Oh Computers -- My Nemesis, You.

Dude, I've had a kick-butt day of writing. All while using my little egg timer. (g)

My end word count for the day? 3579 words. (whoo whoo!) Time spent writing? 3 Hours. :D

Okay, wanna know what really sucks? LOL. That word count should be over 4K. I was happily about 75 words from hitting that when my computer went BLOTTO. Actually, BOTH mine and my uncle's corrupted at the same time. Weird, huh? Anyway, because of that little snafu, I lost about 350 words and well, I'm too tired to recreate them tonight. I'll scribble down some notes, trying to remember as much as I can...but man, I'm exhausted.

I wrote in 30 minute increments again. Highest word count: 767. Lowest: 149 (plus 350 or so) -- and that was with five minutes to go. :P I soooo would've made that 4K. Big bummer to end an otherwise WONDERFUL day.

Ah well, at least it wasn't more. You would've have heard my scream break the sound barrier had it been much more. (VBG)

Okay...YAY. :) 3600 words kicks some major butt!

It's A Start

Boy did exhaustion kick in last night... then procrastination as I chatted with some friends on IM. I pretty much gave up on that word count goal around 2 when I dragged my butt to bed, shocked I had managed to stay up that long. Just goes to show how IM can do that to you. (g) It's the vaccuum of time suckage.

But true to my word, I pulled out pen and paper and wrote before falling to sleep. I haven't typed the words in for an official word count, but it has to be around 500-600 words. So yay, I made it after all. I even managed to read a few chapters before nodding off. It's probably one of the worst books I've read in quite some time, but I'm sort of fascinated by it in a "car wreck" sort of way. It's a book people have gone ga-ga over, so I'm just a little more than befuddled. Sometimes I wonder -- if the publishing world goes nuts about THIS kind of book, is it a world I want to be in? (g) Then I remember it takes all types... thank God. :)

Status

Well, I'm still plugging away at BTPM. AAARGH. The only good thing, is that I really like the stuff I'm writing. The bad is that it's going slowly and not really working with the "time frame" I had in mind. LOL. OH well, what can you do? I'd much rather have the end book be GOOD than written quickly at this point.

You know, I keep wondering... what happened to me?? I used to churn out words like there was no tomorrow. These days I'm lucky if I write every day... and when I do write, to churn out 500 words. It's weird and I don't like it. lol. I want to go back to my days of abandon when I'd churn out 25K in a week... when I threw caution to the wind and believed in myself... gah.

Frustration.

At any rate, that original scene that I cut took up chapters 13-15. I've finished 13 & 14, and have a pretty good idea about what I'll do with 15. After that, I'm back on track and hopefully I can gut my way to the end. We shall see.

I'm also letting FI simmer as it's slowly moving from the back of my mind to the forefront. I'm so geared up to work on it. Perhaps I'll get some of the old Jen back while writing completely new scenes...random...willy-nilly...saying f*ck what people think of this, cuz I love it. LOL. Yeah, if you know me, you know the last part isn't true... but SOME confidence would be nice.

Oh, and I need to work on the prep for the haunted house party I'm throwing. Must do that soon.

Busy. Gah.

Blackout!

Sorry for the quiet blog the past couple of days. School kicked my butt, as predicted. (g) After several evenings of seeing the sunrise before calling it a night, my body just gave out on me. I slept and slept and slept on Wednesday -- and vowed to get more sleep on a regular basis from here on out. At the rate I was going, I'd be primed for the looney bin by mid-September. (g)

Anyway--no new words, but I did get about 4300 total this week, which was more than I thought I'd get (deep down where I apply reality). I'm hoping to add to that significantly over the three day weekend. The good thing is that I'm exceedingly pleased with the words I've accomplished, and look forward to seeing where these new scenes will take me and affect the book overall.

I've got some friends who are a little worried about where they're taking a certain character, but I _promise_ things will work out for the best. LOL. No naysaying and character-hating, folks! Not yet, at any rate -- let it all play out. :) IOW, TRUST me. (g)

Anywho -- I'm SO glad it's Friday. I seriously didn't know if I'd survive school yesterday. It's my long day -- from 1030 to 630... not the worst schedule out there, but I definitely have some HARD hitting classes in there. I'm not really sure why I took Corporations of all bloody things -- I'm the least business minded person I know...and well, it's going to be nightmarish.

