Wednesday's Writing Update: The Dark Knight Rises and Writing

 

Happy Wednesday!

Thank you to everyone who has commented on the Gravity trilogy covers yesterday. I will still announce my winner of the trilogy on Friday. And if you haven't entered, there is still plenty of time.

My sister and I went to the midnight viewing of The Dark Knight Rises. I am saddened by the shooting in Aurora, Colorado, but I do hope people won't let that stop them from seeing this fantastic movie. It's the best Batman movie I've seen, and I didn't know if it could top my love for The Dark Knight, but it did. Hope seemed to be a key theme of the movie and rising from the darkness. As a writer, I was very impressed by the storyline, particularly how backstory was introduced. It's so seamless that it doesn't halt the plot. Now, I hope to be able to see it again before it leaves movie theaters.

As for writing news, I've received my critiques for Pull of Gravity. I'm slowly editing it and still hope to publish the last of the Gravity trilogy sometime next week. By the end of September, I plan to compile the three novelettes, add epilogues for each of them, and make them into a print book called Gravity: The Complete Trilogy. I figure it'll be around 200 pages or so.

Next Wednesday, I hope to begin writing Nightmare Ever After, the sequel to Once Upon a December Nightmare. I've outlined the story (comes in around 28 chapters), but I'm not yet certain how long it'll be. I'm thinking novella length, since I lean toward shorter chapters, but we'll see.

I'm also proofreading and formatting a novella for a friend (hope to finish by Friday) and working on a client's manuscript (hope to finish that by August 3rd).

I guess I better get back to work then. Heh.

So what are you up to this Wednesday?

Wednesday's Writing Update: What I'll Be Doing in April

 

Happy Wednesday!

On Surrounded by Books Reviews, I have my review of Hooked by Les Edgerton. If you're a writer and haven't read Hooked yet, then I strongly suggest you get a copy. It's brilliant. 

I also saw The Hunger Games movie on opening night last week. It was awesome! I thought it represented the books well, the sets and costumes were superb, and the acting was fantastic. The thing that interested me the most was the dynamic of who came to watch the movie: teens, males and females. When I went to see the Harry Potter films, all different types of people watched them. When I saw the first Twilight movie, it was mostly girls and women of various ages. It'll be interesting to see if the teen trend continues with the other two movies in The Hunger Games series.

Since this is the last Wednesday in March, I thought I should remind you Wednesday's Writing Update will be on hiatus until May because of the A to Z Challenge. If you want to keep updated on my writing news, then I suggest you either "like" my Facebook Author Page, follow me on Twitter, or subscribe to my newsletter (links to all on the left column of this blog).

 

My A to Z theme this year is Flashes of Foxwick. Yes, 26 days of fantasy flash fiction. I also plan to self-publish this collection, which will include the bonus short story "Lady Death." The collection will be available sometime in April. If you sign up for the newsletter, you'll get an exact date as well as a sample of "Lady Death."

In April, I will be editing Fighting Gravity, which will be available on May 1st. Christine Rains gave me my first review of Fighting Gravity here. I hope to get some blog posts done for May. I also hope to finish writing Pull of Gravity (the final book in the Gravity trilogy) and write two more short stories for Women of Foxwick ("Lady Bard" and "Magic Seeker"). It'll be a busy month but a fun one.

What have you been up to? Do you plan to participate in the A to Z Challenge? If so, do you have a theme?

Wednesday's Writing Update: August Stats, September Goals, and a Blogger Award

Happy Wednesday!

August is finished and we're almost a full week into September. It's hard to believe this time next month I'll be in Richmond, VA for the James River Writers Conference.

So, on to August stats:

Submissions: 0

Rejections: 3

Acceptances: 0

Total Words: 15,115

Pages Edited: 601

I don't have many submissions out there, but I'm considering taking some of my shorter works and self-publishing them. In fact, I would like to write two and a half more short stories in my Foxwick land and created a small short story collection titled The Foxwick Chronicles: Women of Foxwick. So you might see this collection in December, if I can get everything together.

As for my novel Virtuoso, things aren't looking too good for it. There are major issues and I'm running out of time and energy to fix them right now. So starting last Friday, I began working on The Phoenix Prophetess. I'm completely in love with it. I've read it two times already and have started edits. It may be against my original plans, but I stand by my decision.

How is everyone else doing? Have you switched what you were working on for something you were more passionate about? How did that go?

 

Also, thank you Cher Green for giving me the Liebster Blog Award! 

The rules:

1. Thank the giver of the award and link back to them.

2. Give the Liebster to five bloggers and let them know with a comment to their blog.

3. Copy and paste the award onto your blog.

4. Have faith your followers will spread the love to other bloggers.

5. Have blogging fun!

I would like to give this award to:

Lisa Rusczyk – She doesn't blog too much, but she's pretty awesome. She works as an editor and has some new books out on Kindle. 

