Life Intervened

I'm quitting the marathons a few days early. I have a bit of family disturbance going on right now and it may be necessary for me to slow down the writing. I don't really spend that much time on it at home, but I evidently haven't paid enough attention to home anyway.

I still have some goals I want to make. I still would like to get my proposal packages for the two books ready in September to go out Oct 1. And I want to keep kicking the poetry out.

September is going to be crit time I think. Not sure how much exactly, but I do have three people who have books I want to make it through. Surely, I can at least get theirs worked on. Hopefully more.

Whispering Spirits and a stalled weekend

I have't gotten much done on writing this weekend... actually nothing other than letters and codework. It's Whispering Spirits Ezine work time. It's a bit slower than usual too.

I have a lot of real life crap coming down on me and it's weighing me down too much to create or be creative at all. I hate this. I deal with a lot of the bull tomorrow and hopefully I'll have all three separate issues resolved for the most part Tuesday. God willing and if other helpers take pity on me.

Otherwise, I'd be better off living the life of a hermit... cause this kind of crap is useless to an artist ... and most of it is so stupid!

But enough... that is not what this blog is for.

Weekend progress...
Fiction and non-fiction writing:zero
Codework: 8 pages, one to go
Handbook: revised and sent out to team, waiting on one for approval or proposed changes

Non-fiction is going....

I've been doing a lot of work on studying different areas of writing... different ins and outs. It's forming the short articles for the one series idea I've had and has spawned another longer series idea. I have a few of the articles started and ready to work on. Once I get five in each going, I'll see if I can get a few markets for them. If not, I'm sure we can use them in Whispering Spirits or/and the sister sites. Either way, it's publication.

I've also worked on more non-fiction work. I should have a lot of pieces to revise and get ready to send out after I'm done with the word count marathon. Guess that means I should get in on some editing marathons if they have any.

I also missed exchanging with Sharon, so I joined Novel Crit. I wasn't going to because of time constraints. I'm just doing so much now that I'll start endangering my own writing if I'm not careful. I'm not sure if I'll be able to crit more than hers, but I'll try when I can. Hope people understand if I just have a hard time returning crits.

I want to rejoin OWW in September or October, but really wonder if I should. I miss it there and it's a good place to get quick returns on stories, but I just don't know if I should. Guess I'll wait and see. Just because I join doesn't mean I have to keep something up all the time ... but I pay to be there, so that sounds like a waste.

This weekend is marathon weekend again. I know much of it could deal with the PLS outline, but I passed on joining the outline challenge. Figured that would be too much. Especially now. This week's so hectic!

I'm still finishing TKQ ... but I've been working on the PLS proposal ahead of time too. Sometimes when I want to work, it's in situations where I can't do the actual chapter work, so this way I get something done. It'll work out in the end I'm sure.

Starting the Weekend

Yesterday was a short writing day, only getting that troublesome scene finished. But it was important. Taun finally let me know who that man walking on the water is. Let me say 'who that pompous man' is. I didn't make him out as irritating as he is to me, but I think it works for the storyline. And it turns out he is there for a purpose and not just a disposable scene as I thought Taun was making me have. He provides another clue for her purpose when she meets Dithron. Now if I can just get Taun and Aneya to trust one another. I work on them some more in the next chapter, but in reality, I don't think they'll truly trust one another until a ways into the next book.

No marathons this weekend. Just chapter work, a bit of poetry, and maybe some non-fiction article work. I had another idea for a line of short non-fiction articles that may work for vision or SFFW's newsletter.

On the blog-news: Lee Goldberg and Max Collins have the website working for International Media Tie-In Writers. Check it out! http://www.iamtw.org/

Now, since I'm inspired once again by Holly Lisle, I must finish my other two blog entries and get to work. If anyone feels the desire and need to make writing a full time career, Holly's posts are motivating ... at least I think so. http://www.hollylisle.com/writingdiary2/

Manuscript Therapy

Life stress has been kicking my butt lately, so I took a break and gathered all my chapters together in manuscript form. Note: that's form, not format. I run hard copies and save unto discs all my chapters as I create them. I took the hard copies, punch holes in them, and placed them into a large binder. I have five chapters left to get into it and it looks nice.

My husband called this an irritant because I only have a small hand 3-hole puncher at home. It threatened to give me blisters and drive hubby nuts with the noise.

