Today

two days in a row of little or no writing GRRR. I'll get more done tomorrow. Right now, I'm catching up on blogs and stuff. Plus entering contests to win lots of books. Soon, I will be having a giveaway, sometime in January, to give away books I have extras of because I won two or bought one then won one :)I think introducing people to new authors is a fabulous past time and I intend to give away lots of people's books, not just my own :)

I'm not feeling well and not focusing well due to lack of sleep too many nights in a row. Here's to sleep and focus!

I miss the easy title days

I miss the easy title days of NaNoWrimo. Maybe I'll use it anyway, unless I have something special to report LOl. I made my goal yesterday and had the resubmission done quickly and easily ;;) **snort NOT it took all day and the baby was good! It was just things like feeding him, reading and rereading a passage. (If I had to reread it, I rewrote it.) Getting caught up on all the blogs I follow and some more house cleaning, again figuratively and literally. It took most of the day for me, ending with laundry mat for three hours!

I'm gearing up to start the research for my next book(s) and loving the freedom at this stage. Hubby has finished finals so will probably beat him over the head to help with the WIPs awaiting his assistance!

I'm excited for this Christmas. I will probably harp on it a bit LOL I went cheesy and finally gave in to the temptation to buy the coke bottles shaped like ornaments. I have them under our fiberoptic tree LOL Wrapping presents for my daughter who will be here two days after to open them. I'm so excited.

day 28

I did about 1300 words> I had left my glasses somewhere and I wore my eyes out Friday not using them, giving myself headaches:( Oh well, I have them now, LOL May finish today, depending on how good baby is :) would be cool though to hit so high my first nanowrimo :P

so I started this blog 3 hours earlier and I will finish it now, LOL

I was woken up by my hubby's phone announcing that he had a text message... he got called into work. Yeah!!! Nice boost to our pay for december as they have added like five nights of work! Sememster ends the tenth so it was looking pretty bleak for a while. Now, its all good :)

PS Baby is being fussy. I hope he goes down for a nap SOON!

Day 27

I finished my rewrites and have sent them off to my family editing team :) My NanoWrimo got another 3500 words and I managed to do some cleaning on the house. I'm tired and having trouble, and I'm thinking I have a different flu bug. I'm under so much stress that if someone writes on-line that has something I swear it carries the virus right to me. That's all right because my van will be fixed soon and about a big chunk of my daily stress will be taken care of :) I miss my big old conversion van.

Well, back to the Quest for Riverhand and to trying to calm my stomache!

Anyone do the Black Friday shopping idiocy, er, I mean shopping :)

Day 20

was very good day. :)I posted after 1100 words on nanowrimo project and 4300 on rewrite! That doesn't count the stuff written by hand. that will go on today's count though. I had a real doozy of a scene to add to the rewrite. I really like what it adds to the story.

Last night I had an emotional catalyst and will have more over the next few months I'm sure. I'm tired of being blamed for things I didn't do, judged (above and beyond the others) for the things I did do, and being made to feel like I can't talk about them. I'm also tired of all the lies and behind the scene bullshit. the only good thing I can say is that with each out pouring that I have, my writing gets better and the creativity is released. I have over 20 years of build up with my adoptive and birth family to work through as I've decided I'm not hiding anymore. I'll probably write 10 books in the coming months! LOL

I'm waiting for an IRS check to fix my van. I'll feel much better when I have my van back and will start cleaning house then. I have a lot to do before the end of the year, including write! I'll be glad to not be in such dire straits when we get it. We won't have any savings left after taking care of our vehicle situation and other bills (remind me to read the small print when your bank says you can 'use' three hundred dollars! We are five hundred in the hole now UGH)but at least these things will be taken care of!

Cross fingers and toes, so far today no one is sick. Maybe Texas is losing sight of us? All in all, I look forward to getting a lot of writing done, whether on computer or on paper, hasta.

Day 19

Day 19 went well! I wrote 2k more on my nanowrimo project and 2k on my rewrites. that's four thousand words for the day. As long as I can keep doing the 2k+ for the nanowrimo, I will get my rough, rough draft finished. For me that's the first big step. I love to edit (sounds terrible, but I just realized it myself) and polishing my stories has become an endeavor of love and peace for me. It's an accomplishment. I finished something and I'm proud of it whether anyone besides my family ever sees it. The problem happens when I get too stuck on self editing that I don't continue the story and lose momentum.

