2013: The Year in Review!

Well, 2013 is just about over, and I thought I'd report on my goals for the year! Here's my list from January:

• Finish rewriting/editing Seer. It's so close!!

• Write something new.

• Blog more.

• Pay off my credit card.

• Learn how to cook lots of delicious food!

• Read good books!

 And here's my end-of-the-year-accomplishments-list:

• I finished rewriting Seer!! 
• I wrote parts of something new, and might turn it into a novel when I finish my current rewrite.
• Speaking of my current rewrite (though I didn't list it as a goal on my blog), I'm nearly halfway through an epic re-haul of The Whale and the Tree, and I'm excited about it!!
• Also not on the list, but I participated in NaNoWriMo this year and wrote 50K more for The Blind King. It's not done yet, but it's closer!
• I blogged more, yay!
• I paid off my credit card! Now working on my student loan and my husband's credit card—we will be debt free eventually!
• I learned how to cook a few things, so that's good. :-)
• I read some awesome new books and reread some old favorites.

So, all-in-all, not too shabby! Happy New Year, everyone! :-)

Once Upon a December

Happy December, all and sundry!

I'm wearing a SWEATER today, which makes me happy. It's in the fifties and cloudy and looks like rain, which equals winter in Phoenix. Might be going up north this weekend to catch some potential snow, which would make me happy. :-)

In update-ish news, I DID complete my 50K for NaNoWriMo. I finished on the 20th in time to enjoy a visit from my sister and her husband and to eat lots of turkey without writing-related guilt. I did not, however, reach the end of the book. There's probably 15-20K left to go, and my outline is reaaaaaalllllly sketchy at this point. Not sure where it stands in Writing Project Priority currently. I'll probably put off finishing it for a while, at least until I figure out the outline. I have reread parts of it already, and there's some glimmers of good scenes in there, so that's encouraging.

Also, as per my author bio in the last post, I'm participating in Pitch Wars, which is an awesome writing contest hosted by Brenda Drake, which you can read about here. I think I'm giving myself an ulcer by obsessing over the #PitchWars feed on Twitter…

Oh, and the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary special was FANTASTIC, as was Catching Fire. Frozen is next on my to-watch list, I keep hearing good things.

So I guess I need to get back to the novel revision I put aside for NaNoWriMo… And after that, I'm thinking about turning my short story idea from earlier into the year into a novel. I think it could be really, really cool.

And that, as they say, is that!

Pitch Wars Author Bio!

I am SO excited to have thrown my hat into the ring for Pitch Wars this year! Jumping on the #PimpMyBio bandwagon as well, so here goes:

I've been writing since I was six years old. I entered lots of writing contests as a kid and submitted to the (small) pool of magazines that accepted children's stories back in the day. I got published in Stone Soup when I was thirteen, and won fourth place and an honorable mention, respectively, in the Written and Illustrated By… competition when I was fourteen and fifteen.

Since 2005, I've written almost six full novels and parts of three others.

My Pitch War submission is a novel I first drafted in January of 2010, and it took about six weeks to write. I creeped myself out in several parts whilst writing it, which I took to be a good sign.

I have a lot of favorite books, but if pressed I'd say my favorite is Return of the King. I adore Jane Austen, I love George Eliot's Middlemarch, and I'm completely obsessed with Megan Whalen Turner's Queen's Thief series (I need the next book NOW!!). A few years ago, I got to (briefly) meet Gail Carson Levine at a book talk, and she signed my copy of Ella Enchanted, which made my not-really-all-that-inner-twelve-year-old VERY happy.

I've been teaching piano lessons for almost fifteen years, and have a 6' 1" Yamaha grand named Prince Imrahil in the living room of the apartment I share with my awesome husband. It's not as crowded as you might think. :-)

I love seasons, rain, and trees, and I live in Gilbert, Arizona, which unfortunately has none of those things. Bring me to a rainy green forest and I'll be your friend for life. Fill that forest with black currant tea and Oreo cookies and books and cats, and we'll be BEST friends for life.

Also, I have an adorable kitty named Bertram:

Oh, and once I went to Edinburgh and found the TARDIS:

I think that about sums it up. :-)

Onward to the Pitch Wars!!!

Silver Mines & Treason: NaNo Day 14

Well, November is almost halfway over already—not sure how that happened! You'll be happy to know that my novel is sitting pretty at 32,774 words, and I'm on track to finish by the 22nd. Hooray!!

