Good evening. Hope your day has gone well. If you’re doing NaNoWriMo, NaBloPoMo, or NaNoFiWriMo I hope you got your post or word count done with ease.
Me, writing today has been easier than the past few days. Until I got to the end of a scene and I am tired of writing this scene type. The FMC just found out she’s a were-cat and is being introduced to her new reality. She’s had a few things told to her, but there’s so much more she has to learn.
I can’t decide if I am going to skip the rest of this to get the story moving, or what. I am just dreading writing the rest of the lore of these shifters. I know most of it already but getting it into words just isn’t appealing at the moment. I guess that’s the not so fun part about writing a novel. I’ll suck it up shortly or tomorrow. What do you do when you get to a scene you just don’t want to write yet?
I did spend sometime getting a dream cast done for my characters. For those who may not know, a dream cast is where an author or reader picks famous people they want to play each major role in the novel. Take a look and tell me what you think:
Is there any one you don’t recognize? There is one who isn’t an actor, but he is a celebrity. It’s an old photo of him, but it worked for his character!
Now, I have five videos for you procrastinating pleasure. Hope you enjoy. Don’t forget to let me know what you think about my Sun and Moon Collide excerpt by voting in the poll or commenting on that post!
Hello…Yet again I have neglected my writing. If I want to have half a chance of winning NaNoWriMo, I will have to avoid the shiny pretties and start actually writing. I’ve got the ass in chair part down pat! Now I will need to ignore all the distractions somehow. I’ll work on that tomorrow.
After getting up at 5 AM to feed the man before he goes to work. YES! He finally starts his job tomorrow. Happy in some ways, not so much in others. At least I might get a few more minutes of writing in, since he does tend to not notice I have my headphones on signaling I am either writing with my music OR listening to video/webinar type stuff.
I’m going to share some NaNo themed videos I found tomorrow. Maybe pretty early, so I have NO EXCUSE not to write in the novel. Or pretty late, after the family and I have dinner. But hopefully not this late…so I can try to sneak in a little writing time after dinner.
So…I sort of alluded to sharing some more of my writing. I’d love some feed back, but please keep in mind this is a VERY rough draft. There may be instances of the word elephant that do not make any sense. It’s a place holder for a detail I haven’t decided on. You can weigh in if you have an idea to fill in that detail..the comments are your place to tell me what you think of my rough draft.
This is a scene with a fight in it. I will admit the fight needs some detail. All of my rough draft is detail deprived. The female is my MC, who is also partnered with Roan for investigations. They both work for a local detective agency. Roan has just helped Jacie by loading his truck up with furniture she needs to get to her house.
Sun and Moon (working title) sneak peek
Roan and I get everything on his truck and in the mustang. As we head to my place, I think about how long we’ve had each other’s back.
I started at the agency when I got sick of dealing with the sexism on the local state police force. It’s not push over strong, but it’s ten times as hard to get ahead if you don’t have three legs.
I answered the ad, knowing I was over qualified. Larry called me two days later, and the rest was history. One phone interview and I was hired, sight unseen.
When I showed up at my job the first day, imagine my horror at being place with yet another sexist pig as my partner. As the new face on the block, I had to suck it up and try to do the best in a bad situation.
On our first case, I saved Roan’s life. Literally.
We had been looking into a suspicious death that had been ruled as an accident by the medical examiner’s office. The wife thought it was too quick and too clean of a ruling. So she hired us.
With Larry’s contacts inside the local force, we can usually get the case files on just about any closed case. Even on some of the open ones, when the official detectives are stumped.
This one did look cut and dried, but Roan and I pushed forward anyway. We checked the car itself, and found nothing suspicious. We were even able to get a second opinion from the states ME when I pulled a couple of favors in. Nothing was adding up, but neither was it pointing to possible murder.
The break-lines had no fluid but there were no holes, cuts or tears in the lines. The man had been alive when his car careened off into the local lake. There was water in his lungs to prove it.
As a last ditch effort, we asked if the original ME had any blood or tissue samples that could be tested for drugs. We got very lucky. He did have some samples that I sent off to the state lab for a full tox screen. And it came back with pay dirt.
The husband had a non-lethal but sleep inducing level of elephant in his system. He was asleep when the car went into the water. With the amount of elephant he had in him, there is no way he could have walked to his own car, much less driven the five miles to where his car left the road.
This forced the local PD to re-open the case, but we kept at our investigation as well. When tracing possible sources of the elephant, we found two likely suspects. We questioned them both in their homes. We were hoping that one would come out with something incriminating. Neither did, so we kept digging.
We finally decided to head to our respective homes after midnight about a week after the interviews with our suspects. As we left the building, I could smell cheep cologne that I knew I had smelled before. I couldn’t exactly place it, but it had me on high alert as Roan and I went to our cars.