Having this rewrite pop up yesterday was actually fortuitous. How? you might ask when I'm in the middle of a race with the train wreck called NaNoWriMo? Well, if you remember, I tend to do better with two stories at once anyway. Plus, I get to edit the rewrite which satisfies my editing need and keeps me away from the temptation of going back through the myriad comments I've posted and fixing them NOW NOW NOW. LOL

So here's to Day 20 which has gotten off to a good start.

Live Long and Prosper...

Days 17 and 18

Dear blog followers,

I got very sick the night before last and still feel achey. I did the dreaded thing. I blithely said to my husband, "I'm fighting this off better than the rest of you." And yep, you guessed it, I was slammed hard.Not sure how spending 18 hours getting thrown up on made me believe I wouldn't have it, but, I really didn't think I was gonna get it. Some of the side effects are too personal even for me to talk about (and I get pretty personal here) but one thing I will say. I actually threw up. A rare occurrence for me unless I've had food poisoning or I am pregnant.

Usually it translates elsewhere. I actually threw my hip into crazy spasms while making excorcist scenes look tame. Not sure if it was out, but it wasn't until I laid on my side with the baby draped across me that it quit feeling like something scraped everytime I walked.

I'm still feeling weak and a bit queasy but I felt up to writing. I did 400 words yesterday. (I know, I'm a sucker, but the days prior had been low word count and I wanted to catch up) Today, I have done 7600 so far! Helps that my husband went to work on time, that's for sure. It throws my whole day off when he doesn't!

I think today is my red letter day for the month. So slap a big red A on my day and I'm going to keep on writing. The story is going very well at this point and I don't want to lose momentum.

day 14,15,16

Not much to say but OUCH! We got slammed with the flu here. the baby was up all night Saturday and he's too young to come close to understanding what's wrong. My 16 yr old woke up at 530 with hives all over his body. Gave him benadryl and sent him to the shower while we looked up area hospitals in case the benadryl didn't work. While printing directions/map to hospital, not only does the printer start having fits, but the internet quits working! About 8 or so, maybe 9, my eight year old gets up and throws up. Repeatedly. Right about 11, the 5 yr old gets in on the action. We had our closing show at 2, which patrick was in, until he threw up all over the stage, poor guy. Yesterday spend an hour talking to a bunch of idiots in billing until they finally let me talk to tech support. The first one was rude enough I reported her, which I usually don't do.

Finally, about 4 yesterday, I have internet and it's time to get the oldest. I had both younger boys home from school, one coughing to beat the band and the other keeping tune with his throw up. I'm sorry if you're at the gross factor at this point. If you are don't continue reading this post.

I'm next. I haven't felt well last couple days and we had the coup de grace last night with hangovers this morning. I'm so NOT feeling well. But hopefully, the worst is over and I can get back to writing!

I wrote about 1500 words (I think, through all of this, most of it Saturday morning. Course, I didn't check my previous word count. We can start again. As of now, I have 32,207. Still ahead of the game for Nanowrimo so hang on to your hats, while I try to remember where I'm at, where I was going, and how I need to get there... And no, I don't need any suggestions from the peanut gallery!

Repeat after me...

Never give up
Never give up
Never give up

tenth day

Well, 2k seems to be my lucky word count. I'm starting a trend and I don't like it. It's as if my brain says "Oh, you have 2500 words? You have enough for contest so get up and do something." Ugh. I wish I could keep writing. Today, I will move to paper if that happens. Actual word count for day 10 is just under 2400. I'm still way above the daily goal I needed to be on pace. I'm at 24565 words out of the 50k. I've finished only one third of time and I'm almost through one half of words.

However, I wanted a minimum of 75K so I'm barely on target for that goal. Must work faster. I thought about cutting my blogs down, but they seem to be helping in two ways. One, I'm holding myself accountable. And two, they've become part of a morning ritual that wakes my brain up. So, for now, I will keep updating my blog during Nanowrimo.

*yawn** time to wake up. Has anyone seen the caffeine. I know it's around here somewhere. *signs off muttering*

ninth day

Finally pulled myself up by the bootstraps and got more than 100 words done in less than an hour blah!! LOL I almost had 1k before taking hubby. I was talking to him and realized the problem. I'm only working on one story. You may laugh, but I've gotten 3k on bad day and 8k on good when writing more than one story at once.

When I get stuck on one (character's aren't behaving or plot point not going where it's supposed to) I move to the other one while the first problem perculates in the back of my mind. I talked to Morgan Anderson (friend on facebook from school) and had said maybe I should do more than one, but I didn't. Try to write the 50k plus whatever I wrote on second story? I'm craazy but not that crazy. Or so I thought. I'm going to be reworking another story while doing nanowrimo. Let's see if it helps the numbers go up.

