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ROW80 Check In 11/23/11

November 23, 2011 by Lauralynn Elliott

Well, I thought I would be finished with my third Libby Fox novella by now. I did add a little over 1100 words to it the other night. I thought I would only have the love scene to go, but I realized I needed a scene to lead up to the love scene. I was really worrying about this novella being about 2000 words shorter than I wanted it to be, but with that extra scene added, I think it’s going to be okay. Plus, I think I need to flesh out some other things in the story. I’m looking forward to these two days off so I can really work on writing stuff!

For those of you that didn’t see my last post on weight loss and are interested in a good calorie counting app for your Droid (don’t know if it’s available for other operating systems), it’s just called Calorie Counter and it’s by FatSecret. It’s had in its database almost every food I’ve looked up. Mostly what it’s lacking is drinks, like the strawberry lemonade at O’Charley’s. But that has to have LOTS of calories anyway, so I opted for unsweetened tea. 🙂

Also, I was complaining the other day that I wasn’t going to be able to cook on Thanksgiving. But we’ve decided to have Thanksgiving on Friday, and both of my boys are coming with their wife/girlfriend. Yay!

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all! (Yes, I’m from the south.)

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Weight Loss Efforts

November 21, 2011 by Lauralynn Elliott

I found this awesome app for my Droid. It’s a calorie counter, and so far, it’s had in the database every food at every restaurant I’ve been to in the last week. It even had the soft pretzels filled with cheese that I had in my freezer. And the Pillsbury biscuit breakfasts I’ve had. It’s had every single food that I’ve eaten! It figures your recommended calories based on your height, current weight, gender, and activity level as well as how fast or slow you want to lose weight. It’s actually giving me more calories than I thought I should have, but I’ve lost weight even going over my recommended calories on some days. I lost two lbs. this week! I could have lost more if I had stuck to the right amount of calories. It also lets you track your weight and gives you a little graph to see your progress. Even though it mostly keeps up with the calories you’re supposed to have and what you have left, it also tracks how many carbs, proteins, fats, etc. that you’ve consumed. It also tracks your exercise, but…ahem…I haven’t needed that feature yet…. Oh, did I mention this app was free?

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ROW80 Check In 11/20/11

November 20, 2011 by Lauralynn Elliott

I’ve written nothing. I hope to change that tonight. I should actually have the final scene of the last Libby Fox written up tonight, so I should be wrapping up that first draft.

These are the three things I need to do immediately.

1) Finish the Libby Fox novella, do my first edits and proofreading, and get it sent out to beta readers.

2) Upload my files for Starfane to CreateSpace. (I have no idea why I haven’t done that yet!)

3) Upload my free short story to Smashwords and other places that allow free. A little glitch in this project is that a beta reader wanted me to expound on some things in the story. The point to this story was to be short, sweet, and free. But she loved the story and wanted a little more, especially in a couple of areas. Now my question is…do I spend the time to make the changes or not? Really, even though it’s free, the story should be the best it can be, right? So what if I have to wait a little longer to put it out there. If I can make the story better, I should. Hmmm, I think I just made my decision! 🙂

Thanksgiving
I don’t know what I’m going to do this year. My mom decided to take off to Ohio to visit with her brothers. My oldest son is married now and lives a hour away. He has to work Thanksgiving evening, so he won’t be coming over. My brother is going to go to Ohio to pick up Mom, so he won’t be here. My youngest son will be at his girlfriend’s house most of that day. My husband and I have been invited to Atlanta to his brother’s. But I WANTED to cook! 😦 Maybe I can have everyone over after Thanksgiving. But I’m really a little bummed about everyone being gone. I’ve just gotten used to cooking for everyone on Thanksgiving.

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ROW80 Check In 11/16/11 & Grammar

November 16, 2011 by Lauralynn Elliott

I haven’t written on my WIP in several days. But this is kind of a planned thing. The reason is that I’m almost finished with the first draft…maybe only one scene left. So I’ve been pondering on how I want to do this last scene. It’s going to be a love scene, and I always want to make those intense. I don’t write as graphically as most romance authors do these days, but I like the intensity and the heat without describing body parts. LOL. I don’t mind reading the works of others with more graphic scenes; I just don’t write that way. If I ever do, I would probably use another pen name. 🙂

One problem I have with this last Libby Fox novella is that it’s shorter than the other two. Really, it may come out about 2,000 words shorter than I want it to. We’ll see if that’s how it ends up after the first edit. I’m not one of those who goes back in and cuts scenes. I’m more likely to add them.

I have a question for everyone. Is there one phrase or word that you say that makes you cringe after you say it? Is it something you would never dream of doing in your writing? I’ve noticed one of my big problems is using the word “less” instead of “fewer”. I grew up in the rural south (still live there) surrounded by people with bad grammar. So from time to time, I cringe at some of the things I say. When my mom is in a restaurant ordering salad, she says “I don’t want no cheese”. That drives me crazy. (Not to mention the fact that there’s something wrong with someone who doesn’t like cheese, LOL.) So ‘fess up. What do you say that makes you cringe?

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ROW80 Check In 11/13/11

November 13, 2011 by Lauralynn Elliott

I’ve been on a business trip in Tampa this weekend (yeah, I know, I was just in Orlando), but I’ve found some time to write. On my current WIP, I managed to get 864 words ahead of goal, even skipping Saturday. That was because of the 1500 word sprint on Friday. For some reason, the words just came. I skipped Saturday because I just wanted to rest on my last day here, especially since we’re leaving at 7:00 this morning! Bleh.

