#ROW80 Check-in 6/14/15

I’ve made some progress since my last check-in! Yay!

Things have been a bit dicey with my eye and now having dizzy spells. I think it may be my ears, so looks like a visit to the ENT doc is going to happen.

Here’s the rundown:

Fireborn – Nothing new since last check-in, but have been pondering the next scene.
Survivor – Finally restarted it today. 941 words, a rewrite of the current scene.
Ever Touched – Nada, but thought about it this weekend. Leaning toward the clone/psychic connection angle.
Covenant – Up to 3,091 words. Yesterday’s scene was a tough one.

I’ve found I can handle about 3 active novels before my brain turns to mush. I’m really good at keeping things separate — it’s the same reason why I can read 4 books at a time with no problem. Everything has its own place and nothing merges together. It’s great.

Whether I can keep this going remains to be seen. I haven’t done this in years…almost ten, if I’m figuring it right. Sure takes me back!

That’s really about it. I got hit with a freaky mermaid plot bunny and I had an equally freaky dream that might become a story. It’s just that freaky. And, of course, I need to get it out of my head and onto paper. I woke up and was glad it was only a dream. It was scarily dystopic and a bit out there. My kind of thing completely. Thank you, brain and muse. You’re conspiring against me again.

Chocolate consumption has been, as of late, through the roof. Most of it I’m ashamed to admit is stress eating. I gained a few pounds, so I should cut back but damn it, I NEED my chocolate!

#ROW80 Check-in 4/30/14

So, the big news is that Reaper Girl is finished. As in, completed, edited, and proofread for tomorrow’s deadline. BAM!

The second piece of news is that I’m considering writing another novella of some sort for a month. It would have to be around the same length, and not morph into a novel because I’m really supposed to be going back to Grave Touched. I just feel like I need more of a break with it. I don’t think it’ll impact my ability to make my deadline, but because of that possibility, I might try to work on it one day a week or something. I did that a long time ago — I had a main project I worked on every day, and then I had another I only worked with on Sundays. It was much slower, but the words did add up, and it didn’t impact the main project at all (the irony? I’ve since scrapped the main project from that, but that Sunday project is still in progress. It turned out to be one of the strongest novels thus far…and I’ve been doing this for at least 10 years!).

Sooo I’m currently struggling with what this project should be. I have a novella that needs a rewrite, but I was going to expand it into a novel. It is my ongoing revision through Holly Lisle’s How to Revise Your Novel class. It’s been languishing. Too long. But my muse hasn’t really gotten enthused lately, and I don’t know why.

I do have an erotica idea I’m pondering, as per my Year of No Fear Manifesto. I want it to be tied to some type of dance, because I love dance and dancing together can be really, uh, erotic. And just to throw a wrench into the monkey, I’m considering a female/female pairing. Might as well go all the way. My muse is intrigued and has already given me a first scene. Soooo we’ll see. (This will be a completely different genre for me to try. Kinda scary and kind of exciting at the same time).

But Grave Touched does need to be restarted. I might need to reread what I have because I’ve kinda forgotten where I left off. If I write a novel straight through (which is my normal process), I can keep track of stuff in my head, only referring to my notes/outline for main plot points and stuff. So I’ve lost that thread. I would like to add at least 35k to it this round.

Decisions, decisions.

Stats:

Words written so far: 22.5k – FINIS!
Words remaining: Big fat zero baby!
What’s happening: The MCs are happy and in love and everything’s just purrfect.
What’s next: No friggin clue.
Feeling: Happy, happy, happy! And a bit insane.
Eye report: Throbbing today, and it sucks.
Chocolate consumption: Today – 2 Samoas and a WW ice cream Twix bar. Yummmmm.

Year of No Fear – 2014 Manifesto – March Progress Report

This has been a very slow month for me because my back is still a problem, so most of what I wanted to do had to be put off. 😦 Makes me sad, but the year is still young and I need to take care of myself.

