In the presence of greatness...

Our very own Jo, master of the Writing Exercises and all-around most excellent teacher/mentor/writer/person, has gotten some great press lately!

Read this review on SBTB.  She also garnered 4 1/2 stars from Romantic Times.

All together now:  SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, go pre-order the book.  (Click on the cover image to the left there to go straight to the Amazon listing.)  *g*

How Jenny Got Her Groove Back

She surfaces!  I've been meaning to post for over a week, really I have.

Last week was productive, if minimally so.  A scene that started out fresh and free-flowing got slower and more tedious toward the end, but I really wanted to finish it.  Add a boar hunt to the list of times we get Alec almost killed.  *w*  Finally finished that out at 2100 words, which for 5 days of writing averaged a little over 400 words/day.  Not great, but better than nothing.

Sunday night I could have strangled myself.  Little Boy was in bed - and quiet! - just after 8 pm, and I was on my computer by 8:30.  It's been a looong time since that happened.  But did I get any writing accomplished?  No.  The siren song of the internet was too strong.  To be fair, I was finishing up some Christmas shopping, with which I am pretty much done.  (Now, just to wrap the stuff...)  But still.  I've complained that my lack of productivity was due in part to late starting times, but when I get an early one what do I do?  *headdesk*

However, I made myself write at work on Monday (things have finally slowed down a bit, though I doubt it will last).  And tonight I got B-i-C by 8:30 again, caffeinated and ready to work.  Also determined to make up for the sins of Saturday.

So here I sit, actually feeling inspired for a change, making progress and dead-set on finishing this SFD by the end of the year.  Want to know the real secret of my regained vision?  The answer may surprise you.

Like several others, I tried to cut myself off from my usual internet haunts in an effort to boost productivity.  This included the CompuServe forum.  To a degree, the relief of expectations to post and be social on these sites (as well as the endless time-suck of my blog feeds) did free up some time.  But did it boost productivity?  No.

I guess I am a weak, weak woman.  But there are many times during the day (especially at work) where I don't have the time to get into a scene but I need a mental break from what I'm doing.  Enter the internet.  (Heh.)  I stuck to my resolution to avoid my usual sites but the problem was...I found others.  Non-writing-related ones.  So I was still spending time online, but doing stuff that kept my mind off my story and writing.  And that, I think, was a big obstacle to me gaining any kind of momentum.

So tonight, in my pre-writing-time allowed internet foray, I'd already hit all my other usual haunts.  The CompuServe button in my browser bar tempted me.  Time-suck! I fretted.  I'm so behind there, I'm always afraid to try to wade back in.  Mainly because it takes a long time to get caught up.  But I needed to do something while I finished my soda before I put in my whitening trays (long story, see my braces blog in a few days) so I popped on over.

Only spent 5 minutes there, and made one post, skimmed 2-3 threads.  But you know something?  Just being back in the (virtual) company of other writers did something for my productivity that almost 3 months of R&R could not do.

So I'll be lurking over there more often instead of vegging on the braces board or ICHC.   (Though I'll probably still limit my posting until I get done with the MS.) 

I'm newly inspired.  I'm gonna finish this thing.  I can feel it.

Meh.

This week, it is not going as planned.  I had starry-eyed visions of 2K nights, leading up to me finished (or nearly so) with the SFD this weekend.

Despite staying up till 1-2 am every night so far, juiced up on soda and caffeine pills, my wordcounts have been half to as little as a tenth of my projected targets.

But!  I am at least getting wordage.  Consistent wordage, writing-every-night wordage.  This is something I haven't managed to accomplish in over two months, so I consider it progress.

So I won't be done in November, but next week the majority of my other irons will be removed from the fire: Heroes and DwTS have run this-season's course, so no more TV nights breaking up my momentum.  And my external projects are mostly completed.  Now there's just the little matter of Christmas...

Big Vocabulary = Free Rice for the Hungry

This website is for real:

 

FreeRice.com

 

Take a vocab quiz and for every correct answer, rice will be donated to the hungry.

 

According to Snopes the cost of the rice is paid for by the advertising.

 

With the kind of vocabulary rampant in our writers' circles, we could feed a small country at least!

 

(Warning: major time suck!  But you learn some cool words!)

Christmas Cards

I'd love to send out Christmas cards to everyone!  If you want to make my Christmas list, send me an e-mail with your mailing address.  International requests welcome!  *w,g*

Media Blackout

Despite the fact that I'm about to make several posts, I'll be on a complete media blackout this entire week, in an attempt to get my butt  in gear and make more significant headway than I have been.  Yes, it's time for one of Jenny's masochistic manic marathons.

 

So if I don't respond to e-mails/messages, that's why.

 

The word counter is still not correct.

The Future

The Future:

It is Now

Tagged

Carol tagged me for this, and I finally surfaced to see it.  *g*  So here goes...

 

Four Things You May or May Not Know About Me

A) Four jobs I have had in my lifetime:
1. Hallmark Cards merchandiser
2. Color Guard assistant coach

3. Humane Society adoption counselor

4. Medical Physicist

B) Four movies I would watch over & over:
1. any Star Wars

2. ditto Star Trek
3. and LOTR
4. Hmmm...Indiana Jones?  Now, if you'd asked me about books...

C) 4 places I have lived:
1. Louisville, KY

2. Brandenburg, KY
3. Irvington, KY
4. Lexington, KY (see a pattern here?)

D) Four TV Shows that I watch:
1. Heroes

2. Journeyman
3. Dancing With the Stars
4. NCIS/The Unit (they're kind of a single entity for me) 

E) Four places I have been:
1. Israel
2. Tampico/C.D. Madero, Mexico

3. Seattle, WA
4. Washington, D.C.

F) Four people who e-mail me (regularly):
1. Shaylin

2. Deniz
3. Carol

4. Claire

G) Four of my favorite foods:
1. sushi (did I ever think I'd say that?)
2. homemade Crispix mix
3. anything from Red Lobster (Cheddar Bay biscuits!)

4. warm cornbread muffins with real butter

H) Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Gatlinburg
2. Scotland
3. Florida
4. The Bahamas

I) Things I am looking forward to this and next year:
1. Finishing OHN

2. Getting an agent (I hope!)

3. Hiring another physicist at work
4. Paying off a few of our big loans

 

Well, heck...is everyone tagged already?  I'll safely say Shaylin and Jon and Brooke (if you're still out there), and anyone who hasn't been tagged yet in case I'm missing someone.

 

Side note: generally, when Jenny isn't blogging Jenny isn't writing, but I have been.  Sorta.  Anyway, updates coming soon and the word counter is not accurate.  Progress at last!

And we're up!

Or I am, at least.  My pitch is the very first one on today's list of critiques over at BookEnds:

 

Pitch Critiques Round 5

 

As I told Carol, I guess I should have sent her the one I sent EE, and sent him that one!  All the detail was based on comments from EE's blog, after my nice, tight paragraph "left too many unanswered questions, i.e. how exactly did she end up in the past?"

 

Not really negative from her, though.  I could wish she'd said if the concept or the rest of the hook worked for her, besides the fact that - as a "synopsis" rather than pitch - it was too long.  Guess I should take heart from the fact that she didn't say "BORING!" like she has for a few others.

 

And it really was nice of her and generous to offer the critiques in the first place.  I really appreciate her doing it.

 

Still at the drawing board...

Group Novel and other distractions

Well, I've had some minor setbacks since regaining my momentum somewhat over last weekend.  Nothing insurmountable, just my progress hasn't been what I'd hoped.

 

I tend to focus on one major "project" at a time.  For most of the last 18 months, that project has been the book.  Others have intruded from time to time and slowed me down.  This week, the group novel and the Project Night Night event I've been planning are vying for my attention.  But the PNN thing is this evening, so that will be one thing down.  The group novel will be the other.

 

I didn't read the previous chapters of the GN until my turn, so I could take them all in at once and try to come up with a coherent continuation.  I read it over Monday night, but needed to let it simmer before I knew what to write.

 

At long last my ideas for the group novel started to "come to a boil" yesterday and this morning, and I was able to get about a page of notes and a page of narrative down today at work.  Not sure how many pages I'm supposed to write overall, I think maybe 3-4 (single spaced)?  So I should be able to finish that up tonight or tomorrow at the absolute latest.

 

Confession time: I've not been nearly as strict with myself on internet usage as I planned to be.  It is a little better, but I've still frittered away plenty of potential writing minutes on the web.  I blame the "Superheroes" app on Facebook *sheepish grin* and another "project" that is sapping a lot of my resources: braces.

