who needs a man...well me, but not Stella) as a reward for finishing my goals. Incentives do help ;)

My People!

2011-09-22T14:38:00.000-05:00

When I started writing, I did it alone with communication every now and then with other writers, especially while in England (different time zone and all that). For a while I had friends in an endurance writing group who would meet in a Yahoo conference box and we would sprint (write with no distractions) for 45 minutes with 15 minute breaks. I finished quite a few of my earlier stories using this method, but like all good things, I was able to work during the day and most of them had day jobs :( So as that dwindled off, I moved into lurking in chat rooms on Romance Divas and Writechat.net where they do 20 minute challenges (same as sprints but with a cooler name).

You'd be amazed at some of the numbers I could produce in 20 minutes. Okay maybe not you, but I was ;) But there was a lot of chatter going on in the chat rooms and sometimes no one was around and it's kind of weird to whip yourself. Enter Twitter.

Oh, thank you, you brilliant writers you, who use twitter as a device to orchestrate #1k1hr challenges. The goal 1000 words in an hour. People who write during the day are there! And there's almost always one going on. With a book to write that's fully plotted and just needs to be drafted, this is manna from Heaven. Of course it doesn't stop the phone calls or the TV calling (what? it does. It mocks me with it's darkness.), but it does give me that kick in the pants to write, which is what I need.

I know 2 posts in a month. I'm spoiling ya :)

The Hard Sell

2011-09-20T17:01:00.000-05:00

Selling the first book should have been the hard part of this business. Usually it takes a few tries and you get closer each time and finally after much toiling you sell. L.A. Cinderella was my third completed manuscript and I entered it in a contest because they were low in entries. When it won, I got a request for the full and eventually a contract for that book. I started working feriously on Casanova Exposed, but it wasn't right for the line. My editor and I have gone back and forth on a few more books and we're getting close, but somehow I'm just not finding that next book.

So for me the hardest sell has become my second book. I'm continuing to submit to Harlequin because I love category romance and want to find that story that will resonate with readers. So I continue to try. I'm also looking at writing single title contemporary romance and one of my favorites, paranormal romance. I have plenty of ideas and am continuing to submit, because that's what this industry boils down to: perseverence. You'll hear it over and over again from all levels of writers.

Will I self-publish in ebook? Hubby has green lighted me if I want to go that direction, but I'm not ready for that. There's more to a book than just the writing and right now, I want to focus on the writing. I haven't completely shelved Casanova Exposed, just put him on the waiting line for later.

Right now I'm at a cross roads in my career. I have something on submission with my editor, which hopefully they love. I also have two more synopses ready to go should we need something else for them to look at. But the looking at takes time. So while I wait, I need to figure out what direction next. And hopefully I figure out the right next move.

Bad Author Bad

2011-07-06T16:02:00.000-05:00

I feel like I've neglected my poor blog for so long. :( I even got repremanded at Nationals by the lovely Abigail Strom, a fellow Special Edition author, for not posting since March! (Totally deserved the reprimand) L.A. Cinderella is enjoying a world tour after being published in Australia, Italy, Argentina and the UK. I never know when the next box of books will come in. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for France.

I went to Romantic Times Conference out in L.A. and got a great tour by my critique partner, Jeannie Lin. I just returned from New York where the Romance Writers of America had their national conference. It gave me time to talk with my editor and agent and reconnect with my writing friends and meet new friends. I had a fantastic time and it really was the kick in the pants I needed to keep on keeping on.

I've been working on proposals for Special Edition and when I get just the right one, I'll let you all know. I've also had my single titles stewing in the back of my brain for when I'm out on submission again. Trying to decide between reviving my angels, classing up Las Vegas with a contemporary or bringing back the dead with my zombie book. So dark paranormal, light contemporary or dark humor paranormal (kind of a mix of both). Meanwhile, I have a lot of ideas for Special Editions and hopefully one of them will be the right book to work on next.

I haven't given up yet :) And I still need to write a ton this month because I'm behind where I was last year and this month last year I wrote almost 20K words. Of course, I was recovering from surgery last year and probably a little loopey on pain meds, but words is words. ;)

Reading

2011-03-17T15:42:00.000-05:00

I'm not only a writer but I love to read a good romance novel. I struggled through reading some romances and they were okay, but I had this amazing book waiting for me that I had waited for for over a year. That had been left on a cliff hanger for over a year!

Seriously, I devoured this book. I couldn't stop thinking about it when I wasn't reading it and I couldn't put it down when I was. There were issues with the storytelling. First person present tense and then last it went into past tense. She included a secondary first person point of view that I don't think really needed to be there. But overall the story telling was gripping, which makes me want to dissect it and figure out what makes it tick. Unfortunately that isn't my strength. I know other writers who could probably tell me exactly what technique she used that had me so captivated. A lot of time it boils down to voice, but in this case it was voice and questions. The outcome was never clear in my mind. I never knew who to trust and who not to (because the main character didn't and it was told solely from her POV). There are cameos of characters I loved from her past romance books.

Besides the story beginning (five books ago) with the death of her sister, only bad people died. Good people sometimes did bad things, but they all survived in the end. I know I cared about the characters and wanted to see them come through it. At times I didn't like some of them, but I always cared about the POV character, even when she was being stupid. If there's a secret formula it's evading me.

Moral of the story write a damned good book. How to do that? *shrug*

Back to the grind stone for me... Try to write a damned good book!

Busy, busy

2011-03-15T20:07:00.000-05:00

http://romancetradingcards.com/

This is what I've been working on lately. That and writing....

Not much more to add. At least, not right now. ;)

Hopefully I'll have news soon, whether good, bad or indifferent.

So What Changes When You are Published...

2011-01-31T16:44:00.000-06:00

So before I entered the world of the published, I could write whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. Granted that concept didn't always work, but it was fun. I could dabble in this and try out that. Now that I've sold, I'm trying to sell the same style over again. I went out on a limb with my option book and it unfortunately fell to the ground quivering in a heap. But the voice is still there. So I proposed a different type of book, a little more down to earth and a lot less Hollywood. I sent off the synopsis and waited and waited and wrote the book while I waited and waited some more.

Then I made all these grand schemes of how I was going to write more in 2011. I was going to conquer a first draft every month starting in January. Okay, well maybe not January, I want to try to revise my Hollywood story for single title, so I'll work on that and revise my poor Fallen, who has been neglected. And then I'll have the distance to revise the SSE I had completed. Yay! A plan.

In January I heard back on my synopsis and we talked about how to make it a stronger story. So Hollywood is off the plate and Fallen slips further off the dessert plate. I embrace this new concept for the completed story with the gusto of Eeyore. But when I finally get the right spin on it, I am once again Pooh (okay seriously how many metaphors can I throw in this, it's become a bit of a challenge at this point, bear with me). Ready to take off into the 1000 acre woods and find adventure.

So instead of tackling something new or making something old pretty, I'm working on (man, I wish I could use borrowed or blue here) revamping the NaNo book and giving it new life. So I'm postponing writing something new and revising the single titles to get the book that has the attention pretty as a posey again.

(I swear I won't try to stuff metaphors down your throat anymore. But heck it was fun trying) :)

What I'm trying to say is priorities change after you've become published and you have to be flexible enough to cope with different schedules and perhaps changing something you loved to make it a better story. And even if something wasn't good for Publisher A, maybe Publisher B will enjoy it. Oh, wait I've got it. When life gives you lemons, throw them at the person who gave them to you, because seriously without sugar lemonade isn't that good.

Did I mention the kids are home on snow day? :)

Happy New Year!!!!

2011-01-02T19:37:00.000-06:00

Yes, I vanished for the month of December. I finished Finding Home Again, mostly on my netbook, because my laptop display died. :-( But then it came back :-) And then it died again :-( And then it couldn't decide what to do :-| So as of the end of last year I have a new laptop.

I spent the remainder of December reading the following:
What I Did for Love by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Just the Sexiest Man Alive by Julie James
Breathing Room by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Glitter Baby by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Heartthrob by Suzanne Brockmann

All of the books were recommended from my friends as books with Hollywood heroes/heroines. Since I want to take one of my stories and expand it.

I do have goals for this year. I'd love to write at least 4 books for Silhouette/Harlequin and one additional single title. I'd actually love to write more, but that's a beginning.

I have three books currently that need revised, so that takes priority. Then I'll start writing again. Hubby wrote me a great program that is like the NaNo statistics keeper (I still have to load it on this machine). My much faster machine. :-) I'm feeling better and my hip feels better, so here's hoping for a painfree year.

How to Get a Husband to Stop Bugging You

2010-11-27T10:55:00.000-06:00

Okay, so it would have to be my husband, but here's the story. After everyone left from Thanksgiving, I went to write. Usually I write in the living room, but hubby wanted to play an XBox game he got a year ago, so I went upstairs to my recliner in the bedroom (all good writers should have one lol, at least those that have hip issues). After a while, hubby wanders in and sits there. He'd finished playing the game for now. One child is on the computer downstairs and the other is playing the DS.

When I ask him what he's doing, he is done playing the game for now and doesn't really have anything to do. Which is fine typically, however, trying to write while someone stares you down isn't very easy. So I ask him about charts in Excel... I'm trying to make a word goal thingy like NaNoWriMo's NaNo Stats page, because it's really cool. I told him that I figured out what I want to have in there but would probably ask my favorite author friend to make it work for me. He volunteered to give it a go. He can program it, but it won't be too pretty. :)

So now he has a project for the weekend and I'm free to finish NaNo. How close are you to The End?

Long Time No Write

2010-11-04T09:42:00.000-05:00

In any sense of the word. I have written a bit, but mostly synopsis. I've decided to put my Hollywood stories on hold and work on a different Silhouette Special Edition. When inspiration strikes, sometimes it's best to follow it. Well as long as my editor is on board with it, that is. :) I am NaNoing again this year and hoping to finish Finding Home Again, working title, of course. Last night I brainstormed another book with some friends, so hopefully I'll be able to tackle that one too.

NaNoWriMo is where I first wrote L.A. Cinderella. For the month of November you write 50K which is only a little shy of the SSE word count. So it's perfect for me. And as long as the story is flowing, I'm in a good place. I haven't given up on Hollywood yet, but it's nice to do something different. So back to writing...

Last Week

2010-09-23T14:15:00.000-05:00

18158 / 20000 words. 91% done!

The Yucks

2010-09-23T10:37:00.001-05:00

Boy do I have them. They start kind of slow and innocent. You get back feedback and you grouse about it and try to continue working on the pretty shiny project you've been working on. Then you get feedback on a different project and you grouse about it and try to continue on pretty project. Everything stops.

The words no longer sound right coming out of your characters' mouths. Did you make the right decision to include this scene? Couldn't they do something interesting for a change? Is this even worth writing?

Then you decide to work on the revisions and the words you groused about end up being better than your own. Doubt weighs heavy. That other book you haven't touched for revisions yet. Well, maybe it really sucks and you should put it away for longer. Ignore it and the potential it has. Maybe it just isn't your style of writing.

I'm sure I'm not the only one with the yucks. Part of that has to do with waiting, which is part of the business. Part of it is just the fact that I can't be 100% confident all the time. I need those periods of yucks to make myself a better writer. To make myself learn more techniques. To bring my ego back down from whatever cloud it's been playing on. Loving what I do is essential to making the words flow and to get the word count. When I have the yucks, it tears down everything I've worked on, but it will also make me come back stronger. More determined.