So yeah, that's my life in a nutshell over the past couple of days. Hasn't been a lot of fun and I'm REALLY looking forward to getting some face time with FI. TGIF.

Quick Note

Well, it was bound to happen, and now it has. I've faced the reality of school starting tomorrow. With that extra week, you'd think I would've taken the opportunity to get a head start on my assignments.

NAY, I say!

I saved 'em until today. And of course I had a family celebration to attend this evening. In other words, I didn't start reading for class until close to midnight. (g) With sixty pages for my ONE class tomorrow, not to mention my snail pace and penchant for distraction, I only finished about an hour ago.

So, no writing tonight... I'm gonna scribble down some notes, though.. Hopefully I can squeeze some time in tomorrow. I just ran down my reading list for Wednesday, and it ain't pretty, folks. (g) Therefore, I need to start on it the first opportunity I have.

Why oh why am I taking 17 hours??? Yeah, I know -- I'm crazy. But a heavy semester in the fall means a LIGHT one in the spring. That is SUCH a motivation. (g)

So, the bad news? Erm, remember how I estimated I would need 15K to finish the next 100 pages? Ummm, I'm only at 3K...that means I need to squeeze in 12K on top of my monstrous class load--by Friday. Heh. (VBG) I _could_ do it...we'll see. LOL. Well, to be honest... I _could_ finish the 15K, but I'm not sure I'll be able to pull all the chunks together in that time. Plus I still need to edit/revise those three chapters from the previous draft... ugh, that takes me forever.

Oh...and I made a new goal of getting BTPM to D.A. by the end of September. *sigh* Much longer than I had hoped to take, but what can you do? After all, I've got his attention with FI -- that's the more important of the two at this point. Despite that, I'm super excited to get it to him... I really hope he loves it as much as I do.

Okay, off to try and fall asleep. Egads. My schedule is SO out of whack.

All Caught Up

I got my course materials -- finally. Last night I spent several hours trying to catch up on all the assignments. I didn't go to bed until about three. (Exhausted) BUT, I'm back on top of things now and ready to move forward. The great thing? One week of three is almost over...whew! This will be a fast 'un. (g)

I'm heading to see some relatives tonight. They breed dogs and want me to help them set up a blog to advertise their puppies. The puppies are about 5-6 weeks now... I'm gonna have a good time! (g) Last I saw them, their eyes were still closed and all they did was eat and poo. It'll be fun to chase them around.

So, not much chance to work on either book these past two days. I'm still thinking on it, though -- all the time. I've come up with some new things to add to BTPM and have started thinking about how best to tackle FI. After this week, things should settle into a routine (i.e. AFTER HP comes out). Hey, priorities! You gotta have 'em.

A friend is sort of pushing me to finish the short story so I can submit it to SIWC. I'm going to try, but I must make FI a priority. I wouldn't object too much to spending an hour or so every day on it, though. I'd love to submit it...especially because I'm _tentatively_ planning on attending the conference. Right now I'm trying to work out the deniro behind the whole thing, but it's looking somewhat hopeful. (g) By somewhat, I mean I may be able to _squeak_ by. lol

Anyway, I'm missing my books -- a lot.

I Blame J.K. Rowling

I didn't get a lot accomplished this weekend. (See title.) I'm blaming her because I've been totally caught up in HP hysteria -- I've seen the movie twice already and am currently in a reread of book 6 in preparation for when I get my grubby little hands on book 7. It's sad, but I can't seem to help myself. :)

Anywho, I'm back in the saddle, so to speak. I've forbidden myself from working while sitting on my bed, simpy because it's much too easy to go horizontal for a nap. So, desk it is. I've decided I'm going to try and split my writing time between FI and BTPM for now -- see how it goes. I desperately want to finish BTPM and get it in the mail, but realize I need to focus on FI. The thing is, if D.A. hadn't given me the okay to send BTPM, I would probably put it on the back burner... but I keep thinking I might be able to get that book to a satisfactory level before the hellish rewrites of FI are finished. (g) I HOPE. Every time I think about BTPM, some new idea pops out and I'm scrambling to adjust.