Also, while I was manning a booth at a rose show, I was able to finish the short story I started awhile back. I had done about 650 words and stopped. The story is now about 4900 words. That means I wrote about 4250 words while manning a booth! I’ve never written that many words in one day before, and I did it between customers. This story just starting coming out and it felt good, so I did it. LOL. The tentative name of the story is The Beast in the Mirror. I’m going to offer it for free on Smashwords, and maybe if I start it at .99 on Amazon, I can “tell them about a cheaper price” and they will mark it down to free. Or I could give it away on my website. Which should I do? All of the above? I have it with a beta reader right now, and I’m also going to beg Anya to make the cover art for free. LOL.

Question: Did you or are you going to publish the first book you ever wrote? The reason I ask this is that there’s a thinking in the writing world that your first novel has to be crap and it should be just practice. You should never publish the first novel you write. Well, I broke that rule and published my first novel. I have eight novels/novellas out right now, and an author friend asked me the other day if I didn’t wish I hadn’t published the first thing I wrote. The truth is that my first novel has been my third best seller out of the eight for awhile now. And it has a better rating average than most of my other ones. So what’s the downside of publishing it? I can’t see one. I know this is going to have to be an individual choice for each author. So what are you going to do?

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Favorite Unknown Movie

November 11, 2011 by Lauralynn Elliott

I have a question for everyone. Is there a movie that you absolutely love, but it’s so unknown that most of us would never have heard of it. If so, what is the movie, and what makes it so special? Why do you like this movie so much?

If I had to pick a favorite lesser known movie, it would have to be Half Light, starring Hans Matheson and Demi Moore. The way I even saw this movie was just luck. My husband was at Blockbuster looking for a movie I might like. Usually, he’s looking for something for himself, but this time he just happened to get something for me. I had never heard of the movie and saw that it had gone straight to DVD. After viewing it, I immediately had to buy my own copy.

Why do I like this movie? Several reasons. It’s really dark, for one thing. There’s a mystery to be solved. It’s set in Scotland. Hans Matheson is really hot in this movie, and the love scene is awesome. (I lusted after Hans Matheson for weeks after watching this movie the first time.) Several weird things happen, and I’m all about the weird stuff. There was just something about this movie that touched me deeply. And this was a ghost story…my favorite kind!

I would love to hear about your favorite lesser known movie!

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ROW80 Check In 11/9/11

November 9, 2011 by Lauralynn Elliott

I don’t have much to report. I would have been caught up as of last night, but I got in so late from a Pampered Chef party, that I was too tired. And I had to finish watching Captain America so my husband could take it back to Blockbuster. So I’ll probably catch up in a couple of days. Not too bad considering how far behind I got on vacation. 🙂

Speaking of Captain America. Has anyone else seen the movie? Was anyone else disappointed? I’m beginning to think that I’m getting too used to special effects in these types of movies, because I miss them when they’re not there. And there aren’t too many of them in this movie. But the story line didn’t interest me that much either. I mean, it was ok, but it wasn’t that interesting. I couldn’t make myself care about it that much. (After all, I did fall asleep while I was watching it the first time.) So far, Iron Man has been my favorite among the graphic novel based movies. I’m really hoping The Avengers will be good. Anybody else got an opinion? Is it just me?

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ROW80 Check In 11/6/11

November 6, 2011 by Lauralynn Elliott

My goal is to write an average of 500 words per day. So I have a spreadsheet that goes through the whole round and it shows what my progress is. When I was on vacation, I didn’t write for 8 days. When I left, I was 260 words ahead. So at the end of my vacation, I was behind by 3740 words. That seemed so overwhelming, and I wondered if I would ever get back on track. But, as of Saturday night, I was only 957 words behind. I’ve been making sure that I write more than the 500 words each day so I can gradually catch up. My lowest word count since vacation was 705 and the highest was 1466. So I’m really pleased with where I am right now. It looks like I should be about to get caught up completely in the next few days. Yay!

So how are the rest of you doing with your goals? Have you had to change your goals to make them more reasonable, or did you pick the right goals in the beginning? Is this your first round, or have you been with ROW80 for other rounds? I would love to hear from you.

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ROW80 Check In 11/3/11

November 3, 2011 by Lauralynn Elliott

Ok, I’m a day late. And I also want to apologize for being such a bad sponsor these past couple of check ins. As most of you know, I was in Disney World, and I had no internet access without paying for it. Not only that, I didn’t get in the hotel room until late every night, and I crashed immediately each time. What little I did get to do was from my phone waiting on rides, etc. But using the internet on a phone is a big PAIN. I hate it! Hopefully, I’ll get a chance to check on a lot of you today or tonight.

Anyway, I’m back in the saddle. I’m still trying to catch up on my word count since I didn’t write for eight days while I was gone. And I didn’t write last night because my wrist was hurting from trying to open a jar of spaghetti sauce. That’s what I get for not making it from scratch! LOL. I emailed my WIP to myself last night so I can work on it at lunch today to make up for not writing last night.

How are the rest of you doing?

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Beauty and the Beast

November 1, 2011 by Lauralynn Elliott

I can’t tell you how much I love the story of Beauty and the Beast in all its different forms. It’s my favorite animated Disney movie. I loved the original story. And I was crazy about the series starring Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton.

A few months ago, I started a short story with a similar theme, and I was going to offer it for free on Smashwords. Somehow I got sidetracked. But, when I was at Disney World, I saw a musical show based on the Disney version. And I cried, as usual. Seeing this renewed my love of this story, so maybe I’ll get back to the short story I started. It will have to wait until I at least get caught up on my WIP, but it’ll be there waiting for me when I’m ready. 🙂

What fairy tale inspires you to write?

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