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Posts Tagged ‘check in’

ROW80 Check In 3/14/12

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 14, 2012| 14 Comments »

Monday night I got the three Libby Fox novellas combined together into one book. I’m going to price this at $2.99, which is less expensive than buying the three separately (which would be $4.97). All I’m waiting on is a book cover and a title. I’m racking my brain for a good title for this trilogy. I could just call it the Libby Fox Trilogy, but that doesn’t really tell anything about the book if you don’t know who Libby Fox is. The three novella titles are Dark Relic: Vampires’ Curse, Secrets of the Wolf, and Search for the Vampires’ Curse. In each of these titles, there is the word “vampire” or the word “wolf”. I did that on purpose to make the books more searchable for those looking for vampire or werewolf books. I would like to do that with the trilogy, but I can’t figure out a title. Did I mention that coming up with a title is the hardest part of my writing process? Hey, guys, any suggestions would be welcome. When the right title comes along, it usually clicks and I know it’s right.

Speaking of titles, I’m still trying to figure out a title for my gnome book. The book is about a garden gnome who comes to life (this isn’t a spoiler, it’s pretty clear from the beginning what’s going on) along with a couple of other “lawn ornaments”. There is magic involved, a witch, a sacrifice along with murder and mayhem. And just a little romance. 🙂 If any of you have suggestions for this one, I’m open. At some point, there will be a title that hits me as the right one. I just don’t want to hold up the book for lack of a title. Not that I’m done with editing yet….

Who else is close to publishing? Will this be your first or your tenth published work? 🙂

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ROW80 Check In – Not Much Going On

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on March 11, 2012| 10 Comments »

I haven’t done a lot this week. As most of you know, I’ve been ill. I was feeling better, then for two days, I had a horrible stomach ache. Not really crampy, but achy. I wonder if my antibiotics messed up my stomach? I have one more day on those and then I’m done.

I did add a couple of things to my gnome story, including inserting a whole scene, albeit a short one. I still need to expand on the final fight scene between the witches. I tried to do that the other day, but nothing was coming. I’m terrible at writing fight scenes (I’m a lover, not a figher, LOL), so I struggle with them. After that, I’m going to print it out for the final proofing, then send to some beta readers.

My goals for this week are 1) As I said, proofing the gnome story (I’m desperately in need of a title), 2) combining the three Libby Fox novellas into one ebook (again, I need a title), and 3) getting my other novella collection, Loving the Dead and the Undead, formatted for print. I’m also beta reading for one person and editing for another one right now.

I may not get to all the blogs I want to get to this evening. So I’ll probably do that tomorrow evening. I have to get my taxes ready to send to the accountant. Last Sunday, since I was at home sick instead of going to church, I thought I would try to visit all the blogs on the Linky Tool list. At the time, there were about 35 people listed. I got to them all except one Blogspot blog that wouldn’t let me comment no matter what I tried. It took me 3 1/2 hours to comment on them all! I realized that I just can’t visit everyone every time. I just wish I could. 😦

Oh, one more thing. Is anyone having problems with Google Chrome? I kept getting a message that I couldn’t go to a website and I thought it was my internet. But my husband was getting online, so I tried Internet Explorer and it worked fine. Chrome is my preferred browser, and I don’t know why it’s not working. 😦

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ROW80 Check In 2/22/12

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 22, 2012| 14 Comments »

A little writing progress. I sat down last night and added some things to my story so the ending would make more sense. I explained something that was just mentioned in passing about one of the characters. I added the simple stuff right into my manuscript, but the more complicated stuff I wrote in a separate word document. I’m not sure exactly where I want to place in in the manuscript, so it was easier to do it this way until I figure it out. I also need to expand on the final “witch fight” scene. I rushed it a little just to get it done, but I know it needs more. Anya agrees. 🙂

I’m still trying to decide if I want to buy Scrivener. I guess I should download the free trial and see.

I’m really looking forward to this weekend with Susan Bischoff and Kait Nolan. Much fun will be had.

