Monday afternoon I received word that my entry to the Genesis contest (which I’d sent in in late February) is progressing to the final round. First round was judged by an assortment of published authors and experienced unpublished writers, and I got a lot of great feedback–pleasant praise mixed in with solid suggestions for improvement….

Clarity requires sleep, which thankfully I’ve had a bit of the past three nights. I think there are stages in writing where you can make progress even if you’re extra tired. However, when you run into a brick wall and start deleting entire scenes, even whole chapters, change up point-of-view characters–that requires brain cells that…

November is almost upon us and with that comes NaNoWriMo, more commonly known as Nano and actually short for National Novel Writing Month. Never mind that it’s international, not national, and that the actual goal is to write 50,000 words of a brand-new novel in the month of November. Which doesn’t usually complete a novel…

There’s good news and there’s bad news. The bad news is that I’ve been pretty much stalled on Tempest for the better part of two months. The good news is that I discovered that my story had problems before I’d written 100K. I was only half way there. I’ve spent the past couple of weeks…

It’s interesting. This first draft actually won’t be much longer than 50K, but I also don’t think I’ll have trouble hitting it to start with. Two chapters left to write, and the final one will likely be a bit shorter as it wraps things up. Some threads are already being tied off in today’s chapter….

I cleared 30K today! **Happy Dance** Today’s chapter came in at 2457. The fairy kittens are recovering from being accidentally drugged: I picked up Pico and dropped her; her wings fluttered out and she hovered in front of my face, indignant at the mistreatment. Good. She could fly. I repeated the process with Boots and…

So today Chloe left me. That’s got to be considered a good thing. She’s the main character of Joy Comes in the Morning, the novel that was requested at conference. It is now in the mail. It is strangely freeing. For now, it is out of my hands. Sure, I’m totally willing to revise more…

My word count goal for Marks of Repentance all along has been 100K. Today I wrote THE END (for the third–or is it the fourth?–time) with 99,752 words. Happy sigh. The last 3000 words or so are pretty much brand new so I know I’ll find plenty of little wording errors. Maybe even bigger errors….

When I was a kid, I started quite a few stories that I never finished. That’s partly because I had no clue what went into making stories, but it’s also because I wrote about things that sounded enchanting to me, things far from my own life on Manitoba’s prairie. I was a scrawny little kid…

I *am* still making progress on my Nano novel currently (and affectionately!) known as The Girl Who Cried Squid. You’d think that after six first drafts (Squid is my seventh) I’d have figured out some of my habits already. Noteably, that although I cannot work without an outline, my endings rarely resembe the ending the…

In an effort to regain enthusiam for my stalled 2ynovel, *False Perceptions* I re-read the entire progress thread at Forward Motion. This progress thread is where I posted the various assignments in response to the classes, and where folks (bless you all) could comment, encourage, question, or pick apart the various aspects. It was a…

I got a decent start on Tempest today: 1565 words and a complete scene. Actually I deleted the first 250 or so words and started over, deciding to introduce two other characters a bit further in. Four seemed too many for the opening scene, and left Tempest narrating instead of engaging. So now we’re starting…

I’m 16,582 words into the revision of Marks of Repentance now. The voice has an odd lilt to it, not like anything else I’ve ever written, but I’m not having any trouble fitting back into it for the bits I’ve added. I’ve managed to find more places to pull the metaphors better into line with…

So, it’s time to get–and ACT–organized! My week for having my own 25 opening pages critted is the 29th, which is good. I’ve been mulling over the novel and the crits I’ve received for a couple months now and have seen a number of ways to make things tighter. Including the first scene. I wrote…

Clarity requires sleep, which thankfully I’ve had a bit of the past three nights. I think there are stages in writing where you can make progress even if you’re extra tired. However, when you run into a brick wall and start deleting entire scenes, even whole chapters, change up point-of-view characters–that requires brain cells that…

Quest to be Queen now has an entirely new opening scene of 1316 words. And lest any of us get too excited, it’s taken me nearly a week to pull that many words together. Today I got sidetracked researching titles of royalty while I finetuned Cecil’s full name: His Royal Highness The Crown Prince Cecil,…

In just a few days, I’ll be able to make an announcement that’s been a long while coming. Here’s a teaser: I hope you’re curious! Many of my blog readers have been here with me a long time and seen the ups and downs of my writing career. Things are changing. Rapidly. And I need…

Two weeks of vacation, one week of catch up at work (and on the web, of course, but that’s a whole ‘nother matter…) and I finally cracked open Marks of Repentance again today. Oh, you should hear the gears in my brain creak as I try to turn the crank. And why is the very…

I’ve made a good start on chapter 22, with 2123 words this morning. It’s been a quiet day at work, as Fridays often are. This one is also below freezing with a howling wind, so not that many people are hanging around shopping downtown today. I’d have liked nothing better than to stay home as…

