Tag: Wayfarer

Goodreads Giveaways!

by eileentroemel, posted in Writing

Readers are key to being a successful writer.  Readers are the ones who write reviews.  Readers spend their hard earned money to buy a book.  In recognition of this, I’m running three giveaways on Goodreads right now.

Wayfarer (click on the name to go to the giveaway)

Adara Stone youngest pilot in the Interstellar Planets Union survived one ship’s destruction only to be treated like a jinx.  Being half human and half Wayfarer, she’s always been set apart.  Adara covets being in space and the Pritchard.  She loves the feel of the ship in her hands.  Captain Decker Flannery thinks she’s too young, too solitary, and too sexy to be on his ship.  He needs a third pilot so he has no choice.  Flannery finds fault in every action Adara takes but at the same time finds himself drawn.  He doesn’t like other people touching her and he finds himself protective and attracted.  Adara’s past puts her and her crew in danger.  She fears her “jinx” will harm those she’s come to love but they love her and are willing to fight to protect her.  In the end, Adara finds a home and a family.

Secret Past  (click on the name to go to the giveaway)

Waiting in line at the bank, Nick and Dee are thrown together during a bank robbery. Instantly attracted Dee can’t resist family-oriented Nick. Dee has secrets – deadly secrets which private eye Nick stirs up.  He must know all her secrets.  To survive Dee must run but can’t leave Nick. Nick escapes with her. Nick has to earn her trust as Dee realizes she is strong enough to face her Secret Past.

Moon Affirmations (click on the name to go to the giveaway)

Moon Affirmations is a meditation self help book geared around the cycle of the moon.  Using the moon’s energy, the reader can focus on issues in their lives.  For each chapter, there is a brief description of the moon cycle along with an affirming poem and a guided meditation for each day of the phase.  

Where did the week go?

by eileentroemel, posted in Life, Writing

This week sleep has been interrupted – I sleep for two hours and wake up; but writing has been fast and furious all week.  Starting last Friday, Ken and I have been busy.  We drove to Indiana to visit Vicki.  We spent Saturday with her and in the evening we drove home.

We got home about 11:30 and my legs were tired.  Sunday I meant to work on the craft room but my legs were still hurting.  I spent the day crocheting – finishing a scarf for Vicki and catching up on the shows we missed all week.  It was good to finish the project and worked on an afghan.

Sunday night I started writing on Wayfarer 11.  Since then, I’ve been writing every night this week.  I’ve added nearly 20,000 words to the novel and finished it off.  It is now out to my test readers which means, I sit back and wait for the feedback from them.

This novel will sit for at least a week so I can let go of the story enough to do the editing.  Meanwhile, I have to decide what’s next.  I have an article I proposed and need to write it.  However, I still have to finish the craft room, crochet a skirt and an afghan.  I’ve started reading this new book which has enthralled me.  So many possibilities – I just need to narrow it down and prioritize the list.  Really it’s a matter of what I feel like working on most when I sit down with some free time.

On the good news front, I had an article accepted and a layout copy sent to me.  It was a rush to see.  I always forget how exciting it is to see my work in print.  It’s more positive reinforcement for me to keep writing.

A Good Story

by eileentroemel, posted in Writing

I haven’t written a lot in the way of stories in a while.  I was beginning to feel like I couldn’t anymore.  I’ve been editing, writing patterns and so on but actually sitting down to write scene after scene, I haven’t done in months.

Last night I got lost in the telling of my story.  I started out grumbling to myself about how tired I was and how I wasn’t sure where I was going, and a variety of other things.  I had this whole mental dialog at the end of which I essentially told myself to quit whining.  I spent several hours writing and by the time I was done, I had written eight small scenes, about 4000 words.

As I was writing the flow just seemed to come to me.  I couldn’t type fast enough, as I was finishing one scene the next would pop into my head.  I could almost see them play out in my head.

Being a responsible adult – which not as fun as kids think it is – I turned out the lights at 11:15 to go to bed so Monday wouldn’t be MONDAY.  Instead of sleeping, I lay in the dark wondering if I had written good scenes, if they were too short, too back and forth.  Among a million other things, the book kept going through my head.

After a bad night’s sleep and a long day at work, I’m back at my computer.  I reread the scenes and they are quick but I don’t think too quick.  I think I’ve got the right mood, tone, and rhythm I want in them.  One or two of them might need to be fleshed out more with a bit of description but for the most part these are conversations so you get to know the characters better.

Wayfarer Expansion is out after I had my freak out about ten books in a series and thinking it was time to wrap it up or maybe not or …. I said it was a freak out.  I got in my own way with writing.  Granted I was doing a lot of crocheting and writing of patterns but still I got in my own way with story telling.  It doesn’t matter if it is book 1 or 100 (wonder if I could make it that far with this series?) as long as I’m telling a good and complete story, that is all that matters.