 

Yep, I'll be getting braces first of next year and I've been doing a lot of research on them of late because of the insurance paperwork I have to get set up ahead of time.  I even started a blog to chronicle my progress, since you guys and my friends and family will get sick of hearing about it on my regular blogs otherwise.  I needed an outlet - catharsis, you know.  *g*

 

Anyway, back to it since I need to leave work early today.  People coming to my house tonight.

Illuminating Article

And interesting article about "communication overload" and how interruptions and multitasking can make it harder to be productive at work:

 

Office ADD

 

I think it can be applied to my tendencies during writing time, too.

Rough start

Adjusted plan: goal is 1500 words nightly, but I absolutely cannot leave the computer until I have at least 500 words down.

As I posted, I did okay the first day.  But last night I didn't manage any words at all.  It wasn't for trying: I sat at the computer for two hours at least.  And I wasn't fooling around online, either.  I was messing with my iTunes a bit, mainly to listen to some of my bagpipe music and get "in the zone" but for the most part I was just trying to focus and get back into writing mode.  At midnight I gave it up for a lost cause.

Had a productive day today: cleaned up the kitchen, cleaned and did a partial water change on my aquarium, washed several loads of laundry, and cleaned out/reorganized the garage.  (We can actually park a vehicle in there now, which will be handy when it starts freezing in earnest.)  Then we went to a bonfire with our Sunday school group.  Couldn't have asked for better weather - not too cold but with the Fall crispness in the air, still enough daylight to cook by, and not so dry anymore that having a large fire was risky.

Tonight I started slow.  Found some new Alec-y pics of Martin Henderson that got me closer to the character again.  Spent some time looking for an Elspeth, but it's hard to find pics of, say, 20-something actresses with brown hair and eyes online - unless I am the only one not aware of where to look.

Opened three or so scenes and skimmed them, trying to find a place to pick up.  Finally settled on the kidnapping scene, one of the ones I left in the middle and haven't been sure how to finish.

Tonight I squeaked by with my 500 words, and it's pretty late.  At least I get an "extra" hour of sleep in the morning.  (Though I'm not thrilled at the prospect of darkness so early in the evening from now on.)  But!  I have regained a tiny bit of momentum, and the scene is taking shape, so I should get out of the gate quicker next time.

Tomorrow I've got church, some book shopping for the Project Night Night drive, my FIL is coming up to visit, I need to write, and oh - did I mention I probably have to go into work for 3-4 hours (unpaid) to catch up on all the stuff that hit the fan Friday afternoon?  *sigh*

NaNoWriMo, after a fashion

Happy November!  It's National Novel Writing Month, and writers everywhere are geared up to crank out almost 1700 words a day in order to have written a new 50K book by thirty days from now.

Since I've decided to feed off all the energy in the air, and since I'm way behind in the wordcounts and needed a good kick in the @$$, I thought "What the heck? I'll do NaNoWriMo too."

Strictly speaking, I'm not - my words will be the completion of a mostly-written book instead of a new one (mainly, see below) - and I didn't sign up through the official website.

But I have set myself a new goal (remember when I said I wasn't going to set specific goals anymore?) to try to keep pace with the NaNoWriMo folks and average 1500-1700 words a day.  That should pretty much guarantee completion by the end of the month, even if I have to top 120K and then whittle down before everything's said and done.  It's a crazy, frenetic pace, but I have seen that when I'm really focused I can accomplish it.  I just need to stay focused.  See previous post about the internet.  *g*

So I sat down tonight prepared to flex my writing muscle and power forward through OHN.  There was just one minor problem...

Despite my best intentions to not do this until Elspeth and Alec's story was done, I took a page out of some friends' books (if you'll pardon the expression, hehe) and - since I was stuck on Book One - worked on Book Two.

Book Two is tentatively titled One Highland Wife, and will be the story of Nathaniel (Elspeth's brother) and Mairi (Alec's sister).  All the new scenes popping up in my head were between those two, so I went with it.  I also did some more brainstorming, as all I have right now are a few loosely-connected plot points, and wrote a very preliminary "hook":

Nathaniel Martin is happy to accept his sister's offer of a free vacation with her in Scotland, even if it means babysitting his young nephew while she and her husband celebrate their anniversary.  But a family outing to a ruined castle goes completely awry when Nate gets sucked through a time portal and into the late seventeenth century.

The stone that opened the portal is taken from him, and the only way to retrieve it is to buy it back, at an exorbitant price.  It takes everything he has and knows—and then some—to raise the funds.  Meanwhile, [antagonist/conflict here].

On his way to make the trade, he is moved to spend the entire amount to purchase a beautiful young widow named Mairi at auction, to save her from a life of servitude to the brutal man who sought to buy her.  Now he must seek another way to reclaim the stone and find a way back to his own time, as well as overcome [antagonist/conflict from above].  But the hardest thing will be deciding what do about the auburn-haired lass who has taken his name…and his heart.

The major scene I worked on - and cranked almost 900 words out of - will be from a chapter late in the book, entitled "Revelations of the Bedchamber".  Here's a snip:

"You know," Nate said, reclining against the headboard with Mairi snuggled contentedly against his shoulder, "we've been married [X] months, and I don't think you've told me anything about your brother."

"Andrew?" she asked.  "But I've spoken of him often enough.  There isna much to say now, as he's been deid these three years past.  Left a young wife and son, but the bairn was too wee to become chief, so the line passed to my uncle's branch."

"I remember you talking about Andrew.  I meant your other brother.  The one you don't speak of.  I don't think you've even told me his name."

Mairi hugged her arms about herself and sat up, away from him.  Her eyes became distant and she fixated on a point in the opposite corner of the room.

"Alasdair.  But most called him Alec."

And a bit later, after some explanations...

"Hold on.  I thought you said your maiden name was MacAlpin?"

She sighed.  "Aye, and so I did.  MacAlpin is the name my family took when it became illegal to claim 'MacGregor' in public, and to do so was cause for persecution…or execution."

He put up a hand, as much an attempt to bat away the thoughts that were buzzing and swarming about his head as to stall her speech.

"Wait.  You're telling me that you were—are—a MacGregor, and that your brother, Alec, married a woman named Elspeth and then disappeared under mysterious circumstances, never to be heard from again?"

"Aye."  Her eyebrows knit together, and a look of consternation and old pain crossed her delicate features.  It made him want to hold her close and sooth away the hurt, but just now he needed to come to grips with this new information.

MacGregor.  Alec MacGregor, and his wife, Elspeth.  Son of a—

All told, my nightly wordcount was up around 1400.  Not too shabby.

Costume

As promised.

 

Just the right blend of bad Halloween pun and science-nerdiness for my taste.

 

The wig is my special accomplishment.  The costume shop didn't have what I needed, so I bought a granny wig with a bun, lopped the bun off and frizzed up the rest.  It turned out pretty much how I pictured it.

 

The makeup is what I get for buying the cheap stuff.  It's coming off as soon as I get home.

 

I wish I'd had the chance to make myself an E=mc² t-shirt to wear under the lab coat, though.

 

I would have made the fact that I'm FrankEinstein a little more transparent.  *g*

Withdrawal

Much discussion is going around about withdrawing from the internet for the sake of writing focus.  I probably need to do the same, to a greater extent than I have the past two months. 

 

Sure, my blogging presence has been scanty, and I've only popped into the Forum occasionally, but my activity on Facebook is regular, and I have a "loop" of websites I'll check in all free moments (ranging from local news to LOLcats) that distract my focus and take time that, technically, I could use to write.

 

The most productive I have ever been at work was the month or so they told us our internet usage was being monitored, and we could be fired for too much.  At the time I left my Gmail open all the time, and frequently popped on to other sites to look something up whenever the mood struck.  But I was running scared, so I checked my e-mail only in the morning, at lunch, and while I was pumping (Little Boy was still nursing then).  Then I.T. told us it wasn't real, and we who are salaried wouldn't be as much under focus as long as we were keeping our workload up.  It's been over a year and I've gradually slipped back to my old ways.  But no longer.

 

Game plan: severely restrict my internet time and the sites I'm allowed to visit.  I will remove Google Reader from my Google homepage (I have over 50 subscriptions now) - after all, the posts will still be there for me to read when I'm done - and allow myself on CompuServe, Facebook, BabyCenter, etc. only once a week (Claire's idea).  I will turn off the WiFi on my laptop (Jen's idea)...at least until I hit my daily word goal.

 

I will continue to check in with the 70 Days of Sweat challenge, to keep me moving forward.  And I do have my Group Novel chapter and the November X on CompuServe, but once those are done I'll be pretty scarce.

