Here we are with another check-in. I am happy to report that I accomplished a few of my goals!
~Started Fireborn. Up to 2,582 words currently.
~May have an actual plot for Ever Touched, but I’m still noodling.
~Nothing on Survivor yet. Hopefully I can get to that sometime today.
So, since I started Fireborn, I’m adding a new goal. I’d like to have at least 15k written before the end of the month.
That’s about it, short and sweet!
So I definitely decided to write a novella (and maybe more!) in the Reaper Girl universe. It’s called Fireborn, and it takes place after the events of Reaper Girl, and continues Rick and Leliel’s adventures. Leliel discovers she has some interesting abilities, which not only get her into trouble, but enable her to help other people.
So there are these young men killing themselves by self-immolation. It’s horrifying, but there’s something about it that Leliel thinks is unusual. She determines that it isn’t suicide, but murder.
Yeah, so that’s the premise. I’ve already written almost 2k on it and I’m having a blast. I just love Leliel. She is such a fun character. Rick is cool, too.
I hope to finish the draft by the end of the month. And revise/edit it and release it ASAP. And I’m brainstorming ideas for more novellas.
If by some chance you haven’t read Under Her Protection (which is where Reaper Girl can be found — check it out here. There’s four awesome stories in it about some very special women who rescue men. It was a blast to write!
Future projects include Ever Touched (Fey Touched book #3, as soon as I can settle on a premise) and Survivor. Stay tuned.
Today I was ready to throw in the towel on Alpha Female — not for good, but for awhile. I’ve been working on it for about 7 months, pretty much straight through with no real breaks except the week of my surgery. I was just tired, and the last two days have been rough for me production-wise. But I’m not a quitter and I realized: I want to finish this. Sure, I could put it off or wallow in being stuck, but the fact remains: the novella won’t write itself. The farther I go from it, the harder it will be to get back into and on track.
I realized this because I considered switching back to either Flamebound or Pirouette. Flamebound especially — when I read over the HTRYN lesson I was currently working on (naturally, I couldn’t have yanno, finished it up) I felt like I was reading Greek. I read a few of my notes on some changes and again, I’m like, whaaaat?! And it seemed impossible at this time, so I decided to wait a bit longer. With Pirouette, this is more of a planned wait because the plan is to come back to it refreshed and I’m almost there, but not quite. Sooooo that left Alpha Female.
And after my recent discoveries, I’m actually excited about it again. Sure, I’m not sure what rabbit I’m going to pull out of my arse this time (moar questions, how I love thee!) but hey, slow progress is better than none. One sentence at a time if I have to. I’m doing this. I won’t accept anything less.
So poor Natasha is going to have to fight Delia with a magic she doesn’t know and doesn’t understand, and she’s going to have to kill Delia, somehow, even though Delia has a witch on her side. Obviously, Delia has to die. There’s no other option there. Going to think on that one.
But other than that, it’s been a pretty good day. About 780 new words on Alpha Female after ripping the scene apart. I’m moving the stuff I ripped out closer to the climax. Will have more impact that way.
Stay tuned.
This year just flew by. I don’t even know what happened to it. It felt as if I were making no progess anywhere, but I did accomplish a few key things. I also had to adjust my goals to accomodate Alpha Female, which wasn’t planned. All in all, this was a pretty productive year.
What I accomplished:
~I finished the 3rd draft of Pirouette in May and am gearing up for the final revision (which is my #1 goal for 2011)
~I started the Flamebound revision using HTRYN. Got to lesson 8 of 22. Yeah, that was one of the things that got adjusted.
~I wrote and rewrote and completed Alpha Female. My original goal was to submit it to an anthology by the November 1st deadline. After getting it back from a wonderful beta, I realized that it wasn’t going to work for the antho. I decided to expand it, as most of the issues were due to trying to keep the wordcount within the limits (25k) and then decided to try to finish it up by the end of the year. Which I pretty much did, if you don’t count the tweaks I’m currently working on.
~I started Broken and got it up to 12k. Broken was a personal challenge to myself, as it’s got a bit of BDSM in it and I’d never written that before. It’s also a different genre for me. I am very pleased with how it’s going.
~I critiqued 3 novels for writer friends. While this isn’t a huge thing, I made my deadlines for the most part and got the honor of reading some really good books.
