What a pleasant surprise I had on Sunday when I received my first review for Best Man. Although I was a bit scared to open the link when I first received it, I'm glad I did.
Happily Ever After Reviews said this about Best Man:I didn’t really know what to expect when I picked up “Best Man.” Admittedly, it did appeal directly to one of my largest personal kinks: friends who become lovers. Yet beyond the story itself came strong characterization, fantastic dialogue, and a wealth of emotion that powered its words from beginning to end.
This story had an amazing amount of heart. I can’t recommend it enough.
Go to the link for the full review.
It's still giving me warm fuzzies.
I'm currently working on the galley for That Kind of Magic. The final step in the process! It's the last chance to catch any problems before being published. It's a much needed process, so I'm discovering. It's amazing the little things that can slip through the cracks throughout the editing process.
Fall is here and my mind is turning toward November and NaNoWriMo. Yes, I'm attempting it this year again. I love to do it, even though I don't always complete it. Just have to decide on what I'm going to write. Can I put of the sequel to That Kind of Magic until then? Or there's that young adult I wanted to write (well, more than one) or the next in the Sweet Forever series.So many options. One thing is for sure, I won't run out of ideas anytime soon!
I was thinking about a manuscript I have, Dreamers Sea. It's a complete manuscript but I'm completely dissatisfied with it. It lacks umph and angst (great words). So, over the last many months I've been wracking my brains as to what to do with this story. I love the characters, I love the settings and if I add in the missing elements I think it would be a really good story.
Thing is, the elements I want to add would pretty much change everything about the story. The characters would still pretty much be the same..... well, sort of, the setting would be the same, but nearly everything else would be gutted and rebuilt.
I had thought about going through the current manuscript and just changing things when they needed to be changed, but that's easier said than done. There's just too much to change.
Would it be cheating to rewrite this story for NaNoWriMo? If I don't go back and snag bits from the original and just completely start from scratch? I've been a stickler for following the NaNo rules and I don't want to bend them, but I know this story, I know the characters-and how I want them changed in this new version, I know the setting, the plot (pretty much) and how I want it to end.
If I start from scratch it wouldn't be cheating, would it?
I really hate the time when we have to have the heat turned on on a regular basis. Might as well just grab fistfuls of money and throw it out the window. Sure, I love this time of the year in every other way, except the cold. And the knowledge that a long winter is ahead of us.
But other than that....
The time has arrived to get the kids ready for Halloween. My daughter wants to go trick or treating. She's 13. Is this too old? I see older kids out there so I guess it's not really. I'm sure at that age it's more of a social thing. I didn't trick or treat when I was that age, but then again I lived in the middle of nowhere so it wouldn't have been worth it. I tried having a Halloween party once at an old cemetery in the woods. My friend and I chickened out and didn't go.... to our own party. But I wasn't exactly cool back then so I don't think anyone else showed up either.
Still tossing around NaNoWriMo ideas. I'll probably keep tossing until Oct 31st. Or longer. I would love to do a young adult story (and so would my daughter) but I have another story buzzing around.
What to do....
Anyone else have plans for NaNo? Started doing research? Character sketches?
Not me.
Need a little pick-me-up? This is a lousy copy of this video but I love it so.....
Have to face the fact, time is flying and sooner than we know November 1st will be here. And we all know what November 1st means. The first day of NaNoWriMo. Yes, I plan on participating this year again.
Because I spent the majority of my summer editing existing manuscripts, I hardly got any new writing done. Made for a long summer and I'm revved up to work on something new. I have a few seedlings of ideas starting, just not sure which project I'll work on. But I am looking forward to it. Generally I find a lot of drive in November, I like that challenge to complete something-or at least to meet that goal of 50K new words.
On the submission front, not doing so hot. I comfort myself by knowing that even Nora Roberts must have faced lots of rejections before hitting the big time. Forever Home has been passed on by Avon, which leaves me a few more options for it. I can give it a complete overhaul, which includes taking out about 30K so it's an acceptable length for Harlequin, or give it a complete overhaul and submit it to a new publisher. I'm kind of intrigued with the idea of giving a brand new publisher a try. Could get in the ground floor of a company that will be hugely successful, or might not work at all. Lots of e-publishers don't make it.