Yesterday the words sucked. Today they could be so much better. The story is still there. The potential is still there. It might look like a filthy penny right now, but with a whole lot of elbow grease and shine, it could be gold. A project is never finished. Even after it is published, someone will make you wonder if you could have done something different to make it better. That's what makes an author good. The continuous striving for perfection in her work. The next story will be better and the lessons I learn on that one will make the following even better.

So no more yucks. No more giving up. Only hard work will achieve gold.

When the Words Flow

2010-09-14T16:39:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, when I sit down to write, it takes me 15 minutes to come up with one sentence. It's grueling and long and there are so many other things I could be doing with my time. And before I would have done them. This forced march, of sorts, is helping me be a more productive writer.

During the daytime hours, I write. My brain turns on and the synapses all fire correctly and the inspiration is there. Sometimes I will sit and look out the window for a second, but I'm still driven to get my 4000 words a day. I'm not a dumper. I can't just fly through a MS without thought of the words I'm putting down. I used to be able to, but I figured out I hate revision.

I mean it. I hate revision. I do them and I'll continue to do them but I hate them. It takes me a little time to find my editor voice detached from my writer voice. But when I find that bad boy, he does some amazing things. I get to the point where I can pick apart individual sentences, but it takes me a while to do this. And I need time away from a project before I can truly give it the cleansing scrub it needs.

These are things I learned by doing. I tried to dive right into Casanova's revisions and it took me a long time to get into the groove. But when it's been a while, the words seem fresher. It's easier to cut those lines that I worked so hard to find. It works for me. To that end, when I finished Fallen, I went through and applied the critiques I'd received, and then sent it out to Beta readers. I haven't looked at it since. I don't plan to. I'm fully involved in Robert's story right now. It's a different voice, a different world and when I'm done. I can head back to the dark world of Fallen and read it with different eyes. And when that one's ready to go, my editor bad boy will still be in residence, making Robert's revisions easy to tackle. This is the hope. This is the experiment.

Write 2 books, revise 2 books, write 2 books, revise 2 books. Rinse, repeat as necessary.

The Past Two Weeks

2010-09-12T15:32:00.000-05:00

Writing, well it happened. I finished the first 3 chapters of Alex and revised the synopsis and sent them off to my agent. I hadn't realized I didn't have synopsises for the 3 other books I was going to write. So I spent this week working on a synopsis for an unrelated SSE and worked on Robert's synopsis. And boy are those two loud. So loud that I started working on the first chapter and hope to keep going through to the end on Robert's. It was in the plan for this year anyway, so why not. :)

Next week working on the 20K goal and hopefully making it.

Last Week

2010-09-01T10:10:00.000-05:00

18442 / 20000 words. 92% done!

I finished Fallen and took the weekend, Monday and Tuesday to get it ready to go out to my readers. Yay! So now I'm polishing the first three chapters of Alex and deciding whether to work on plotting for the other 3 or continue writing Alex... Decisions, decisions.

Changing My Tune

2010-08-27T12:37:00.000-05:00

It's done, it's done, it's done. But of course, I'm not sure the ending is that great. First endings are never the best, usually takes me 3 or 4 tries to get the ending right. Beginnings for me are golden, middles not so back, endings....hell, brimstone and fire hell. I hem and haw over it for hours. But eventually my crit partners make me find the right one. :) *waves at crit partners* (They really rock!)

So to keep up the insanity, I'm putting Fallen on the backburner and taking up Alex's story. I have the first 3 chapters done, so during Nora time today I'll be going through my critique notes for those chapters and polishing them up. Why? So I can send them to my agent who can have them ready if my editor buys Casanova. Meanwhile, I'll keep plugging away at Alex's story.

For every story of mine, there is a soundtrack that I listen to to get into the mood. Fallen is very dark. A lot of metal and heavy music from bands like Tool, A Perfect Circle, and Smashing Pumpkins. The darkness and perpetual rhythm underlying Tool songs really perfected the mood of Fallen for this revision.

But now it's time for some lighter fare. Alex and Paige are a love story with just as much emotional depth as Fallen. Both have internal conflicts they must get over before they can be together and there are going to be scenes that feel just as dark as Fallen, but with a different edge. Songs in the playlist include Time after Time by Cyndi Lauper, I Can't Make You Love Me by Bonnie Rait, and Make You Feel My Love by Adele. I have an emotional response to all my songs in my playlists and some of them bring out different emotions that I've felt in the past. Sometimes I just need a light tune to come up every now and then to remind me that my Silhouettes aren't all hardcore emotion rollercoasters. To that end, I usually put recently downloaded songs like Cooler Than Me by Mike Posner and Your Love is My Drug by Ke$ha.

These songs help me find the tone and voice of my story because they mean something to me. They make me feel a certain way and that frees me to write the story of my heart.

Holy Wordcount, Batman - Thanks Goodness for Plotting

2010-08-25T16:00:00.000-05:00

Yes, I use that joke a lot and no, I'm not tired of it yet. So today I'm going to talk about the importance of planning. :) I'm a plotter. I've always been a plotter, even if a pants a little in between. When I first started out writing, I tried every way of plotting. I storyboarded, I used notecards, I tried an outline, I studied everyone who had something to say on plotting. The point is I tried that stuff. However none of it really worked for me. I never got past 75,000 words no matter how much plot I tried to do or how many cards I tried to write.

Granted, I'm a fuller writer now. I don't write the bare minimum on first drafts. Each scene is complete with description, action, dialogue, senses, internal thought, feelings. So that probably doesn't hurt my word count, but even revised I couldn't pull more than 78,000 words. I'm currently at 95,000 on Fallen and it's not done. It's close to done, but it's not. Holy Wordcount, Batman!

What was different? My plotting technique changed quite a bit from those earlier versions. Instead of an outline detailing every scene, I wrote a synopsis. I know, the evil S word. I can't for the life of me write one of these when I'm done, but I found if I use it to plot....100K book, people.

I learned how to write a synopsis from a class taught by Katherine Garbera for Writing the Selling Silhouette Desire. During that class I plotted and created the synopsis for Catch a Star, which is now L.A. CINDERELLA. From that synopsis I wrote the story. Did the story change? Heck, yeah. But did the roadmap help? Heck, yeah.

For Fallen, I replotted again (cries softly inside), but this time I used the synopsis format.

First Paragraph - heroine, backstory and GMC (goals, motivation, conflict - what does she want, why does she want and what is keeping her from getting it)

Second paragraph - hero, backstory and GMC

If you have a villian you can do another paragraph on him.

What else do I need?

Beginning - how does it start? When does the hero and heroine first meet?

Plot points for the external conflict (making sure that the internal conflict also gets in there) and romance plot points.

External conflict plot points - plot points are your major events, generally there are three with the third being the black moment. With external plot points, think major setbacks or major victories that carry the story forward, but change the course.

Romance conflict points - first kiss, first sex (if it's in the book or even off screen), first realization of love by both hero and heroine and first declaration of love by hero and heroine

In between you have the filler. :) How do they get from Plot Point 1 to Plot Point 2, how do their feelings change, what has to happen before they can make it to that plot point and what decisions need to be made. This is the vague stuff in the synopsis, but sometimes clearer in my plotting synopsis.

Last but certainly not least is the ending. You need a direction to head so you aren't swimming in circles. Choose a course and aim for it, but realize that if another island with Scots in kilts show up along the path, that it's okay to head for that island instead. :) The main thing is that when you are finished, you can go back to the synopsis you formed in the beginning and tweak it to reflect what really happened in the book and then your synopsis is ready to go too. One less thing to worry about.

Maybe it's not the most elegant plotting device and my instructions may be confusing, but what can I say, I wrote over 4,000 words today and my brain is fried.

End of Week One of Crazy Goals

2010-08-22T18:15:00.000-05:00

9244 / 20000 words. 46% done!

Alright, so I didn't make my 20K for the week, putting me slightly behind. However, every day except Wed I had something else I had to do that I scheduled before this craziness began. Also, who gets Friday off after starting back to school on Monday. So I didn't get as much done as I hoped, but I have confidence that I can do 4000 words a day as on Wednesday.

Not much else to report. I'm going for 20K next week. We are still moving forward with Nora time, though not on the weekends.

Craziness I Has It

2010-08-12T14:58:00.000-05:00

I'm horrible with goals. I make them and then I don't keep them, but I still try to make them. Since I'm not writing on vacation, I thought I'd look at my goals for the remainder of the year. Things I feel I have to get done this year include finally finishing the 3rd rewrite of Fallen and get Alex's story done and start Robert's story. Here's where the craziness begins. I can do all that if I write 2000 words a day while the kids are at school. Easy peasy. Piece of cake.

However....

If I really want to kick into gear.... Are you prepared for the craziness?

I could finish Fallen and write the 4 Silhouettes I have plotted out and revise them before Christmas. Sounds great. Fantastic. The best I've ever done. Caveat...I have to write 4000 words a day except during revisions. I have accomplished up to 5000 words in a day, so I know it's possible. The real part of this is viewing my daytimes as worktime. When the kids leave for school, I have 7 hours. All my other obligations, cleaning, cooking, carting children around and checking email and playing on the internet, could wait until after the kids are home from school. Groceries can be bought on the weekend. And if I have to go to an appointment during the day I need to make up the hours in the evening.

Now that I've published, I want to stay that way. I want to write like crazy and clear out my idea folder and make those into books. I want to be able to earn a good wage for the time I put into the creation of my works. I want to feel that I can take a vacation and not feel guilty for not writing because I haven't been reaching my goals. I can do this. I can make this work. I'm insane, but it's completely doable.

What Isn't Working For Me

2010-07-22T23:23:00.000-05:00

Project Nora is going well. When the kids get back into school, I'm going to do two 2-hour blocks. I find I can't blindly forge ahead in my manuscript. Today I had to stop and research shotgun and if I would call the shells, shells or bullets, but in doing so I realized she wouldn't use a shotgun. As impressive as they sound, they are not that impressive or accurate in shooting big bads. So I looked around and found a better option.

I also got stuck. Which meant I needed to do a little brainstorming on the spot. This also takes away from writing time, but this is how I function as a writer (your mileage may vary). I did jump on Romance Divas and do a few sprints tonight which brought my count up to 2,001 for the day. Which is good for a day I had PT and read and critiqued for a writing buddy. If I could keep up this pace, I could finish in 5-10 days.

Conference is in 4 days, which means I will not likely get Fallen's first draft finished before Nationals. But it does mean I will push to finish it before taking on Alex's story again. Those first 3 chapters need some work, I'm still blabbing too much about the previous books characters and while Mark and Kate are really nice people, they aren't the focus of this book. Okay off to bed with me. I need to write a post about musical inspiration and why I need music to write and silence to edit. :) Later.

Cheating, Yup I'm Doing It

2010-07-20T16:51:00.000-05:00

You know it's bad when you type in a title and the autofill pulls up the same one. Whoopsie. So I made it longer. So, Project Nora is going well, we are still meeting at the appointed time, but like a diet, there is this guilty satisfaction in cheating. Between not feeling well, having a child sick on the couch and the other one watching a movie in the same room (Mommy's roller desk is in the family room and she still can't handle a laptop on her lap), I didn't focus my time solely on writing.