The story is progressing pretty well, although I'm afraid I might get to 50K before I reach the end… Currently, two of my characters are attempting to escape from the silver mines, one of my characters just discovered the (partial) truth about her mysterious parentage, and one of my characters is about to commit treason against the king… or maybe warn him instead. :-) I've been posting tiny excerpts every now and again on my NaNoWriMo profile page, for the morbidly curious.

In other news, saw Thor: The Dark World this weekend and LOVED it. Also went to NASCAR for the first time ever and loved that too, although it was Quite Loud. Coming up on the roster: JJ Heller concert this Saturday, and on November 25th I'm seeing the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary special IN THEATERS. Sooooo excited!!! There's also Catching Fire and Frozen coming out soon. Busy month!

Okay. I did the dishes. I wrote this blog. I really should stop procrastinating and get back to writing!!

Bonus Handsome Cat Picture:

Update: Nano Day 5

Well I'm thoroughly ensconced in NaNoWriMo and having a blast—so glad I decided to go for it! I've been languishing in revision purgatory all year and I forgot how much FUN it is to write first drafts!

Day Five Word Count: 14,097!! Trying to stay ahead of the game so I can finish my 50K by the 22nd, when my sister comes into town—so far I'm on track! Huzzah!

Oh and from the FYI department, here is my author page on the NaNoWriMo site.

I guess I should go to sleep now so I can get up and write some more!! Betrayal and war is coming soon to a novel near you…

November! November!

Woot woot! I decided to throw caution to the wind and GO FOR IT! Didn't quite finish the second half of my in-progress revision, but I got a substantial amount done and I should be able to get back to it fairly easily after NaNo.

3,293 words so far!! Yayyyy!!!

Time Machine?

I feel like, literarily-speaking, at least, 2013 is turning out to be a rerun of 2006. I re-read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell this summer for the first time since 2006. I'm re-reading the Queen's Thief Series, which I first read (scratch that—devoured!!) in 2006. And I'm currently revising my 2006 NaNoWriMo novel.

Perhaps that's not the most amazing thing ever, but I think it's slightly interesting. :-)

Okay, I need to really get back to that revision…

Ode to October

I so love October!! No lovely autumn trees here, unfortunately, but the days are slooooowly getting cooler and the holidays are just around the corner, and my husband and I are going to Disneyland for our first anniversary next week. Life is good!

The revision is going pretty well… I haven't actually worked on it yet this week, due to a grisly battle with a horde of ants over our kitchen yesterday, but I'm feeling encouraged and enthusiastic about it. My goal is to finish the first half by the end of the month and I THINK I can do it if I push. And I want to because…

I'm contemplating NaNoWriMo this year!! I've been bitten with NaNo fever and I'm not sure I can shake it. :-) If I do join, I'll be continuing the novel I started writing in 2009, and therefore technically be a NaNo rebel! It's a story that's been in my head since the early 90s 0_o and I read the first part the other day and I desperately want to finish it because my inner thirteen-year-old self wants to read the end! I haven't 100% committed yet, but I'm definitely leaning that way.

But at any rate, here's my last piano student of the day, so I'd better attend to him.

Over and out. :-)

Dear Novel, I Still Like You

To paraphrase Shakespeare, the outline's the thing!

Yeah, I'm outlining the remainder of Part One of my huge rewrite, and it's a VERY EXCELLENT IDEA. I went into this thinking "I'll just start over and see what happens" and that might not've been the BEST decision ever. I'm at the point where I need to marry my new material to my old material. I realized I CAN still use some of the scenes I've already written, and that I'm trying to make THIS story better, not write a completely different one. So that was an encouraging realization!

I've only been working on this outline for a couple days, and I almost have it sorted enough to start writing/revising again. I'm excited! I can do this!

I STILL LIKE THIS NOVEL!!!!!!

This Writing Thing

Well, September is upon us! I'm slowly pecking away at the novel rewrite, and—as usual—being frustrated and encouraged in turn. I'm finally beginning to get a vision of how I want it to go, but there's so many decisions and possibilities it gets pretty confusing. But I'm gonna push through!!

I keep having to re-realize that, for right now, I can't worry about:

… whether or not it's too long

… whether or not there will be a market for it WHEN I finally finish

… whether or not my writing is perfect

… whether or not I'm being as creative as I aspire to be

… whether or not I'm ever going to make it past the first few chapters


I can, however, focus on:

— Plot!

— Characterization!

— Pacing!

— Structure!

