Once a month, Bria Quinlan and Alexia Reed host a bunch of authors who get together and post excerpts from published books, contracted work or works in progress, and link to each other. You don’t have to be published to participate–just be a writer with an excerpt you’d like to share. For more info on how to participate, head over to the Excerpt Monday site or click on the banner above!
Once a month, Bria Quinlan and Alexia Reed host a bunch of authors who get together and post excerpts from published books, contracted work or works in progress, and link to each other. You don’t have to be published to participate–just be a writer with an excerpt you’d like to share. For more info on how to participate, head over to the Excerpt Monday site or click on the banner above!
Once a month, Bria Quinlan and Alexia Reed host a bunch of authors who get together and post excerpts from published books, contracted work or works in progress, and link to each other. You don’t have to be published to participate–just be a writer with an excerpt you’d like to share. For more info on how to participate, head over to the Excerpt Monday site or click on the banner above!
This month’s excerpt may feel a bit familiar because I’ve featured a snippet of the story here before, but I’d ask that returning readers be patient with me. I’ve decided that in 2011 for Excerpt Mondays instead of jumping all over the place from story to story to instead do an installment from the same story each a month. So from now until December, we’ll be visiting with the same characters and watching to see how their story unfolds.
I’ve come to harbor a certain fondness for this couple, although their story might not be as big as some of my others, it’s still one that I feel I must finish. So without further ado, let’s join Camilla and Hubert on their journey and I hope you come to love them as I have.
It’s time once again for hearts, chocolates, diamonds (no dear, that’s not a hint) and of course free reads from the Romance Divas, who have just wrapped up their third annual e-book challenge where the members are encouraged to write a story and put it up for free.
THE DIVAS E-BOOK CHALLENGE 2009 has some great stories by some fantastic people. Do yourself a favor and run click, don’t walk miss a chance to check out these stories. Stay in the Valentine’s mood! Enjoy a bit more romance!
BTW: if you missed the previous years’ editions: 2007 and 2008.
Too many deadlines!I now have less than a week to finish and submit this short story. EEEEEEK! Where the heck did September go?
I’ve been up against multiple deadlines this month and I’d hoped to have this story finished well before now. However, that’s definitely not the way it has worked. The characters have been not cagey, but playing their cards close to their chests, we’ll say. Every paragraph has been a struggle to write. I think it’s the added pressure of knowing it was intended to be submitted for real and that I’d promised myself that when it was done I’d send it to Jodi. Yeah, no pressure or anything.
“Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.” — C. Northcote Parkinson
So, where does the story stand? Pretty much where I left it over a week ago. I have five basic scenes/plot points to hit and I know there are a bunch of things that I need to bring back to wrap it up nicely.
So, what’s the problem? A distinct lack of focus and motivation. I feel like I have a perpetual headache. Most of my other obligations have wound down for a bit but there’s still the daily grind to accomplish as well. However, I still feel like that Greenday song, “Wake Me Up When September Ends.” Oh, not anything from the lyrics or the video, just the title. After two essentially sleepless nights last week, I could use the extra Zzzz’s. Maybe that’s part of the headache?
So, why am I whining (am I? I tried not to. Honest.) about this here? DH and I drove an hour or so north of here for a friend’s birthday party on Saturday night (*waves hi to TinyFroglet!*) and to mourn the passing of her youth. She turned 40 this year as well. Anyway, she said she really enjoyed reading the blog because I wasn’t afraid to be honest about my struggles with this process. So thank you for pushing me out of the rut and making me realize that explaining it and thinking out loud about it does actually help more than just ignoring it and hoping it’ll go away again.
So, what am I going to do about it? First, I’m going to go check and make sure the premier of Heroes is taping tonight, then I’m gonna sit down with my timer and jump into one of those chat challenges at Romance Divas. Ready? Here I go….
No, I’m not talking about the black and white robes nuns wear and not riding habits either. I’m thinking about how we establish routines, even if we’re breaking a good habit by allowing a bad routines to creep in.
It’s been claimed that it takes 21 days to build a new habit.
It certainly doesn’t take me as long to break one that I WANT to reinforce and cultivate. The past week or so has been disrupted for me. I haven’t felt like I’ve gotten enough sleep even after I went back to bed for 5 hours on Saturday afternoon.
I’ve flipped through that book about 7 habits effective people have. Yeah. Me? Not so much. My biggest issue is following through on something I want to do. Take my journal entries, for example. Once I’m on a roll, it’s easy to keep going. However, speed bumps that get me off track require no more than missing 2 consecutive days.
I’m still working on the short story that Bria talked me into writing and submitting by the end of this month. It’s difficult going, but everyone who’s seen bits of it seems to like it.I have to admit even to myself that it reads very differently from the other stories I’ve written. I’m hoping this is a good thing and that tortuous feeling has merely been growing pains.
Bria and I traded after Labor Day weekend and we were both frustrated because of cutting off in the middle of the stories. She’s got one scene in mind that she wants me to write just for her. It’ll be a fun one to write so if it gets rejected, that’s definitely on the plans to add in.
Several people have reported rejections for this anthology with a few receiving contracts. It’s disconcerting to realize that they’ve made decisions already and disheartening to realize that mine either won’t make the cut or won’t be finished in time. Although, if I don’t finish it, I know Bria will kill me.
Time is at a premium lately and boy could I use a few more hours just for sleep.
As promised, I’ve posted the first of the stories based on the exercise of telling a story in the traditional Three ACT form. Revealed is set in the Regency Period and runs about 2400 words. The idea was pulled from an abandoned novel opening and might work as the opening chapter some day.
If you do read it, please take the time to leave a comment. Thanks!
I finished the story arc I’ve been talking about recently. I’m not at the point where I can do them quickly, so I may just post them as I finish them and feel they’re readable. Once I finish a few more minor edits, I will post that one on a page here with links to it, hopefully tomorrow.
One of the reasons this one went so easily, after I got past the first obstacle, was that I was more familiar with the characters and had taken the time to draw out a reasonable road map of where exactly I wanted to go. Problems arise when I try to skip the step of pinning down some detail upon which hinges either a major plot point or one that defines a character. My food critic and her chef suffer from this lack of detail currently. I really need to dig into their story, give the world more depth and provide the characters with more dimensions.
One of the Romance Divas (Hi MamaDivine!) asked me if I’m going to participate in NaNoWriMo this November. I hedged with her and said I probably won’t because of how crazy November can be around here. To participate on the official site, you need to be working on something new. I don’t want to scrap 25k and begin again from scratch. I could work on the novel in a less official manner but I know I’m reluctant to go in and add more bulk to my novel in progress just for the sake of increasing the word count by 50k. The prospect of a large-scale goal and deadline are also making me balk. I don’t think I’m quite ready to commit to something that large and looming. I’d like to take a bit more time for planning and practice first.
