Tomorrow Is Another Day

Moving!

2010-06-13T19:55:00.000-05:00

I'm moving the blog over to my new WordPress site. Come check it out!
http://tamaramorning.com/

What I've Read Lately

2010-05-09T19:53:00.002-05:00

Okay, so I've been slipping lately. I haven't blogged about books in…weeks. Sad. I know. I've been reading, I just haven't had time to blog! But I'm going on vacation this week for two weeks (Yay for going home!), so I thought I'd do a quick and dirty review of what I've read lately.

Patrica Briggs, Silver Borne: I like this series a lot. Great MC, very nice love interest, and the character is always getting in way over her head. What's not to like about werewolves, shapeshifters, vampires, and the fey all rolled up in one well-written story?

Simone Elkeles, Rules of Attraction: I just discovered Ms Elkeles (courtesy of Kristen Nelson's blog), and was hooked from the first page of Perfect Chemistry. Rules of Attraction is about the brother of the MC of that book, and I was hooked just as quickly and just as thoroughly this time around. Gritty, realistic writing about teenagers in general, and teenagers involved in gangs in particular. I'll be checking out her other books as well.

Diana Rowland, Blood of the Demon: I have a somewhat nebulous connection to the author (I know her mother), which is how I discovered her first book (Mark of the Demon). I read the first book straight through in less than two hours, and this one as well. Lots of action, tension, a flawed but likeable MC, not to mention a murder mystery, a hot cop, and a smoking demon. You better believe I'll be buying anything else Ms Rowland writes.

Rachel Caine, Kiss of Death: I love this series (Morganville Vampires). LOVE. I loved this before I started reading Ms Caine's other series (Weather Warden, Outcast), which I also love…but not as much as these books. This one didn't disappoint, either. (Okay, confession time: I got four much-anticipated books in the mail in one package, which made choosing which one I read first QUITE difficult, but this one won, hands down.) Claire's a great MC, and I love her to death, but I love Shane, Michael, and Eve, too, and they're always getting in more trouble than I can even imagine.

P.C. and Kristin Cast, Burned: Another series I love. Although the previous book in the series ended in a devastating (for me, anyway) way, and I wanted to fling the book across the room. This book…was more about internal conflict. All of the characters struggled with major issues, but there wasn't a lot of overt action. Still a good read, though. Can't wait for the next one. (And, for the record, I think this series and the Morganville series are both WAY better than Twilight. Just sayin'.)

Jenna Black, The Devil's Playground: I sound like a broken record, but…I liked this book a lot. The series is fantastic. Great premise. An exorcist with an attitude in a world where demons are not only known about, but they can legally possess willing humans? You gotta love the originality of that idea!

Lisa Shearin, Bewitched & Betrayed: Not only does the MC of this series have an awesome name, Raine, she has a great family background—they're all thieves—and a smart mouth which lands her in trouble frequently. This book…okay, at the risk of sounding juvenile, I'll just say it…ROCKED! I. Couldn't. Put. It. DOWN! It was like it was glued to my hand! I was just as frustrated as Raine was with all the crap that kept getting dumped on her head, but I knew she'd figure a way out of it. I just couldn't imagine how. And…Mychael. I love Mychael. He is one of the best male characters I've run across, and I've now officially put him on the list of Fictional Guys I Adore with Rhett Butler and Jaime Fraiser. 'nough said.

Jamie Ford: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet: This book is not my usual fare, being more mainstream and literary than everything else on this list, which is definitely skewed sharply in favor of fantasy. (I can't help it. I love fantasy.) But this book…was very moving. Touching. Made me laugh. Made me cry. Made me want everything to work out just right so BADLY! If you haven't read it, you should.

Happy Dance!

2010-04-26T19:24:00.002-05:00

Do you have any idea how much time it takes to type in 92k-worth of novel revisions? Somewhere in the neighborhood of 13 hours. How do I know this? Because I did the entire type-in on the werewolf story this weekend! It. Is. Finished!

My legs and back ached from hunching over my keyboard. My eyes were crossed and bloodshot. My wrists hurt. I had finger cramps. But finally, at almost 11 p.m. last night, I finished it. Running spellcheck was almost anti-climatic.

I've been so focused on this revision for the past five months, that now, with it done, the sensation of not having anything to work on has me feeling a little lost. (Okay, to be honest, I'm feeling like one of the survivors of Oceanic flight 815, but that's another story.) I don't do well with nothing to do.

Fortunately, I have a query letter and a synopsis to write. And beta readers to get the story out to. And a partially written novel to finish. And that other revision I'm in the midst of...

There's no rest for the wicked...or is that the weary?

(Sorta) Finished

2010-04-21T07:19:00.002-05:00

I've been working through the hands-on part of the werewolf revision for the past few weeks. Sunday, I finally finished going through the MS, which means I added 26k of new material (I lost 15k in the computer malfunction), and got to THE END with this story for the first time. Yay! I've mentally been doing a happy dance since then.

Now I'm going through the MS one last time, focusing on Style & Grace, Pace, and Beginnings & Endings. I was actually feeling pretty good about the story, until I picked up the new Mercy Thompson book yesterday and immediately got sucked in. I was unable to put it down. Which, of course, made me wonder: Is the pacing in MY story that good? Will a reader be so sucked in they can't put it down, or will they be able to set it aside for a while easily? Is my Muse just messing with me, trying to make me feel inadequate, or is this a serious problem?

Now, if I only had the answers...

More YA Books!

2010-04-18T16:17:00.004-05:00

Okay, so this time I read two books by P.C. Cast: Elphame's Choice and Brighid's Quest, which takes us back to Ms. Cast's mystical world of Partholon.

I read her original Partholon books, the Divine books, several years ago, and loved them. They made me laugh. They made me cry. And they made me want to visit Partholon. (Sexy centaurs? Being able to control your own dreams? I'm SO there!) These two YA books kept the same familiar feel of the Divine books, but added another layer to the world.

From Ms Cast's website:

ELPHAME’S CHOICE

Worshiped. Set apart. Unable to connect with others.

Though most girls believe they are different, Elphame knows she is. Odd. Strange. Unique. No one in Partholon has her abilities – or her connection to their goddess. And she has a destiny she is about to discover…

A restlessness has infused her, leading her to the other side of her country. There, the remnants of an evil war still linger. Will Elphame be able to redeem both her country and her soul mate, a survivor of that war? The choice she makes now may bring disaster – or a future in which she may never again be alone.

The characters are what I truly love about these books. Elphame was a great character, very easy to relate to, despite her obvious differences. I felt strongly for her, and how she'd always been apart from everyone around her. Then there's her brother, Cu, who's a fun-loving rogue, popular with the ladies--until he falls in love. Brenna--the scarred healer who has never allowed herself to be seen. And Brighid, the centaur Huntress who has broken from her family and herd to live her own life.

Both these books are coming-of-age stories, about finding your own path in life and doing what makes YOU happy, no matter what other people think you should do. That's a hard thing to learn for a lot of young people (and even for those of us not so young anymore), and Ms Cast handles it well, all set against the vivid backdrop of Partholon.

Bodyslammed By Real Life...

2010-04-14T06:41:00.002-05:00

In a BIG way, this week. I'm getting towards the end of the revision for the werewolf story, which means all my scene "revisions"...are writing new scenes from scratch (due to the great computer malfunction, a.k.a. sporadic backup habits). So each scene is requiring a little bit more work than just revising already existing scenes. The good thing is that I have written most of the scenes before, so I have a feel for what needs to happen. The bad things is, well, having to write them again. My own fault, but still annoying.

At this point in the week, I intended to have six new scenes done. How many do I actually have done? Two. Yep. Just two. But I have a plan...I have an appointment for academic advising this morning, then I'm going to the job early, to spend some quality, internet-free time writing before I actually have to BE at work. I'm hoping that will get me another couple of scenes. Then, possibly, I'll have time to do some extra tomorrow and/or Friday. Which leaves me with Saturday (again, my goal is only two scenes), and Sunday--to finish up all of the "hands-on" part of the revision.

The angel story is languishing a little bit right now, but I'm hoping to get a few lessons in on it this week, too. And I wouldn't be quite so behind, except I'm baby-sitting a 4-month-old puppy this week. Do you have any idea how hard it is to do ANYTHING when there's a puppy with severe separation anxiety around, one that insists on being underfoot every second, and whining and howling when he's crated for the night? NOT EASY, I tell you. So I'm not sleeping much this week, either....

Magic Under Glass

2010-04-10T18:54:00.003-05:00

Okay, so I finally managed to read an actual book this week: Magic Under Glass, by Jaclyn Dolamore.

From Ms. Dolamore's website:

Nimira is a music-hall girl used to dancing for pennies. So when wealthy sorcerer Hollin Parry hires her to sing accompaniment to a mysterious piano-playing automaton, Nimira believes it will be the start of a better life.

In Parry's world, long-buried secrets are about to stir. Unsettling rumors begin to swirl about ghosts, a madwoman roaming the halls, and Parry’s involvement in a group of corrupt sorcerers for whom the rules of the living and dead are meant to be broken for greater power.

When Nimira discovers the spirit of a dashing fairy gentleman is trapped within the automaton, she is determined to break the curse. But even as the two fall into a love that seems hopeless, breaking the curse becomes a perilous race against time. Because it's not just the future of these star-crossed lovers that's at stake, but the fate of the entire magical world.

I was drawn to Nimira from the opening lines of the book--I felt immediately sympathetic for her and her situation, and wanted desperately to see her dreams come true. She comes from a life of privilege, yet she's forced to dance in a troup that barely earns enough to keep her alive while she dreams of more. And Holln Parry seems like the answer to her prayers.

Then she meets Erris, a fairy prince enchanted in the body of an automaton, and everything changes for her. I loved how expressive Erris was, even trapped in a wooden body, and I immediately fell for him myself, and wanted to help him. The world had a very Victorian, Old England feel, and it was vividly done, down to the details of the society that looked down on the "trouser girls" like Nimira. I will say I was so quickly drawn into the world of this story that I finished the entire book in one day. I loved it, and I can't wait for the sequel to come out (whenever that is)!

Still Eyeball-Deep...

2010-04-07T07:44:00.002-05:00

...in revisions on the werewolf story, but I think I'm making progress. Well, I feel like I'm making progress, anyway. Still loving this story, and the characters, even as I'm modifying them a bit. I'm getting close to the parts that will have to be totally-rewritten, which is something of a daunting idea, but I'm still excited about it.

The angel story is coming along well, too. Finished up the focus outline, and Muse tossed me some neat bits to help thicken the plot. Little things, but I think they'll add a lot of depth and conflict, so I'm looking forward to adding them into the mix.

Apart from that, it's SPRING here! Everything is beautiful and blooming, and the sun is shining. I get spring fever and want to spend lots of time outdoors. Not exactly conducive to getting a lot of writing done...

Nothing Doing

2010-03-31T14:56:00.001-05:00

Or, to be more accurate, I'm not doing much of anything. The revision is still going. No writing. Making progress on the angel revision as well. Other than that, nada. I haven't even had time to read! I hope someone out there is making more progress than I am!

The Shifter

2010-03-28T17:36:00.003-05:00

I've only read one book this week. Too busy with everything else—real life was a real you-know-what this week—for me to have any time to read anything at all, much less anything for pleasure. However, I did read The Shifter, by Janice Hardy.

From her website: Fifteen-year-old Nya is an orphan struggling for survival in a city crippled by war. She is also a Taker—with her touch, she can heal injuries, pulling pain from another person and storing it inside her own body. But unlike her sister Tali and the other Takers who become Healer’s league apprentices, Nya’s skill is flawed: she can’t push that pain into pynvium, the enchanted metal used to store person to person, a dangerous skill that she must keep hidden from forces occupying her city. If discovered, she’d be used as a human weapon against her own people. Rumors of another war make Nya’s life harder, forcing her to take desperate risks just to find work and food. She pushes her luck too far and exposes her secret to a pain merchant eager to use her shifting ability for his own sinister purpose. At first, Nya refuses, but faced with some difficult choices. As her father used to say, principles are a bargain at any price, but how many will Nya have to sell to get Tali back alive?

From the moment this book opened—with Nya caught red-handed while stealing eggs—I was drawn into the story, completely hooked. The magic system, Healers who can take and transfer pain from injuries, was fresh and new to me, and I immediately sympathized with Nya's need to keep her true abilities hidden, as well as her urge to protect her sister. Her struggle for survival in her war-riddled home was vividly done, and even the secondary characters felt real. This book was fast-paced and kept me turning pages long after I should have been asleep. Definitely a good read, and I recommend it.

And So It Begins

2010-03-24T07:56:00.000-05:00

After almost four months of blood, sweat, and tears with the HTRYN class, the real work has finally begun: the actual, hands-on revision. (Cue butterflies in the stomach. Big ones.) I almost had a panic attack before starting, but eventually I calmed down and got a grip. The first scene was technically a new scene—it was one I lost in the computer mishap—so I had to re-write it, as well as the second scene. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, though.

I'm not trying to get too ambitious, but I'd like to have this revision pass done in four weeks. Not entirely unreasonable, considering there's about 125 scenes. Some of them (a few), will only require minor work, but there are a lot of new scenes to be written—including the chunk at the end that I lost.

Judging from the marked-up pages I've already been through, I don't think I'm going to have any "perfect" pages (ones that don't need any changes). Stressful and intimidating, but at least it has begun.

Found: My New Favorite Author

2010-03-21T11:14:00.003-05:00

That would be Maggie Stiefvater, by the way. Her two books, Lament and Shiver were part of my recent Amazon binge. And wow, am I glad I binged! (Trust me, that's probably the only time you'll ever hear THAT phrase come out of my mouth.) I read these two books this week, and loved, loved, loved them both! They were completely awesome, but if you're looking for light, frivolous fiction, you won't find that here. These books are darker, edger, and completely addictive (Sort of like good dark chocolate. Mmmm.)

I read Lament, the first of the Books of Faerie, first.

From Maggie's website:

Deirdre, a gifted musician, finds herself infatuated with Luke, a mysterious boy who enters her life, at the same time she discovers she's a Cloverhand—one who can see faeries. Trouble is, Luke is a faerie assassin—and Deirdre is meant to be his next mark.

So, I was completely entranced from the opening scene, when Deirdre is on her way to a musical competition, and she's so nervous she has to immediately run to the bathroom to throw up (As usual), except that this time, Luke, the boy from her dreams, is there to help her (Not so usual.) Completely, utterly entranced. I loved the characters in this book. Even the minor ones are well-done and vivid, and I found myself actively disliking Deidre's mom. As for her aunt, well, "dislike" isn't quite a strong enough word. I read this in less than a day, desperate to find out what happened to Deidre and Luke, and how it was all going to go down. And, hello, evil faeries are pretty dang cool, too! (Although I have to admit, I prefer my faeries a little more...nice, I suppose. Like the Disney version, but not Tinkerbell. More like Legolas in LOTR. Okay, now I'm really digressing. Back on-subject.) Great book. When I finished it, I immediately went through my TBR pile hoping that I'd gotten the second book in the series, Ballad, so I could find out what happened next. Alas, I had not.

