A moment of panic

I’m feeling a whole lot over my head. I’ve kept up my daily writing, although it hasn’t been solely to L&D1. I got stuck, more on that in another post. But since I need to wait just a couple of days for me to get unstuck, I turned to Sam’s story. She has a prologue or short story that happens in Kathleen’s timeline. It doesn’t fit and is completely unnecessary for the Kathleen’s story (L&D1) but it is a must for Sam’s (L&D3). Plus it’s really HOT. It turns out to be a central piece setting up the internal conflict for Sam’s story. And I just figured out the plot of the external conflict, I have to admit, I’m impressed with myself. Didn’t see it coming but I love it. It’s more interesting and stronger than I originally planned.

Many of my writer friends have said that if you get into the ‘groove’, ‘zone’, or whatever name you give it, then your creativity will start to overflow. I believed it, but never really experienced it. I let too many real life/ job things get in the way of writing. And while the real life/ jobs thing still have to come first, I am making writing a priority too. Then I had that overflow they talk about. I had the spark of an idea for another series. Four sisters, four witches, four books. Can you believe that? Plus it’s something completely different, for me anyway. I know the sister/ witch thing is feeling a bit overdone. And it may be, but it’s being done because people like it. Something about magic and witches resonate with people and I don’t think they ever get tired of reading stories done in a fresh way. Now let’s hope I can get the fresh part done.

In the craft of writing, I know what needs to be done, the layering, the 3 or 4 drafts, laying the clues, showing vs. telling, emotions, etc. But when I think too hard on if I’m doing all these varied things right I get overwhelmed. Fear sets in. Doubt is its close partner. Not good. I know I listened to them before. I have the privilege of being a beta reader/ crit partner to some very talented writers. And it’s easy for me to think that while I may be creative, I doubt my stamina and ability to complete the novels they have. However, these habits that I’ve been forcing myself to do have helped curb fear and doubt. Let's see if I can maintain it.

How do you keep fear and doubt at bay?

Anita Blake

I’ve stuck to my writing EVERY SINGLE DAY credo and the daily numbers are starting to getting consistently higher. In fact, last night I really just wanted to go to bed. I was tired, it was late, Miss M went down an hour later than normal, and my allergies haven’t gone away completely yet. I really tried to talk myself into going to bed and doing more today. But I’ve got more crazy stuff to do today. So I ‘put my butt in the chair’ (as Candace Havens always says) and just tried to type some words that contributed to my story. Guess what happened? I wrote nearly 1,000 words. AND I think I put way more emotional insight into my main character. Happy dance and rum for everyone!

So Leah blogged about me again. :) I sent her my Anita Blake books to see if she liked them. I did, in fact I devoured the whole series in three months in between all of my other reading. Leah didn’t like them nearly as much as I did. There wasn’t enough emotion in it for her. I understand and I do like the emotionally powerful stories that she talked about. But it also made me think about why I liked Anita Blake so much. Anita is a truly flawed character, but she knows it. She knows she has all this anger and rage and she lets her mouth get herself into trouble. But she can and does come off as a bitch to many. So why do I like her so much? I think I relate too much. Plus with her saying things like she runs 4 miles every day, not because she likes it, but because sometimes you just have to be able to out run the bad guys, it’s hard for me to NOT like her.

Oh, and you need to buy Leah’s new book. It’s coming out on the 12th. HOT, think Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. OMG, you can’t believe how hot this book is. A little tidbit for you, I read a couple of scenes from the next book in the series this week. Umm, let me just say that I wanted to pull DH into my office and lock the door. He wouldn’t cooperate though, damn!

Dreams

Writing update – I’ve have written every day since I met my goal of starting to write before Easter. That’s more than ten days. YEAH me. On average I’ve written about 600 words a day. True, not a great amount but the range has been from 90 words one day to 1662 on another day. I’ve only had two days were I wrote 90 and 106 words, but I was going to a funeral and such so you have to give me that. I think the important thing is to get in that habit of writing every single day. I have an excel file keeping track of my daily log. I'll let you know how it's going as time wears on. I expect that my output will start to come easier the longer I'm doing it every single day.


Fun Stuff – Check out Leah’s blog. I inspired it! It’s all about having dreams (the kind while you’re asleep) that actually come true. So does that ever happen to you?


Weird Stuff – Okay, so I try to do the good mom thing and let Miss M experience different stuff. We do piano lessons, and we went through horse lessons, Tae Kwon Do, and more recently dance. Piano is going to stick, but then we’ll sign up for something new for three months and see what we like. Miss M loves the ‘idea’ of doing all these things but when she realizes the work involved gets bored really fast.





I have to tell you though that dance is going to be OUT. The conversations that go on among the dance mothers, OMG, I can’t possibly even describe it properly. All I know is that I need a drink afterwards. Don’t believe me? Think I exaggerate? DH does, then the babysitter came one day when I had to be somewhere and she tagged off and took Miss M home for me. Her opinion? “OMG, I thought women like that only existed in movies and books. They are so WEIRD!” via her text messages to me, after only being there for 15 minutes. Yes 15 minutes. I think we may go back to horses, they talk less.

