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Tuesday 29 November 2011

Awesome Monday, Meh Tuesday

The bad thing about having an awesome day, is that the next one will probably be pretty crappy. Which is exactly what is happening to me today.

I had a great day yesterday. I didn't get too much writing stuff done, but I did go through the Word doc and changed something that will help smooth out the final draft next week. Plus, hubby & I did a yoga workout, and then caught up on some TV shows:

American Horror Story: We watched the two parts of the Halloween episode, and man, was it creepy-cool. I'm really enjoying this show. It's so insane, twisted, creepy... and in some parts, totally wrong. Yet, that's what makes it so good! And why I'm pretty much hooked and can't wait to find out what happens next.

The Walking Dead: *don't read if you haven't seen it yet* We absolutely loved the Midseason Finale! OMG. I didn't expect what popped out of the barn, but it packed an emotional punch. Yikes. Once again, OMG. I can't shake her walking out of there after they've been searching for her the whole season. Of course, with the truth out there now, I know it's going to have a huge impact on all of them. Amazing, I say. Can't believe we have to wait until February...

Anyway. These two shows are fast becoming some of my most faves. I love how risque and open TV writers are to new and previously unexplored storylines these days. It's cool.

So, there are a few things that are kinda bothering me today but I'm going to do my best not to dwell on them. It's best not to let negative energy affect me for too long. It's just not worth the aftereffect. :/

Bring on the positive vibes.

Well, I think this blog entry has helped me find a much better mood. And I can now go and enjoy lunch!

Friday 25 November 2011

Rain, rain, go away...

Really, go away. It's been raining all this week, and it totally sucks! I'm so over it. I have to wear my raincoat every single day and it's cold, too. We're supposed to have moved past the cold, shitty weather. O_o

<--- I took this photo this morning, during my daily walk. It's usually really nice but with the constant rain, puddles keep appearing and disappearing each day. So sometimes I have to either step all over the massive flood points, or find a way around them. Luckily, it wasn't too bad today. But still...

Anyway, that's enough bitching about the weather.

If you check out the sidebar, you can find links to where you can already pre-order CLASH. How awesome is that? I've also added some info about WITHER. In case you'd like to check out where the story began. ;)

So, I'm actually really happy with what I've achieved this week. I managed to complete a lot of background research and brainstorming for a bunch of things that'll affect Sierra and her world during the five-book series I have planned for her. Having all of this down in the one notebook is going to be incredibly helpful when I'm writing, revising, and editing each book. It'll save a lot of time, too. The best thing is that it's helped all the details fall into place, and sometimes I feel like I can step in and out of her world. Which is an awesome thing for a writer!

Okay. That's it for today. I'm going to go and do... something, I guess.

Hubby will be home soon. Can't wait to get started on the weekend! Have an awesome one! 

Thursday 24 November 2011

Enough with the rain, I reckon!

Seriously.

It's now Thursday, and the rain hit on Sunday afternoon. What does that add up to? Too many rainy days. In some cases, it happened to be endless rain. :(

Looks like it's not raining right now, but it's still very dark out there.

I've said this before: I don't mind walking in the rain. Actually, I do it often. But my morning walks include going past a spot in the river path that floods when it rains too much... which is where I found myself yesterday. It wasn't fun, and it makes the walk feel like it goes forever. Instead of being pleasant and lovely.

So, let's hope today is the day where the sun finally breaks through! (I wish, lol)

Anyway. Onto more exciting things...

Recast, Book 2: CLASH is now listed for pre-order for the Kindle and the Nook. How awesome is that? If you pre-order it, it's available at a cheaper price. So, yay! ;)

This made me smile.

Another thing that makes me smile is getting things done. This week, the things I'm slowly crossing off my to-do list aren't as huge as getting closer to finishing a story, or a revision draft, or even an editing round. But they are essential things that I need cleared up before starting the first round of edits on Sierra Fox #1, finishing up #2, or even starting #3. So, I'm very excited about the extra research, brainstorming, and sorting through I've been doing. Like I said yesterday, it's mostly behind-the-scenes stuff, but it's still very important.

There'll be much of the same going on today, but I'm looking forward to it. It's fun!

Well, have a nice day. (Better than mine if it's not raining where you're at.)

Wednesday 23 November 2011

'Twas a dark and dreary day...

But this gorgeous picture of my cat, Loki, should brighten things up. :)

Seriously, isn't it beautiful? My daughter took it. We surprised her last month and gave her a digital camera for her 11th birthday, and she loves it. She takes heaps of excellent photos, but most of them happen to be of Loki. Lol. She chases him around the house with the camera, waiting for a cute pose. And well, since he's pretty much always doing those... you can imagine. I call her the 'Loki Paparazzo'.