However, I did make up for it and still clocked in over 2000 words today. How else am I cheating? Well... I'm working on my paranormal romance instead of working on a SSE. I do have the first 3 chapters done on the next one, including 3 more synopsiseseseses (seriously, how do you spell that?) for a little series. So I don't feel too bad, considering I have another book completed and in to my editor.

I really want to get this done and yes, it's got a new title, and no, I'm not going to blab it here considering all the people who ripped off the first title. :) No matter, it's going well. I've found the voice again and man are these people noisy. I'm ready to have them out of my head and onto the page. Currently sitting at 66K, we have a high speed chase and fight for Jude, a fight and black moment for the both of them (sick and twisted author rubs her hands together mwahaha), a trial... incarceration... escape. Wait am I still talking about the same book? Guess we won't know until it ends for the third time. Overall it's a much better book, I think. And more urban fantasy romance than paranormal romance, but I likes it. :)

Project Nora

2010-07-15T14:45:00.000-05:00

Yes, I'm still plugging away. 2 hours a day of devoted time. I sent off Casanova at the beginning of this week and have been working on the proposal for the follow up story. Today I finished the 3 chapters for the proposal and a little extra. I'm putting it to the side, to simmer :) And have started the read through of Fallen to get back into the voice and story. I've made it to Ch 2 today and will continue to read through all the chapters until I get to where I was when I got revisions from Casanova (eons ago). I'm currently a little over 60K, so need another 30K to finish it off.

I'm pleased with this project so far. I generally do more than 2 hours during the day, but those 2 hours are devoted time where I don't feel bad about telling the kids to do something else. It's a manageable amount for right now, but I'm hoping when school starts back up to have two 2 hour slots devoted to writing. :) I need to work my way up to the 8 hours.

Project Nora

2010-07-09T10:17:00.000-05:00

The biggest thing with any challenge is getting the habit of writing in your schedule. With the visit of my brother and his kids, I've had to sideline my typical writing time, but I did get my 2 hours in yesterday. I'm still working on the polish pass of Casanova so I can send it back to my editor. Will be back on the 10-12 time slot next week.

Project Nora

2010-07-05T12:27:00.000-05:00

The continuing saga...

Went well, with a little too much diversion by hubby sitting next to me, readng L.A. Cinderella for the first time. That and I got off on the tangent of research while writing (which we aren't supposed to do), but I had to look up First Class lounges at JFK and then hubby told me about seatguru.com which shows seat configuration for all the planes on all the carriers. I bookmarked it and then moved on with the story.

Fortunately the part I'd written before slid in effortlessly with a little lipstick to make it look pretty so I added 1300 words of a scene I'd already written, plus an additional 1000 words new, which has almost brought me to the end of Ch 2. One more chapter of Alex/Groom and a polish of Casanova and then I can dive back in full throttle on Fallen. No, I haven't given up on it. Yes, I'm still trying to finish it for the third time. I swear it's better this time. :) Then I'll finish up Alex's story or put together the proposal for my three book Silhoutte series.

Robert and Rachel?

2010-07-05T08:00:00.001-05:00

I had an interesting message the other day from a reader. She thought Robert and Rachel from L.A. Cinderella would make a good story. In answer to that...

When I was writing, I wondered about those two. There could have been some chemistry between them. I even considered writing the story starting from Chase's and Natalie's wedding since they would be Best Man and Maid of Honor. However, Robert has thrown me a curve ball. In thinking up a few other stories, his Miss Right popped off the page. Hopefully my editor will love the story concept I've come up with that includes Robert and some of the cast introduced in Casanova Exposed.

Rachel, I'm thinking she needs a wake up call. She will definitely get a story. I have a title all set and a surprise that will shake up her life the way it needs to be. I really enjoy my L.A. characters and hope to bring more of them to life in the future.

Project Nora Day 2

2010-07-04T15:13:00.000-05:00

10 - 12. I made some adjustments to Ch 3 (which is giving me fits) in Casanova and then moved on to the Groom story. I wrote 1500 words on it and have started Ch 2. Supposedly (BTW I love that word), if Silhouette buys Casanova, I should be able to sell on proposal (i.e. synopsis and first 3 chapters). We'll see how that works though. :)

Lesson learned: In revising Casanova, the scene that is giving me the most fits is one I decided to skip and come back to write. This is one of those things that works for some writers and not for others and I'm still testing what works for me. Well, that doesn't work for me. I'm a chronological writer. I get snippets out of order and jot down notes sometimes, but skipping a scene to write later has left me with a big ole pile of poo. Honestly it's not that bad, but it certainly feels that way. In the future I will plow my way through the scene even if it takes a writing pace of 5 words per hour.

My revision process? Honestly I use Betas. Someone to read through the whole MS and let me know if there are issues, because I feel like I'm blind when I look for them. Then I go through the MS straight through (if chapters have been critiqued by my crit partners I do those first before the full read through). I go through it a few different times, keeping everything I've learned in the forefront of my mind. If my crit partners (who don't always get to the end) have pointed out something I was doing in the first chapters, I keep those things in mind as I work my way through to the end.

Ugh. The end. The bane of my existence. I tend to rewrite the ending more than any other part of the book. I think, for me, it's the hardest to get correct. You need the black moment to be dark enough without making your readers hate the characters and at the same time, you have to make it fixable. Meaning at the end, the characters get together and you get that rush to your heart that makes the whole journey worthwhile. I love that rush at the end of a really good book.

Project Nora Day 1

2010-07-03T12:59:00.000-05:00

First I seriously need to find a new catchier title than Project Nora...but for now. Day 1, success. 2 hours devoted to editing Casanova Exposed. Actually it turned into 3 hours and I'm hoping to finish up these revisions today. 60 pages of editing pass is not bad for 2 hours. Tomorrow I'll probably be ready to crack open Alex's story and start writing fresh. Of course, before I can write in it, I will have to read to catch up and since reading isn't writing or editing, it will have to be done before hand.

I'll keep you posted on how it goes. It does help to have friends plugging away somewhere at the end of the internet with you. We all got a fair amount accomplished and hopefully it's the beginning of many days to come.

And So It Begins...

2010-07-02T19:52:00.000-05:00

So if you follow the romance community at all, you know about Nora Roberts. I'm going to admit something scandalous. Either I haven't read her or I don't remember reading her. Either way, that's not the point of this post. Her work ethics are however.

Nora was first published in 1981 by Silhouette. (My publisher too). That year she released one book, so far we are equal. The following year she published 5 books. Uh....now I'm behind. The woman is a machine when it comes to writing. It's not ideas that hold me back. Trust me I have plenty and the plot bunnies are always having uprisings. It's the BICHOK (Butt in chair hands on kayboard). Frankly, this was difficult for me due to my hip issues (which have hopefully been resolved and we can plow forward like a normal person).

Nora works 8 hours a day every day. Now, she was somewhat more constrained when she was first starting out. She had small children at home and I'm in the same boat, though I'm 4 years behind where she started from so my children are older. To this end, I'm beginning a new journey and fortunately I have friends who are coming along for the ride. Every day we are going to start working at 10 am and work until 12. The only things allowed during this time are editing and writing. No judging contest entries, no critiquing each other's work, no plotting. These two hours are for writing and only writing. Even if that means we spend the two hours staring at the cursor, blinking maddingly at us.

Eventually I'll be broadening my hours when the children are back in school, but this gives me a jumping off point. It's not quite up to Nora standards, but it's a start, which is what I need. Quite a few years, Nora had 10 books published during the year. That would be amazing, but I'm not going to get ahead of myself quite yet. We'll see how this month goes and then the next and then the next.

Tomorrow starts Project Nora!

Writing, not so much

2010-06-20T15:25:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately, with the promo of L.A. Cinderella (which hasn't been that much) and the drugs given for my hip surgery, I haven't written much or revised much. I'm feeling the pressure to produce, but the pressure is totally internal as everyone has given me a pass with the hip thing. Turns out I did have damage that was repairable in my hip, which is magnificent news. And with the hip issue hopefully resolved in the next 4-5 months (yes, months) I will once again be able to sit for long periods of time at the computer. Yay!

This week, I'm making the effort to revise poor Casanova and then moving on to Alex's story, since I'm in the frame of mind. If I can plow through Alex, then I can shift back to Fallen (which will be retitled as the umpteenth million book comes out with the same title. When I looked to see if it had been used when I started the concept for this story, it hadn't. *sigh and fume*). No worries though.

I'd like to get the finalized version of Casanova to my editor before the end of the month. I'd like a first draft of Alex and Fallen before Nationals. Both of which should be totally doable. That's 50K for Alex and the remaining 30-40K on Fallen. I don't anticipate that Casanova will take me too many days.

With my recent forced vacations (thought I'd write when we went to England & didn't and pre-surgery jitters and post-surgery meds), I feel comfortable jumping in full steam into these projects come Monday. I think while I lay here in my lovely CPM machine for the next 1-1/2 hour I shall create a plan of attack, which is unlikely that I will follow it, but it helps my brain think it's in better control than it actually is.

Looking for a Free Copy of L.A. Cinderella?

2010-06-16T09:15:00.000-05:00

Check out the following interviews where I'm giving away a signed copy of L.A. Cinderella.

http://historicalromancereleases.com/wordpress/

http://www.loribrighton.blogspot.com/

Good luck! Oh, and I'm doing much better since my surgery, just sore and working through the physical therapy part. :)

Boldly Fighting Dragons

2010-06-03T23:26:00.000-05:00

It's quiet in the house. I'm up late and everyone else is asleep. In seven hours, I'll be in prep for exploratory surgery on my hip. I've had trouble with it for the past ten years and since no one can seem to fix it, this seems the logical next step. I'm a little anxious. I just finished revisions on a story and need to complete another which is 3/4 of the way done and start on a third. I worry that the pain meds are going to knock me out for days and cause me to be non-productive (I don't care if it's a word or not, that's not the point.)
I'm not worried about the outcome. I'm not worried that they won't find anything. I'm not worried they'll find something. I can't worry about that stuff. It's out of my hands now. Either they will or they won't and either way I'll be in pain for days. Do I hope they'll find something they can fix? Hell, yeah. Am I going to go all-in on this surgery being the cure for pain that has plagued me for ten years? Meh. I'll be happy if it does and not shocked if it doesn't.
So instead of worrying about the results, I'm worried about my writing. Did I mention my debut book just hit the shelves? That RWA National conference is at the end of July? That I want to continue to write and finish these books that are driving me nuts? So I'm awake and wondering if I should spend the night writing. It will probably be more coherent than what I'll be able to put together over the next couple of days. But I have to wake up in 5-1/2 hours. Granted I'll be asleep most of the morning. :)
Outpatient surgery, crutches for a while after, physical therapy starts Tuesday. Maybe this time I'll ride the dragon. See you all on the other side.

Blogging about Contests over at the Ruby Slippered Sisterhood

2010-05-24T09:44:00.000-05:00

Here I am today. Blogging everywhere but here, it seems. :)

Guest Blogging

2010-05-19T17:27:00.000-05:00

Catch me here today :) Sorry if it's a rubbish. I was jetlagged and absorbing the local culture while in England when I wrote it.

Drum Roll Please

2010-05-03T22:15:00.000-05:00

The winner is Sasha Devlin. Please contact me with your address.

Thank you everyone who entered and I will try to put together another giveaway later this week.

Can't Wait for L.A. Cinderella? Me Neither.