Updates

Miss M

Last Sunday I finished her tent curtains. She loves them. She loves taking them down and hanging them on ANYTHING too. Oh, well. She’s having fun. Still have a massive pile of toys in the living room but I don’t have the energy. Finally got the last book shelf in, just need to put it together. Not sure when, which leads me to…










Health
Do you know I have allergies? Even my allergist says that I’m a freak, in the nicest possible way. I have your common garden variety allergies to pollen, ragweed, anything that grows, etc. However, the way MY body reacts is where the freakishness comes in. You know that Epi pen shot that people who are allergic to bee stings use? Well, it has a disclaimer, once you use it call 911. Not me, it’s just everyday average medicine. I use is sparingly, because I don’t really like jamming my thigh with it. I guess I use it about once or twice a year. When I was 7 I was taught how to use a syringe so I could inject myself in the arm if need be. I wish I could do that still, but with the drug problems today I’m sure I would get all kinds of weird looks if I try to pick up ephedrine and syringes. A small stab in the arm is way better than a jam to the thigh though, less bruising too.

Anyways, my allergies have been in high form. The pollen count is off the charts right now with high winds at least every other day. Miss M and I are both going to the allergist tomorrow.

Writing

I met my goal!!! I started writing L&D1 a whole day before my deadline. I’m very excited. So far I have about 1600 words, which doesn’t sound like much and it really isn’t. BUT with my head all fuzzy from allergies I’m amazed I actually crawled out of bed the last two days. I’ve finished the first scene. It’s still really rough and I know I will end up rewriting at least two more times, but that is for later. Now is the time for me to push through with this first draft and get the whole story written. The Zokutou Word Meter link is gone, so as soon as I can find a better one I will start posting my progress.

More Progress

Room Update – Almost done! Yeah! Ordered some bookcases for organization and there was a mixup on one of them. It should be in this week and hopefully this weekend I will get all the toys back in. I came up with a clever way (ingenious was the word I originally picked but I want to appear modest)to hang Miss M’s tent flaps. Extra long shower curtain rod. Found some really cute hooks and then all I have to do is put some grommets in, assuming that would be easier to figure out than my button hole maker on my sewing machine. I’m hoping to have the tent curtains done by this weekend too. We’ll see.



Writing – I finished the plotting class. I have to be honest, I really already had L&D1 plotted out to the point where I didn’t need the class. But it did help me adjust my thinking for future works. All in all, it was a worthwhile class to take and I recommend it to anyone doubting their plotting abilities.


So now that I’ve finished the class I’m fine tuning my outline for L&D1. I’m giving myself two weeks for last minute detail stuff and I’m going to try and start writing in earnest by Easter.

Room Progress

The room is coming along great. Finished all the painting. YEAH!!! Man, I’m tired of paint. There are a few spots on the ceiling I need to cover up but I have to be honest, I’m not all that ambitious to get it fixed. Had the carpets cleaned Wednesday, and the bed delivered Thursday. Miss M is in heaven. I can’t get her off the bed.


We still have the HUGE pile of toys in the living room but hopefully we can get through half of those this weekend. I ordered some bookcases to help organize her toys, but I waited too late and they won’t be in until next week. So by next weekend I hope to have it finished. Maybe that will be my birthday present to hubby, “Look honey, I cleaned the living room”.

My mother in law is here this week and I haven’t been able to get much accomplished on L&D1. I’m going to try and work on my plotting class tonight but we’ll see. I have like 2,000 emails in my boxes from all the different groups I’m in and classes I’ve taken over the past few months. A couple of classes I took I just filed away to read later. I’d like to get through at least two of those by the middle of next month. Again, we’ll see.

Anyone reading anything interesting? I picked up the new Lora Leigh but I’m not letting myself read it until I get some of this stuff done. A reward for my hard work. I know someone else that does that, do any of you?

Romance Personality

Writing update – I’ve worked through more of my outline. I’m about two thirds to a little more through it and very happy. Most of the ending is already worked out with a couple of small questions that will have to wait until the end.

Right now, the only thing that really needs tweaking is the romantic element. I realized this week that most of the romances that I’ve read lately have been where the hero and heroine are sequestered in some way. You know, where they are on the run, undercover together, Personal Protection, (wink, wink to Leah) etc. In my story, they are dating. And boy, do I NOT know anything about that. I’ve been with DH for nearly 18 years now and even before then I was an anomaly when it came to the whole dating scene. Let’s just say that my attitude was way more like a guy’s. If I liked someone, I asked them out. I didn’t wait, I didn’t ask to be pursued, I saw what I wanted and went after it. My single friends don’t even bother anymore asking me for advice on men. I’m way too aggressive and direct for them. I don’t get the games. Don’t believe me? When DH and I went out for the first time, he refused to take me. I badgered him for 20 minutes until he relented and agreed to take me out. The only reason he put up such a fight was because I was fresh out of high school and he was 8 years older than me. Not such a big deal now, but back then it was. As it would be for Miss M to show up with a boyfriend 8 years older than her! Hypocritical, yeah probably, but I don’t care!

Miss M’s room – It’s all primed and ready for pink paint. We discussed, compared, argued and drew pictures to come up with ‘our plan’. Miss M is so like me it’s a bit frightening. We argue constantly, it’s all about control. Anyway, we decided to paint the walls pink and then we picked out purple paint to sponge on top of that. So she’ll get a multi colored effect. The colors are rich but not too dark or too pastel so it was a good compromise for us both. I sure as hell hope it looks as good as we imagined. Dad will be mad at both of us if we hate it so much we start over. I’m not sure why though, he hasn’t done any painting. I promised Miss M that she could help paint the walls pink so that will be this afternoon or tomorrow. We’ll see how it goes…