 

One thing I can't abandon is e-mail.  Call it addiction if you want, but it's also my primary form of communication - with DH while I'm at work, with my brother in Germany, with my family hours away, with you my friends scattered all over the globe.  I will continue to check that daily, though I will attempt to limit the number of times I log in.  If you need to get ahold of me, e-mail.  If you don't have my e-mail, leave a blog comment (those get e-mailed to me).

 

Speaking of the blog, I can post from my e-mail.  That's what I'm doing now.  An active blog usually indicates progress for me, since I will post updates and small snips.  So I'll keep doing that, but try to keep the posts short.

 

Look for pics of my Halloween costume later today, and then we enter the blackout.  I think a lot of us are taking NaNoWriMo seriously; if not the 50K goal at least the spirit of writing intensely.  See you on the other side.  *g*

Confession

I have only written 2K in 2 months.  And that all in one day, a couple weeks ago.  Other than that one day, progress has been nonexistent.

This LOLcat sums it up:

I guess I'm not one of those people who is energized as they near the end; I'm paralyzed.  Most of the remaining scenes are the ones I've been skirting, dodging around for the past year or so, and don't know how to go about writing.  On top of that, I am thoroughly into the "this book sucks" phase, which I had hoped to avoid until rewrites, and the sheer weight of how much emotion and complexity and continuity I am trying to include and likely not succeeding with is bearing down on me and crushing the air out of my figurative writing lungs.

Okay, I guess I don't think the book sucks.  I know in my heart of hearts this is a good idea, a good story.  I still get excited thinking about plot details.  What I think sucks is...me.  My writing.

This goes beyond the doldrums.  I'm not just waiting for a breeze; I need someone to bring me a new sail, because mine is gone and even if the wind were to pick up, I don't know how I'd catch it.

All the momentum I built over the summer is gone.  A lot of it was stolen by the rest of my life, which came crashing down in September after I'd put it off for months to concentrate on the book.  Then I was just burnt out and fatigued and couldn't drag myself to the computer in favor of sleep.  It doesn't help that Little Boy is near impossible to put to bed anymore, and even when he finally gets quiet, it's much harder to start writing at 10 pm after a long day than it was at 8 pm or even 9.

Over these two months other short-term projects have intruded, and I told myself I'd take a few weeks off the book, then a month, then a few more weeks, and now it's become two months and the end of October - a point at which I'd hoped to be done and into rewrites preparatory to entering a few major contests - is looming tomorrow with me no farther along.

Tonight I was finally reasonably well-rested, caught up enough in life to devote an evening to writing, Little Boy went down at the early hour of 9:30, and my frustration at the delay in finishing the MS was great enough to get me Butt In Chair.

Only, once I actually connected my data stick and prepared to write (after dealing with the minor emergency of some corrupted files - hooray for backups), I froze. 

All the places I could have picked up and worked felt dead to me, the scenes wooden or lacking, to the point where I couldn't even bear to open the files and read what tripe I had written there.  I faced the ultimate fear of writers: I couldn't hear or see my characters.  It's not a disconnect from them, specifically, because I can hear them for the House Party scenes.  It's that I can't see what they want to do - what I need to write - for the MS.

...There's this thing I do, a state I get myself into.  I call it "variable overload".  My nature is to hold in my head all the aspects of a situation, spread out mentally so I can analyze, utilize, compartmentalize, optimize.  It makes me a good problem solver.  I use it for anything from finding the way to pack the most objects into a space (such as organizing closets or loading kilns) to finding the most efficient order/route to run errands.  The problem arises when there are too many variables.  My brain goes into this endless loop of "but what about this? and this? and this?" and I end up having a mini-meltdown, stressed out and unable to choose any path.  Usually at that point DH has to step in and make the decision for me, and even though I want to protest ("but have you considered...?!") I go meekly along for the sake of doing something, anything.

Right now I'm in variable overload with the book.  My brain is a jumble of story arcs, relationship progression, character motivation, settings, dialect, historical details, style and craft...all screaming for my attention, pressing me to work them seamlessly into each scene.

Objectively, I know they don't all have to be in place in the SFD.  It's called that for a reason, after all, and that inherent ability to analyze will help me in rewrites once I can see the Big Picture.  But I can't get to the Big Picture because I'm frozen, uncertain, stressed out by my inadequacies and the sheer enormity of what it takes to write an outstanding book.

And DH can't make these decisions for me.

Now is the time when perfectionism is a curse.

But I'll work through it, and blogging this is the first step.  This is not a plea for pats on the back, hand-holding, and "there-there"s.  I just felt I needed to come clean about the fact that, for all that I've been maintaining a facade of progress and enthusiasm, I really haven't done much of anything.  And to tell the truth, I do feel better and more motivated for getting it out in the open.

*deep breath*

Tomorrow is a new day, and the day after that is a new month.  NaNoWriMo, in fact, and though I'm not taking that particular challenge hopefully there will be a charge in the air - the collective subconscious of so many writers in the country who are energized and focused.   I think I can tap into that, and overcome this last and greatest hurdle.  By the time a new year rolls around, I'll be where I want to be.

Rough Cut Covers

A very nice lady I met through my BabyCenter.com "birth club" (March 2006 Babies) who happens to be a dab hand with PhotoShop made these cover designs for me.  They're not what a publisher would put out, by any means (though I've seen worse on some e-pubbed books) but I think they have a good feel for what I'm going for in a cover.  I.e. no shirtless kilted man, no bodice-ripping, no pictures of people who look nothing like my characters.  And they are WAY better than I could ever come up with.  Mad props to her for doing them.

If I ever self-pub (if I ever get this darned thing finished, more on that in a later post) I might use one of these or something very like it.

What do you guys think?

Just in time for Hallowe'en

And marginally related to my own book, a fun and interesting article from Slate on

 

Ghosting Scotland

 

Even if you don't believe - I like the author's self-description of "charitably dubious" -  there's some fascinating history and descriptions of several castles.

Monday

I'll be at one of our satellite facilities all day Monday, so likely no internet presence for me (even with a roaring house party going) until tomorrow afternoon/evening.  And tomorrow's TV night.  I'll see what I can do.

At least I know I'll have my evenings free from baseball, as the Sox completed their sweep of the World Series tonight.  DH is very excited.  *g*

My Church

From MSN.com's front page (!) this morning:

This article

That's my church.

Google Meme!

Deniz didn't really tag me for this, but I thought it would be fun anyway.  *g*

 

Five Google searches that return my blog as the first hit:

 

1. lonsdaleite wormhole

2. elspeth time travel

3. jenny elspeth alec (is that cheating?)

4. sailor's blessing doldrums (I get a lot of traffic from searches like this, for some reason.  Nina posted the blessing in the comments.)

5. scottish time-travel romance kilchurn

 

Close, but no cigar:

kilchurn breadalbane - I'm the second hit, right after a Clan Campbell society!

medical physicist romance novelist - also the second hit, right below Deborah Hale (see below)

alec glencoe massacre - again, second...after EE's discussion of my query!

 

I'm finding a pattern...a lot of the hits I'm getting are to one specific post - this one.  I guess it has all the really unique combinations.  It's loooong, too.  *g*

 

Interestingly enough, searching for "Alec and Elspeth" pulls up hits to another book, Remembering Laughter by Wallace Stegner, several posts to this blog, and quite a few of my CompuServe posts.  (I have been formerly immune to the CompuServe-Google link as I don't post under my full name and even that is so commonplace that I am buried in the pile.)

 

The MCs' names plus a story location (i.e. "alec elspeth glenstrae" or " alec elspeth glencoe") will almost always get me as first hit.

 

Kind of funny: there is an Elspeth Martin who did math and physics at Glasgow University in the early 90's *cue Twilight Zone music*

 

And apparently there is an author of Historical Romance named Deborah Hale who is married to a medical physicist.  (I've requested her most recent book through PaperBack Swap...she writes Regency, my other preferred subgenre.)

 

The search "compuserve forumites" did not pull my blog up on the first page, much less the first hit.  That honor belongs to Claire, hehe.

 

Another string that I got first hit on, but not to the blog, was "kilchurn glenstrae glencoe", which linked to the House Party "I" hosted on behalf of Alec and Elspeth over the summer.

 

Quite a few of the strings I tried pulled up my CompuServe posts.  But then, if you're doing these searches, you likely know me anyway, because they are pretty random combinations.

 

Okay, now that's my Friday-afternoon-blow-off and I have to get back to work if I'm going to see my husband and son tonight.

