The End: Time for a give away, right?

Tonight is a very exciting night – for me. I finished my first ever attempt at writing a contemporary romance novel. I began this story with the spark of an idea last year, wrote a few thousand words and set it aside. Last month I picked it back up and ran with it.

Thanks to my awesome friends, I would never have made it through this.  Suzan, Carolyn, Alice, Linda, Gigi and everyone who does #1k1hr sprints, you guys made it happen!

For tonight I’m going to bask in the sense of victory.  But tomorrow I’ll wake up and start fretting about…. revisions… and critiques, oh my!

So since I’m feeling celebratory, I’m going to share by having a little giveaway.  One random commentor will receive a copy of The Writing and Critique Group Survival Guide by Becky Levine.  Before my current crit group formed I bounced around looking for a good fit.  A critique group will take your manuscript to the next level.  This book was a great help to me back then, and I want to share that.

To enter, you must be a US resident.  Sorry, shipping gets to be a beast!  Leave a comment with some way to contact you should you win.  I will contact the winner Saturday.  If you’re working on something, how close are you to writing those wonderful words ‘The End’?

Weekly Update!

The last few weeks my updates have been very brief.  I think that it’s been a product of how dissatisfied I’ve been with where I was in my WIP.  I’ve been sloshing through the murky middle and questioning myself so much that I wasn’t really feeling like writing much at all, but now that I’m to a place where I’m excited about what I’m writing – I’m excited about writing anything and everything!  So, here goes…

Blogging.

I’m working on three different monthly series.  Fiction writing as therapy, goals and antagonists.  I’m not sure when I will post them or in what order.  I’m working on getting some other people involved who have some more experience in these areas than I do.  I’ll need to get cracking on these sooner rather than later, but I’m still working on all my craft projects for March.  Yikes! So much going on and so much to do!

Revising.

Nada.  Next month will be ALL about the revisions and self-editing.  I even signed up for a self editing class (mostly because my clone-mother Suzan did, lol).  I’m excited about this because I hope to be focusing on Blood Bound by then.

Plotting.

Because there’s so many people working on their stuff for Warrior Writer Boot Camp, I offered to table my submission last week, which is my 2nd Antagonist for my horror story.  His name is Jonah and he’s pretty cool.

In other news, I’ve been watching shows about psychics and other kinds of paranormal investigations.  The style of the investigations is interesting.  Some focus on dealing with them from a religious stand-point, where others just want to catalogue th experience and move on.  I think I should write up some short articles about it and save them for later posts perhapse.

One of the psychics/mediums/sensitives that appears on both Paranormal State and Psychic Kids, Chris Coffey, is going to be in Dallas.  He’s hosting some kind of two hour thing that costs $50.  If you pay $100 you can go on a ghost hunt after the event.  I’m really tempted just because he conducts himself as a professional and my hokey meeter doesn’t mind him.  I did google local paranormal investigators and I’m curiously cautious about contacting them for some interviews and discussing how they conduct their investigations.  I’ll save that for closer to my plotting phase.

Writing.

After last weekend, I’ve had a lot of success writing.  There were a few days when I only wrote a few hundred words because of time restraint and everything else going on, but overall I’ve been powering through my draft.  It’s been really exciting since I hit the high point in the middle.  I think it’s really important to get into the habit of daily writing.  Right now my goal is just to write some each and every day.  Even if it’s only a few hundred words, it’s still moving forward.

Project: Formerly Fat Club: Casual Love
Genre: contemporary romance
Type: novel
Progress: I’m super excited about the story right now!  I was dwindling a bit before I hit last weekend, but achieving that high point in the story really made me feel more excited about the story.  I’m on to writing all about the complicated first steps in a relationship and I’m genuinely excited every day about the time I’m going to sit down and write.  The weekend was really productive, but judging from how far I am into the plot and the word count, I’m just going to have to accept that I started the story way too far in advance.  I’ll be blogging about tough judgments in your manuscript later today, but I’m not letting this get me down!  Just means I need to write more, and be very serious about my writing time.

What I read.

I’m really, really, really excited about a lot of books coming out late spring/early summer.  The ones I’m currently jonesing for the most are Dark Enchantment by Anya Bast, the third in her Dark Magic series, and Kiss of Snow, number like nintybillion in Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling series.  I’m supposed to be reading for April Book Addicts stuff, but all I’ve wanted to do this week is re-read stuff.  This is dangerous, as all the dabwaha voting is going on makes me want to reread all these awesome books like The Iron Duke, Byou Moon, There Be Monsters, Lead Me On, the Kate Daniels books, and I’ve been holding out on even starting Nalini Singh’s Archangel series!  I could spend about two weeks rereading all of these books because they rock that much.

And don’t ask me what dabwaha stands for.  It’s like Fantasy Football, but for books.  so it’s like Fantasy Book Stuff… Um, ignore me.  You pick which books you think will win over other books and starting March 16th we start voting on rounds.  It’s been so much fun to watch people trash talk on twitter.