So here’s the rundown of what I’ve accomplished:

~Poetry: I’ve looked over some poem drafts. Still waiting for something to gel. Got everything set up on my HDX so if something hits me on the go, I can jump on it.
~Self-portraits: I’ve started, as an experiment, taking selfies on my new Kindle Fire HDX. Totally not serious, completely goofy, just to get used to doing it again. I’m going to try to take a pic a day for 30 days, and see how that goes. It’s something.
~Photography: Got plans. Need to execute them as soon as my back is better (HDR photos and park photos are planned, so far).
~Ice skating: On hold till back is better. But hey, I got new ice skates from the hubby for my birthday! Can’t wait to try them out!
~Revision: It’s coming along pretty darned well. Just hit 40k in draft, and I’m excited about it again. This month however is devoted to my TDP anthology story “Reaper Girl” which is due May 1st.
~Erotica: Ideas are happening. No real time to tinker, unfortunately.
~Diet: Lost 7 pounds! Trying really hard to watch what I eat and how much.
~Optimism: Been sorta tough with health things happening, but I am trying.

And that’s basically it. Still progressing which is good, right?

It’s going….kind of.

It’s been slow.  Darklight is just shy of 5k, after rewriting the opening scene 3 times.  I also discovered a better way to bring out the creepy so things have changed a bit plot-wise and Ellya might have a brother who becomes very important later.  I think.  The muse and I are still working on that.

I had oral surgery one week ago to remove a wire from my jaw surgery 20 years ago (!) that my body decided to reject.  I’d been feeling like utter crap, dizzy as hell, and a bit spacey, and that is why.  So no writing occurred because I couldn’t fathom it.  So I took a bit of a break, but spent most of my time either reading or thinking about writing, which was actually quite productive.  So now I’m back at it, but slowly, because my muse is still a bit gun-shy.  My quota is 100 words a day and I’m aiming low.  I have the time, and pushing myself or pressuring myself isn’t gonna work this time.  So going slow and building up to more.

I’ve approached Darklight very differently than I’ve approached other novels.  I’ve never tried to write a straight-up horror novel, and I suspect this one will end up with psychological horrors as well.  I can’t help it.  It’s my inner psychologist working on me.  But I am trying for more horror too, so we’ll see.

I’m also telling this story differently.  First person present, a first for me.  Also there will be some journal entries by Ellya, the main character, in this novel and they will take place in a different location than the main action (her relationship with her love interest I think will be told in the journal entries, at least for part of it).  And finally, the chapters have names.  They will all use the format “[something] and the [something].”  And I’m letting my muse come up with them ahead of time and I will try to pull out what I think should go in that chapter based on the limited “plotting” (if you could call it that) I did.  Totally random, totally muse-directed, and I think it’ll be good. This is thanks to Holly Lisle, who has a class (How to Think Sideways) which I took and graduated from where she demo’d a plotting technique.  I sort of adapted it for my chapters.

So I’m living the muse for now, and it’s been enlightening.

I’ve also decided that once I get the comments back on Pirouette, I’ll make a ruling on whether or not I want to pursue getting an agent with it.  And after that is decided, I’ve also decided to tackle Alpha Female again.  Going with my goal of submitting something this year, I think AF is the logical choice as it needs a bit of work and then it might be ready for critique.  We shall see.

On the back burner (can you tell I’ve been thinking a lot about this?) are Darkweaver, which was supposed to be my Nano novel for this year, and my Fae-war romance inspired by my grandparents that suddenly bopped me over the head about a week ago.  Tentatively titled Pixie Queen, but that’s subject to change.

Ugh.  Want to move forward.  And I am, just slowly.

Update – Still alive, mostly.

Um, yeah.  I’ve been working on Pirouette (up to page 88 of 281) and promoting both Life as a Moving Target and Without Wings.

I’ve had some issues with Pirouette.  I’ve made a very critical change to the book near the beginning, and while I believe it will make everything stronger, it kind of threw me for a loop.  Alisia and Lucien have to react to this and it’s not something they’ve encountered before.  Also, they are newly married, so things are a bit tricky right now.

I just finished the second new scene of 3 and I’m not sure I nailed it.  Lucien leaves the room at the end, and I didn’t plan that.  I asked my muse, “WTH? Why did he leave?” And my muse hasn’t answered my question yet.  I hope she will sometime soon.

