Moira Keith

That is how I feel at the moment. Torn between two projects. As many of you know, the story formerly known as Chosen (which has yet to be renamed), has continually been the thorn in my side. I am in love with the characters, the story line…in fact there is very little I do not like about it. Well I digress, there is one thing. The fact that I can’t seem to finish it! So as I fight like the devil where that story is concerned, I put it to the side for fear of killing both it and my love for it.

Meanwhile, I brainstorm an idea with a friend. Fall in love. Decide to plot. It is working well. But the need to actually write pulls at me. I refuse to put pen to paper or fingers to keys until I really get the plotting stuff somewhat completed. Then the guilt hits. Why am I working on something new when I can’t finish what I was already working on? I truly have no business doing that. It’s no wonder I have anywhere from twenty to thirty partials on my desktop. Seriously, that is no joke.

So I have compromised. It was the best I could do with a divided heart. I will continue to plot the young adult book and not pen a word at this point, but I will also give in to my need to write with the other manuscript because it is just shy of 60k and that is a lot of work to just put to the side. Maybe the plotting will help renew my interest in the other. Maybe it will hinder me more. Who knows. All I know is… maybe if I hadn’t been so willing to share bits of my story prior to now, people wouldn’t be bugging for the finished version of it and I wouldn’t feel so guilty for putting it to the side. But as they say… I made my bed and now I must lay in it. Well I am getting nothing done at the moment. Time to get back to work.

Sláinte!

Okay, I have never plotted one of my stories. I have said it once and will say it a thousand times over… I am a fly by the seat of my pants kind of girl when it comes to writing. But it doesn’t always work to my benefit. So today I am trying to plot a story with a little help from my friends. Wanna know what that has landed me…

Zombies.

Oh yeah… interesting story in the making. Some conflicting ideas of course on where it should go, but ultimately I am the writer. I have the power…or my characters do. So with the ideas I am bouncing around, I decided to actually try and plot this story so that I can hopefully avoid the train wreck that inevitably happens on every story I have worked on thus far…plot holes and rewrites a plenty. Not sure if it will work to my benefit. I spent a lot of money on Dramatica and have yet to figure out that program even though it has tons of cool features. Also have Liquid Story Binder, it too I have yet to figure out all the details too.

For now, I am doing things the old fashioned way. Rough drafting scenes on paper. If I start drafting the story on the computer, eventually it will give way to writing by the seat of my pants, which one could argue has and has not worked for me in the past. Maybe approaching this story with a different writing process, might be just what I need to get me back in the swing of things. We’ll see.

On a side note… thanks Zombie Boy, I needed the brainstorming sessions.

Sláinte!

People find my blog.

I am horrible about updating my blog, but it has not escaped my notice, that there are some very interesting search terms that lead people here. Would you like to see? Of course you would!

Nice looking Irish men, the bad seed, male Scottish kilt and accessories, kilt, a man thousands have seen in their dream, man in kilt, irish kilts history, man kilt, moira comfort keith (don’t ask me where the comfort came from).

Some of this doesn’t surprise me. Anyways… I am trying to get myself back on schedule here. Been sick which has totally sucked, baseball playoffs have also been a huge draw for me, and believe it or not, I have been working on my story. The title needs to be rethought and elements smoothed out, but it is coming along nicely. I had to let the review site go, so those of you who followed the reviews from the girls over there… well it was a decision that came unexpectedly and with little other choice, though I think it is for the best.

Well this is my favorite time of year. Maybe this will be the time for me to move forward and actually see my second book come to fruition. Will update again soon.

My kids LOOOOOVE football. They watch the games with their papa and grandma.They cheer when they cheer, scream when they scream, and consistently ask if their team is winning. Much to their grandparents disappointment though, the Wonder Twins have picked their own teams. They like the Cowboys and the Packers.