 

P.S.  Close game last night, but the Sox prevailed.  I may actually get to write tonight and then the Series resumes in Denver tomorrow and Sunday...

Pitch Critiques

Jessica over at the BookEnds Agency blog is offering "Perfecting Your Pitch" critiques.  Just leave your one-sentence or one-paragraph pitch in the comments, and she'll choose as many as she can to critique on the blog.

 

Because I can't help myself, and figuring out this whole query thing is a long-running obsession with me, I spent all my writing time this morning working up a new version and posting it.

 

It may look like 3 paragraphs, but if you count closely you'll note it's only 5 sentences long.  *g*  So we'll see if it gets picked and what she has to say.

 

...

 

Personal status update: Sven is angry with me, but I married into Red Sox Nation and watching the first game of the World Series with DH last night pre-empted any writing I would have gotten done, just like the ALCS pre-empted it last week.  I hope the Sox take this thing in 4, because I don't think I'll be very productive at home until it's over, and work is too busy right now to sneak in much writing time here.

Taking the Plunge

I succumbed to peer pressure *g* and entered the brand-spanking-new version (as in, it came to me last night in bed as I was drifting to sleep) of my opening to Nathan Bransford's LIFPC.

 

Precie entered, I know.  And I saw Jen's openings up there, too as I skimmed through the numerous entries .  So good luck to all!

 

And don't forget to give me costume ideas in the post below...

I need ideas.

Halloween falls on a weekday again this year, and we are allowed - practically encouraged - to dress up at work.  Fun times.

I need ideas of cool/creative costumes I could put together with minimal effort/expense.  Last year I went as Puss in Boots and had a pretty good time of it.  All I had to buy was the mask and cape.

I wanted to do a seventeenth-century getup this year, but finding or making the skirts and shift and bodice was just too difficult and time-consuming, even if I cheated and used department-store plaid flannel for the arisaid.

So...suggestions?

Project Night Night

Sweating with Sven is off to a slow start.  Guess I'm taking some of my "free" days of the challenge right out of the gate.  *sheepish grin*

Besides work kicking me in the @$$ like never before (and I thought it was bad enough previously!) I've been hard at work on a very worthy cause: I'm organizing a donation drive within my local playgroup - we're fairly large, almost 90 families - for Project Night Night.

PNN is a national program based in California that collects stuffed animals, books, and blankets and bundles them into tote bags to be donated to homeless shelters and given to kids that come through there.  They end up with warmth and comfort (in the form of blankies and lovies) and a book that encourages reading.

I'm very excited because lots of people in our group have "extra" stuffed animals and books, and more are pitching in to buy the blankies.  I think we'll have enough to split between the Salvation Army shelter for women and families and the Bluegrass Domestic Violence Program shelter.  Then PNN will step in and continue to send them packages to meet their further needs, though we are welcome to continue to contribute.

But yeah, between that, work, and an indefinable exhaustion and general funk this week, it's been hard going.  Things are looking up, though.

Be the Hammer

I almost missed it, but check out Alec - I mean, Martin (looking an awful lot like Alec) in the new Cadillac commercial.

Thanks to DH for pointing that out to me the other night.

...Of course, it has to be Martin.  Alec can't drive.  He's somewhat afraid of (call it "morbidly fascinated with") automobiles.  *g,w*

Sweating with Sven...Again

Seventy Days of Sweat, Round 2

 

Today is the kickoff and I'm back to story wordage, even though I'm not done with my bios and timelines.  I'll keep working on those on the side.  I need between 750-1000 words a day to stay on top.  Since tonight is TV night with DH, I planned to get those words at work.

 

Ha.  After a three-day weekend?  No dice.  Too much to catch up on, AND Little Boy gets his flu shot this afternoon, AND one of the Four Mewses has an appointment for yearly vaccinations and we're taking one of the dogs along for his cortisone shot.  Many needle sticks in store today.  And THEN I need to get the grass seed down on all the huge dead patches of our yard before the scarce and blessed rain tomorrow. 

 

Total words managed this morning: about 170.  Hey, at least it's something.

 

Kicking off with a deficit is a less-than-auspicious beginning, but I'm confident I can make it up.

 

Watch for a challenge wordcounter, so I can see how many new words I write even as I begin to cut and revise.

 

A shout out to my fellow Forumites and Sweat participants, Precie and Deniz (you did sign up for round 2, right?), and then it's back into the fray for me.

 

Oh, and a friend from my BabyCenter birthclub has worked up some awesome cover drafts for me, to use in case I do enter the Amazon contest.  I'll try to get those up soon.

Status update

I took the day off work today, paying myself back for working 12 hours - unpaid - on Saturday and until midnight Wednesday night.  We painted the spare bedroom a really nice denim blue during Little Boy's nap (he slept long, thankfully).  That room is going to be his "big boy" room when he moves out of his crib, and we're keeping the tiny nursery as, well, a nursery for when the next one comes along.  (At this point, we're not planning on starting that process until next year sometime.)

I'm back to my nightly B-I-C routine, warming up for the next round of Sven starting Monday.  I'm almost done with Alec's bio.  I've enjoyed doing it, and it prompted a few realizations about his motivation at a several key points that will help me with some of the remaining scenes.  Elspeth's up next, then my historical timeline, and hopefully by Monday I'll be back to story wordage and steaming on for the end.

Oh, and a published author in my subgenre has offered to read my MS when I'm done with it.  Woohoo!

What I've been up to

Still not a huge blogging presence from me, but work continues behind the scenes...

 

Right now I'm in a researching/planning phase before I hit the last major unwritten scenes (Glencoe, Elspeth's kidnapping, etc.).  I'm currently in the middle of a character bio for Alec, getting all my thoughts and decisions on him - family background, beliefs and tastes, what he thinks of Elspeth, and his reaction to present day when he gets here - down.  Then I'll do one for Elspeth.  I've done these for other minor characters, but let the MCs grow as I went.  Now I want to get it all down so that in rewrites I can smooth it over and make sure the characters are consistent and grow throughout the story.

 

I'm also going to hit the books hard for more historical detail as I come into the really historical scenes, namely Glencoe.  I have a "character/story events" timeline but I'm going to write out a historical events timeline for the 9 months Elspeth spends in 1691-92 so I can get the correct political nuances in and make references to the right characters and happenings.

 

Then it's back to the nitty-gritty and finishing up the SFD.  The static word counter over there is starting to bug me.  *g*

 

I've signed up for the "Seventy Days of Sweat: Round 2" to begin a week from today and run through January (allowing down time for the holidays) and my stated goal is to be done with the first draft and into rewrites by the end of the challenge.

Review: A Highlander for Christmas

A Highlander for Christmas
by Sandy Blair

Sandy Blair is the author of the "___ in a Kilt" ( Man in a Kilt, Rogue in a Kilt, Thief in a Kilt) Scottish time-travel/historical romance novels.  This is her newest.  It's a bit of a departure in that her first book (Man) was a STT back to medieval times.  The other two (Rogue, Thief) were set in the same medieval time period with some overlapping characters and some paranormal elements but no time-travel.  This new book is another time-travel and a standalone, and has the male MC (Sir Cameron MacLeod) as an eighteenth-century Jacobite ensorcelled into a puzzle box by his mother near Christmas of 1745 - to protect him from the coming battle - and released into the 21-st century when an antiques dealer opens it.

I was in B&N with a $25 gift card from my brother (thanks Jon!) - a belated birthday present.  I saw this and since I had found her previous books decent and because it had the guy coming forward (wanted to get her take on it) and because the female MC's name was Claire MacGregor (heh) I picked it up.

My verdict: eh.  Like her other books, tolerable, but not outstanding.  She's no Diana.  To be fair, I've read much worse in the STTR niche (Janet Chapman's books come to mind) but I've also read better.  And though I know the proof will be in the pudding, it also made me think "If this can get published, mine sure as heck ought to be!"  I wasn't keen on the way she wrote his dialect, I wasn't very emotionally involved with the characters (a sure sign is when I start skimming the sex scenes) and I thought Cam's reactions and analogies to things in the modern world weren't true to the culture of his time and felt forced for laughs or nervous tension.  I just kept thinking to myself that Alec would go about things a little more intelligently.

So sure, pick it up and read it if you're looking for a decent STTR to hold you over until Book 7 (and OHN, of course! *g*).  But if it tells you anything, as soon as I finished it I listed it on my PaperBackSwap.com account.

*snort*

Y'all, seriously, I checked my "sitemeter" stats and someone actually found this blog by Googling "what do medical physicists do?"

 

Ahahaha.

