Mm nekkid people. Good times.

I need to get on my other computer and post a blurb and excerpt, hope to do that asap. Why are the documents I need always on the other computer?? WHY?!

In other news, NaNoWriMo has started well, day two’s goal is met and I haven’t even written yet today. My day job has gone ahead and gotten busy, so you know, when it rains it pours. But the story is going well so far, and Morgan Freeman made an appearance last night which… I choose to believe is a good omen. Morgan Freeman makes every story cooler, right?

I’m off to mail myself several documents in progress and pray to the IT gods all goes well.  What do you offer to an IT god?  Libations of Mt. Dew?

I’m also going to see Harry Potter on Wednesday.  I think I’ve officially either become super brave or lost my ever loving mind.  You decide.

Sun and Moon (I’m still not fond of that title, really) is off to my crit group, and after another round of edits I will send it in to eXtasy.  I’m so. very. happy. to be done with that story.  I like it, it’s got some naughty parts and some nice parts and it is a sweet little love story for a hot afternoon.  This story taught me the value of planning.  I am NOT a pantser.  I cannot sit down and let the words flow and see what happens.  I need a plot, a beginning middle and end.  If I don’t have that at the start, my story will fizzle and die about six thousand words in.  Every time.  It’s a rule.

Knowing that, I’m trying to stave off the next crash and burn with some preliminary work.  I think the next project will be a Jason Bell story, while I still work on edits for Waking Kiara.  I’m thinking of setting it in the future, with Jen’s granddaughter finding the old manuscripts in the attic or something.  Jason Bell is a dreamy guy, after all, in any decade.

I’m about to embark on a road trip with my family, so between that and wordpress upgrades, I fear for my sanity.  Hold me.

In the story I’m working on (read, forcing into submission one stinking paragraph at a time), I have a great beginning. Great, as in, I know what I’m trying to set up and I think I did so. I have a pretty cool ending idea–an HEA that lets everyone get what they want. I have some ideas for a surprise or two. But getting from here to there is proving more difficult than usual. I’m so desperate for the plot to move I literally added the “man with the gun” (well, in this case, the man with the knife in his boot, the bastard). I’m not even sure why my trio got attacked yet, I just hope that adding some action will help me get further into the story.

What do other authors do about this struggle? Especially pantsers–this very issue is why I’m not a member of that club. Any story I don’t plot out, at least a bit, ends up like this, saggy and meandering without any road map. I’m curious how the other half lives

WTF? Where did that come from? I’m in the dreaded and particularly saggy middle of one story and in some intense edits for another. Do I really need this woman knocking on my brain? “Oh hai, I’m a character with a very emotional backstory for–get this–a murder/thriller mystery novel. Get to work on me instead.”

I did about 500 words, realized I had a potential book in it, and put it aside. I can’t be having that much project ADD, damn it. But I suspect she’ll be there when I’m ready. I have another one, too, on ice, waiting for me to work on her story. Poor ladies, I often wonder if they sit around in the back of my head and wait for their story to continue.

Writing ADHD. Cure? Some kind of self bribery, I expect.

OH, I also figured out where my tendency to clip sentences comes from. Jonathan Kellerman does the same thing, just drops you in the middle of a sentence, very stream of consciousness and clipped. Lots of frags. I suppose he makes a living on it but the rest of us have to remember to have an object AND a subject. Whatever. But now I know where I picked up the habit!

Sometimes I hit this point where I just can’t think about any more writing advice, and I just have to put my head down and write. Hopefully, it all comes out in the wash with good critique. I do know I’m a better writer now than two years ago, and maybe in two more years I’ll be even better.

In related issues, I finished my edits on chapter nine of Waking Kiara, including a whole new scene for my bad guy. My ultimate goal is to get her polished and submitted at least three places by the end of this year, along with finishing my story Fair Play and my next rough draft, Maya’s Web. By NaNo, I hope to be working on Seshat’s Seduction (slightly moved around, title wise). Slow and steady–call me the tortoise, I guess. But everything seems to be coming along, so that’s a great thing.

I also have brutal allergies this season, anyone else?

I like seeing the way a story can change through edits, too. Being part of a critique group where I get to read and reread chapters is a neat way to see how things evolve for writers (besides myself). How a sentence that worked becomes a paragraph and an entire paragraph will get killed in favor of another. How you can alter a scene’s pacing by cutting here and adding there. It is really neat to see a good story become great.

On that note I edited (thanks to my critique buddy, vivid_cognition) and submitted my story for eXtasy’s September anthology, Cafe Nowhere. Whee! I also joined my local chapter of the RWA, and attended their monthly meeting. It was great to see people coming together. This year’s goal is “submit,” which gives me a giggle but is right in line with my goals. I hope to get Waking Kiara ready to submit to agents, start my very first round of NY rejections, by the third quarter of the year this year.

Lastly, I am sheeple and I joined twitter. You can be my twitter friend: ameliajune, or you can read my twitter feed on my sidebar over there —–>

Have I mentioned how thrilled I am to be writing again? ‘Cause I am!

In related news, I’ve started playing the motivation game with myself.  I have a story, basically written, in my head, I just have to fight the pull of the easy avoidance to get it written.  This is a different, much less stressful kind of problem then the last year’s writing difficulties though.  I just play a little game: 15 minutes or 500 words, whichever comes last, and I can quit and do all that laundry and blogging and knitting and various other chores that all of a sudden appear when I need to write.  Sometimes, like today, I get those 500 words and I really do need to do other stuff.  Sometimes I get in a groove and other stuff disappears.  It’s cool.  The story is good too, I’m proud of it so far.  I’m about to get to the sexin’ so it seemed like a good break point anyway.

When you have 20 minutes, watch this video.  Elizabeth Gilbert on genius, and how our changing conception of creativity stifles us.  She’s a vibrant and honest presenter, but the best part is when she talks about the poet.  That sticks with me.