Forgive the sniffly, mushy blog, but I truly have the best girlfriends in the world. They range from California, Washington State all the way to NY state, Washington D.C and then there’s the one in BF Kansas :lol2:
And truly, all it takes is a phone call to turn a completely shitty day into a smile and a laugh. I wish they lived closer. I wish I saw them more often than I do. Telephones and emails rock though.
:hug:
Not that I’ve been routine about checking in… I actually had to go back and look to see when the challenge started. I’m not very good at keeping up with word count, page count, whatever. I’m more of a kill myself until it’s done, binge writer. For this post, I have NO idea what I’ve done so far, so I’m going to have to piece it together. I’ll uhm be back in a sec with totals.
ok back with numbers. Since July 6, that’s what, 23 days? I’m just under 200 pages of written material. This spans four proposals and one contracted novel. In addition, I’ve done edits for one book and line edits for two books. I’ve turned in two of the proposals and I still want to tweak the other two, but I’ll be turning those in this next week. At that point, I’m free too work on already contracted work.
I’m not an X amount of pages type girl. I’d like to be but there are several days in here where I didn’t get squat written. I usually more than make up for those days during the times I DO write, but still, I can’t help but think how much more I could get done if I managed to write every single day.
Only one change to the cover. The new version will be posted on the Samhain coming soon pages just as soon as Crissy gets to it, and it will be posted on my website in the next week. I wonder if anyone will even notice what’s different :lol2:
driving Amy insane… :rockthefuckon:
Yesterday, I wrote an entire proposal with unmitigated glee. It wasn’t one of the ones I was supposed to be working on much to Amy’s irritation, but it’s a story that’s been brewing for awhile and I went back and forth about whether I wanted to dive into it. I figured a proposal can’t hurt :dunno:
But now I have to get back to finishing the two I’m supposed to be working on and then I get to dive into a contracted novel that I’ve actually been doing a lot of thinking about lately. I’m hoping to be done with any and all proposals this week.
Another synopsis down. I’ll have some tweaking to do, but most of the framework is there. Now i just need to write the chapters which shouldn’t take long because for once I actually know in great detail what happens in those chapters. (Kind of takes the fun out of writing them, though)
It’s early in the day and I’ve already gotten several pages written, which is nice. I’m still flirting with the idea of whether I want to work ahead on a contracted project that isn’t due for several more months, or if I want to do something else entirely. The smart thing would be to work ahead because uhm, if things go the way I want them to, I’ll be facing several more deadlines in the coming months.
when an air conditioner breaks. Lovely. Just lovely.
Hubby was heading to bed. I was going to stay up a bit longer and do some work and I mention to him as he’s heading to bed that it feels hot. That’s not exactly anything new because I’m always hot. But a few seconds later, he comes back out of the bedroom with a frown on his face and says it’s hot in the bedroom too.
Oh joy… :cursesign:
Everytime I finish a project, whether it’s a proposal or a completed work, I get all analytical and usually decide that the end result is shit. The last three books I’ve written? I hated every word. I labored over each sentence, wanting it perfect. By the end, I was absolutely convinced it was the most horrid thing I’d ever written. I threw them aside, turned them in and wouldn’t go back to them until it was absolutely necessary.
And then a most amazing thing happened. Weeks on as I was forced to reopen the story and begin reading or editing, I was struck by the fact that it wasn’t as horrible as I feared. In fact, it was quite good. Of course then I began freaking because I tell myself that it’s a protective measure. I’m deluding myself because the alternative is admitting you wrote shit. Do you see the no win outcome I’m strangling myself with?
This is why it’s so important, SO important to have people who will tell you the absolute truth and who aren’t afraid to say “yep, it’s shit.” I get positively all gooey inside when Amy tells me that I’ve just written crap because it makes the times when she says “wow this is really good” all the better.
So this morning, I’m celebrating, sorta. Because my agent, who is very good about telling me when something isn’t working, loved my proposal. I had some concerns about it. Concerns that had me tweaking one of the chapters and rearranging. But even as I read it, I really liked it and I hoped that it would work because I didn’t have the heart to make drastic changes.
I’m really tempted, REALLY tempted, to take the day off but I have other proposals to write and a good reward for the first one would be to write a kickass second one. :guitar:
Sharon: I seriously need an attitude adjustment
Amy: I hear they sell those at Sears.
Later
Amy: J just called me an asshole!
Sharon: I’m sure you deserved it.
I’m still somewhat glassy-eyed from the conference. I gave myself a day off but I really need to get back to work. Not because I have a pressing deadline, but because I don’t like to go long periods of time without creating. Creativity has to be nurtured or you lose it. Or at least I do. And it’s very easy to get out of the habit of writing/creating.
I’ve talked before about being an externally motivated person. I’m not at all internally motivated. Me telling myself I need to do it doesn’t cut it. I’m just not constructed that way. So I really expected to come back from national feeling very motivated because what is conference if not a huge external shot of motivation?
Eh.
Instead I met hundreds of other really perky, really motivated people who were bubbling over with enthusiasm. I kept wondering how my spaceship crashlanded on this foreign planet.
But back to the whole getting back to work thing. I DID work at the conference. I did line edits for a long ass book. I also did edits for a not so long ass book but Im anal about making it perfect so it wasn’t just a one look, one pass kind of thing. Now that I’m home, I have two proposals that I want to finish in the very short term. My agent and I hatched an evil, diabolical scheme that we’re both extremely excited over and so I have to put all those pieces together. Good evil fun. It’s for everyone I say.
So that’s me. Working. It might even be fun if I ever stop grumbling and muttering under my breath.
I’m not sure tired quite covers the absolute exhaustion I feel. I stumbled out of bed yesterday, threw my stuff together and called for the bellhop to come get it. Threw everything in the van and made excellent time home. About four hours and twenty minutes this time. Spent the evening snuggling with my babies and they took me out to eat. It’s sooooo good to be home even though the conference rocked.
Beyond the Night releases tomorrow. I love that book. I actually got the line edits back Monday night so I had to lock myself in my room at periods during the week at conference to work on them. But it’s all done and I have final copies already. Oh and I have the cover for Brazen, just haven’t had time to post it, so here it is.