— Doing the best I can with where I am right now

— Enjoying the freedom that comes with re-imagining the story

— Working on it EVERY DAY


At least I have something to semi-distract me from compulsively checking my email every two minutes and the miniature heart attacks brought on by seeing a reply to one of my queries in my inbox.

Yeah…

This writing thing, I tell ya.

Never, Ever, Ever Give Up!

This morning, I started writing at 7:30, and didn't stop until I finished the scene I was working on. It felt GREAT. I'm making it my goal to get in the habit of writing first thing every day, because if I don't keep working on this novel rewrite, you know what?

It's never ever ever going to get done.

And that's unacceptable.

The last few months, I've been really discouraged on the writing front—the glacial querying process, the feeling of ramming my head against a brick wall with this novel, the fear that I'm never going to get to the next step. But I've come so far since I started getting really serious about writing in 2005. I've written six complete novels and three incomplete ones, and I've REwritten a few of them, too. I've written query letters and synopsises (synopsi? however you spell it, they're awful!!) and read up on the publishing industry—I've even gotten feedback from some pretty awesome agents.

And all that aside, even though it's frustrating beyond imagining sometimes, I love writing. I always have.

I'm not going to give up. I'm going to keep plugging away at this novel, and when I finish it I'm going to write another one.

I am writer! Here me RAWRRRRRR!!!

Down the Rabbit Hole

Phew, well it's been a little while since my last post…

I've been musing about stories and writing and re-writing, and I have a lot of profound thoughts floating around in my head, but they never quite seem to make it to paper. :-) I'll give it a shot.

I love stories that matter and mean something, that make you think and feel, that earn their triumphs or tragedies in a satisfying way. I love being swept up into fictional worlds and getting so lost in the story that I don't quite know what to do with myself when I reach the end. I love beautiful prose, the sound of words, the flow of language, perfectly crafted sentences and paragraphs.

Writing is so interesting to me. It's always changing. Sometimes it's easy and sometimes it's the hardest thing in the known universe. Re-writing is my arch-nemises, and yet at the same time it's not. The most difficult thing, I think, is allowing myself to re-imagine a story, to break away from what I've already written and be able to see it from a different angle. That's where I'm at in my current re-write. I'm slowly leaving the keep-the-same-basic-scenes-and-reword-them-a-little frame of mind and tentatively making RE-writing my way of thinking. It's truly remarkable to be able to recreate something, to shape a story into what it was meant to be in the first place, something you couldn't quite see in the beginning. It's a long, slow, hard process, something I'm having to relearn every single time I go to revise anything.

I've been working on this rewrite since April, and I don't have very much to show for it. I've written a lot—over 20,000 words, in fact—but most of it has ended up in my "Deleted Scenes" folder. As of yesterday, I have two chapters that I'm fairly happy with. Two. But I'm slowly sinking into the world of this novel, and I'm beginning to see, if not a light at the end of the tunnel, a rabbit hole I can tumble down and explore for a while.

And that's a good thing.

I think I'm going to go explore.

Growin' Pains

Look who's so much bigger!!

Still working on that revision, I promise. It's kicking my butt, but (haha—butt but) I'm plugging away! Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming……

Book Review: Entwined, by Heather Dixon

Entwined is a retelling of the fairy tale "The Twelve Dancing Princesses," and I absolutely ADORED it. Seriously, this might have to go right up on the shelf with Ella Enchanted, Beauty, and East as one of my favoritest fairy tale retellings ever. I kind of want to read it all over again right now.

I don't know how Ms. Dixon helps the reader keep track of TWELVE princesses throughout the course of the novel, but she does a marvelous job. Obviously we know the most about Azalea, the eldest and main character, but we get to know the rest pretty well too, from spunky and prickly Bramble, to shy beauty Clover and on down to little baby Lily. I LOVE the relationships between the sisters. They're a close-knit group of largely mischievous girls who adore each other to no end.

The novel is set in a fantastical country existing in a time period very similar to Victorian England. There's newspapers and guns and talk of railways, characters in Parliament and horses named Dickens and Thackarey. The royal family is actually rather poor, and the King is always up to his neck in Royal Business (or R.B., as it's abbreviated).

The story opens with a Christmas Ball and the death of the girls' mother. :-( The whole house is thrown into Mourning, which means no visitors, no going outdoors, not wearing any color besides black, and absolutely no dancing for a whole year. The girls LOVE dancing, something they learned from their mother, and Azalea especially is quite accomplished. Dancing cheers them up and makes them think of their mother, but it's forbidden. The girls discover a magic passageway in their bedroom that leads through a silver forest to a magic pavilion on a lake guarded by a man dressed all in black named Keeper. He invites them to come and dance there, and so they do, every night, and every night they wear out their dancing slippers (as the fairy tale goes).