LindsayDuncan – She's a sweetheart and a harpist as well as a writer. 

ChristineRains – I know she's already received this award once, but she's one of my best friends and the reason I'm a writer. 

Jenn Nixon – She's an awesome romantic suspense writer and writes in other genres too. She's all about giving back and promoting authors on her blog. 

Bill Blume – He has an awesome blog with a comic strip he creates himself. I'm loving his steampunk one. Plus, he has the coolest stuffed animals. 

Wednesday's Writing Update: July Stats, August Goals, and more!

Happy Wednesday!

Is it just me or does it seem like August has come way too early this year?

Since July ended on Sunday, I have July's stats.

Submissions: 1

Rejections: 0

Acceptances: 0

Stories Short Listed: 2

Total Word Count: 10,951

Total Pages Edited: 269

The pages edited number was a bit lower than it should've been, but I wrote more words last month and read more too.

For August, my main focus is on Virtuoso rewrites. My goal is to rewrite/edit a chapter every two days. I still haven't finished my dragon short story, so I'll work on it when I have time. I do have a few flash pieces to write, but this month shouldn't be too bad. Of course, I have editing too. I'm trying to write in the mornings and edit in the afternoons. It's working out so far.

On Raven and the Writing Desk, our theme this month is deserted islands. I continued Mer's journey in my flash piece "Washed Upon the Shore" in today's short story "Cursed Isle." You can read it here.

Today I have announced my "Favorite Summer Reads" blogfest on my Surrounded byBooks Reviews blog in honor of its one year blogoversary month. Stop by, read the details, and consider signing up. It should be fun and a great way to learn about new books.

So does anyone have any new news?

Wednesday's Writing Update: Writing Again...or How It's Working Out With the Plan

Happy Wednesday!

Yes, I have been writing again. After falling into editing world, I’ve climbed out with the new approach to limit my editing time. It’s working well. Some days I’ve gotten 50+ pages edited in two hours. Other days, it is more like 10, but that’s okay. The key really might be moderation.

Last week, I wrote a flash fiction piece and a Liam O’Hare mystery “Copper Blade.” You can read “Copper Blade” here, if you missed it. This week, I’ve gotten Friday’s flash written and set to go. Now I’m polishing up a new short story called “Compulsion” to submit in the next couple days.

I’ve looked at my “Things to Do in June” list, and most of them are complete or almost complete. Besides short stories for Raven and the Writing Desk, I have four more I’d like this year and submit to anthologies. Then I must restrain myself not to look at any more anthologies. Seriously. I have a big weakness for the short story. I must focus on my novel Virtuoso. Then NaNoWriMo in November.

Speaking of Virtuoso, I haven’t really gotten back to it yet. I’m hoping to have a week edit free from other people’s work to focus on polishing chapters 1-5, editing chapters 6-10 to send to critique partners, and rewriting chapters 11-15. If I can get all that done by the first full week of July, it’d be awesome. We’ll see.

And, yes, I have been thinking about NaNoWriMo. So far, I’m not 100% positive which new work I’m going to write. Will it be Cursed, a urban fantasy/borderline paranormal romance, involving Gunther’s quest to save his love from the Immortals while not getting lost in his memories? Or Starred, a YA Contemporary, involving a scarred sixteen-year-old, former movie starlet as she struggles between remaining in the shadows or coming back into the spotlight (includes a mash-up of the musicals Wicked and The Wizard of Oz)? Or Spooked, a YA Paranormal Horror, involving sixteen-year-old Deliah—a girl who sees ghosts—and a group of paranormal junkies as they investigate the haunting of a former high school? So far, I’m leaning toward Starred, but the others sound a lot of fun too. I don’t think I could do two of them during NaNo either, which means they might have to be held off until next NaNo. Yeah, a long time away, I know.

Of course, it all seems to hinge on getting Virtuoso ready by October, especially since I’ll be pitching an agent at the James River Writers Conference again in October. I’m really looking forward to it.

So what’s new with you?

Rewrites/Edits

I've been working on rewriting/editing Virtuoso this month. Yes, if you've followed this blog, I've said many times my plan was to edit/rewrite my two novels (Virtuoso and The Phoenix Prophetess). Every month, I had good intentions, but I never got around to it. Or when I did, I worked on the first chapter or two and stopped.

I don't know why I dread editing so much. Maybe once I spent so much time writing it, I just want it done and other with. I know it isn't perfect, though, so I must edit, but I drag my feet.

Now, I want it done, though, so I set out to rewriting Virtuoso. I'm changing it from third person to first, so rewriting is the easiest thing.