Onward and upward :)

sixth day

15579+ yeah! that's over 3k for day. I think it was 3300 total :)

Cleaned up excerpt a little bit. I have about an hour during show to sit, so I edit. Between editing done Wed rehearsal and Thurs show, I added around 2k :) and I got to feed the right brains need to critique. I also did research on languages. Right now, I'm using irish/gaelic. (Yes, I have a fascination for the language. I wish I could learn to speak it. Rebellion on Piza 7 has the bulk of foreign words in Irish. :)So I played a little on one of my breaks. I almost feel guilty about how many breaks I'm taking, but it's working.

My family gets time on computer, I get time with family, and I get research done. All that while producing approx 2x the required amount for nanowrimo. I'm proud of myself, but we are heading in to the dreaded 2nd week. Any support is helpful... chocolate, pepsi, gift cards to food places, (I HATE to cook in middle of projects. I don't like it anyother time! LOL) you know, keep the fires burning!

Thanks for the tips on the excerpt. As stated, I did get some outside of the blog as well. It's helped me watch for things as I write or edit. I found quite a few Jared's (Of 24 single spaced pages I had 5 or 6)so that was a big help. Jaren is not a word for Word, but Jared is so it is not highlighted or redlined so I have to look very closely at it.

Speaking of MILs, mine is coming after Christmas and bringing my daughter :) :D :P I'm so happy. I can't wait to see them. They are both big supporters of my writing and helpers with editing and continuity. My Mommy in law and I get along just fine, thank you. She's my biggest fan with the exception of my duaghter! Maybe they're tied, IDK but I do know that I'm very grateful and thankful. She is on my Thankful Thursday list that's for sure.

Okay, I'm off to finish my morning ritual and then its off to the races for me!

BTW my buddies are all doing great! WE'd all killed the 10k mark by Thursday! Theoretically, 10 k didn't need to be broken until end of day yesterday. Keep you posted.

Okay, finally got it to paste. Took me an hour and I had to go to edit html or something. Not sure what the heck is wrong.

If you see any glaring errors, or think somethings wrong, feel free to tell me. Remember, rough draft :)

Jaren shaded his eyes as he scanned the thick forest surrounding his home. Cerisa, his daughter, would be home, her dragon with her. He looked over at Kyle. Kyle may have donated his genes, but it was Jaren who had loved her and raised her. Kyle would kill her as soon as look at her. Jaren couldn’t allow her to walk into the den of murderers the clearing had turned into. Despite the training he had given her and her magic, she wasn’t ready for a fight of this magnitude.

He had to finish it before she returned. He could not allow Cerisa to go through the same trauma her mother had suffered. He lifted his sword holding it straight up and close to his body. He respired as he focused on his enemy.

“I am ready to die.”

He ran forward on the right side of the horse, slicing at Kyle’s neck. He missed. Kyle thrust his sword down through Jared’s left shoulder, pushing deep as Jared looked up at him.

“Your daughter will take the throne and you will die by her hand. Then all of Riverhand will be free.” Jaren’s words rasped at Kyle. Kyle looked stunned and fearful for the last moment of Jaren’s death. Then he dismissed the words of the dying man, signaled to his men. He turned his horse and they left in a thunder of hooves and metal.

foruth day

So yesterday was as busy as ever, but I'm starting to train myself to write write write! Even if its one sentence. Yesterday I got in 4k words!!!! I have over 10k total on my manuscript.

I've been reading agent blogs since I got serious about writing. One of the topics I noticed was the curiousity of the rush of queries in January. I have solved the problem.

Drum Roll please.

It is NaNoWriMo! Every year, for over ten years now, People have been writing rough drafts of novels in November. December they polish and edit. They get their query letters and synopsis ready. come January, they start rolling them out. Everyone edits at different speeds, so from January to March there is an influx of writers who finished that wonderful novel :P

This story threatens to be either my biggest accomplishment or my biggest disappointment. I've never written a fantasy novel before. They are intimidating in length. I'm excited about it though, which means I chose the right one to work on for National Novel Writing Month.

I will start posting excerpts. In fact, I will post one today, just remember, it is the first draft! Just want to give you a taste of what's coming...


