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Posts Tagged ‘stuff’
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Thursday, May 5th, 2011
A Day In The Life
Thursday, May 27th, 2010Things are so crazy at work that my days are not so fun right now. Soon, hopefully, things will let up and I will have time to take a breath or two. Meanwhile, I continue writing The Next Paranormal which I THINK will actually get the title I came up with: My Dangerous Pleasure.
Which I kind of like.
This go around with the book I am being careful about doing frequent print outs to read through since I think that really helps me a lot. It’s easier for me to see where things are going wrong. It’s also easier to simply put the chapters in a new order, which is something I do a lot in the early days. This time around, I’m actually writing scenes that my gut says this will be so cool and then figuring out where it will go later. Usually I have a pretty good idea, but the read-through really helps me find the exact right spot at the time of the read-through. As things change, chapters are likely to move around again.
I’ve also removed my first character. Yay! I find that’s always a sign that things are gelling. Once I did that — folding in Extraneous Character Number 1 with the Real Antagonist– additional good ideas came out that have me very pleased. W00t!
Many writers have said they’re frightened by my process, which might well be described as The Slash and Re-Order Style of Writing and I would have to agree. It is frightening. But it works for me and that is what matters. This method, to the best of my knowledge, is not taught in any MFA program. And yet, going to grad school for writing was the best thing I ever did. It wasn’t an MFA so maybe that made the difference.
On Being a Writer
Thursday, February 11th, 2010What’s it like to be a writer? Well sometimes it’s darned expensive!
This week’s expenses:
425.00 Register for RWA National in Nashville TN
407.00 Buy round trip non-stop plane ticket Oakland to Nashville
188.50 RWA conf hotel hold on credit card
225.00 Enter RomConInc Contest because editor emailed authors about it, 3 books at $75 each.
093.00 Buy and ship books to contest via Amazon (I’m low on copies plus this saves me postage AND a trip to the Post Office, which would happen God knows when.)
Plus, the really evil thing is I had to use the credit card for some of this, so know I have to go to the “Writing Fund” Bank to get the cash to pay the credit card IMMEDIATELY because credit cards are evil.
Right now, I’m freaking out about money. I’ll feel better when the amounts are all paid in cash. But still. That RomConInc contest is freaking expensive. I hope next year they lower the fee. Not that it matters because in 2010, I only have the Regency short story out. So, actually, I hope they lower the fee for the 2011 contest.
Then today, right when I was in the middle of sending an email to my agent about back cover copy for My Immortal Assassin, my website went down — this would include email and I was on the webmail program. Everything just went ::poof::
Did you hear me scream? Prolly. Yeah, that was me.
So then I had to reconstruct everything and send it from my gmail account.
I’m whining, I know. And I apologize, sort of. But I’m in the middle of massive revisions and not only is that depressing on a number of levels, it’s a lot of pressure to get them done both well and quickly.
To top it all off, I made a pound cake and it was a failure. It tastes great, but the texture is all wrong. ::sob::
Brain Dead. Rats.
Tuesday, January 13th, 2009I had this totally amusing post to write but first I had to do a bazillion other things like try to stay on top of the bookmark requests. This weekend I will prep a bunch for mailing unless I decide to hold them until I get my bookmarks for Scandal and My Forbidden Desire. I emailed all the new people who didn’t provide a name and address, too.
Then someone sent me a 10 GB file three times only I don’t have broadband. I refuse to count satellite as broadband. It’s not nano-band like dial up but it’s still narrrow-band. My internet choked for quite a while. Urk. Then I had to send out an announcement for Scandal for the Regency Reader since they’re doing February releases and since I needed to include the cover art that was a big attachment going upstream. I also had to view the revised book trailer for Scandal which I think rocks but I had to send it Megan F for outside opinion. Another big attachment going out.
After that I had to completely rewrite my "Proposal Blurbs" which my agent wants to send on to my editor before Friday. I did a complete re-do. Complete. I kept the names. That’s it. But I got all three done with relatively low pain once I remembered that should I get to write these books, I’m not likely to stick with those plots. On the other hand, I found it was remarkably useful to write them as I am now much more focused on the central conflicts, and from there, my friends, even Carolyn can write a novel. Blurbs have been sent.
In between all that I had to feed the dog, spend some time with Soccer Boy, feed him dinner (gnocchi and sausage), show him how to back up his iPhone, uninstall crapware from his computer, report my Golden Heart scores to RWA and do laundry.
Also, I went through my stack of RWA books and found I have duplicates of duplicates. I feel a contest coming on.
That’s why I forgot the amusing topic for tonight’s blog.
Now to bed.
Reporting In
Wednesday, October 15th, 2008Still stuck on dial up. I have concluded, definitively, that two of the companies involved in this Customer Service disaster are liars. L. I. A. R. S. Liars who don’t care.
I’m reserving judgment on the third. But I am not a happy camper.
What else. Um. Still working away on The Next Historical.
Seemed like there was more stuff than that, but I’m so depressed (sob!) over all the stuff I cannot do because there’s no real internet here, that I just can’t think about it.
Sigh
First, some Humor….
Sunday, September 7th, 2008
That’s one of my all time favorite cartoons. And I love xkcd
I’m not procrastinating by the way. Yesterday, I pulled out the chapter outline for The Next Historical and added in all the new stuff and then rearranged the new and the old so I’d know what the new chapter order should be and which ones needed to be deleted. Two of them. The others I think have enough to warrant staying for a total rewrite. Then I reordered my chapters. Then I read Travels in Turkey and Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt (1844) and got some really good background information. But I had to also do some quick side research on The Levant Company to confirm a suspicion of mine about the Consuls. Uh, yes, it’s true. The British Consuls were appointed but apparently needed to be approved by the Levant Company which was kind of the Middle Eastern equivalent of the East India Company. Politics and commerce. Hand in hand.
Today, my son had a soccer game in a town about 35 minutes away after which we went to Art in the Park where he ate a lot of food and looked at art. I bought a couple of things that will go into the contest stash and a couple of things I liked for me. Then I went grocery shopping then we came home. I was at the computer for a bit and when I actually fell asleep sitting up for a minute, I figured I needed a nap which I did for 2 hours. Then dinner, then cleaning up and now blogging. And so, maybe I surfed the web a bit, maybe.
Anyhoo — off to get SOME work done because I have two deleted chapters to make up…