However, I had bought Shiver, which turned out to be a completely new take on werewolves--and not one I was sure I was going to like at first. Turns out I did. A lot. This is the first in the Wolves of Mercy Falls books. (The second one, Linger, comes out in July, the third, Forever, comes out in July of 2011.)

From Maggie's site:

For years, Grace has watched the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf—her wolf—is a chilling presence she can't seem to live without. Meanwhile, Sam has lived two lives: In winter, the frozen woods, the protection of the pack, and the silent company of a fearless girl.

Grace and Sam are wonderful characters. This book is dark--at least I thought so--full of a sense of futility and inevitability that had me almost in tears a lot of the time. Grace is something of an outsider, obsessed with the wolves, which no one understands. Sam is different than the other wolves. He's wolf, but he wants so badly to be human and have a human life. The story is told from both their viewpoints, and I have to admit, I'm HORRIBLE at paying attention to chapter headings, so this was occasionally confusing to me as I had to stop and check who I was with a few times. I loved this book. At first, I was a little unsure, but I got so into it and the cold that haunts its pages that it was almost a shock when I finished reading it and went outside into the 70 degree spring weather. If Linger was out now, I'd be happily reading it right this second. Sadly, it isn't. But as soon as it is...It's mine.

Nothing To See Here; Move Along

2010-03-17T08:04:00.003-05:00

I don't have any startling revelations to report this week, sadly. The writing is going well. The revisions on Tempest are still going, although this week is kind of a slog through murky waters dealing with setting details. I'm getting the final things in order to begin the actual revision pass through the werewolf story, which starts next week. I'm a little nervous about that. I hope I can actually get the vision I have for this story, the vision that's grown stronger with this class, down on paper and do it justice.

Let's see, what else has been going on? I went to the Fairgrounds racetrack on Saturday to see 2009 Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra race. There were an estimated 12,000 people there, and it was a beautiful spring day, if a little bit windy. Sadly, Rachel got beaten, although it was a good race, and fun to watch. It was an interesting experience. I've never seen people holding up signs at a horse race before, and the track is always a good place to go for people watching. People will wear anything out there, and it cracks me up. Seriously, would you wear 4-inch stilettos if you knew you were going to be tramping around on concrete for 5 hours? Not me. I'd trip and break my neck. But it proved quite entertaining.

And...that's pretty much it for me for now. I've two crits to work on for my crit group, along with various other odds and ends to keep me on-track for my goals for the year. Other than that, it's all good.

Eureka!

2010-03-10T06:54:00.002-06:00

Have you ever had one of those "AHA!" moments where something just clicks in your writing and everything just falls into place? I had one of those moments Sunday when I read the new HTRYN lesson. It was about time: flashbacks, flashforwards, etc. One of the exercises is to pick a scene and move it to the beginning and make it your opening scene.

I knew immediately which scene would work best as an opening, would create the most impact and conflict right off the bat. I felt like I'd been struck by lightening! I will definitely be moving this scene and opening the story with it, then I'll go into more detail when I get to its proper place. I think opening with it will immediately draw the reader in and keep them hooked until they find out what's going on.

So far, this lesson has clicked with me, and it definitely makes the top five best lessons I've learned from HTRYN. I think the class may be open again for enrollment, so if revision is something you struggle with, you should definitely check it out.

Chemistry and Angels

2010-03-07T17:57:00.003-06:00

Okay, so I've been doing a lot of reading lately. A lot of YA reading. And two books have really made a big impression on me in the last week: Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick, and Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles.

Hush, Hush is an urban fantasy about fallen angels and the ancient battle between good and evil, and everything in between. I enjoyed this book a lot. It had a fast pace, and it kept me guessing--although maybe a little bit too much. I read it almost straight through, trying to figure out what was going on, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Nora Grey, the female MC is an interesting character and I really liked getting to see things through her eyes. Puck, the male MC was intriguing and sexy with a nice hint of danger. Good read, and I recommend it.

Perfect Chemistry has one thing in common with Hush, Hush: the female MC gets assigned a new lab partner in science class and the first assignment is to find out everything they can about their new partner.(Kind of weird that I should run across this twice in back-to-back books.) And that's pretty much where the similarities end. I LOVED this book! I was up 'til 1 a.m. finishing it, desperate to find out what happened! It's a re-telling of West Side Story, with Brittany Ellis, a blond, upper class cheerleader and Alex Fuentes, a Latino gang member. Brittany wants everyone to believe her life is perfect--perfect grades, perfect family, perfect boyfriend--and appearance is everything to her. Alex just wants to survive and take care of his family. They come from opposite sides of the tracks, and their two groups don't mix. It just isn't done. When the two of them interact, the sparks literally fly off the page! I can't recommend this book highly enough! It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me want to shake some sense into the characters, but it was a great read. I can't wait for the sequel, which is about Alex's little brother. It comes out next month.

And that's all for now.

Spinning My Wheels

2010-03-03T08:49:00.002-06:00

Do you ever feel like you're at a constant, frenetic pace, but you're not actually going anywhere? Well, that's the way my life's been going this week. (Please tell me I'm not the only one who feels like this!) Busy, busy. I've gotten a bit of writing done, but I haven't hit my goals consistently (or even written a single word today). However, I'm making huge progress--at least I feel like it--in my revisions.

I broke down the angel story into plot and subplots, and wrote The Sentence for the whole book AND the individual threads. Wow. That was quite an eye-opening experience. I discovered that my plot has less scenes (by a nice margin, too) than one of my subplots, so that's going to require some changes, whether or not I switch the subplot to be the main plot or not. And I can see there are some other scenes that I need to write, although I'm not quite sure what they are yet.

In the werewolf story, I'm currently dealing with time. I had to sit down and figure out when each scene took place (Day one, day three, etc.). Which would have been MUCH easier if I'd kept the scratch calendar I made when I was outlining the second half of the story, complete with the scenes penciled in on their respective dates. (NOTE TO SELF: Do not throw any story notes away. AT ALL. No matter how trivial they seem at the time.) I've figured out that my scenes are heavily skewed towards the beginning and ending time-wise, of my story (which stretches over a 3-month period), so I'll be looking at changing that a little bit as well.

Other than that, one of my brothers got to town yesterday, and the other will be here tomorrow, so this weekend is family time!

Faeries and Werecats

2010-02-28T15:10:00.004-06:00

So, I've actually gotten some reading done this week! Yay!

I had to read Shift, by Rachel Vincent, as soon as I had it in my hot little hands. All of it. That day. Another dose of non-stop action, romantic angst, and cool shapeshifters. I was a little anxious going into this book, considering what happened in the last book, but... Can I say that the thunderbirds are way cool? I'd love to see more of them. The baby thunderbirds made me laugh, bursting into feather at the slightest provocation.

The war between the prides is on the verge of blatant hostilities (a.k.a. all-out battle) when the mythical thunderbirds attack, and all sorts of havoc ensues. Like it's not bad enough that Faythe is the first female enforcer AND heir to the pride, now she has to worry about who set the thunderbirds to attack her pride, not to mention how she's going to stop them. And then there's her other little problem: Marc or Jace? Jace or Marc? (Gee, we should ALL have such problems!) The last and final book in the Shifters series, Alpha, will be out October 1st.

I also read The Iron King, by Julie Kagawa. YA fantasy about the fey? I was all over that! Meghan Chase is a 15-year-old misfit with only one friend, Robbie. On her sixteenth birthday, her younger brother is kidnapped, and she discovers she's really a half-faery princess and she has to venture into the Nevernever (Great name, isn't it?), and risk herself and everything she holds dear, to rescue her brother, and the rest of Faery, from a deadly new evil. With the help of Robbie, who turns out to be her guardian, the faery prince Ash, and Grimalkin the cait sithe, she sets off on her journey, into the land of dreams--and nightmares.

This was a pretty good read. I enjoyed it a lot, and I'll be picking up the next book in the series--The Iron Daughter--just as soon as it comes out.

Swamped

2010-02-24T07:49:00.002-06:00

And not in a good way, either. I had a busy weekend, and I'm still struggling to get caught up. My to-do list is staring at me threateningly. My brain (or possibly my Muse) woke me up WAY early yesterday and today with a list of things I needed to be working on. And I have a lingering sense of guilt. All this means I haven't been getting done what I need to get done.

The only thing going really well--and that I'm not behind on--is the writing. The "new" story is flying along pretty well, and I'm about 22k in, so it's over a quarter of the way finished. This draft, anyway. Other than that...I'm behind.

Off to get some work done. I hope everyone else is being much more productive than I am lately.

A Game of Thrones

2010-02-21T18:51:00.002-06:00

I finally finished reading A Game of Thrones, by George R. R. Martin. If I had to sum it up in one word, that word would be "Wow." It took me several weeks to read it. Not because it's a BFF (big, fat, fantasy), which I love. And not because I didn't enjoy it, either. No, it took me so long to read because I just didn't have time to read! So far, that's the only book I've read this month. Shocking, I know, but I'm hoping to remedy it soon.

This book has been on my TBR pile for a while (a LONG while, sadly), and I just hadn't had time. But when Holly Lisle assigned it in the HTRYN class, I knew I had to make time. I'm glad I did. I've seen this book mentioned in several places as an example of how to do wonderful things with characters. I'll be honest. I was so into the book, I'm not sure I retained anything of a How-To nature. Several nights, I was up WAY too late saying "Okay, one more chapter. One more chapter. One more..."

Some of the characters I loved(Bran, Arya, Jon, Tyrion, Dany, Khal), some of them I hated (the queen, Joffrey, Viserys, Petyr). I wanted to shake Sansa frequently. But I'm pretty sure every character drew SOME sort of respone from me, and most of them were strong responses. So, yeah, wow. If you haven't read this, you should. Even if you don't like BFFs.

Advantages Of Living In The South

2010-02-17T08:12:00.002-06:00

When the forecast calls for the potential for snow (Or sleet, or a "wintry mix"), things shut down. Everything shuts down. The best part about that? My job actually cares about the safety of its employees, so they closed those of us in the "affected" area down for Friday. Which meant I had an unexpected--but very much welcome--day off. So I stayed home, and watched the record-breaking snowfall back home (the DFW area). It was beautiful, but I was glad I missed it. Meanwhile, all we got was rain. LOTS of rain. To the point that when I had to go outside, I was immensely grateful for my new rain boots, because there was at least three inches of water standing. Which would have been horrific if the temperature had dropped to the expected low and everything had actually frozen over (A lot of people said that was bound to happen, what with the Saints winning the Superbowl and all).

So instead of working on Friday, I got a lot of stuff done. I'm actually writing on the HTTS story. It's going well so far. I'm working on revisions for the other three stories. The zombie story is coming along slowly, but surely. The werewolf story...Wow. The actual revision itself should be interesting. And the angel story...I find I'm very unhappy with the POV, but I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do to fix it. For now, it's enough for me to know that it IS an issue, and I CAN fix it. And I will. No matter how much work it entails.

I Think My Muse Is Out To Get Me

2010-02-10T07:45:00.002-06:00

I'll admit I'm something of an overachiever. Well, maybe it would be better to say that I try to do too much, and when I don't have 17 things going on, I feel sort of lost. I also feel like I do my best work when I'm on the verge of being overwhelmed. That's a pretty accurate statement. (And if you've seen my goals for the year, you know it's true.) So, this month my focus was supposed to be on three things:

1) Revise the werewolf story (one lesson per week)
2) Revise the zombie story (one lesson per month)
3) Do four lessons in HTTS and start writing that story.

APPARENTLY, that wasn't enough for my Muse. Nope. He decided that I ALSO needed to start revising the angel story, because it's been burning a hole in the back of our brains for a while now, and I haven't even looked at it since I finished it on November 30th 2008. Clearly, Muse thinks it's been simmering back there long enough, and it's time to bring it out, make it look all appetizing, and put it on the menu. (Perhaps I should go eat breakfast. This is making me hungry.) Plus, I've seen a lot of angel stuff lately, and that's got me itching to work on the story even more. So. Here I go. Revising three stories simultaneously (though not all at the same level of frenetic intensity) while writing another one. The goal is to have a complete first draft from HTTS as well as two revised manuscripts by May--when I go on vacation. And boy, am I going to need it...

January Progress

2010-02-03T08:47:00.002-06:00

So, these were the goals I set in January for the entire year:

Write, using HTTS:
2YN 2
Ash's story

Revise, using HTRYN:
Werewolf story (already in progress)
Tempest
Chasing Shadows
Atlantis
TSS
Zombie story

Other goals:
Go back to school
Start learning Irish
Read 150 books
Blog twice a week
Run a half marathon

I feel like I'm doing pretty well so far this year. I'm into lesson 8 on HTTS for the 2YN sequel, and have a complete line-for-scene outline done. Yay! I'm revising the werewolf story AND dabbling about with revising the zombie story as well.

I've done some of my research for going back to school. I know when I have to have the different bits of paperwork in, and I'm pretty sure I've decided on a school with a program I'm interested in. I'm a little nervous about going back to school, but excited, too.

The Irish is going pretty well, too. I've got some of the basics down, and I found some really cool learning software I want to order ASAP. I've been so busy, I haven't had much time to read, though. Only 5 books in January, I think. The blogging is going well. I've hit my twice-a-week goal every week.

The gym...not so much. Working out has been sporadic at best, but I've done much better over the last week.

And...that's all for now, folks!

Committed (No, I'm Not Talking About Me)

2010-01-31T09:41:00.005-06:00

I finally got to read a book I've been waiting for for at least a couple of years: Committed, by Elizabeth Gilbert. It's the follow-up to Eat, Pray, Love; which, if you haven't read it, you SHOULD. It's how she got through a horrible divorce and discovered just what matters to her in life while she healed from the experience. I loved that book. A lot. Read it twice in the same year, actually. It just made me feel so much better about certain things going on in my life. Ms. Gilbert put into words exactly how I felt at a couple of times, and sort of validated the whole experience for me. (And also, I was a little jealous of her packing up and traveling for a whole year. I've always longed to do that, but have been too chicken to actually consider it.)

So, anyway, Committed is the follow-up. It... wasn't the same as Eat, Pray, Love, which was what I was hoping for. This time, Ms. Gilbert explores the history of marriage and different marriage customs around the world as she tries to come to terms with marriage after her bad first experience, in preparation for her... rather unplanned... second venture into wedded bliss.

However, it did make for some interesting reading. I enjoyed it, actually, and it's probably something I needed to read, to maybe help me over some of my own skepticism concerning marriage (My divorce was nowhere near as bad as hers, but I still have issues, okay?). A worthwhile book, as long as you don't go into it expecting it to be a repeat of Eat, Pray, Love.