2010-04-30T07:00:00.006-05:00

CONTEST ENDED MAY 3, 2010

I know 2 blog posts in a week, it's a record. At least for this year, so I posted the other day about receiving this nice big box of books...

What are these books for? Well, they are for promotion and for me :) So, here's the deal. I'm going to send out one of my babies early. Yup, thought you had to wait until the end of May? I'll send it out next Monday. (That should give my mom plenty of time to read her copy so she can say she read it first)

What do you have to do? Simply comment on this post (don't have an account with the blogs, just comment anonymously and sign with a name) and I'll announce the randomly selected winner on Monday and that person will need to e-mail me or use my contact form on my website to send me their address so I can mail it out.

What's expected once you get it? It would be fabulous after you read it to review it on either a blog, twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Borders... I can go on, but I won't. This is the promotion part.

Revisions, Releases and Rewrites: Not exactly in that order

2010-04-28T09:15:00.000-05:00

For two weeks in April, I made a mad dash to finish the rewrite of Fallen. On Friday I was up to 61K words, so progress happened and then I got my box of books. Oh, the shiny new books of L.A. Cinderella are so pretty that I just had to tell everyone I knew that I'd received them, including my agent and my editor. Which led to my agent poking my editor about Casanova and my editor poking back at me with revisions. So I now have a rising to the climax partially completed paranormal romance which is being shoved to the side while I tackle the revisions on my Hollywood sweetheart Casanova.

Oh and L.A. Cinderella will hit bookshelves at the end of May and I've commited to writing at least 5 or 6 blog posts and did I mention we are heading to England for 2 weeks in 2 weeks. Hold on because my head is spinning. But that's okay, this industry moves slow, but as soon as you get used to the pace, they start in on you fast :). With Casanova back on my plate, I'm the one in control of how fast I can get a clean copy back to my editor so she can submit it to the senior editor for consideration. So I might be MIA for a little bit, but I'll be popping up on some other blogs and will make sure to do the linky linky thing here.

Dear Casanova

2010-04-07T08:39:00.000-05:00

I miss you. I know you were just another character in a book, but to me, you were fun as hell to write. Don't tell the other characters, but the combination of player and alpha male was hawt. I almost wish you didn't find your happily ever after, so that I could write you some more. But all good things... *sigh*

I'm really looking forward to revising you more when I get the chance. I keep trying to figure out another character who could be like you, but you'll always have a special place in my heart. Just so you know, you are not allowed to take over Alex's book. I know you are going to be in it and you tend to be a scene stealer, so let your friend have his chance.

We'll spend some time together after my editor lets me know whether or not she wants to publish you. We'll always have copy edits.

XOXOXO

Bad Blogger

2010-03-31T14:49:00.000-05:00

I know I've been a bad blogger lately, but I'm trying to be better (at least in my head). Things that have been keeping me busy besides Plants vs. Zombies? Working on setting up Promo stuff for L.A. Cinderella. 2 more months to release. Crap, the time goes by fast. Ordered bookmarks and am trying to do ribbon bookmarks too. I'll try to post a pic when I receive my bookmarks in the mail. Writing or procrastinating writing on Fallen. I'm almost to the midpoint and the rest should all be downhill, right? Right? Please tell me I'm right? *cries softly*

Still waiting to hear Casanova Exposed's fate. It's been 4 weeks and a day. :) Not that I'm counting or anything. And letting the followup story stew in the back of my brain. I tried once to write my completely different genre and tone books at the same time. Once. It doesn't work for me. I'm a one story at a time type gal. At least for now, maybe once I get a few extra things off my plate, it will work great.

The one thing I think that's holding me back from writing the scene I'm on in Fallen is that it's a fight scene and unlike the previous ones, this one needs both POVs. As a newbie, you have it drilled into your head that you don't head hop unless you do a scene break. Well, see I've already broken this rule for love scenes. I tried to break during a love scene, but when I took out the breaks it flowed a whole heck of a lot better and didn't get any mention from my editor in L.A. Cinderella. I know not to bounce back and forth like a ping pong ball, but I'm afraid the only way to do this fight scene is to POV shift multiple times.

The problem: I have two people fighting for their lives. While they will both be focused on their own battles, they will be dimly aware of what is going on around them. One will get severely injured during the scene. So maybe I should think of it like a screen play (not omniscient). The camera will zoom back and then come in to tight focus on one of them then zoom back or pan to the other. To get this thing out I think I'm going to have to write it as it comes and then go back and fix it.

So what do you think? As a writer or as a reader, do shifts in POVs jar you too much to the point where you want to throw the book against the wall? Or do you enjoy getting a sense of what's going on from both sides of the story even during the same scene?

Dear Characters

2010-03-12T20:31:00.000-06:00

Is it absolutely necessary to plant ideas in my head while driving listening to music on the way to dinner with the family? I know I haven't written about you for quite some time. You've been pushed aside for my Silhouette Special Editions, and now you have to wait for the rewrite of Fallen and potentially the follow up to Casanova Exposed. I'm sorry you have your beginning all figured out. I wrote it down for when I get to you. I'm also sorry that might be a while and you won't shut up. I promise to spend a day writing a synopsis/outline for the revised version of the story you've been feeding me. So please be quiet while I work on these other stories and get back in line.

Cover-ific OMG Squee!

2010-03-11T15:31:00.001-06:00

Career-driven accountant Natalie Collins

wasn’t the type to wish for a Hollywood

hero to rescue her. She preferred life away

from celebrity glitz. Too bad the man who

drove her wild was an A-list actor.

With her understated beauty and brains,

Natalie was the one person Chase Booker

could trust. He could see the strong, sexy

woman beneath her shy exterior, and

she stirred a blinding passion in him that

made it easy to forget that they were from

different worlds. But when she was in his

arms, their worlds were dangerously close

to colliding....

Forgive my exuberance: Copyright © 2010 by Harlequin Enterprises Limited

Cover Art used by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises Limited. All rights reserved. ® and ™ are trademarks of Harlequin Enterprises Limited and/or its affiliated companies, used under license.

Head Spinning Yet?

2010-02-28T14:58:00.000-06:00

All right, I completed my judging obligations right on time. I went through a round of revisions on Casanova Exposed with my agent. She pointed out some really great things, well not so great things, but we fixed them. Hopefully we will be submitting sometime this week. Fingers crossed.

I'm mucking through this whole release process. Trying to figure out the review process. As in sending out the book for review when you don't have a book to send? I'm still not sure on that one, but I'll muddle through. I sent the first e-mail today, so we'll see.

So now I'm in a bit of a lull. I have to do some accounting work before I can get busy with my manuscripts again. Yes, I'm going to attempt it again. Write two different things at once. I haven't decided if it's better to do them both the same day or give each one a day. *shrugs* It's a work in process, kind of like when I was figuring out my plotting method that works for me. Notecards and storyboards aren't for me, but a quick synopsis seems to do the trick. Plus it's easier to write the synopsis first and then make adjustments after. Otherwise I start throwing everything in it including the kitchen sink. :) And nobody needs to know about the kitchen sink in the synopsis. Even though it may be pivotal to the plot, the kitchen sink should probably be glossed over. Hmmm... I think I pushed that metaphor a bit much.

Moving on... I broke my left shift key trying to clean the cat fur off from underneath. Occupational hazard. It still works, but it wobbles a bit and the windows key... well, it never got used anyway. Hope your writing is going well or reading or whatever you are into.

Time Flies When You Have Too Much To Do

2010-02-11T08:45:00.001-06:00

The other day I got the final copy of L.A. Cinderella for a last check before the printing. This really has been a whirlwind book. Most books take a year or longer from offer date to make it to the stands. I was made the offer Labor Day weekend. Within a week I had an agent and a deal for my book. A couple of weeks later, I had revision notes. After my initial panic attack, I conquered the revision notes and sent them back. By mid October I had a release date and access to my Art Fact Sheet. Meanwhile I had to get busy with Casanova Exposed, the story I had plotted if L.A. Cinderella got picked up. I got my contract mid November. :) That copy got lost in the mail, so I remailed it beginning of January. End of November, I received my copy edits and got busy looking for errors in the MS that I'd missed the first thousand times through. I still found some.

I finished the first draft of Casanova Exposed the second week in December. In January, not a lot happened with L.A. Cinderella. January I revamped my website with the help of my friend, who did an awesome job. Just this week, I received the final version of it (ETA L.A. Cinderella not my website) to read through yet again and a request for my bio and picture for the Harlequin website. I signed up for RWA Nationals including the Literacy signing. I sent Casanova Exposed to my agent, Becca Stumpf, and now it's back to waiting. When Becca's done, it will go to my editor and I'll wait some more. And while I wait...I write. I talked with my editor and am going to proceed with the followup to Casanova which is currently untitled. So while I wait I write, but I'm also working on Fallen. Well...once I get the edits back to my editor and get my mojo back.

I'm still figuring out how all this works. I'm sure I'll get the hang of it soon.

Contest Heirarchy of Novel Warfare

2010-01-30T08:34:00.000-06:00

Ah, contests. They either lift you up or grind you into the ground. It takes pretty thick skin to enter writing contests. The judges have no vested interest in your work like a crit partner or friend might. But that's not what I'm writing about today.

Why enter contests? Almost every RWA chapter runs a contest for unpublished authors every year. For them it's a way to draw attention to their chapter and make money for the programs they provide for their members. For the person entering? It depends on where you are in your writing career. Because it's usually not for the first prize. Which can be your entry fee back or a cool trinket (I've gotten a crystal heart pendant and am getting a cake serving set)

When you are just starting out sending out to a contest is a test of sorts. How well received will my first pages be when I send them to an agent or editor? The feedback from 1st round judges vary. Some make you think you could be the next Sherrilyn Kenyon and others make you think you'd be better off as a fry cook. But these are people who don't know you and that's important. They don't have to be harsh, but they can be real about what they think. If they are allowed to be feedback. Something to be aware of when looking for a contest. This can be a testing ground for an idea you aren't sure about.

When you start to get better at writing (which you should always be getting better), you enter contests because of the final judge or judges. Maybe it's your dream agent or editor. This is the real prize. Some editors will tell you what they like or dislike about your entry, but generally they'll just rank you among the other two entries. However, the real prize is the request for a full. This lets you bypass the query stage and the editor slush pile. You get to write "Requested Materials" on your envelope.

Obviously, the MS needs to stand up to the expectations of the piece you submitted to the contest. When L.A. Cinderella won the Marlene, I got a cool heart pendant and a full request. This eventually led to Silhouette Special Edition buying my book. With Fallen, I placed 2nd in the Golden Gateway which gave me a free membership to FTHRW, but I also got a request from the final editor who is on my list when this MS gets done again.

Finally a Bride contest is an interesting contest. You can enter this contest if you've finaled in a contest during the year but didn't get 1st place. So the entries are all top notch to begin with. Making it to the finals was amazing. Winning and getting a request is crazy. So I'm happy as a peach.

One final note on contests, the Golden Hearts is the contest put on by RWA National. You get a number score and that's it on your MS, but if you happen to final, you get noticed by agents and editors. It's the equivalent of winning a golden ticket to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. You may not get the keys to the factory at the end, but the ride will be really cool.

