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Posts Tagged ‘WIP’

ROW80 Check-In 12/8/13

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 8, 2013| 12 Comments »

Is anyone else getting excited about Christmas? I am! Last year, I lost my father on Thanksgiving day. Then, in mid-December, I found out I had diabetes…the same day the Sandy Hook shooting occurred. Not a great holiday season last year, huh? But it’s a new year, and I have my blood sugar under control with one insulin shot a day plus some pills. Not ideal, but life is good. I intend to ENJOY my holidays this year.

So onto the report.

Writing: I finished my WIP on November 30, and I didn’t touch it until yesterday. I edited five chapters yesterday. So far, so good. I only found a few little things where I thought I should word some things differently. The manuscript is actually 900+ words short of what I shot for. Also, though, I realized there was a scene that might work between the prologue and the current first chapter. I’m going to talk to my beta readers about it and get their input when I’m ready to send it to them.

Exercise: Mostly, this has gone well. I did my three days at the gym. I have an extra incentive not to skip workouts since my insurance will now pay for it if I go 12 times in a month. I skipped a couple of days on the treadmill because 1) I had to get up at 4:00 on Thursday, and 2) I overslept on Friday (probably because of #1).

FlyLady: I’ve done so-so on housekeeping and organization. Now that the last exporting class for work is over, my stress is now lower. I nailed our presentation at that class, by the way. WIN! 🙂 So I’m ready to embrace all three of my goals with gusto! The rest of December is going to be awesome!

Let’s all get excited together, okay? It can be contagious!

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My Ending is Out of Control!

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on November 16, 2013| 9 Comments »

Okay, so I was working on my WIP Thursday night, and I was feeling like a crazy person. For one thing, I’m afraid my WIP is going to be too short, because the ending was coming too fast. I pretty much wrote the climax of my story last night. It needs a denouement, to bring it to a close and to explain a few things. But what is really disturbing me is that I felt kind of out of control while I was writing it. The words were coming and things were going like I wanted…but were those words interesting? Believable? Logical? Or were the words a big jumbled mess of incredible goofiness? I really don’t know! I’m sure my beta readers will tell me, but I like to have something halfway decent before they ever see it.

So here’s what I did. I didn’t write last night. I didn’t even look at my WIP. Because I think it needs to rest a bit before I go back and read that last chapter. I’m not sure what I will find when I do. Will it be the mess I am afraid it is? Or will it be a solid piece of writing? I’ve been told before (by reviewers) that sometimes my endings are too sappy. This one feels almost too much like “the world is saved, all is well, and I have such a warm feeling in my heart”. I kind of like those types of endings. But not everyone does. This is a horror story, after all. So I keep wondering if I should make the ending more angsty. Or maybe make the reader THINK the ending is happy, but then it’s really not. I’ve written the big climax of the horror part of the story. The denouement will wrap up the story, but also have kind of a climax to the romance. (No jokes about the word “climax”, please. You are all English students.) You know, I almost feel like my thoughts here are all over the place, just like my WIP. Anyway, I might go back to it today and see how it looks. Or I might wait until Monday. I just don’t know. I’m almost AFRAID to look at it. Also, I set a deadline for finishing on November 30. I’m afraid I won’t make that if I have to fix this story. We shall see!

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ROW80 Update 11/13/13

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 13, 2013| 8 Comments »

I don’t update on Wednesdays very often, since I write Thursday-Saturday. I was going to possibly try to write a little on Monday or Tuesday, but this week I have been SICK. I went home from work Monday after only working two hours. I was miserable yesterday, but stuck it out all day. I’m better today, so I’m hoping to be practically well by tomorrow. Because tomorrow is writing day! And I’ve set a deadline to finish my WIP by November 30, so I have to get going. 🙂

By the way, I just gotta ask this. Do you find yourself writing a blog post and realize you’ve used a local colloquialism, so you change it to something else because you’re not sure anyone that’s not from your area will have a clue about what it means? 🙂

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ROW80 Update 11/10/13

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on November 10, 2013| 15 Comments »

I feel really good about my progress last week. My word count goal has been 3,000 words per week, but since I set November 30 as the deadline for finishing my WIP, then I realized I had to write more like 5,000 words. The good news is that this week I wrote 5,777 words! I’m really close to finishing this book, and it’s getting exciting. I just wrote, Saturday, an action scene that I’m pretty pleased with. I’m really liking how this book is ending, but I’m almost afraid I’m going to end it a little too early. I need to flesh out some of the scenes, but that can be done during the editing process. I’m glad I’ve finally gotten excited about this book.