I love the details in this novel. From the old magic tea set that pours tea of its own accord with its accompanying vicious sugar teeth, to the description of the girls' mother smelling like baby ointment and white cake. The writing is beautiful and vivid.

And oh man, it gets CREEPY in the middle!! Yikes. For serious. Cree-ee-eeepy! But it in a good way. And there's adorable romances, and Mr. Bradford (we never learn his first name!!) rocks, and Azalea is awesome—you really see her grow over the course of the novel.

But my absolute favorite part about the story is the characterization of the King and his relationship with his daughters. It is THE BEST.

And the ending was perfect.

As I said, I LOVE this book.

Puzzles

This rewrite feels like I'm trying to do a 2,000 piece puzzle, but I've only got 200 pieces and I lost the box so I can't refer to the picture on the top and therefore have no clue what this thing is supposed to look like when it's done.

Yeah. It's kinda like that.

Where the novel currently is and where I want it to actually be are two separate universes at this moment. Here's some of the changes I'm grappling with:

1. The Beginning. In the longest and most helpful rejection letter I've ever received, the question was posed: does this novel start in the right place? In this new draft I began the novel earlier in the timeline, and I feel like I might be trapped in the (new) first three chapters for all of eternity at this point.

2. Characterization. I'm basically trying to give my MC a spine. And some spunk. She's getting a personality makeover, and she needs it!!

3. Relationships. I'm not too far into this aspect of the story yet, but there's a massive balancing act to do here. My MC's relationship with her mother is complicated and something I'm tweaking a little/trying to figure out in this new draft. There's also a massive love square (that's a love triangle with an extra side, haha) to navigate as the story progresses.

4. Plot. Although I'm not making a lot of earth-shattering plot alterations, I am changing it here and there, and I want to be consistent across the board and not change it so much that I lose the overall vision/feel of the original. I still want to be able to recognize this story!!

5. Length. I'm hoping to make this draft at least 10K shorter than the previous one. Yeah.

6. The Ending. I haven't figured out if I'm going to change the original ending or not. I can't decide.


So that's that.

Delicious Chocolate Cookie

So I'm sitting in the office with the lights turned off and the fan on and the AC cranked up and I'm drinking iced tea and I just finished eating a delicious chocolate cookie. All completely necessary information, I know. But hey, it's hot out, and I gotta stay cool and hydrated, and who WOULDN'T want a delicious chocolate cookie? See, it all makes sense.

At any rate, on to the big writing news of the week!

***drumroll***

I started that huge novel rewrite!! It's for a novel I first wrote back in 2006 for NaNoWriMo, and I feel like it's a story that needs telling and I want to try again and see if I can get it right this time! There's an enormously long way to go, and a lot of big decisions I've gotta make along the way, but I have a good start so far and I'm pretty excited about it.

As for that short story, I've decided to leave it alone for a while. Writing is so weird. Sometimes things just need more time to gel, and I think that's where this story is. I do think I'll try again someday, but for now it needs to retreat into the subconscious and see if it can find a plot and some character development. Um, yeah…

I finished reading Dark Lord of Derkhelm earlier this week, and I just loved it. I'm always so impressed/amazed/inspired by Diana Wynne Jones. She wrote so many books during her lifetime and they're all so witty and strange and wonderful. She's a FANTASTIC storyteller. Dark Lord is just about up there with Fire and Hemlock and Howl's Moving Castle for me. I've read a ton of her books, but not all of them yet, which I need to remedy. I aspire to be as creative and productive as Diana!

And speaking of productive, I think I might go work on that novel revision for a while……

Cheers, and stay cool out there!!

P.S. Why is the tea all gone??

Bertie Does Some Reading

Where there's life, there's hope… Maybe?

The short story lives! Between yesterday and today I wrote over 3K on a massive wave of inspiration. I wrote the ending, and the very beginning, and I think it's pretty awesome. But I still have no middle. And it's super disjointed. And it currently sits at 12,651 words, which would be manageable to cut down to 10K—you know, if I had a middle already. :-/ I really don't know what to do next. This is probably why I usually outline. And write linearly. All that jazz. At least it's looking like a possibility that I'll have a fully formed story by the end of the month. Ish. My goal is to have the whole first draft done by next week, so I'll have time to put it aside for a few days before I dive into editing it and making it all shiny for submission on June 30th. I don't know, we'll see!!