But I call it therapy. My book is one thing in life I can control... one thing I can accomplish... one thing that goes as planned, even when the characters turn surprises on me. That just makes it so much better.

I'm about a week away from putting TKQ aside and working on the synopsis, which is half done, and outline for PLS. I don't usually work with outlines, because they change as I write anyway. But I'm doing one for show - if I find an agent before PLS is finished my presentation package will show how serious I am about it. It's captivated me for over five years now, I know I'm serious... now I just need to show it.

I'm also thinking of getting to work on the synopsis and outline of Oriel's book before the end of the year too. Might as well have a lot to show!

Good places to check out: Joe Konrath http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/ is going into detail about his marketing experience and thoughts. Well worth the reading. I'm pretty sure I won't be as vibrant of a salesperson as he is ... maybe more along the lines of Lee Goldberg, who his taking Joe's approach on his level. http://leegoldberg.typepad.com/

And I can feel for S.L. Viehl's position. http://pbackwriter.blogspot.com/ I can tell from seeing similar situations through others, family and friends and aquaintenances, that she's done all she could for her son. I pray that she stays strong through the bashings from other people that she doesn't deserve and that she is strong in facing her own feelings of guilt that she shouldn't have, but a mother in this position cannot avoid feeling. And I pray for the victims, who need closure and strength to put this tragedy behind them.

Dealing with it

I didn't get much over 5k written for the weekend, for a number of reasons.

One thing was the fact that in order to get the writing time Saturday, I had to go upstairs and handwrite - effectively slowing it down for me. But Sunday wasn't a whole lot better either. Hubby was having an emotionally hard day and I had to help out with that. Finally worked on getting him and daughter to talk to one another at the end of the day and it helped a lot.

But my characters are really messing up my plans. I have two insisting they won't trust one another as planned. And a scene change in another that brings in a character that I have no idea of who he is and what he's there for. Hopefully, Taun isn't just toying with me and wasting words.

I forgot what I counted as far as chapters to go - I believe it's about four for this novel. Then I'll take a short break to get some reading done for others and some stories/poems/articles out. Which I've been doing in the meantime anyway. I have five submissions out now, will have two more soon, and five more planned for this week. Gotten a few rejections but no publications to report yet.

Marathon weekend

The goal this weekend is 10,000 words. And I have exactly zero done right now. A nasty migraine has killed my progress so far. I'm on my second dose of pills and we'll leave here soon for groceries, so I'm sure when I get back I'll be able to start.

A dream last night gave me idea for a story - probably 1200 words already in mind. So that will hit some word count and another story off of the story marathon. I've done another story and a few articles since the last check in... maybe two stories. Can't remember how long it's been.

I would love to get the rest of the chapters in for book one this weekend. I know that's a long shot, but it would be wonderful!

Inching along

I truly want to write for my career. I have the copywriting newsletters out and that part underway. I have novels I'm working on to get started with. But things are still moving too slow for me. And they have to. My kids need extra time from me right now and I have a potential move coming up. It's a lot of disruption. My son needs his parents more than ever right now, and so that changes things on my schedule a little.

Oh, I'm still working on the career and developing it. It's not going to be placed on a back burner again. But it is on a side burner, if that even fits here. It's in second place for the time being... at least until my kid's condition is more stable.

In the meantime, I'm finishing the novel work, and building up stories and poems to use. I figure I have ten finished and usable stories and ten poems so far. I plan on getting those out this week and next. Many are considered reprints so I've been gathering information on publications that take reprints.

My copywriting will hopefully grow little by little. Nothing to report on that yet. Maybe I am in the wrong place for local business. They are judgmental here. It could be my type of writing is not popular here. LOL at least until I'm published. Then it'll be popular because they can say "I know that author, she was my neighbor."

I've also got about six or seven articles written. They need to be revised and sent out or put on the net for show.

The marathons are moving slowly. I think I'll get most of them done in time. I did drop out of the class. I don't really have time to do the assignments. And it wasn't what I look for in a class anyway. There's no continuous writer/teacher interaction like on oww's focus groups. I need that set up in order to learn. I also dropped out of the synopsis one. Not because I didn't want to do it - but because during the four days it went on, everything fell apart with my son and I couldn't even check in on the site, much less post my synopsis and crit others. That set up looks like a good one though. I hope they give another one I like soon that I can actually join in on. LOL probably during my move - during down time or something.

on to the writing...