What's next after Call the Rain

A downside of my shameless genre hopping is that, so far, I haven't really written two books in a row that are similar to each other. It's not that I can't write a follow-up, but over several years of shopping manuscripts, I was afraid to spend too much time working on a follow-up to something that might never sell.  Throwing good money after bad (or, really, throwing good time after bad).

So, if you've read either of my published books (or even if you haven't), you might be wondering what I'll publish next.  People like series, and if anyone happened to like what they read, they might want more of the same. The good news is that everything I have written will (eventually) have related follow-ups. The bad news is that I have yet to write most of those follow-ups.

Here's the plan (chronologically):

Near-Term:

Accomplice. Fall 2013  A sexy romantic suspense. Novel-length (around 65000 words). I'm a handful of scenes from the end, plus I have the post-draft work to do (lots of edits, formatting, cover art, etc).

Holiday 2013 I will be release a short (about 7500 words, or about 50 pages) tie-in called The Christmas Affair, featuring a character who only had a brief moment of screen time (Harriet, the disgruntled engineer). I have a draft of this done, but edits remain.

Longer Term:

Follow up to Call the Rain. Alas, I have not #2 in this series. And this will be a series made up of more novellas and some novel-length works.  I have two competing ideas for the next installment.  One is Quarie's story, the sister of the heroine from Call the Rain.  The second is a different part of the same overall world, but all new characters. Quarie may appeal to readers of Call the Rain, but the second idea has been floating around my brain longer. I also have the beginning 1/4 of a longer, also-related work set in the same overall world.  (Did I mention that this is Epic Fantasy with a ginormous world in which I shall slowly begin unveiling a rather large problem that affects every one of these disparate peoples that I'm going to be writing about...)

The Vegas Affair. This will be a novel-length direct sequel to The Paris Affair.  It is the story of Kelsie, Helmut's sister.  I am aiming for a 2014 release, but no promises because all I have written now is a short synopsis and some character notes.

Sci-Fi Romance series.  I  have been sitting on Leap for a couple of years (title is subject to change), but it is really book two of a series. I have the opening chapters to Take Me Down, book 1. But an opening does not a whole novel make. I have a whole series name and follow-ups planned.

The Wild Card:

And last, but not least, I have yet another contemporary (with series potential). I've been sitting on Hold on to the Knight for several years now. It's a sweet contemporary--another PG-type rated story. I didn't want to release it back-to-back with uber-sexy Paris Affair.

#RWA10 Wrap-up

Every time I think I’m the last RWA10 attendee to blog about my experiences, I see another post. Maybe I’m not late, exactly.

 

I could give excuses (too busy writing, too many requests to deal with, too exhausted from seeing all of Disney).  Or, I could tell the truth (haven’t gotten to it, grandiose ideas of including photos and no time to upload them, too much laundry).  Or, I could tell you to go friend me on facebook (where I did actually post photos and a few updates). But somehow that phrase “go friend me” sounds an awful lot like “go do something else that starts with an f” when you say it fast. So I won’t do that either.

 

In the week since I’ve been home from Orlando, I’ve done the following:

• Removed pink polish from my toes. I like the nails painted, but it’s just too much effort to maintain the rest of the year.
• Re-polished the first three chapters of my contemporary manuscript, and re-worked the last synopsis I had written. Funny how the synopsis changes once you actually write the ending of the novel.
• Emailed three chapters and newly polished synopsis to a requesting editor.
• Received polite thank-you from the editor requesting the same pages snail-mailed.
• Smacked self on head with hand and said “Doh” because I really, really should have known that the house only accepts printed submissions. To be fair, she did give me an email address, and I had to look up the mailing address online.
• Continued polishing about 2/3 of the remaining novel.  Need to quickly finish that up and send off to a requesting agent.
• Wrote 2 new scenes on my Sci-Fi-that-just-won’t-die manuscript. Last night actually. And I’m kicking myself for not doing something else (like editing or submitting or writing the other darned book that I half plan to finish before the GH deadline this fall), but that’s what happens when you let your subconscious run your fingers for you.
• Laundry.
• Ate a steak sandwich in the cow barn of the Indiana State Fair.  Total non-sequitur, I know. And, FWIW, the steak was excellent though the location was kind of unsettling (not just because of the aroma), as there were cows being primped for competition about 20 yards away.  As my husband phrased it, “There is no second place.” 