On The Other Side of the Looking Glass

2010-01-27T08:08:00.003-06:00

So, if you haven't heard, the New Orleans Saints are going to the Super Bowl. (And really, if you haven't heard, what rock have you been hiding under?) First of all, let me say this: I'M GLAD THE SAINTS ARE GOING TO THE SUPER BOWL. There. That's out of the way. Really, I'm glad. However...I don't watch football. I don't know anything about football. And I'm fairly new to the NOLA area, so I... don't quite get the whole level of excitement that has invaded this area. I mean, I get that people have been waiting for this to happen for like 40 years, but to me, in my football-neutral mind, I'm thinking "So? It's just a game." Um, apparently not, to a LOT of people around here. At work, total strangers have been asking "Wasn't that a great game?" (To which the reply "What game?" apparently isn't an acceptable answer. Oops.) When they won the game Sunday night, there were fireworks going off outside. People driving down the street were honking their horns. People ran around outside screaming. And--and this part is kind of scary--people were shooting guns up into the air. It's CRAZY. The newspaper sold out on Monday, so they had to re-print it yesterday, and everyone you see is wearing black and gold. Bourbon Street looked like Mardi Gras. It was just mind-blowing for me. That level of excitement I'd have to reserve for winning the lottery or getting a publishing contract.

In other, non-football-related news, my HTTS lessons are going much better this time. So far, anyway. The lesson I'm at now is outlining, one sentence per scene, on index cards. I'm not an index card person. I prefer to do a phase outline, with a paragraph or two (or sometimes a page) per chapter. But I promised myself I'd do these lessons like Holly says, so I sat down yesterday and started working on my cards. Counting the four scenes I already had sentences for (from previous worksheets), and the sentences I got from the 8k I already have written on the story, I had nine cards done. My goal was to do five more.

However, my Muse started pitching ideas at me, and when I finally stopped working on the cards, I had 30 cards done! 30! Woot! Go, Muse! Now I just need 5 cards today. I'm starting to get really excited about this story, too. Love the characters, and can't wait to work on them again. Sam has some really mean things in store for her...

The werewolf revisions are going pretty well. I think I'm about to get into the really heavy-duty stuff, so I'm actually looking forward to that. And I saw Legion this weekend. SCARY--to me, anyway, I'm a chicken (Have you SEEN the preview where the old lady crawls on the ceiling? Bleh. TOO CREEPY!) --but it has me anxious to start revising Tempest.

And... that's all for now.

Soul Screamers

2010-01-24T20:33:00.004-06:00

Okay, so about a year and a half ago, at the Conestoga writers' conference, I sat in on a panel with Rachel Vincent and her agent, Miriam Kriss. Rachel mentioned she was writing a book about a girl who finds out she's a banshee. I thought Wow. What a cool idea. I HAVE to read that. So, when the first one, My Soul To Take, came out, I was all over it. Now, I love the Shifters books. A LOT. (Although I was not so happy with a couple of things that happened in the last one. I do have faith though, and am eagerly awaiting the next one in March.) I think Ms. Vincent is a talented writer, and she tells a dang good story, so her YA story about banshees was kind of a must-read for me.

If you haven't read My Soul to Take, you should. Seriously. Teenager Kaylee thinks she's going crazy when she starts having an uncontrollable urge to scream, and people drop dead around her. The second book, My Soul to Save, has Kaylee trying to figure out why teenage pop stars die in front of her, and she has no desire to wail. This means the dead girls don't have a soul, and of course, Kaylee is determined to find out why these girls are trading their souls, which involves sneaking around and trips to the dangerous Netherworld.

There's a lot of the typical teen angst in the books (Apparently, banshees aren't exempt from this.), overbearing parents, and school drama. But Ms. Vincent captures these things so well you really feel like you're the one going through it all. Since a lot of my writing is YA, I'm truly amazed by this (and hopeful that one day I might manage to capture some small part of it in my own work). If you like fast-paced YA books set in a truly original world (Or, in this case, the DFW area, which made me a tiny bit homesick.), you should definitely read both of these books.

Blessings

2010-01-20T07:30:00.003-06:00

Do you ever have one of those days where you think your life sucks, that the Universe is out to get you, that you just can't catch a break? Where everything that can go wrong, does, and you spend the rest of the day sitting around feeling sorry for yourself, muttering Oh, woe is me! and practically wearing sackcloth and ashes? Those days suck. I hate those days.

I'm usually an optimistic person. I do tend to worry about some things, but I am also firmly of the belief that What Is Meant To Be, Will Be (without any worrying from me), and that God has everything under control (and He clearly doesn't need my help in running things). So. I try not to worry about stuff. Sometimes, though, sometimes I get a little overwhelmed. I start thinking how I wish I made more money 'cause it seems like I'm always broke, and hey, I'd really, really like to be able to buy any random book that catches my eye on Amazon, or a cute pair of boots, or maybe a CD (The soundtrack to Book of Eli HAS to be an awesome writing CD, 'cause the music was fabulous.). Or how much I miss my best friend (still back home in Texas) and her two kids, and how it sucks that all my super close friends live at least 600 miles away. Or that I wish my two brothers and I lived closer together. I start thinking all this, and then I get a little bit down.

And then I see something on the news about the earthquake victims in Haiti, and how they don't have food or water or shelter and a lot of them are still trapped in the rubble, and I realize something: You know, I have a GREAT life. A really great life. I may not have a lot of extra cash (or any, sometimes), but I have food and water and a place to live and a job that pays my bills (mostly). I don't have to walk around naked (Thank God!) or in rags. I'm not trapped somewhere, suffering and in pain. Yeah, I miss my friends, but we still keep in touch all the time. And I've made some great new friends here. I do miss my brothers, but again, we keep in touch, and I should be seeing them soon. And then I start thinking about how crappy it was of me to complain about my life when so many people have it SO MUCH WORSE! (This is usually followed by me mentally beating myself up for being an ungrateful wench, but that's a story for another day.)

Yes, I did have this major epiphany a couple of days ago. But epiphanies don't always have to be huge and life-encompassing. Last night, I was working on the newest lesson of HTRYN. I struggled majorly with last week's lesson, but finally got through it. This week... looks to be another struggle, although hopefully not as large. But I was reading through the message boards, feeling sorry for myself about how much work the werewolf story needs when I came across a post from a person whose first draft was 758,000 words. Wow. Can you imagine? I can't. And Witches came in at 300k at the end of the first draft (Down to 180k now, thank you very much!). But 758,000 words? My blood ran cold at the very thought. The amount of effort it took to write that takes my breath away. And when I think of how much work it will be to edit...

I am SO blessed.

Captivated

2010-01-17T14:35:00.004-06:00

I just finished reading Captivate, by Carrie Jones, the sequel to Need. It's about pixies, but not cute, glittery Tinker Bell pixies. No. These are blue, have scary-sharp teeth, and sometimes eat people. Yeah. So NOT Disney-approved. But still very cool.

Zara is half-pixie, half-human. Her father is a sometimes-insane pixie king she keeps imprisoned. Nick is her werewolf/guardian boyfriend. Then there's Devyn, another were, and Issie, who is human. Together, the four of them patrol for pixies and lock them away for the safety of their small town. But then things change. Astley, another pixie king shows up. Someone has to take over the territory left untended by Zara's father, so the pixie kings are circling like vultures. This in turn draws the Valkyries, who are searching for warriors. Nick is a warrior. He's determined to protect Zara, which puts him in danger. And Zara has to decide between giving in to what she fears the most to protect Nick, or remaining true to herself.

This book is an excellent read. Once I started it, there was no putting it down. The voice is light-hearted and fun, yet serious and angsty at the same time. Very fitting for a YA book. Some funny moments, lots of tension and drama, and some pretty cool relationship moments. My only issue? The fact that it ended and I can't find out what happens. RIGHT. NOW. Can't wait for the next one to come out! (Whenever that is.)

Momentum...Fading...

2010-01-16T08:39:00.003-06:00

I've been doing pretty well so far this year, keeping up with the lessons in the HTRYN course, and starting over with HTTS. But this week...Not so much. It's been hard this week, and I haven't had much "free" time to work. Nowhere near as much as I'd like, anyway. Not by a long shot. I should be finishing up lesson seven in HTRYN tomorrow. Instead, I haven't even really started it, apart from printing out the worksheets, and reading the lesson about three times to try and grasp the information. It's about Setting, and this lesson, for me, is DEEP. And very much needed... Hopefully I'll get a chance to do some work on it later tonight.

On the up side, I did wake up two mornings ago with a complete story idea dancing before my eyes, so I grabbed a notebook and scribbled down the high points, as well as any details I could remember. Interesting story. And not like anything I've written. Epic fantasy with a heavy war element, which is totally not like me at all. Intriguing idea, though....(*staring at notebook with story notes longingly* No. Can't work on that now. Have other darlings to worry about right now...But later, My Precious. Later.)

That's about all I've got going on for now. How's everyone else's week going?

Is It Hot In Here?

2010-01-10T13:21:00.007-06:00

We're already a week and a half (more or less) into January, and I've only read—Gasp!—one book. Yes. Just one. Wow. I know, right? I'm also re-reading Gone With The Wind for like the 25th time. Last year is the only year in recent memory that I haven't read it. I started it, but didn't finish. So now I'm trying to do that, I just haven't had time lately! Besides, I'm in the middle of being annoyed at Scarlett (Yes, again! What? You thought that just because I've read it so many times I wouldn't get mad at her? Not to mention Rhett. I'd like to knock their heads together, or shake some sense into them. Okay. Rant over.)

Anyway, the only book I've read so far this year is Jill Myles' Gentlemen Prefer Succubi. Great title, right? And fantastic cover art! Hello, Mr. Fallen Angel. (On a side note, clearly, my life is not fiction. Men like this do not exist in my world. Sadly. Sigh.) So, back to the book. It's about Jackie, who wakes up in a dumpster to discover she's not only hooked up with a fallen angel, but to top off the night-she-doesn't-really-remember, got bitten by another guy and turned into a succubus. Yeah. One of those nights. She ends up in the middle of a battle between the vampires and the angels, torn between the two sides: the sexy fallen angel and the hot vampire. (We should all have problems like this, no?)

This book…was a highly entertaining read. I laughed out loud several times, especially when Jackie was trying to resist the Itch (the, ah, driving force for a succubus). Ms. Myles has a deft touch with humor, as well as making the book smokin' hot! (Again, check out the cover art!) If you like hot heroes, bad boys, and humor, you should definitely read this book!

Is It Crowded In Here, Or Is It Just Me?

2010-01-06T20:15:00.003-06:00

So, I've been working through Lesson 6 of the HTRYN class. It's about characters, and figuring out if they're doing what they need to be doing, or if they're just...taking up space. So far, I've stumbled across a couple that are more or less just taking up space. A lot of them do live up to what I need them to do, more or less, but I need to put some thought into exactly what I want them to do and fire the rest of them. (Donald Trump. That's me.) It's food for thought, anyway, and something I never even considered before.

I'm getting into editing the zombie story as well. Wow. Hard to believe how off-track from the original vision this story ended up. It's going to take a lot of elbow grease, but I think it can be massaged back into something resembling that original idea (only better).

And, in other news, I'm slowly working through the HTTS lessons for the 2YN sequel. Currently, I told my Muse what I wanted and gave it a deadline. It's lobbed a couple of un-related (but possibility-rich) ideas at me, and also given me some rather staggering suggestions for its actual assignment. And I do mean staggering. One of them completely knocked me for a loop, and left me going "Wow. Really? You think so?" (Muse does.) I'm still waiting for the answer to "Why?", but it's all good. Funny how the Muse is currently personified by Gerard Butler, as he looked in The Ugly Truth (complete with devilish glint in eye and crooked grin). Go figure. But as far as visions go, I could be doing a lot worse!

Goals for 2010

2010-01-01T08:22:00.003-06:00

Okay, so you knew this was coming. I can't help it. I'm OCD about some things. Making lists, especially To-Do Lists, is one of them, and goals for an entire year are like the mother of all To-Do Lists, so here's mine for the year. Well, some of them. I have a lot of personal goals that aren't really relevant, and are more like things I want to get done this year (upgrade my computers' memories, for example), so this is mainly just my writing-related goals.

Write, using HTTS:
2YN 2
Ash's story

Revise, using HTRYN:
Werewolf story (already in progress)
Tempest
Chasing Shadows
Atlantis
TSS
Zombie story

Other goals:
Go back to school
Start learning Irish
Read 150 books
Blog twice a week
Run a half marathon

Looking back over this list, which is NOT the complete list by any means, I feel I should probably add another one: Learn to function without sleep. So, how about you? What are your goals for the year?

What I Accomplished This Year

2009-12-31T19:42:00.002-06:00

So, here are the goals I set for 2009:

-Zombie story (finish)
-Werewolf story
-Witches II
-2YN II
-Ash's story
-Mena's story

I want to edit five stories:
-Tempest of Angels
-Werewolf story
-Zombie story
-Witches II
-2YN II

I want to polish three stories:
-2YN
-Witches
-Atlantis story

I want to start subbing two stories:
-2YN
-Atlantis story

My personal goals:
-Read 165 books.
-Learn one Japanese lesson per month.
-Start a professional website (I sort of gave up on this one last year, but I'm giving it another go this year).
-Run 5 miles in less than an hour.
-Do 10 pull-ups.
-Write 300,000 words

And here is what I actually accomplished:
-finished zombie story
-wrote werewolf story
-wrote Witches II
-wrote Mena's story
-wrote about 2 chapters on the 2YN II

-started editing the werewolf story with Holly Lisle's How To Revise Your Novel class (which is brilliant, by the way)
-polished Witches
-polished the Atlantis story
-polished the 2YN story
-started subbing the 2YN story (and have had 3 partial requests so far, so yay, got a step farther this time)
-wrote 368,771 words

Everything else...didn't quite happen. But that's okay, right? I did accomplish a lot this year. I learned a lot. I'm mostly happy with everything I got done. And I have a lot of things planned for next year (What a surprise, right?), which I'll be posting about tomorrow.

Procrastination...

2009-12-17T17:59:00.002-06:00

I'm so bad at it. Or, really, a little too good. All day today "Finish Zombie Chapter" has been at the top of my to-do list. And still it sits there, with no actual writing being done on said chapter. Why? Because I've been chasing pretty lights across the internet, of course. Most of the time, I consider myself fairly disciplined as a writer. Today? Not so much. It's cold here. Rainy. Taking a nap sounded like a much better idea than writing. And also, checking my email incessantly for no apparent reason. But that's over with now. I WILL finish this chapter tonight. I've sort of lost the feel for this story, but it should be fun anyway. I get to vicariously raid an army base and shoot things. Sounds entertaining, right?

I also need to do some work on the revisions class. Seems I'm having some difficulties pinpointing conflicts in some of my scenes, so I really need to buckle down and focus on this, so I can wrap my brain around it. I can feel a break-through looming on the horizon, but not if I continue to procrastinate. So I'm done with that. Off to work now...Wish me luck.

What I've Been Reading Lately

2009-12-13T20:07:00.003-06:00

Okay, honestly, I haven't really been reading that much lately. Shocking, I know, but I'm trying to keep up with Holly Lisle's HTRYN class, so that's taking up a lot of my time. And before that, it was NaNo, so there went a whole month's worth of "free" time. But I did make time to read two much-anticipated (and big) novels by some of my favorite authors.

