Pantsing it. And an update.

That’s what I’ve been doing for the past few weeks with Survivor — I know exactly where I want to end up, but I’m taking a few little detours and letting my muse play a bit.  It’s been interesting, to say the least.  I made yet another complication to the main character’s recovery.  I don’t know alot about deprogramming someone who’s been brainwashed, but between my own research and a friend’s help, I have an idea, and that’s enough for now.  Because the condition is fictional, loosely based on a real one, I think I can improvise a bit with it.

I’m very close to the end.  I don’t think I can get it finished before the wedding, but after I get back from my honeymoon, I think I have a good chance of doing it then. 

Also, I’m bringing Flamebound with me on vacay, in case I have some time to write.  I doubt that will happen, but hey — you just never know.  And I can’t imagine not writing for a whole week.  😦  I need to do something, even if it’s another read through and making comments.  Got to feel productive.

Flamebound will be undergoing yet another rewrite.  I’m still targeting it to Nocturne Bites, and if the changes I plan on making work, it might end up the right wordcount for them (15k).  If not, there are other e-publishers that take novellas.

What else?  I’m starting to get nervous about the wedding.  Not so much “what am I doing?!” nerves, more like anxiety that something’s going to go wrong.  I just want a smooth day.  It doesn’t need to be perfect, but I want it to be a close to perfect as possible.

Also considering my next big project.  I have something in mind and what publisher I will be targeting.  It’s Soulfire, of course.  I’m pretty excited about that.

Pirouette is being critted by 6 people.  I hope to have the crits back within the next few months so if there are changes needed, I can make them and get it out the door.  Very exciting to be this close.

Okay, well I probably won’t be back till after the honeymoon.  So, wish me luck and I’ll see you on the other side.

2008 in Review

Happy New Year to everyone.  I thought I’d reflect back on this year and talk about what I accomplished. 

The biggie of the year was finishing the Pirouette Rewrite on June 14th, which made it just under a year since I started it.  I managed to do that amid severe tendonitis, back-to-back surgeries (parents, not me, but still), learning and training and using voice recognition, and health issues.  For me, finishing it in 11 months was a bit of a miracle.  Starting tomorrow, I will be revising and polishing it.

I wrote just under 50k new words on Survivor.  I’d wanted to finish the first draft, but that didn’t happen.  Even so, Survivor is getting very close to the end.  My second priority in the new year is to finish it, give it the attention it deserves.  It’s been languishing waaay too long.

I wrote (and rewrote) Flamebound, the novella.  It, too, needs a revision and polish.  I hope to get that out the door in the new year, too.

I started my first contemporary romance, Like Summer, based on a short story I wrote many moons ago.  It’s on hold at the moment, because I’m not sure if contemporary romance is my thing.  We’ll see. 

I participated in NaNoWriMo, even though I didn’t plan on it, and ended with 54k.  And attempted to write a comedy, but being me, that just ain’t happening, but the book is quite unique and dark.  Just like me.  😉  It’s kind of my experimental draft for an e-course I’ve been in since July.  It’s called “How to Think Sideways” given by the talented and wonderful Holly Lisle.  What a course!!!!!  It’s funny, I’d worked up a few ideas for the course and had one set to go…..and then the one for Hereafter hit me upside the head after a stressful day at work.  It turned out waaay different than I could have imagined, and that’s okay, because damn it, I like surprises.

I beat my previous writing record for one week.  The record was 12,000, and I wrote it while on vacation using my Alphasmart Dana.  This year, I had to stay home due to severe burstitis, and I ended up with 17k.  I also pretty much began and finished Flamebound’s first draft that week.

I survived severe tendonitis and severe burstitis, both of which threatened to screw with my writing.  Not so.  I managed to produce despite all of that, and I’m damn proud of that.

Lastly, I’m finishing out the year with approximately 290k.  Could have made 300k, but this month has been rough for me in terms of time and motivation (yes, even I am sometimes unproductive.  Go fig).  But 290k is spectacular!!!!  Especially considering everything that happened this year.

Oh, and I moved into an apartment with my fiance.  That was another thing that halted the writing (and caused the burstitis, grrrr). 

I critted a few great novels, and I’m working on a few more. 

I discovered the shininess that is the band Nightwish, and I LOVE them.  And I’m still in love with Queensryche, fyi.

So alot has happened.  Alot has gotten done.  I’ve survived some big challenges, and I thank God for my intense drive to succeed and my motivation.  That’s one thing that I have that lot of people don’t: I’m driven to the point of obcession.  I have to do well, if not be the best.  I have to make my dreams reality.  Because if I don’t, what is life really worth?  Sure, I have family and friends and a wonderful fiance, but I would always wonder what if?  And yearn for what I didn’t have, what I didn’t try to attain.  I can’t imagine going through life never reaching for my dreams, never accomplishing anything of value.  It just isn’t in my makeup.