As you can probably tell from the title, we've been having a pretty dark and rainy start to the week. Boo! It pretty much rained most of yesterday, and I found myself walking in the rain when I dropped and picked my daughter up from school. I have to admit it was kinda nice during my walk in the morning--I like getting the river path all to myself--but in the afternoon it was a bit of a drag. Oh well.

I just hope it stops soon. I don't mind a few days of spotty rain, but nonstop rain for more than that starts to make me twitch. I need me some sunshine during spring. ;)

So, I actually had a great day yesterday. I didn't have any tight daily deadlines, but worked on research and updating my Sierra Fox Series Bible for most of the time. I even spent the morning listening to music while I read about some myths and legends. I've now (finally) cleared something up about one of the villains in the second book, which I'll have to fix during the final draft. And have found/figured out which calendar moon cycles I'm using. Never mind about that, though. It's mostly background stuff that I need to know in order to make sense of the timeline.

I'll be doing more of the same today. I've got an ominous name to choose, the interior of a house to figure out, and some werewolf/full moon research to do. I've also got to read a little more about crime scenes and might even need to eventually pop into the local police station to ask them a few precise questions about certain Australian procedures. I don't usually have cops in my books, but these two popped out of nowhere while I was writing--just like the unplanned scene they were in--and now I need to make proper sense of everything. Yeah.

OMGosh! I found out the other day that MCR is actually doing one sideshow in Sydney when they tour as part of The Big Day Out next year. They're going to perform at the same place as 30STM did, when we went to see them live last year. We're gonna try and get tickets. I expect this show to sell out real fast, but I'm certainly gonna try to get hubby, daughter and myself there. :D

Well, that's it for now. I'm going to get a few things done before my daughter wakes up and it's time to get on with the day... Take care!

Tuesday 22 November 2011

I skipped a day!

But there was a good reason. Really, there was...

As soon as hubby left for work yesterday morning, I got stuck into what I had left of the Sierra Fox #2 second draft--which was 46 pages--and spent every moment I had during the day on it, too. And... I actually finished it. Yay!

The new word count is: 94,116. It went up by almost 3k, and I expect that during the final draft, it'll go up and down again. I have to admit that I'm really looking forward to getting stuck into it. But I need to take a short break. Unless something else drops in my Inbox, I plan to work on the third draft during the first few weeks of December. Just before my daughter starts school holidays.

So, what am I going to do in the meantime? There are a bunch of things I need to add to my Sierra Fox Series Bible. I also have to double check some facts and research a few other things, plus make sure everything fits in and makes sense. I might also make a start on the synopsis to save myself some time when I'm ready to submit it.

I'd also like to get some reading done, since I've been so consumed by my own stories lately that I haven't been able to do much more than sample a multitude of first chapters without committing to any books. :( And you know how much I love committing to books, so this feels a little strange. I have to admit that without constant reading, it feels like something's missing.

Hopefully that'll change soon.

I feel like I've been working nonstop on edits and revisions during the second half of this year, and I would love to have the rest of this week (at least) to recharge my batteries a bit. It would be really cool to have four days where I've got plenty to do, but I'm not sticking to a rigid page-count goal each day. :) Sometimes, your brains just needs a little rest.

Well, that's it for now.

Friday 18 November 2011

TGIF!

Yeah. I'm kinda glad it's the end of the week. I've had another very productive week.

As of this morning, I've reached page 155/229 in my Sierra Fox #2 second draft. Yay! That actually gets me very close to my Tuesday page goal (which is page 161), so I'm actually hoping to get as close as I can to my Wednesday goal. :) I know, it's freaky, right? Still, I'd rather be ahead of my daily goals than behind.

If I can keep going at this pace, I could finish the second draft by Wednesday afternoon. Which would give me two days to go through the final bits of extra research I need to do (for detail fine-tuning) and a chance to update my Sierra Fox Series Bible. Yeah. That would be awesome!

Remember how I mentioned it was starting to feel like summer around here? Yeah, well, the weather decided to make a liar out of me yesterday. It was raining all day and the temperature cooled, heaps. I know! It was quite the shitty day, and I had the moody blues to go with it.

Anyway, now I can look forward to the weekend. Have an awesome one!

Wednesday 16 November 2011

It's beginning to feel a lot like summer...

Yeah. We've had some pretty hot days the last few weeks. I love it. I'm so ready to leave behind the cold and dreary winter we had this year. Bring on the sunshine!

So. I've been getting stuck into the second draft of Sierra Fox #2 this week. As of this morning, I hit page 70/226. Which means I've already reached my Wednesday-page goal, and the total page count has gone up by two pages. No surprises there, lol.

I'm really enjoying this draft and this story. I love stepping back into Sierra's world, but during the second draft I always have a love-hate relationship with my stories. One second I love what I'm reading, the next I'm wondering if it's any good at all...then I go back to loving everything about it again. Strange, but a true process.