A short story I submitted to Samhain also received a pass. Not enough conflict between the hero and heroine. Okay, I agree there. Not going to do anything about this story for now. I have bigger fish to fry.
I still have a short story in with The Wild Rose Press and a full length in with Kensington.
So there's still hope out there.
I hope everyone has an awesome Labor Day weekend! I'll be scraping paint. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to that.
Up to 17103 words now and the day is young. I'm not finding it difficult to keep up the pace despite the challenges every day. Everyone seems to understand, so that helps. Marianne was commenting on her blog the other day that when her husband is home he interrupts her flow of writing. Mine does the same. I know that HE knows how important writing is to me, knows that I could have a decent future in writing, yet he still has no problem with interrupting me with the little things. His latest is the raffle tickets. Our local paper has about 2 dozen raffle forms for turkeys. He wants me to fill them all out and then go out and drop them off at all the businesses that are participating. Doesn't he understand??? That'll take me away from my writing for too long! Well, at least the kids understand NaNo I've given my heroine a five year old daughter as well as her seven month old. It really works well for getting my H and h closer. Eventually I'll go back and add her in the first 10k words but for now she's just appeared at lunch one day. I've also changed my heroine's name four times. I wanted to give her a name from mythology, something really odd but something that could be shortened to make a good nickname. I came up with Arianrhod, a Welsh goddess. Or Ari for short. Should work. Until I change my mind again. Only 32897 words to go. 1371 per day. I can still do this.
Well, I did better today than I was expecting. I ended up with 2934 words. Even though I had to work, I managed to get a bunch done during breaks and when I got home from work.
So the start is a bit slow, but that can be fixed at a later date. The goal is just to write write write.
Now I have to decide if I want to sleep in tomorrow or get up early and get more done.
Only 47066 words to go!! That means at I need to average 1623 words a day to make it through.
Yes folks, tomorrow is the big day. I'm really not pleased that November is starting on a Saturday. I actually find weekends the most difficult time to write. If I get up early to get something done I'm generally followed by my DH who loves to chit chat. And I work a full day on Saturday. And Sunday we need to paint. No, every November should begin on Monday.
I'm really looking forward to this story. While I had a touch of the paranormal in Dreamer's Sea, this one will have a full fledged haunting. Been watching Ghost Hunters for my tips. Diane Craver has my hero up as her Hottie Of The Week.
Speaking of Dreamer's Sea, I've decided that it's in NO WAY done. I thought it would be easier than it would be, but of course I've been distracted lately. I did hear back from one of the agents I queried. A polite no thank you but good luck form letter. Okay, I'm not bummed (well, a little) but I don't wear rose colored glasses either. I would not be surprised if I fall flat on my face with these three agents. Someone will love it. There's an agent for me out there somewhere!
I missed a lot of writing time yesterday with an unexpected trip to the doctor. My calf has been hurting with a cramp like ache for a day and a half so I had to check it out because of the worry of blood clots. Had an ultrasound done on it. Thank goodness its all clear. Still sore but no iminent death lurking down there. Then I had to do laundry. Blah. I need to be rich so I can hire someone else to do that stuff.
I'll probably wait til the last minute to decide. I have to weigh the projects I have going against starting something new. Currently I'm still working on Dreamers Sea (this was my 2006 NaNo project), but I'm thiiiisss close to finishing it. Just have to rewrite the beginning and then I'm going to send it off to another pair of eyes and I'll write my synopsis. Then it's agent time! I should, if I concentrate, be done with this in no time. Right? Yeah, how often does THAT happen? Life always throws something in my path. But the good news is that I'm not expecting any visitors, no people in to do work on the house, no appointments outside the house for a while. So there's no excuse not to get the deal done. Well, except for Wednesday when I have to go pick up our new dining room table and a new chair. There is that. Otherwise my calendar is clear for the rest of the month. So while I'm inspired and have my DS document open I'm going to go work on it.