As Roan approached the door to his car, I saw a shadow about two feet a away. When it moved, I raised my weapon and cautioned the person to stop. Of course, the idiot didn’t stop at all and I had to shoot.
Lucky for the suspect, I’m a dead shot. I hit his left leg high on the thigh, which brought him down. Roan got him in cuffs and we got LBRPD on scene to arrest him for real. The arresting officers found a syringe filled with elephant. Enough to knock Roan out.
After that, Roan has pretty much treated me as one of the guys. And that works for me. He has my back and I have his, both on and off the job. What more could one want from their partner?
So what do you think? Use the poll to leave anonymous feedback. Or use the comments to give me specific feed back. You can even hit my contact page and send it to me in an email. What you think matters to me! Please let me know if it needs something more than detail (like that’s a little thing *rolls eyes at self*). Thanks so much for reading.
The past couple of days, all my words have gone into my NaNoWriMo work. It’s new working title is Sun and Moon Collide–again! I had to fight with my female main character (FMC) to get her name. Once I had it, I knew just how she looked which is very much like Scarlett Johansson in The Avengers. Her love interest will end up being what I though would be a secondary character at best. I even have his first name, just waiting on him to give up his surname.
I still need to flesh out several of my secondary characters and my Male Main Character (MMC) quite a bit. My FMC is still a work in progress but I know a lot more about her now. I just hope she takes it easier on my fingers in the next scene I need to write. She pushed over 1,500 words out of me in 45 minutes for the last one!
Word sprints are the bomb. Because they prime my competitive nature, I’ve turned out over 4K words today. Total writing time today was about 2 hours and 45 minutes. Not bad considering my first day I got 1597 out total.
It’s not about the word count so much, but it’s a nice way to gauge your progress as you write. Especially since I have no outline and a very bare bones idea of where this is going. I still need to figure out what the big conflict is in the story. Right now my FMC is about to deal with finding out she isn’t what she thinks she is. Then her struggle to deal with her new world will be her internal struggle for most of the book. Just need the external for her and her lover man to fight together.
The funny thing is I think this will be the first book of a trilogy. Me, who has never written this many words for a fictional story, is thinking I have three books worth in me. Well, it’s more like my FMC is telling me she has that much for me to write. It’s kind of like I’ve gone crazy. My brain now has two personalities. Mine and hers. So far, she isn’t too pushy, so I am okay with that.
I’ve also got an awesome support group on Facebook. It’s kind of hard to keep up with the conversation at times, but everyone is so awesomely supportive of each other… Yeah it’s kick ass. It’s an open group, so if you want to join go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/211017295734031/ and join us. You can also read the wall first to make sure we aren’t too crazy for ya LOL
So, how is your work in progress going? Mine is well over goal for the week and I have tomorrow left to add some more. Hopefully my FMC will keep on spilling her story for me.
Hope your words are flowing freely and that you are enjoying NaNoWriMo. If you’re not with us yet, it’s still not too late! Check out the site, and the support group and join in. I’ve had two join because I talked them into it today.. now it’s your turn!
It’s NaNo-eve! Oh. Em. Gee!!!! I don’t know if its nerves or excitement got me feeling all creepy. Or maybe it’s just a Halloween vibe LOL
Are you all ready? I will put on a pot of coffee soon so I can get in a sprint right at midnight. I want to get as far ahead as I can, so when I have blah days they don’t hurt my word count so much!
Of course, I have zero idea what I am writing. I am thinking it will involve a couple MCs and some supporting characters. Maybe a setting or two…ahahahha.
Oh..I also entered an informal writing competition on Watt Pad. It started today, and I’ve already got that story in. It’s not up yet, but I’ve sent it to the sponsor…event host..eh, the big kahuna. There is one entry up now you can read and mine should be up soon! This is just round one of ten, so I am looking forward to using these to get my creative machine going when I have one to do. I’d love some feed back when my stories go up. Just be honest, and it will help me tons!
Also, if you missed the pep talks from HQ, then you should give them a read. Here’s the one from James Patterson (Yes, that James Patterson!) and one from Rainbow Rowell. Patterson’s is my favorite of the two, though both are good.
I’m also in a web and voice chat at http://tinychat.com/wrimo. I’m not talking, since my living room is very noisy right now, but I may be later. Depends on when the rest of the family goes to bed or cuts the TV off. Come on in, have some company for the start of Nano!
Other than that, I’m just chillin like a villan until midnight hits. See you in November!
Since the eve of NaNoWriMo starts in just over 4 hours here on the east coast of the USA, I thought some quick tips on writing would be good for all of us. I also want to share a collection of documents I’ve gathered while preparing (or pretending to prepare) for this adventure that November promises. You can take a look at all the documents here, and download (if I understand correctly). Documents for writers assembled by me.
