December 1, 2016 Thoughts about yesterday's post.

    So, I figured out the dilemma I was experiencing last night.  I realized this morning while I was painting, that I may have sounded like I was whining yesterday in my post.  Oh, whoa is me, I have to try to get a magazine interview.  :/  Why is success so hard?
    But that's not what it was.  It was more frustration in myself and the decisions I make in my life.  In almost everything I've done, it's at this point that I say: Okay, I've figured it out.  Now it's time to go figure something else out.
    I've done this a lot.  With my crocheting, I very rarely finish a project.  I figure out the pattern and how to make the pretty design and then I move on to another challenge.  This is only one example.
    Another would be my Geology degree.  I'm 18 credits away from having a Bachelor's of Science in Geology.  What did I do when I got to the last semester?  I looked at everything and asked if it was really what I wanted.  Did I really want to be a geologist?  Did I really want to make that kind of commitment?  There are other things that interest me.  So, I changed my major and tried some other things, eventually dropping out completely.
    Real Estate, Nursing, dare I say marriages as well, they have all fallen victim to my apparent fear of success.
    I've gotten some of them figured out.  I have finally found a man (actually, we were put together) I can be with, who challenges me and refuses to give up on me.  I went from Real Estate into being a stay-at-home mother which I found really satisfying.  Finding something to do with my time is what led me to pick up an old interest of writing.
    I prayed about this whole thing this morning.  So far, I've stayed on the easy side of things.  Whether I succeed at producing a book is totally up to me; it's all under my control.  Getting people to buy it, putting it out there for people to see--more people to see--that's not under my control and introduces risk.
    This is the point where I usually decide to pull up stakes and move somewhere else.
    I have a problem, however.  I love my characters.  This is a story I NEED to get out.  I feel like I'm being inspired to write this.  This is beyond me.
    If I'm going to be an agent of my Heavenly Father, if I'm going to do what he asks me to do--and I feel this is something he's inspiring me to do--then I have to do what it takes to get it out there.
    I have to call the magazine... and the t.v. stations.  I have to make the appointment for the book signing and the library reading.
    Then I have to remember my own advice from just a couple weeks ago and ask myself:  How bad do I want it?

    I've painted this morning.  My living room is shaped like a fat 'L'.  The walls are painted what I describe as a Dijon mustard yellow.  It's not horrid, but it's not spectacular either.  What makes it worse (and most of the houses I've seen in California have this downside) is that the paint is flat.  You can't clean flat paint.  When you have four teenagers, this is not a good thing.  What boggles me, is that the couple we bought the house from raised three kids here.  They should know this.
    The one side of the living room is very dark.  There is 80's style track lighting which isn't very bright and the room is dark.  So, I'm painting it a white satin and putting some color into the trim.  This is what I've done so far today:

Before

After one coat.  It's still wet in a couple places.

    I only taped off about a fourth of the floor in this section.  I didn't want the kids tracking paint through the house, that's why I'm not doing the whole thing all at once.  Besides that, I also want to be working on the book during the day.  This way, I paint for two or three hours and then write some as well.
    I think there will need to be three coats with the roller and two with the brush.  That seemed to be what the situation was when we painted my daughter's room.  So, tomorrow, I'll start with the second coat of roller, trim in the edges again and then hopefully I can to the third coat and be ready to move the plastic to the next section.
    As far as writing is concerned, I'm going to get a couple chapters in Part 2 read and edited.  I hope to get them through a grammar program that ISN'T Word.  If I still have daylight, I hope to begin the third draft of Part 3 and get the first two chapters rewritten.
    Those are my hopes and dreams.  The kids will be home soon so I better get started.
    Talk to you tomorrow.

November 30, 2016 Why is success scary?