First up was Gathering Storm, by Robert Jordan and Brian Sanderson. When Robert Jordan passed away, I wondered if the Wheel of Time series would ever be finished, and if it was, if it would measure up to the rest of the series. Yes, I know there's a lot of flack out there for this, ah, never-ending, overly-detailed storyline. So? I like it. I like getting to know characters and caring about them, and finding out all the little details of their lives. And I'm pleased to say that I enjoyed Gathering Storm quite a bit. It's been quite a while since I read the other books, so I was more than a little bit fuzzy on recent happenings, but it didn't take long to get my memory refreshed. Frankly, I think Sanderson's writing blended seamlessly with Jordan's storytelling, and I was very happy with the results. Yes, it's detailed. Yes, it's long. Yes, there are a lot of characters to keep up with. But this book built steadily from the beginning, and while there wasn't really a resolution at the end (How could there be?), it had a satisfying (to me) ending.

I also read Under the Dome, by Stephen King. Every time I read a King book and I scare myself silly, I swear I won't read another one. And then the next one comes out, and I can't wait to read it, and end up scared again. This book...wasn't scary. At all. I don't think it was meant to be. This is more of a character study. And King creates some great characters, so I really enjoyed this book. Interesting premise, about a small town (in Maine, of course) that gets trapped under a mysterious dome (hence the title). And what changes the trapped townsfolk undergo. I liked the MC, "Barbie" a lot. He was a good character, a strong, upstanding and stubborn guy. The supporting cast is vividly realized, and I found myself actively hating Rennie and wishing horrible things on him (Admittedly, I thought he deserved a LOT more bad things.) In the end, the explanation for the dome was a little bit...out there, but what King story doesn't have a little bit of the strange and weird in it? I still enjoyed the story a lot, and I'd recommend it to anyone who's afraid to read King. This one's not scary. Not even a little bit.

Life After NaNo

2009-12-12T18:28:00.000-06:00

Even though it's no longer November, I've still been doing some writing. My goal is to finish up my chapters of the zombie story this month, so I'll have that behind me. (I'm not trying to rush my co-writer. She has two jobs, two kids, and a husband. She'll get hers written when she has time. I just want to finish my part so that's one more thing I don't have to worry about.) I've been away from this story for six months or so, and it's proving rather difficult to move back into writing from two male POVs (one military). Quite a change from my urban fantasies I've been working on.

I've also managed, so far, to keep up with Holly Lisle's How To Revise Your Novel class. Okay, so it's only week two, but still, I'm mostly caught up. I'm planning on finishing up the "Promises" lesson today. This class…is mind-blowing. The way I'm learning to look at some things is just amazing. Currently, I've realized that Chance is a little too clothing-obsessed, and that I need to add some more details in to make the reader more grounded. My characters seem to interact in a vacuum a lot, and that won't do. Plus, it's boring. So, that's what I'm up to right now. How's everyone else?

YA Reading Binge

2009-12-06T14:53:00.001-06:00

Lately I've been reading quite a bit of YA. Some of it in series I'm familiar with, and then a series I've been wanting to read for a while and just hadn't. I enjoy YA books. I guess they speak to a part of me that never really grew up, and maybe that's why a lot of my own writing ends up being YA. Either way, the books I've read lately have been excellent.

First up is Tempted, by P.C. and Kristin House, the sixth book in the House of Night series. By this time, the characters are well-established and I'm completely invested in the series. Completely. Anytime one of these books hits my hot little hands, that's all I'm doing for the next couple of hours. This book was no exception. There's a great mystery in this one, with Stevie Rae keeping major secrets from everybody, and of course, Zoey has her little secret as well, not to mention boyfriend issues. A lot of them. This time we get to see some of the action through the eyes of other characters as well, which was really enjoyable. I really like how Aphrodite is turning out, despite my immense dislike of her in the first few books. I…didn't care for the ending. At all. But it fits the book, so I'm not really complaining (Can I help it if I like a HEA ending?). Just saying. I can't wait for the next one.

Next is Fade Out, by Rachel Caine, book seven in the Morganville Vampire series. These books are also one my "Must Sit Down And Read Immediately" list. So I did. Another entertainingly good read. Things have settled down a little bit for Claire since Bishop is gone, but things still aren't good in Morganville. Amelie is having issues and everyone is worried about her. There's a new Goth chick that is trying to take Claire's place as Eve's BFF. And, just for laughs, Ada the crazy computer/ghost is out to get Claire. This book didn't have the usual dangling-over-a-cliff ending, but I'll still be anxiously awaiting the next one.

And the "new" (new to me) series I've been wanting to read for a while: the Gallagher Girls by Ally Carter, which have really awesome titles. The first one is I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have To Kill You. The second is Cross My Heart And Hope To Spy. The Gallagher Academy bills itself as super exclusive private school for rich girls, but in reality, it's an all-girls spy school. This doesn’t have a Harry Potter feel, if you're wondering. They're in a chick lit, fun voice, that had me drawn in by the second page. The books are about Cammie and her three best friends. Cammie's mom runs the Gallagher Academy, and was a super spy herself. (No pressure to live up to parental standards there.) The girls know how to do all kinds of things, including speaking umpteen different languages, and killing someone with a paper clip, but when Cammie meets a regular boy from the local town, she's clueless how to handle him.

In the second book, boys from the even-more-secret boys spy school arrive at the Gallagher Academy; the sparks really fly for Cammie and her friends. There are some awesome little details in these books that make the stories really come alive, from the classes the girls take (like Covert Ops, taught by an Indiana Jones-esque new professor), to the magazines they read (Espionage Today), and things like Evapopaper (paper that disintegrates, of course). Really excellent reads, both of them. The series is now on my automatic buy list.

And, that's all I have for now. Happy reading!

2009-12-04T20:53:00.002-06:00

So, I intended this blog to be mostly about writing. But there are other things in the world besides writing. I know it's hard to believe, but there are. However…some of the things that aren't strictly writing related do actually have connections, in my mind anyway, to writing. For example, the man I saw in the French Quarter a few months back, dancing on the sidewalk in a green sequined skirt and feather boa. He gave me an idea for how my faeries in this year's NaNo gain their magic. He also showed up as a character. At first glance, not related to writing at all. But then again, completely related.

Something else that makes me think of writing: movies. But not just any movies. Really good movies that provoke a strong emotional reaction from the audience. And it doesn't have to be a reaction of sadness or grief, either. That's the kind of stories I want to write: thing that draw a strong emotional reaction from the reader, a story that is sheer unadulterated pleasure for the reader.

I saw a movie like that last week: All Saints' Day (the sequel to The Boondock Saints). The first movie came out in 1999, barely hit theaters, but developed a cult following when it came out on DVD. I personally think it's a great movie. It's bloody, full of profanity and violence, yet completely unapologetic for those things. All Saints' Day is more of the same, a sheerly entertaining movie. I loved it. It opened in limited release over a month ago, and I drove an hour to see it in the only theater in the entire state that was showing it at the time. Totally worth the drive. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Thankfully, I don't have to. It's now showing only fifteen minutes from home, and I'll see it again at least once. But that's the kind of stories I want to write: sheer fun and breathless entertainment (Although I'll admit the hot Irish guys don't hurt, either.)

Done!

2009-11-30T20:15:00.002-06:00

I finally finished the story today. Finally. I got seriously behind last week, and it took some major hours at the computer to get where I wanted to be (10k on Saturday, 10k again on Sunday, 4k today), but I finished. I accomplished two things this month: 1) I hit 100,000 words, and 2) I wrote every single day. Granted, a few days it was only a couple of hundred words, and one day, I know it was only 15 words, but still. I wrote every day. And I'm happy that I did, thrilled that I got the entire first draft down.

Is the story finished? Absolutely not. It's going to sit for at least two months, probably longer, and then I'm going to revise it. It needs it. Parts of it need a lot of revising. Parts of it, hopefully only a little. The characters surprised me a lot. Mina's boss, Richard, was way nicer than I imagined him. And Phoenix...well, Phoenix turned out not be quite the hard **s I thought he was going to be. And I think that's a good thing. I still like him a lot, though, and right now, I'm actually looking forward to doing the revision on this.

And speaking of revision, I'm in the first class of Holly Lisle's How To Revise Your Novel, which I'm really excited about, because hey, I don't like revisions. I know the story needs fixed, I just...usually don't know how to go about it. So I'm hoping this will give me the tools I need to figure that out and make the story (stories) stronger.

Congratulations to everyone who did NaNo, winners or not. Yay! /cheerleading

Playing Catch Up

2009-11-16T22:48:00.002-06:00

So, it looks like I can only manage to post here once a week. You'd think that meant I'd been doing a ton of writing, wouldn't you? You'd be wrong. Because I've been doing quite a bit of other things that aren't writing.

Like watching men in kilts throw trees around. Yes, seriously. Why are you looking at me like that? I went to a Celtic Music Festival/Scottish Games. Quite interesting, let me tell you. Men in kilts. Throwing trees. And flinging burlap bags (weighted) into the air with pitchforks. Quite impressive as well. I can only imagine me either hitting myself in the head with the 16-pound hammer, or stabbing myself with the pitchfork. Ah. Good times...The music was excellent, as well. You don't hear many harps these days, but I listened to one awesome performer. All of which allowed me to successfully procrastinate for almost the entire day Sunday. Yes, I'm behind. No, I'm not giving up. I shall hit my word count goal of 100k for NaNo!

Day 10: 1,772 words (23,085 Total)
Day 11: 60,040 (29,125)
Day 12: 1,009 (30,134)
Day 13: 1,012 (31,146)
Day 14: 3,218 (34,364)
Day 15: 1,205 (35,569)
Day 16: 2,180 (37,749)

And, as a side note: I hit my word count goal for the year today! 300,000 words!

NaNoing In Spite of the Storm

2009-11-09T19:33:00.003-06:00

Or, Tropical Storm Ida. She's coming ashore tonight, which is supposed to mean wind and rain here. (*Looks outside. No rain. Only occasional signs of wind.*) My company decided this warranted scheduling changes, so I got off two hours early. And what did I do with my ill-gotten gains? Um...caught up on the blogs I haven't read in at least a week. Incessantly checked my email. Looked for random people I have no actual interest in finding on Facebook. Oh, and continually tried to check the NaNo website, which is apparently experiencing some technical difficulty.

And yes, some writing. I actually got 1k this morning before work, and 1.75k tonight, which hits my word count goal for the today, plus 1k to make up for the ah, less than stellar word count weekend I had:

Day Six: 2,509 (17,951 Total)
Day Seven: 322 (18,273)
Day Eight: 264 (18,537)
Day Nine: 2,776 (21,313)

I may not have gotten much writing done this weekend, but I did accomplish some other things: Seeing a completely unbelievable concert on Friday night. Cross Canadian Ragweed (a.k.a. CCR. Yeah, I know, not the CCR. But still completely awesome.). Now, back home, they get airplay on the mainstream country stations, but they're more styled as "Texas Country." Not that you could tell that from their hard-rocking style. I've seen them twice before, both at outdoor venues, and this time was at the Hard Rock Live in Biloxi, MS. Small venue. Mind-blowing show, complete with awe-inspiring guitar and their traditional, in-your-face songs (My favorite? Lighthouse Keeper, which, as a friend of mine said once, only makes sense if you're on something. I wasn't, but I still love that song. It sounds best at top volume with the windows down.) Micky & the Motorcars opened for them. Styled as "alt-country", Micky & the Motorcars also did a great show with a ton of adrenaline.

On Sunday, I participated in a fundraising walk for the National Kidney Foundation. Excellent cause, lots of fun, and done in Audubon Park, which is an oasis of beautiful scenery. Stately old oaks draped with Spanish moss. A small lake. Beautiful houses surrounding it. In short, an excellent setting for Mina to get into some sort of trouble during the course of this book.

So, while I may not have been actually writing, I was researching. Yeah. That's it. Now if I can just figure out a way to work that concert into the story...

Of Murderers and Kilts

2009-11-08T18:08:00.003-06:00

I haven't been doing as much reading as normal lately. I'm not sure why. It just seems like I've been super busy, and reading has actually fallen by the wayside (Unheard of, I know). I'm only up to around 112 books read for the year, and that's pretty far short of my year goal of 165. I'm not sure if I'm going to make that one…

I read the newest book in Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta series, The Scarpetta Factor. I've read this entire series, and I enjoyed most of them immensely. There were a couple of books, probably the last three or so before this one, that I thought weren't quite up to Cornwell's normally stellar standards, but they were still good reads. I think The Scarpetta Factor brings back a lot of the wonderful things I liked from the earlier books.

All of the familiar characters are back: the reformed Marino, self-destructive Lucy, and of course, Kay and Benton. There's an interesting murder case, as well as a missing person, a bomb delivered to Kay's door, and a mysterious singing Christmas card that really gave me the creeps (Good thing I didn't get that little gem in the mail.) The ending felt a little rushed to me, but it was a good, fast-paced read, and I had trouble putting it down.

A book I absolutely could not put down was Diana Gabaldon's An Echo in the Bone, the newest book in the Outlander series. I read the rest of the series back-to-back during the summer, and was honestly confused to come back to the real world and not find myself in Scotland. (It just felt wrong to not be surrounded by warrior-type men in kilts. Wrong, and sad.) The newest book was absolutely wonderful! I love the characters, feel like I know them personally (I wish, anyway.). Ms. Gabaldon makes the setting, whether it be an early American hillside, the dells of Scotland, or the deck of a sailing ship in the middle of a sea battle, come to life so vividly it amazes me. She's a marvelous writer, and even the minor characters come to striking life on the page.

I stayed up far, far too late reading this book (more than one night), and I have to say, I wish it had been even longer. However, the ending about drove me mad. I wanted so badly to find out what happened next that I could have cried. And when I realized the previous book came out four years ago and I might have to wait that long to actually find out what happens, I did cry. (Huge tears of frustration.) However, I did manage to refrain from banging my head against the wall, so there's one small victory. If you haven't read this series yet, you should run right out and get it. But when you come dragging in some morning, having been up all night glued to the page, and growling because Jaimie and Claire are in limbo while waiting for the next book, don't say I didn't warn you.

We're All Crazy Around Here

2009-11-05T09:23:00.003-06:00

Those of us doing NaNo, anyway. So, for those of you who are, how's it going?

Pretty well, for me. I started the month with the first four chapters outlined (just a general, phase outline), and an insane goal of 100k. I had basic ideas of how the story would end up--and that's still where I stand, with no real idea of the ending. I'll be figuring that out soon, though. Hopefully.

My MC, Aramina, is an accident-prone elf who gets shanghaied into looking for the missing son of an old family friend who's been murdered. There's more going on than Mina realizes, including something strange at the tomb of voodoo queen Marie Laveau, and the mystery man she keeps running into. Then there's her cheating ex-boyfriend, a detective working the case, and Lorgan, her best friend (a faerie) who does his best to keep her in tiptop, dressed-to-the nines shape. When he's not singing kareoke or getting handcuffed to his bed, that is. It's tentatively titled Chasing Shadows, although that's not quite right. But it'll do for now.