Cheating

2010-01-22T22:29:00.000-06:00

So I've given myself a little leeway while waiting for my Beta readers to get back to me on Exposed. I started the followup to Exposed and then got stalled on the heroine's career. So I turned to FALLEN. Yes, I enjoy beating a dead horse. Actually I'm enjoying it a lot more the third time around. I cut it back to around 3000 words. I've always loved the opening, but the book didn't keep the promise of the opening. This time it will. I sure hope at least. Why cheating then? Well, as soon as I ship off Exposed to my agent, it's back to Charm. I need to finish my proposal for a three books series and I need to develop the series overview for FALLEN, which will be changing names after the pleathora of FALLENs that have been flooding the market. *sigh* That would be my fault for having to rewrite it over and over again.

Done Again!

2010-01-18T14:37:00.000-06:00

The ending wasn't the best on Exposed, so I rewrote the ending. I ended up with a lot of words and will be sending to another set of crit partners to look for all the stuff I missed, including missed opportunities. Never underestimate a good critique relationship. If you find someone who finds what you miss, grab on and hold.

I also have a new design on my website and blog. Check out the links above for the home page. I'm excited about L.A. Cinderella's upcoming release. At some point I'll get back to my paranormal, but the characters are talking for my category romances.

Done!

2009-12-04T23:10:00.002-06:00

Alright, my next attempt at SSE is done as of today. It stands at 59K but will need tweaking. Yay! I finished. I finished. Yes, I'm doing the happy dance. My line edits for L.A. CINDERELLA are staring at me from the end table. So those are next. I sent my agent my plan for rewriting FALLEN and am waiting to hear back on that. Yay! So I've got stuff to do, but I finished one thing, kind of. Woot!

I Haz a Sad

2009-11-15T09:31:00.002-06:00

So I still have a few thousand to go on Exposed and now I have major rewrites on Fallen. I knew something was off base with it and in the back of my head I probably recognized all the issues that I didn't want to rewrite all over again. But now, I'm working on restructuring the plot and as soon as I finish Exposed, I'm going to write the heck out of Fallen. That means NaNo is a no go, since you are supposed to start a new project. :( Hopefully I'll be able to schedule so I can do a project in NaNo next year. Will I write 50,000 words this month? Quite possibly and it's still a goal. So I may still use the NaNo meter to track progress, but I won't be confirming my win, if I make it to 50,000 words on three different MS.

NaNo

2009-11-10T14:55:00.002-06:00

Well, for me so far NaNo has been mostly No. As in very little progress on the NaNo book. First off I want and need to finish Exposed (not the whole title, I like to keep you guessing), see off to the side I put a shiney new ticker just for it. I'm flowing into the black moment and found that trying to write on the NaNo while this one was screaming at me to be finished just wasn't going to work out. So I will be cramming for NaNo once I finish this one. I love my Hollywood flavored books. So hoping my editor will love my next one too.

I get to watch E! and read People and claim it's research. I also get to look up things like the Oscars and fabulous clothing and shoes. My most recent was London movie premieres. The Leicester Square Odeon is the movie theatre. They even have a live webcam which is sweet and can spur a whole new array of ideas. Okay, back to my characters. Cheers!

This Year is Amazing

2009-11-04T17:13:00.002-06:00

FALLEN is a finalist in the Finally a Bride contest sponsored by Oklahoma RWA and I'm seriously bouncing for joy. I scored my first ever perfect score. Anonymous judge, I think I love you. I'm working on getting the final packet ready to go off to the final editors...that's right, editors. Two to be precise. Yay!

I am working on finishing up my next potential SSE(Silhouette Special Edition) and have started NaNo. For NaNo, I've decided to do FORSAKEN. The beginning needed a rewrite, but I'm finding it very difficult to get into the story with the SSE rattling around in my brain. So to focus I'm going to finish the SSE as quickly as possible and hopefully still manage to write the 50K needed on FORSAKEN for NaNo.

I'm going to be missing my writing partner, Kristi, for NaNo this year. I completely understand her position and should have probably skipped it this year as well. She was my main driving force the past two NaNos since she has younger children than me and a full time job. If she could do it, damn it, so could I. :) Not that there aren't others out there to motivate me and Kristi probably wasn't even aware how competitive I'd become with her :).

My agent (woohoo!), Becca Stumpf from The Prospect Agency, is looking over FALLEN and supporting me as L.A. Cinderella makes its way through the jungle of publishing. Together we'll whip FALLEN into something fabulous.

Okay, gymnastics is about over. Hey, a busy mom has to find time somewhere and thank goodness for my new Mini. Dear Mini, I think I'm in love. Happy writing and if you see me online, ping me I'm always up for a sprint or two. :)

Updates

2009-10-19T21:50:00.003-05:00

Woot. Okay, CATCH A STAR has become L.A. CINDERELLA. It will be published June 2010 by Silhouette Special Edition.

FALLEN won 2nd place in the 2009 Golden Gateway and garnered a request for the full from the final editor.

I made it through round 2 of Paranormal Authors Fight Club and will be posting for voting again on Thursday. Without your votes, I'm not a competitor.

I'm awaiting results of two contests that I entered right before I sold. Things are really quite insane at my house right now. I'm making it, but it's a slow process of getting myself untangled from all the things that suck up my time.

How has your writing been going? Getting ready for NaNoWriMo. I'm trying to finish up my WIP so I'll be ready for NaNo. Where did the year go?

Week 2 Paranormal Fight Club

2009-10-15T07:36:00.002-05:00

I'm still in Paranormal Fight Club, paranormal romance writers are going head to head to win a critique from author Angie Fox. The second part of Forbidden is up. You can vote once a day for the next 3 days. Please vote for me. :)

http://www.rom...anceinthebackseat.com/fightclub/blog/2009/10/forbidden-part-two.html

Backstory on Forbidden: When I signed up for Paranormal Fight Club, I had no idea what the prompt would be and what would develop from it. When I sat down to write it, FALLEN was on my mind, as well as FORSAKEN. FORBIDDEN takes place in the same paranormal world. Dagon is a Fallen angel who has tired of his role in creating chaos in the world. Anita is alone in the world until she finds herself attacked by creatures with wings and dragged into the ultimate battle of good versus evil.

Paranormal Fight Club

2009-10-09T09:33:00.001-05:00

I agreed to do this new idea Paranormal Fight Club with the Romance in the Backseat Ladies. The idea is 8 competitors write 1000 words based on a beginning paragraph. You compete each week with another writer, the one with the most votes goes onto round 2. So please vote for me. :) http://www.romanceinthebackseat.com/fightclub/blog/2009/10/forbidden.html#comments My entry is called Forbidden. Click on the survey button to vote. Thanks.

Catch A Star Sold to Silhouette Special Edition

2009-09-22T16:49:00.003-05:00

I just received edits from my editor. :) And have put my follow up Silhouette Special Edition on hold to get the edits turned around. We're in a whole new ballgame here. Before when someone critiqued my work and didn't like something that I liked I could just dismiss it, now unless I have a really great reason to not change it... It will make a better book. :)

So I'm journeying into the foreign land of deadlines and revisions. It's quite the odd land and I'm not 100% on navigating it. Yeah, I know I changed from baseball to exploring, deal. :) The poor people sitting in the restaurant of my mind are getting ansy. I've been writing like mad lately and still can't seem to get it all out. Must work faster.

As it stands I'm 22,200 out of 55,000 words on my followup. I'm sad to put them aside, but I've always had a soft spot for Chase and Natalie and will be happy to revisit them. I've also accepted representation from Becca Stumpf at the Prospect Agency. So hopefully with a little help, Fallen might see the light of day.

If this is the first you are seeing any of this, please be assured I am super excited, but the initial shock and spastic actions have worn off. Yay! I'm a writer!

The End and The Beginning

2009-08-29T15:39:00.002-05:00

I finished revisions on Fallen and am going to work on a new story. There's always a kind of energy that hits me with the beginning of a book. I usually start with an idea. One of those bursts of inspiration that happen from time to time. This particular idea came to me when someone asked about one of my yahoo messages on messenger. It sparked an idea for a hero and his dilemna. A little writing gave me his heroine. Now I've written 10 pages and I've stopped.

Now I need to know more about these characters as an immortal my hero has a very rich history and I'm loving filing in the details and trying to work out how he became who he is. My heroine has been a mystery to me. Even her name hid from me for some time. She has a name and I know what happens to her mostly, but I don't know why she is who she is. And the big thing is tying her curse somehow to his curse. Once I find these clues the story should start to unravel.

I know the situation. I know who these characters are at this moment. I need to know how they became these characters. I also don't know who the villian is. I'm not sure that the villian will tie into their backstories or not. There are a lot of ways to go with a story. Even after plotting this out, things will change. My characters will seem to take on a life of their own and their motivations might surprise me, but that's what is fun about writing. Change.

Waiting and Working

2009-08-01T12:23:00.003-05:00

With the kids home for two more weeks, I'm desperately waiting for school to start. Meanwhile, I'm attempting to write/revise between requests to play on the computer, to play on the Wii, and to fix some food. While my head is in the right place for revisions, I'm trying to get as much done as possible.

It's kind of like when you are in the right mood to go through old stuff. The wrong mood is where you sit and look through the box and think I should really keep this ticket for The Bird Cage. I don't remember who I went with or why I decided to keep it, but I should keep it anyway, because it's sentimental. Hey, my old pair of earphones that only play out of one side. Maybe I can use them again.

The right mood is you pull the box over to the trash can and start pitching. That ticket to The Bird Cage, gone. Broken earphones, gone.

I've been in the wrong mood to revise for a long time. I wrote this book and though I know it needs revising, I don't even know where to begin. Now I'm in the right mood. A friend went over the first bit and pointed out, not grammar or spelling errors, but plotting errors or places where the tension was lagging. While I love when people correct my commas and my accidental word choices, I prefer the type that my friend gave me. It made me open my eyes and really look at what I'd written as a whole and not as a sentence here and there. The scene after her corrections I just finished revising. I'd had it in the heroine's POV, but it really needed to be in the hero's to show his conflict at that time. Though I loved some lines in her POV, I took them out.

Okay before I type this if you've never heard it before I'm not a sadistic person, really. But there are times when you need to Kill Your Darlings. I'm not the first to say this, nor do I expect to be the last. If it doesn't fit, if it doesn't move the story forward, if it is the most brilliant piece of tripe you've ever written, but doesn't do anything for the characters, CUT IT! Move it into a file for special circumstances, just in case you can use it, but get rid of it in this story. It's like throwing away those old earphones and that movie ticket. They are taking up space and while they may work for something else, they aren't working for you.

So while I spend the rest of the day wishing my kids were in school, I'll be killing my darlings in my MS.

Off to Nationals

2009-07-13T08:35:00.002-05:00

We're leaving today. I just got my new website finished check it out at www.amanda-berry.com.

When I get back, I'll post pictures from my new camera and hopefully blog posts from my new netbook. If you see me there, say hi!

Brain, Can We Have a Talk?

2009-07-08T20:49:00.002-05:00

Okay, so we already know that I'm having difficulty staying on task. But this is getting ridiculous. Normally, the patrons of my particular brain diner are nice and patient and are willing to go into their neat little files to wait for another day. I think they've finally caught on though. I keep getting new ideas and don't get back to the ones in the file. So basically I need to write a whole lot faster. But Micah and unnamed heroine (which will drive me nuts until I figure it out) need to be quiet. It's bad enough that Kaitlin and Caleb are working through their issues and Mark/Casanova and Kate/Amy have way too many names. But they are separate genres and each need their special moment in the sun. But there is also the immortal and his key who are getting crazy in my head.