I've decided that before I send off BTPM, I will write out a tentative (by tentative, I mean BIG, GENERAL ideas) "outline" for WALKING IN SHADOW. That way, I'll know where it's going and that I haven't missed anything that I needed to include in book 1. I hope it works out okay. There's nothing worse than springing something on readers that you completely left out of the first book. Yeah... kind of like those cheaters from MISERY who let the car go over the cliff one week and then, during the next week's installation, showed the hero jumping out before the crash happens. "Those dirty birdies!"

{{{Random!}}}

Have I mentioned I think I'm losing my mind? (g)

Oh, and I started my new summer class today. It only goes for three weeks, which means I get _two whole weeks_ off before the new school year begins. YAY. I'm still torn on what I'll do, but I'm leaning toward staying home and writing like a madwoman. We'll see. White water rafting is calling my name...mmm, fun. Crisp air...mountains...long leisurely hikes... Yeah, nothing's for certain at this point. (g)

Tee-Hee! *rubbing her hands together*

I've printed out BTPM for my first official read through. Heck, so far I don't think I've read more than a couple of chapters together in one sitting. So...fun fun fun. :) I feel like a kid on her way to Disneyland. (g) Hope I'm still grinning like a fool when I step off the ride.

Hmmm, nothing else to report. No word from D.A. I've decided I'm going to start executing the revisions... Either I do that or I begin another book. I can't imagine trying to juggle three down the road. LOL. Even I have my limits. (g) Although...I must admit I'm itchin' to get started on WALKING IN SHADOW...or continue working on THE BRAEDEN. Gah, and then there's that short story...and NARC 2. Blah!! Too many books -- must focus. Right now that means reading BTPM. Wish me luck. :)

Woo-WOO!

At 7am this morning, I finished the very last scene of BY THE PALE MOONLIGHT. WOOWOO! (g) It felt great to type that last sentence. I'm going to let it sit for a little while and then go back for a final polish. Right now, it's looking really good because I've already sent over half of it through a crit forum and the whole MS out to a handful of betas.

Two people have read my ending so far, well, as far as I know. I've received positive responses, so maybe I didn't push it with my cliffhanger. (g) I'll hopefully hear back from the last few soon.

For now, I'm basking in the glow of having finished my second novel. Yanno, when I finished FAKING IT and considered what book to tackle next, etc., it felt like I would _never_ be able to do it again. It seems like an insurmountable task when you're sitting there with a blank page and 65-85K ahead of you. But man, I _can_ do it. YAY. :)

Update

Well, the bad news is that I still haven't heard from D.A. (g) The good news is that tonight I finally got some writing accomplished -- over 1500 words, actually. It feels great. I'm just hoping that in the morning I won't discover they're total crap. (g) Oh well, you can only try your best. I'm just happy to have finally broken my mini-block that's been haunting me these past few days. Anyway, I vowed to get a scene of BTPM out of the way tonight, and I did. I'm now gonna allow myself to go to bed -- as it's _verra_ late. (g)

Ho-Hum

For those of you waiting for word, there hasn't been any yet. LOL. I'm trying not to think about it, but catch myself checking my email much too often. I've promised myself that I will work on BTPM and try not to think about it. (No such luck as of yet). Now that I've finished a few things I needed to get done, hopefully I can get on that goal. :)

I miss writing -- so I'm all for it. I just don't remember HOW to write at the moment. Gah, I hate school imposed writing breaks. Okay, I'm off -- will post as soon as I hear anything.

I'm Baaack!

Goodness -- it feels like I've been gone forever even though it was only overnite. LOL. At any rate, just a quick note before I crash. I didn't get a lot accomplished -- I always go with the best of intentions, but 15 adults, 3 children ranging in age from 2-9 and two crazy dogs in an itty bitty house makes life a bit nuts. When I finally got some time alone, I gave writing my best shot but unfortunately didn't get far. My actual word count is pretty embarrassing -- less than 150 last night, and nothing today. But considering how tired I was, I'm glad I got that much. And as a friend pointed out tonight -- at least the words I did manage are quite powerful. So, I guess that's something. :)

Oh, and I meant to write during the car ride.. Yeah, didn't quite work out. Chloe insisted on sitting on my lap the entire time, and between her and Bailey squawking about who would sit there... not to mention the whining every time we passed a field of cows (Chloe's obsessed with them), it was impossible to work. LOL. Oh well.