I’m also a bit worried about the length.  Two words: Growing. Again.

In cheerier news, I have some new and not-so-new stuff happening.  I’ve decided my next project is to try to finish the revision of Flamebound and then begin the rewrite.  I have some ideas for that, and I might try to fit in some revision work here and there when I can.  Pirouette is still the priority though.

And lastly, I have an idea for a horror story.  I don’t even know what it wants to be – short story, novella, or novel.  It came fast and furious in the shower one night and I’m pretty excited.  Just don’t know when I’ll be working on it.  It doesn’t even have a title yet.

So that’s what’s shaking here in my world.  Stay tuned.

God help me…

Been trying to get into some kind of rhythm and groove after my surgery.  Well, it hasn’t really happened.  Sure, I’ve written stuff.  I’ve spent a lot of time brainstorming and figuring out things.  But I’ve been feeling off kilter. I think part of it was my forced time off writing and part of it is my grandfather’s death.  He was my last living grandparent, 97 years old. His funeral was last week.  I’ve cried only once, but I’ve felt his absence.  I wrote a blog about him on the Turtleduck Press blog.  http://www.turtleduckpress.com . Scroll down a bit.  It’s called “Honoring My Grandfather.”

I have my 2nd chapbook, Without Wings, releasing April 1st.  So this month for me will be getting everything finalized.  We’re down to less than 30 days!

Alpha Female has continued to be my problem child.  I had to cut 5k because, as usual, it wasn’t working.  Started poking at it again tonight, and that didn’t go very well.  I’m thinking of setting it aside and working on it here and there. I’ve only got 5 parts to finish and the draft will be done.

Annnnnd I started the Pirouette revision.  Just 210 words, but hey – gotta start somewhere!  It’s daunting, knowing that this is the last revision (so I’m telling myself) and I’ve got to nail it.  So I’ve been putting it off.  Well, I decided today that I’m going to work on it.  Sentence by sentence if need be.  A lot of it is fine.  It just needs to be tweaked and cleaned up.  There are some things I’m changing too, but nothing major.

It feels good and it feels scary.

Lastly, I got clobbered by a plot bunny recently.  It’s a psychological horror, which I hear has no market, so I’m in no hurry to write it, but dang.  It speaks to the twisted, kinda crazy side of me and it’s drawing me in.  Relentlessly.  It’s about a girl who has erotomania – that is, she believes that someone is in love with her, a famous person, and he’s not.  It’s all a delusion.  And this is a real condition.  And it’s fascinating because, well…imagine what someone in love would go through for the one he or she loves…when the love is reciprocated.  Now imagine that intensity but without it being reciprocated but the girl believing that it is.  Can you imagine some crazy things?  Yeah.  That’s what I’m talking about.  It’s tentatively called Eros in Chains.  Another one to add to the pile.

So….this is going to be an interesting month.  I’m hoping to finish Alpha Female but who knows if that’s going to happen.  I need….something, and I’m not even sure what it is.  Just feel so lost right now.  Hopefully, I’ll find my way again.

NaNoRevNo – days 6-13

My bad.  I meant to update every day or every few days and I kind of dropped the ball here.  I lost 2 days due to being sick.  The others I worked on the Alpha Female revision.  I’m actually almost to the end of the draft and have discovered that I’ll need to rewrite most of it.  That’s a good thing and a bad thing.  There is a lot wrong with the end.  It needs to go in a different direction.  I also have a few more tricks up my sleeve. The actual ending is kick ass.  It’s just that what comes before sucks.

There, I said it.

Little bit of work on the Pirouette notecarding.  A few awesome first lines came to me a few days ago at work (where else?) so I’m kind of excited about that.  Still fending off the plotbunny from hell.  I now have a kick ass first line.

“I tried to cheat Death once.  Instead, I became Death.”

Doesn’t that just give you shivers?

In chapbook news, I’m pulling names tomorrow.  If you want to be in on it, comment to this post or my status on Facebook.   The short version is that 2 people will win a signed copy of Life as a Moving Target before it releases on Dec. 1st.