Finished The Runaway King. Liked it all right, but it wasn't my favorite. It just felt kind of forced or something and I didn't really connect with the characters. :-(

I also read Nancy Werlin's Extraordinary over the weekend (it went so quick it didn't ever make it to my "Currently Reading" tab) and I LOVED IT SO MUCH. I could NOT put it down. The language and characters drew me in from the beginning and it was just a fabulous read. It's basically about evil faeries manipulating the MC Phoebe's life to try and get her to pay up on a promise made by her many-greats grandfather. It reminded me of Fire and Hemlock, which is always a good thing. Lovely, lovely book. In fact I'm pretty sure it's what spurred me on to do so much writing this week!

The whole kit and caboodle, er, kitty and computer

So I got my laptop back today!! My awesome father was able to fix it for me by replacing a cable—now the screen doesn't go black at almost every angle and I can see what I'm doing again. Hooray!! :-)

Also, my husband and I got a KITTY!! And he's amazing and so adorable! His name is Bertram:

Writing hasn't been going too well… the short story got kind of frustrating and I'm not quite sure what to do with it at this point. I did make some notes on a massive novel rewrite I've been wanting to work on for a while, so I might switch gears to that. We'll see!

A little over halfway through The Runaway King—it's a pirate's life for Jaron right now. :-)

All righty. Now that I've added a few more cat pictures to the internet, I think that'll do it for today. Over and out!

Friday, Friday, Bloggin' on a Friday

Okay, it's update time!

I'm 7,264 words into my new story so far……… Most definitely going to surpass 10K at this point, but I think I'll be able to edit it back down again. I really didn't feel like doing any outlining or backstory brainstorming so I'm kinda figuring all that out as I go along, which leads to more verbiage than is strictly necessary (I think, haha). I go back and forth on whether I like this thing so far, but currently I do, and at any rate I think I can make something cool out of it. Today all that's happened is my MC has been following a wolf into his house and observing all the architecture. She finally made it to her room, though, so hopefully the story can progress now. :-)

In other news, I finished A Girl of Fire and Thorns yesterday and I really liked the ending. I always appreciate when an author is able to simultaneously bring proper resolution to the story AND whet my appetite for the sequel. Too many books end too soon and too abruptly for me, but this one hit the perfect balance. Fire and Thorns had a lot of twists and turns and ended up being a different sort of book than I thought it would be at the beginning—one particular twist completely SHOCKED me, but it was definitely a super brave thing to do, writing-wise. Definitely need the sequel now…

Also, the Once Upon a Time finale left me desperate for Season Three, and the spin off Once Upon a Time in Wonderland looks really, really cool. Also, also, I need to catch up on Doctor Who. I'm four episodes behind, I think.

Okay, that's about it.

Toodle-pip!

No.

Dear Fledgling Story,

No, you may not be a novel. You will be a short story, and stay under 10,000 words. I mean it.

Firmly,

Your Author

Something New

I'm writing a new story. ♥

Eight Tiny Reindeer

In-between compulsively checking my email, I've decided I want a break from revising and desperately need to write something NEW. A giant reworking of a previous novel just seems too daunting at the moment. Blech.

I'm brainstorming for a new story instead, initially sparked by a dream (don't worry, no vampires). It's really wanting to be a sort of fairy-tale retelling, so I might follow that thought and see where it leads. So far today I've been researching reindeer online and hitting up BehindTheName for name ideas, and I discovered that "Guadalupe" (the name of a street near me) means "river of the wolf," which I thought was extremely interesting.

Okay, that's all I've got. I think I need to check my email.

Seraphina

So obviously I chose reading over starting any projects yesterday. :-)

I finished Rachel Harman's Seraphina this morning, and I absolutely LOVED it!! It's about music and dragons and secrets and it was just lovely and amazing. The prose was beautiful, her world interesting and unique, and the characters rocked. I want more!! I first spotted it at the bookstore because it had almost the same title as a not-all-that-short-story I wrote a while ago (Seraphine—the name means like fiery creature or something like that), and the first few paragraphs—the first sentence, really—had me completely hooked. Finally snagged it at the library, and once I started I couldn't put it down. Amazing book.

Five stars and two thumbs up!!

Time…

Well, it's start-another-project time. Another novel rewrite? A brand new short story? Going back to poke at a novel I've been working on on-and-off for like sixteen years? The possibilities are endless. Of course I could just hunker down with a cuppa tea and read Seraphina, because it's super good so far. Hmmm… :-)

Also, queries have left the building!! Now the waiting begins………


Also also, I've been pondering how I like fantasy that's set in other worlds as opposed to fantastical elements being present in this world. Not sure how profound that is, but it might turn into a legit post at some point.