 

 

 

Insecurity

I gather that every writer suffers from insecurities. No exceptions here.

The RWA-circuit of critiques and chapter contests don't really help. Everyone's got an opinion, and many of them conflict with each other. I gather that I am in a similar boat to a lot of writers. Chapter contests seem a bit like the lottery. Take a good story, and it might score perfect, or it might score 30%. No telling which. And I've been all over that spectrum. I've also talked about that before.

This weekend, I've been doing a major polish job on Leap. My poor Sci Fi Romance has been beaten and bloodied in the contest circuit for over a year now. I am usually "close", but never quite finaling. The old cliche of "always a bridesmaid" doesn't even fit...more like "always invited to the shower, never a bridesmaid". And the scary part to me, as a writer, is that I think its good.

As of about 30 seconds ago, I have finished a pass through my entire novel, start to finish. I have read, polished, added a few words here and there (and a love scene, LOL). The last time I looked past page 30 was before the Golden Heart last fall. So the material is pretty fresh to me. I have yet to cringe when I read a scene, or scoff, or blush, or scratch my head puzzled by my intentions.

I think its good. At least as good as a lot of published work that I've read. But I have nothing but a bunch of "close, but not quite" contest scores and a small stack of form rejections from agents.

So where does that leave me?

Scared. Insecure. Confused. What if this is not nearly as good as I think it is? What if this is as good as I'll ever get, and its not enough? What do I do then? Can I possibly grow enough as a writer to ever understand what I'm missing?

I would so much rather be reading along and think its all crap. Crap is something I can improve on. I can't fix problems I can't see. And how do I know if the invisible crap-factor is my writing, my ideas, or just my choice of who to show it to?

And worst of all, if one of my trusty crit partners can put her finger on what's wrong with this story that its not quite "there", what do I do? Re-write? Send it to dust-bunny-camp? What if the problem is my ideas? I can't make Leap into a vampire/werewolf/shifter/demon paranormal. I can't make my hero an alpha (he's way too beta). I can't make my heroine a saint, or put her crazy (and un-politically correct) father on psych meds.

I can't fix that much.

Guide to Literary Agents - ''Dear Lucky Agent'' Contest: Fantasy and Sci-Fi

I love a free contest, and over at Guide to Literary Agents, they're running a series of them. Up this week is one for Sci Fi/Fantasy, and you can bet that Leap will be a contender. And if you're not writing Sci Fi or Fantasy, still check out the blog. They're always interviewing agents across all genres (not just Romance) and educating us about publishing and writing.

Here's the contest link:

Guide to Literary Agents - ''Dear Lucky Agent'' Contest: Fantasy and Sci-Fi

Good News X 2

The Appearance of Impropriety finaled in the Passionate Ink RWA chapter's Stroke of Midnight contest!

I am so excited. My first contest final! And I totally missed the email that was sent out Sunday night about it.

I arrived tonight at Borders for my weekly crit group meeting, and my partners jumped into congratulations. I was sooo confused. And happy for the free wi-fi, so I could read the email for myself.

At first i thought the congratulations were about my Golden Heart scores, which I'd posted to the crit group by email. That's my second piece of good news this week--Leap placed in the top quarter in the paranormal category of the GH. And received one perfect 9!

So, two sets of good news in one week. And now I have a ton of work to do. Luckily, the crit group gals are awesome--they critiqued a sex scene for me tonight. That is way harder to share than regular chapters, but given the final in that particular contest, this is something I want to nail. Ahem, pun totally intended :)

Just Breathe

Over at the Ruby Slippered Sisterhood blog, they're talking about getting the Golden Heart call.

No, I'm not a finalist (I wish). Well, I might be. Though I guess I don't know for sure till next Thursday. I'm really trying to talk myself down so I won't be too disappointed when I don't get the call. And its really killing my writing mojo this week.

Well, that and a trip to Vegas, a mountain of laundry, my birthday, my son's birthday, my mom's birthday, our chapter RWA meeting, and is there some kind of alignment of the planets this week or what? I think I forgot to mention the birthday party my daughter's attending tonight, and her soccer game (right in the middle of RWA), and the enrollment forms due back to her school today (which I totally forgot about until I was already at work), and a little incident at work involving excrement and fans (no, not literally, thank goodness).