Today I cleared 30K in my revision of Marks of Repentance. There were some pretty fun scenes in the last couple of chapters. Fun to write…and it seems to have shown, because my critiquers’ comments proved that the situations came through as humorous as well. Hopefully I didn’t lose the good bits in revision! 😛…

A few weeks ago I signed up for a six-month writing workshop put on by multi-published author Holly Lisle. She’s the gal who founded my writing home-on-the-web, Forward Motion, and I’ve been following her weblog A Pocket Full of Words for the better part of six years now. I’ve watched from the sidelines as she’s…

One back. It’s not fair that the easy chapters to revise fly by and the nasty ones linger. Well, maybe it IS fair, cause I’d get just as sick of the good ones, I suppose. I made huge headway on Friday, revising three entire chapters that apparently, um, did not have huge problems. Today was…

3:12 pm. Sigh. Apparently this is not a writing day. So much for the best-laid plans of mice and men. Oh, speaking of mice. A couple of days ago I went into our porch and heard a rustling sound. There is an open bag of cat food sitting in the corner as our six starving…

Yesterday I had my first ever in-person critique. I’d sent the first scene of my romance novel to a friend who works in that field, not realizing she’d be coming to town and thus would provide a conversation above and beyond the written crit. Though there are a few changes that need to be made…

Friday was 3195 and today, 2283. Still on par for a finish early next week. Here’s a teensy snippet: I decided to take a chance, for it seemed one had been offered me. “Amuran seems…evil.” She nodded slightly. “Perhaps more than you think.” That flicker of hope died as though a cold wave had squelched…

I’ve had so many crits now on the opening pages of Marks of Repentance that I’m more confused than enlightened! There are so many things that the first few paragraphs must do: catch the attention of the reader, provide a sense of setting and a sense of the character AND a sense of the conflict…

How “real” is your life on social media? Do you present a multi-faceted person? Do you show only your good side, or do you let your troubles and your politics hang out all over and stir up controversy? I’m not sure there’s a right or a wrong here. Each person makes her own decisions as…

Today I let Sebastian out of the box for an hour or two. Now the lid is back on, but he keeps thumping on it. He wants out. He wants to run rampant in his little world and show it to me. He wants to play and do what Sebastians do best…program computers. What I…

Quest to be Queen now has an entirely new opening scene of 1316 words. And lest any of us get too excited, it’s taken me nearly a week to pull that many words together. Today I got sidetracked researching titles of royalty while I finetuned Cecil’s full name: His Royal Highness The Crown Prince Cecil,…

I cut and tweaked yesterday’s words until the synopsis fit onto five pages, double spaced. It was more about eliminating lines than words, but I wound up with something sort of cohesive. I think. As the synopsis marathon gets under way, we’ll start critiquing each other’s synopses, and then we’ll see if it makes sense…

It takes awhile to crit an entire novel of 114K, but it’s pretty much done except for a bit of wrap-up. Actually I need to double-check a few facts with Jim about electric fencing before I send this back to Mar, but…it’s off my back for now. I can’t rush Jim; he’s out in the…

This has been a crazy busy week with not a single word of fiction written, edited, or even (sadly) thought about. Unless you count thinking about not thinking about it for this blog post. ANYway… One of the things that’s been happening is that our son and daughter-in-law are moving back home after six years…

Are you REALLY a writer? Are there days you wonder why you do this? Days when it isn’t fun and you’re sure your writing stinks and the scenes don’t flow? Hop on over to Maripat’s blog and get yourself a pep talk. Or maybe a kick in the seat of your pants. Whichever.

I’m no athlete. Sure, I played volleyball in high school and Bible school and I love the outdoors–hiking and such. But the kind of talent and dedication that gets an athlete to the winners’ podium at the Olympics? Not even in my wildest dreams…or nightmares. I’m not that fond of pain. I don’t dream of…

After almost two weeks of lolly-gagging around on my vacation (if you believe that, you’ll believe anything; hang around cause I have more lies I could tell you…) I went back to work today. Work for me has a dual purpose. It’s to sell flooring, organize my guys, make customers happy, provide a sounding board…

So, I’ve been ambushed by a brand new novel. I’ve been mulling over the concept that for some reason, the Christian market seems to be more open to fantasy in YA than adult. I’m not sure what they expect fantasy-loving youth to read when they get older, but that seems to be beside the point…

I cringe phyically that I dare say this out loud: I don’t think this novel, Marks of Repentance, needs massive revisions. I’ll do a little tidy up, send it out to critiquers, and they’ll doubtless have different ideas. Oh well. What I see so far: More hints of what the antagonist is up to early…

It took three days of wrastling with words, but the massive rewrite chapter (3269 words) is in place. At least the first draft of it is. Now I can finish up the last few chapters, in which I don’t think there are any huge problems, just minor adjustments. At least in comparison! Then it will…