Monday, February 9, 2015

Bits and Pieces

I got this....
One of my goals at the beginning of the year was to tighten up my blogging.  To get a posting schedule written down with topic ideas.  About that...haven't gotten that far yet.  Obviously.  So far, when it comes to social media, the one goal I've managed to keep has been posting to Twitter more frequently!  It might not be the best medium to sell books, but it's fun!

Not that I haven't been thinking about blogging.  But my mind is filled with clutter and it doesn't seem to want to settle down on any one subject.  So for this post I'm just going to write until something comes together and will probably delete these first few paragraphs and rewrite the beginning.  If they are still here, and you are reading them, please accept my apology!!

So many things.

And the thing is, it's not all bad stuff.

My mother-in-law had a change of heart about my first novel.  She had previously dubbed it boring.  It hurt a little, but I knew from the get-go that it's not going to be a novel for everyone.  In fact, it was originally intended to be "Christian fiction" and you can tell.  But after having it set so long in my email, I wasn't in the mood for a massive rewrite and just went through and tweaked a few things, turned up the sexual heat from what it had been and changed the ending.  I changed the ending a lot.  But she sent me a text the other morning saying she'd hit the part where the character's had gotten married and Angela, the female lead, had been kidnapped.  That's when she was hooked I guess.  I'll agree the first book does get off to a slow start.  I decided to leave it as it was because I intend to show how their beliefs change through different life events in following novels.  The sequel has a completely different feel, I think, and it's because of my own personal growth as well as the changes wrought in them because of the kidnapping.

Harper Lee is going to have another book published.  You know her, she's the author of To Kill A Mockingbird.  Seriously, how cool is this?  I did just read an article addressing the fact that there are some people concerned that she's being taken advantage of (she's in her 80's).  But I don't think that's a worry, I hope I'm not wrong.  From the first article I read, this second novel predates Mockingbird and she wanted it published but the publishers of that day told her to focus more on Scout's flashbacks and Mockingbird was born.  I think this is marvelous find and wish it had come about sooner!  I'm sure Ms. Lee had her reasons for not publishing another book, but as with all women, she's allowed a change of mind.  Especially since it's already a number 1 best selling book!  I'm not surprised she thought the manuscript lost, I was cleaning out some old computer disks before our computer changed and discovered all sort of neat things I'd forgotten about!  I know I'll never find my old Star Wars fanfiction novel; that was destroyed a long time ago and a subject for another day.  I'm glad Ms. Lee's manuscript was found.

And now, it's Saturday, the 7th, just after 6pm and this post is far from done.

I should have been writing early this morning when my husband was still asleep, but since he's not a Trekkie, I decided to watch the last Star Trek movie, Into Darkness.  I know, I know, I should have written first and then watched, but as it was he woke up and I stole off to have some real life romance.

Winter is getting to me.  The cold and the snow and the threat of even more snow (and ice).  I know it's a necessary part of the cycle of nature and seasons, but my God I am tired of it.  I'm cold, and not just because I work in a refrigerator!

And now, it's Monday morning, just after 6am.  Usually I am at work at this time, but the icy conditions made me rethink work and I stayed home instead.  I've seen a few reports on Facebook how some people have been told to stay home by state road workers, so I kind of feel validated about my decision to call off.

Instead of going back to bed, I've been up on the internet.  Facebook, Twitter, reading different articles, looking for pics to slap quotes on, playing Clash of Clans, working on this post.  I've already started my next post for Broads of a Feather.  My recent posts there have just not been very good recently, so I'm giving myself a head start in the hopes that it'll give me the extra push I need.  This way there's no rush.  Granted, I'll be sharing my own personal struggle with writer's block, but since I know I'm not alone in this struggle it won't be too hard.  All one has to do is Google the term to find a plethora of links about it.  I've already read some interesting articles about it, and bookmarked more for later.

I also managed to get some work done on my third novel.  I was a little frustrated with my husband, as he began to play chess and Halo Wars in the evening...right about the time I go to bed.  While I can't write for the life of me while he's playing GTA, I can when he's playing Wars.  But he had a good reason I guess, his playing partner doesn't get on until the late afternoon and evening because of work.  I laughingly told him that we needed to get our schedules synced.  It all worked out.

I moved an entire scene to earlier in the novel, which will change the entire dynamics of the antagonists.  I'm still working on showing the ending of Ring of Fire from other characters' perspectives, mainly Kevin and the demon called Beast (whose "real" name we get to learn in the new book).  So I'm bopping back and forth to make sure I'm sticking to what's already written.  I did find another typo I hadn't caught yet, the bane of every writer lacking an editor!  From my one friend's report, I did a better job this second time around so there's that much.  If only it didn't cost so much to hire an editor.  I know one girl I could hire, but if memory serves she charges $4 a page...which adds up when you write a 400+ page novel!  I haven't gotten to the point where I even make that much off of sales.  Yet.

On that note, I'm going to slap some images in this post and change gears.  I'm going to find a second cup of coffee and get back to novel writing.