My other goal was to visit several of my fellow ROW80er’s blogs. I visited ten last week. I’m glad I got that goal done, too.

I’m really pleased with the way last week went. 🙂

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The Book I’m Working On

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 8, 2013| 6 Comments »

I don’t think I’ve said a WHOLE lot about the book I’m working on. I don’t like to say too much about my WIPs until they’re released. Anya and I sat down at lunch yesterday and worked on some book cover ideas and book titles. Those are the two things that sell a book to me. Although most people look at the cover first. I always look at the title first, the cover second. If the title is catchy, I look further, but if it doesn’t interest me, I don’t usually even look at the cover. The cover is the second step in determining my interest, though, so it’s very important, too.

I think Anya and I have a general idea of what to do with the cover. I think it’s going to look great. But the title is still elusive. I have an idea, but someone else has a title ALMOST exactly like it. I know a lot of books share the same title, but I try not to duplicate unless the title just calls to me. So that’s where I am, thinking of a cover, trying to come up with a title, and about 8,000 words away from finished.

I still don’t know if this will be considered horror or not. We shall see. There’s murder, an evil spirit, and bad people in this book. And a little romance thrown in for good measure. 🙂

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Sunday ROW80 Update 10/13/13

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 13, 2013| 19 Comments »

My goal for this round is to finish my WIP by writing 3,000 words per week. This week…drum roll…I wrote 4,552. Yay! I hope I can continue this way. My characters threw a couple of surprises at me this week, so I’m going to have to rearrange things a bit. 🙂

That’s all.

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ROW80 Goals for Round 4

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 7, 2013| 10 Comments »

To finish this stinkin’ WIP!!!

Oh, maybe I shouldn’t have said it quite like that. But I’m kind of frustrated with myself because I’ve let other things take precedence over my writing. Some things SHOULD have taken precedence, but not everything. I did do some writing on Saturday. I churned out over 4,000 words on a short story for an anthology I was invited to participate in. All proceeds go to Unicef. More about that later.

I’m going to try to write at least 3,000 words per week until I get this book finished. I have the last few chapters figured out, but there are about six chapters in the beginning of the last half of the book that I have no clue about. I’ll get there, though.

Here’s hoping this round will be more productive than the last two. I’ve been with ROW80 since the very beginning. I was one of the first sponsors. I’ve loved this writing challenge for the almost three years it’s been in existence, and I plan on sticking with it as long as Kait keeps it up. I used to be so much more productive, and I really hope I can get that enthusiasm back. I think part of my discouragement is book sales. I’ve talked to other authors, and most of them are really struggling with sales. There are so many more ebooks to choose from than there used to be. I think the key is to just keep writing and publishing so I’ll have more books out there. I think another thing that’s keeping me from churning out words like I used to is that my plots are getting more complicated. This is all an interesting journey, isn’t it?

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Plotting…yeah, weird, I know.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on September 24, 2013| 8 Comments »

Has it actually been a WEEK since I’ve posted? Where does the time go?

I know it’s weird for me to have a blog post again involving plotting. I’ve always been such a total pantser. But, lately, I’ve gone over to the dark plotting side. I’ve done a couple of posts about all that. Susan Bischoff, AKA The Pink Hammer, has shared a lot of notes with me, helping me understand how plotting can help. It took me so long to get it into my thick head that just because I do some plotting, that doesn’t mean my characters can’t go in another direction if they want to. I always thought plotting meant I had to be rigid and not veer off the path, but after some strong talking to, I’ve been convinced that doesn’t have to be the case. The class I took at RNC with Lynn Lorenz also helped. All plotting has to do is give some structure and the basic things you need your story to do. If you think of something different, you can change your outline. Or notes. Or however you plot. I use a combination of a spreadsheet and some notes Susan has set up to ask basic questions. I don’t think I’ll ever get as detailed as Susan gets about a story, but there is a happy medium between extremely detailed plotting and pantsing. And I think I’ve discovered that happy medium.