I had this trouble last fall around the time of the local chapter contest. See, I got a hint that my MS was scoring really well. In fact, it was given one perfect score. But it was also given one "pretty good" score and one not great at all one, which meant that I didn't final. The whole waiting killed all my motivation to write something. Now, darnit, the Golden Hearts are doing the same thing to me. See, the results could go several ways: lots of judges love it = finalist. Lots of judges hate it = lucky to be in the top half. I'm trying to keep my expectations low. Really really low. Top half. Seriously, that's all I'm aiming for. Top quarter would be a bonus. And I won't even know that until late spring.

It doesn't help that I am honestly rooting for several other writers I know. Including one of my crit partners, who's in the same category. And a chaptermate, whose manuscript finaled in our contest (yes, ahead of mine, and the parts of it I've read were really good). What are the chances all 3 of us would final? About zero. So I'm thinking that this is not going to be my year :)

Besides, aliens and a hot male nurse. I almost can't write that without giggling. And sobbing that I'm incapable of a dreaming up a sexy cowboy vampire or werewolf or something *normal*.

Correction: For some reason I was under the impression that finalists were announced on Sunday the 21st. Nope. The date is Thursday the 25th. Even longer for me to drag my feet and wring my hands. Just what I needed to hear. (Now what on earth is happening on the 21st, because that date is circled in my cerebral calendar but I appear to have lost the accompanying mental sticky note...)

Contest Promo

Ok, so I'm querying Leap, my sci-fi/urban fantasy/paranormal romance (btw, I have a hard time classifying the whole concept of aliens and midwest cornfields...but that's a whole 'nother post). And totally not giving statistics how many queries or what the results are. Just saying, query(ies) have been sent.

Right now, entering a contest on QueryTracker.net for urban fantasy/romance. I believe I qualify (is "rural fantasy" an label option here? hmmmmmm...maybe I'm starting a new subgenre). If you're writing something similar check it out.

Looking back, looking forward

November was a slow month, writing wise. Well, word count wise. I did write new words, mainly on Leap. But I also did a lot of editing, and hand-wringing. I entered the Golden Heart with Leap, and owe my crit partners about a pound of chocolate for the help in polishing. One in particular (Amanda Berry, soon to be world-famous Silhouette Special Edition author) proof-read my entire entry, catching way more comma mistakes than I ever believe I'm making. Commas are the bane of my existence.

Preparing for, and angst-ing about my GH entry ate up about 3 weeks of my creativity. And then we went on a week-long vacation and I wrote NOTHING. Well, one lonely blog post on my other blog. I did lots of reading though (its research!) and even found enough of a wireless connection to read blogs and tweets a few of the days.

Now, I need to re-gain my momentum. Get back on schedule. Because its December, and there are fewer distractions. Right?

Ok, stop laughing.

So, yesterday I submitted my completed contemporary manuscript to an e-pub. I'm not holding my breath, but at this point, it really can't hurt me to try. If they say no, there are a few other e-pubs I have kicked around (though I'm limited because it was a sweet contemporary, not erotic...) And I keep trying (and failing) to draft a query letter for Leap (though I need to edit pages 51+ in case someone should actually request it...). I have Claire and Helmut waiting (though I suspect they've been keeping busy, seeing as how I left them alone in a hotel room...). And Jessica, from my suspended romantic suspense story, has boarded a grayound bus, and is taking a really really long ride.

And last night I penned about 400 words of another idea that's been brewing for the last two years. Something different. Historical. I haven't tried a historical yet. (Please refrain from rolling your eyes at the sheer number of sub-genres I've tried out so far). I've been dithering for a while whether to write it as a straight historical or a paranormal (magic, not aliens). I think I'm going steampunk. Late Victorian era with gaslights, telegraphs, steamer trains, clockwork. I have some ideas to warp some modern technologies into the technology of the era, and it would gain me that "magic" aspect that the story needs. I think I'll have to research this one, and probably plot it more than I usually do. So, dont' expect a word counter to appear just yet.

