Sunday Morning

It's much easier to write when the house is quiet.  I woke up relatively early, fed the ducks, and fixed a cup of coffee.  I turned on the computer and messed around on FB while I "woke up" and then started writing.  I wrote about 6 pages before Andrew got up and came down to join me, turning on the TV.  Now he's watching some lame Bam Magera-esque show...  Nitro Circus.  Blah.   But now it's hard to write.

I'm worried about getting my schoolwork done, too.  I've got a huge project due in a week (my final artifact for my 6144 class), as well as my artifact for 6018 due 2 or 3 days after that one.

I may need to take some time away from my writing to work on those.  Plus I still have lessons to come up with for school, and collaborative research lessons to design for 4th grade.

Writing is a wonderful escape.  It would be wonderful to be able to just be a writer one day -- I think it would be a relaxing lifestyle.  I mean, I'd still want to work in the media center, though. I wouldn't want to just write until I was ready to retire from the school system.  But it would be awesome to have extra income coming in.  And if it's something that only takes a couple hours of my time every day, then WOW!  It would be like having a part-time job I enjoyed.

What do you think the chances are of actually getting published and making money at this?  Probably not good.

whooohoooo!

Okay...  I've had a lot of distractions thus far, but I've actually written about 6 pages today.  I've got the car accident, Taylor's death....  She watched him cross over and then her world started spinning and she fainted.  When she regains consciousness she's in her bedroom.

Now I've got to figure out how to get her back to Jeremy...

What I learned!!

I was reading an article online yesterday where I published, professional writer was talking about the 5 myths of writing and part of it was that when your book is published and it's doing well and you're doing promotional stuff for it, you don't need to worry about your second book.  That's false.  Duh.

Well, anyway, what he was saying that a pro should be churning out a new book every 12 - 18 months.  He makes himself write AT LEAST 1,000 - 1,500 words a day on his writing days (he doesn't write every day).  That's 3 - 5 pages.  I can sooo do that!!

AND I found a list online of people who want to find new books to read to represent them with the publishing companies.  So, when my book is done and I'm thinking I'm ready, I'll have a list of people I can approach with it in hopes of getting some representation.  IF, of course, it's even any good.

So anyway...  I need to get started.  I've got 3 - 5 pages to write today!!!

Thanksgiving!

This has been a very difficult week.  I found Blue dead Monday morning.  I miss him sooooooooo much.  He was my constant companion.  And Michael does not deal well with such things.  He can't think of much else and hasn't been sleeping well.  We buried him Monday night, and I haven't really felt like writing and I've been busy with Thanksgiving preparations when I wasn't dealing with that.

Today is Thanksgiving.  I got up at 6:45 and started cooking.  Dinner was delicious, if I do say so myself.  I'm so glad I listened to Terry about cooking the turkey in a roasting bag -- we've never had a turkey turn out so well.  It was so moist and tender it was just falling off the bones.

Anyway...  Samantha's asleep on the floor in front of me. She bored herself watching a Packers/Lions game.  I'm watching Medium on the DVR, Michael's in the bedroom playing with his guns (typical), and the other kids are upstairs in their rooms.  I wrote myself out of the hole I was afraid I'd gotten myself into, set up Jeremy's follow-through.  And now I'm ready for the accident to happen.

OH!  And I found a bunch of websites for authors that I need to spend some time exploring.  Research, research, research.  I can't wait till I graduate so I'll have more TIME!!  I mean, I'm not actually delusional enough to think that I'll ever amount to anything.  I'm not going to be the next J.K. Rowling or Stephenie Meyer, but a girl can dream, can't she?

I just wonder who I can get to read it to tell me if it's too sappy or stupid or lame or whatever before I try sending it to any kind of "professional."  Right now it's just my shiny, happy secret.

November 22nd

I haven't gotten as much written this weekend as I would have liked -- I had a lot going on.  This was just not a good break at all.  Michael's been pissed off which makes everyone miserable.  We finally had it out last night after he threw stuff at Samantha.  I started to pack my suitcase to leave and that ended the fight.  I went out in the living room to sit with Blue and calm down.  He had his head in my lap and when Michael came near he growled at him and kept him away.  HA!  His dog is sooooooooooo MINE!

Anyway...  I've felt drained and miserable.  And I had a paper due, so I worked on that.  And OMG -- I have a HUGE freakin' project due on like the 2nd or 3rd of December.  That one looks like it's going to be a nightmare.

However, I did make the time to make some changes.  I consolidated chapters 2 and 3 and made some changes.  And I wrote a new chapter 4, which would have been chapter 5.  I've got about 37 pages now, I think.  It still feels like I haven't accomplished anything, but I'm setting everything up soon, and my big collision will happen soon.

I still need to get Jeremy back into the picture so he can talk to her one more time.  I'm thinking that they should stop in where he works or something.  OH!   I just got an idea of how.  Gotta go write it in my notes!!

November 20th

I'm up to page 28.  I haven't had much time to write lately.  I can't focus when Michael's home irritating me and blasting old reruns of Good Times and Archie Bunker.  (For real, are you freakin' KIDDING me??)

I have come up with lots more ideas for future chapters.  I've laid out the love-triangle aspect, set the groundwork for the end of one relationship and the foundations of another.  And I've filled in the blanks with my main characters a good deal more.  My next chapter will be the dreaded first date for Taylor and Kathryn.