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ROW80 Check In 2/12/12

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 12, 2012| 20 Comments »

I expected to have the first draft of my WIP finished last night. I really did. But life got in the way. I did more housework than usual because I’ve been feeling bad about not doing much. Especially since this was one of my goals. Then my husband wanted to watch some things we had on the DVR since it’s piling up. Also, my mom needed me to take her somewhere and bring her back because she doesn’t see well enough to drive at night in unfamiliar places. Oh, and then my husband announced that he had rented a movie we needed to watch last night. Scorpion King 3. It wasn’t worth it. So I didn’t get that first draft finished. It’s almost there. It has turned out a little differently than I originally intended. It was going to be more of a slasher horror story with an element of supernatural. It’s ending up being a supernatural story with an element of slasher. If that makes sense. I’m pretty sure it still needs to be labeled as horror, though. Maybe supernatural horror as a sub-genre. I’ll talk that over with the beta readers.

Right now it’s 20 degrees here with a wind chill factor of 13. I knew that warm spell we had was a harbinger of colder things to come! Brrrr. It’s going to be cold going to church this morning.

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ROW80 Check In 2/8/12

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 8, 2012| 20 Comments »

This post will be a lot more positive than the last one. I FINALLY got past my problems with my WIP! Yay! After much brainstorming Monday night at dinner with my friend and cover artist Anya Kelleye, things started to come together. Sometimes you just have to talk it out with someone. Plus, she had a lot of good ideas to add.

My Christian romance is going well. I wrote 1240 words on it yesterday during lunch. I’m not setting any cumulative goals, but I’m shooting for writing at least 500 words on it when I do get to work on it. I’ve exceeded that each time.

Exercise has been good. I think I posted on Sunday that I went bike riding on Thursday and Friday. Sunday night, I walked about 30 minutes on the treadmill. Yesterday, I walked almost an hour in the park where I bike ride. I would have ridden, but I had a friend who needed to talk. And I’m feeling much better physically and mentally.

How are the rest of you doing? I would love to hear about it.

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ROW80 Check In 2/5/12

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on February 5, 2012| 25 Comments »

I feel like I’ve written myself into a corner. The next time I have a bright idea about writing horror, someone just please slap me. I’m coming to the end of my book, and it’s not going to be long enough. But that’s not the end of the world, it will just be a long novella instead of a short novel. My biggest problem is a showdown between two witches. This book wasn’t even supposed to HAVE witches, but somehow they sprang forth into the story. Now I’m trying to figure out the best way to have a weaker witch win over a stronger witch. My husband says it has to be with trickery. That’s probably true. So then I have to figure out the trick. There are some other timing issues that I need to figure out concerning something else that’s happening in the book, because the two scenes have to come together at some point. This is making my head hurt.

I have good things to finally report about exercise. I went bicycle riding Thursday and Friday. By Friday evening, my body was so sore I could barely move. I expected my legs to be sore, but not my back, shoulders, arms, and hands. I had a little trouble getting out of bed Saturday morning. Unfortunately, it rained Saturday and it’s supposed to rain today. So the next time I get to ride, I’ll probably be sore again. We haven’t had more than a couple of sunny days in a row for months! Okay, okay, I know…I can walk on the treadmill when I can’t ride. And I can lift weights. No excuses. LOL

Anybody else having problems with their WIP or is everything going smoothly?

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ROW80 Check In 2-1-12

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on February 1, 2012| 10 Comments »

Yeah, I know, it’s late in the day, but it’s hard to do my Wednesday updates when I’m here at work. So let’s see what’s going on.

For my current WIP, the garden gnome horror story, I’m still behind on word count. It’s because I’m not writing every day. I’m having a little trouble with it right now. For starters, it’s going in a direction I didn’t really originally intend. I’m going to let one of my beta readers take a look at it early and see if it’s so bizarre that it’s falling apart or if it works. If I go in this direction, I’m going to have to go back and add a few things to make this all make more sense. But I think I can make it work. Also, I originally intended for this to be a novel, not a novella. In horror stories, especially the slasher kind, things move pretty fast. But I think I moved this one a little too fast. I wanted to get at least 50K words out of it so it could really be classified as a novel. Right now, I’ve written about 35K words, and I’ll be lucky if it makes it to 40K. So it’s right on the cusp of being a novel. Most of my novellas have run between 25K and 26K. So I’m not sure what to do with this. I know it needs a little more fleshing out, which will be done in the second edit, but I don’t know if it will be enough. I refuse to pad it just for word count.