What I find more enjoyable than hearing them when a game is on, is their excitement when they catch a football. We went to a BBQ yesterday and my friends brother was throwing the ball to the boys. At first they couldn’t catch anything, but in a few minutes they were catching the football like pros. Their passing isn’t too

bad either, considering the ball is a little too big for their small hands. However, I quickly discovered that if they saw mom watching them, their concentration was shot. They were told to keep practicing and maybe they would be the next Manning brothers. That if they mad lots of money then mom wouldn’t get mad at them anymore. (I am sure that Mrs. Manning still gets upset with Eli and Peyton from time to time although her reasons may have changed a bit.)

Who knows. Do I have the next Manning brothers on my hands? Maybe. Maybe not. I am a firm believer in playing something purely for the love of it.

So with that in mind, may the Wonder Twins continue to enjoy both watching and playing football. And should they decide to play on a team throughout their childhood or longer… mom will be there trying not to cause a distraction and cheering them on.

Takes a lot of time. I know some people think the writing life is easy. It’s not. Each author is different in their approach to writing. Some plot, some fly by the seat of their pants, some do a combination of both, and some do it completely ass backwards. I would love to say that I just fly by the seat of my pants and everything magically falls into place, but that would be a lie. (And I don’t know about you, but my mama always told me not to tell a lie.)

The truth is, I probably fall into the ass backwards category. Now as cute as my ass may be, it does me no good when it comes to plotting or writing my story. I have worked and reworked my plot into, what I hope, is finally a solid story line. It took a while. Scenes were plentiful but they were lacking something. The title no longer fits. My characters weren’t giving me anything. Then I started questioning myself about one little issue. That turned into the ‘What If’ game. (Have I told you how much I hate the ‘What If’ game? Well on most occasions, I do.) This time, the ‘What If’s’ actually helped.

I am now on my way to tying together the two halves of my characters blood line, which until now was a major plot hole and now I have a lot of confidence that I am on the right track. Now to just work in the little changes here and there and I can get back on track.

In case you haven’t noticed, authors tend to be a very critical bunch, especially in regards to their own work. It takes a lot to make us happy and I would venture to say it is fairly common that we re-work a story to death. Thankfully, with the support of crit partners and beta readers, the madness ends and we sub a story. Otherwise that ten year novel, might turn into the fifty year novel. Oh btw, this picture, is what my desk looks like on any given day. (And no the manuscript in the picture is my distraction when I get to frustrated with the one I am working on.) Slàinte!

Ok, so I wasn’t really the bad seed. Neither my mother nor my father ever called me that. I was just the difficult, determined, challenging, stubborn, and most importantly …. hard headed child. Yes, it came as no surprise to me. But to actually hear those words spoken. Out loud. In front of others.

Granted, my actions throughout my childhood pretty much speaks for itself.

The determination to have my way and defy my mother while I was still young enough to be in a walker just so I could touch a plant.

The refusal to let a single tear slip from my eyes when a slapping war ensued over an ashtray. (Again, I was at a young age.)

Move to my teenage years and my poor parents were dealing with sneaking out, breaking curfews, ditching school, falling grades, calls from the police, and dropping out of high school. Still, and this is by no means an endorsement for bad behavior, but I didn’t turn out so bad. It took many years, yet I know that the person I am today is a direct result of my parents guidance.

Sometimes, I guess being a bad seed isn’t so bad, if you have the right guidance with a dash of carefully administered love, you just might be like the ugly duckling and manage to transform into something those you love can be proud of. Hope I have managed to do that.

Now that I am done sharing my very round about thanks to my parents, the update is as follows-

1. I hereby forbid myself to work on any other story (outside of plotting) other than my paranormal WIP ~ Chosen. – Again, doing well I think. I have thought about my Young Adult Book, but no writing…but then again there has been little writing at all since the last update.

2. All current 117 pages of said story have been printed out. I realize this is working ass backwards, but I will use that to help fill in my plot structure and story arc. While doing so, I will not open up the original document and all notations will be made in either a notebook or in the side margins of the printed version. – Ok, hard to do bad on this when I haven’t opened the document or worked on the story at all.

3. The nights when the kids are with their dad…. I will limit my online time (i.e. the devil Facebook) outside of a brief check in or status update. The kid-free time will be utilized for writing and research. - This didn’t really happen due to the kids not being able to go to their dad’s in the last two weeks.