    I didn't write anything today either.  I'm totally okay with the 176,000 I manged to get over the course of the first 24 days of the month.  Totally.
    My burnout is wearing off.  Today, I was spontaneously thinking about my characters and some things.  I had a few small revelations, but I didn't get them down.  If they're supposed to be there, they'll come back.
    I did get some plot work done.  It's not all of the story line, I'm missing a bit, especially towards the end.  Some of it might need to get moved around.  I do have enough to get through most of the book and plug things in as I go.  That's major.
    Tonight, I'll get Part 3 mapped into my overall plot line Excel sheet.  It's a handy thing.  On the left, I have the days of the week listed.  Across the top, is each of the two main and several major characters.  The events are then plotted out so they lace together.
    Tomorrow, I'm going to do a little bit of painting in the living room.  Then, I'm going to read and grammar-ize two chapters in Part 2.  If I have some time left over, I'm going to come back around to the beginning of Part 3 and start the third draft with the new timeline.  There's no sense in finishing the second draft.  I've changed enough of Part 2 that only the skeleton of the last half of Part 3 remains.
    I also met with one of my alpha readers today and gave her a copy of Part 2.  The last one will go out tomorrow.  That's exciting.  I'm moving along. 
    The lady I met with today, her husband has worked for one of the local magazines.  He gave me contact information to get a hold of someone there to see if they'd like to do a local piece on me.  He also told me to contact the local t.v. stations.  It's kind of intimidating.
    I talked with my husband about it tonight.  He told me that if I want this to do really well, I need to jump in and swim in the deep end.  Why is success scary?  It's not even success at this point.  It's potential success.  And it frightens me.
    I still haven't locked down a book signing with the local Barnes and Noble.  That's been out there since August.  I also had an offer from a local librarian to do a reading.  I told both of them I'd have to think about it.  Why didn't I jump at them?
    My hubby has a good point.  I can continue to be a stay-at-home mom who paints her house and writes/publishes OR I can be an author who paints sometimes... and still stays at home.
    I'm sitting here crying because it scares me to death.
    I'll let you know what happens.

November 29, 2016

    No writing done yet today.  I don't think that it will happen, either.  Neither will painting.  I fell this morning and twisted up my knee.  Having it elevated and under ice is what the plan is.  Beyond that, I don't know.
    Maybe, I'll get some plotting done.  Get the timeline for Part 3 hammered out.  That sounds like a plan.  We'll see.
    I have also had thoughts of reorganizing this blog and making it a little neater.
    I'll check in tomorrow.

November 28, 2016

       I'm done with NaNo 2016.

        So, Plotting.  Yeah.  That's what I was going to work on to help spur me into the last week of NaNo.  So, I did and then did nothing else.  Actually, I really didn't need to plot much.  It's basically already there.  There's some nuance stuff that's not but it can really only come out when I'm writing/rewriting/editing.  Only about half of Daniel's stuff is written, but I'm not sure where it goes.  It's dependent upon what day of the week it is, so that will depend on where things fall timewise.  That's what needs to get figured out.

        I suppose sitting down, putting the events on cards and mapping it all out will be what I need to do.  I'm too locked into the timeline when I look at the plotlines I have mapped in Excel.  But it's set up on a daily basis, locking things into specific places.  What I need to do needs to be more fluid than that.  I need to get it all pieced together without the day to day in my line of sight.

        I stopped writing for NaNo.  I didn't do any writing for the last two days and what I did on Friday was only my blog and my journal.  That's it.  A very teeny portion of me feels guilty for not finishing the month, but I was burned out.  Completely and totally.  I spent the weekend playing on Sims.

        That was good.  I was able to clear my mind.  I started having spontaneous thoughts about the book a little here and there.  Not what it has been but it's coming back.

        I can do these last three days but I'm not sure if I'm going to.  I'm looking forward to the editing process of Part 2.  I'm planning for that… and to paint the living room.  I'd like to have the painting done so I can put up the Christmas tree.  But, I'm going to work on both of them.  I'm not in a rush to paint nor to edit.

        So, that is what it is.  I got 176k words logged into this NaNo.  It might be a little more if I decide to do some over the next few days, but if not, I got a pretty impressive number and it's a personal record.

        I think it's done.  NaNo 2016 for me, is done.