To recap, Forsaken (paranormal), Casanova (category rom), Fearless (paranormal) and WFTWTE (paranormal, yup I'm not telling you the name) are all on the surface of my brain or seated at the counter in the diner and all are demanding to be served. Meanwhile, Fallen is sitting waiting for dessert (revisions). Wait and see what else my brain serves up.

Bad Writer, Bad

2009-06-29T18:31:00.003-05:00

I would love to say that I'm currently revising Fallen or finishing Forsaken, but I've been taken a hold of by a different story and it's working it's way out of my system (4800 words into it). Next step is to form a synopsis for it so I can put it aside and work on my edits. Then when I pick it up I can slam through the first draft. Fun!

That and I'm preparing for Nationals. For those who don't know, RWA (Romance Writers' Association) holds a conference once a year for its member. This year is in Washington, DC and it's my first year going. I've spent a lot of time shopping for proper clothing and shoes for the occasion and going over my pitch for Fallen. I can't wait to go and there doesn't seem to be enough time left. 2 weeks.

I will begin my focused effort on Fallen tomorrow and tonight I'll try to wrap up Casanova.

Research is Hard

2009-06-21T23:09:00.003-05:00

Can I tell you how much I love my job? So I finished up Catch a Star this week and will be sending it in on Monday. Nerve level has skyrocketed but I'll deal. So I have an idea in the same vein...Hollywood Hottie. Nomnomnom. So far I've needed to look up information on Manolo Blahnik (I even know how to spell it now). Then I spent a while trying to figure out a Hollywood Hot Spot, decided to make one up so used the English to French dictionary for made up name. Will be using another hot spot later in the book, this one will not be made up. Now I'm looking at the 2008 Sexiest Men Alive photos on People's website to figure out what my hero should look like. Wait for it....I love my job.

Been Workin'

2009-06-17T22:40:00.002-05:00

At least on my mom's farm. With dial up connection. That and finishing up the revisions on Catch a Star so I can send it off to the editor that requested it. Once that's done, I begin revisions on Fallen and then work on synopsis for Forsaken and The Shoe Story (working title) and get elevator pitches ready for Nationals for those two when I'm asked what I'm working on. Gearing up for Nationals by spending way too much money on shoes and clothing. What else am I doing? Hmmm. Well, when revisions are done I'll be writing. I'm also working on the RWA FF&P blog which while I'm not writing a lot on it, it does take time.

What You Are Missing on Twitter?

2009-05-14T12:36:00.002-05:00

aka I waste time when I'm stressed.

Wendy Lawton discussed the Kisses of Death to authors.

Renee Hagar discusses branding at Rachelle Gardner's blog. Something even the beginning novelist should look at

Amie Stuart entertains Aphrodisia readers with her take on the Power of Love

Want to understand why HarperCollins twitters? The New York Observer discusses.

Yen discusses in a 3 part series the idea of sending review copies to bloggers

Dear Author is trying to determine if people love the love triangle or hate it

And finally, looking for a good ebook. Check out CoolerBooks. I'm not sure it encompasses everything, but it has a good number of ebooks available.

What now? Well, you could follow the discussions going on currently on twitter including ... well, lets just say some people can't get songs out of their heads, while others are busy making themselves into romulans and vulcans, still others are avoiding working, and others are discussing the merits of Amazon publishing.

Envisioning Nationals

2009-05-11T17:19:00.003-05:00

I'm a member of Romance Writers of America. In July they have their National Conference. As a PRO member (having completed a MS and submitted for consideration of publication), I joined in the mass onslaught of the RWA website to sign up for one editor and one agent pitch session. It opened at 8 cst this morning. I wasn't able to get in until 12. I did get my first choice for agent, but there weren't that many editors taking appointments.

I'm very excited about going to the conference. I'm also working on getting my submission ready for my contest win. I've gotten some really great ideas from my crit partners and going through them in my head. I also have plans for revising Fallen and want to finish Forsaken. There's the idea that I'd like to finish developing. But I need to work on getting everything clean.

And there's the part time job that keeps rearing it's head. It's good because it stimulates a different section of my brain, but having recently contracted the plague (just a little sick and being melodramatic) the time I have to work is limited. So this is where we need to coordinate our schedules and make goals and stick to them. Time to sit with a piece of paper and crunch the numbers.

The Disappearing Cat

2009-04-20T13:24:00.003-05:00

Until I read through the entire MS, I hadn't noticed that I mentioned a cat in one scene and only one scene. We are in her apartment multiple times and no cat. It's silly the consistency things you see only when you read the entire MS. I mention the cat twice once by his name and that he was the only thing she had to go home to and then again as her hair looked like something her cat had coughed up. That's it. No purring cuddly cat at home during movie time. So unfortunately poor kitty will have to make his debut in a different book.

I'm still contemplating a scene I never completed. I don't know if it adds to the book enough to keep it in. Or if it's more of the same.

OMG!!! BIAM put on Hold

2009-04-18T15:33:00.003-05:00

http://www.wrwdc.com/ee/index.php/marlene_awards/

I got first place and apparently a request for my Catch a Star novel!!!! I'm psyched and am dropping Forsaken (in the middle of a very intense scene) to work on revisions of Catch a Star. Woohoo!

Day 17 of BIAM

2009-04-17T13:39:00.003-05:00

It's been slow going with a few set backs, but I can still make it. I have 12,000 of the 50,000 required to finish. Seems big, but it's 3000 words a day. I'm not done for the day and hope to write through the weekend as well. It's definitely easier to write 50K with a more defined plot. I have key points I'm heading to, but how I get there is up to the book giving it a more organic flow. It also makes it slightly frustrating to turn off and come back to since the thoughts of where I was going may not be there anymore. The beginning was a lot less epic battles like Fallen. Not that Fallen has "epic" battles, but it definitely has more fight scenes. We'll see how it turns out.

Day 8 of My Book In A Month

2009-04-08T22:02:00.002-05:00

I challenged myself to write 50K this month to finish off Forsaken. I've written 8,452 words so far this month. By daily goals I'm behind 4,884 words, but I can pull off some 3000-5000 word days to recover. The story is going well. I need to start redirecting it to the next turning point. It's nice to concentrate on one thing and get it done. Unfortunately I allow myself to become distracted by bright shiny things like researching netbooks, which became a more intensified search when I realized my current battery on my laptop only holds about a half hour of charge now.

Right now I'm just eyeballing them and waiting for the next innovation on them. I typically go for Thinkpad noteboods, but Lenovo's offering has a strangely placed right shift key. That leaves Dell, HP, ASUS and MSI Wind. Some of the ASUS also have the shift key in the weird spot, but they've got a newer version with a 9.2 hour battery. I tend to be a power consumer, meaning I like having the screen super bright and run iTunes and a few internet windows open while working in Word and having my Excel spreadsheet to flip back to to update my word count. So a netbook might not be for me, but I love the idea of having something that will fit in my purse that I can pop out while the kids do gymnastics or while waiting at the doctor's office. Until I can go and feel a keyboard I'm not keen on dropping a couple of hundred dollars to get a secondary laptop, especially since I just bought this one in Dec 2007. I did compromise on this one. I was completely in love with the 12.1" tablet PC offered by Lenovo and almost bought it, but I ended up getting the 15" T61 instead with more processing power and better graphics for less money. *Sigh* Maybe I should skip the netbook and get my tablet, but then it won't fit in my purse. Arguing myself in a circle. Not very effective for a blog post.

If you've been eyeballing netbooks, tell me which one you think is the best and why. Note I'm a heavy keyboard user. If the keyboard is crap, I don't want it. :-)

Words Are Creeping Up

2009-03-30T16:48:00.002-05:00

Yes, I'm adding scenes to Fallen and making it a longer book. Finally! So I'm plugging away at getting the important bits down and then will go through and make a pass through to make sure I'm not repeating myself later and there are a few scenes at the end that I know could use a little more beef. Then back to Beta Readers.

I also want to complete Forsaken this month. Meaning 50K in a month. I do it in November all the time. Except in Nov I have a bunch of folks plugging away beside me. So if anyone is left following this blog (Hi!) and wants to play too, let me know. We'll commisserate.

Forgive Me

2009-03-27T21:25:00.002-05:00

Hmmm. Maybe that will be Fallen's new title if I need one. I got Fallen back from a Beta reader (someone who reads your book like a reader not a critiquer) and she made some suggestions I'm going to try. It means revamping the beginning, but it's adding the word count I need and adding depth to the characters. I wrote 2000 words on it today, so I'm slowly but surely raising the word count. I received my scores from the Enchanted Words contest from the final judge and her words were encouraging. So I'll keep pushing forward. Knight Agency is having a contest to pitch your story in 3 sentences so I'll need to work on that at some point as well. Keep writing.

Sleeping Beauty

2009-03-11T15:00:00.002-05:00

My daughter has been home all day today since she woke me at 1:00am because she was completely clogged up. She's been fairly good and I got some writing in. Not as much as Monday, but 600 words isn't a bad day given the number of days with big fat zeros in them lately. I've found a new distraction. Twitter. While I enjoy it, it is a time suck with all the people I follow, but I enjoy it.

I was able to sprint with people on Monday and today which makes the writing so much easier for me. Major Procrastinator. Which brings us back to twitter. While I've been writing this blog post, twirl (twitter application) has been adding more tweets. Hey, look big distracty thing. I'm going to have to shut off twitter to get anything done.

Unfortunately, some really interesting things pop up on twitter, such as the call for submissions that I sent my MS in on. So I'm learning to scan twitter for tidbits and when I have time, I read through the posts. The allure is they are short, but the fact is that when you have 5 to read it's almost as long as this blog post. (estimated please don't check :))

Been a While

2009-03-07T10:16:00.002-06:00

Wow, I've been negligent about posting. So I've finaled in a contest and I sent a full out as a submission. I've been busy on the business side, but not so much on the writing side. I took on a part time job that's sucking away my writing time, but I have Monday free to go crazy. Which means Forsaken is getting some attention. I left Kaitlin fighting off a daemon in her room and Caleb racing in to save her. I'm not sure where Eli is. Poor characters. To be stuck in a scene must really suck. I must give them my undivided attention on Monday which means *gasp* turning off the internet. I know, I know, my soul will slowly wither and surely die without constantly checking Romance Divas or twitter, but my characters won't get very far if I don't. We'll see how it goes. Smile, the day is just beginning.

Internet Went Down

2009-02-17T09:02:00.002-06:00

Last night while I was playing with this blog format. So if you happened to see pictures appearing and disappearing on my header, that's why. I forgot to change it last night after the internet came back on. Oh, well. I'm having fun playing with formatting. A little too much fun, as in it's new and shiny and I want to play with it all the time. I need to get into revising like that, but unfortunately, it is not new and shiny. It's old and gone over a million times. :) But I will prevail. After I finish work.

Website Post #2

2009-02-15T22:21:00.002-06:00

Okay, through with the tutorial from here. So now I'm going here to CSS introduction. Hopefully it will tell me how to put cool stuff (ie pictures) in my web build. Note, I do have some experience with html from college. I'm also somewhat computer savvy and can find my way around a computer and fill in the blanks if things are left out. So this may not be for everyone, but I'm willing to give it a shot. The worst thing is I've wasted tons of time that could have been spent doing something else and still have to pay a couple hundred dollars to have someone else build my website. The best thing is that I have a site I can maintain myself. I'm hoping to figure out how to interface my website with this blog instead of using WordPress as a blog. I like my blogger account, but it may be for the best to move everything over. I don't know, but I'll figure it out as I go along. It's been fun learning and I'll still keep you posted on how things are going. I'm going to try to limit web building to after school, evening type activity.

