Category: Life

Last night sucked. I was all geared up to write and my energy just bottomed out. Tonight, tonight has been sooo good. I wrote over 5400 words and finished Sacrificed to the Sea Monster!

Oh the ending is good – I like it a lot. It’s not a cliffhanger but it lets the reader know there’s more coming. I’m really pleased to be done with this one.

The story dropped onto the page like it was meant to. I like my characters and I like the plot. It’s a rough draft and I need to edit the heck out of this thing but I like this one.

It’s done and I’ve sent the rough draft off to my beta readers. I hope they like it. Oh, I’m happy with this one.

I’ve got takeovers to do for the next two days and I’ve got a short story to edit by the 2nd of September. I also have client work. So not a lot of writing for me in the next week. I say that and I’m laughing at myself because I know I’ll go looking for something. I have a couple more Ava books started which need to be finished. The question is – which characters will talk to me the loudest.

All I thought about all day was I wanted to come home and write. I got through my day and got my day job tasks organized. I spent time with the family. Now, I’ve written the next part of the Sea Monster book.

I’ve spent the last hour writing and adding details and thinking more about the story. I find my energy lagging and all I want to do is go to sleep. I know there’s more there. I can feel it but my brain is only doing this… blah blah blah blah…

So I wrote 1200 words tonight. It’s small but it’s progress. I think I’ll take some tylenol and my evening meds and try to sleep.

It isn’t often I get this worn down but day job has been SUPER stressful over the last couple weeks. Today I worked on campus and by the time I left work, my joints were screaming.

Today was supposed to be a writing day so I could finish my Sea Monster story. That didn’t happen. I spent most of the day working on promotions and organization stuff. Oh and let’s not forget the fun task of working on budget.

So no fun writing for me during my day off. My people hung out with me later than normal so I didn’t get to start writing until later. Now it’s 12:30 (oy) and I’ve just started the second to last chapter of my story.

Tonight, I wrote 4300 words and the whole book hit 50K plus a bit more. I think the last two chapters will be shorter than the others – at least that is my sense of them. I could be very very wrong.

I’m excited and happy with what was written tonight. I may need to expand one section or explain one thing when I start in tomorrow. I’ll reread and decide. For now, it’s good.

Maybe tomorrow night I can finish the story but it depends on how long people stick around. I’m excited to finish this. I cannot wait to hear what my beta readers think of it.

Monday at the day job was involved. Answering questions, getting tasks done, and just getting back into the swing of work.

The day went quick enough. All day I kept having flashes of things I wanted to write about in the novel I’m working on. I have so many good ideas. I cannot wait to get them all down.

Now I write off the cuff. I don’t plan out my plots. I let the characters reveal their stories to me. But occasionally, I’ll know what the next few steps are and I’ll jot them down. I did that tonight because as of right now, I see four more chapters. One of the chapters, I’m not sure whether it goes next or if it’s part of the ending… I think it might be the ending.

Tonight I was distracted by so many things. I finally put my phone on do not disturb because of so many notifications. Once I did that, I got down to work and wrote almost 3700 words! It puts me at about 42,300 words.

With four more chapters and if I keep to right around 3500, I’ll have a book about 56K when I’m done. This would be perfect for novel length.

Now I have editing to do but I also have an extra day off this week. I hope to finish the story this week.

If I can, I’ll switch to editing the short story due by Sept 2 and my client work. I need to go back to doing a couple hours of client work. If I were at the beginning of the novel, I’d probably do that but as is I’m writing a chapter a night. I want the flow to keep going so I’ll finish this story and then focus on the editing.

Really if I had a full day to write, I’d probably finish it in a day. I know what each scene will involve in a big picture way. I know who the bad guy is…. I also know how it will play out. I need to figure out details but I can’t wait to see how it plays out.

There’s nothing better than when the words are flowing and I have little to no interruptions. Today I got that blessing.

It was a bad night for me and I woke up with more pain than normal for me. This usually means a rough day.

Vicki started me with two kinds of smoothie which I thoroughly enjoyed. Ken went off to the farmer’s market and Vicki went to visit one of her cousins. I was alone in the house!

I almost always look at the work I need to get done but today, I started writing. I didn’t stop to think of word count or anything other than the story.

Now I’m at the end of three chapters. I’ve added 10,274 words to my story and I’m at about 35K in this story.

Yesterday – I guess since it’s after midnight – one of my books released! I had a release party to attend and other tasks on my list for the day. However, once I started writing, that was it for me. I couldn’t stop. I’m thrilled with the progress and I hope tomorrow I’ll have a good writing day as well.

I’ve got a few chapters to talk about the new role the characters will have but mostly it’s a building of a good life. There may be a twist or two. I’m not sure yet. the only thing I do know – it’s an Ava book so there will be sex.

Yesterday I was so tired by the end of the day, I didn’t write one word. We canned pickles – sliced and whole, beets, pickled zuccini and pickled onions. We froze carrots and corn. We also attempted to dry tomatoes which I don’t think worked but we dried onions and that worked. It was a long day on Saturday of food prep and preservation.

At the end of the day, my brain was blank. I don’t think I could have written a sensible word. Instead I picked up one last manuscript and started a read through. I found little things. I had to change a date in there because I realized with the back story I set up, I couldn’t use the date I had.

This morning I woke up and realized the tasks I put on for yesterday couldn’t be done so I rescheduled them. Then I looked at the tasks for today. Neither were urgent so I rescheduled them. Instead, I finished the read through and then after dinner I went back to writing.

I’m super pleased with my progress tonight. I wrote 6100 words. Two chapters worth of writing! I’m also almost to the halfway point of the story. While I’m writing this one, I’m getting ideas on possibly making this into a series. I’ve got two ways I could go with it. So we’ll see.

Tomorrow I’m back to working my day job. It will probably take me all day to catch up on my email. Hopefully I have time and energy to write tomorrow night.

My day got discombobulated from the beginning. I slept late which was good. But then the things I planned to do first, didn’t get done until later. It all worked out eventually but not according to my plan. This shouldn’t be a surprise to me but it threw me for a bit today.

I am loving Asana for managing my tasks. I opened it today and started on my list. I got most of them done. I rescheduled a couple. One nice thing by using this, I look at my tasks and think ahead about them.

One of my tasks was to schedule weekly posts for my preorders. I was trying to decide how far in advance I was willing to trust FB to keep posts if I scheduled. Then I remembered – I have Buffer. I can schedule posts on there and it will hand on to them as we move forward.

Tomorrow will be pickling, canning, and freezing. My daughter and husband will go to the farmers’ market and bring back the bounty. Then we will work on processing. I usually do a good chunk of the cutting up of stuff. But we have to see what she’s able to get locally right now.

Tonight, I watched a premade sale by my favorite cover designer. After that, I worked on Sacrificed to the Sea Monster again. I made it to almost 20K writing almost 5K tonight. I got two plus chapters written and a big chunk of my plot started. The more I write, the more I think this will be a series. I’ve gotten suggestions for other creatures which would work in this theme so… high probability this will occur.

I’ve got the weekend ahead and I’m hoping to fit in some editing (for a client) and I need to do practical things like pay bills and work on budget. So I’ll be busy but I also hope I can add more to the Sea Monster story. I’m drawing near the halfway mark for me… or the halfway mark for the length I aim for. There’s a difference based on what the characters tell me they want.