True immortality: writing.  I hope to God that I will get published and have my writing read by generations of people for many years to come.  If I keep working hard, it will be a reality.

See ya on the other side.

Revision day…or not.

Today I was supposed to start the Pirouette Rewrite One-Pass Revision, but I’ve decided to wait until I move and get settled.  I don’t want to lug around a 500+ manuscript.  And, more importantly, I’m just not ready yet.  The story is simmering in my head, but I’ve been focusing on Survivor, and that’s helped me get the needed distance from it.  I want to feel ready to rip it to shreds.  I’ve already made a list of what needs to be changed, so I have that as a guideline.

I’ve been told different things about distance — 1 month, 6 mos, more than that, even.  I’m not sure I can wait that long.  Pirouette will call to me.  I’m sure it will, when it’s good and ready.  I’m not writing to the market (I hear that’s not a good thing) but I would like there to be a market for it when I start the agent rounds.  But I’m also not going to push it.  I don’t want to send it in when it’s clearly not ready for agent perusal.

Can we just fast forward to the end of the Revision and call it done? 

Just kidding.  This will be an interesting experience, being my first real revision.

Survivor is just moving along.  Things have changed a bit, but for the better, I think.  I think I have a shot of getting it done within the next few months (!).  If I work my butt off, that is.  Timeline-wise, we’re just before the climax of the book.  So it’s almost there.  Pantser me, I meandered a bit, but I’m not off course…just taking a detour.

I could wrap it up within the next few days, but that would take away from the power of the story.  There’s a very specific thing that needs to happen to set the MC in a new, healthy direction.  I’m moving towards that.

I also have another idea percolating.  My awesome writing partner emailed it to me.. It’s for Silouette Nocturne Bites, 15k novellas.  Paranormal.  That’s about 40 pages.  And it would be a challenge to write something tighter.  Ideas….one of them is basing it off of a really cool song (by guess who?  Queensryche!) and another is a serial tracker thing.  Yet another is vampires underground.  Don’t know how I’ll choose.  But there’s no deadline, so I’m just going to let this one simmer away.

That’s about it.  No Revision, working hard on Survivor, got some new things to flog the muse with.

Progress progresses.

Been working steady on Survivor and am up to 7k new words.  Not bad, for a book I haven’t looked at in over a year, and with a million plot threads to interweave to boot.

It’s coming slowly.  I figure it would be for awhile, while I got my bearings.  Diving feetfirst into Laura’s world wasn’t the most comfy way to start — but if I got tangled up in details, I’d never get there.

I’ve issued myself a challenge: finish this damned thing THIS YEAR.  It’s been 4 years since I started it, and it has haunted me for about that long.  Pirouette is in stasis right now, awaiting its One Pass Revision (method developed by Holly Lisle that I’ll be trying out).  I set a tentative start date for it to begin on July 14th, exactly a month after I finished the book.  We’ll see how I feel as that day comes closer.  I know that currently, I’m not ready to begin, and it’s not Survivor.  It’s just the distance I need.  I’ve thought a bit about it here and there, but for the most part, I’ve not thought about it much at all.  To give myself distance and objectivity.  So if I’m not ready come July 14th, that’s ok.  I’ll give it some more time.  I still want to finish that and get it critted/beta’ed/polished AND send it out by the end of the year.  If I work hard, and fast, and get good feedback, I believe that’s still possible.  We shall see.

This year is shaping up to be pretty productive so far.

On the indexing front…I’ve been taking a break from it to assess what to do next.  Last time I worked on it, I broke my brain.  😦    So….I waffled a bit, thinking of scrapping it, thinking that I just wasn’t getting it, and then I had a revelation.  I think I understand it now.  Why I faltered, why I was so confused.  I still want to try, b/c I’m not a quitter, but I needed that distance, too.  Desparately.  

So sometime soon, after I move most likely, unless I have some dead time coming, I’ll take another crack at that practice index and see if I can make it happen.  If not, then maybe I’m just not cut out for it.  But we’ll see.  Perhaps I will surprise myself.

Wedding plans progressing nicely.  I just chose –and bought–my wedding dress.  It’s funny, but when I pictured myself in a wedding dress, it wasn’t the one I ultimately picked.  It’s similar, but it took me by surprise.  The dress is beautiful, perfect in every way, and is just amazing.  Everyone I talked to said that you just know when you find The Dress — and I did.  I could envision myself walking down the aisle in it.  And I’m happy about it.  It’s perfect.

Photographer, reception hall, and the chapel are all booked.  Now we’re dealing with the fun of apartment hunting — hit some snags — but I’m confident that things will work out.  Very confident, for no apparent reason, just that  I am.  I believe it, not just superficially, but with everything I have.  Much how I believe that I’ll be published.  I can’t prove it, or tell the future, or anything — but I just know.  I also know when.  Well, approximately.  My powers only go so far.  😉  *winks*

So look for snippets and more progress from mine own hands soon.

Time keeps on slipping, slipping….