Okay, I'm off to finish my tea. :-)

Wordcounts and Doctor Who and Batman, oh my!!

Well, mostly good things to report over here!

My read-through went super good—I slashed and dashed as many words as humanly possible and got ye olde novel down to……………… 88,819 words. Not quite the 85K I was hoping for, but at least it's under 89K. You know. Ish.

I'm currently researching agents (I've been doing it on and off for a while now), honing my query letter and so on, and all that editing paid off—I revised and condensed that query, hooray!

Still working on getting my Scrivener compile feature up and running again (the tech support people are super helpful). Just got a general Scrivener update email today and it said that a couple of recent Doctor Who episodes were actually penned in Scrivener, which of course made my little geeky heart go pitter pat. :-D

Gonna poke at my novel a little more and make sure it's EXACTLY perfect, and then it's off to the query mobile, batman!!

Caution, Read Through In Progress: Verbiage Ahead!

So I wound up printing out my novel after all—had to resort to copying and pasting the whole thing into Pages and tweaking the formatting for a while but I got that bad boy printed out in the end!

I'm almost halfway done with my read-through/editing and I'm really liking this draft so far. I'm cutting as many extemporaneous words as possible and it feels good. I love that stage of editing when you're so on fire that deleting things no longer make you want to curl up in a hole and die but cackle with evil glee instead. :-D It remains to be seen how many words I've actually axed so far; I'm hoping it's in the neighborhood of 1K, though.

I've also rearranged some scenes in chapters three and four that were bothering me, which I think has solved the problem, and my newly rewritten sections are turning out to work with the flow of the novel much better than I thought, so that's encouraging.

Definitely on track to have the finalized Draft #3 ready to be sent out into the wide world by the end of the month. Hoorah!!

Hail the Conquering Author!

I finished!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just had half a chapter to go through this morning, which I did. I'm a little disappointed that I can't print it out yet, though—I'm having problems with the compile feature on my Scrivener (I LOVE this program and normally don't have any issues) and so can't get it into my word processor. Kind of frustrating, but I've contacted technical support and hopefully the issue will be resolved soon. I have a shiny ream of paper and a shiny new binder all ready to receive my new draft when it is!!

Final word count for Draft #3 is 90,607. Le sigh…

I might possibly be noodling on a short story idea… we'll see if anything happens with it!

Sheesh, three posts in three days! This is getting serious.

I think I need more tea.

Cheers!

Yea Verily, the Word Count Doth Swell

Only two chapters left!! Taking a bit of a break 'cause the last ones need special concentration and my head is starting to hurt (I clearly need more tea).

This revision is going quite well (I think!!). My only concern is the swelling of my word count. Why can nothing I write ever get SHORTER? I've peeked at my initial draft a couple of times over the last week to try and clear up some discrepancies (it didn't actually help), and was pleased to see that the second draft is a much better book than the first, and I think this third draft is making it even better. But not shorter. Never shorter. >:-( First draft was 70K, second draft was 80K, and now I'm pushing 90K! When I do my read-through I'm going to try and cut as much as possible. Hopefully I'll get it down to 85K, but I'm not holding my breath. Sheesh.

Okay. Break time. By which I mean bathroom cleaning time. And a shower. And more tea. Probably in that order.

Also, I think my post titles are possibly getting out of control. On the other hand, I can't just title my posts "update" all the time. That's super boring.

Okay I think I'm done now. :-)

But the children love the books!

I made friends with the library again! Hopefully this will keep me busy (and OUT of the bookstores) for awhile… :-)

I only have five chapters left in my revision! I'm SO excited. Gotta remember to buy some paper so I can print the thing out, reread, and make any necessary additional changes. Then it's query and change gears time! I'm super happy about that, in case you couldn't tell!!

Kind of eyeing this contest as a possibility. It's nice when they actually give you 10K words to work with, and the deadline is far enough away that I could potentially write something new. Hmmmm…

All righty, back to work!

April Showers Bring…… Revised Books!!

Well hopefully, anyway. :-) Here's some stats for Tuesday:


Chapters Revised: 13/29

Number of Hours Spent playing HayDay instead of revising: way too many

Tea Drunk Today: Two mugs of delicious Vanilla Black with Half 'n Half and a slice of homemade banana bread. Mmmmm.