 

        I printed out the alpha versions of Part 2.  Here's a picture:

 

      The duck is sitting on an alpha version of Part 1 and represents 43 of the 49 chapters, less 10,000 words from the final print.  Part 2 is on the left and seems to be a little bit bigger....

      I'll check in tomorrow.

November 25, 2016

  Thanksgiving was a wonderful time.  We ate, talked and played games.  Spectacular.
  I even stayed until 8:30, which was two hours past what I had planned on.  It was all good.  I felt refreshed and renewed afterwards.  Good times, good times.
  We, as a family, talked to two of our children yesterday.  They're a good sixteen hour drive away so we don't see them often.  It was good to talk to them.  We're planning on Skyping with them both at some point this weekend.
  Yesterday was a light writing day.  I didn't quite get to 5k.  I sat down to write after we got home and I just didn't have it in me.  I'm thinking there's a week off coming next Thursday.  Or, a scaled down version of a writing work day.  I need to start editing Part 2.  At first I thought I'd go through one chapter a day--just comb through it slowly and catch all the errors that four re-throughs by myself and my editor didn't catch.  Be methodical.  Then I realized that would have me publishing sometime in September and that's too far out.  I settled on two chapters a day.  That's gets us back to the May-June time span.
  Last night and this morning, I've been thinking about Part 3.  It's a mess, they way I've started rewriting it.  A disaster.  Scenes are everywhere.  Bluh.  I'm playing with the idea of starting the rewrite over.  I don't know.  I don't like the sporadic-ness.
  Well, I should do something.  Maybe I'll get out the index cards and the markers.  I'm liking that idea.  I've already met my minimum and aim goals (150k and 175k).  Maybe a (partial) day of plotting will help the rest of the last week go better.
  And as I sit here thinking about it, my brain is screaming at me about my word count.  Lol..
  I'll talk to you tomorrow.

November 24, 2016

  Happy Thanksgiving.
  There, it's out.  Now, let's talk about writing.
  I worked on Daniel yesterday.  He's had a major event happen.  He, Brise and Peter have done big things together.  Everything I wrote yesterday was brand new stuff, which is exciting. It's nowhere near the finished product, but I wouldn't expect it to be yet.
  I got just over 10k in yesterday.  It was a really good day, but turns out to be the normal I've had for the last week or so.  Which is good!  I like getting these numbers.  I'm at just over 170k.  About 25k of that is brand new words.  Overall, about 12.5k of what I've written will never see the light of day again, but that's to be expected too.
  I pledged to do a 50k weekend, so 50k over three days, Thursday is not one of them.  I'm concerned I won't be able to pull that off.  I'd have to average around 17k per day and as I'm thinking about how my days go, I don't see that as possible.  We'll have to see.
  So, today, I'll be taking part of the afternoon/evening off to spend the holiday meal with friends and family.  It's going to be fun and a well-deserved break.  The kids are all still sleeping, so I'm going to get to work.  Have a wonderful day!

November 23, 2016

  I got another 10k yesterday.
  It feels weird to not be writing in sequence.  I'm writing by character storyline instead.  I have some good stuff and I'm looking forward to getting all organized after it's all done.  It's strange.  But there will be index cards, markers and table or bed space involved.  It'll be fun.
  I've written some new stuff.  A lot of which will be in the fourth book.  Today, I'm focusing on Daniel's timeline.  The majority of what I have written from the first draft is actually Dan's point of view.  Most of Daniel's story is in my head but not down anywhere.  New stuff.   Ooooo.
  Brise will need some new stuff too.  He's got a major storyline coming.
  Most of Norton's stuff is written, but not all.  But I don't want to focus on him today.
  My aim for today is another 10k.  That's been a pretty comfortable place to be.  I committed to a 50k weekend in one of the forums.  I don't know if I have the fortitude, though.  That almost a 17k three days in a row.  Whew.  I'm not sure my stamina is up there yet.  I'm getting kinda burned out too.  10k seems to be all I have in me right now.
  But then, I haven't done a bunch of new stuff yet.  I haven't felt that fire that burns and I HAVE to keep writing.  I'd like to feel that burn.  It's great.
  I'm off to work.  Have a good day.