Besides, I have Claire and Helmut, plus Noah and Jessica to keep me busy for when I need to just pour out a story.

Here's hoping that I'll get my grove back over Christmas!

Patience

One of the things in contest entries that drives me crazy is where a judge deducts points because they have questions about where the plot is going. If picked up a random book off the shelf at the bookstore, and read only the first 25 pages, with no cover picture and no back cover blurb to help out (i.e. no synopsis), I’d probably have questions too. If I didn’t, I’d put the book down. If I know in 25 pages exactly where a story is going and how its going to get there, I’m bored. With my Sci Fi, you really can’t guess on page 1 or 25 where the book will head. I hope that’s a good thing because I had no idea exactly where that would be until I got there, but I know the characters ended up in the right spots. Yes, I’m a pantser :) And some parts of my plot are kind of unexpected (I hope). I like it that way.

These aren’t short stories, folks. You don’t get the whole scoop in 25 pages, and nor should you. In my opinion, the first 25 pages should be starting the action, starting the conflict, starting the plot. Not handing it to you wrapped in dancing snowmen and ribbons. I do think that the suspense judges were kinder about not knowing everything on page 1 (or on page 25).

I also get a lot of questions on romantic conflict. And I think its related to how I’m showing my stories and the same comments about wanting to understand where the book is going. I don’t necessarily delve into every romantic conflict on page one. I’ve been trying to uncover them, layer by layer. For example, in my single title, its clear from page 1 (or maybe 2) that the hero is engaged to someone other than the heroine. But you have to get much further in the book to understand why he’s rather adamant about staying engaged, despite events that keep leading him elsewhere. Nope, I don’t feel like speeding that up. I’d kind of like it to be frustrating to the reader until they get a little aha moment where things really click into place.

Again, don’t think I had any questions about it on my suspense entry—I guess FBI agent vs someone on the run makes the romantic conflict pretty darned clear, even though as the author, I know that there is more to come.

I also had entered Leap in the Daphne last spring, which is a suspense contest that has categories for various flavors of romantic suspense. Leap didn’t final, but I got rather consistent feedback (I forget the actual numbers, but they were all between 80-90% of total points, and I’ve made improvements since then). I wonder if the storytelling I’m doing is leading me down the suspense road. Its definitely something to think about.

Oh yeah, my scores for Leap: 100, 85, 70 Interesting spread, if you ask me...

On POV

I haven’t worked on my sci fi manuscript for the better part of a month, maybe more. I’ve felt, for quite a while, that something was not quite right with it, and I think I’m beginning to see what that might be. I’ve known that part of my problem is the conflict—the external conflict. My two main characters are in a race for their life, but I didn’t feel like it was coming across the page that way. Yes, they were racing, but I knew that things didn’t read that desperate.

Now, when I first began the manuscript almost a year ago (ack!), I started with a prologue told in a secondary character’s point of view. An important secondary character. And the prologue wasn’t back story—it related one of the opening events of the book, and planted a clue for later in the book. I read the prologue and the first part of chapter one at my chapter’s critique group meeting, and got lots of negative feedback on the prologue. Not on its actual writing, but on the (temporary) focus on a secondary character. “Cut it,” I was told.

Ok, scene cut. The story mostly works without it. And the rest of the writing sticks to the H/H POV’s. But because of that, I’ve struggled to show the whole story. This is sci fi—with a big badass enemy, 3 additional crew members on the heroine’s ship, plus a small assortment of other secondaries who help drive the story (and provide jumping off points for other interwoven stories that are still tangled in my brain). And the H/H don’t see everything that’s going on, some of which is rather significant.

“But this is a romance, right? You need to focus on the romance.” Yes, and no. I realized last November that I might be writing Science Fiction with Romantic Elements. And then I let the voices of the chapter critique group and other crit partners lull me into thinking I was writing Romance with Science Fiction Elements. But it isn’t working.

I must remember to listen to my own gut sometimes, and not get caught up in the herd mentality. Don’t get me wrong—both my chapter’s critique group and the smaller one I belong to are great, and have many talented, print-published writers who are generous with their time and experience. But, most of them write pure romance, several are category-length pure romance, and I’m wracking my brain to come up with one who’s published in paranormal (published in another subgenre and writing paranormal, yes). So, maybe their advice is perfect, just not for the manuscript that I’m writing.