~I joined up with a few writer friends and started Turtleduck Press, which is our publishing endeavor which will hopefully change the world, muhaaaa.
~I self-pubbed Life as a Moving Target through them, which has been a dream of mine since December 2002 when I wrote the very first poem in that collection. After trying traditional publishing, I decided to go ahead and self-publish it. I’ve gotten some great feedback so far. And it’s so dear to my heart.
~I wrote approximately 100k this year. Not bad considering I did mostly revising and editing. Some writing, too. I’m glad to have hit 100k. It certainly didn’t feel like 100k.
~I wrote and rewrote my query letter for Pirouette. I think I have it nailed. We’ll see.
So, yep, not a bad year at all.
Goals for 2011:
~SUBMIT something. This is HUGE. This year was supposed to be the year for that, but I got a bit derailed. I will submit something if it kills me. Most likely either Alpha Female or Pirouette.
~Finish up Alpha Female and get it critted
~Do the final revision on Pirouette and get it to critters.
~Submit something!
~Continue Flamebound revision, hopefully finish (I see a rewrite in my future…)
~Finish Without Wings, my second poetry chapbook with Turtleduck Press, and get it to approvals by Feb. 1st. This is a biggie because it still needs some work and time is ticking.
~Write (hopefully) Darkweaver.
~Work on Don’t Close Your Eyes, chapbook #3.
~Do not get derailed this time. Stay to the goals.
~Get an agent
Will I accomplish all of that? Perhaps. But I will try for sure. It feels like 2011 will be a good year.
This past week has been really rough on me. I lost a few days due to some personal stuff that made it virtually impossible to work on anything. Everything is fine. I just wasn’t in the mental place for writing and taking the time off actually worked to my advantage.
I was also horribly stuck on Alpha Female. It always happens near the end: I’ll lock up completely and not be able to move forward to save my life. I’ve heard that some writers subconsciously don’t want to finish their projects and by getting stuck, they’re able to delay the inevitable. It happened with Flamebound, too, although I’m not sure if it happened for Pirouette. But it’s starting to flow better now, so I might actually be over the hump and into the home stretch.
I don’t doubt that I’ll need to do another edit pass, though. Some of it is new words and right now, the goal is to finish it first.
I also worked on more Pirouette notecards. That’s also coming along.
And of course, my chapbook is launching with Turtleduck Press on December 1st. You can find out more at our website, http://www.turtleduckpress.com . I’m looking forward to that.
Bits of poetry are still rattling around in my head, but nothing’s jumped out at me. I may need to just freewrite sometime soon and see what happens. For some reason, I can’t seem to make the pieces gel into something cohesive. I imagine it’s because I haven’t written much poetry lately. Must change that.
All in all, I made pretty good progress if a bit slow. Hopefully, things will pick up in the final 3 days.
I officially finished it Thursday, and it came in at 27k, just 2k over what I needed. It is now with a trusted beta reader, who’ll give me the lowdown on what’s working and what’s not working, and I’ll have less than 2 weeks to do a revision plus a 5-page synopsis.
I must be crazy.
Actually, while I’m still actively trying to make that deadline, it’s not a huge thing. I mainly wanted to see if I was capable of producing something on a deadline. And I pretty much did, for the most part. It’s going to depend on what my beta reader says, because I’ve lost all objectivity. So, I gotta wait for that.
Pirouette is next up, particularly finishing the notecards and rewriting the first few scenes. Beyond that, it’s just tearing through the manuscript much how I did with Alpha Female, except on a bigger scale. I’m worried that I won’t nail it, and I simultaneously believe that I can. Which will win out? I has no clue.
The website is almost finished — at least the writing section, anyway. That needs to be done before Life as a Moving Target launches on December 1st. I have a few things planned for that so stay tuned.
Life as a Moving Target is almost ready to go on sale. I have a second proof ordered and if it’s good, then it’ll go on sale with the other Turtleduck books on Dec. 1st. It’s so exciting, seeing it in print, something I never thought would come true. I’ve gotten some wonderful support and encouragement on it so far, and that’s so important as the subject is so personal to me. All in all, I believe this is going to work out nicely.