So far, I'm up to chapter four, and I realized something. I forgot that I really did enjoy this book. It's so heartbreaking, though, since it deals with grief and overcoming obstacles. It's much harder to write this book in first person. I'm feeling the protagonist's pain much more closely than I did when I wrote it in third. It's a good thing. Nadia is writing the book more than I am now. It's how it should be, if that makes any sense. I do wish her problems with her left hand wouldn't affect me so much, though. It makes it very hard to type. *laughs*

I hope I can finish this edit by the end of October, so I can send it to my critique buddies. Come January, I want to do a very intense edit on it and try my best to make it agent ready. It's the goal. I'll have to see how it works out.

The main thing I'm learning is this edit thing isn't too bad. It can even be a bit fun. Well, maybe. *grins*

Side note and completely unrelated to this post: Romeo jumped in the toilet today. It was so "EWWWWW!" Let's just say he got a bath when mommy took her shower this morning. Silly kitty!

Edits Galore

I feel like I have let April down, the month April, that is. It is just ten days before the end of the month, and I don't have any word count. True, I wrote a poem, and perhaps I should count those few words in it, but still, I have no short story or novel word count yet.

What have I been doing instead? I've been working on edits. Edits for "Once Upon a December Nightmare." Edits for "Magna's Plea." Edits on the first chapter of Virtuoso. And, edits on the first three chapters of a secret WIP that I'll share with you. Edits, edits, edits.

I don't know about the rest of you, but it takes me forever to edit something of my own. I analyze each sentence and think "Crap, this is all crap." I work on it some more. Stop. Think. Pick it back up again. Reread what I have changed. And continue on. I worked for over two hours on Sunday editing "Magna's Plea," even though I edited once already on Saturday. In the end, I just had to realize it was the best I could do and send it off to Sword & Sorceress XXV on Monday.

Also, on Sunday, I edited the epilogue of "Once Upon a December Nightmare," which will eventually be published with Wild Child Publishing, if I ever get through these edits. Zetta, my editor, is wonderful, and she gave me a lot to think about, but as I worked through the epilogue, I kept wondering why in the world did they accept this story. It's all crap. I can't believe I used to even write like this, and it makes me want to write the entire thing over. But, I know I can't completely do that. I don't need to change the plot. I just need to fix the story. So, I finished working on the epilogue. It's just four pages, but it took me over an hour to do it. I've begun on the rest of the story. I finished four pages yesterday at work, and I'm hoping to get to page 10 today. It's a good thing it is only a 25 page story. I'm wanting to rewrite almost every sentence. It's not that every sentence is bad. It's just that I want to fix it and make it better, more like my writing now. Yet, I have to be careful. I don't want to lose the reason they accepted the story to begin with. It's such a fine line. I hope to have the basic edits finished by Thursday, but I might not send it back to my editor until Monday. I want to go through, put it in a new document, accept my changes (all that red is depressing me), and read through the story and see what else I can add that won't take away from the story.

Thanks to Zetta, I also realized some bad habits I had, so using my notes from December Nightmare, I went back over my first chapter of Virtuoso on Sunday. Right now, it is as polished as I can make it, so I'm ready to edit/rewrite chapter two.

Now, on to my secret WIP. Starting in January, I wanted to write 500 words a day in a new novel. I thought if I could get the 500 words a day, then I would be finished with it around the end of March and could surprise my critique buddies with it. Of course, we all know about plans and how they don't always turn out how we want. I managed to write almost three chapters in January. Then, I stopped. On Sunday, I finished up the last little bit in chapter three. Then, I read through it for the tenth time, using what I know now about writing (once again, thanking Zetta and my critique buddies, as well). I sent the first three chapters to Aubrie to get her opinion. And, once I hear back from her, I'd like to pick up the novel once again and try to get to that chapter four.

Yet, I haven't told you want the novel is about, so here it is. It's a contemporary fantasy (borders upon paranormal romance, but I haven't decided how much romance I'm going to put in to call it that). The working title is Hammered Home. Here is a blurb I'm working on for it: Librarian Regin Leif enjoys her quiet life at Springs College. Yet, everything turns around when Dr. Eric Schumann steps in. He is on an archaeological quest of epic proportions. He believes a runic tablet discovered in northern Germany contains the key not only to Mjollnir, Thor's Hammer, but the map to Asgard, the home of the Norse gods, and he requests Regin's assistance, since she knows the runes. With every fiber of Regin's being, she wants to decline, especially since Regin has secrets of her own. Yet, the librarian is oath-bound to return to her homeland for the first time in many years. Can she stop Dr. Schumann from discovering things no mortal should know and the people who are also out to seek the home of the gods? Can she keep her secrets hidden? And, most of all, can she find a way to accept her Germanic home once more?

So, there is my secret WIP. I think I'll work on it here and there until it is finished.

As you can see, I've been working on edits and more edits. I still need to write my short story for Raven and the Writing Desk blog, and I hope to finish it by the end of next week. Other than that, I need to get back to edits...oh, yeah, and those library surveys I need to put the data into the spreadsheet for work. The joys of being a library assistant. *laughs*