It’s been an interesting day. I think my honey and I made some progress, after I got so upset I told him I couldn’t do this any more. Then I decided he deserves more from me. I tend to run away as soon as I don’t get my way. One more real try…from both of us. Let’s see how this go.
Then, Mom’s friend came home today. He is on continuous oxygen until next week at the latest. So, now I have to smoke outside. My honey says he is gonna quit since it is so cold outside here already (lows going as far down as 20F and highs not getting much out of the 60s). I hope he does. I just am not ready to give up my crutch just yet.
Then I found I have my same e-book I was talking about finally get a review on published on two new platforms and submitted or ready to be submitted to two more. That will be a total of 5 platforms including print! This girl is cautiously excited.
Book Stuff
Cover for 16 Love Letter Ideas
I was able to get my book distributed easy on this cool site I found. They do the formatting and submitting for free. The catch is they take about 10% of the profits, depending on your price. They don’t do covers or promotion.
For me, that’s okay. Getting everything into the right format was the headache I was dreading once I get some fiction written. Now I just have to write it up in word, upload it and let Draft2Digital distribute my manuscript to other sites. CreateSpace is in beta but I figured it was worth a try. (Which means once it is available, I will have some give aways for print copies, probably signed ones!)
I also want to give back to help keep NaNo free and full of fun swag for donating. Since I am pretty tight on money all the time, I started a fund-raising campaign on Stay Classy.
My goal is $250 US. I have had one donation in a small amount. But that’s great. Every dollar counts and it all goes to the foundation who sponsors all things NaNoWriMo! If you are feeling so inclined, you can give to my campaign at the link below: http://www.stayclassy.org/fundraise?fcid=273578
Getting so far behind
The sad news I figured out today is that I am going to have to withdraw from all the blog reviews I have scheduled. I just don’t have as much time to read as I thought I would have. I will send out my emails tomorrow. I am so sad about this. I love reading books and sharing them with others.
The good thing is that I should be able to keep up the other types of book posts. They don’t do as well, but then again my self-hosted blog doesn’t do so well traffic wise. Something I will be working on once I get my life back into something resembling order.
How about you?
Any good news today? Would you be kind enough to share it with us? I know I can use some more good news. My smile isn’t quite as bright as I’d like…
If you have something you just need to let out, go on and share that too. I like helping people when I can, even if I can only offer an ear to listen.
Thanks for stopping by today. If you have an extra moment, please be kind enough to share using the buttons below.
Still no progress on my NaNoWriMo ideas. Guess I will end up being a pantser. Which is scary in it’s own right..way beyond the scary of NaNo with a plan! But we still have a few more days. Something might come together LOL
My weekend was good until my “boss” calls trippin on something dumb. I will have a talk with her on Saturday when we can talk face to face. I do better at maintaining my cool when I am looking at the person I am talking to!
Click the cover to see or purchase my e-book on Amazon
I haven’t really been online much until about an hour ago. I was clearing out email and checking out what was new on some of my author profiles. Oh. Meh. Gerd. I have a review. It’s on both GoodReads and Amazon! And the person actually BOUGHT my e-book. My first review and purchase from the same person. And it was a 5 star review with a great write-up that totally made me almost-crying-happy! Read the review here if you’d like. You can also get a sample of my e-book here. Just click the green read excerpt button under the book’s lack of image..I must fix that soon!
I am thinking I may re-do my Blogging on a Budget report and put it up on Amazon as well. It got some great things said about it when I was letting it go for signing up to an email list on an old blog. Wonder if I could get it done in the few days between now and Nano?
So that’s about all that’s news with me right now. Hopefully tomorrow I can say I am working on some writing related project LOL Thanks to all who have followed me lately. It makes me so happy to get the emails. I try to follow back, but I miss people sometimes. I’ll be going back through all that soon.
How about you? What’s news with you? Did you get some progress going on your NaNo WIP? Are you looking at something interesting to write about for another project? Let me know what you’re celebrating this week in the comments. And if you have an extra moment, share this using the buttons just above the comments area. Thanks!
Once again, another day with not a thing done for planning my novel. This makes three days so far. And with just about two weeks to go, I am beginning to wonder if I have bitten off more than I can chew!
It’s okay if I did get into something bigger than I thought. It’s the exercise in writing I want. I am not looking for perfection or even a workable manuscript. It would be nice, but I won’t count on it. I suck at dealing with disappointment.
I did find a few cool resources. There is even a Google + Hangout Event to talk about your Work in progress (I hope that is what WIP stands for!) It happens tomorrow, October 17 at 5 PM ET.
I got several planning sheets I want to try. You can get them here, here, and here. I hope to get out to print them tomorrow so I can fiddle with them if I have any down time at work this weekend.
