Today I’m going to share five things I like about today. You ready? Hold on because its going to be quick ‘n dirty. Ah maybe not that dirty.

1. Starbucks – live for Friday Starbucks runs.
2. Closer to California Turkey Day trip.
3. Getting ladybug tattoo in honor of beloved and very missed grandmother.
4. Payday!!!!
5. Writing weekends are the best!

Now let’s talk writing. The work in progress pile is looming over me and it is quite large to say the least. I need to narrow it down. Currently, I have someone looking over Blood & Moonlight. The second book has an opening and is slowly progressing. I also have a story in the works. First in a trilogy. A contemp western of sorts that will follow three brothers if all goes according to plan.

Excited? I am. Now if I could just find where my Muse ran off to….

Yeah. Nice eye candy after all these years. Oh and yet another hottie post for my darling T! Why? Because we are revving up for JBJ making his Vegas appearance in a couple of weeks. That is going to be a great night! Now, off to have coffee and start my day. Then home to get busy on increasing that word count. I hear you back there. You in the back. Which story? Which story? Taunting me with the unspoken challenge in your words all while I am mid drool here. Truth be told I have a few ideas that are marinating right now.  Zombie slayer story? Perhaps. Second book in my Moonlight trilogy? Could be. Vampire story? Don’t know. Justin’s story to follow up Buckling Down? Possibly, though I will tell you that Justin is being quite stubborn at the moment and has been tied up in the corner until he can play nice. I guess if you really want to know, you’ll have to hunt me down. Have a great Wednesday!

Thanks to a good friend, I will now not only back up to my external hard drive…but to other programs such as google docs and…hmmm I forget the other one. He backs his writing up to both… religiously..like every five minutes as he confessed to me the other day. Apparently not a bad thing to do.

On another front… Kiara and Devlin are finally beginning to make sense to me. Their story still needs a ton of work and at 200 pages that very thought is a bit daunting. Though I try to make the story less about the romance between them, it seems unavoidable. The romance is a key element in the story. I can’t escape it…no matter how much I would like to. That does not mean that there will be an unending amount of mushy gushy sentiments….let’s get real here people.

However, the direction the tale is taking is good and I am confident that the ending will work out the way I see it in my mind. Now if I could just nail down all the little details that make up the mythology in my book and life would be blissfully sweet. Sigh. That being said, it is time for me to get off the computer. Past time in fact. The story will not write itself nor

will the characters do as I will them to. Well off to writerdom!

Sláinte!

I figured…no biggie. Just pop that puppy on the eReader and get to it. No keyboard=no editing right? Wrong. First thing my little editor starts doing is  screaming at me to fix a blaring hole in my scene where I had accidentally hit delete. I listened. Then thought… WTF am I doing?!

This is only going to lead to more frustration and procrastination on my end. Must be strong. Resist the temptation. I feel like a drug addict suffering withdrawals. It is hard not to run to the keyboard each and every time I see a little blip or the internal editor starts screaming at me.

This is a battle royale to see if I can manage to overcome my wench of an internal editor. Maybe I can lock her up. I doubt it though. I am going to try to reign in this compulsion, but if you should find me curled up in the fetal position, cradling my laptop and muttering “My precious”… you know what happened.

Sláinte!

Time and time again, I have divulged my desire to write paranormal. My story ideas seem to be limitless, but my biggest project to date has given me grief for more than a year now. Contemporary romance was not the genre I had envisioned writing, yet it is what I wrote and sold. Now with my frustration mounting and my desire to just write continue to plague me, I find myself looking back at a Buckling Down spin off story I had planned.  Justin Trent will get his story and it may be just the outlet I need at this point. I am tired of trying to wrestle my characters into submission. Hopefully, this will renew my muse.

And to my loyal support group who has helped push me along this far and is anxiously awaiting and routing for the paranormal, I do apologize. However, in order to do my hero and heroine justice, I need to step away from it for a bit.

Sláinte!

This was me about two hours in—–>

Okay so it wasn’t all THAT, but it was fairly intense. The challenge she gave me was that we would both write. Whoever had the most words written at the end of the night prevails. Becomes Queen of all that is Writing (sparkling crown not included) and will rule for all of five minutes. Well actually, the winner would get fifty pages of their work critiqued by the other. Pretty sweet deal right? Inspiring and motivational? Most definitely.

How did I make out? I have to start by telling you it was a nail biting experience. I had lots of distractions. My loverly sister was visiting and staying the night, there were midnight margaritas, Practical Magic, and did I happen to mention a video of a grown man replicating the baby dancing to Beyonce’s All the Single Ladies (which had me in tears)?

Who won, right? That’s all you want to really know, isn’t it? Don’t know yet. My word count started at 62,096 and it finished at…. well I will update you on that later. I am an author still hard at work, just taking a mental pause and writing this. Check back and update the number before I turn in for the night.

Update – Ending word count for the night 64,101. Not too shabby.

Really, I want you to read the entries and vote for your favorites. There are some REALLY good ones. I am up against some tough competition, including some of my fellow Samhain authors. First round voting closes on the 15th so hurry! Go forth and vote! It is easy to do. Simply click on the photo below to be taken to the page with all the fabulous entries. Read them. Take notes. Then when you are ready to place your vote, scroll down to where it says Important Dates. Click on first round voting (should be highlighted white) and fill out the entry form. Easy as pie! Happy reading and good luck to all my fellow authors!

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!

1. I hereby forbid myself to work on any other story (outside of plotting) other than my paranormal WIP ~ Chosen. – So far so good, I have thought about my Young Adult Book, but no writing.

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, admittedly, this one I did not do so well on. I opened the document and began to move forward. I found it difficult to plot the story after the fact.

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. - Did okay with this. Kids have been at their dads for three nights out of the last 10, but one night was spent on my birthday.

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. – She has been gagged thanks to slave driver Lauren who insisted that I email her new material or else…

5. Once a week, I will blog about my progress. – Though a few days late… we will call this done.

We will do this all over again next week! Whoot. Maybe I should make Friday my update day.