Weekly Check-In

This week is back to ‘normal’ in my world.  Normal being subjective of course.  Last week was a gauntlet of exhaustion and I appreciate everyone around me for their patience and understanding.

I did write last week, but not as much as I would have liked.  I feel like I’m becoming a broken record with that phrase.

This week is kind of a big week as far as writing goes.  Suzan and I made an agreement that we would both submit our stories on the same day (Thursday).  So I’m avoiding counting down the days, hours and minutes until we hit send.  So that means that we have a lot to do to get ready over the next few days. There are synopses and queries to polish, not to mention the manuscripts themselves.  Excuse me while I freak out a little.

Blogging.

I gave myself a pass on blogging last week.  With all the family stuff going on I didn’t have the energy.  This week I’m going to bounce back with the blogging.  Suzan and I are planning to continue our series and I want to start blogging about the documentaries I’m watching and how I think we can use real life events and research to beef up stories and writing and cool stuff like that.

Revising.

Not much has been happening on the revising front, which is a disappointment to me.  That said, July will be all about revising as I have a Revise in Company class coming up.  Also, there’s a workshop deadline of July 15th for a writer’s workshop selection I need to be able to hand in with reasonable confidence as to where the story is going.  I’m slightly worried that the story I use for the workshop will be done and out on submission by the time the workshop comes around, but what can you do?

Plotting.

The Warrior Writer Boot Camp crowd is going to hate me.  I have a killer idea for an Urban Fantasy I want to write.  I’ve slowly been fleshing out the world and things in my head while not allowing myself to really think through the plot.  It was my way of telling myself to not work on it, but it’s not working.  I really want to write it.  So the Urban Fantasy might be what I write next, pushing Little Spirits to the project I write for NaNoWriMo, which would be fine since it will be a shorter book anyways.

Writing.

I’ve been averaging between 1-2,000 words a day.  It’s not as much as I would like, but it is progress.  I think I’ve been spread too thin over the last few months.  July will be less crazy in that regard at least.

Project: I Spy You (formerly known as Booty-Call Bust)
Genre: paranormal romance
Type: short novel
Progress: I’m crossing my fingers that I can write The End on the draft tonight.  It needs work.  It started out as a novella and is now a novel.  The beginning needs a better lead in for it to be a novel.  There needs to be some more subplot, not a lot since the book is almost entirely the two characters and only one POV.  Overall I’m happy with this project.  It’s fun, it’s made me laugh and I got to write spies.

What I read.

I don’t really remember what I read.  That’s bad, isn’t it?

• Magic Slays by Ilona Andrews

Books I bought this week…

That time again!  This was a book buying light week for me.

Hexed, the anthology with Ilona Andrews was my buy this week.

What did you buy?

Books I bought this week…

This was a huge release week.  There are three books in established series that I’ve been anxiously waiting.

• Kiss of Snow by Nalini Singh – This is the tenth installment of the Psy/Changeling series, and Oh My God it’s so amazing!  I couldn’t have asked for a more exciting book.  The romance was sizzling, there was tons of tension and action.  Things have been building in the previous books and a lot of things really come to a head in this book.  You get the romance of the wolf changeling alpha with a rogue psy-x.  It’s incredible, I can’t gush about this enough.
• Deadline by Mira Grant – Feed, the first book in this series, was my favorite book of 2010.  The book blew me out of the water.  It’s a political thriller, plus post-zombie apocalypse.  I went in expecting a chilling zombie book and got way more than I bargained for.  Things happened in that book that many authors would shy away from doing – and it worked.  I can’t wait to curl up with this book over the weekend, granted I’ll probably be sleeping with the lights on.  Hello, zombies!
• Magic Slays by Ilona Andrews – The fifth book in the Kate Daniel’s book, this is going into uncharted water.  It is an urban fantasy series with a lot of magic and a dystopian element.  In the previous book there was a romance arc climax that’s been building through the previous four books and I’m excited to see how that plays out and how the series arc progresses.  You know from the previous book that Kate is going to get herself into loads of trouble.  Then there’s the novella that’s set right before this book that comes out on Tuesday of this coming week, and the big subplot bomb that happened in the previous book. There’s a lot of questions rolling around in my head that boil down to: What happens next?!?

So what are you reading this weekend?

#ToBeReMo Kick Off!

I forgot to mention this, but today kicks off another edition of #ToBeReMo organized by my friend Suzan.  For the official sign up blog go here.  Unlike December, I’m going for Moderate, reading 4-6 books.  My brain is too fried from the Savvy Boot Camp to do too much this month.

I need to read young adult books and research material so I won’t be that interesting.  However, Mira Grant’s Deadline and Ilona Andrews Magic Slays are on their way to my apartment right now so there will be some awesome reads in store.

So what are you reading?

DA BWAHA – are you playing?

Don’t ask me what DA BWAHA means, but think fantasy football, but for books.  Yeah, it’s a book lovers fun time!  If you haven’t signed up yet, I believe today is the deadline because voting starts tomorrow to determine who moves on through the rounds.  Everyone should go vote!  And even if you don’t, you should check into some of the author trash talk that’s going on via twitter.  Some of those ladies aren’t pulling the punches!  (Okay, it’s all in good fun, no one that I’ve seen has really been nasty.)  There’s even some bribery going on, if you’re the kind who accepts bribes….  Not that I am or anything!

Here are some of my favorites that are up for votes this year:

• Can’t Stand the Heat by Louisa Edwards
• Here There Be Monsters by Meljean Brooks
• Iron Duke by Meljean Brooks
• Bayou Moon by Ilona Andrews
• Magic Bleeds by Ilona Andrews
• Archangel’s Kiss by Nalini Singh
• Lead Me On by Victoria Dahl

I hope I didn’t miss any of my favorites.  This blog is incredibly unplanned and it’s late and I really should be sleeping, but I wanted to take a moment and tell everyone to GO VOTE NOW!