Thought it was time to do an update.  I’ve been very busy working on Pirouette.  It is up to 152k, and I estimate that it will come in at about 170k, which means some major cutting will be in order.  But I’ll worry about that later.

I have been voice reccing it exclusively, and the wrist is doing alot better.  Still may need to see the doc, but I’m hoping that will be unnecessary.

I also have been thinking about resurrecting an old short story and expanding it into a novel.  It’s called Like Summer, and it’s about (among other things) a marriage of convenience and the healing power of love.  Contemporary romances are shorter in length, and I thought that if I could bang out one within the next six months, I might be able to shop it around and perhaps even get it published.  Alot of my favorite authors started out with comtemporary romances.  And, it could get my foot in the door at a certain publisher I’m looking at for my other stuff.  And, I’m looking to spread my wings a bit and try something new and different.

We shall see.  It’s plotted and ready to roll.

In wedding news, the beloved and I booked our ceremony location a few weeks ago.  It’s a beautiful little chapel.  I knew when I walked in that it was The One.  And the price was right, and they offer other services (photography, flowers, etc) at discounted prices.  Works for me!

On 70 days of sweat, I’m up to 46,955.  I’m doing wonderfully.  I’m so glad I joined the challenge.

For the month (and April Fools — another challenge), I’m at 22,080.  Going to try for 25k.  It’s one of my highest monthly counts to date.

Well, that’s it for now.  Spring is here finally!  Whooohoo.

New header.

This picture was taken at Sunken Lake County Park in Posen, MI (nearby Alpena).  The beloved and I went camping there in mid-June.  We had a campsite right on the water, and I was able to take some gorgeous pictures.

Not dead, just busy.

Very.  My beloved fiance and I went camping the 3rd week in June, and the prior two weeks were taken up by Planning and More Planning and then Shopping.  It was a lovely, kick-ass time, got lots of pics, caught 3 fish, actually ate some fresh-cooked perch, and wrote ALOT.  Massive…12,000.  Yeah.  Can hardly believe it myself.  If only I could do that daily…

Yeppers, I am officially engaged.  The beloved proposed on Wed, June 27th which was a complete and utter surprise.  But not a shock.  He’d planned on doing it in December but couldn’t wait.  Such a wonderful guy I’m marrying!  We’ve set a tentative date of June 27, 2009, which will give us enough time to do what we need to do, get me moved in, and not have to rush planning the wedding. 

On writing.  Been doing mostly character prework for the Pirouette Rewrite of Doom.  I’m nearly done with Alisia, and will start on Lucien tonight or tomorrow.  I used Holly Lisle’s Create a Character Clinic which I highly recommend.  Even if you’re good a character creation, it still can give you some kick-ass insights, stuff you haven’t thought of before.  Case in point: Alisia’s dance partner, Adam.  From the get-go, they’ve had chemistry, and I (literally) danced around it, not letting it go anywhere because of Lucien (stoopid reasoning, I know).  I read the first few scenes today and it dawned on me: Adam should be a factor in this complicated equation of a story.  And…using Holly’s cool techniques, I also “discovered” a human lover that apparently my dear Alisia has been keeping under wraps.  Oh my.  It will be very interesting to see how this works on the page.

Been figuring and re-figuring the magic.  Suffice to say that it’s tighter, more logical, and very unique.  I have since added things and subtracted others.  Added more today in fact.

I’m changing Alisia’s …place…in the world again.  She’ll be unique, which was the point, but it will be due to the will of the world.  The Otherworld.  The secret slayer-society that shows up in Dance of the Obsidian has also changed…although they still slay.  And now there’s a sort of Council that polices the otherworldly peoples.  Alisia and her arch-nemesis have something in common, having to do with this Council, and that makes them uneasy allies.

 All from a book on character creation.  I’m telling you, it works. 

Oh! And I also found out a bunch of things that Alisia neglected to tell me the first time.  *wags finger*  Bad girl.  Bad, bad girl.  She’ll be a tortured soul, but she will rise above it to become something of a legend.  Muuahhh.

On other projectos: Requiem in Blue is swimming right along, with some kick-ass revelations while at camp.  I wrote 7.5k of that alone while on vacay.

Survivor is going slightly slower, but I can’t say I’m surprised.  It’s been tough, but that’s the subject matter– it’s not exactly warm-and-fuzzy material.  And this particular scene I am banging my head over is a doozie — it’s just the crux of the ending, is all.  No biggie, right?

Wrong.

So that’s in the works.

Indexing: got about half of my practice book indexed.  It’s been really interesting, and I can’t wait to see if I totally botched it or if I might be on to something.  That’s the only problem with correspondence courses — no real feedback or anything.  Just sorta flying blind.  But I have Plans.  Always.  *she says with shifty eyes*

So, I think that’s it.  I’ll try to get back more regularly.  Just fell into a black hole.  I’m out, alive, and I’m damned happy.

Life is good.