Ultimately that is the goal – a good story.  I want it to be one which will make you laugh, cry, and hold your breath.  I want you to hate putting it down and hate waiting for the next one.  I want you to love the characters unless they are bad – then I want you to love hating them.  I know this is asking a lot of my readers but I’m asking it of myself first.

There are still parts of books when I go back to read them (yes my own) where I still cry, laugh and so on.  There are books I hate putting down from other authors – ones I will stay up all night reading even if I have to work the next day.  On my own, I’m not such a good judge on this criteria.  I think that’s what makes a good story.   I think this is what keeps readers coming back – a couple of hours of escape into another world which involves you so much you forget about whatever is going on in your own life and focus solely on the story.

Only the best scenes…

by eileentroemel, posted in Crochet and crafting, Life, Writing

Yesterday I got another tentative acceptance.  I wrote a different take on the topic for an issue and the editor thought it was different and might fit in the issue.  She’s holding it until then.  

Last night I was tired.  My energy level was in the basement.  I wanted to write but my brain was not having it.  I sat and watched the Harry Potter movies.  Now I say that but I didn’t actually watch them all the way through.  I started the first one and watched my favorite scenes.  I did that for both the first and second one.  
While I was watching, I worked on a crochet project.  This is a graduation gift and I’m hoping to finish it soon.  This is a pattern of my own creation and a little different than I normally do.  At first I really doubted whether it was a good pattern but now as I’m about half done with it, I am really starting to like it.  It’s different making it unique.  I’m hoping she will like it.  
This weekend I’m trying to talk Ken into working on the craft room closet.  I’d really like to get it organized and settled.  I’d love to be able to walk in there and just grab what I need or put back what I’m done with.  I’m hoping he will be willing to work on it but I just never know.
I’ve got three or four scenes in my head for Wayfarer 11.  It’s a matter of getting them down on paper.  I had an “oh crap” moment yesterday when I realized I had one of my characters giving birth too early.  I tried breaking things up.  I tried rearranging.  I thought about rewriting but in the end I took the simple route and just added days to the contract day at the beginning of the chapter.  It solved the problem without causing major rewrites and had little effect on the story itself.
My plan is to do the closet and work on the crochet project this weekend.  If I can finish both, I’ll consider it an excellent weekend.  Now I’ve put this out in the world, let’s see what the universe throws back at me.

Number 10!

by eileentroemel, posted in Writing

Wayfarer Expansion is the tenth is the series and it was published today!  I’ve finally got all of my ducks in a row and finished the edits and published.

My intention today was to clean my office.  I want to reorganize some drawers and shift things around so filing (which I hate doing) will be easier.  I figured if I finally got around to this, my office would be more work space than pig sty.  It’s still a mess.

However, I finished the edits on the tenth novel this morning.  It took me all morning, much longer than I expected.  Then I read a book while I had lunch. It was very nice to just kick back and relax. This afternoon I started the publishing process and now it is done!  I’m very excited.

This means I’m going back to writing.  I have two crochet projects I HAVE to get done in the next month.  From there, I have one other project that has a deadline.  While I love the crocheting, I’ve finished watching the shows I was watching and now it’s time to go back to some intensive writing – so long as the muse is willing.

Wayfarer Expansion is now available in ebook for $2.99 and in paper for $12.95.  Check it out at these sites
Smashwords
Amazon

End of the Week

by eileentroemel, posted in Crochet and crafting, Life, Writing

Spring break is next week.  The past two weeks at my day job have been rough with the hectic pace of summer registration and advising going on.  This week in particular has felt like it was two weeks rolled into one.  I work most of next week and it should be nice and quiet at work.

Our weekends have been jam packed with stuff too.  We’ve either been doing things or we’ve been running errands.  This means I don’t feel rested when I get back to work.  I’m hoping this weekend will be different.

I have a list – as always – of things I want to get done.  I’ve already crossed off the paying bills, submitting to publications, and a couple of other small things.  Next will be making a grocery list, doing coupons, and prepping for the grocery store.  I think I’ll ask Ken if he wants to do the shopping on his own.

If he does, I will take tomorrow to work on publishing three crochet projects and editing Wayfarer 10.  If I can get all that done and still have energy to work at the computer, I will try to do some more submissions.  There are a couple of projects I want to work on as well so I’ll see what Ken wants to do and how I can help.

I took Monday off work and I’ll be hanging out at home alone.  I’m looking forward to not setting an alarm for the next three days.  I’ll have to I suppose so I don’t sleep too late but in theory no alarms.  I’m glad it’s Friday and I have three days to do what I want to do with no commitments to anyone other than Ken.