Okay that wasn't very many stats, but whatever. :-) My ultimate goal is to have this novel completely revised and ready for queryin' by the end of April. Then I get to write something NEW!!!

Onwards!

The Book Goes Ever Ever On

Well, I'm happy to report that things have looked up a little since the last post! I finished (more or less) rewriting the scenes I needed to, and have started from page one, working through the book bit by bit and tweaking and editing and rearranging as needed. This is much more enjoyable than the rewriting so far. I'm in Chapter 5 of 29, so a ways to go yet, but it's going fairly quickly. I might actually be able to glimpse the light at the end of the tunnel. The goal is to have this draft COMPLETELY DONE by the end of April, or sooner if possible. I'm ready to get back on the querying wagon again, and even more ready to WORK ON SOMETHING ELSE.

On another note, I've been rereading a novel I wrote back in 2008/2009 and, editing needs aside, it's actually quite compelling and I'm realizing I like it quite a lot. It's a sort of prequel/companion book to one I wrote in 2006 that I've been thinking about revising after I finish my current project. Exciting stuff.

I finished the Artimes Fowl series, and am still digesting the ending. I'm sad it's over, but it was good!

Resisting the call of Amazon to buy a thousand books and have them appear promptly at my door. I think I need to make friends with a library again…

And in non-writing news, I paid off my credit card!!! :-)

Over and out!

How it's Going

Right?

Rewriting is supposed to involve a lot of laying on the floor and moaning, right?

Phew!

Just finished that scene I've been working on for what feels like a billion years! It clocks in at 3,547 words and I think it's pretty cool but that's up for debate when I get to the reread… I've really only got a few scenes left and they all flow together pretty much uninterrupted, but I think they're going to be difficult as well. :-/

But I'm getting there!!

Can't believe it's the last day in February! Where does the time go? Also, I need the next Artimes Fowl book. Might be bookstore time………

Just keep going, just keep going

As you can probably ascertain from the lack of post last week, the writing's been kind of rough lately. Didn't do much last week at all and was getting pretty depressed about ever picking it up again! Yesterday, though, a Starbucks session and an Earl Grey Latte gained me some momentum and last night I wrote nearly 500 words on my iPhone with my thumbs, so I think the ole grey matter might be working again.

The scene I'm in is a long one, but it's important, and one of those ones that needs to be written slowly. Only a few more scenes to be rewritten for this particular thread, and then I get to take a step back and consider some other elements of the novel. Here's hoping it will go smoothly!

Also, and hopefully I'll get around to some reviews soon, I've been reading the Artimes Fowl series over the last several months and I'm on book six now and I love them!! I'm way sad that I only have two books left after this one, but that won't keep me from busting through them anyway……

Here's to Tuesday! Go forth and prosper! :-)

Just a Tuesday in February

So, only a few more scenes left to rewrite, but they're doozys!! Juuuuuust finished one this morning that I've been working on for nearly a week, but it was one of those scenes that you just have to plug away at slowly. I THINK I made it better. Hopefully. We'll see how it holds up when I do my read through.

All the scenes I have left are going to be similarly slow in coming, I think. Which is daunting. And I'm fast-approaching the extremely important ending scenes, which frighten me immensely. This is so hard!!!! But worth it. Well, hopefully. :-D

Onwards and upwards!

ETA As of 3:00 I just finished another scene!! And I think it might be awesome! Woohoo!!!

Trouble right here in River City…

Oh man. I've gotten to the rough sections and I don't know what to DO. As they stand, they're really not that bad and fairly well written, but I don't think they make a lot of sense, and I don't think they fit with the previous scenes I've rewritten. It's so hard to recreate stuff like this!! What do I DO? Ack!

But just because I like something doesn't necessarily mean it fits in with the story and should stay. This is hard man.

Yesterday I mostly avoided my book, then finally rewrote a short scene that I hadn't planned on rewriting but I'm glad I did. Then I further procrastinated by writing a song—though to be fair the song kind of wrote itself, so maybe that doesn't count. :-)

I think I need to do more head scratching and get back to it, right?

Right.

Thursday Updates!

So I've only written a few scenes since Monday, including one today, but I'm definitely making progress, which is encouraging! I just sat down and reread all the scenes I've rewritten since I started this process, and I actually really liked them. I'm able to be really creative/imaginative/just-plain-crazy with these scenes, and it's all kinds of freeing and awesome. I was so tentative with my ideas the first time around that I wasn't really exploring all of this second world's interesting potential, and I'm definitely doing more of that now. I just hope I'll be able to keep everything semi-consistent!