So what does this mean for my current book? Well, I broke it down into 24 chapters (figuring a 50,000 word manuscript with a little over 2,000 words per chapter) to be adjusted if the story is longer or if there are more or fewer chapters. I went ahead and did the chapter headings with section breaks. (Doing the chapters ahead of time is a suggestion by Lynn Lorenz.) I know everyone is used to using page breaks. But you have to use section breaks for print to get the page numbers right. And when I checked my last book on the little thing they use on Amazon to see what your ebook looks like before submitting, I saw that when I use page breaks, it starts the chapter headings right after the previous chapter, but when I used section breaks, it starts a new page. But I digress. That’s not our topic here. 😛 Anyway, I was already almost halfway through my manuscript when I started plotting. So I went back and did the outline on my spreadsheet for chapters 1-10, which I had already written. Then, I did some outlining for chapters 20-24, because I know what needs to happen in the last part of the book. The challenge is going to be plotting chapters 11-19. That 3rd part of the book is always the hardest for me. I want to make sure the plot continues to move forward with no lagging parts. There has to continue to be mystery and eeriness. I think I’m going to add some extra angst to the hero, who is a very FLAWED hero, but redeemable.

Okay, this whole blog post is getting me anxious to start writing when I get home from work. I might let hubby talk me into watching Sleep Hollow before I get started. So now, lunch break is over, and it’s time to get back to my real job. Wait, writing is a real job, right? Unfortunately, this job pays more, so I need to get to work. 🙂

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Sunday ROW80 Check-In 9/15/13

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on September 15, 2013| 16 Comments »

Last week was hectic since I had my friend’s 10-year-old son for almost a week. But that’s over, and although I miss him, it’s good for life to get back to normal. My goals are:

1) Write at least three hours this week. I didn’t write three hours. But there was a day at work where a scene was itching to get out, so I ended up writing it at work. I didn’t put it into my manuscript, but wrote it as a separate Word document. I need to figure out exactly where I want to add it since it’s from a “supporting” character’s POV.

2) Do at least 15 minutes of housework per day using the FlyLady challenges. I didn’t do it exactly this way, but I did get some housework done. I bought a couple of nice trunks, in two different sizes, to put some things in rather than have them scattered all over my bedroom or in ugly shoe boxes. And I got the Mt. Everest of paper off the bar that separates the kitchen from the living room. That looks much better now. 🙂

3) Get back to my healthy eating habits. It’s getting better. I’m taking baby steps in this.

So, are any of you finally getting some fall weather? We were actually in the high seventies yesterday instead of in the nineties. This was great since we went to my husband’s company picnic yesterday. Wonderful weather to be outside!

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ROW80 Check In 8/28/13

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 28, 2013| 12 Comments »

In my last blog post, I stated my three main goals for this week. They were:

1) Write at least three hours this week
2) Do at least 15 minutes of housework per day using the FlyLady challenges
3) Get back to my healthy eating habits. (I’ve been doing great on exercise, but my old eating habits are sliding back into my life.)

I was a miserable failure at 2 and 3. No housework to speak of. I’m still struggling with the eating habits. Not TERRIBLE, but not that good, either.

Let’s talk about that first goal. Honestly, I can’t say I succeeded or failed since the week isn’t over. However, I’ve been reading all of Susan Bischoff’s notes on plotting (using the term “notes” is putting it mildly) and figuring out how to apply them to my current WIP. So I HAVE been working on writing stuff, but not actually writing. I’m planning on doing the actual writing on Thursday and Friday, when I’ve got some things sorted out. I usually write more on Saturdays, but since hubby and I are doing our anniversary trip on the weekend, I’m going to try to get my three hours of writing in on those two days.

More writing news. I’ve been tossing around a paranormal romance idea (no vampires or ghosts this time!) for awhile, and I think I’m going to start doing a little plotting with that. I want to see how I do with Susan’s method on something I’m just starting rather than something I’m halfway through. I’m excited about this idea because, like Soul of a Vampire, the title came in my mind before the story. And the cover for this one can be awesome considering the subject matter. Curious yet? 😉

So, how are the rest of you doing so far this week?

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