Though I'm still not 100% sure I'll participate, I'm still thinking about story ideas. I have a few. I have a question though. I have a Part Two of a trilogy I've wanted to work on. Part One is pretty much done though it needs major work. I started working on Part Two a few years back. I really like the story and want to continue with it. So, would it be cheating to start this one fresh? I'm not talking picking up where I left off~that would be cheating. But I'd like to go in at a different angle. Same characters, same basic storyline, just a few bits rearranged here and there. I'd really like to work on this. It would either be a stand alone story or I've considered making it one long book broken into three parts. Okay, onto other news.... I finished first round of edits on Dreamers Sea. I have to send it off to a friend to look over it. I'm still in the process of submitting chapters to my crit group, but that is going to take looong time to get every chapter critiqued (I'm on chapter 4 of about 32 chapters). So I may scratch that idea and attempt it on my own. Not that I'll get much done over the next few days. The landlord is having new windows installed in our building. I have to make sure there's nothing near any of the windows. I just love moving furniture. Okay, off I go. Nearly time to call it a day.
Yes, school is back in session tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it with mixed feelings. On one hand I've been really enjoying the fact that I don't have to wake anyone up in the morning. They can get up when they want, which gives me much peace and quiet in the mornings and it means I can go into work early so I can get out early. And they've reached the age where they can take over some of the chores that I've had to get done in the morning before work. But now I have to get them up and make sure they have lunches, have to share the bathroom and make sure they're out the door on time. My quiet is shaved down considerably. And I have to go in to work later, which means getting out later. And dealing with homework woes. Math is not a popular subject around here and I hear it. I'm just as bad at math so it's not like I can even help them out much. My DS is good though. I'm sure there'll come a day very soon when he'll be helping them with their math homework. Then there's my editing. I've reached the halfway mark in editing Dreamer's Sea. Now that doesn't include critiques, which are coming in slowly. But at least I feel like I'm making good progress despite the things that take me away from it (pesky things like laundry and shopping and work). I've been thinking of whether or not I'll be attempting NaNoWriMo this year. I have an idea of a story I could write but it would be MEGA WORK. It's a fantasy. I guess it depends on where I am with Dreamer's Sea by November 1st. I hope it'll be finished. Fingers are crossed. I want it to be read by many agents (or just one) by November 1st. Wish me luck.
Well, it's been a tough month. While I'm over 25K on my NaNo project, I am really thinking that I should be doing other things, like working on Dreamer's Sea so I can get it out there. It's certainly closer to being done and right now I have to concentrate on getting another manuscript out there. There are other reasons why I'm thinking of removing myself from this years NaNo race. I've been told that I'll be expected to do overtime and that'll cut into my writing time, I've got so much going on (like I said, it's been a tough month. Lots of stress and family issues) and it makes it hard to focus on this goal. The good news is that I really like the wip, The Staying Kind. I will continue to work on it. After Dreamer's Sea and my Sweet Forever sequel. I'm trying to be positive about this and not looking at it as if I'm failing it. Just re-redirecting my creative energy.
Okay, so I still have to write about 1800 words a day to finish NaNo. Can it be done??? Sure. If I really put my mind to it. I like the flow of the story, I'm trying to slowly build up the attraction between my hero and heroine. It wouldn't be believable otherwise, given who they are. I still have a lot of unanswered questions but that's my bad. I really didn't plot this one out as well as I should've. So, does my heroine go to live at the hero's house (not sleeping together) or does she go live at her employers house. It's a toss up. The hero would probably like to keep her closer so he can keep an eye on her. I think I may have to add a little more mystery to her background. Maybe a mysterious death in her past. Hmmm.... Anyway, I have to start getting ready for work in a few. No holiday for our office. And I was a little ill to see the workload I've been dreading arrive. I'll be busy there for the rest of the holiday season. Oh, and by the way, my word count is nearing 16K.