 

I'm assuming it hit on my then-most-recent post, which was all the (bad) physics jokes.

 

Boy, did they not get exactly the info they were looking for.

 

Though they might have gotten a little unwanted insight into the mind of one particularly cheesy medical-physicist-cum-aspiring-romance-novelist...

 

Oh, and an actual writing update: 1700 words today and going strong, baby!  I am out of the rut!

There's more than one way...

From Romancing the Blog, an encouraging and timely post:

 

50 Ways to Meet Your Lovers

Jokes! And a contest!

One of the recent posts on Smart Bitches Trashy Books had me snorting liquid out my nose, or would have if I'd been drinking anything at the time.  Check it out:

 

Dirty Quantum Mechanics Jokes Done Right

 

I had to add my two cents in the comments, to the effect of a list of how physicists "do it":

 

Physicists do it a quantum at a time.
Physicists do it at the speed of light.
Cosmologists do it in the first three minutes.
Mathematical physicists understand the theory of how to do it, but have difficulty obtaining practical results.
Quantum physicists can either know how fast they do it, or where they do it, but not both.
Particle physicists do it energetically.
Particle physicists to it with charm.
Aerodynamicists do it in drag.
Astrophysicists do it with a Big Bang.
Astronomers do it all night.
Astronomers do it in clusters.
Astronomers do it on mountain tops.
Astronomers do it with white dwarfs and red giants.

 

(My favorites are the mathematical and quantum physics ones.) 

I added my own:
Medical physicists do it in fractions.
Medical physicists do it on the table.
Medical physicists do it with doctors, nurses, therapists, dosimetrists…

Ooh, more:

Medical physicists do it with Quality Assurance. 
Medical physicists do it with modulated intensity. 
Medical physicists do it theraputically.

Okay, enough.  Sorry.  Can you tell I'm working late and procrastinating?  *w*

So, the contest part!

 

Elspeth has a tattoo.  I haven't decided what it is yet - that's where the contest comes in.  She's a physicist, like me, so I was looking for some geektastically awesome science/physics-related tattoo.  Nothing too huge or elaborate.

 

Post or e-mail your ideas or pictures to me, and the winner gets their design featured in the book, a nod in my acknowledgements page, and a walk-on role for themselves.  Or...something like that.  *g*

Writer MIA...again

My internet presence will continue to be spotty over the next few weeks/months.  A lot will depend on how much I get done (book-wise and IRL) and how quickly I do so.  I also really need to restrict my internet time, since blog-hopping and board-surfing consume a lot of what could be writing time. 

 

Of course, I'll continue to be reachable via e-mail and I'll surface for the October X over on Compuserve at the very least.  But I'm going to try to focus on being more efficient/productive at work and at home and on the book.  Hunkering down in my cave, if you will.  I'd like to be done by the end of October (since it's now looking like September was a complete wash) but it's hard to say.  If I really do have 40K more to write, that could take much longer.  By the end of the year at the very latest.  So much for the Golden Heart, but there's always next year.  *g*

 

TV night last night was fun.  Heroes was good (though I admit my penchant for spoilers cut down on some of the suspense for me) and we just almost watched the Journeyman pilot again (saw it twice OnDemand already).  Also caught the premier of "Chuck" which is a fun, nerdy kind of spy-comedy-adventure.  They had me on the reference to Zork.  *g*  It didn't make the DVR list, but if we're home in time we'll definitely have it on while we're waiting for Heroes.

 

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's back to work I go...

Dream a little dream...or two

Since this week at work is kicking my @$$ (did I mention the other physicist has been gone all week so I'm pulling double-duty, and then everything kind of hit the fan?) I haven't made much progress writing, though I have been researching like crazy and slowly bringing a few scenes to boil in the back of my mind.

 

Maybe as a testament to my exhaustion, for the past two nights I've had weird dreams.  And they both relate back to the book in some way.

 

Wednesday night I dreamt that I (and DH, too, at some point) was traveling through time.  More like in Journeyman than my book, because it was spontaneous and I went back and forth several times.  It was about 100-150 years or so into the past, and somewhere here in the States, some big city near hills or mountains.  I distinctly remember having my digital camera with me on the last trip, and I was glad because I wanted to take pics to prove everything.  Only the battery was dying, and I only got a couple shots.  Does that mean anything?

 

(For the record, Elspeth's camera and cell phone are zapped by an EMP-type effect while traveling through hyperspace.  So they're nonfunctional when she arrives in 1691.)

 

Last night's was a bit more exciting because it involved my book being published and selling (relatively) well.  It was either e-pubbed with print option or self-published, but it was doing well enough to get picked up by a big house.

 

Oh, I remember now, I had self-published because I said to DH (in the dream) how the first print run of something like 1600 copies had sold out (don't know how there were "print runs" on a POD book, but hey - it was a dream) and I'd since sold another 1600 copies or so, for a total of more than 3200 copies sold on a self-published book which is a pretty big deal.  I had hired someone to design the cover for me so it looked nice, and then I guess it got good word-of-mouth.

 

And then a big publisher picked it up and it earned out its advance and went into a second print run with them, too.

 

And then my blasted alarm clock went off.  *sigh*

 

Just thought I'd get that down.  I felt the need to post something, and I had about 5 glasses of caffienated soda with my sushi at lunch (mmmm...) so I am temporarily energized to type and *gasp!* I don't have anything to do at the mom-

 

Oh, blast.  Here when I thought I was caught up with work for the week, another load just got dumped.  I'll be so glad when he gets back next week.  Hi ho, hi ho...

That way lies madness

I cannot believe it is almost 5 am and I have been up all night working and reworking my query.  It started off as just wanting to have a good blurb for the sidebar, and then I was in the groove, but the thing just kept getting longer instead of more concise, and then...it was 5 in the morning and I'm facing work on only 3 hours sleep (if I'm lucky) after two back-to-back 12 hour days and 3 more left in the week.

All for a book I may have 40K left to write on, and which I certainly won't be querying until next year in any case.

*sigh*  Why do I do this to myself?

I love it when a plan comes together...

Based on my (very rudimentary) early research into surrounding clans, I had written in Alec's intended betrothed (no, that's not a redundancy) as one Janet Cameron, youngest daughter of Sir Ewan Cameron of Lochiel, and in her mid-late teens at the time of my story.  Most of this I pulled out of thin air - there was a later, famous Janet "Jenny" Cameron who (reportedly) led a branch of the Camerons in the '45 and so the name stuck with me.  (Diana mentions her in Dragonfly, pg. 633 of the paperback.)  The age was for convenience; younger than Elspeth, basically, and illustrating how early women were betrothed back then.

Tonight, being too restless to actually write, I thought I would look up Sir Ewan Cameron's children to see if I could swing that.

Check this out.

Ahaha!  No birth year given, but if you click the link for her father Sir Ewan's listing you'll see she was the youngest of his daughters.  And the youngest child, the later Lochiel himself, is listed in one of my sources (Prebble's Glencoe: Story of the Massacre, I think) as being in his teens at the time.  So that would make her probably not much older.

And I love how it says the contract for her marriage was signed in March 1696, etc.  So maybe, if she were supposed to marry someone else in 1692 but they got themselves outlawed/condemned before the contract was formalized, and so that was dissolved and it took a little bit to arrange another marriage for her to Grant of Glenmoriston...

Sometimes stuff falls into place so neatly it kind of weirds me out.  *g*

OTOH

While reviewing my swelling spreadsheet in order to organize my most recent fragments into some kind of chronology, I was struck by the number of significant bits I have yet to even think about/visualize, much less write.

I'm nowhere near done.  *headdesk*

I think this thing is going to top 120-125K before all is said and done on the SFD.  It will eventually get pared down to a nice, tight, less-than-100K MS but until then it means I'm not "almost" done or 4/5ths done, it's more like back to 2/3rds done and where I was two months ago.

So much for September.  October?  Eh, a girl can dream.

Don't Kill the Dog

Wow, I'm making up for my days off by giving you enough posts for all of them.

 

Anyway, Diana Peterfreund had a very interesting blog post today:  Don't Kill the Dog

 

The comment string is where it gets most interesting.  Seems most people genuinely don't like the death of animals in books, and several mentioned the death of a child as even worse.

 

The two comments I left are telling.  'Cause, well, there's a dead dog and a dead mother and child in my book.

 

From One Highland Night (c) 2007

 

The keening wail of a child brought his head back around, and his eyes found young Geordie huddled on the ground next to the body of a dog, its black and white fur stained red with blood.

"Oh, no…" Her voice was quiet behind him, full of sympathy.

