Laptopocalypse

I have some rather disturbing news.  News that will set back my deadlines for at least a week and put a halt to my writings, ramblings, and bloggings.  My beloved laptop is on the fritz.

No, Little C.  I am most assuredly not kidding.

And so, I shall make the trek down to the store known as UPS, to drop off said laptop and will be AFK for at least a week, maybe two.  I will be back before Christmas, never fear.  I'm also hopeful that I'll be able to snag husband's laptop to use, but he's very clingy with it, so we'll see.

Meanwhile, I wish you happy end to November, happy beginning to December, and most of all...

Happy Reading!

PS- I don't know how the feed handles my personal picture posts, but if you are reading this on my Amazon author page or on goodreads and you can't see the picture of my ADORABLE child, I highly recommend you follow the link back to my blog.  Because he is worth seeing.

The Cure for it All

As mentioned in my previous post, I may have a bit of the crankypants going on, because of hateful, detestable November slump!  But I have found the cure my friends! Now, I know what you're thinking... but it's not Ryan Gosling.

I was disappointed, too.

Turns out, all it took was belting out my favorite Christmas Carols to give that slump a kick in the pants.  More editing has begun, which doesn't do much for the word count, but I'm hoping to finish up the majority of that this week.  It's not a lot, anyway, just a matter of clarifying some things and broadening some of the descriptions.  Then it will be in the hands of my proof reader and I'll be free to concentrate on the pickle that is Zyander's story.

Why oh why is Zyander so difficult for me?  Maybe it's because he's the most grown up of my characters, being an actual adult.  Luka has so much immaturity and I find myself always knowing what he'd say and do when I write for his story line.  Zyander is such an enigma, though.

Even though I know in the general sense what I want to happen for his character this time around, somehow he always seems to wiggle free of the most basic questions I have for him.  Whenever I think I know how he's going to react to a situation, he turns around and says the exact opposite!  Sometimes I feel like saying, "That's it, you are on a timeout!  Go sit in the timeout chair and think about how you're acting toward your creator!"

So, I guess in a way, this week will be his timeout week.  When I pick him up again, perhaps he'll behave himself.  If not, I'm moving on to Nikka. :)

That's all for this week.  Found some interesting stuff on the web, so check it out if you have time.  Otherwise, Happy Reading!

Links:

Ann R. Allen has two really interesting posts: 6 ways to avoid the pitfalls of the beginning novelist  AND Hooks, Loglines, and Pitches

Sean Beaudoin has a laugh out loud funny post featuring The twelve sexy MALE apostles of YA writing 

(And let me just say, it's nice to see the guys of YA represented, for a change!)

Dean Wesley Smith offers some perspective on the world of publishing in 2012 

Crankypants Syndrome

My husband is in charge of the deviled eggs for Thanksgiving this year (his assignment from Grandma) and when I reminded him of this on his way out the door, he said, "Oh, do I need to get anything?  Like that deviled egg powder?"  To which I said...

I mean, I didn't know there was such a thing as deviled egg powder.  Turns out, he meant paprika!  hahaha

I'm feeling so cranky today.  It might be PMS or maybe it's editing (sometimes I hate editing, especially when it gets in the way of writing.) or maybe it's good old November Slump.

What is November Slump?  Well, it's a lot of things.  It's the 2 weeks before my birthday.  I'm turning 34 this year and for some reason that seems worse than 30, 31, 32, 33, AND 35.
It's the time right before the holidays start: crazy shopping, busy streets, people EVERYWHERE... which makes the introvert in me sooo  twitchy.  There is a REASON I'm a writer, people!
It's the worst season of bookselling for me.  I know, seems weird, right?  I mean, there are a LOT of authors who spare no testimony when describing their success of November and December.  But for whatever reason, my books are more like Summer Vacation and Back-To-School books.  I've been doing this for 2 years and thus far, my best months are April through September.  The worst are October, November and December.
It's the last few days of Nano, which always makes me mad for some reason.  Pressure to perform?  Even though I swore to myself I wasn't going to get that this year, I seem to have been bitten by the performance bug anyway.

Whatever it is, I hope it leaves soon.  In the meantime, I'm going to skip the editing today and do some writing, because that's where my heart is.

Happy writing, ROW80ers  and Happy Reading, everyone else!

The Best of the Peps

I love the Nano Pep Talks.  As I mentioned before, they are really why I love Nano.  Nano is HARD.  I've participated 5 times and finished 3.  1667 words a day, people.  Some years are easier than others.  This is one of the others.
But there is something about a pep talk written by an author.  No, it's not the blatant appeal to authority.  Or the cache of having one of your favorite authors (Kristin Cashore, anyone?) speak their best words of wisdom and enthusiasm for your eyes only.  For me, it's the camaraderie I feel, realizing there are other people out there, like me.
There are other authors who get lost in the plot, who get stuck in a rut, who over think their writing, and who can't seem to write an outline to save their lives.  These authors share their darkest fears and their greatest moments of clarity with us.  And I deeply appreciate the vulnerability that entails.  It's also one of the reasons why I love ROW80.
It's so great to not only read about others who are struggling like me, but so fulfilling to see their triumphs and successes.
So in the spirit of Nano—which is halfway over already—here are my favorite bits of advice:
1) Don't cheat! Don't let yourself get caught up in the seductive attraction of a new story!  Finish your book and then move on to another idea, otherwise you will end up with a box full of starts and no finishes.  (Courtesy of Meg Cabot.  Side note, this one pep talk gave me the courage to finish Six Keys so long ago.)
2) Figure out what's next.  When you get to the end of your writing day, take a few minutes to think about what happens next, so you don't find yourself staring at a blank page when you start again the next day.  I tend to do this at night before bed.  When I'm not dying of exhaustion, that is.  (Courtesy of Holly Black.)
3) Write for your reader self, not your writer self.  This is probably one of the best pieces of advice out there, and it goes hand-in-hand with "write what you read".  If you LOVE YA fantasy, and you read a ton of it, then you know exactly what people like you want to read.  Write for the you that reads YA fantasy, and the others like you will follow. (Also courtesy of Holly Black.)
4) The only way out is through.  When you get to the point where you despair of your story, where it seems like nothing but a BIG GIANT TASK, remember not to quit.  The only way to finish that story is to sit down and write it, warts and all.  (Courtesy of John Green.)
5) Writers are dreamers.  Being a head-in-the-clouds dreamer is a fine thing.  Dreamers see possibilities where others see a blank word doc or an empty notebook.  Dreamers give people beauty, hope and a few minutes of wondrous entertainment.  They make people happy (overall, that is.  I know you've all had some one star moments.  I certainly have.) (Courtesy of Piers Anthony.)
6) No one else can write the book for you.  I mean, they could... but it wouldn't be as good.  Imagine JK Rowling had a ghostwriter for the last Harry Potter book.  Would it have had her great sense of humor?  Would the story have ended the same?  (Courtesy of Neil Gaiman.)

So, I know I've been radio silent over here, but I've had good reason.  I've written 15,500ish words so far this month.  For me, that is practically a miracle.  Of course, there were some setbacks and some successes. I have rewritten Zyander's first part about 3 times.  I know what I want to say, but I just can't seem to say in a way that I like.  hahaha  I also finished my super secret project that I started... oh... 6 mths ago, I think.  This may shock you, but I don't write everything under my own name.  I follow Dean Wesley Smith's advice and put different genres under different names.  Nothing I'm ashamed of, but I've found that fans of one or the other genres don't tend to like crossovers.

Anyway, I'm making good progress and feeling happy with where I'm at.  I'll let you know when I finish Zyander's first part.

Happy Reading!