Where does the time go?

by eileentroemel, posted in Life, Writing
I’ve been working on getting excerpts from all my novels to use for marketing the books.  I’ve gotten through all my poetry books, meditation book, Wayfarer series and a few others.  I have to go back through and get links on this page so everything is in one place and makes it easy to copy / paste. 
Last night I finished editing Wayfarer 10 and reread 11 making edits as I went.  I couldn’t believe how fast paced 11 was.  I like that as I think it makes for a quick read.  I also was concluding several storylines with the opening scenes.  The next step is to start more storylines and see how the characters move forward. 
That took up a good chunk of my night last night but I was still done by ten which is too early for me to go to bed.  I decided I’d take a half hour to wander around on Pinterest.  Big mistake!  I spent an hour and half on Pinterest and Facebook.  I read some interesting articles on batch cooking for freezer meals, looked at some crochet patterns, read up on some of my friends activities and pretty soon it was 11:30.  It was crazy – where did the time go?  It got eaten up with surfing Pinterest and Facebook. 
Tonight I’ll be entering edits from the hard copy to the computer for Wayfarer 10.  I’m not sure how long that will take but I’m going to try to stay off Pinterest / Facebook so there will be no time suck again.

It’s All Her Fault!

by eileentroemel, posted in Life, Writing

In my head last night, I had a little argument with myself.  I was working Wayfarer 11 and writing a scene.  I had to pee but I didn’t want to interrupt the flow of writing.  In my head, I’m saying, I have to pee.  I have to write.  I have to pee. I have to write.

Needless to say, I did eventually make it to the bathroom.  When I realized I was having this inner debate (it was distracting from my writing) I made myself stop writing for the necessary break.  This is how involved I get with my writing.

I spent the commute home talking to my eldest daughter, we discussed at length where I was with 11.  I reiterated it was her fault I started the next Wayfarer novel as we were talking about different plot issues and scenes.  It made my brain think about it and I woke up with these ideas, which led to me writing 3000 words.

By the time I was done last night, I had nearly 12000 words and am LOVING the start of this book.  I don’t always say that and usually by the time I’m done, I don’t like the book.  I was able to tie up several loose ends from previous plots.  While those plots were finished, they weren’t tied up nicely.  This way all the answers are out there and it made for an exciting start to this book.

The thing is I woke up this morning with more in my head so I’ll be working again tonight with writing (hopefully).  Even though I didn’t get to bed until midnight, I actually slept really well until  my 5:00 am alarm.  This is an improvement from the night before.  Five solid hours of sleep is better than eight hours of broken up sleep.

Wayfarer Salvation

by eileentroemel, posted in Writing

Wayfarer Salvation is the next installment for Adara and Decker.  See how they cope with a pregnancy after a miscarriage.  Adara continues as a trainer for pilots and has to deal with a recalcitrant and arrogant Bart Jarvin.  After two conflicts, he decides to show her what a good pilot he is but fails miserably by crashing a shuttle and injuring himself and three engineers.  A cascade of events follows with a secret investigation being launched into Adara.

The release date for this book is September 1, 2015.  You can pre-order the book now on Smashwords or Amazon.  The links are available on my website:

http://eileentroemel.weebly.com/

Diversions and distractions

by eileentroemel, posted in Life, Writing

Diverted, I think is the way to describe my evening last night.  I went home focused on finishing Wayfarer 10.  Ken and I had a late supper and chatted before he went to bed.  I spoke to two of my daughters, warning the middle one I was going to write.  Her response was “And?”

I was in the groove, writing a scene when I got a text from my niece.  We had made arrangements to chat last night and I’d forgotten.  She was letting me know she was running late.  I said no problem, finished what I was writing (not the book but the section) and settled in for a conversation.

Three hours later, we finished our conversation.  I’d like to say it annoyed me to not finish the book but the conversation was so good, so interesting and diverse, I didn’t notice the time slipping by until after 10 last night.  If someone forced to me tell them what we talked about, I could probably come up with a list but it was convoluted.

After our conversation, I wrote for another hour and a half.  I should have kept writing because I couldn’t sleep.  It took me till almost two to get to sleep.  When I woke up this morning, I had four short stories, a to do list, four scenes for Wayfarer 10 fleshed out, and two or three scenes for the third Defenders novel all screaming to get out of my head.

To calm the voices in my head, I emailed myself an outline of the short stories so I can refer to it when I have time to sit and write them.  I opened up Google Keep on my phone and made the to do list.  I got up (late by this time) showered, dressed and got off to work.

My evening was diverted from my plans but I have to be honest, it was a good diversion.  One I enjoyed and hope she did as well.  The scenes bouncing in my head are fuller, better developed ideas.  I can’t wait to write them to see how they play out.  I think my characters will enjoy the twists and humor of them.  I know I’m going to.