I also have a butt-ton of book reviews to write. And I still need to read the books. OMG! But I will get them read. Might be some all nighters, but that’s nothing new for me.
I did start reading a cool book. Its called You’re A Writer (So Start Acting Like One). I was inspired to create my author page on Facebook. You can get there with the pretty Facebook square on the left side, near the top. I’d adore you if you hit me up with a Like! I’ll try to find your author page or FB mail me the link. I’m all about supporting others.
Any one else having a lag in the preparations? Is it due to life circumstances or regular procrastination? How is it making you feel? Please share in the comments below.
If you enjoyed this update, feel free to share it using any of the sharing buttons below. Thanks!
Well, today was a crazy day. I didn’t sleep too much last night…I am a worrier by nature. I ended up driving to the hospital, which is about 30 to 45 minutes away, on about 3 hours sleep. Boy was that fun!
Then we brought mom home to get some things she needed since TMack is going to be there at least tonight. Once she left to go back to the hospital, I slept like crazy. Til like 6 PM kind of crazy!
Once I woke up, I got started putting my posts together for my other blog. Over there I post about books that are recently or soon to be released. Thankfully it’s mostly copy and paste, then put in the pictures they sent. Pretty awesome way to blog.
Between putting the rest of my blogs together for the week and watching my favorite show I got Bupkis done on my novel. Not even transferring the names from my phone to my notebook.
And tomorrow looks to be another crazy day. Have to go get some of TMack’s information to take to the hospital to help them figure out what is going on with him so it can hopefully get cured. Also have to pick up our mail, go to the hospital, and who knows what all else. Fun times!
Looks like my NaNo Book is going to be on the shelf again tomorrow. 😦 I am hoping to get at least one or two things done despite the craziness of the day.
So, friend, have you gotten anything done for your NaNoWriMo Adventure? Tell me how far along you are in the comments. Give me something to try to catch up to! LOL Or just commiserate with me on all the things that are stopping us from doing this thing exactly the way we wish!
Have a great Wednesday.
PS Thanks to everyone who’s been sharing my writing here. I appreciate that so much!
So I disappeared for two days…well technically three as I am writing this after midnight on Tuesday. I told you I’d be blogging here on weekdays.
Today has been wacky (I’m still on Monday) . Then one of the people I share an abode with ended up in the Emergency Room then being admitted for at least the night. (So I have an early morning probably in about 5 hours…6 if I am super lucky). He (from here on out called TMack) should be fine if it is only pneumonia. I will see soon.
I suppose you could be wondering why I am not blogging on the weekends. Well, I work from 7 AM on Saturday morning until 7 AM on Monday morning. Yup…48 hours straight. I do get to sleep twice in that time. I am a private caregiver for an older lady. She’s lucky enough to be mostly able to care for herself which makes my job easier than it should be. I love my job, but let’s get back to the main topic!
I actually got a good deal done on planning for my blog considering I was at work.
I got about 20 new name possibilities. I figure I better plan a bunch of names since it will take more than two characters to drive a good novel.
I also colored my map in, so I can tell better at a glance who lives where and so forth. I need city names though…I’m kind of stuck there. Any suggestions? (Use the comments below or the form on my contact page)
I found a possible main plot and one maybe side plot. I kind of like them but they need tweaking or something.
I also outlined some of the systems in the world my story will be set in. I did the measurement of time mostly. I also have the system for measuring length planned out but the unit needs to be named.
I pinpointed my point of view as well. I think I am going to take a sort of god like being telling the story from their abilities to see and know and hear everything.
I think part of the back story of the world will include the master race all the others are descended from. The different races will have come about by something resembling evolution. Just because I am a bit of a science junkie, there will be a bit of science in there. Might be twisted a bit–or a good deal–but it will likely be recognizable
Yup.. I did all of that in a few hours on Saturday.
Today (Monday) I only got a few names that I need to transfer from my phone to my planning notebook. That’s part of my goals for tomorrow.
Over to you
How is your planning going? What parts did you do first? Characters? Plot? World building? Share your progress in planning so far–leave a comment and let’s talk about our shared adventure!
I also want to give back to help keep NaNo free and full of fun swag for donating. Since I am pretty tight on money all the time, I started a fund-raising campaign on 
Once again, another day with not a thing done for planning my novel. This makes three days so far. And with just about two weeks to go, I am beginning to wonder if I have bitten off more than I can chew!
Well, today was a crazy day. I didn’t sleep too much last night…I am a worrier by nature. I ended up driving to the hospital, which is about 30 to 45 minutes away, on about 3 hours sleep. Boy was that fun!
So I disappeared for two days…well technically three as I am writing this after midnight on Tuesday. I told you I’d be blogging here on weekdays.
Jennifer Weiner, Author 