4. I will gag my internal editor as much as possible during this process so that I may actually have a finished draft before all is said and done. – This would have worked better if I hadn’t decided to change the setting for my story, which I did during the course of the last few days.

5. Once a week, I will blog about my progress. – Has been more than a week, but I did it, so it is all good.

Okay, not that I have heard that one, let alone any  of the other thousands of horrible pick up lines any time recently, but they are still funny to hear/read. So to start off this week with a smile, I thought it would be fun to revisit some of these little gems. Take a look at these little pearls-

1. Are your legs tired? ‘cause you been running through my mind ALL day long. (Overdone, yet still a classic)
2. Look at you with all those curves, and me with no brakes.
3. I’m new in town. Can you give me direction to your apartment?
4. I’m feeling a little off today. Would you like to turn me on?
5. You can forget about going to heaven because it’s a sin to look that good.
6. Baby you look so sweet you’re giving me a cavity.
7. Be unique and different, say yes.
8. I’m fighting the urge to make you the happiest woman on earth tonight.
9. Gee, that’s a nice set of legs, what time do they open?
10. Should I call you in the morning or nudge you?

I can just see the hero in a romance novel making off with the heroine’s heart and some hot and heavy entanglements after delivering one of these lines. Surely she would swoon after hearing number nine. What are some pick up lines you have heard, used, or written? Come on, play along….you know you want to.

Sláinte!

some of the best stuff to entertain me when I am in need of a laugh. This did it for me. I had never seen this before and couldn’t stop laughing. Hope you enjoy.

You know, I get a TON of spam comments here on my blog. 87 today alone! I get your standard Viagra spam, celebrity nude spam, pharmaceutical spam, the I’ve just learned English how is this sentence spam…. you name it I probably get it. Every once in a great while a line will jump out at me and make me think. Like this-

Most recent information about Paris Hilton’s boobs.

I shit you not… that was in the body of the comment in my spam folder. And how could one possibly waste one more second of their life without having the most recent information about Paris Hilton’s boobs? I mean seriously?! Because that poor girl isn’t getting enough attention, and Lord knows my life is better because of that spam message. Isn’t your life better? No? You didn’t get that spam?

Ah, no worries young grasshopper. Have faith in knowing that someday, you too can have your very own spam message that will keep you abreast of all that is going on in celebrity boobdom? Okay I so could not resist. Must be getting delerious… No do not spam me about sleeping aids! Stop the madness already! Will it ever end?! And yes, they still make Spam….just sayin’

And for once it is not with a pair of shoes.

I kid you not.

At the ripe ol’ age of ‘I’m not telling’ I have discovered a love for baseball. I come from a family of football fans. Niners fans to be exact with a straggler or two rooting for some other team. My twins… well somehow at the age of four they decided one was a Packers fan and one was a Cowboys fan. Needless to say their grandfather and aunt have not disowned them yet and it has been almost two years since they decided who they were cheering for.

One of my boys is a huge fan of baseball on the wii. So being the mom that I am (and having a best friend who is a HUGE Cubbies fan), I decided that the only thing I could do was learn a little about the sport. Low and behold I fell in love. Not with the guys in uniform, though I will admit they do add a little something to the game. I actually enjoy the game. Vegas has no claim to a major league sport of their own, however we do have sports here. We have hockey with the Wranglers, arena football with the Gladiators, and then we have baseball……where our beloved (even though they are not performing well) 51′s are currently the official farm team for the Toronto Blue Jays. But to my darling Cub-loving best friend, I will let you guess what team I root for.

Yep, that’s right ladies and gents. It is a Red Sox hat I am wearing. No the photo is not from a Sox game, but a local game before the 4th of July. Regardless it was a blast and we had awesome seats compelete with entertainment two seats over. So as my nephews are headed to watch the Angels play the Stankees… I mean the Yankees tonight, I am hoping the Angels can pull a little West Coast magic out of their hats and help keep the Sox ahead. Oh come on Yankees fans you’ve heard worse than that I am sure. Boston fans do too. It’s all for the love of the game. Hmm story idea brewing here….better get outta here.

Sláinte!