Focus, I need to focus. I'm still behind. But I've been bouncing back and forth between The Staying Kind (my NaNo piece) and the galleys. The galley and the corrections need to be back to my editor by the 16th but I've had a volunteer who is better with punctuation then I am offer to look it over so I can keep going on the NaNo. The weekend is coming and that means less writing. We're heading up to my father in laws on Sunday so that really means no writing. Can I make it up today? I hope. We'll see.
I really do like this story. I'm going to be such a drama queen again. Problems galore for my hero, a tragic past for my heroine. A troubled teen and an aunt who is a bit eccentric. And horses. I'm going to get some horses in my story again. I've missed them.
I hope that I'll have another agent-worthy story when this is all done. I crave getting out into the big bad world of print publishing. It would be so awesome and fulfilling.
Of course having Sweet Forever, and sometime next year Where One Road Leads, in print will help.
I've been doing NaBlo, which is like NaNo but with a blog. I'm supposed to post every day. I forgot yesterday. I've got too much going on, and I actually went to bed last night just after 9pm, unheard of for me.
Anyway, I'm trying to do both my galley read for Sweet Forever (available now in e-book format at Samhain Publishing and coming in February 2008 in print-so if you want a good, romantic read with an old fashioned, handsome swoon-worthy hero look it up) and I was able to get some NaNo writing done. It's quite the balancing act. Anyway, I'm still behind on the NaNo, but I've got just over 8000 words now. With a deadline of Nov 16th for my galley I don't think I'll have a problem with catching up. I'm liking the story, there's going to be lots of conflict-lots for my poor hero to deal with between his teenage daughter and the mysterious woman working on his aunt's horse farm. Who knows, maybe I'll throw in his ex wife who deserted him and her daughter years before. Maybe not.
Anyhue, it's time to get ready for work. Got to run out and get some milk, which probably means scraping frost off the car. How did late fall get here so quickly? Oh well, I love this time of year.
That's right folks, it's November 1. And we all know what that means!!!! Nano is here and there's nothing to be done about it but write write write. I've figured my goal for today is to write at least 1667 words. So far that's what I'd have to write to complete the challenge. Do I feel confident? Heck no! But I never do. So, this is going to be short and sweet because my blank word doc is waiting for me. Wish me luck and good luck to everyone who's participating!!! May we all write our 50K stories and may they be good enough to publish!
Once again they swept the World Series though it was a bit of a nail biter, this last game. And today I'm going to regret staying up to watch the whole thing. I think I may have gotten 4 hours of sleep. So if I fall asleep at my keyboard today it'll be my own fault I've been pretty pleased on my progress on Dreamer's Sea though I didn't get much writing done yesterday (hubby was poking around with my laptop finding some problems with it that need to be fixed-oh, I also was doing house cleaning and making more cheesecake). Unfortunately this morning I had to chop out about 500 words or so in one chunk that doesn't fit in with my new direction. That hurt. I'd just gotten over 73K and now I'm in the 72,700 word area. But that's okay. I'm still going strong. I'm facing an entire rewrite of a scene though but it's going to be so much better than it was so I'm looking forward to it. So, will I be ready for NaNo? In less than a week? I don' t know. I figure I have two good days of writing with little reason NOT to write, but Wednesday is Halloween and I have a youngun who needs to go trick or treating. Okay, so that's just a few hours. So I stay up a little later. Big deal. It can work. At the moment I'm feeling very confident.
I can't believe that in less than a week November will be here. The tough time of the year. It's not fair that we have all the expensive bills coming up at one time, you know, car registration (2), car inspections... birthdays and Christmas. We need to spread all this out over the year. And we're about to take on a car payment and really high registration fee. Oy. I better hope for some overtime.
I made it over 70K!!! I'm so pleased. I readjusted my goal to 75K though I should just bite the bullet and set it at 80K because at the rate I'm going it's going to happen. Wow, I havent' written something this long since Finally Home. I was beginning to wonder if I had it in me again. Guess I do.
I've been brainstorming (when I'm not working on Dreamer's Sea) my NaNo project. I have the story, which is the third part of a trilogy, but I'm just hoping it'll have enough plot to keep it going. It's fun though, developing the characters. I had an original idea for them but it keeps evolving. I'm not really worried about NaNo, besides wondering if I'll get enough time to write.