Things are going well on the Christian romance I’m writing. I’m not setting a particular word count goal on this one because I never know when I’ll be going out for lunch instead of staying in and writing. I’m sort of shooting for at least 500 words for each lunchtime writing session. So far, the word counts have been 579, 908, and 926. I still don’t know whether to use my real name or another pen name. I wanted to use my real name so the people at church that read Christian romances would know it was me. But now I’m thinking I can use a different pen name and just TELL them it’s me. That way I won’t have to worry about stalkers and such. Because some authors actually get them.

Don’t even ask about my exercise progress….

On watching TV (yeah, I know this isn’t a goal) – I’ve watched lots of episodes of Dark Shadows. I’m LOVING this. It’s so much fun to revisit the show that started my love for vampires (and other paranormal beings) as a kid.

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ROW80 Check In 1/29/12

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on January 29, 2012| 20 Comments »

It’s been kind of a weird week. I took a break from writing (and most everything else) for a week because I really, really needed it. I started back on Tuesday, but I’ve only been writing every other day. On the days I have written, though, I’ve written more than my usual word count. My cumulative goal is 500 words per day. This is how it went: Tuesday-1220, Thursday-1384, Saturday-1312. So since I started back on Tuesday, I’ve written an average of about 783 per day. Not too shabby. Also, I started my Christian romance on Thursday and wrote 579 words that day and 980 on Friday. That story seems to be going well. I’m going to stick to my guns about only writing that one on my lunch hour at work so I can keep it separate from what I’m writing at home.

On the proofing, exercising, and housekeeping front…well, I’ve not done so well. It seems like the devil is out to get me on the exercise. Every time I plan on walking on the treadmill, I get an awful pain in my foot. It’s not always the same foot, either. It’s very strange.

I hope I’ll get around to visiting some of your blogs today and tomorrow. I took a break from that, too, and I really miss it.

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ROW80 Check In 1/25/12

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on January 25, 2012| 10 Comments »

I know a lot of you didn’t see Sunday’s post because I couldn’t get the linky tool to work for some reason. It was just being wonky, I guess. But I had said that I just stopped everything and decided I needed a break. I took about a week off from writing and all the other stuff I had been doing. Last night, I picked back up on the writing. My goal is a cumulative 500 words per day. Taking a week off put me almost at 3500 words behind. Yesterday, I sat down and cranked out about 1200 words. I was pretty pleased with that. If I can just write a little more than 500 each day, I’ll eventually get caught up. And I’m not going to stress about it. Hopefully, I’ll be back to visiting everyone’s blogs by the weekend. I might visit a few here and there until I build up my momentum again. But I think I’m back in the saddle again!

On another note, I have a strange idea. I know several of my fellow paranormal romance authors also write erotica under another pen name. I’m kind of thinking about going in another direction. I’m thinking of writing Christian romances under my REAL name. I have a lot of friends at church that like to read Christian romances, especially those by Karen Kingsbury. I just thought of an idea for a Christian romance and it keeps picking at my brain saying “Write Me!”. The thing is, I’ve never been able to write two stories at the same time, and I don’t want to fall behind on my paranormal romances. So I’m thinking I can write the Christian romance during my lunch hours at work. That way I can separate it from what I’m writing at home. I’m not going to tell anyone what I’m doing (except my mom and my cover artist) until one day I’ll have a shiny new romance book to share with my church sisters. What do y’all think? Am I crazy? And I’m determined that mine won’t be as sappy as Karen Kingsbury’s. Because hers make everyone cry. LOL

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ROW80, Migraines, and Shoulders…Oh My!

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on January 18, 2012| 26 Comments »

This has been a totally frustrating few days. On Sunday, I somehow injured my shoulder. I wasn’t really doing anything…I just felt a sharp pain. Then I couldn’t pull on anything (like to open doors) or move it in certain directions without horrible pain. So that really put a damper on the exercise. It seems to be a little better today, but that’s what I thought yesterday until there was a big clap of thunder which caused me to jump…and then to scream in pain. I think the people here in the office just thought I yelled because the thunder scared me.

Yesterday, I developed a migraine right before I left for work. I know it was due to the storm that passed through because changes in barometric pressure usually trigger my migraines. When I got home, I didn’t feel like doing anything but sacking out on the couch and watching TV. Then my power went out. Bleh. Needless to say, I didn’t get any writing done last night, which put me just a little bit behind on my word count. Luckily, I was a little ahead, so I’m not a whole day behind.

I really hope the rest of you had better days this week!

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