The other day, I had to remind myself not to keep second guessing every move I make during this draft, or I'll never get it done. :( Yeah, best to keep things in perspective and remember that this time I'm smoothing out the edges, deleting things that don't make sense, spotting typos, inconsistencies, and all that jazz. During the third/final draft, I can get super critical on the details to make sure nothing stands out.

It's bizarre to have to remind myself to do this every single time I'm revising a story, but it's so easy to let self-doubt cloud my vision. Feeling much better about it now. :)

Anyway. That's enough neurotic writing thoughts. lol.

I haven't done much else during the day. My head's still filled with "writing stuff" that continually fills my brain. It's a great thing, but not so good when you want to get stuck into some reading. :/ Oh well. As long as I'm having fun with the revisions and getting one step closer to completion.

Well, see ya!

Monday 14 November 2011

Welcome, to yet another week...

Firstly, let me start by saying that on Friday I did manage to meet my goals. I got the final round of edits for RELENTLESS done and emailed about an hour before hubby was due to get home. So, yay!

It meant that I started the weekend with a sigh of relief, because I managed to get two pretty big things off my to-do list. But I was really tired and didn't pick up any book/s to read. Instead, my head was swamped with taking final notes for the Recast world, as well as getting everything ready for the Sierra Fox #2 second draft revision. Which I started this morning. I got the first chapter revised already. Phew.

I like getting an early start...

This revision is going to take me a little longer than Recast #3 did, because it's a 91k+ novel. I've allocated two weeks (ten working days) to get it done. If I can get 23pgs done every single day, I'll be able to have it finished by next Friday afternoon. Then...I can look forward to taking a week off after that, before throwing myself right into the third draft of this novel.

Yeah, I've got a (very) tight schedule from now until the end of December. I'm trying to get the second Sierra Fox novel finished and emailed to my lovely editor before the end of this year. Mainly it's because I really want to start 2012 with a clean slate of projects, but I'd also like to have this done before my daughter has summer school holidays from mid-December to late-January. Yeah, it's a long one, lol.

Anyway. Asides from more revision, that's pretty much all I'll be devoting most of my writing time to. There are, of course, many real life things that need to be tackled as well. Like spring cleaning. OMGosh. We spent a lot of the weekend going through my daughter's room. Yikes! We've managed to recycle a lot of stuff, but also had to throw a little bit away. :/

The spring cleaning is nowhere near done yet, btw.

Okay. Gotta get breakfast for my daughter now! See ya.

Thursday 10 November 2011

Good morning!

How are you today? I'm good, but still swamped with work. lol.

Yesterday ended up being very productive! I actually got to the end of the story before hubby got home and we headed out to do some grocery shopping. Yay.

The word count ended up rising a bit--to 50,697--and the page count hit 119 pages. It's all good. There were things that needed to be fixed and added. And trust me, I actually deleted quite a bit as well.

I'm very excited about getting to the end... but I'm not actually finished yet. That's what I'm hoping to do today.

I just wrote the first draft for both the synopsis and blurb. They're both very rough and need a little more work, but it's good for now. I'll be taking a look at them later on in the day. But before finalising them, I need to grab all of my notes and post-its to make sure I've addressed everything. As I was working on the third draft, I filled several post-its with questions and tidbits that I needed to double check at the end. So I'll be taking care of them too.

Then, I'll be finished. I'd really love to get this done by the end of today. So, fingers crossed.

I was planning to take Friday off, as a reward for getting this story's revision finished more than a month before my self-imposed deadline, but I received the errata stage edits for RELENTLESS yesterday afternoon. :/ So, I've decided to spend tomorrow doing them. It's 47 pages worth of edits, so I should be able to do it...

If I can get the last round of edits and finalise Recast #3 before the weekend, I will be a very happy writer. :D <----see, me being happy. LOL.

I'm really looking forward to rewarding myself with some overdue reading.

Well, catch'a!

Wednesday 9 November 2011

Still moving along...

Yeah, the revision's going well. But first, how awesome is this cat? Seriously. Wow!

Anyway. Yesterday's chunk o' revision got me to page 70/117, and I was aiming for 50/117. So, cool! It turned out to be a super productive day. I swear, the word count kept going up and down, I even lost a page at one stage and it went down to 116, before it went back to 117. LOL. I actually ended up cutting a lot of useless words. And even had time to address several issues I needed to look into--which were on post-it notes.

I was super happy with the progress, and hope to continue the same pace today. :)

I'm also extremely happy with the story. At the moment. Trying not to let the self-doubt affect what is actually turning out to be quite an interesting revision. I'm really enjoying it! And if I keep going at this very cool pace, I might even have time to write the synopsis and blurb at the end of the week. Fingers crossed.