Day One WC: 9,009
Day Two WC: 531 (9,540 Total)
Day Three WC: 2,832 (12,372)
Day Four WC: 1,512 (13,884)
Day Five WC: 1,558 (15,442)

Loose Ends

2009-10-18T19:09:00.001-05:00

The first draft of the Witches sequel is done! It comes in at 135k, which is less than half the word count of the first draft of Witches. It even has a title: Shadows of Winter. The title came to me a couple of days ago, like a bolt from the blue. No, Witches still doesn't have a title, although I'm getting glimmers of an idea in that direction. I try not to push it. It will give me its name when it wants to, sort of like my characters do. I also finished up the first draft of the werewolf story last week. I had computer issues with it that meant I lost about 15k of it, but since I was aware that the story had some issues in the front end, I decided not to worry about that (not that worrying would have done me any good at all anyway), and just put in quick and dirty summaries for the last chapters, since I know good and well there are going to be major changes made during the revision. It's all good.

So, that leaves getting ready for NaNo as my only loose end. With two weeks left, there's plenty of time. Except that for seven of those days, I'm gong to be out of town, and for three days before that, I'll need to be getting ready to leave. So, that really only gives me three days to finish my outline and get everything ready for the madness. No sweat, right? Right. Ah…Need to go look at that outline again. I think I have, oh, the first chapter planned. But I do have some really nasty things in mind to inflict upon my characters…If they'd just finish telling me their names, this would be so much easier!

Things Change

2009-09-20T19:53:00.002-05:00

This has been a rather rough weekend. My little brother is moving back to Texas tonight, and I'm really going to miss him. We're pretty close, and he's one of my best friends. Not that I blame him for moving back. I miss it, too, even though I like it here. It's hard, though. Here, I have my parents, a job that I really like, and I've always liked this area. But Texas...will always be home. My friends are there, friends that I really, really miss sometimes. And the culture is totally different there. Much more normal to me. :) It's funny, some of the things I miss, from the music on the radio to the wonderful Mexican food. And don't even get me started on spring. Springtime in Texas is beautiful, with the Indian paintbrushes and the bluebonnets blooming. I get really homesick in the spring.

But I've had so much more time to write here. Part of that is the job I have has normal hours, part of it is me focusing so much on the writing. Regardless, I've gotten a ton of things done in the year since we moved here, and I've gotten all sorts of fodder for stories. Guess things are just on a downswing right now.

On the up side, my BFF had her son last night, so I'd like to say a big hello to little Rowan. I can't wait to see him! (Have a trip all planned for next month.) Until then, I'll just have to admire his pictures.

Querying

2009-09-14T00:03:00.002-05:00

Well, I finally bit the bullet and started querying the 2YN novel (To Vanquish a Dragon). I love this story, but it's time it went out into the world. I sent a handful of queries. So far, I've heard back from two agents. Received a form rejection from one, but the other one (Marlene Stringer of Stringer Lit) requested a partial. Now, to the casual observer, when I read that email, I probably looked like I'd just won the lottery. Considering my goal this time around (Okay, the only goal I'd officially let myself hope for.) was something besides a form rejection, I was super excited. Ms. Stringer has since rejected my partial, but she sent a very nice note along with it, which I really appreciated. That one clearly wasn't meant to be, but that doesn't mean the next one isn't. And Ms. Stringer really made my day with that one simple email.

The Sky Is Falling

2009-09-07T20:03:00.002-05:00

I've read in a couple of places that one of the most annoying questions asked of writers is "Where do you get your ideas?" Frankly, hearing other writers' answers to that question is fascinating. I mean, who wouldn't want to know where Stephen King gets his ideas? (I mean, where does he come up with some of this stuff? Of course, I'm eagerly anticipating the release of his new novel. Every time I read one and scare myself silly, I swear I won't ever read another one. And yet, every time, I simply HAVE to.) But, having only a vague idea of where my own story ideas come from, I know why this question is so frustrating to writers. Because, really, who wants to hear "I don't know" in response to this question? Precisely no one. But it's hard to put such a nebulous concept into words.

For example: At least three of my story ideas (with complete drafts done) have come from dreams I had. One of these is Witches. One of these is Through Shadowed Stone. After I started researching Heart of the Sea, but before I started writing it, I had a dream about the story, where I was actually Nerina running through the forest. As for the others, well, sometimes they just seem to fall out of the sky. And sometimes...they come from a place a little bit more earthly.

With NaNo looming on the horizon, I'm been mulling over ideas for this year's story. I've known what it's going to be about (basically) since before LAST NaNo, but now some of the details are coming clear. It's going to be urban fantasy, probably with a lot of comedy and a mystery aspect (how's that for convoluted?). The MC is an elf, and her best friend/sidekick is a fairy. It's set in New Orleans, of course. What better place to research? A couple of weeks ago, some friends of mine were in town for their first visit here. Naturally, I had to take them to the French Quarter. As strange as some of the things you can see there are, it's easy for me to believe something paranormal could be going on at any time. So, I'd like to say a big thank you to the 300-pound man wearing a green halter top and long green skirt, with Mimi-esque makeup (a la The Drew Carey Show), and dancing, literally, to the beat of music only he could hear. You've given me a wonderful idea for the fairies in my story and how they derive their power. You also deserve a thank-you for the laugh I got while watching the expressions on my friends' faces when they saw you. (And one of said friends is the basis for the MC in this story, too. She's the most accident-prone person EVER.) And also? The Red Dress Run, which I witnessed two weeks before that, will also be making an appearance in this story. Men in dresses are not that unusual in the Quarter. Approximately 400 men in red dresses wearing competitors' numbers IS a teensy bit strange. (And honestly, the explanation is quite funny and still strange.) You haven't lived until you've seen a sight like that. So, thanks to all those men in red dresses as well.

So, yeah. THAT'S where story ideas come from: out of the clear, blue sky.

Query Hell

2009-08-10T18:24:00.001-05:00

You know, honestly, writing query letters is hard. Really hard. You want to capture the reader's (agent's) interest immediately, and keep it in your grasp for the rest of that one simple, short page. It doesn’t sound hard. I mean, really, how difficult could it be to keep someone interested for 200 words? As it turns out, pretty dang hard.

I've spent most of the week working on my query letter for the 2YN story. And I have the bruises on my forehead to prove it, from banging my head on my desk in frustration. I thought I had a decent query letter. Then I started working on Lesson 11 of HTTS, which just so happens to focus on query letters. (Perfect timing, yes?) And I promptly started second-guessing myself. Holly Lisle's example starts off with THE SENTENCE as the first paragraph. The second paragraph has about two sentences on story, then delves into theme. That's sort of where I ran into trouble. I mean, I hadn't consciously thought about theme for this story, except WAY back in the beginning stages, roughly 2 ½ years ago. So, revisiting that was a bit of a challenge to me. As was cutting down the story details to a bare minimum. Most of the sample queries I've seen lately have that one initial hook paragraph, then another paragraph focusing on story. Not two sentences focusing on story. So yeah, little bit of trouble there.

And then there's the bio paragraph. I don't actually have a bio or credits, and I've seen conflicting opinions on how to play that out. So far, I'm going with a simple statement of the story's stats and the fact that it's my first novel (It's not, actually, but the first one I'm subbing.), for lack of anything else. I'm planning to post it on Forward Motion for feedback, but if anyone has any suggestions for the bio information, it would be greatly appreciated.

Done!

2009-08-04T17:38:00.002-05:00

With this draft of Witches. Finally. It comes in at 188k. Which, considering the original draft was 297k, doesn't sound so bad. I know I need to cut quite a bit more, but right now, I'm letting it sit and breathe. I'm hoping to do a novel swap with it, but I'm not in any great hurry. It's also going through my crit group, and I have no intentions of subbing it anytime soon.

Now that this draft of Witches is done, I can work on some other things. Like finishing the sequel, which is probably about 2/3rds done. And considering I haven't written anything new in over a month, that should be interesting, getting back into the swing of things.

I'm also working on my query letter for the 2YN story. I hate writing queries, but I'm determined to come up with a good one for this story. I also plan on going through the MS one more time to make sure everything's cleaned up and pretty, then I'm going to start subbing it. Nervous about that, but it's time that story left the nest.

But for now, let me just say again: I'm DONE!

Standing On The Edge

2009-08-02T18:51:00.001-05:00

I've been editing Witches like mad for the past two months. Mad, I tell you. Until some days I just wanted to strangle my characters, or merely use some transparent act of God to kill them all off at once so they wouldn't make my head hurt anymore. Don't get me wrong. I love this story. Love it. However, it's been running around in my brain, in some form or another, for almost ten years. That hurts just to type those words. Ten. Years. So, I think I can be forgiven for getting a little tired of the story. Only occasionally, mind you, as I haven't been working on it continuously for ten years. Far from it. The original first draft ended at around 297,000 words. Yes. Far too long. The second draft was about 50k shorter. I've mostly finished the current editing pass, and it's sitting at 197k. So, all in all, I've cut 100k from the story. Yeah. I've cut, in essence, an entire book from this story, and I know I still need to cut at least 50k. I have about eight more chapters to re-visit, all of which I marked in my notes as possible cuts. When I finish that, I'm going to put this story aside for a while and let it breath.

But you know what? I still love these characters. They don’t bore me. They pop into my head at unexpected moments. I still can't wait to see what happens to them. I think that's a good sign. Heck, a lot of the real people I know have more than started to bore me after I knew them for ten years. But not my characters. So up next, when I finish the little bit of clean-up I have left on this draft, I'm going to finish writing the sequel to Witches. And I know, the draft of that story won't be anywhere near as long as the first draft of Witches.

All in all, I'll be happy to put Witches aside. For now.

Killing My Darlings

2009-07-29T21:47:00.002-05:00

I've spent most of the day editing. About ten hours. I know this draft of Witches is WAY too long, and I know I rambled on a bit, seeing as how it was the first thing I ever really tried to write (and I lost my way several times), but it still sucks when I have to take out scenes that I love. I hate doing that, even when I know the entire scene (chapter, really) was pointless in terms of the story, except to illustrate the sheer volatile nature of Kahleena's relationship with Julien. But still. Hard to cut it. Of course, I stuck it in the file I keep for everything I've cut from this story. Hey, if it ever gets published, I can do something with the deleted scenes, right?

Of course, I wrote much of Witches without an outline. Now that I've learned the folly of that (for me personally, anyway), I'm hoping to avoid any more purely indulgent scenes. And not have to cut half the MS to get it to the outer reaches of publishing length. Here's hoping the editing goes well tomorrow, though I won't spend nearly so long at it.

The Prodigal Returns

2009-07-26T21:14:00.002-05:00

No, I haven't actually dropped off the face of the planet. Not that there's been much evidence to the contrary around here…I've been busy. Yeah. That's it. Busy. Sort of. Or lazy, whichever word you prefer (although the second is probably much nearer the actual truth). Work's been pretty busy lately, and I've been out of town, too, so that's two excuses I'm using.

I've been doing quite a bit of editing on Witches. I'm a little past the halfway point in this pass, and of course, editing eats my brain, so it's a slow go most of the time. At this point, I'm looking forward to finishing this pass and putting it away for a while.

My crit group has two new members, and is a lot more active lately, so that's been taking more of my time than it has in roughly a year. It's all good, though. We needed the new blood, and they seem to be a good fit. They've both done really useful crits on my latest chapter, and I'm looking forward to getting into both of their stories.

I haven't done any writing this month. At all. Might possibly explain my less-than-sunny attitude of late. (Actually, it probably does. I'm always much happier when I'm writing something. Guess that's a sure sign I was meant to be a writer, huh? Maybe not a good one, but a writer nevertheless.) I'm hoping to get at least a few thousand words in this week so the month won't be a total bust on the writing front. I think I needed the break from my over-achieving madness, but I can feel the stories starting to nibble at the edge of my brain again. Not to mention that I'm playing catch-up on the HTTS lessons, and that story is starting to take shape as well. Like I need another story in the queue for this year.

Actually, the main reason I haven't been around lately is that I got sucked into Diana Gabaldon's Outlander books. Completely consumed. To the point that I find myself talking with a Scottish accent (But only in my head. So far, I've managed to keep it from being out loud. The talking-to-myself-in-my-head thing is totally normal for me. I swear.) I absolutely love these books. The world is so realistic I feel like I'm there. I love Jaime and Claire. I think they're great characters, and so lifelike I feel like I know them. (And, incidentally, could I get a Jaime for myself, please?) I love big books that let me sink into them, and I've been totally immersed for the last several weeks, to the point of staying up 'til 3 a.m. on a day I have to work because I had to find out what happens! I just wish I'd read the books before Conestoga last July, when Diana Gabaldon was the Guest of Honor. I did go to several panels she was on, and was very intrigued by her, but I probably would have gotten a lot more out of it if I'd read the series first. Love them. Can't wait 'til September when the next one comes out. And, strangely enough, I've seen three people in the last couple of weeks who have been reading one of the books. Go figure. I'm surrounded.

So, that's the reason I haven't been around. I've been in Scotland (I wish), and in the 1700s. Good reason, no? But I finished A Breath of Snow and Ashes today (at about 2 a.m.), so I have absolutely no excuses for slacking off. (Like I need an excuse.)

Why, No, I Don't Have A Life Outside Of Writing (Why Do You Ask)?

2009-06-08T19:32:00.001-05:00

And the results for the first week of June are….Success! Well, partial success, anyway. I hit all my word count goals for the week, in all four stories. The zombie story is going, and that's about all I can say about that. The sequel to Witches is coming along quite well, and staying mostly true to the outline. The werewolf story is flowing very well, and I have the next two or three scenes outlined (and by "outlined", I mean I have one sentence for each scene). I started writing the sequel to the 2YN story this weekend. It's flying along surprisingly well, especially considering I outlined the first two chapters only, and hey, finished those this weekend. Looks like there's some more outlining in my near future…

The editing? Didn't go so well. I did get about five chapters edited in Witches. Sigh. It needs a lot of editing. Right now, I'm going through back crits from SG, and seeing what I agree with. Most of the crits are spot-on, and the changes make the story much stronger. So, now all I have to do is follow up with those changes through the rest of the story. Didn't even get started editing Tempest, but I'll catch up on that. I'm going to try to re-do the outline for that story before I edit, to help keep me in line. Here are my approximate word counts for the week:

Zombie story: 1,500
Werewolf story: 5,500
Witches sequel: 4,000
2YN sequel: 5,500
Editing: 10,000

May Madness

2009-05-31T18:41:00.002-05:00

I knew at the beginning of the year when I set my personal goals that I was being overly ambitions. But it seemed doable. It still seems doable, although my brain does not seem to share my belief. For the last two weeks, I've written nothing. Nada. Zilch. On the upside, I did get the 2YN story edited. Again. And I'm happier with this draft. Hoping to start sending it out soon. It's now tentatively titled Charming Dragons. I wrote about 37,000 words in the first two weeks of the month, so May wasn't a total bust, but I'd hoped to finish the draft of the Witches sequel this month, and that didn't happen. It didn't even come close to happening.

However, I do have a spiffy new plan to finish writing the three stories I'm currently working on (zombie story, Witches sequel, werewolf story), by the end of August, along with the sequel to Charming Dragons. And edit Witches AND Tempest of Angels. So, clearly I haven't passed the overly-ambitious part of the year yet. :) I do have set word count goals every day, and certain days to work on certain stories. I'm hoping the juggling act will keep me from burning out on any one story. At least, that's the plan.

Now I'm off to brainstorm the new story. Wish me luck!