Tomorrow the real work begins. I'm putting myself on a schedule from here on out. (g)

Slight Panic Attack

Last night, in yet another attempt to put off that flippin' research paper, I allowed myself some time to think about the revisions to Faking It. So, with DA's recommendations in hand, I went through my chapters -- tried to view each scene with the mindset of whether it will move the main plot along... what can/should be cut, what could be merged with other scenes -- etc. etc. All I'm left with is wondering why he even likes this book to begin with. And so begins a full-fledged panic attack--leaving me wondering if I'll need to completely rework most of this book. It's not that I'm resistant to change -- it's just the thought of losing so many of my lovely little scenes--ones I worked so hard on--is a tough thing to face.

I'm blaming this reaction to the amount of stress I'm under, BTW. LOL. I'm tired, I'm worried about finals, etc. I know this will probably pass and I'll be able to look at the process more favorably. Right now, it seems like an insurmountable task. Instead of trying to rework this book, I'm wondering if it would be easier to pluck my characters out of this version and start over. But no, that's silly -- and my brain knows it. LOL. I just have to figure out a way of letting go of some these scenes. I also need to realize that I can come up with new ones--better ones. Yeah.

Okay, I'm taking a deep breath now. (g) I'm heading out to buy a lot of caffeine and sugary foods so I can work on my paper nonstop for the next two and a half days. I guess it's good -- inspiration always comes to me during stressful times -- maybe I'll come up with a solution to this dilemma.

Slow Descent Into Insanity

I have absolutely no patience. I swear, this waiting thing is going to kill me. No word today...no email, no phone calls, nothing. *cries* Okay, I'm actually fine -- it's just that I'm in this perpetual state of readiness and I'd like to get started on revisions. LOL. Can't do that if I don't know what he wants...

But, with no word, I _will_ concentrate on school work tonight. I've vowed to at any rate. (g) No guarantees. I'm trying to tighten up the last couple of scenes of BTPM so I can send them off to my betas. It's a slow process because I'm completely in FI mode again. I'd rather work on that than homework, of course. But I'm down to crunch time, so we'll see.

At any rate -- I left my betas hanging, and I have a couple of them threatening to harm me. (g) Better get the ending to them soon. LOL. Always a good feeling to know they're invested enough to care.

*stares at her quiet email* Wah wah wah. LOL.

Wait For It...Wait For It

I'm not quite finished. If you've been following my word count meter for BTPM, you'll see that I'm less than 800 words from my goal. HEH. Yeah, I'm gonna go over. I still have a couple of chapters to pull together, and the ending to write. I hope I can keep it down to only a couple of thousand over, but I'm not holding my breath. Oh well, hopefully when I go back through to tighten these chaps up, that count will fall some.

Anyway -- I pretty much wasted most of the day. It was so nice here and the outdoors wouldn't leave me alone. (g) I had to go play with the pup and just sit and enjoy the temp. So, that meant a _very_ late start on work. Oh well, I wrote about 2200 new words today. Considering I had no idea (really) of what I would write, I'm happy with the solutions I came up with. Honestly, it should go pretty fast from here on out. I have to finish one small scene...and then it's pretty much a straight shot to the end.

Here's hoping tomorrow is the day! (g)

Getting Close!

I'm almost finished with BTPM. After sort of dragging my feet these past couple of days, I finally seem to be on a roll with it. I basically have the last 12K to pull into chapters -- filling in any small gaps that might still be there. In that, I need to write a little over 4K...so not bad (most of that is the ending). I'm going to keep pushing tonight to see how far I get. If I can get within a day's worth of work, I'll be doing good. (g) Then perhaps I can knock out the rest tomorrow.