I've got a few pretty epic scenes coming up, and an entire ending to make awesomer. This is getting intense, but I think I'm gonna come out of this with a better, stronger novel.

Also, it is a lovely rainy day.

Also also, Lizzie Bennet Diaries is getting so intense!!!

Happy Thursday!

Two Things

Well, two good things to report!


1. My mom and I have CHALLENGED each other to get a certain amount of work done on our respective projects by March 7th—if we do, we get to go to Baskin & Robin. :-D My specific goal is to get all new/rewritten scenes done and have my manuscript ready for a next-draft edit, by which I mean I'll start at page one and read everything, including new bits, and make changes as I go to work new material into old, etc. It makes sense in my head. :-)

2. My husband and I cleaned out our back room, which means we both have access to our desks and I have a legit writing space!! If only I use it for good and not distraction, I mean evil. :-)

Okay. Off to watch today's Lizzie Bennet Diary before I get to work. Obviously!!

Jump Start

So earlier in the week my blog post was going to go something like this:

I haven't really gotten much writing done and everything's confusing and I don't understand how to fix the things I need to fix!!

But that was earlier in the week. :-D

Tuesday, after getting a brand new driver's license with an updated photo and my married (!) name, I met my BFF at B&N for an hour and started handwriting a scene that jump-started my metabolism—I mean my brain. I spent the first part of Wednesday finishing the scene and staring at my outline synopsis thing until I went a little cross-eyed, but I made some good decisions and was able to plow ahead. Today I wrote another new scene and am quite pleased with how it turned out—of course I haven't reread it yet, so anything could happen there. :-)

I'm slowly working through the novel how I'd originally intended—rewriting/reevaluating the problematic scenes one at a time. I'm printing out the rewritten/brand new scenes on green paper (leftover from my wedding!!), taping them into my manuscript, and buggering on. The plan is to get through the whole novel that way, then start at the beginning, do the edits that need to be done, make sure all the new bits fit okay, cut what needs cutting, etc. I think this is gonna work. I hope so!!

Also, I think I should get some kind of award for battling my MacBook this week. Not only does the screen go black if it's at the wrong angle, there's something askew with my trackpad that makes my cursor jump around and haphazardly delete things whilst I'm typing. I can eliminate that problem by plugging a mouse in, which I will forever do now, but still. Kind of lusting after a new computer, I'm not gonna lie…

All right, that about does it. I kind of like that I rebooted my blog and didn't tell anybody and so no one is actually reading this. :-D I figured if I could be consistent for a month or two, I might spread the word again. We'll see.

Peace out!!

All or Nothing…

So I'm back revising my novel—or at least trying to figure out how to revise my novel. My focus for this revision is just one aspect of the story/world, and I was hoping to be able to only work on those sections and be able to leave the rest of it alone. Unfortunately I'm realizing that's not quite going to work.

I still don't think this will be as drastic of an edit as the last one, but changing one thing means changing everything, at least a little. I worked on tightening my pacing so diligently in my last draft that I'm having to reevaluate more than I wanted to, because new/added scenes obviously affect it. I also feel like the length of the novel as is is PERFECT, which means I need to cut cut cut if I add anything.

I'm working off of an entire novel scene list again in an attempt to reacquaint myself with the big picture. It helped sooo much last time. We'll see.

I WILL figure this out.

THIS IS WORTH IT!!!

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

Just a quick post to say……

If you're not watching The Lizzie Bennet Diaries on YouTube, you're missing out and you need to start immediately!

It's modern day Pride and Prejudice as seen through Lizzie's video diaries, and it's complete genius. Start here:

http://lizziebennetdiaries.tumblr.com/playall

New Year, New Post!

Happy New Year to all and sundry!

It's been a long, long time since my last post—I've been pleasantly engaged being, well, engaged to and subsequently marrying the love of my life, which incidentally took up most of my brain power previously dedicated to blogging. It was totally worth it. :-) I am now an old married lady of nearly two and a half months, and being a new year and all, I thought I might attempt hopping back on the blog wagon again.

I therefore offer you, in all their glory, a few of my goals for 2013:

• Finish rewriting/editing Seer. It's so close!!
• Start agent hunting again!
• Write something new.
• Blog more.
• Pay off my credit card.
• Learn how to cook lots of delicious food!
• Read good books!

I've already started on the first one, though I definitely spent more time fiddling with blog templates (and winding up keeping the one I had to begin with) than writing today. Oops!

And that will wrap it up for now!

Happy New Year! Go forth and be awesome. :-)