Newest Reading Discoveries

2009-05-08T20:59:00.001-05:00

Yes, this will be the post about books I've read lately. Except I'm not going to list all the books I've read since I last talked about it. There are far too many, and not because I've read a lot this year. (I haven't. I've only read 43. I'm woefully behind on my goal of 165.) It only means I've been horrible about posting here. But I'm trying to remedy that, I swear.

I mentioned three of the books I've read lately (Outlander; Need; Tattoo) in my post about Conestoga, so I won't mention them again here. (Except to say you should really go buy them. Right now.) So, skipping those, and touching on a few of the books I really, really enjoyed over the past couple of months.

First up are a pair of books by Maria V. Snyder: Magic Study and Fire Study. These two are the last books in the trilogy that started off with Poison Study, which I read last year. I don't know how I managed to forget that there were more books in this series, but when I saw them on the shelf, I immediately bought both of them. How to explain just how sucked into these books I became? I can't. The first one, Poison Study, intrigued me from the very first page, when Yelena is taken from the dungeon, where she's about to be put to death, and offered a position as the General's poison taster. Freedom or death? Hmm. Not a tough choice. The catch is, she's given a poison, Butterfly's Dust (I think that was the name of it), for which she has to come to Valek, the General's chief of security and über-spy, every day for an antidote. Of course, much chaos and intrigue ensue, at the end of which, she's revealed as having magic, and therefore is banished…back to the homeland from which she was kidnapped as a child.

In Magic Study, she is reunited with her family, and then taken to the Citadel to learn how to use her magic. Except that there's a crazy-mad magic-wielder out there who is kidnapping girls and torturing them in a bizarre ritual to gain unlimited power (aren't they all after unlimited power?), and she ends up as his final victim. This story carries over somewhat into Fire Study. Ms. Snyder's writing and storytelling kept me absolutely riveted, and I found myself staying up far too late on several nights, desperate to find out what happened. Her newest book, Storm Glass, which is set in the same world, came out last week, and I'm eagerly anticipating its arrival in my mailbox.

I'm a huge fan of Rachel Caine, especially the Morganville Vampires series (new book out in approximately one month), but I enjoy the Weather Warden series as well. She has a new series out, the Outcast Season, the first book of which is Undone. This one is set in the same world as the Weather Warden books, and it's about Cassiel, a Djinn who refuses to do as she's ordered, and gets cast out and into a human body. Needless to say, this does not make her very happy. Or well-adjusted. But she ends up working for the Wardens with a human partner, and discovers that something evil is after her new friends.

And I just finished reading Nobody's Princess, by Esther Friesner. The cover caught my attention first, so I picked up the book and read the back cover copy. Helen of Troy as a young girl who can't figure out why everyone thinks she's so pretty, nor does she understand why it even matters? I immediately fell in love with the idea. She doesn't care about being pretty, she just wants to be a warrior, like her brothers. For a Spartan, you wouldn't think that was such a big deal, but she is a princess, so apparently that's a no-no. But she manages, and when her sister is sent off to the neighboring kingdom to be married, she goes along to comfort her, then ends up on several grand adventures of her own. Adventures that would make even her Spartan-king father have a heart attack. This one is firmly YA, and I really liked it. There's a second book of Helen's adventures, too, called Nobody's Prize. I assure you, it will be making an appearance on my bookshelf in the near future as well.

Near Disaster

2009-05-07T07:57:00.002-05:00

This was supposed to be a post about what I've been reading lately, but I think that will have to wait while I ramble on about something else: Yesterday, as I was working on the Witches sequel, my computer apparently took a dislike to the work and ate it. All 75,000 words of it. Gone. Not only did the computer close my Word program, it erased the entire document off of my thumb drive. It did do an AutoRecovery save at the last second, because I saw it before it vanished into the ether. So I didn't panic. Then.

I opened up Word again. No message saying Word had saved the file I was working on and would I like to open it again? (Yes, please, I would have loved that. But no.) And that's when I realized the draft was gone off my thumb drive as well. This is the point where I started to panic. I mean, I've been working on this story for two months, and this draft is scheduled to be finished this month, so that was a lot of work. I resisted the impulse to bang my head against the desk.

I checked the on-line help site, and came up with a whole list of things to try, including re-setting Word functions to recover a damaged file. No go. After two hours of this, I developed a headache (No, not from banging my head against the desk.), turned off the computer (a.k.a. "you piece of crap, give me back my story!) and retreated to regroup and take a nap. Which wasn't very restful, let me tell you, since visions of re-writing all 300 pages kept flashing through my mind, along with a plan to get myself caught up on this by the end of the year while still accomplishing my other goals.

When I woke up, I took a deep breath, turned on the computer, and tried again. Three hours and countless document searches later, I finally found it. Well, most of it. I lost about 500 words, but really, in the scheme of things, what's 500 words? It was stored in some temporary file somewhere, and I was so happy to see it that I could have kissed the screen.

Now, after my best friend had her hard drive crash a couple of months ago and lost everything, I made sure to save copies of all my drafts to my two e-mail storage accounts. Did I have a copy of the Witches II draft there? No. Of course not. Do I now? Definitely. So, the morale of this story is: 1) Always, always, always back up your work, and 2) Prayers to the computer gods sometimes get results.

In a slightly different writing-related-crash, Holly Lisle has a new website where she does Writing Crash Tests. You should check it out, and see what happens with the Case of the Exploding Cat.

Conestoga 2009

2009-05-03T19:49:00.002-05:00

I've been to this con three times now. Does that qualify me as a regular? Possibly. I have to say, this year seemed a lot... tamer than previous years have. Not nearly so many people in costumes this time around, which was something of a disappointment. I always enjoy checking out the costumes.

We did sit in on some interesting panels. And, of course, discovered some great new (to me) writers. One of them was Carrie Jones. I went out and bought her newest book, Need, which came out in December and is on it's 7th print run. 7th! Isn't that awesome? And the book was great. I think I read it in under 3 hours. Actually, I owe Carrie a great big thank you. Her YA tale of pixies running amok kept me entertained in the airport AND distracted during my flight. And I'm terrified of flying, so that should tell you what a great book it is.

I also-finally-read books by two authors I "discovered" at Conestoga last year. The first one was Diana Gabaldon's Outlander. Yes, I know that book has been out a little while, and many people have told me to read it, I just...didn't have time, okay? But I couldn't put it down. LOVED it. I love me some Scotsmen in kilts. And how many hot red-headed protagonists do you really see these days? Not enough of them, if you ask me. I already bought the next two books in the series (and would have bought more, if the bookstore had had the third one in stock just then).

I bought Jennifer Lynn Barnes' Tattoo. I've been on a bit of a YA kick lately. It seems my own writing is running to YA, and I've always loved reading it, it just seems to be dominating in my reading pile the last few months. Although, glancing at said TBR pile, I seem to have run out of YA. Hmm. Well, Rachel Caine's new Morganville Vampires book will be out in June. Guess I can wait 'til then. I think. Anyway, enough blathering. Tattoo was an excellent, engaging read. I liked the premise, loved the characters. I'm a sucker for a four-friends book anyway, but the girls in this one were so different and yet so compatible, I really enjoyed it. The idea of temporary tattoos that give you cool Sidhe powers and only having three days to save the world from an evil fairy, all while getting ready for the biggest dance of the school year, is awesome, too. I definitely recommend this.

The Werewolves are Winning

2009-04-19T12:30:00.001-05:00

I've been really bad about keeping this blog updated lately. Sorry. On the up side, I have been getting a lot of writing done. A lot. I'm a little over 50k into the sequel to Witches. That's flowing along pretty well, and the action is heating up. I'm being mean to Bali at the moment, but hey, somebody's gotta do it, right? She'll thank me later, when everything blows over. (Probably.)

I've been busy killing zombies, too. Being as gross as possible is pretty cool. And I've actually really enjoyed writing two military men characters. Most of my characters are normally fairly clean-mouthed. But not Sammy and Luke. Not in this chapter, anyway. But what can you expect when you're under attack by hordes of flesh-craving zombies? They're very persistent, I'll give them that. Sammy, as usual, provides a shot of humor to even the direst situation. I'll be sorry to finish writing him…

Not to mention getting to know Chance's new high school in the Werewolf story. Can I just say that she has a really crappy first day at her new school? It's great, really. For me. Not for her. (She'd probably hate me, and rightly so.) She is so much fun to write. Clearly, I haven't progressed much (mentally) past my high school days. Or so it seems when I sit down to write her. She practically jumps through the keyboard and onto the page, full of snarky comments and attitude (not to mention her to-die-for wardrobe). Her new friend Benjy has really surprised me, too. I had no idea he was going to turn out quite like he has. Actually, even though the sequel to Witches is coming along so well, and I'm enjoying the zombie story, too, my Muse is itching to play in Chance's world almost exclusively. I know discipline is good for a writer, but it seems like I get my pages done for Chance in a split second, and sometimes, it's a whole lot harder to hit my goals on the other stories. I think I'm going to have to devote one day a week completely to Chance's story. That should satisfy my Muse, and give her incentive to hit my goals on anything else I'm working on. Sounds like a plan.

I probably won't post here again until sometime late next week. I'll be flying to Dallas this Thursday, and then my best friend and I are driving to Tulsa for Conestoga. This year should be interesting. It's in April instead of July this year, so most of the "regular" writers won't be there. I'm a little disappointed, but I'm looking at it as an opportunity to find new favorites. After all, I didn't know most of the regulars when I first went to Conestoga in 2007.

No, I Haven't Fallen Off The Face Of The Earth...

2009-04-07T08:21:00.002-05:00

...Why do you ask? I did go on a trip home to Texas at the end of March for a week, so that kind of knocked me out of my routine. But now I'm getting back into the swing of things, and making significant progress.

I've finished up this round of edits for the Atlantis story, now tentatively titled Heart of the Sea. I'll be looking for beta readers for it soon, but I think this draft is stronger than the last one. I'm a little too close to it at this point to be sure, so only time will tell.

The zombie story is actually coming along quite well. The rest of it is completely figured out and outlined. Yay! I think that's one thing that sort of held me back when I worked on my chapters: not knowing quite how everything would work out. Roughly twelve chapters left, so maybe three months or so until the first draft is finished. The chapter I'm working on now should be fun, lots of zombie blood and guts!

The werewolf story is actually smoothing out now. I went back and wrote a couple of chapters over the main turning point in Chance's life. I wanted to get the details of what had happened worked out in my mind, and I wanted to see if my first instinct to start in the other spot was correct. It was, but writing those chapters gave me a much better feel for the story itself and what's going on. Surprisingly, it's going well, considering I'm working outline-free.

The sequel to Witches is going very well right now. I'm about 30k in, and the characters, my old friends, are still very much alive and breathing for me. I know where this one is going, and I'm having a lot of fun. It's good to get back to my oldest set of characters. I'm hoping everything keeps coming together like it has been.

Milestone

2009-03-08T22:36:00.002-05:00

Today I started writing the sequel to Witches. I was terrified to touch the keyboard. Terrified. I spent roughly 7 1/2 years working on Witches (Not that it's done yet. Oh, no. Not by any means.), and it's my baby. So I'm terribly afraid to mess up it's little sister. Even though this story is completely outlined already, and ready to go. I was still scared to start writing.

But when I made myself start, it flowed surprisingly easy. The characters were just there, in my head, right where I left off. Like it hadn't been two years since I did anything but editing on the story. It was great, really. And unlike last time, I already know all the horrible things I'm going to do to my characters...

Randomness

2009-02-24T20:16:00.002-06:00

For the past two weeks, I've felt like I have absolutely no spare time at all in my life. There is so much that I want to get done, and there really aren't anywhere near enough hours in the day to get it all done. And I'm not just talking about writing-related things, either.

I've tried to really make working out a priority in my life right now. Getting up early and going before work, going on my days off. It's hard, and I'd much rather be doing other things, but I know it's worth it. It just seems like it sucks up so much of my time! I've barely had any time to read for the past couple of weeks, which is beyond unusual for me. Normally, I read something every day, even if it's only a couple of pages. Lately, there have been days where I haven't read anything at all (or at least nothing strictly for enjoyment).

I've been reading the story I'm critting in a novel swap, and I've really enjoyed it. I actually got pretty sucked into it last night and read about thirty pages or so. Now I'm twenty pages from the end, and looking forward to the rest of it.

Other than that, I haven't been getting much accomplished. I'm re-reading Tempest of Angels right now, trying to figure out how to make it stronger. Haven't had any revelations in that department yet, but I'm hoping.

The HTTS lesson did not go terribly well. I gave my Muse what I wanted, and a deadline, and my Muse proceeded to pretty much ignore me. Until the deadline passed. Then I got one idea with a bit of detail, and today, two more ideas with little-to-no detail. Sigh. Please, Muse, can you help me out here?

Calling Down Lightening

2009-02-15T20:12:00.001-06:00

Dear Muse:

I know Holly said all I had to do was tell you what I needed, and get out of the way, but I must admit, I'm skeptical. I'm not trying to cast doubts on your abilities, I just don't know how well you perform under pressure. But I'm not going to pressure you. I just want to clarify my request a little bit more.

I said I needed three unrelated story ideas, ideas unique to me, and based on words and concepts from my Sweet Spot Map, any genre, any length, deadline one week. To be slightly more specific, I would like:

One epic or high fantasy idea
One paranormal idea
One mainstream idea

Also any length, and the deadline is still one week. I know you're busy playing with the ideas right now, and I just want to thank you in advance, Muse, for what will be, I'm sure, wonderful ideas.

Love,

Me

January

2009-02-01T08:05:00.002-06:00

I didn't come anywhere near hitting my goals for January. At all. Guess that's what I get for setting such high goals, huh? I'm really not stressing about it, though. I started on the werewolf story, made it to the second chapter, and stalled out, probably because I was writing without any sort of plan. Then I discovered the HTTS class, which I'm going to use on this story. So really, although I'm not actively writing this story, I'm still working on it. (At least, that's how I'm wording it to myself.)

The zombie story fell by the wayside this month, too. But, my co-writer had a computer meltdown, so we couldn't really email about things like we normally do. (That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it.) I am currently working on a chapter, though. And it should be finished up today.

I also did a novel swap in January that wasn't anywhere in my plans for the year. Unplanned, maybe, but greatly appreciated and enjoyed. (Thanks, Dale!) I got some good things out of the crit I received, and as always, learned a lot from the crit I did.

Now, I'm off to work on Lesson Two of the HTTS class: Making a Sweet Spot Map.

What I've Been Reading

2009-01-28T08:41:00.002-06:00

Caine, Rachel: Chill Factor (01/03/09)
Caine, Rachel: Windfall (01/04/09)
MacInerney, Karen: On The Prowl (01/08/09)
Caine, Rachel: Lord of Misrule (01/10/09)
Frost, Jeanine: At Grave's End (01/11/09)
Black, Jenna: The Devil's Due (01/14/09)
Evanovich, Janet: Plum Spooky (01/16/09)
Gaskell, Whitney: Good Luck (01/17/09)*
Banks, L.A.: Bite the Bullet (01/21/09)
Henry, Mark: Happy Hour of the Damned (01/24/09)*

These are the books I've read so far this year. Currently, I'm reading three hardcopy books simultaneously, and seven through DailyLit. (Which is awesome, by the way, but I tend to get over-excited and grab a ton of books all at once. Which is why I'm reading seven.)