• Wicked Enchantment – Anya Bast
• Sweet Enchantment – Anya Bast
• Stroke of Enticement – Nalini Singh
• Lead Me On – Victoria Dahl
• Wanderlust – Ann Aguirre
• A Whole New Light – Julia Devlin
• Riding the Rail – Julia Devlin

Weekly Update!

I signed up for a writing courses over at Savvy Authors!  One of them focuses on horror, and the other on humor.  This means that between Savvy Authors and Lowcountry I’m going to be taking two classes a month.  It’s a little intimidating, but I’m excited about it!  A lot of the classes are workshop like and you get to work through your project, so it’s going to be a really good chance to work on weaknesses.

Blogging.

Since it’s National Craft Month, I added some crafty blogs to the mix for Thursdays.  Also, I experienced almost doubling of the daily hits.  It’s been exciting to watch everything double.  I don’t know why, but it’s cool.  Strangely, Suzan and I are doing complimentary blogging series.  She’s discussing the finer points of OneNote while I explain how I organize my Novel Notebook in the program.  It’s like we’re a collective or something….

Revising.

I’ve decided that in the interest of finishing this draft, I’m going to work on revising Blood Bound in April.  I think that the revisions shouldn’t bee too difficult, so a month will allow me to get most of it done.  While I haven’t done anymore work on it this week, I have been thinking about it and working some of the lore through in my head.  I’m excited about this project – still – even after all the revisions and the rejection earlier this year.  That’s a good sign, right?

Plotting.

We tabled my material this week for Warrior Writer Boot Camp.  There are several new people who are starting their projects and some other things going on, plus some brand new visitors, so it made sense to just hold off on mine until later.  Realistically, it doesn’t bother me because this month I’m working on my romance.  Next month I’ll be revising.  So I have two months before I need another project to sharpen my nails on.  That doesn’t mean I haven’t been plotting.  I’ve been watching a lot of paranormal investigator shows to get my brain rolling.  I’m bursting with ideas!

Writing.

This week has had a lot more steady writing time.  I’ve been more focused, I’ve written more, and I feel more positive about my writing as a whole.  I think I’ve just let distractions grab my attention too much so I’ll have to work on that going forward.  This weekend was especially productive!  Between Saturday and Sunday I wrote almost 14K, which was awesome!  I haven’t written this much in one sitting for a long time, and it was a relief – a joy – to write like that.

Project: Formerly Fat Club: Casual Love
Genre: contemporary romance
Type: novel
Progress: I’m beginning to think that my novel started earlier than I really need it to.  I also wish that the hero and heroine had more interaction in the first half of the novel.  I’m thinking towards revisions and what I can alter to make it work out better.  Part of me wants to stop and work on the beginning again, but I don’t think that’s a good move.  I’d spend the rest of the month tweaking what I have and never finishing it.  I’m thinking I should finish the draft and then go back and evaluate it as a whole.  If I still think the same things that I do now, well then it’s time for some heavy revising.  What’s keeping me from going back right now is the idea of crippling the idea before it’s fully fledged.  I can mold it in the revision process, but if it’s only half finished it’ll still only have one leg!

This weekend though has really put me on track.  I reached an emotional high point in the book, the characters achieved something pretty high on the emotional stakes scale and I’m rocking along really well.

What I read…

• Trolls in the Hamptons by C – so freaking cute!
• Grimmspace by Ann Aguirre

Writing Update

It’s Monday! Already? Lordy, where has the time gone?  Well, if it’s Monday then it means it’s time for me to check in and account for what I’ve been doing.  Accountability is a big motivator for me – that and the competition factor with my other #writersdatenight girls.  If I don’t have something to show for my week, I feel shame!  But no shame for me over this last week.  Oh my goodness, I have done a LOT!

Blogging.

I have topical posts scheduled through, are you ready for this? MARCH! YES! March! I’m not announcing what I’ll be blogging about next month, but I’m happy with the posts.  There will be fewer topical posts, but I’m okay with that.  February has been a lot of work to get going, and I feel like instead of having a nice, targeted shot with each post – I’ve been firing buckshot and just hoping to hit the target.  March will be better.  Besides that, I have a new blogging feature I’ll be talking about later this week, I believe… Unless I change my mind and push it out, which is a possibility.

Revising.

This needs to be handled, like, someone give me a timer and Make. Me. Do. It. I’ve started the terrible process of himhawing around and wondering if I should just shelve the project because ‘Maybe it’s not really that good’ or ‘Revising is such a hassle. I’d rather write!’ or any number of other very invalid excuses for Not Revising.  I finished the read through of the zero draft on Sunday, and I’m working on my big revision notes of the stuff that really needs to be fixed.  In a day or two I want to start tackling this.  I would like to get halfway through this draft by the end of the month, which roughly means 10 – 15 pages of edits a day.

Writing.