"Geordie, lad," he said. "What has happened here?"

"They…they shot him!" Geordie wailed between sobs. "They shot Aodhair!"

"Who?"

"The…Campbell…bastards!"

He swore violently. The lad continued to greet, and he gripped his shoulders. "Are they still here, in the glen? Are they in the village? Tell me, lad, and quickly!" His voice was harsher than he meant, but he had to know. A hiss of indrawn breath behind him indicated the lass's disapproval.

"N-nae…I dinna think so." The boy looked down, stroking the top of the still head between the ears. "He was a good dog, was Aodhair. Why did they have to shoot him?"

He gentled his voice, despite the tension thrumming in his veins. "Because they are Campbells, and bastards as ye said, aye? I ken it doesna make it easier to bear, but ye must listen—listen to me now, lad. It isna safe here. There are Campbells to manage, and we need all the men we have back in Glenstrae to protect it, should they come again."

and

Frantically, she put her ear to the boy's chest, listened for a heartbeat, a gasp of breath. There was none.

"Oh no, no…"

A sound from the bed, a rustle as the woman turned to look at her. Bloodshot eyes found her own and bored into her with feverish intensity. She couldn't hide the truth from her face; her own shock was too new and too raw.

The woman turned her head away. She might have been crying, save Elspeth knew she was too dehydrated for tears. Still, the frail body shook quietly for a few moments, clutching the even smaller body of her son.

God, what do you say to someone who's just lost a child?

All she could think to do was place a comforting hand on the woman's and bow her head, let her have her grief. At length the bony shoulders stilled. Elspeth looked to the woman's face and was startled to see a wild, distant look in her eyes.

"Do you…do you want some water?" she asked, with some alarm.

Eyes now closed, the woman's head shook from side to side.

"We'll take you with us…back to Glenstrae. You can recover there."

The head shook more violently. The low, ragged voice, forced through a throat parched and raw, issued once more from cracked lips.

"[There is naught more for me here, naught for me to live for, now.]"

The woman spoke to her, directly, and this time she managed to make out some of it. A phrase, an explanation—nothing to live for.

No husband, no son. Had she loved her husband? Had the son been the only thing that bound her to this life, made her keep living after he was gone? Dying of a broken heart had always seemed so tragically romantic but now, as she faced the reality of it, she realized it was merely tragic.

So...am I in for it now?  Tragic, historic, worldbuilding detail or senseless deaths that will get me flamed by readers?

Journeyman

This is the new fall show I've been most excited about, and blogged about once before.  Lucky us, DH and I got to initiate our "Monday TV Night" a week early last night and watch the pilot ahead of time.

 

Our verdict: KEEPER!  We've already set up the "series record" on our DVR.

 

Kevin McKidd - previously seen as Lucius Vorenus on HBO's Rome, which DH and I loved - plays Dan Vasser, a San Fransisco reporter who suddenly begins travelling through time.  (And does an admirable job hiding his very Scottish natural accent while doing so, hehe.)

 

[Some spoilers ahead.] 

 

Dan's married, though the relationship is revealed to have had some rough patches, and they have a young son.  Over the course of the episode we learn that his present wife Katie was once the girlfriend of Dan's older brother Jack, and Dan himself was engaged to a lawyer named Livia.  But Livia died in a mysterious plane crash 9(?) years ago.

 

The time travelling is spontaneous, and at first Dan doesn't know what's going on.  It messes with both his home life and his job.  After his first few disappearances, some for as long as a couple days, Dan arrives home to find Katie has staged an "intervention" with his friends and coworkers.

 

When Dan travels, he keeps running into the same man - Neil Gaines - at different points, at first saving him from committing suicide.  As Dan continues to track Neil and alter further events in his life, he also runs into Livia, his former True Love.  There's a great twist involving her that has me screaming for more episodes.  And the way Dan finally convinces Katie that he's really time travelling and not crazy or on drugs was inspired.  Classic.

 

Seems I was on my mark with my initial reaction to the premise.  This was very Quantum Leap as far as the "higher force" directing him places to change lives/history, but without the overly cheesy "future" set up and the time machine.  It seems this show is set firmly in the present, picking up in late 2007 (I assume, since Dan has an iPhone - I have to say, the juxtaposition in 1987 of him wearing his Bluetooth headset and they guy with the MASSIVE cell phone was hilarious).  The elements of TTW are there with the sudden disappearances and how they affect his present-day.

 

After just the pilot, this has already moved up into my list of favorite shows, right behind Heroes.  How convenient (and brilliant) to slot it immediately after on the TV schedule.  Whether or not it targets the entire percieved "demo" of Heroes, you have to know how many Star Trek/Quantum Leap/etc. ('cause that's a big crossover) fans make up a large part of that market and will be drawn to this show.

 

US readers with digital cable should be able to find the pilot On Demand in the "Free Spot" under "NBC Fall Preview" through Sunday, September 23.  (It airs next Monday, the 24th.)  Thanks to Brooke for that tip-off.  Those with PCs or TiVo can download it via Amazon's Unbox through the same time window  HERE.

 

And this is, of course, tangentially related to my writing, since time-travel is involved.  Heehee.

The Bronze Horseman

The Bronze Horseman

by Paullina Simons

 

Rhonddalyn has been going on about this book on the Forum since at least March, and I finally got around to checking it out and reading it.  Now I see what the fuss was about.

 

My review:

 

TBH is set in WWII Russia, mainly Leningrad.  On the day Germany invades Russia, we meet Tatiana, who then meets Alexander, an officer in the Red Army.  The book is their love story, and how their relationship develops through the horrors of war (especially the blockade of Leningrad, and the starvation and deaths that followed) and despite Tatiana's family and Alexander's pretense of a relationship with her older sister Dasha.  Things are further complicated by Alexander's past and the selfish, treacherous Dmitri, who is out to use his leverage on Alexander to get whatever he wants - at first Tatiana, later...well, that's a bit of a spoiler.

 

Basically, it's all about war and how it affects love and family.  Lots of tangled threads.  Claire, you really ought to read it.  *w*

 

I won't elaborate on the plot points at length.  This is a Big Book, not by any means "light reading."  Suffice it to say that theirs is one of those great epic, tragic loves.  As you move towards the book's inevitable conclusion, the depth of their love is almost overwhelming.  I got misty-eyed a few times, and then sat in my office at work and had a good cry when I finished it.  It was like The Time-Traveller's Wife in that respect for me.

 

So, definitely recommended.

 

And that's why I got a bit of scene all-unplanned yesterday.  As I said in my last post, I don't often method write but this book and (SPOILER) Alexander and Tatiana's separation(s) hit close enough to the emotions I want people to feel when Alec and Elspeth face separation that I let it spill over.  This is the kind of bar I've set myself as far as emotional impact.  Can I clear it?  Sometimes I wonder.  It remains to be seen.

 

I was still reeling from the end of the book (SPOILER for all that Alexander's fate was somewhat open-ended, Tatiana at least thinks him dead) when I happily discovered via the discussion on Compuserve that there are TWO more sequels.  Tatiana & Alexander and The Summer Garden .  Epic love, indeed.  The third book seems to be hard to find, but I was very pleased to find all three available in hardback through Zooba.com (a great program, regardless) for only $9.95.  Bonus.

...and we're back!

I had a very relaxing weekend.  Caught up on sleep, spent time with family and friends, and did some stuff around the house.  Oh, and read (more on that later).

 

Friday night during bunco, the ladies at my table started asking me about the book.  Much hilarity ensued when I let slip that one of my scenes is currently titled "blue balls".  Ahaha.  These are mostly woman from my Sunday school class, mind.  But I did get a few of them to admit they read romance, and the way a few others were asking, I think they do (or want to) but aren't ready to admit it in public yet.  Heh.

 

Saturday I finally got the landscaping around my water garden under control, did my fall transplanting, and took down, fixed, and rebuilt the waterfall that flows into the pond.  Then we went out for a picnic with our Sunday school class (saw a lot of them this weekend!), and afterwards to our friends' house to watch the game.  Which really meant the women sat in the kitchen or playroom and chatted while the guys watched.  Fine with me; I'm not that into football.  But Kentucky won!  Who would've thought?

 

Sunday was church, and then DH's dad came up to spend the afternoon.  We've really got to be careful what we say around grandparents now.  Little Boy (he's not a baby anymore *sniff*) really enjoyed the MagnaDoodle at our friends' the previous day.  DH mentioned to me in the presence of his dad that we ought to think about getting LB one sometime soon, so he can practice writing with no mess.  Guess what FIL insisted on buying while we were out?  Yup.