Website Post #1

2009-02-13T14:48:00.002-06:00

Aspiring author wants website. Aspiring author doesn't have $200 extra laying around to pay someone to build, not including maintenance. What's Aspiring author to do?

This is my journal is learning to create my own website. Not very writerly of me, but I'm sure other writers may want to take this trek as well. The first thing I did was go to godaddy.com and find my name had already been taken. I found a derivative by using a hyphen. Apparently it's very important to look at this url before you register it. Just look at it as if it might be mistaken as a p0rn site. Alright so what all do I need. Well, I could register one domain or two. Each has an annual cost associated with it and if you want the privacy option that's per domain. However, if you buy 5 domains you get the privacy option free. Privacy means that someone can't find your name listed as the owner of that site easily. The price of 2 domains with privacy cost almost as much as 5 domains. So I got 5. Knowing that I was only going to actually use one to build the website. It was an investment in the future. I bought the .com and .net of my chosen website, a potential pen name, another version of the my writer name, and one that I'll set up if my Fallen series gets pubbed.

Okay, so now I have 5 domain sites. What next? Hosting. Now a lot of places offer hosting and godaddy is one of them. So I bundled in one year of their economy plan. Now if you intend to use WordPress, take a hint and go for the Linux and not Windows operating. You can always switch at anytime. The next fun in installing WordPress. I finally got it but it took a little time. The Five minute installation is a lie. But it does have its uses. You will have to change the Database Host, but all in all it isn't that bad. Just follow the directions until .... upload. Umm. Yeah. Where is that supposed to go?

Not as bad as I thought. Go to ftp.(yourdomain).com [don't actually use (yourdomain) and open the ftp with windows explorer. It tells you how to do that. It will open a folder window. Copy your files and paste them in that window. Then follow the remaining instructions in the 5 minute installation.

Now I tried to read the how to on Wordpress.org and wanted to cry myself silly. I consider myself somewhat tech savvy, but my brain slowly eeped out my ear as I tried to make heads or tails of the instructions. So using the power of Google, I found dummied down instructions.

That's what I'm doing today. So here's the link to How to Create Wordpress Themes. The lessons are broken down into 10-15 minute chunks (at least in the beginning which is all the further I've gotten). They aren't that hard to follow and I've been using the ftp to load up the changes. So go forth and create a website. I'll keep ya posted as to how I'm doing.

AHHH! I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up

2009-02-10T19:01:00.002-06:00

You'd think I would have seen that gigantic hole up ahead, but I think I must have been looking the other way. I'm not quite sure why they call it digging yourself out of a hole. That just seems to make it deeper. Between starting my part time job and duties with volunteer positions, I was completely swamped last week. I have not had a day off and all my writing time had to be used to work on an old problem, I'd let go for too long. So, am I anywhere near my goal, no. Is it time to rethink the goal, probably. Do I feel I have the necessary brain power to accomplish anything at this time, definitely not. A week of doing nothing but accounting can sure weigh down the creative mind. I'll be continuing to work on the accounting stuff this week and a group I'm in is doing a book in a week, so maybe I'll push through and complete FORSAKEN during that week. That's all my brain has time for. Hope everyone else's February is going well.

Day Three

2009-01-29T12:42:00.000-06:00

Fallen Goal - 60 out of 139 and 0 out of 28

51 / 139
(36.7%)

0 / 28
(0.0%)

Forsaken - goal 9000 word

0 / 65,000
(0.0%)

Day Two

2009-01-28T07:00:00.006-06:00

Another snow day and tomorrow is my first day at a part time job, but I've kept up with Fallen's goals and haven't had time to write yet, but I'll catch up.

Fallen Goal - 40 out of 139 and 0 out of 28

41 / 139
(29.5%)

0 / 28
(0.0%)

Forsaken - goal 6000 word

0 / 65,000
(0.0%)

Here We Go - Jan 27 - Day One

2009-01-27T10:24:00.004-06:00

Fallen Goal - 20 out of 139 and 0 out of 28

19 / 139
(13.7%)

0 / 28
(0.0%)

Forsaken - goal 3000 word

0 / 65,000
(0.0%)

Kids were home from school, but I would have had to work anyway. Still trying to tie down my cards for nationals too. Will do better tomorrow.

Goal Tickers

2009-01-26T12:16:00.002-06:00

Fallen

0 / 139
(0.0%)

0 / 28
(0.0%)

Forsaken

0 / 65,000
(0.0%)

Whisper, Whisper

2009-01-26T12:01:00.003-06:00

Fine, I hear your whispering. I acknowledge that you have a story to tell. I also acknowledge that I hate revisions. So your whispering is more than I can take.

Forsaken has finally risen up in me again wanting to be spewed out. (Unnecessary visual, ew) Regardless, I've tried to commit myself to revisions, but I just don't get it. I know I have to go back over and find the problems but if I didn't notice them when I was writing it, how am I supposed to find them now? Besides I haven't finished telling Caleb's, Eli's and Kaitlin's story. I want to tell their story. Get it down on paper and out of my head. But I also want Fallen to be in publish form, which means revisions. Ugh, dilemnas.

So how bout a compromise? If I read through x number of pages of Fallen, I'm allowed to write x number of words on Forsaken. Seems like an easy goal to set. Hmmm, if I want to finish by the end of February. That's 33 days. Page 47 to Page 186 need to be read (It's a screwy format to print on less paper), so 139 pages plus time to go over revisions on the computer and do hunt and kill exercises. 28 chapters. So if I do 20 pages a day, that's 7 days of reading and then 2 chapters a day for revisions would be 14 days, leaving my weekends free still. Okay, so then on Forsaken, I have about 25K written and 90K target, so 65K with technically 24 days of writing (not including weekends) ....about 3000 words a day.

So the goal starting tomorrow is read 20 pages on Fallen and write 3000 words on Forsaken. As a caveat, I am starting a part time job tomorrow for Tuesdays and Thursdays while the kids are in school. But let's give it a shot. Anyone else want a kick in the pants.

Contest Final

2009-01-21T21:09:00.003-06:00

I finaled in the OVRW Enchanted Words contest. Woohoo!!! This was with FALLEN. The query, synopsis and first five pages. Now it gets judged by an editor. An actual real live editor. I'm psyched.

Oh, and I'm registered for RWA National Conference too. It's been a great week.

Motherload

2009-01-21T10:28:00.001-06:00

Anyone ever want to take a course at MIT. Here ya go.

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/courses/courses/index.htm

Thanks for finding that goes to Paperback Writer.

Free Contests Abound

2009-01-15T21:15:00.003-06:00

So if you've hit the internet lately you know that free contests are happening everywhere. From Miss Snark's First Victim's Secret Agent contest. (currently closed for submission but she has them every other or every month. To Chase the Dream Contest which is once a year and still open by the way, first 1000 words once a week until March. To contests if you were asleep that day you missed it from certain agents. Fortunately, I'm well networked and tend to get a heads up when something is going down. But I also like to spread the news when I find it.

So today was supposed to be about getting two beginnings ready for two different things. The first is Catch a Star for The Marlene Contest. First pages and up to a 4 page synopsis, not to exceed 35 pages. I spent all morning cutting and tweaking and this afternoon cut and tweaked some more. The Marlene is an RWA chapter contest and cost $30 to enter for nonmembers of that chapter. The main reason I wanted to enter was for the final judge, Patience Smith, an editor for Silhouette. The feedback is usually nice if I don't final too.

The second thing I was supposed to do was clean up the new beginning of Fallen and send it to the Firebrand Literary Agency Query Holiday. I decided today not to do this one. Reasons being, the critiques that came back show that it still needs a lot of work, the whole novel needs to be spit shined, and I don't even know if the agent reps Paranormal Romance. They might and when I have a clean copy of Fallen and everything in it is exactly how I envision it or at least close enough that I'm not going to play with it anymore I'll submit it via query letter. I don't mind entering contests when things aren't 100% perfect, but for an agent I want polish. I needed to face the fact that Fallen isn't polished to where it needs to be because of my reluctance to revise.

Both the contest and the query holiday end today. I'm going to sit back and relax. Finish reading my book on revision and then take out the sandpaper. I'll start going through my sci fi writing book as well and if any ideas fall into my lap for shorts I might pursue those, but no serious novel writing until Fallen and Catch a Star are revised. So there.

Wishing They Would Keep it Down in There

2009-01-14T08:35:00.002-06:00

Whisper, whisper, whisper. The restaurant is getting quite noisy again. Part of the problem is I've turned off the writer. I'm working on revisions and getting ready for contests and submissions and am not writing new words. It's not like just one book is whispering either. Everyone in the restaurant has decided know would be a great time to whisper to me a little more about their story. So I have a new Silhouette Desire buzzing around my head. Unfortunately, Casanova won't give me his name, but doesn't seem to mind going by Casanova. Hmm, maybe for his last name..... Stop it. I haven't been sleeping well which is part of the problem. I wake up mentally before my body is truly ready to give up the bed and start moving. So I lay there and that's when they whisper. Yesterday it was a whole new idea which could go as a Novella or a Paranormal, they really haven't decided yet. This morning was an idea that's been talking to me for about a month or two. It started with the heroine and apparently the hero is starting to fill out in my mind. It wouldn't be so bad if I weren't being so stubborn about not starting anything new until these two novels are revised. Don't worry about me too much, Fallen (one of the revisees) is also whispering to me. The beginning that I wasn't 100% on, filled itself in yesterday.

I love this job, I do, but some real money would be nice for all this work. With all the things I do for my writing, including putting in time on nights and weekends, I work more now than when I actually went to a job. I love it. I can't get enough of it. Even with the whispering. :) I'm grateful I have this opportunity and don't want to blow it, so it's back to the grindstone with me.

Oh, and to anyone else waiting to be served in the restaurant, I will try to get to all of you in good time. Please don't stop whispering because I do enjoy listening to you. Just make sure you wait your turn and I promise to not stop listening.

Feeling Overwhelmed

2009-01-08T18:53:00.002-06:00

As my family continues to eat up my writing time and my continued hatred of revisions keep me from going forward. Sigh. I've been MIA due to my two youngsters feeling ill and a two week break in work and school for the whole family. I got a couple of books to go over. One on revisions, the other on writing sci fi and fantasy. I'm still working my way through On Writing by Stephen King. I've got characters brewing in my head, silently stalking me. Whispering me who they are and what they want to do and how they want to do it. But I'm not writing, I'm revising. I'm not writing, I'm revising. I'm not writing, I'm revising. Maybe if I keep writing that I'll believe it.

Another Because I Couldn't Resist Sharing

2008-12-18T08:23:00.003-06:00

Sorry, not James McAvoy this time. In researching for writing Sci Fi, I came across an article that I think speaks to all writing. It describes the Pitfalls of writing by Vonda N. McIntyre. Even if you don't write Sci Fi, these apply to all writing.