It’s after midnight as I type this, but I still consider it Oct. 16th until I wake up in the morning. It’s a weird quirk of mine. So….today was not only Sweetest Day, but it was the 1-year anniversary of the day the family drama began, and my life, as I knew it, changed irrevocably. The person who caused it still remains out of my life, although I still think about this person and what this person did almost daily. It’s not enough to say that I’m hurt, or angry. I’m livid. Still a bit numb, even after all this time. My world hasn’t quite gotten back on track and I’m still feeling pretty dark and empty inside.
I don’t even know what to say. Except there are poems in this. They’ve been whispering in my ears for months,waiting patiently for me to put them to paper.
In other news, I’m now in a cast because my foot doc feels that immobilization of the joint might do the trick. I’ve never been in a cast before, so it’s been a real interesting — and frustrating — experience. Exhausting, too. I went downstairs to my office for the first time in 4 days and was terrified the entire trip up and down. I did it twice today, and I feel more stable. But dang, it’s tiring. Especially going up.
I hope this is it.
Also, I got hit with a doozy of a plotbunny. I’m not even going to speak of it, because evey time I even think about it, it grows. Halloween is perfect timing, but I’m standing firm on my no new projects decision for the rest of the year. It’s going to have to wait, and so will my mini-Nano. There’s always next year, right?
So that’s what’s happening here. I’m so excited about everything. I can hardly stand it. 🙂
I’m very happy to say that I received my proof copy of Life as a Moving Target yesterday and it is beautiful! I’m so excited! I have a few tweaks to finish up, but it’s pretty much done. It will release through Turtleduck Press on Dec. 1st. Here’s a little preview: https://www.createspace.com/3486326 .
What is Turtleduck Press? Well, we’re a group of writers who endeavor to publish quality fiction that skirts the edges of the standard genres. But, you ask, what does that mean? Well, our works don’t necessarily fit the standard conventions. My poetry doesn’t — it’s poetry, and it’s in a niche market. That kind of thing. I’m so excited about this I can barely stand it!
I will also be starting on another chapbook of poetry tentatively called Broken World, Mad Dreams. It explores the idea of family and betrayal, love and pain. It’s funny, but I’ve wanted to start on it since last year, but the timing wasn’t quite right. Well, now that I have a zillion things happening, I get murmurings of verse and ideas and stanzas from my muse. Usually when I can’t write any of it down. So, I might need to start getting these things down soon before they disappear.
In other news, Alpha Female is pretty much done. I need an ending, but that’s it. It’s also the first project that came close to its intended wordcount. 26k of 25k. How about that? So I have to cut some, add some, and edit the hell out of it. Hopefully before Nov. 1st. It’s going to be tight, but that’s my goal. It’s beenan interesting process. Rewriting it a total of three times and editing at the same time. Kind of crazy. But, it might just work!
So that’s what’s happening in ny crazy world. Hopefully things calm down soon and I can breathe.
Been sicky for the past few days, so not much has been accomplished. However, before getting sick, I’d broken 11k on Alpha Female. And, yes, I’m admitting it — this is kind of a rewrite/edit/revision. Because I’m basically doing everything at once so I can send it to critters once the “draft” is done. I say “draft” because I’m not really sure what to call it.
That’s my crazy process for you. It took me two false starts to get it right. Put me behind, but I’m doing okay. I’m not really worried. I guess I’ll start worrying in two weeks when I need to have it done.
I’ve been doing alot of thinking about future projects. I’m definitely going to take another whack at Pirouette once Alpha Female is done and submitted. That’s the top priority. Next, the big question is, do I want to do a mini-NaNoWriMo in November? I can’t do the full NaNo anymore (50 in 30 days) because of my wrists, but I’ve had some success with doing a 25k “mini-Nano.” I’m tempted to start a new novel. It’s one that’s been patiently waiting for oh….I want to say at least 5 years. It was going to be my 2006 NaNo novel but I changed my mind at the last minute. The story has been haunting me for five years. A lot of it has changed — for example, the main characters were all vampires (“vampira”) and now they will most likely be a type of Dark Fae. A few days ago, the phrase “a battlefield of souls” popped into my mind, and at first, it felt like a seedling of a new idea, but when I probed it deeper, I discovered that it could work with this novel, which is called Darkweaver. A few weeks to a month ago, the first line — hell, the first damn page — came to me, again out of nowhere. At work, no less. I was even going to type it up before I forgot (I haven’t). So it’s been really strong in my head. Muse says it’s about damn time. I’m trying to wait, because I have three unfinished projects that need to get done. But then again, what would 25k hurt? Of course, it’ll take another month of work out of the equation, and will leave me with a hanging manuscript, but I just don’t know. I’m completely and utterly torn. Broken could use another 25k (it’s sitting at 12k at the moment). Flamebound needs a revision and most likely a rewrite.