So, I’m about halfway through Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol. I love it. Just like I loved his previous two novels, and the two National Treasure movies. The adventure. The chase. They mystery. I wish my story worked like that, with the added bonus of a little forbidden love to tangle everyone’s emotions along the way. Hence, my little revelation overnight about how I’ve killed my story.

I’m not Dan Brown, and Leap is unlikely to sell millions of copies before its even released (assuming its ever released). But he uses multiple POV’s (like a dozen so far), killing many of these secondaries while in their POV (and thus, pulling that camera back to a very omniscient view point). And its effective for me as a reader. Very effective. Forcing-my-husband-to-fall-asleep-with-a-pillow-over-his-eyes-to-shut-out-my-reading-light effective.

No, I’m not going to have like 20 POV’s in my novel, and I’m not going to kill every other one that I do use. But by golly, “rule” or no rule, I’ve got to show more of the story than I am. Because to reveal all of the action that the H/H don’t personally experience through dialogue is literally “telling” it, not showing it, and its not working for me. Some of that “off-stage” action is significant (in quantity and impact on the story), and it doesn’t deserve to be “off-stage.” My prologue might or might not come back. One of the other crew members might get a voice. And my big badass enemey (BBE?) might just get to cackle gleefully and rub his palms together over his evil plans to take over Earth. Shortly before he realizes how grossly he’s underestimated us lowly Earthlings, of course.

There, decision made. Of course, while I’ve been waffling on my “Leap” into sci fi, I’ve been chugging away at my category-length contemporary romance. That one’s fun too. No BBE, the whole story can be shown through the H/H. And a little forbidden love to tangle everyone’s emotions along the way. And Helmut and Claire are about to take their little affair to the most romantic city on earth (after a quickie in her kitchen, I think…)

God I love writing romance (and sci fi).

I have three works in progress. Three. That's probably two more than I ought to have, accordign to every teacher/parent/manager who's ever told me to focus on one task at a time and finish it. But its way fewer than I would probably have if I gave my fingers free rain to listen to my idea-generator-brain.

I have to have a game plan, even though I don't always follow them. Right now, Leap, my sci-fi, is nearing Draft-1-Completion. The happy couple are even in the getaway spaceship, preparing for blast off. And I'm a little stuck as to how to wrap it up. I think I may have to stop here, and do an editing pass from the beginning. That worked for Chivalrous--I wrote 3 endings before I was satisfied with the final plot. My brain does a lot of its writing and plotting subconsciously, and providing time for it to churn out ideas tends to help a lot.

At the same time, I have beginnings to my romantic suspense, Accomplice, and a contemporary category, The Appearance of Impropriety. I think I'll be working on those next, and letting Leap simmer.

I also entered 4 different MS's in a contest--all 3 in progress, plus Chivalrous. In fact, I entered 4 of the 5 categories that the contest offered (the only thing missing was Historical...maybe next year LOL). I'm expecting good feedback on all 4, Hoping for an honorable mention for at least 1, and secretly wishing to final on any one of the 4. Time will tell.

Then, depending on my contest feedback, and general progress on Leap, I have to decide on the Golden Heart. Chivalrous was entered last year, with a less than stellar finish, but the beginning's MUCH better now. But, if it doesn't read well in this contest, it might go back under my proverbial bed. Leap, well, I just don't know. Again, it might depend on how well it scores in the current contest. And the ms has to be complete. Complete enough to save to a disk for a quick verification, anyway--I am fairly certain most entrants (and finalists) continue to revise long after they send in the entry.

Anyone else? Whatcha working on?

Word Counts can be deceiving

About two week ago, I updated the word count on my Sci Fi WIP. 78k and change. Using Open Office on my netbook. But then, I moved my files back to my laptop, updated a few chapters where I had critique notes, and ran another wordcount. 73k and change. Had I really lost 5,000 words? I removed a prologue that I'm going to save for a sequel, but it was not a 5,000 word prologue.

I don't believe that Word counts words the same way Open Office does.

In other words, never trust a wordcount. Open Office thinks I'm back to 78k and change, up about 3,000 words from my post-prologue edit.