 

Yesterday was *insanely* busy at work.  Oh, and I was finishing up The Bronze Horseman (look for a post on that shortly).  Even so, I managed to get about 800 words down in between things.  I was so emotionally caught up in TBH that I rode that wave of emotion into thinking how Elspeth would feel when she returns, something I hadn't let myself work on yet.  It's about as close to "method writing" as I get - sometimes strong emotions elicited in me from a book or movie or situation spill over into corresponding areas of my book.

 

This is a snip from just the bare bones of a scene, but it helped for me to get it down:

History books called to her, tormented her. They could ease her burden somewhat, tell her she had done the right thing, that he had lived a full and happy life...or they could tell her the opposite. Knowing would make it final. But not knowing was driving her insane.

Ultimately she looked, but she kept herself from looking too closely, still afraid of what she would see. She skimmed pages, letting names jump out at her, only half-reading the sections that followed. [...]

A few heart-stopping times, her eyes found the name Alasdair MacGregor--alternately Alistair or Alexander and McGregor, McGrigor, or MacGriogar--and she forced herself to read on. But it was always the story of his [great]grandfather, his namesake, and the betrayal by the Colquhouns and Campbells after the Battle of Glen Fruin. So she took a breath and kept reading.

Beyond that, little to nothing of the Glenstrae branch, save that chiefship of Clan Gregor had shifted to Glengyle in the early eighteenth century. After Andrew, perhaps? She hoped; despite not knowing him well, she genuinely liked Alec's brother. But what of the second son? History, it seemed, did not remember Alasdair Colin MacGregor of Glenstrae.

But she did.

The mysterious case of the missing writer

I probably won't have much of an online presence (here or at Compuserve) for the rest of the week.  I've got stuff going on at work and at home that's taking most of my attention.  Also, the big push through August and the first of this month got me a little closer to the edge of burnout.  So I'm taking it easy. 

 

As I said in my previous post, I'm still working and I feel generally good about the book.  But the pressure's off for the rest of this week, and I'm getting caught up on some stuff, hosting a bunco party tomorrow night (which requires massive amounts of housework tonight, hehe) and working outside this weekend now that the weather's pretty.

 

Sven will be disappointed in me, but I don't see myself finishing 20K in 7 days, nor do I want to try.  I haven't given up on the end of the month, though.  Ideally after this weekend I'll be refreshed and the momentum will pick up.

 

Do e-mail me if something fun or interesting comes up, though!  (I may reduce my internet time, but I never stop checking e-mail.  That's asking too much.  *g*)

Transcendence

A funny thing happened to me on the way to the September marathon.

 

At some point in the past week, I've stopped caring so much about wordcounts (daily or otherwise), targets, and deadlines.  I've been hacking with abandon, cutting huge chunks of scenes, rewriting extant bits before my "scheduled" rewrites timeframe, perfectly content with hours of work and only 300-500 words to show for it, and blissfully blowing off every goal I've set for myself.

 

Which is not to say I've given up or don't care about the book or my goals, no no.  And it's not to say I'm not making progress; I am! 

 

I just feel...transcendent, almost.  At peace.  Like I'm floating along.  The book has taken over.  I don't have to flog myself with deadlines to make sure I keep moving forward on it.  It's moving under its own power now, slowly but surely, and I know that if I just go along for the ride I'll get to the end.  And it won't take killing myself to do so.

 

I have this mental image of a roller coaster.  Up till now, I've had to do everything for myself: I made myself get up and leave for the amusement park, I bought my ticket, I walked to the ride, I waited in line, slowly moving forward - but under my own power.  Now I'm seated and strapped in, and the thing is moving, taking me with it.  Clickety-clack, slowly forward and up, inch by inch along the track toward the top of the ride.  The pace is slower than I might like, right now.  But some part of me knows that eventually, inexorably, I will reach the top of that hill and gravity will take over and suddenly I'll be flying down the other side.

 

Which is probably terribly cheesy, and I know I'm rambling now.  Don't mind me.  *g*

 

I haven't been blogging as much, or checking in at the forum, but I'm still here.  I'm writing every day - a lot or a little, determined by the story.  I'm making progress.  And somehow, I'm managing to get more sleep and actually accomplish some housework in the deal.

 

This is going to be an interesting ride.

September Marathon, Day 5

I stayed up a bit later than I meant to last night.  Saw myself getting close to that magic 80K mark (yet again) and tried to push through and hit it.  Along about 2 am I decided that wasn't happening and went to bed.

 

Still managed about 900 words, though.  And chapter 8 is done for now, in SFD format.

 

Marathon Goal(s) Met?  Heck no.  Obviously nowhere near 90K - though I'd be around 85K if I hadn't cut all that stuff last week.  I'm not even quite done with Act I yet, though I have made significant progress.

 

But I'm strangely okay with it all.

September Marathon, Day 4

I had made grand writing plans for today: be a heathen and skip church to do some extra work (just this week - it's the marathon after all).  But apparently God had other ideas, because I had forgotten it was both a) our turn to bring breakfast for Sunday school, and 2) our week to volunteer in the nursery.

And then we had a playgroup event this afternoon with our son.  Much fun and massive quantities of fried chicken and other picnic foods were had by all.  But no writing.

So I didn't get anything more than my usual writing time.  And in all that I only got about 500 words.  BUT I made progress.  I've been combining and rearranging chunks and I now have the overall general shape and flow of Act I, and everything has been placed into a chapter.  There will be 11 total.  Chapter 7 is done (if I haven't mentioned that yet) and 8 and 9 are largely in place, just need some filling and smoothing.  I know what goes in 10 and 11, and need only to write a few scenes for them.

So my (revised) marathon goal - to get Act I whipped into shape - is partially achieved.  We'll see what I can do at work tomorrow and then tomorrow night.  I'm going in to work late on Tuesday (have to stay late, too, but them's the breaks) so I can stay up tomorrow night and work later than usual, since I'll have the chance to sleep in a bit on Tuesday.  We'll see how far I get, but though I am definitely keeping pressure on myself to keep moving forward, I'm relaxing a little bit with my draconian word count expectations, etc.

Oh!  And I got all my laundry done!  (I've been putting it off for about two weeks, so that's big.  Heehee.)

In her talk yesterday, J.R. Ward said something that made me feel better.  Two things, actually.  The first was that the hardest time she ever had writing was when she was working; holding a full-time job left her hardly any time to write, and she doesn't have kids.  She only managed about 2 hours a day.  So with my 50-55 hours a week and 18-month-old, the fact that I usually manage about 3-4 hours makes me feel pretty darn good.  (Even if I sometimes expect too much of myself - see above.  And even though I don't do anything around the house any more.  And even though I'm likely to c-r-a-s-h next month, or whenever I get this darn draft done and give myself a break.)

She also said she didn't write at all in law school, because the workload was just too high.  So props to you, Jen.  *w*

The second thing she said was in drafting, the important thing was to get the bones of the story down and worry about the details like sensory descriptions and exact clothing and all that stuff later.  Which is kind of what I've been doing lately, and my plan for rewrites was in fact to go through each scene and add that stuff intentionally.  So I feel a little justified. I mean, I totally respect and look up to those people (and I know more than a few) who can work that all in on a first pass - kudos!  But I don't feel like such a hack for not having it in all my scenes yet.  *g*

September Marathon, Day 3

Don't check your calendars, I know it's Sunday.  But I wasn't on the computer yesterday to make a post.

Yup, you heard right.

I didn't write at all yesterday.  And it felt good.  I was exhausted from staying up so late Friday night, and I know both the quantity and quality of my writing suffer when I'm exhausted.  So I took the night off and caught up on a few more of the September X's (I'll get through them, slowly but surely - the mention of sex has brought everyone out of the woodwork, it seems).  Got to bed relatively early.  Meant to get up and write but decided I deserved a lie-in.  Got a full 8 hours of sleep last night.  *gasp!*

I decided that, even though it's a marathon, it's not like I haven't been pushing myself lately anyway.  August about killed me, and September won't be a walk in the park.  I've been averaging nearly 1000 words a day.  The end - finshing the rough draft - will justify it, but I do want to remain functional when all is said and done.  To quote the Kit Kat commercials: I deserved a break today.

Which is not to say I didn't to anything writing related; I attended my first meeting of the Kentucky Romance Writers .  It was very informational and I'm glad I went.  It's nice that they meet at a local (for me) library - many drive up from various parts of the state.  Now I just need to join RWA national and then I can become an official chapter member too.  The guest speaker was NY Times Bestseller J.R. Ward and she talked about her path to success and answered a lot of questions, ranging from the use of a pen name (my question) and psycho stalkers to her writing schedule, chunk vs. outline, etc.