I see this list is skewed heavily in favor of Rachel Caine. What can I say? I love gift cards for Christmas! And I've been dying to read Lord of Misrule for months. Seriously, though, the endings just kill me. And I'm now hooked on the Weather Warden books as well.

Mark Henry was a new author to me. Sort of. I did sit in on one of the panels he was in last year at Conestoga (And yes, the whole zombie sex comment he made contributed to my buying this book--that was too funny to pass up.) This book had me laughing out loud! Zombie fashionistas, a flamboyant vampire, and psychotic baristas? Oh, yeah. I'm there. Normally, footnotes in a fiction book drive me crazy, but these just made me laugh harder. I will definitely be buying Road Trip of the Dead when it comes out next month.

And speaking of laughing, if you want to read a book that will immediately make you feel like your life isn't as bad as you thought, read Good Luck by Whitney Gaskell.

Interference

2009-01-25T20:18:00.002-06:00

Why is it, when you have things all planned out, that something has to come along and interfere with your plans? I had a ton of stuff I needed/planned to do this weekend, and most of it has gone undone. Thankfully, I'm off again tomorrow, so it's not the end of the world. But still. If I didn't have to do things tomorrow that I planned to do today, I'd get a lot more done (Was that confusing?).

I'm a compulsive list-maker, and I always fill out my planner on Sunday night for the week ahead. And then highlight it in specific colors for specific projects (Did I mention I tend to be anal about organization, too?). I love being able to mark things off when I get them done, and it drives me crazy seeing things not marked off my list. So, today? Not looking so good. I still haven't even finished all the things from yesterday I was supposed to do. But I will...eventually. If not tonight, then tomorrow for sure.

So, I'm still working on my projects for this year. Most of them, anyway. Still haven't done any work for the werewolf story outside of the HTTS class, but I'm letting it stew in my mind. I have a feeling that will work out pretty well for me. I hope everyone else is making progress on their goals for the year. Apparently, I should have added "Be more disciplined" to my own goals.

Falling Behind Already

2009-01-18T21:10:00.002-06:00

I did have some big, audacious goals for this year. I wanted to write half of my werewolf story this month. So far, I'm on chapter two. :) For a while there, Chance didn't have much to say to me, so writing just wasn't happening. Now, I'm struggling with not knowing where the story goes next. Apparently, writing without an outline just doesn't work for me. At all. So I clearly need an outline before I go any farther.

Which (sort of) brings me to the next thing: I signed up for Holly Lisle's How To Think Sideways class. I'm doing the 12-month course, so I've only received the first lesson, but I've been reading the comments and questions on the boards, and I really think I can get a lot from this class. So I've decided to use the werewolf story for HTTS. Which means I won't be actually writing it just yet. Not that that means I won't get it done this year. Just that I won't be doing it exactly when I had planned.

Other than that, I'm in the middle of a novel swap with someone (the Atlantis story), and I'm about to swap the 2YN story with someone else. Of course, neither one of those crits were in my plans for this year, but I'm really enjoying the one I'm working on, and looking forward to the next. I always learn so much doing crits.

And that's it for me. For now, anyway.

2009: Or, The Year Of Audacious Goals

2009-01-01T10:44:00.002-06:00

While I'm satisfied with what I accomplished in 2008, I'm not entirely happy with it. There were several things that I didn't get done that I really wanted to. But…that's okay. No matter how much I try, I can't always do everything. It's the trying that's the important part. This year, I made a list of things that I wanted to write or edit, and really thought about whether or not I could do them. And I think I can. So, I made all of them my goals for this year. They are all in the notebook I keep for monthly goals, and I've planned out what I'm going to work on in each month (I can't help it, I'm OCD about planning stuff like that).

I want to either finish, or write first drafts for six stories:
-Zombie story (finish)
-Werewolf story
-Witches II
-2YN II
-Ash's story
-Mena's story

I want to edit five stories:
-Tempest of Angels
-Werewolf story
-Zombie story
-Witches II
-2YN II

I want to polish three stories:
-2YN
-Witches
-Atlantis story

I want to start subbing two stories:
-2YN
-Atlantis story

My personal goals:
-Read 165 books.
-Learn one Japanese lesson per month.
-Start a professional website (I sort of gave up on this one last year, but I'm giving it another go this year).
-Run 5 miles in less than an hour.
-Do 10 pull-ups.

And to top it all off, I want to write 300,000 new words this year. Now, this might sound like the most audacious goal of all, considering my word count goal for 2008 was 250,000, and I only wrote 163,000 words. But I've set individual word count goals for each of the stories that I intend to write, and if I hit those goals, the 300k will be no problem at all.

So, what are everyone else's goals?

The Year In Review (Or Things I Did Not Accomplish This Year)

2008-12-31T11:06:00.002-06:00

I started off 2008 with ten writing-related goals, and a books-read goal. I met some of them (most of them), but slacked off on others. I learned a lot about writing this year, and about what I'm capable of, which I've put into my plans/goals for next year. But here's how I did on this year's goals:

Read 150 books: I've read 154 books (and yes, that counts Gone with the Wind, of which I lack about 100 pages to read, but I'll get that done today).

1) Finish first draft of NaNo 2007 (the Atlantis story). Done. I think I finished this in February or March.

2) Start subbing Through Shadowed Stone. Done. I started this in May, and actually stopped subbing it in the summer. Not because of the rejections I got, but because I realized this story isn't ready yet. It's on the back burner for now, until I'm ready to tackle its issues.

3) Finish first round edits on Atlantis story. Done. Finished this 12/29/08-Nothing like waiting 'til the last minute. I actually like this story much more than I remembered.

4) Finish first draft of zombie story. Not done. Took a 6-month break from the story, but we're working on it again now.

5) Finish first round edits on Witches. Done. 10/12/08. I'm not entirely happy with this draft, and I still need to cut a large amount of it, but I cleaned it up some.

6) Finish first round edits on zombie story. Also clearly not done, since the first draft isn't complete yet.

7) Do NaNo 2008. Done. 100k done.

8) Outline Witches II. Done. Finished the outline in October, and I'm looking forward to writing it, despite the fact that Witches still needs so much work. I have a complete outline for this one, so I don't think I'll wander quite so far afield.

9) Finish 2YN class. Done (more or less). It still isn't quite ready for subbing, and I need to fix my synopsis and draft a query, but it's been written and edited.

10) Write 250,000 new words. Not done. Not even close. My final word count for the year is 163,570 words. Which isn't bad, it just isn't what I'd hoped for. But that's okay.

This year, I finished up two story drafts. I wrote one complete first draft. I did a lot of writing on the zombie story. I did a lot of editing, a lot of crits, and got a bunch of new ideas that will carry me over into 2009. I'm satisfied with my progress, and happy with what I learned.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-25T07:48:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas!

Editing and Planning

2008-12-22T09:10:00.002-06:00

I've been getting a good amount of work done lately. Editing on the Atlantis story is going well. The writing is still much stronger than I remembered, which pleases me. I haven't made any major changes yet, but I know the latter part of the story will probably need some additional work. Nerina is a much more well-defined character than I remember her being, but being in her head comes back easily to me, and so does being in that world. I think that's a good sign.

I've got two chapters to write in the zombie story. One of them is pretty straightforward. The other will probably end up being dark and tense, with the characters expecting the boogeyman to jump out at any second. (Hey, it's a story about zombies. What did you expect?) Also on the zombie front, I ordered Mark Henry's Happy Hour of the Damned. It sounds pretty funny, and I'm looking forward to reading it.

Last, but far from least, I'm still doing pre-work on the YA werewolf story. I was at the mall a few days ago, and saw a pair of shoes that the female MC would definitely wear. They were black Mary Janes with little skulls and crossbones on them.

Me: "Oh, those shoes are perfect for Chance. She would love them!"
My younger brother (looking confused): "Who is Chance?"

And then I went home and happily spent an hour Googling Goth clothes and picking out outfits for Chance to wear. It's sad, really. And I'm afraid she likes pink. That, to me, doesn't go so well with the whole Goth idea, but she's determined she will also have a pair of hot pink Doc Marten boots. Go figure. I don't even like pink! She's coming through loud and clear. Now if only her brother, Cade, would start speaking up for himself...

Life After NaNo

2008-12-13T17:51:00.002-06:00

Actually, there's not a whole lot going on, at least not on the writing front. I've been editing my NaNo 2007 story (which is still untitled). I'm... surprised by it. I think the beginning of it is very strong, and although it's early yet, I have hopes that it is better than I remember. (Of course, last year I had big goals for NaNo and for whatever reason, I lost all motivation two weeks in and barely got 50k. Good to know the story is stronger than that.).

I'm in the very early planning stages for a new story, and this one came out of nowhere, and has taken over my brain, demanding to be written now. So, I'm going to start it in January. Just as soon as I get a few more things figured out, and the characters named, and the plot in some sort of rational order. You know, the usual things. It's something a little new for me. Another YA, but an urban fantasy this time. And, of all things, it's about a werewolf. Or two. Or six. Not sure, but at least three. I don't know why it's grabbed me so much, but it has. Now I need to do some research on Goths to start with. That should be interesting. At least the characters that showed up weren't emo...

The End, or 100,025 Words

2008-11-30T15:10:00.002-06:00

I feel like either my brains are about to fall out, or my eyes are. Not sure which. But I finished! Yay! Dang, but the last 1,000 words were the worst. I know there are a lot of "he said" and "she said" that will need to be ruthlessly weeded out in edits, but I am proud of myself. I wrote every single day this month. Every day. Even that one brutal 15-hour work day. Woot! Congratulations to everyone else out there who finished (Way to go Walkingstick! I know your son is proud.) Now I can finally get some rest.

Today's Word Count: 5,376
Total Word Count: 100,025

Day 29

2008-11-29T23:18:00.002-06:00

Again, the writing flowed really well today. I hit my word count. The story is moving, and I am right in the middle of the action-packed ending. Is it sad that I feel like "only" having to write 5,000 words tomorrow is a good thing? I have three chapters left as well, one with quite a bit of action, and two wrap-up chapters. But I'm feeling okay with the writing right now.

Today's Word Count: 7, 627
Total Words: 5,014
Words Remaining: 94,986

Day Twenty Eight

2008-11-29T00:46:00.002-06:00

Another good writing day, thankfully, since I'm so close to the end. The words really flowed well today, and I hit my word count goal without too much trouble. I'm looking forward to finishing this story, though. And my brain is already burning with editing ideas. I did have a slight mishap this afternoon. There was some kind of error when I was saving a chapter, and my Word program closed. When I reopened it, the file was corrupted. Part of it was still there, mixed in with little boxes and funny symbols. I wanted to bang my head against the keyboard, but I managed to resist. I'll just have to go back and fix it later. And yes, I did count those words.

Today's Word Count: 7,563
Total Word Count: 87,359
Words Remaining: 12,641

Day Twenty Seven

2008-11-28T10:44:00.002-06:00

Just as I was getting ready to post here last night, my computer randomly disconnected the internet. I decided that was a sign, and went to bed. I did get quite a lot of writing done yesterday, thankfully, and a little bit on Wednesday as well. I made a pretty good dent in it, actually, although I do have a nice chunk left to go. But the writing went well yesterday, and so far, it is going well today. The end is in sight!

Wednesday's Word Count: 1,501
Yesterday's Word Count: 7,526
Total Word Count: 79,496
Words Remaining: 20,504

Day Twenty Five

2008-11-26T00:23:00.002-06:00

Okay, so I had another dismal writing day yesterday. I did make up for part of it today, but I have a grueling five days ahead of me to meet my goal. And I will meet my goal. I am determined. I have not come this close and this far to fail at the end. Is it a bad thing that I'm already mentally making notes about everything that will need fixed in the next draft?

Yesterday's Word Count: 111 (I seem to like that number on bad days.)
Today's Word Count: 4,015
Total Word Count: 70,469
Words Remaining: 29,531

Day 23

2008-11-23T20:48:00.001-06:00

Apparently, I was still exhausted yesterday, since I got barely any words, even though I was off. I did a little better today. I'm going to have to work pretty hard to hit my goal, though. Only a week left!

Yesterday's Word Count: 403
Today's Word Count: 2,525
Total Word Count: 66,343
Words Remaining: 33,657

Days 20 and 21

2008-11-22T06:48:00.002-06:00

I have to admit, the last two days were not good writing days. Not because the words didn't flow, but because there wasn't time for the words to flow. The 14-hour day I had on Thursday turned into a 15-hour, super-busy day. I did write when I got home, a whopping 111 words, but then had to immediately crawl into bed and try to get some sleep so I wouldn't be a zombie for the 11-hour day I ended up on yesterday. (That didn't exactly work, either, because I was a zombie. And I had a headache from about 5 p.m. Thursday, until I woke up this morning. Not a fun experience.) Yesterday, I wrote all of 101 words. This brings my NaNo total up to 63,415. I am now behind schedule for my word count, but at least I did write both days, and I'm proud of that. Now I'll just have to work a little bit harder to try to catch up to where I want to be.

Day Nineteen

2008-11-19T17:55:00.002-06:00

Okay, so today was a much better writing day. I got my word count without any problems. Sorry this is so brief, but I just now found out that I have to be at work at 4 a.m., which means getting up at 2:15, and I have to work a 14 1/2 hour day now. So, hopefully, I'll be able to force a few words out tomorrow.

Today's Word Count: 3,023
Total Word Count: 63,203
Words Remaining: 37,796

Day Eighteen

2008-11-18T19:24:00.002-06:00

So, I have brain drain today. Seriously. I can not remember my own name for longer than five seconds. Writing...not a good idea today. I wrote barely 1,000 words, which is so not my personal goal. But...I am ahead in my weekly word count for this week, so I decided to cut my losses and quit for the day. The words I did get probably don't make sense anyway. I'm going to bed early, and hopefully I'll be back on track tomorrow. Anybody had a day like that lately?

Today's Word Count: 1,040
Total Word Count: 60,180
Words Remaining: 39,820

Day Seventeen

2008-11-17T18:52:00.002-06:00

I had a good writing day today. Everything flowed quite well, and the dramatic, emotional scenes were, well, dramatic and emotional. I finished my word count goal, plus a bit more, so I am happy. Now I am off to watch The Big Bang Theory (which, if you haven't seen it, is hilarious).

Today's Word Count: 6,258
Total Word Count: 59,140
Words Remaining: 40,860

Day Sixteen

2008-11-16T23:14:00.001-06:00

And now for my second update of the day (as if you couldn't read). The words flowed pretty well tonight, despite me being exhausted from the day job. I am getting into the first part of some fairly important revelations for Shai and Rowen, with a lot of emotions flying about everywhere. I'm enjoying writing this part so far.

Today's Word Count: 2,516
Total Word Count: 52,882
Words Remaining: 47,118

Day Fifteen: a.k.a. Success!

