graystonedreams

Monday: 880
Tuesday: 1,326

November: 8,413

Status of Book: rolling along pretty well ... I'm still fogwalking like crazy and I don't have much of a clue what's going to happen in the next 300 pages, but I figure something will come up. :D The characters are cooperating at least and I'm getting a lot of background to jot down along the way.

Status of the Job: Still waiting

Status of Me: Feeling much better. I went back to class last night, though it was mostly just for lower belt as I got caught up talking with a few folks and missed brown belt. :D Almost done with the antibiotics. We're going out for sushi tonight for T and D's birthdays. Headed for the farm this weekend for Batman's birthday.

Friday: 1,192

November: 6,207

Other Writing: Saturday night was devoted to reading some CP's work.

Real Life: Mostly recovered from my sickness. I think I might have found my motivation when I was cleaning my closet on Friday afternoon. :D Today's list: oil change, possible krav maga practice, reading of E.Bear's Hammered

Wednesday: 1,113
Thursday: 0

November Count: 5,015

Recovery from the Throat Infection O'Doom is slow. It doesn't hurt much anymore, but my throat feels weird and I seem to have lost my motivation along with my health. We're on to chapter eight though, and I'm contemplating introducing a new character's POV. We'll see.

If someone writes a crappy review of a book you happen to love, and even more if you happen to know or be friends (actual real life friends) with the author of the book.

Don't...

... tell them about it. Chances are they don't want to know.
... call for a mob and start handing out pitchforks so people can go "defend" the book.
... be an ass. (which actually would cover the first three things)

And especially don't announce that you are a friend, confidant, dishwasher, etc of the author when doing so.


*smiles* It's embarrassing folks. And unprofessional if you happen to be in the business. People are entitled to their opinions. They're also entitled to share those opinions. The greatest thing is - you don't have to read them and you don't have to talk about them. Just let it go.

Wednesday Count: 1,578
November Count: 3,902

Best Line of the Day - "I'd be a liar if I said the look of you naked in my bedroom didn't suit me."

This is a fog-walker of a book, but I'm find a lot of fun to be had with it.

Thurday Thankfuls
* my health
* decent weather
* good news for friends
* another good writing day

Word Count

Tuesday Count: 1,272
November Count: 2,324

Things are looking good.

It occurred to me last night that in my own writing, what looks to me just like a boring list of things the character is doing ... might actually appear to a reader as something interesting.

*laughs* I don't know why this just now hit me. How I can read someone else's work and those same listings just flow like water. A litany of things becomes this complex chant when you're on the other side of the page.

moschus (aka Justine Musk) with a great post about why writers should read.

Well it's Monday, I suppose we should get this show on the road. :D Frankly I'm not sure all my synapses are firing, but we'll work with what we've got.

This week is a bit up in the air schedule-wise. We've got a friend coming into town, so my Tuesday/Wednesday are probably going to be filled with traveling and airports, plus catching up. Will try to get back into the routine on Thursday, but we'll see. Then - damn - it's only a week until Halloween. How did that happen?

When you're on the verge of kicking in the door on your writing career, it seems like there's a strange little bubble of isolation just before things start to happen. I don't talk about it much, because I don't want to mess with things - untip some crazy cosmic scale in the wrong direction :D - and because I'm honestly too busy doing other things.

I do recognize the need to branch out a little and start talking about things on this blog more. It's hard for me to collect my thoughts into anything more coherent than a rambling pile of stuff somedays. *laughs* I'll be impressed if I can make a transition into writing blogs on a semi-weekly basis. Mostly because I'm just not that good at non-fiction writing. I tend to lose track of my point about halfway through and wander off into something else entirely. Then I get done and think "how did I get here?" :D Come to think of it I do that a lot, though usually I'm in class and just got kicked in the head when it happens.

Here's your chance though - feel free to speak up and let me know what you want me to write about here and I'll do my darnedest to comply.

And with that I'm off to work!

ETA- I read an excellent book over the weekend. One I scored as schwag at ComicCon. If you like witches, and history, and Salem - check out The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane. It was awesome.