I have been aiming for 90k for a long time, and now I'm wondering if I'll hit 85000. I'm in the wind down. More like the wind up for the big plot high point--the part where things explode all over the place. Yes its sci fi, but no, I'm not blowing up a planet. Just a ship or two, I think. I think much of emotional/relationship tension has peaked. Now I just have to get everyone off Earth and on their way elsewhere.

The end is in sight. And then the real editing begins.

Appointments

So, I’ve signed up for an editor and an agent appointment at RWA nationals this summer.

First, I have to complain about RWA’s website. I couldn’t even see the main page for the first two or three attempts yesterday morning. Once I was deemed privileged enough to actually view their home page, I could not log in. Re-tried for about 20 minutes straight, before the 8am start time. Seriously, folks, talk to your ISP and your web design staff. Surely someone can help you out. Add a few servers for the day. Make sure bandwidth is available. Its not like you didn’t know that the instant sign up opened, that half the RWA membership would be logging in. Plan for it.

Ok, ‘nuff said about that

The editor appointment is someone who looks for contemporary single titles, and I will probably try to pitch both the contemp and the sci fi to the agent. Or that might completely change when I walk in the room. Who knows.

So, now I have some work to do. I have half of a new first chapter for my contemporary single title. I plan to write the second half and revise the first half this week. Then, run that by one of my crit groups. I have a few ideas for revisions throughout the rest of the book. That will happen as we get into the summer.

Next week, back to my sci fi. I made lots of progress last week--wrote about 5000 words over 2 days. At this pace, I won’t quite have it finished and revised before nationals, but close. At least word-complete.

And I got feedback from the one contest I’d entered the sci fi in. It didn’t final, but for once, all of the scores were within the same ballpark of each other (apparently people either love or hate the rest of what I write). I need to spend a little time reading through the comments, and making updates. Some of the feedback looks quite helpful. One of the comments was pretty encouraging—the judge said that she expected the piece to begin finaling in contests soon. That would be cool. Of course, I have to revise it and actually enter more contests for that prediction to have a chance...

I need a goal

I need a goal. I want to have two finished manuscripts that are pitch-worthy for RWA national this summer: my contemporary single-title (Chivalrous/Day and Knight/whatever other name I come up with), and my sci-fi/romance (Leap). That gives me just under 3 months to finish and polish one manuscript, and brush off the second. I'm at 57500 words on Leap, out of an estimated 90000. I'm going to set a tentative goal of having it story-complete by June 1st, which gives me about 6 weeks for edits. That's a lot of writing. And a decent chunk of editing.

32500 words in 6 weeks
5417 words a week
773 words a day

About an hour a day, maybe 45 minutes if I know where the story is going. Its an easier pace than NaNo, at least.

I hope I can do it. I really do. Or at least have it close enough that I can fudge the whole "finished manuscript" bit at conference.

I warned you...

Comment modification now on. Thank you, spammer. I've learned, as a mother, not to give more than a single warning on bad behavior, and to follow up with exactly the consequences that I threatened.

BTW, next time try creating sentences that actually make sense. On one of my other blogs I've occasionally gotten ad-type spam that kind of relates to the post I'd written. That's annoying. This junk is just gibberish.

On the topic of writing, I'm making progress. I'm also splitting my forces, which is probably a bad idea. And yet, I have ideas (probably also bad ones) about so many different projects at once. So, I am recording progress on "Appearance of Impropriety", my contemporary cateogry novel featuring Claire and Helmut, who made their debuts on this blog. And I'm making forward progress on "Leap", my sci-fi/paranromal romance/romantic-elements.

The problem is that Leap is chest-deep in action right now, and writing all the tense action leaves me feeling a little keyed up (or maybe its the caffeine...I got my caramel latte leaded this morning). The category is fast-moving, but there are no guns (or phaser-type alien weapons) blazing, and it's still in the banter-stage. It's still on the climb to that first big hill of the emotional roller coaster, where you hear the click-click-click of the conveyor belt and begin grasping the handles with white knuckles. Leap is mid-corkscrew, heading for a tunnel.