Now if I only had some PEACE and QUIET so I could work.  I got quite a bit done in the short time I had available this afternoon between the time I got home from work and when Michael got home.  I'd have been able to do more if there weren't the continuous disruptions of my children who constantly "need" something (usually money or transportation, though tonight the three with social lives all want BOTH and all want me to go in 3 different directions at the same time, ATM card at the ready to pass out plenty of cash.  UGH!!!

If life weren't so frustrating I might not be looking to write -- it's my escape!

A new muse!

I had to drive my boys out to Cliffs of the Neuse today for a Boy Scout outing, which, I might add, gave me a fresh look at the vision for my story's bonfire scene.  On the way back, however, I heard a song on Sirius' Hit Bound program called "Breakeven" by The Script.  OMG!!  I love it!!  I got their album and listened to it all the way through twice and it gives me all kinds of ideas for things to write about.  There are lots of songs that inspire scenes in my head, story ideas, or something I'd like a character to say, and now I've got more added to my arsenal.

I finished reading Tempted this morning.  Ugh, they leave off with a cliff hanger again.  I hate that.  I liked that each book in the Twilight series could stand alone if you only wanted to read one.  The House of Night series really isn't like that so much.  I've read the first 6 and it's only covered about 2 months' time for the characters and the books all leave off with some kind of battle erupting or some other traumatic event occurring and you have to wait for the next book to find out what happens.  Guess it's a way to sell your books.  I don't particularly care for these, but I've invested so much time in reading them that I figure I should find out what happens next so I might as well read the next book.

Well, I have a house full of boys at the moment and I have a test I need to take for one of my classes before the weekend is over.  Guess I'll do that first and then hope it hasn't crushed my mood so much that I can't write.  I wrote about a page this morning, still working on filling out my supporting characters some more, but I didn't have time to do much before I had to leave to go run some more errands.

Thursday, Nov. 12th

Well...  I spent about an hour reading through what I wrote yesterday and editing it.  My 3rd chapter needs to be fluffed or written out as it's only 2 1/2 pages long.  I lost interest in it which is a good indicator that it's not important.

My fourth chapter is going to focus on a bunch of teenagers at a bonfire party.  It should be fun to write, but I'm tired and in a grumpy mood, so now's not a good time for me to write that one.  I like the changes that I made, though.

I said something tonight to my daughter about wanting to write.  She said she won't read anything I write unless it gets published.  Hello?  Dream the impossible dream here, Kiddo!  And thanks for the support.  Sheesh.  LOL, she's just lucky I love her.

Ya know, I have my main character working in a movie theater.  I can fluff the 3rd chapter by including some details of that and add some more depth to some of the other characters in the story.  All I did was mention that she works there and likes it -- her BFF works there with her.  Then I lost interest.

Well, I'm gonna hop in the shower and relax with a good book for a while before going to bed.  Yay!  Tomorrow's Friday and then it's the weekend!!

Getting Started

Alright...  First of all, I guess it's Stephenie Meyer who really inspired me to start writing again.  I used to write a lot when I was in high school and in college.  In fact, when I was at Florida State University I had an English professor who was encouraging me to expand a short story I wrote into a novel because she really thought it was that good.  I was mimicking Faulkner who has been a favorite of mine since I was in high school.

Anyway, I was reading a few different series of books (gotta admit -- I love to read series over stand alone books) and I was thinking, "This is crap -- I could do better!"  But I wasn't motivated.  Then I finally bought all of the Twilight series and sat down and read them and I loved them so much that I just HAD to start writing.  I wanted to be able to produce something as wonderful and intriguing.  I was totally obsessed while I was reading them.  I'd climb into bed and read for an hour or so every night before going to bed, and all night long I'd dream about what might be coming up in the next chapter.  It was exhausting!

When I was finished, there was such a tremendous let-down.  Not because I was disappointed in the books, mind you.  I was sad because there wasn't another.  I wasn't ready to hear "and they all lived happily ever after."  I wanted MORE!!

So, without another Twilight series book, I went back to reading more of these "I can do better than that!" series of books.

At any rate...  I had been having all these ideas for stories lately and writing them down on whatever I had handy.  I'd write on a sticky note or a sheet of paper when I was at work, then tuck it into my bag to deal with when I got home.  I'd type things into Word documents on my computer.  I'd dream at night of what I could write about.  The problem for me was that I was still in the Twilight mind-set.  Everything was vampires and werewolves.  I didn't want to use that -- I wanted something fresh and different.

I thought of an old story idea I'd had over a year ago and found it on my computer.  I thought I'd actually WRITTEN some, but apparently I only composed it in my mind because all I have is a rough timeline saved in my notes.  But I took that and combined it with another thought I'd had.  And no -- there will not be any vampires, werewolves, or other shapeshifting kinds of creatures in my story I'm currently working on.  There will, however, be a ghost, but she has a lot of work to do so that she can cross over.  She has to save her friends, set things right with her best friend, and make peace with her fate so that she can cross over.

I wrote 17 pages today.  It doesn't sound like much at the moment, but it took me ALL DAY.  I don't know if it's any good, but I like what I have so far.  As I move forward I will be better able to move backwards, too, and fill in gaps that will need to be filled to tie in with future events.

Oh well...  I think my brain is about frazzled now and I've got to start getting the kids ready to go to bed.  Wish me luck as I try to dream tonight of how to make my 4th chapter unfold...  Big things are about to happen!