We go live in 2 1/2 weeks.  I still have some stuff to finish up on the website.  A “behind the scenes” page that will contain the first draft of the opening poem and a few that didn’t make the chapbook cut.  Also, a bit about how the chapbook came to be, what inspired particular poems.  So if you end up reading it and want to know more, stop by my website after release.  Dec 1st.  Got that?  Good.

Taking a break.

Ever since I got Alpha Female back from my beta reader (who was wonderful and quick and cool about everything), I’ve been taking a bit of a break.  There were alot of things missing, due to the wordcount limit of the antho, and while I had a feeling that might be a problem, I thought possibly that I could pull it off.  I tried, right?  I made my goal of finishing the draft on time.  However, I can’t submit it because 1) it’s too long at 27k, and 2) the story would be better served by expanding it vs. cutting 2k and then trying to fill all of the holes AND keep it at 25k. 

So here’s my plan.  I’m going to expand it to about 40k and submit it to the e-publisher’s regular submissions or another e-publisher altogether.  It’s okay — the story is far darker than the antho wanted.  Sometimes a story unfolds and as it unfolds, it mutates into something else.  Also okay.  I had a feelng that was happening, and I didn’t fight it.  I trusted my muse on this one.  And, after rewriting it 3 times, I wanted to make it work this go around. 

Am I happy with this?  Actually, I am.  I learned alot about my process and got a peek at what it’s like to write to a deadline.  Obviously, there was no contract-stipulated deadline so there were no consequences to speak of, but I took it very seriously and buckled down and got it done.

The only real variation in it is that I rewrote it 3 times before finishing the draft, something I rarely ever do.  My feeling was I didn’t want to continue to write a story that feels wrong, and then have to turn around and rewrite the entire thing.  Possibly several times.  It seemed like an exercise in futility.  Normally, I’d write straight through.  But I had a deadline, so things changed a bit.

So the next thing is to expand/rewrite/edit Alpha Female, addressing the problems that my fantastic beta reader found.  And adding a few things I couldn’t fit in this go around.  I’m thinking of cutting the death of the main character’s spouse from the entire thing, or make it already happened when the novella starts, as per the original draft.  I wanted Natasha to have a reason to be emotionless and distant, and a deceased spouse could do it.  But then while writing the ending, I thought, hmmm, what if he died in the fight that injured Natasha?  Killed by the same race as the man who wants her as his mate?  Brilliant, or so I thought.  But I had a wordcount limit, so I couldn’t let it play out the way it should have been.  I could put it back in and try to make it work, or cut it altogether.  Decisions, decisions.

And then there’s Natasha being a “latent” werewolf — aka she doesn’t — can’t — shift.  My beta reader felt it was a convenient plot device, and nothing more.  I needed Natasha to have another strong reason to allow Luke to turn her — besides dying, that is.  She’s an enemy of his race, and I would think she’d balk at it — even if it saved her life.  Stupid?  Nah.  She’s just very stubborn.  So I gave her the latent thing so the idea wouldn’t be so abhorrant.  She was already part werewolf, so going that extra mile wouldn’t be so bad.  I don’t know.  In some ways it works, but then again, my beta might be right.

So that was the idea behind my break, and to rest my brain.  I’m still really tired from dragging my cast around.  And I suspect a bit burnt out, too.  I just need to recharge the batteries, you know?  Let it come, but slowly.  This weekend, I might take a crack at it.  If I feel up to it.

But what about Pirouette?  you ask.  Well — that’s happening, too.  I actually think this “rest period” has given me alot of insights.  I have the first scene somewhat figured out and a few other things.  I’m almost ready to start the big revision.  So it’s Alpha Female next, all the way to submission (my one goal for last year and this year was to submit something to someone) and then Pirouette.  Maybe some Pirouette pre-work in between.

And as usual, I got smacked upside the head with the perfect NaNo idea — except I’m not doing NaNo and I can’t do any new stuff right now.  But, it’s a doozy, and pretty unique I think.  Oh well.  It can get into line with the rest.

So…hopefully I’ll have more to report in a few weeks.

Alpha Female is done.

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. 🙂

Update and future projects

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.