Oh, before I forget, one of my publishers has a new anthology call. You can check it out here. I've been toying with writing something for this one... I just need to figure out a way to fit it into my very tight schedule. Which could be a prob. O_o

Y'know, the only downside to getting SO caught up with my own stories is that I haven't had a chance to read all week (and most of last week). Still, once I finish this draft I'll be sure to reward myself with a book to read. I love 'em kind of rewards. :)

Well, off I go. Have a great day!

Tuesday 8 November 2011

The revision continues...

I spent most of the day revising yesterday, and managed to get 30/117 pages revised. Not a bad start. I found a bit of repetition, deleted some things that didn't add anything to the story, moved stuff around, have already strengthened a bunch of things, and even managed to cut about 200 words.

Very excited about the way the story's shaping up. 

I'm hoping to get another 30pgs done today. :) Halfway mark, here I come!

Last night, I grabbed my calendar and pretty much allocated writing stuff for the rest of the year. :/ This week, I'm working on Recast #3. The next two weeks I will spend working on the second draft of Sierra Fox #2. That means I can then take the last week of this month (which also happens to be the first week of next month) off. Before hitting the third draft of Sierra Fox #2 beginning/mid December. Phew!

My goal is to have these two stories revised and submitted to my editor before the end of the year. It means I'm going to be super busy, but that's fine. I love these two stories and the series they each belong to. Oh, and it also means that I can start 2012 with a clean slate and start allocating some new writing. Yay. Awesome!

Of course, whenever I make tight plans that fit so well together, something arrives to throw it offline. lmao. We'll see what happens, huh? ;)

But for now, I've got a story to get stuck into... See ya later!

Monday 7 November 2011

The busy never ends...

Yeah, that's right. Which is why I haven't blogged for days! :(

Around this time last week, I decided that I was going to spend the week mostly brainstorming, reading, planning, and getting ready for this week's revision of Recast #3. It was going to be my breather week between projects.

LOL, because that's not what ended up happening. I actually ended up working on FLEs, a second round of edits, and then finished off the week by checking the ARC for CLASH. Which means that Ace and Ely's story is now done & done! How awesome is that? The hard work was certainly worth it, that's for sure.

I'm very excited about CLASH, and also very proud of it. Though I couldn't have done it without my brilliant editor, Suz. She rocks! And I can't wait to work with her again. :)

Also, just having read through that story again--where the hero for Recast #3 is introduced--is actually perfect for getting stuck into the third book's final revision. This morning, I revised the first chapter--10pgs. So that's cool. I'm aiming to get 25pgs/day revised. And if I do, I should have this draft finished by the end of the week. Then all I have to do is write the synopsis and blurb, before subbing it to my editor.

Working through this draft is both exciting and nerve-wracking. Exciting because I really enjoyed writing this story and always look forward to tightening and fixing all the blemishes that I didn't pick up before. And nerve-wracking because it's the third installment in the series and kinda moves into new territory. None of the previous characters are actually in this one, though Ace is mentioned. I guess it's just hard to keep that self-doubt away sometimes. :/

Anyway, I've got all of my notes and research with me. As well as post-it notes to add anything that I need to remember. :) Gotta love being prepared!

We had an awesome weekend, btw. I hope you did too.

A new Ikea has opened up nearby and we popped in yesterday. Seriously, having an Ikea within walking distance is absolutely awesome! We'll definitely be popping in. A lot.

BTW, I haven't read anything since the beginning of last week! :( I've just been too busy working on my own stuff, thinking about a new story idea, and spring cleaning...

Well, wish me luck with the revision! I'll try to be a better blogger this week. ;)

Have a great day!

Wednesday 2 November 2011

OMGosh, it's the middle of the week already!

Have I mentioned how much I love this show, lately?? Well, I do. I absolutely love everything about it. And after this week's Shane incident, I'm lovin' it even more. One of my favourite things about zombie books/shows/movies is how human nature is affected by a zombie apocalypse.

I think The Walking Dead does a great job. :)

Okay, so at the beginning of this week I decided I was going to take these five days to research a new project, read, and prepare for the Recast #3 final revision draft next week. Basically, I was going to take it easy...

Fast forward three days and I've gotten the FLE done for CLASH--btw, if you didn't see it the other day, here's the official blurb--and the second round of edits for RELENTLESS. Phew!

So much for taking it easy, huh?

Anyway. Today feels all out of whack. School didn't start until 11am because the teachers were having a stop-work meeting, so it was strange walking down there later than usual. Oh well. At least I still got a chance to finish up the edits I was working on. :)

Well, that's it for now. I just thought I'd post an update. As usual, I've got a hundred things going on at once... Maybe tomorrow will be a slower day. Maybe.

Have a great one!
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