I've been getting very positive feedback at the kidcrit forum--and that's all I could really hope for. The great thing is that they're really helping me to tighten these chaps. Plus I have one critter demanding chapters as fast as I can put them up. (g) I love that it's caught her attention that way. My only problem is keeping up with the crits at this point. I feel like I've crit everything in sight already. (g)

Anyway, when I finish this book, I will be shouting from the hilltops! (g) I don't know why the last few thousand words are the hardest for me. Maybe I'm just not ready to let go of this one. It has been SO much fun to write -- gah, I love it more than I can say. It will be a joyous/sad occasion when I lay it to bed. I guess there's always book 2 to concentrate on -- boy is that one going to be a challenge. I will say that NOW. (g)

My biggest decision will probably be whether to work on book 2, or Narc 2. Oh..did I share this? I think I have a tentative title for book 2 (the BTPM series) -- WALKING IN SHADOW. (Close to Shadow Walker, eh? Well, I'm not changing this one -- it will be this, or some other variation. Shadow Walker will have to change if it becomes an issue. Simple as that. (g))

Anyway -- that's where I'm at. Back to work, I go.

Status of Faking It

I really don't have much to report these days. School is keeping me extremely busy and I haven't had much time to do anything other than an occasional crit.

I'm glad to report that I just sent out another partial for FAKING IT. Current count stands at one full and three partials out. Truth be told, the waiting and not knowing is KILLING me. (g) Oh well, I'm trying not to think about it when at all possible.

Things are going well with BTPM -- everything should be pulled completely together by this weekend.

I'm upset to report that soon all writing endeavors will have to take a serious backseat to schoolwork. I have finals looming in less than _four_ weeks. GAK! I also need to doubletime it with my research paper for my copyright seminar. Double Gak! (Although, this week was our last meeting -- so I'm still celebrating that. Don't get me wrong -- loved the class, but free time is _wonderful_ and hard to come by these days. It will save me two hours of class time, not to mention 2-3 hours of prep time. That's a lot of time, people! (g))

Other than that, I'm sad to say I have nothing much to report. Ohh! Ruby Luebe is doing okay. She's back at home and is sort of maintaining her prior level of alertness and activity, etc. She's celebrating her 80th birthday in May, so we look forward to that. My nutty sister is actually flying in for the event. LOL. That'll probably be a good time to slip her a copy of BTPM -- yup, best to get her when she can't get away. (g)

Not Quite There

Well, I haven't finished yet. LOL. Okay, so I'm human. I fell prey to procrastination and life. Truth be told, I got a bit carried away with writing a hook. I don't really know what it is about those things, but they give me such trouble. It's probably the single most frustrating thing for me (headache and curse-inducing misery) -- I'd rather write 10 non-fiction books about Blackacre and property rights. (g)

Anyway -- I'm up to chapter 13, and I'm currently working on the ending. There's really only a few things I need to do to help tie everything together, but I'm finding the small tweaks I need to make to be downright frustrating. My problem is that I rarely make changes to my first draft -- usually only do some clean-up and copyediting stuff. So, when I have to actually sit down and figure a way to add things in, I get fed-up quickly and my mind tends to wander. I always feel things are interrupting the flow or sound forced. Blah. Be that as it may, I am _determined_ to finish before the end of March. I will, I must, YES. LOL. I need to be able to go into finals knowing it's complete.

One great thing -- I posted my "sex scene" for comments. I wanted to know if it was too graphic, pushed the envelope a little too far, etc. Anyway, the head of kidcrit gave it a big thumbs up and said I could do one of two things. (1) Go ahead and send it as is, and see whether the agent asks me to tone it down or (2) Tone it down now and, should an agent pick me up, ask if they'd like to see the amped up version. I'm leaning toward the latter, although I _really_ love my scene as is. I just don't want to harm my chances with an agent if they have a firm line on how far they'll allow their authors to go. Better to play it safe, I guess. I'm happy that people seemed to think it was well-written, though. YAY. (g)

Anyway -- looks like I have a final hook. What do y'all think?

**

Makenna Reed knows all of her friends have their quirks, but when Ty shows up naked in her yard one morning, she finds it beyond weird. Stranger still are the deep gashes across Ty’s chest and his sudden ability to hear and smell things that no human should.