How does one choose? Lately I’ve been going according to one, the market (which I heard isn’t the way to go, but hey — I don’t want the paranormal market to die while Pirouette sits for another 5 years) and where the project is in the process. I’ve been making a conscious effort to finish my unfinished projects and get them submitted. So far, Pirouette’s 3rd draft got done last year, and Survivor’s first draft last year as well. Speaking of Survivor, there’s another one that’s haunting me. It needs a rewrite. I am toying with the idea of making it a trilogy. Again, market considerations. And the sheer time would be massive. So that one is probably going to have to wait, probably until I sell something.
What to do, what to do? There’s just not enough time anymore, you know?
Soooooo I guess we’ll see what happens. I’ll decide….later.
I spent 2 days being stuck on Alpha Female. I knew what would happen in the climax, but not how to get from where I was to that. I needed more to happen before that. And I’m still unsure of when the physical intimacy between Natasha and Luke is going to take place.
But…..I got 1,167 words and I’m almost to 18k, the point where I was when I restarted. I estimate I’ll need another week to finish, putting me at mid-September and giving me two extra weeks to revise. It has to go out to beta readers first, though.
How did I get unstuck? That’s a damn good question. I thought about it alot. I played out different scenarios in my head. I let my subconscious mull it over. But I was in the shower when it came together. The shower is the best place for getting ideas. At least for me.
I was considering doing some freewriting if nothing tore loose. Since I’m on a tight deadline, I couldn’t afford to lose another day. Luckily, I wrote over 2k and then got stuck, and today I wrote over quota (800 words) so I’m about where I should be.
This is the dark side of pantsing. While it’s fantastic when it works, it can be really difficult when it doesn’t. But I’ve learned over time to not force it. To let it percolate and gel and come together inside my head. Some of it I can see in my head or hear like overheard conversation. I just had to wait it out. And I was rewarded.
If I hadn’t, then I would have started poking at it. But luckily, it never got to that point. Crisis averted.
I’m still a bit foggy on a few things, but I know enough to move forward.
On the website front (yeah, I’m redesigning it yet again to coincide with the launch of Life as a Moving Target), I’m looking at some new options that will make life a bit easier for me. I’m self-taught and my skills are basically obsolete. So it’s been fun trying to get my head around newer ideas. But it is coming along.
Also took some pictures the other day at a lake. First time in I don’t know how long. I’m proud of myself. Naturally, it all came back, and I used my black&white mode, too (even though generally I shoot true b&w — that is, film) and I think I might have a few contenders for the cover for the chapbook. I would like to use one of my own pictures if possible.
So things are coming along, if slowly. I’ve been incredibly tired lately, which I suspect is the fibromyalgia, and that’s been a bit of a problem. But I persevere. Hopefully I’ll have more things to share soon.
I’m up to 15k on Alpha Female and I fear that I’m stuck again (I’m also talking in Natasha’s voice…by sheer accident…oops). I wrote 1,001 words today but it was like pulling teeth. I think it took me 2 to 3 sessions spread over 5 hours. Ye Gods. I admit that I’m a bit lost on the transition from before the hunt to beginning the hunt, and I wonder if I even need it at all. For now, it stays. I’ll make a ruling once I start revising.
Sooooooo I know basically what happens next. Luke and Natasha bond some more, discuss her becoming Lupi. They talk about Meaningful Things, possibly even Natasha’s deceased nashan (husband). They may get intimate, I’m not sure. But then I know where to go from there. It’s just the execution.
I’ve got 10k more to finish this. I suspect I might go over, but hopefully not by much.
As for other things, I just finished edits on Life as a Moving Target. It’s been approved by the others, so now I need to figure out formatting and find a cover. I want to use one of my own pictures for that. I actually had a concept come to me recently but it would require a really complex image. Not sure yet if I want to go that way.
On Pirouette: unfortunately I haven’t had much extra time to work on the plotcards. I’ll try to get some don this week. I feel like I’m losing touch with it, and that’s not good.
The song stuck in my head today is “Lost in Life” by Sirenia.
Weaver of Words 