2008-11-16T18:06:00.002-06:00

Due to technical issues last night, I did not get to post my daily blog. Therefore, you are blessed to be getting two in one day. Lucky you! Anyway, yesterday was a decent writing day. The words flowed tolerably well, and I hit 50k! Yay! Halfway to my goal!

Yesterday's Word Count: 5,010
Total Word Count: 50,366
Words Remaining: 49,634

Week Two

2008-11-14T23:18:00.002-06:00

I am really, really (did I say really already?) proud of myself for actually hitting my word count goals every day for two whole weeks. I'm finally convinced that I might actually be able to write every single day for 30 days. That would be something for me. I tend to procrastinate and put things off frequently. The words...they did not come so easily today. But I captured them. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day. My goal is to hit 50k tomorrow....

Today's Word Count: 2,062
Total Word Count: 45,356
Words Remaining: 54,644

Day Thirteen

2008-11-13T08:23:00.001-06:00

Despite a lot of personal drama going on with my family, I somehow managed to concentrate enough this morning to hit my word count goal. I'm not sure if the words will actually be usable when I start editing in a few months, but they are there to edit, which is the whole point of NaNo. So, yay!

Today's Word Count: 2,013
Total Word Count: 43,294
Words Remaining: 56,706

Day Twelve

2008-11-12T08:14:00.002-06:00

I don't know why the words are coming so easily this week, but I am not complaining! I got my word count goal today easily, with no issues, and in less than an hour. I'm wondering if it's because I'm getting up early to do it before work, or possibly if it's just because, after struggling to get 5k and 7.5k respectively each day this weekend, 2k seems like a breeze? I'm thinking the last one is probably it. Plus, this chapter was fun to write, but I'm about to get into some of the more emotional scenes in the story. I'm afraid that might be a little more difficult. I guess we'll see.

Today's Word Count: 2,098
Total Word Count: 41,281
Words Remaining: 58,719

Day Eleven

2008-11-11T08:27:00.002-06:00

The writing went well today. I started a scene that I hadn't really planned on, but I like it, and it fleshes out a part of Rowen's character that we don't really get to see much. I got my word count goal for the day (exactly), but I may try to get a little bit extra tonight after work.

Today's Word Count: 2,000
Total Word Count: 39,183
Words Remaining: 60,817

Day Ten

2008-11-10T21:48:00.002-06:00

It wasn't quite as bad as pulling teeth today, but it was close. I got my word count, though. Yay! I did more bad things to Rowen (he almost got ran over!), and I made Liliana really, really angry. Sometimes it's fun to be mean.

Today's Word Count: 2,023
Total Word Count: 37,183
Words Remaining: 62,817

Day Nine

2008-11-09T21:26:00.002-06:00

I'm pleased to report that the words came so much easier today than yesterday. So. Much. Easier. Yesterday was horrible, today was good. I caused some mayhem today for Rowen, and a little confusion for Shai. I didn't get quite as many words as I had planned but more than yesterday, so I'm satisfied.

Today's Word Count: 7,557
Total Word Count: 35,160
Words Remaining: 64,480

Day Eight

2008-11-09T00:16:00.002-06:00

(Yeah, I know it's a little after midnight on day nine. Don't ask.) So, today was not a good writing day. I got my word count, but it literally took me all day long. I had the attention span of a gnat today. I'd be writing along, then suddenly I'd find myself staring at random objects. ("Oh! Pretty light!" Focus on the writing. Focus.) I certainly hope tomorrow goes better.

Today's Word Count: 5,012
Total Word Count: 27,603
Words Remaining: 72,397

Week One

2008-11-07T23:21:00.001-06:00

So, today I decided I'd try to get in some extra words, in case I needed the padding next week. That so didn't happen. I barely squeezed out the words I did get, and it was like pulling teeth. But I made it through the first week of NaNo, I met my word count goal for the week, and I wrote every day. That's more than I can say for last year!

Today's Word Count: 1,520
Total Word Count: 22,591
Words Remaining: 77,409

Day Six

2008-11-06T20:24:00.002-06:00

Again, a surprisingly good day. Even after another not-so-fun day at work, I still managed to get my word count for the day. I had planned to write around 2k, using the extra 500 words I banked yesterday to average out my word count. But the words flowed well, and I got all the words I needed.

Today's Word Count: 2,639
Total Word Count: 21,071
Words Remaining: 78,929

Day Five!

2008-11-05T20:27:00.002-06:00

Today was a good writing day! And I have to say, I'm a little surprised I still had brain power left after a numbing eight-hour day of "orientation" for the new day job. I can only watch so many videos on fire safety and proper lifting techniques before I completely zone out and start counting ceiling tiles. But Shai and Wilkie came through loud and clear tonight. I got my word count, and a few extra I can bank for tomorrow, if necessary.

Today's Word Count: 3,026
Total Word Count: 18,432
Words Remaining: 81,568

Day Four

2008-11-04T08:51:00.002-06:00

I'm finished early today, since I have to work late tonight and get up pretty early tomorrow morning. This chapter flowed well. I discovered just how laid-back Rowen really is. I guess if you have centuries to deal with it, you can get pretty used to people ranting and raving at you without getting angry.

Today's Word Count: 2,261
Total Word Count: 15,406
Words Left to Reach Goal: 84,594

Day Three (And Still On Track)

2008-11-03T21:31:00.002-06:00

Yay! I made it through my first working day of NaNo. I split my writing up into two sessions today, and even went over by about 500 words (which I'm banking for tomorrow). It's still flowing pretty well, and I'm excited about how it's coming along.

Today's Word Count: 3,013
Total Word Count: 13,145
Words Left: 86,855

Day Two

2008-11-02T21:06:00.003-06:00

As day two of NaNo comes to an end, I have to say I'm proud of myself. I think I fell behind my goal this early last year--sad, I know-- but I managed to stay on track today. I wrote 4,647 words today, for a total of 10,132. I'm ten percent of the way there! Only 89,868 words to go.

It flowed a little better today, about an eight I'd say (on a scale of ten). Two scenes I didn't expect ended up on the screen. One of them was an interesting little interaction between Rowen and two teenage kids admiring his motorcycle. I learned a little bit about Rowen's past (and Ash's) that I hadn't known before. The second scene was an unplanned sex scene that I ran into head-on. Don't get me wrong, I knew it was going to happen, I just thought there would be a brief flirtation with it, then most of it would take place off-stage. Uh, not so much. Fontaine and Liliana apparently have minds of their own.

...Go!

2008-11-01T22:08:00.002-05:00

So, it's the end of the first day of NaNo 2008. I feel I'm off to a good start, with 5,485 words down, and only 94,515 to go. Yes, you read that right. I'm trying to hit 100k for NaNo this year. Actually, that was my goal last year, but I failed miserably and only wrote about 60k. I know, I still won NaNo, but I didn't hit my personal goal, so that was disappointing. But I got over it. And I decided to shoot for the same goal this year. I think I'm doing tolerably well so far. I got about 2.8k for the midnight start, then passed out for a few hours, got up, and wrote again. I even managed a little over 400 words tonight while watching The Legend of the Seeker premiere. Did anyone watch that? And if so, what did you think? I love the Sword of Truth books, and I think the show was pretty good. Of course they had to change some things around, which always bothers me, even though I understand why they had to. Richard seemed so young, too. I'll definitely be tuning in next week.

Okay, I'm back from that little tangent. Tempest of Angels is going well so far. I haven't quite gotten into the flow yet, but that's to be expected (for me). Plus, this is in third person, and I have been writing first person lately. That's another switch. But I'm enjoying it.

How did everyone else do on their first day?

Ready, Set...

2008-10-31T23:57:00.002-05:00

I wonder just how many writers are getting reading to start NaNoing right now? I am, I confess. I like the adrenaline and excitement of starting at midnight. Might be silly, but it's the truth. My outline is done. I've re-read my notes to refresh my memory. Now I just have to wait for the clock to tick over....And stare impatiently at the clock.

A Lone Wolf

2008-10-30T20:22:00.001-05:00

This is the final catch-up reading post, and unfortunately, it contains two books that I left behind in Texas (one belonged to my best friend, and she has the other one as well). A Taste for Control, by Patrice Michelle, is one of them. We sat in on some panels with Ms. Michelle this summer at Conestoga, and decided to buy one of her books to see if her writing was as good as promised. It was, and this book had a lot of action. It was way hot, too, but I'm a little fuzzy on the details at this point. The other "left-behind" novel was Cry Wolf, by Patricia Briggs. Now, I love the Mercy Thompson books by Ms. Briggs, and this one was loosely connected to them (set in the same world, some of the same characters), but I found it a little harder to get into. I think it's because the MC seemed so…well, kind of quiet and retiring. I prefer my heroines strong and outspoken. But it did end up being a good read.

Next up, Nighwalker, by Jocelyn Drake. This is the first in the Dark Days series, about Mira, who's a sort of cop who keeps the vampires in her area in line. She was a very strong character, and I liked her a lot. She goes head-to-head with Danaus, a vampire hunter who is determined to kill her, although they end up being quite intrigued with each other.

Then I read A Bite to Remember, one of the Argeneau vampire books. I do love the humor in these books, and the titles are great, too. Jackie is a PI who is hired to investigate the sabotage directed at Vincent Argeneau. Of course, they end up falling for each other, but there are some good laughs and nice action along the way. This book is as good and reliably enjoyable as the other books in this series.

And the last of the group are Midnight Rising, Kiss of Midnight, and Midnight Awakening, by Lara Adrian. I am really excited about this series. There's a group of hot vampires (Breed), who are trying to kill off the Rogues (dangerous vampire killers). The characters in these three are all believably drawn, with flaws and strengths just like everyone else. They're not infallible, untouchable warriors, either. And the females are just as believable, with real problems and personalities, not cookie-cutter heroines. All of these books were super reads, and I can't wait to get the rest of them.

Revenge of the Vampires

2008-10-29T20:05:00.000-05:00

And now I'm back to my vampire books again. They seem to dominate everything I've read for…well, this entire year. I can't help it, I just love to read about vampires. Funny that I have no desire to write about them, isn't it? I just don't have an original idea for a vampire story. If I ever happen across one, I'm on it.

I'm going to start with The Awakening and The Struggle, both by L.J. Smith. The cover art is what caught my attention: a shadowy close-up of a face (I think a guy's), with blood on the lips and cool glowing eyes. So I read the back cover copy, and saw that it's a YA vampire story about a (human) girl and two vampire brothers. Nice. Sounded good, so I picked it up. Elena is the human girl who falls in love with the vampire, Stefan, though she doesn't know he's a vampire for a while. He keeps pushing her away, but eventually gives in to the attraction. This kind of gave me a Twilight-esqe feel, but I checked the pub date, and it said 1991, so that's a no-go. I did enjoy this book, although I didn't get into quite as much as I'd hoped. I did find myself liking Stefan, though not his brother Damon at all. I'm not sure if I'll be reading the last two books in the series (assuming I can find them).

Next up are Don't Talk Back to Your Vampire, and Because Your Vampire Said So, both by Michele Bardsley. Ms. Bardsley is hilarious in person, and her books are hysterical, too. Really. Laugh-out-loud funny. Like the idea of a small town in Oklahoma being taken over by vampires isn't funny enough. Don't Talk Back to Your Vampire is about Eva, the town librarian with a teenage daughter, who was changed into a vampire by Lorcan when he was on a rampage. But then she starts to fall for him. Kind of weird to be falling in love with the man (sort of) who murdered you. Because Your Vampire Said So is about Patsy, a country-girl hairdresser with a rebellious teenage son. Patsy is attracted to an outcast shape-shifter, but she also has her son to worry about, not to mention a prophecy about the queen destined to unite the vampires and shape-shifters. Kind of a lot to take on for a middle-aged vampires. These books are both really funny and well-written, with strong, distinct characters that I loved.

And now we come to Untamed, by P.C. and Kristin Cast, the latest in the House of Night series. If you haven't read these books, you should run out and buy all of them immediately. They are fabulous. In this one, Zoey has managed to make all her friends mad at her, except for Aphrodite, who no one else even knows she's friends with. Erik isn't speaking to her. Heath thinks she's dead. No one knows about Stevie Rae being sort-of-alive-and-sort-of-not. She has a mysterious connection with the new fledgling Stark, which ends even more strangely that usual for her. Her grandmother is in danger, and the only ones who can help her are a group of nuns (Is that a flock of nuns, maybe? No disrespect intended. Just wondering.). Oh, and Neferet is finally going to make her move. All in all, well, I don't know if I can wait until March for the next book!

Urbanized

2008-10-28T20:09:00.002-05:00

In case anyone is wondering why I'm posting all these book blogs back-to-back, it's because I'm trying to get it all done before NaNo starts and madness ensues. I'm almost done with my phase outline for my NaNo story, which is now titled Tempest of Angels. In fact, I should be finishing up the outline tonight, which gives me an extra day to re-read and fine-tune my notes. Anyway, on to the books, which are all urban fantasy.

First up is Kelley Armstrong's Personal Demon. I like Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld series. I haven't read all of them, but I think I've only missed two, and I've liked every one so far. This book is no exception. I want to give props to Ms. Armstrong for making her MC, Hope, of Indian background. I haven't run across very many books with MCs of that ethnicity, and it was good to see something different. Hope Adams works for a tabloid, and she's recruited to do a job for the Cortez Cabal—infiltrate a gang that's trying to make them look bad. Hope happens to be a half demon who is drawn to chaos, which makes for all sorts of interesting happenings.

Then I read Katie MacAlister's Playing with Fire, about May, who is a doppelganger and can hide in shadows very well. She's also a thief, which lands her in a lot of trouble, with the demon who sort of owns her, and with Gabriel, the leader of the silver dragons. Oh, and she just so happens to be Gabriel's mate, which is something she's not all that thrilled with. Not a bad story, but I had some trouble getting into it. I haven't read any of the other dragon books by Ms. MacAlister, so that may have been the problem.

Then I read The Devil You Know, by Jenna Black. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and confess: I read this book a couple of months ago, and it ended up left behind at my best friend's house when I moved (Hey, she and I swap books all the time. I figured it was just one more excuse for her to come visit.). So, I'm afraid I don't have a terribly clear memory of the plot. I remember that Morgan Kingsely becomes the target of a demon bounty-hunter so scary he frightens other demons. I remember a lot of action, and I remember that I couldn't put this book down and can't wait to read the next one. I hope that's enough.

Next is Heat Stroke, by Rachel Caine. I do love these books, and I can hardly stand knowing there are so many more out that I can't currently afford to buy. This book is about Joanne, who is now a Djinn. She's able to see a disturbance in the atmosphere the Weather Wards and and Djinn work in, and has to stop it. Of course, she also has to avoid being claimed by a human, especially the oh-so-nasty Yvette, who is after David.

Last up is The Darkest Pleasure, by Gena Showalter. I think this is the first book I've read by Ms. Showalter, and can I just say wow? This book is hot. Why have I not read the other two books in this series? An amazing premise, that when Pandora opened that fabled box, the demons inside bonded with immortal warriors who took on the traits of their demon and became the Lords of the Underworld. This is about Reyes, possessed by the demon of pain, and Danika, who has been running from the Lords for months and is determined to save her family. You should definitely go buy this!