You can read up on it any number of places. The long and short of it is the FTC is attempting to pass new regulations that require bloggers to disclose any connection to the product they're hawking. This (apparently) might have some impact on blogs who review books. (though for the life of me I still can't figure out why it would, seems more like a dolphin in a tuna net to me)

My two cents:

This whole thing is driving me crazy because it's just silly. *shakes head* Just because a reviewer gets a book for free doesn't mean they'll like it (or blog favorably about it). And we as a society have apparently lost the ability to think for our frakkin' selves.

And a disclaimer: If I'm reviewing a book on this blog - it's because I a) bought it or b) was given it. You'll always get my honest opinion either way. No shilling here.

I'm in that lovely headspace. *laughs*

As I wander out of one world that had become so familiar after a great deal of struggle ... I find myself lost in unknown territory. A brand new world. I can't see much of it, though I can hear whispers and catch glimpses of things through the mist.

It makes writing the opening chapters difficult, but I think I've (finally) learned to just wander and not worry too much about how much progress I make in the beginning. Every discovery at this point is important. Each new revelation might not be important at present, but eventually it will come to impact the story. So I cling to them, scribbling them everywhere and just kind of hanging out in breathless anticipation.

It's awesome. *grins*

First off, a farewell to Kate Duffy, editor for Kensington Publishing, who passed away in September. She was a force in the romance genre.

I am sending out queries for Collapse Zone. *grins* Cross your fingers, hold your breath, spin around and spit on the floor. We'll see what this round holds.

The winner of the slug-out for the new WIP is the currently untitled half-demon rock-star idea that has been percolating in my brain for well over a year. The taciturn MC - Haruki - started yammering my ear off the other night just before bed and continued long after I went to sleep. Since he'd been so silent when I first got the idea, I couldn't pass up the opportunity. I'm excited about it and the chance to get into a whole new world.

Music

I picked up Daughtry's Leave this Town the other day and was, at first, singularly underwhelmed by it. *make face* I loved (LOVED) his first album, and on first listen there were no songs on this one that had the same immediate zing.

However, after a week of listening ... the CD has grown on me. (and not like mold either :D ) There are still a few lame songs on it (like "Supernatural" which is just odd), but I've come to love such songs as "What I Meant To Say" which is the Cody heartbreak anthem. *winces* And "Life After You" which has lovely lyrics.

It's sadly one of the those albums where some of the songs are just too damn similar and it's not his best work. Hopefully I won't have to wait another five years and the next album will be better.

So the last time I updated was July 13th. *face palm* Seriously, one of these days I'll get the hang of some semblance of regular blogging over here.

I think a lot of it is I just don't have much to talk about. *shrugs* This (looking for an agent) is a notoriously slow and (at times) tedious process. I'm polishing up the latest WIP right now and will be ready for queries probably by the end of this week.

I'm most happy with the polishing though. This latest (an urban fantasy novel of the shape-shifting kind) is set in a good solid world ... where all the rules are a changin'. I like the characters - perhaps not to the extent that I've liked some of my others, but they're starting to grow on me. This has been an odd book to write, from the very beginning I loved the idea but the execution of it was extremely difficult. I've been through two full drafts and am now working on the polishing part of it. I'm not 100% in love with it, but that's life for you. Ironically it's also apparently some of my best writing.

Anyhow, that's my writing life at the moment. Other life stuff includes coming down off a trip to California for ComicCon (photos and such can be seen at the husband's facebook - here), working out, getting ready for fall, and headed out into the middle of nowhere for a few weeks in September.

Firebreak


I'm mostly happy with the opening for the second in the Blackline series. Trying to get some of the massive happenings into the opening chapter without completely dragging down the flow. Always a challenge.

6,000 Men aka Crazy Alt-History Revolutionary Story


I might come to hate this steampunky hopeful of a story later, but at the moment it's just fun, fun, fun. I get to take some older characters, keep the excellent dynamic/tension between them while throwing them into a whole new world that's going to be familiar yet totally alien to folks. *grins* How's that for complex and nastily vague at the same time? Anyhow, this is just fun, which is really what I needed at the moment.

There's a line in the movie Fallen ... I don't remember exactly how it goes but it's something to the effect of a moment where you realize that your life is going to be divided forever into Before the Moment and After the Moment.

Ah, found it!

There are moments which mark your life. Moments when you realize nothing will ever be the same, and time is divided into two parts- before this, and after this.

I'm floating in between that moment in my life, I think. For writers it happens more often that this is the space between one book and the next. I've been editing all year, and I still have two more books to go. These are important books, ones that just might make the difference between being where I am now and where I want to be.