So, hooray for having a day off. I've got a little shopping to do, lunch with my husband, then some combination of house cleaning and more writing until its time to pick up the kids for preschool. Maybe Leap's word count ticker will grow a little more this afternoon :)

And, remember, if you comment it might just take a day or two before it appears on the blog. Be patient with me please :)

Why aren't you writing?

Who, me? Why aren't I writing? Um....

I did about a week and a half ago. Write. Fiction even.

Actually, I've had maybe 2-3 hours a week lately to work on writing activities. Two weeks ago I added scenes to what I'm calling Appearance of Impropriety, also known as Claire and Helmut's story, that I posted to this blog sometime last summer. The week before (actually, probably 2 weeks before that), I spent worrying over my sci fi, and finally entered the first chunk + a synopsis into a contest. Its kind of hard to write a synopsis for a book that's not complete. I made something up. I'm pretty sure the story is heading that way...

I've also joined a new crit group with some friends from RWA. Our chapter has a regular crit group, but it's so large (like 20+ people), and you only get to read your stuff about 2x a year. There are 8 of us in thsi small group, and we'll meet on weeks that the other group doesn't, and (assuming I'm writing), I can read a small piece every week. I'm psyched. They got to meet Claire and Helmut last week. After that contest entry, I didn't have the heart to keep up with Myrrah and Dominic and their whole psychic alien semi-truck chase. It will come back around, though.

Hopefully, some other stuff in my life is settling back down for a bit. I'm taking some web design classes, and I'm past 6 solid weeks of 2 night a week classes. The rest of them should be spread out a lot thinner, which is good for both my children and my writing.

So, what about you? Why aren't you writing?

Remember Me?

This is the first Thursday in quite a while that I've had some time to sit and write. And when I went to update my wordcount, I realized I have gone backwards. I think I did some editing a couple of weeks ago, and removed a few unnecessary scenes. So I'm still hovering just a little above the the 50k mark on my sci fi/romance. Ah well. It's moving, even if slowly.

Also on the writing front, I'm talking with a few friends from RWA about starting a mini crit circle. We could meet more often, and read each others work every time, instead of every 4-5 months like in our big RWA crit group. The big group is still exceedingly beneficial, but we all feel like we could use more of a nudge to get writing more often. Now I must work out scheduling within my family.

Speaking of family, life is beginning to normalize. The most intrusive part of our forced kitchen remodel (not a full gut job...just a new french door and new floor) is done with. We have trimwork to do--baseboards and door casings--but those don't require us to give up use of the entire kitchen, breakfast room, and family room.

The requests for overtime at work should end by Sunday night. Not that I am likely to work this weekend--I'm not quite full-time normally, and I'm already putting in "overtime" to bump up to 40 hours. Quite enough (actually, more than enough) for me. Unless I want to take a little extra time off next week. Hmmm...must think about that.

We have officially heard from one of the potential kindergardens for my daughter--she's been accepted! Hooray! One less stressor for me. Well, except that she was accepted by the school we really liked--and that co$ts just as much as full-time daycare if not more--which doesn't mean we can consider downsizing our income any time soon.

But, it's a point we can plan from. I like being able to plan. Funny that, seeing as how I'm a pantser when I write. Maybe I have to feel freer when I write to counterbalance my need to plan the rest of my life.

Fun with the internet

You know I'm writing a sci fi/paranormal romance, right? Space aliens. So, when you think research, you probably picture the cosmos, energy theories, space travel, etc, right?

So what did I spend nearly 30 minutes researching yesterday?

What the inside of a semi cab looks like. Yes, as in those giant trucks on the highway. Big rigs. Specifically what the backseat/bunk are might have for size and amenities.

It was surprisingly difficult to word a query that would produce photos of the inside of one of those. I did find some, though, including many shots of the rear bunk (bed) part, and one that had a built-in fridge, closet, flat screen tv/computer monitor, etc. How very luxurious! (If I get around to it, I might post a link in the comments later)

So now that you know about my Thursday afternoon research, you're thinking "romance novel" + "bed", right? You know exactly where this is going....

..2 truckers, a nurse, a former pilot, and two space aliens driving a semi through the Ozarks, clearly. What else could it be?

Oh yeah, and I have a working title. Leap. It'll probably change again, but at least now I have a way to tie all my (copious) posts together :)