What makes me sad is that I'll have to put DS aside while I do NaNo because I dont' think I'll have the time to do both.
It's everywhere! I've been watching all this romantic stuff on tv and it's been very inspiring... and believe me, I need inspiring right now! I started watching The Phantom Of The Opera (am I the only one who roots for the Phantom to get the girl?) and The Office (if you don't watch it you won't get the romance between Jim and Pam that just makes me all warm and fuzzy). I watched Because I Said So and found my model for my NaNo hero. And so much more. Now I need to take this romance that is simmering inside and transfer it to my story. One thing I'm getting sick of is waiting for this couple to get together. I mean, they're together but not 100% in all the way though they both want to be. I don't want them to be apart for lame reasons, but I'm begging them to wait just a little bit longer. But Sarah is just chomping to the bit to just tell Jonas she loves him. But she has to wait. A little patience won't kill her, will it? Sometimes I wish they wouldn't have a mind of their own, I wish they'd do as they're told. But I'm just glad they have a life of their own because otherwise I dont' think they'd be worth writing about. So, just need a little more romantic inspiration and get these two crazy kids to their moment.
This isn't a good thing at all. There's not much time between now and November 1st and if I don't have Dreamer's Sea finished by then I'm going to have to seriously reconsider NaNoWriMo. I've just been so distracted lately and there's rarely been a day that I've haven't had to go on any errands. It's driving me bananas. I want to just hunker down at the computer with no distractions (like from my 4 kids...)
It doesn't help that I'm not crazy about the scene I'm writing.
Push Push Push. Got to get through it.
Things on the homefront are calming down a little bit. My mom and sister had a very successful business trip and have found someone to buy out everything else. Huge sigh of relief. My sister went home yesterday. I'm going to miss her, she's been a tremendous help. I couldn't have done a quarter of the stuff she has. Now it's my turn to step up to the plate though.
Someone say a prayer for me today. I want a smooth day with lots of writing.
Well, not too late. Not quite 9pm but I thought I'd post anyway because I have a link to another contest that is a must to check out. Head over to Diane Craver's blog. I'm actually jealous that I didn't come up with this idea. So, it's October. I think October is my most favorite month. The leaves have begun to change into their fantastic fall foliage, the weather is finally cooling into a managable temperature and Halloween is on it's way. Summer is over and it's not quite winter. Of course that's the problem with autumn....the only thing I don't like about it. Winter follows on it's heels. Yuck. Makes me want to jump the New Hampshire ship and head for warmer places. Anyone familiar with the Texas hill country? My sister, sister in law and I were discussing it and my sister plans on moving there one day. Hey, if the heat is dry I'm all for it. Just keep me away from humidity. Things are not exactly calming down on the homefront. We're still trying to organize and take care of things left behind by my father. I'm hoping by the middle of the month things will start looking up. I'm determined to have my editing done on Dreamer's Sea. I've made a lot of progress, adding 6k or so to it since I resurrected it. If I can add 8k more I'll be doing back flips of joy. I think I can do it. But I want it done by the end of the month. I WANT TO DO NANOWRIMO!! I have a story idea and I want to run with it. I've had really good luck with the last two years. I want to continue the roll. So I should probably get back to work. Even though Ghost Hunters is on.
Location: Southwestern, New Hampshire, United States
I'm 44 year old mom of 3. I work as a customer service rep for a publishing company, and I write. I have five published novels and working on adding to that.
THAT KIND OF MAGIC--AVAILABLE NOVEMBER 17,2010
What's a witch to do when she refuses to use magic to find love? Beautiful Wiccan Charlotte Noone has a shop for magical supplies and a goddess who's pushing her to find the man of her dreams. When Patrick Riordan, a straight-laced non-believer enters her life, Charlotte falls madly in lust with him. Despite their very different lives, neither can stop the erotic journey they’ve embarked on, but will it be enough to break through their barriers so they can accept that love itself is magical?.
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