I'm working on revisions on Fallen (which may get a name change due to books being out with the same title ). It's going rather slow, but hopefully I'll be through this round of revisions before the new year. Other ideas and side projects are happening, but are being kept under lock and chain until I can finish this one. I'm thinking of opening a new restaurant for another set of characters. I don't think they'll mesh well with the romantic restaurant I have going. It is rather strange to have to brainstorm for ideas, usually they just drop out of no where on me. I'm extending myself and trying to figure out what I can do. And if any of that made sense to anyone else but me, I'd be amazed.

So in case you missed the imbedded link here: http://www.vondanmcintyre.com/Pitfalls.html

Because I Couldn't Resist Sharing

2008-12-11T17:15:00.002-06:00

Playing Along (Sort of)

2008-12-09T13:32:00.002-06:00

I've been tagged by bloggingexperiments. So the deal is to list 7 random things about myself. I thought, where's the fun in that? Since I'm working on revisions, I'll give you 7 random things about Breann, which will make me work harder.

1. Loved to wear pink underwear when she was a teenager.
2. Now, wears plain cotton bikini briefs under her leather pants.
3. Doesn't have time for pets, especially when she has to go out and capture daemons all night.
4. Her comfort food is pizza, sausage and mushroom.
5. Got her bachelor's in fine art with an emphasis in photography.
6. Keeps a pair of fuzzy slippers under her bed.
7. Loved the movie Some Kind of Wonderful and had a crush on Eric Stolz. (You know you all did, too)

My job here is done. If you feel like playing along, leave a comment and I'll tag you and link to your blog. You can do either 7 random things about yourself or one of your characters.

Finished

2008-12-08T14:11:00.003-06:00

Finished the NaNo book. Now I'm going to set it aside and work on revisions on Fallen. Yay, my favorite part, revision, not! I don't know why but I've never liked going back over things. I really have to make myself look hard when I'm doing an edit of my own work. With other people's work it's a lot easier. The story is all in my head with my own. I'm hoping a month of not looking at it has been enough time to get it out of my head. So here we go with revisions, I'll let you know how it turns out.

I'm Sorry But the Restaurant is Full

2008-12-01T12:41:00.003-06:00

The characters rattling around in my brain are growing exponentially. See I've had three new ideas recently. So I've got two women plus three sisters (a series), trotting around up there. Thank goodness I haven't figured out men for them yet. Then there are my old faithfuls, Breann and Jude from FALLEN, still waiting patiently for me to finish the category with Natalie and Chase. Sitting in the far corner are Kaitlin and Caleb. They aren't trying to get my attention at all right now, but they are sitting there, waiting. Then there is Mike and Phoebe who are feeding me bits and pieces of their story. They are very polite about it and don't mind waiting. And then to top it off are Alec and Lacy who had been waiting in line and when I was challenged on Romance Divas, they slipped in. Of course, they don't sit at the same table and tend to glower at each other, but they are there. So I've got a packed dining area right now. Sure some of these characters will slip back out to wait in line again and hopefully, I can see some of these characters through dessert(revisions) and out the door. Sure they might visit for a drink sometime, but they won't have to wait anymore. So I'm sorry any new ideas that may try to make a break for it, but I just don't have time for you now. So if you'd like to take a menu and wait in the bar, we should be able to seat you some time next year.

NaNoWriMo

2008-11-29T12:44:00.002-06:00

Yes, I finished 50,000 words, but is it finished? Um. No. I'm writing the black moment scene and then there is another scene that follows it. But I'm done writing for today. I also need to go and make revisions throughout. But I've finished NaNo. YAY!!! 2nd year in a row. Of course I have the unfair advantage of not having a job or very young children. Still I'll take advantage of what I have. Good luck to the rest of the NaNo people!

Happy Turkey Day

2008-11-26T11:23:00.003-06:00

I've been able to steal a few moments to write, but won't be able to finish until Friday probably. Sigh. I went to Borders yesterday and bought a few new books. Okay 7 new books. I got Eats, Shots, and Leaves which hopefully will help me with my comma denial problems. I got a book on Diseases which should be fun. (Only a writer thinks deadly diseases are fun. Obviously that statement isn't true, but it feels like it.) The other non-fic book is on Time/Space. It was the least technical one in the physics section, so we'll see how I can get through it. Then I bought 2 historicals and 2 paranormal romances (one of which is a time travelish). So at some point I need to allow myself the time to read these books, revise Fallen (which there was a book called Fallen in the romance section), and plot these wonderful new ideas that have emerged from my brain. NaNo is going well. I'm almost done with it and then will need to revise it as well as Fallen. I want to finish and submit both of the stories by the end of the year. Here's hoping.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

The Temptation to Cheat

2008-11-21T21:28:00.002-06:00

No not on word count on NaNo, but on my book for an idea that finally formed in my head. I had an idea a while ago that got stuck in the idea file for later. It's a really neat idea but it wasn't fully formed and my fallen angel kept whispering in my ear. But I've been breaking from the fallen angel for a month now and my hero of the other story just started to whisper. He gave me the conflict between him and the heroine. Why now? Well, I was watching "Ghost Whisperer," which may have jumped the shark, but I'm still watching. Anyway, something snapped into place. The final piece to their puzzle. So now I have this desire to poke around and see what else it will give me, but I need to finish the NaNo book which has been flying along. Then I want to revise Fallen and the NaNo book so I can submit again. Then I need to go back to Forsaken which has been waiting on the sidelines very nicely, just waiting. But this idea is fresh and I haven't seen a lot about it. Humpf. I know what the right thing to do is. I just need to write very fast. :)

What Makes an Idea?

2008-11-19T09:51:00.003-06:00

I had two pop into my mind this morning. One will I was driving home from Walgreens and another while I was reading someone's response to the Duel's that happen on Romance Divas. Both were for women who needed rescuing. I am not always sure where my head is going when I start imagining this stuff and it gets clearer on paper (computer screen). At first when I started to write I was afraid I wouldn't find any ideas that were new or original, but then I'd read something or see something and there it was, a bright shiny new idea. They're brief and just a beginning. When I pick an idea to work on, it morphs from the original thought to a cohesive plot. How? Well, I'm not exactly sure. What I am sure of is that I shouldn't write blog posts while listening to "Lucy in the Sky". It's a very trippy song and makes my mind go all wonky, but I love it. So there you have it, a weird post brought to you from the brain of someone who's pushing herself to the 50K finish line of NaNo. I swear I'll make more sense one of these days.

Time Crunch

2008-11-18T09:20:00.003-06:00

Something I've never had to do before. I printed out a calendar for Jan & Feb 2009 for my novella. Because a pivotal scene happens around the Oscars I had to go through and plot on an actual time line. I thought to do it before the Golden Globes and part of it will, but the problem then are the holidays. I don't want to deal with the holidays, so I am putting it firmly in January after the first of the year since I don't want to deal with that too. Fortunately, the time line remains the same pretty much every year so as long as I don't drop a date here or there it will still remain current. Okay, that probably only made sense to me, but here's something for your trouble. If you need a calendar:

http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/custom.html?year=2007&country=1&typ=1&display=1&lang=en&space=3&month=8

Is Your Sex Gratuitous?

2008-11-17T20:01:00.004-06:00

How do you know when a sex scene has become gratuitous? Is it the fourth or fifth time? Is it when your characters seen to spend more time in bed than out? Why the heck am I asking this question?

A sex scene is like any other scene in a story with one exception which I'll get to later. It has to have all the things that make a great scene. First and foremost is conflict. If there is no conflict, internal or external, there is no scene. You might have a gratuitous sex scene. But there is always character development, which a sex scene can be a treasure trove of hidden discoveries about your characters. I'm not talking about who puts what where and for how long. But the why of it. Show me the character's motivation, this can also fall under the category of internal conflict if done properly. In reality it probably should have both conflict and character development. There's more to it than that, but it's a start.

Now I said there was an exception. This is called a payoff scene. When you've teased and tormented your reader with sexual tension so hot the characters are literally sizzling on the page, you may owe them a payoff scene and if they don't get it, well, let's say it won't be pretty. I've read books that never deliver the payoff scene. Are they good books? Possibly. Would I read the author again if I knew she didn't payoff? Probably not.

This is of course, my personal opinion of sex scenes. I have read the joy of writing sex which is a wonderful book. It takes on more of the literary community sex scenes rather than dealing with any particular genre. Even in Erotic romance, sex is not just for the sake of sex. Every sex scene serves a purpose. Read the one in your favorite book, what do you learn about the character or what is at stake during the love scene? Or is it the payoff of a lot of build up scenes?

Am I Going to Enter the Golden Heart?

2008-11-14T07:18:00.002-06:00

The answer is no. The reason? Well, first off I've entered 4 contests this year, taken a half dozen classes, and made no income from my writing. I'll be saving my $50 entry fee, the additional postage and printing costs. I know it's like winning the lottery, but unless you win, the prize isn't all that good. Sure you get 55 pages worth of writing evaluated, but you don't get any comments back. And judging on a scale of 1-9, leaves a lot to be desired. The contests I've entered have given me good feedback. If I'm no where near publishing next year come this time, I will definitely consider entering it. Also, I can't find the list of final judges, which probably isn't a big deal, but it's usually one of the reasons I enter contests.

So for now, I'm done entering contests. I'm working on revisions, query letters, new ms, and that's keeping me pretty preoccupied. I've achieved PRO status in RWA by having my query letter rejected. I'm good. I'm happy with where I'm headed and where I've been. I don't feel the need to go down the Golden Heart road this year. I do think it is a very good opportunity and if you have the money to spare, it may be worth it if you final. But I'm thinking for our family my $100 is better spent elsewhere.

Oh, Yeah I Did

2008-11-13T21:28:00.002-06:00

http://misssnarksfirstvictim.blogspot.com/

Check to see if any of these first pages hook you. Yeah, I'm in there. :)

Avoidance and the Love Scene

2008-11-13T09:57:00.004-06:00

Yesterday I barely added to my MS in the 3 hours I had to write. Why, you ask? I'd gotten to that point in the story. Everybody has a point that they have difficulty writing. Mine is the love scene. I over think every word I'm putting down which would be awesome during revision, but for first draft . . . well, I should just get on with it. I know I can layer in after, but man . . . So why write them? A lot of romances gloss over the love scene or "close the door" on it. But that's not what I like to read. I'm okay with sexual tension, but when it comes to doing the duty . . .

I made a playlist, then I repeated one song over and over. I added a few words, checked my email, wrote a few more words, checked my email, changed songs, checked my email. I don't get enough email to be checking it this much. This morning I turned off Yahoo and Messenger. I closed out of my email. I picked one song and I forced myself to write the damn scene. After 500 excruciatingly painful words, it's done. We are now in post bliss. Where the weight of what the characters have done will come crashing down around them. Well, maybe we'll wait until morning for that to happen. :) The fall out I can write, the leading up to moment I can write, the actual moment . . . well, at some point I'll feel comfortable writing it and maybe it will take me less than a day and a half to actually write the darned thing.

Songs for the Day

2008-11-11T17:00:00.001-06:00

Playing on iTunes

"Look" Sebastien Tellier (heard in the final scene of Ugly Betty this week)
"Chasing Pavements" Adele
"Feels like Home" Chantal Kreviazuk

Titles, Characters and Plots, oh my

2008-11-11T11:45:00.002-06:00

What's worse than coming up with a title and character names? Having to come up with movie titles and movie character names within the same book. Of course, currently there is "Action Movie Title" and I think one of his names is going to be "Hero's name". It's NaNo, people. I can't worry about the details right now. :) Back to NaNo sprinting.