Monthly Archives: April 2012

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Two steps forward, and then sliding back – Hey! Chutes and Ladders!

In writing, it often feels like the game of Chutes & Ladders – you make progress in your story, feel like everything is going greats and then BAM! you realize everything you have just written isn’t going to work, so it’s back to wherever the problem started and moving forward again. Some stories are a battle from page one, with words written and then deleted (except I never truly delete: I just cut and paste into another document in the hopes that I might be able to use the words later. But then I lose the document….) But every now and then there is a story that just flows with only the most minor setbacks; the characters are there and they are cooperating, the story is there and the characters are happy with it, and it’s a good feeling. In a funny twist, it is the stories I struggle with that are often more personally rewarding. They should be after making me pull my hair out….

The story I am currently working was once finished; it had almost been accepted for publication (I even received the Phone Call) but ultimately it wasn’t so I put it aside. Then Amazon came along with the kindle and a whole new world opened up to me – the world of independent publishing. I decided to dig out my almost published manuscript and get it ready to go. Yeah, my characters started making demands: my hero decided he was a wolf and I told him that he wasn’t and to stop being ridiculous. He’s a wolf. And my heroine simply looked at me and asked, “Isn’t it obvious? Hasn’t it been obvious from the beginning? I’m a Siren.” And I thought the was simply sh!tt!ng me but she wasn’t and so I am going through my once finished story and re-writing it. It is much better than before but it is taking me longer to get it out because a wolf and a Siren bring different dimensions to the characters that weren’t previously there; in the end they are far more interesting. Over the last week I have cut nearly 14,000 words but I have added 27,000 words for a net gain of 13,000 words. Yay???

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Favorite songs + Final Fantasy = win/win

okay, so the song is sad, the lyrics are painful (in a good way), the video is depressing but, my God! this is an awesome song. I love The Dreaming and pretty much all of their music. No, I take that back – I love all of their music, going back to the days when Christopher was in Stabbing Westward – another fantabulous band, by the way. Waking Up Beside You is one of my all-time favorite songs.

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chicken wings and things

My kids are making chicken wings but they can only make so many at a time so when they are cooked, everyone swoops in and eats them until they are gone and we have to wait for the next batch. My daughter tends to eat her wings very slowly, savoring each and every bite, and therefore ends up with one wing. When she tried to call dibs on one of the wings her brothers laughed at her and said we are a house of carnivores, you eat as many wings as you can as quickly as you can (it averages to about 2 or 3 wings per batch.) I told my daughter that she’d make a horrible zombie and she started to cry. But I did snag a wing for her so she’d have more than one from this latest batch. I am not sure whether she’s upset because I told her she’d make a horrible zombie or if she just wants more wings… :)

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My brain is on vacation

So, tomorrow is my birthday. My nephew’s birthday is also on the 21st and my giveaway ends on the 21st and despite KNOWING that tomorrow is the 21st I could have sworn that my birthday is actually next week and not tomorrow, the 21st. Even now as I type this – I know that tomorrow is the 21st and yet I am pretty sure my birthday is next week. My brain is being very stubborn – I guess that is what comes from being a bull born in the year of the ox (which, incidentally, are ALSO my nephew’s signs, which is completely awesome since the Chinese astrological years are every 12.) Last night my son was asking me what I wanted for my birthday and I was wondering why he was asking since he had at least a week to figure something out. I think I will blame it all on the caffeine. Normally, I’m not much of a caffeine drinker, not for any ethical or moral reasons but just because (the same could be said for alcohol; while I love buying alcohol and mixing drinks, I don’t like drinking; I react strangely and it is not a good strange.) But I wanted something to give me a little pick me up and I found an energy powder that you just add to water and shake up – and it was delicious. In the end I drank too much and fifteen minutes later my hands were shaking and then I got dizzy and had to lay down. o, I am laying down and my brain is racing a million miles an hour but I can only write with my pencil and paper since working on the computer would require being vertical. And this went on until 3:30 in the morning. Hopefully I will be able to read what I wrote down….

In the end, my kids decided to plant me a garden, since I also have a black thumb when it comes to growing anything – I look at a plant and it withers and dies. They have been working very hard on it but I don’t know what progress has been made since they won’t let me look at it. :) I have awesome kids.

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Wednesday the 18th

3 weeks until Darkness Comes will hopefully be available on Smashwords – it depends on how my formatting adventures pan out and if everything is good to go. And a month or so after that both Blight and Stone Lover will be available. I am working on editing a shorter story I wrote that I hope to publish within the next couple of weeks. It depends on how motivated I am to sit down and write – once that happens, it shouldn’t take too long. Unfortunately, I am a master procrastinator; there is always something else to do…. Sigh. I am also working on the other stories; After Blight is about half to three quarters done; I have started Darkness Comes part two (still figuring out the title) – I know what is going to happen I just need to figure out how to get there. Stone Romance (Rhys’s and Jenna’s story) is in a similar state as Darkness Comes part two.

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Finally!!

I have finally started writing the second book of Darkness Comes! While I have been jotting down ideas and plotting out the story, I hadn’t had a chance to sit down and actually write and it feels good to be doing so, as well as a little nerve-wracking. I’m terrified the words won’t come and too often I sit and stare at my monitor willing them to just appear exactly how I have them imagined. They don’t and I numb the doubts by playing solitaire and minesweeper; once the cobwebs are cleared away the words start coming. I only wrote about 2000 words yesterday but that was after I read some of the other stories I wrote to see how close they were to being finished – not close enough :)