For the moment though, I'm free, and I've gotten permission from pretty much everyone under the sun to stay that way. *laughs* My Cps, my husband, my friends ... they all think it's okay to take a break and not do anything. The trick is, I don't have the permission from myself, because if I'm not writing - I'm not a writer. So I'm headed to my family's cabin in the mountains for a day, while my husband holds down the fort here. I'm going to rest and recharge. Do some physical labor and some tai chi. Read and nap. And write - probably.

Editing kind of sucks the joy out of writing for me, and I really need to find it again before I can hop onto the next new project. I've got a couple of projects to doodle with, but I don't think I'm going to make any firm judgments as to where I'm going from here until I get my head sorted out.

Cheers.

I've got "Everything Changes" on repeat, which isn't even on this soundtrack, but I got stuck on it the same way I got stuck in this horribly painful scene. Complete with betrayal, sex, more betrayal, and lots of really harsh things being said. Oh, and a couple of punches too ... because it wouldn't be an L.C. book otherwise.

New words written: 2,328 (approximately - there's about 600 in there that are "old" words)
Words cut: about the same as above

Total DOH character moments: 1 - where a damn character said something I really didn't want him too and neither did my MC, but by the time it happened it was too late, so we ran with it. And it worked. We're still pissed at said character though.

Coffee consumed: Only three cups - surprisingly

I still have a little tweaking to do at the end of the chapter, but otherwise 32 is in the can. Of course all the changes means 33 is going to get trashed and rewritten as well, but at least I am in the homestretch of this damned edit. And with that, I'm off to the gym to (hopefully) run two miles and walk another two or so on the treadmill.

Congratulations to dy0ulee! You hit the random number generator's lucky pick. :D

Email me at kb.wagers at gmail dot com with your address and I'll send you the copies of Night Huntress and Demon Mistress along with the postcards!

Stay tuned for other contests through the summer, and thanks to everyone for playing.
Anyone one else who wanted postcards go ahead and email me your address at the same email. I'll ship them out to you.

So a lovely lady I know online has a book coming out this week. In honor of that I'm running a contest all week and through the weekend.

Demon Mistress Contest

Yasmine Galenorn's - Demon Mistress comes out June 2nd. The sixth book in the Otherworld Series, it's got my favorite of the three sisters - Menolly the vampire - in the lead. A demon is after Delilah's soul, there's a secret society bent on winning Shadow Wing's favor, and a necromancer is on the loose!

So here's the deal. I've got a copy of Night Huntress, book five in the series. I'm giving that away along with a copy of Demon Mistress. Winner will be randomly selected.

What I want from you: in order to get in the running post up telling me about your favorite heroine. Can be book, movie, comics, whatever ... as long as she's fictional. Tell us why you like her.

I also have up for grabs postcards of all SIX Otherworld books. Mention in your post if you'd like them and I'll send them your way.

*laughs* Holidays, even though I don't have a EDJ anymore, still throw me off. It's Tuesday, right?

Just sent out three more queries for RH. Unfortunately one I really wanted to send to is closed to submissions right now. *makes face* The market is definitely tightening. I also read the other day that advances are shrinking even further - though in part I don't know if that's a bad thing. I'd take a smaller advance because that means the chances that you'd start earning royalty checks sooner would increase. At least as I understand it.

Didn't mean to start this post with business babble. :D We've had storm fronts moving through all weekend. As a consequence my hands are killing me. I promised my husband if they continue to hurt past the storms I'll go to the doctor. Meh. *grins* I suppose I'm going to have to start being more careful with my hands in class.

So Happy Late Towel Day for those who missed it. Also we got to watch the shuttle Atlantis land on Sunday morning, that was a real treat. I don't think I've watched a shuttle landing since high school. I've been getting more and more involved in Space news lately. There's some wicked cool information out there. (like this - the 10 strangest things in space)

This week is yucky week. *laughs* Mostly writing outlines, synopsis, query letters. Then tearing them apart and writing them all over again. Then sending them to my CPs and letting them tear them apart and starting all over again. Also research, research, research to find agents to send Collapse Zone to. This is the less fun part of writing, but it's the most necessary - at least at this stage.

That's it for now. Oh, but stay tuned I'm having a contest over here soon.