When her boyfriend tries to take advantage of her during a moonlit night, Ty’s secret is revealed when he comes to her rescue. He’s no longer the boy she’s crushed on forever, but rather a werewolf with one serious aversion for all things silver. Makenna is left wondering if he’s to blame for the recent death of one of their classmates, the apparent victim of an animal attack.

With the help of Melanie, the dead girl’s friend, they manage to prove Ty’s innocence, only to discover Makenna was the intended prey. Even worse, she’s still a target. In a race against the full moon, the trio struggles to find who murdered the young woman. However, without a way to cure Ty, they have no way of knowing who poses the greater threat: Ty or the unknown enemy.

BY THE PALE MOONLIGHT is an edgy young adult novel of 60,000 words and the first in a series.

**

Two days of work and there it is. LOL. I swear, there has to be an easier way. Don't even get me started on synopses... which is something I'll try to tackle AFTER the book is completed. LOL. I don't think my brain or mood could handle it right now. Don't hold me to that. (g)

Anyway -- other than that, I'm still waiting to hear back on two partials and the full for FAKING IT. That's something I've been wondering about. If I don't manage to attract an agent by time BTPM is ready, is it OKAY to query BTPM at the same time -- best book wins? LOL. That sounds so nutty to me, but I would think it's _possible_. Gah, too much to think about this late at night. I'm off to work on the ending of BTPM.

Whew!

I had a very productive day. I managed to finish 7 chapters -- piecing them all together and into what will _probably_ be their final arrangement. It was so much fun--I love watching this book take shape. One of my friends kindly read the chapters as I went, and seemed very pleased with how things were looking. YAY. (g)

Anyway -- I did a running word count and I've now pulled about 36K together -- not much more to go, and I must say that ain't bad for a day's work. (Well, I did three chapters before today, but you know what I mean.) So, ten chapters completed -- not sure how many more to go, but I really hope to finish this weekend.

I may have to start calling for beta readers soon -- anyone want to volunteer? (g) I'm so thrilled to be _this_ close to the end. Then on to book 2.

BTPM Passes

Well, I've officially received 5 or so crits on the first chapter of By The Pale Moonlight. So far, the response has been very good. I think the main crit I've received is that there are too many character names given in the first chapter. I'm on the fence on whether or not I agree--I think 2 of the 5 mentioned this concern. So, we'll see. I could conceivably cut out one...maybe two, but most are important for later in the book. But, I guess I'll wait until I finish posting the whole thing to make a final decision. I think I introduced 6-7 characters. For a scene that's taking place at a football game, I didn't think that was too many. LOL.

Anyway, I'm encouraged by these first positive crits -- chapter 2 is probably one of the roughest of the book. So, if that passes muster, hopefully it will be smooth sailing through the rest of it. One great thing is that after one woman read the first chapter, she PM'd me her email address so I can send the whole thing to her. LOL. That's very flattering and had the book been finished, I would've been more than willing. This weekend perhaps.

One of my friends reminded me that soon I'll have to write a query and synopsis for this book. Can I just say, UGH? (g) Don't get me wrong -- I _cannot_ wait to start the query process with this book. I think it has a great shot at being picked up. I just _really_ hate writing these things. (g) Especially the one page synopsis -- goodness, those are hard. (G) Oh well -- I'll think of them in a positive light. If I need to write one, then that means I'm able to send the book out. YES. Can't wait for that. I know I have a long time to go before I reach that point, but I'm feeling good about the prospect.

I haven't achieved much writing -- but I do have the first three chapters ready for posting -- and will probably get the next 3 (at least) tomorrow. I think I'm just going to slowly make my way through the book and fill in any holes I come across as I go. The final scene is sort of marinating right now -- but soon I'll finish that up, too.

Anyway -- a busy week with all of the additional crits I've been doing, but hopefully it will all be worth it. I've enjoyed a lot of the stories in kidcrit -- it's fun to focus on children's books, to see the creativity of some of the writers involved. Nice, happy writing. (g) Of course, I have to go and get all dark on them. LOL. But, I'm really enjoying it -- it's almost hard to stop critting the chaps posted. (g)

Okay--I'm off to read. Did I mention I picked up the sequel to TWILIGHT the other day? Yeah, I'm a sucker. I even splurged on the hard cover. LOL. Oh well -- I'm all about supporting fellow authors. :)