This was a huge success this week, like phenomenal.  It felt so good to just sit down and do tons of writing in one sitting.  I haven’t really done this since November/December and I’ve missed that feel that something is just pouring out of you and you have to struggle to catch it all because every bit only comes out once and there’s no second chances.

Project: Formerly Fat Club: prequel novella, yet unnamed
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Type: Novella
Progress: This is a novella that I’m writing for a currently seekrit project.  The project was so seekrit that I forgot about it and realized this last week that I needed something to contribute.  Because I’ve been working on my contemporary romance, I came up with the idea of exploring the main character of the first novel’s sister.  She’s not technically part of the Formerly Fat Club, but I do talk about how it effected her life growing up with her sister and her sister’s problems.  It’s a sweet romance, which means the culmination of the romance is a kiss, but the characters were a lot of fun to write and the story just jumped onto the page.  I finished the 20K novella in three days.  I loved it!  I also learned more about the main character of Casual Love by writing about her sister and their deceased grandparents.

Project: Formerly Fat Club: Casual Love
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Type: Novel
Progress: I am currently working through the material I had written before, changing the story from first person to third.  It’s time consuming and doesn’t put many words on the page, but when it’s all said and done I’ll be much farther along in the story than I was.  What’s really fun is that I’ve come up with ideas for the following books featuring each of the Formerly Fat Club ladies, and an idea for a spin-off novella.  I’m getting a lot of encouragement about this project from my friends so I really think I am going to see this project through to the end this time!  I sat down on Sunday and wrote out the plot for the rest of the book and I’m excited and nervous about it.  I’m writing up a synopsis to send to my other writer friends to read over and give me feedback on, so hopefully I’ll be writing lots on this in the near future.  I’m going to be writing up the other character profiles soon too!

Project: Reti Guild
Genre: Fantasy/Sci-Fi
Type: Novel
Progress: I feel terrible because I’ve skipped writing on this all week to work on the novella, but I did a lot more research and started working on how the religions all mesh.  This weekend I’ve been focusing on getting to know my antagonist, I feel like I shouldn’t write much more until I figure him out.  Granted, he doesn’t really show up for most of the novel, but knowing him and his motivations will help out writing.

All in all, I’m very excited about the way this week has gone.  Now to tackle this next week!!!!

Writing Update

I blogged earlier today about writing accountability.  One of the ways I talked about keeping myself accountable was by blogging my process.  Mondays work out as a good day for me to check in because I’ve had the weekend to burrow and write, and Tuesday my fellow writer friends and I meet up at our favorite deli to write alongside each other.

So, without further preamble, here’s what I’ve been up to!

This last week was the great snowpocalypse here in Texas.  You would think that with all of this time spent iced and then snowed in I would have gotten tons of writing done, right?

WRONG!

Most of it was spent working on my work laptops (yes, multiple) and watching the weather or counting down the minutes until the electricity came back on.  But I did get stuff done, to some extent.

Blogging. I wrote most of my topical blog posts for February during this frozen week.  I think I have two or three left which are going up at the very end of the month, so I’m dragging my feet on those.  But all this blogging is good!  I’m talking to you my readers, I’m making myself think objectively about things, and blogging about things like my story binder makes me more likely to fill the whole darn thing out!

Which takes me to the second thing I did tons of this week!

Plotting. If you’ve read my example post on the Springboard, then you know I’m working on a new project.  If you know me at all, you probably know that I’m a planner.  I like a nice, detailed plan of where my plot is going.  Some people find this boring, I find that it helps me to focus on my goal.  I have a tangible destination and I write myself there!  Without that goal, I flounder and my writing lacks and I get frusterated and walk away from projects.  But after this week I have a wonderful, complex plot that I’m excited about.

Writing. I didn’t do as much of this as I would have liked to do this last week, but I did a lot of ground work for my Babylon idea.

Project: Reti Guild
Genre: Fantasy/Sci-Fi
Type: Novel
Progress: I have the first day written.  This might not sound like a lot, but in this one day the major plot is kicked off, and four different subplots are introduced, as well as most of the major and minor characters.  I did a lot of work on this through the week, and it’s really cool to start writing the actual draft.  Very excited about this project!

Project: Formerly Fat Club: Casual Love
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Type: Novel
Progress: This is a resurrected story I started last year.  The idea is that there are five friends who have teamed up, won the Battle of the Bulge and are now looking for love.  The first friend I’m writing her story is Dee.  I was thinking about this a lot over the last week when I was weighing the decision to work on this again.  I needed more depth, more stuff going on.  So over the week I’ve made some notes and Sunday I sat down and wrote the new beginning.  There’s a big chunk of it already written, but I’m changing it from first person to third, and swapping up the love interests.  Overall, I’m excited about it, and I see some promise!

Revising. I’m going to not talk about this.  I haven’t done anything worth mentioning this week – and that’s bad.  I’m going to set a daily goal this next week to motivate myself, so hopefully next week I’ll be reporting next week on some better progress.

And that’s my writing update!  I’m going to work on an easier format for these updates, but probably later.  Not right now.