The coolest thing?  All attendees scored signed ARCs of her latest book, Lover Unbound, coming out next month.  Bonus.

Also, they are holding a book signing next month in a part of my old stomping grounds.  Many authors, J.R. Ward included, will be at The Bookstore in Radcliffe on October 13th.  So if you're local and interested, stop by.

September Marathon - Day 2

After much toil (and caffeine), I've got about 2K written - my daily target. 

Only problem is, this is all rewrites for an existing scene (my September X).  It had to be done, but was meant for later.  It gets me no closer to either of my goals for the marathon or the month.

Ah, well.  Now I am exhausted, and going to bed.  I'll deal with commenting on the 10-12 new X's I haven't gotten to yet later.

Tomorrow it's back to chapter 8, or whatever pops up, and hopefully some new wordage.

September Marathon, Day 1

Today was the first day of the Compuserve marathon.  I (rather foolishly) set myself a goal to be at 90K by the end on Monday.  Ha.

Tonight I got about 1200 words - 1193, to be exact - and I'm okay with that.  I could push myself for the rest of the 700-some-odd I need to make the elusive 80K, but it's midnight and I want to be able to function tomorrow.

Besides, I realized I'm about to cut almost as many words as I just wrote, so I'll be right back here tomorrow.  Ergo, I'm still not updating my wordcount meter.  Progress is not measured in words alone.

To that end, my new goal for the marathon is to be "done" with Act I.  Meaning, have everything contiguous and divided into chapters from the beginning to the trip to Glasgow.  That will be well over 36K - probably closer to 40K - of the MS in first draft.  No more chunks.  If I can get beyond that into Act II with the kidnapping and rescue, so much the better.  But it won't involve just writing - there will be cutting.  So even if I do manage 10K new words, the overall wordcount may not show it.

Quote

So last night I posted about cutting chunks of MS and how I thought it needed to be done, for all that it hurt.  This morning I hit my Google homepage and checked my Reader to find this on the 70 Days of Sweat Blog (they post inspirational quotes to keep us motivated):

 

"Crossing out is an art that is, perhaps, even more difficult than writing. It requires the sharpest eye to decide what is superfluous and must be removed. And it requires ruthlessness toward yourself — the greatest ruthlessness and self-sacrifice. You must know how to sacrifice parts in the name of the whole."

~Yevgeny Zamyatin

 

Timely advice, indeed.

Hacky, Slashy, Poky-Poky

I've done it again.

In my headlong rush for wordcount, I've managed to set myself back by cutting large chunks of existing MS.  But all for good cause.

At the end of Chapter 7 (that bane of my existence) and beginning of Chapter 8, there was a sequence that I had bits and pieces of, but every time I tried to work on it I got bogged down.  It seemed too convoluted.  Over the past few days it's started to feel like a ball and chain.  Last time I felt like this about a plot point, it was Elspeth's wheel and kiln and I knew I needed to cut it.  So I did.

I spent tonight revising what I had of 7 to remove the element (not too much work, actually) and sliced-n-diced the extant bits from 8.  We now transition (relatively) smoothly from A&E returning to Glenstrae to find the village has been attacked by Campbells looking for her, to him hieing off to rendezvous with his father and brother at Achallader and leaving her to face the clan alone. 

All told, I cut about 1800 words.  No more Campbells returning, no English lieutenant (so much for most of the work during my all-nighter Friday), no search for the "missing prisoner" and Elspeth being put on the spot.  But the pace feels right.  And I already have more momentum.  So I'm okay with it all.

New words for the day...probably at least 1500.  But since some are replacing another extant scene and the remainder were for the new chapter 8 (I'm on chapter 7v4 and 8v3 at this point...*sigh*) my wordcount is actually now slightly lower than the meter shows.  But I should catch back up tomorrow and then I'll update it.

Writing marathon starts on the forum tomorrow.  I was crazy and said I wanted 90K by the end of it, but that was before cutting all this wordage.  We'll see where I end up.  Onward and upward.

(Postscript: the post title was taken from Hugh Robertson's demonstration at Fergus, in which he referred to the broadsword blade as the "hacky, slashy, poky-poky" part.  I enjoyed that description enough to appropriate it, and it was more fun to say than simply "slash and burn.")

Professional accomplishment

This doesn't have a lot to do with writing, but I am pretty pleased.  When I went to my professional conference in Minneapolis back in July, one of the things that caught my attention was the use of MRI for prostate patients.

 

See, usually we do all our radiation treatment planning on CT scans.  But on a CT scan, the prostate, bladder, seminal vesicles, etc. are all just one big gray blob.  If we want to do a highly specialized treatment called IMRT it is important to be able to distinguish the prostate from everything else.

 

So when I got back, I talked to our head physicist about it.  He was ambivalent, as they had tried MRI once before with lackluster results.  But technology is always improving, and our clinic has a new MR scanner.  I also talked to our oncologist, and she was very interested since not being able to see well on the CT is frustrating for her, and we want to do the best for our patients.  I talked to the head physicist again, about the doctor's interest, and after a few snags we finally had our first prostate patient get an MRI this afternoon.

 

It worked beautifully.  We can see everything we need to see, and when the doc looked at it she just kept exclaiming how excited she was to be able to finally know what she was contouring.  By this point everyone has forgotten it was my idea to look into it again, and I was the one to find the journal article with the technique, etc.  I don't mind.  I'm just glad it's going to work out, 'cause this is a big improvement.  I figured you guys wouldn't mind me bragging a little, though.  *g*

 

In writing news, I've probably managed about 800 new words so far today, and I'll write more tonight.  Thing is, it's all going to replace an existing scene, so it doesn't help my wordcount.  Ah, well.  It's revisions I would have to make at some point anyway.  (And my counter isn't updated - so I'm actually a little farther along than that.)

Urgh.

I'm pretty annoyed at myself.

 

I decided to take Labor Day weekend off, and I'm glad of it.  But now the slow progression of September reminds me I should be at 84K to be on target, and I still haven't broken 80K yet.

 

And then today at work seemed wide open, all the time I spent here yesterday (yes, yesterday, for those American readers) to get caught up would have paid off with a wide open schedule and plenty of time to make headway on my wordcount.

 

Except I couldn't focus.  Kept popping over to Compuserve to check on the September X's, and checking my e-mail, and such.  And then, whenever I did try to settle down and write, invariably something work-related would come up and I'd have to take care of that first.  After which it would be hard to focus once more.

 

The end result of which is, it's 6:30 and I'm just now getting ready to leave, only having gotten 750 words and just the immediately due (read: tomorrow morning) stuff done for work.  I'll get home at 7 pm on a day I'd hoped to get home fairly early and done with my wordcount, to boot.

 

I want to be annoyed at the randomness of my work duties today; I like to have a block of time devoted to getting a certain thing done, and this scattershot arrival of plans mucks that all up.

 

But when it comes right down to it, I wasted a good part of the day, and the blame is all mine.  Which is even more frustrating.

Uncle.

Not quite.  Work was very busy today - of course it was, I had a deadline to meet - and I stayed up much later than I meant to last night.  In consequence, I still had 2500 words to get this evening and I was tired and slow going into the deal.  Managed 1200 total for the day, a little under half what I needed.

I gave it my all (you will note the timestamp of this post; I have not been to bed) but ultimately didn't quite reach my goal.  I got darned close, though.  1600 isn't such a huge deficit to make up, and over 18K in a month is nothing to sneeze at.  I had hopes this past hour of at least reaching 79K, but now my brain is shutting down and I'm calling "uncle."

The good news is, I finished chapter 7 (finally!) and moved into chapter 8, after getting a decent preliminary feel for my English lieutenant.  This was a tipping point, and I'll be working linearly again for a bit unless/until something else pops up.

So now I'm going to doze for an hour or so before getting up to head out to Indianapolis.  DH's aunt and uncle are having a Labor Day cookout up there, and the whole family is going.

Monday I'm sleeping in.  Then I have to go into my office to finish a few things for Tuesday (even though I didn't leave work until 7:30 pm tonight *sigh*) and while I'm there I'm going to spend several uninterrupted hours writing.

I remain firm in my commitment to finish the first draft by the end of September.  Ideally by the 20th, for Sven's sake, but if I go over, I go over.  I have a feeling I may go beyond 100,000 words on the first round.  In which case, that's more than 20K in 20 days (or a month).  We'll see if I can pull it off.