PS My son is still reading Rebellion on Piza &. Says it would be an awesome movie LOL

second day end

I ended the second day with 3967 almost 2700 words! yeah. considering how busy life is, I'm very pleased. I came home from rehearsal too tired to do more than upload the words already typed. I wrote more longhand while at the laundry mat, but they will work for today. Besides, I have to decipher them, LOL That could take days, weeks, months, you know. :)

The fantasy is coming along nicely. Most of those words are first chapter and the words I'm adding will mostly be to the first chapter. Setting up the all important conflict. Will have to work on the synopsis of the work! For now its called Cerisa and Her Dragon, but I will have to think up a better title as I roll along :)

second day is

pretty good so far. I've helped put up set for the show my son and I are in anbd hubby's stage managing. I've washed dishes, fixed eggs for me n baby, checked my email, and wrote a few. And guess what? I got a response already:) My tentative date for book signing at Barnes and Noble at Ingram Park Mall in San Antonio, TX is Dec 6th at 2. She will know for sure by Friday!

OH and I've managed to write 450 words already! and I'm currentlt multi-tasking baby and writing this blog!
Wish me luck for rest of day:)

first day went...

Not bad. I ended with 1270 after the very rocky start and a birthday party for my now 1 year old. Not bad. And my hubby says its a little rough but if a story started out that way, he'd want to read more. :) Nice to hear, that's for sure. Since this is a first draft, I'd be uber surprised if it was anything but rough! So that's not an issue.

Hopefully, today will go well. :) Wish me luck. I've got an adventure to go on with many pitfalls and evil people to cause me to stumble.

first day so far

Not an auspicious beginnning. UGH spent more time writing on facebook than my story. Not because I'm procrastinating. I wrote and then erased everything but one line. I'm not feeling well, finally caught a cold, due no doubt to the stress I'm under with the family. I think I'll take some meds, play with my kids, the youngest of which turns one today :)

Then, maybe, I'll be able to write. I'm not usually this way. My problem is I write too fast. Not today. I think I want my old problem back lol.

Hope everyone had a great Halloween. Back to the drawing board for me. I am not giving up!

Happy Halloween

This is one of my favorite holidays :) However, it doesn't hold a candle for Christmas. I love this time of year. All the holidays makes even Wal-Mart smell good for about four months straight LOL I haven't done much as we are trying to get settled.

Things keep changing around here, and not always for the better. However, that's how I got to be so tough, so I suppose I should appreciate matters the way they are.

I'm trying out a few ideas by writing a few lines on them, but I think I'm going with a fantasy book. I have another one that's a new idea. We'll see where we are.

Happy Halloween and BE SAFE

Yeah I've got a buddy :)

So I've got a buddy for next month's writing excursion and it's someone from one of the blogs I follow :) You can have more, but I'm happy I even got one zippidy do dah zippidy day. **music** la la

So now I just have to decide on a story. I really want to write. I can feel it. Just have to make up my mind. Having too many ideas can be as bad as not having any. I could do the sequel to Winds of Fire as I have that story pretty much worked out. I have over 42k words on Winds of Fire (I cut over 1000 in recent times and then had to rewrite, if you remember, I think I blogged about it) I finally surpassed the other and then didn't do much more writing because I was busy editing. I'd take out as much as I'd rewrite. phew. Now it's time for the paper edit. Always a gruesome process. Red Ink all over the place....

But as it's close to getting finished - tow more major scenes and possibly love scene and tie ups. so I could feasably do a rough draft of the sequel. (Not telling the title until I have to nana)

thinking, thinking, thinking,

NaNoWriMo contest

Well, although I've not seen much in the way of posts, I have heard that my husband isn't the only one who finds familiarity in my horror story. So that will have to be done later. Maybe in a novel filled with 3 short horror stories :) I've had the idea swimming in my head in one way or another for five years. I even have a charcoal that shows the guy at his desk. :)

So that takes it down to the other two unless someone who's heard me talking about story ideas remembers one I told them that I haven't written. OH! That reminds me, I do have an historical short I was thinking of making a novel. Hmmm.... choices choices. Feel free to express your opinion. Those who know me, know I will do as I feel is right. At this point, I'm too full of ideas and I'm looking for direction.

I am getting everything ready for my husband to edit whats done so far on Blood Traitors and Winds of Fire as soon as Antigone is done :) yeah, I'm stuck on Blood traitors until its done. I really need to buy another copy of my book as well for continuity issues LOL.

On the home front, my daughter's tests came back negative for Mono. So I'm a very relieved mother. Although I did get a few jobes in about who she's been kissing
***insert big grin here****