I Want A Writing Robot

Microsoft Word is driving me nuts. For some strange reason, I decided to use Word to write this new story. I usually write in Scrivener, and then I transfer it to Word when I'm finished so I can edit there. Well, I thought, how about I cut out the middleman and just work in Word? It's worked out well so far, because I'm not so concerned with length and word count, which means my chapters are much longer than other stories I've written. And it's not just rambling either! When I reread everything that I've done for the day, I'm proud of myself because I've used all five senses without really knowing it.

So why is the program driving me nuts?

I opened it up today so I could share how far I am, and I saw that I've written 61 pages. 61! I think that's a lot. I figured I'd have about a million words, or somewhere in that vicinity.

I'm at 19,830.

I believe David Tennant can help me express my feelings.

And John Hurt is back there wondering what on earth I did wrong to have only written 19,830 words.

Don't get me wrong: I know that's a good start. In a week and a half, that's a really good start. But I guess I expected more, especially when I saw that 61 pages. Sometimes I'm over-optimistic, and when I'm typing away for a few hours, I think, Wow, I have to be almost done by now. It's a terrible habit, and if anyone in school is reading this, don't make that mistake. Not that I'm frustrated over it or anything. I'm staring at it right now, thinking about what's going to happen to the characters in the next chapter. However, I think this may stem from the fact that I still don't have any idea what's going on in this story. I know what's going to happen in the end...sort of. I also know I want this to be a one off, that I don't want to start another trilogy or cycle or what have you.

What's that, little voice in my head? I should take a breath and map out this book?

Well, I may have to listen to that little voice because it's May 30th. We all know what that means, right? It means that May is over (mostly) and that my little Amory vacation is up. Oh, darn. So I may use this weekend to map out one story while also re-editing Amory. This time shouldn't be so bad because now I know my ending and I'm going to work backwards. Oh! All of this reminds me! Small link party below...

The Goodreads page for the new book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22240546-untitled

All You Left Behind on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/All-Left-Behind-Guardian-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B00G3J8Q7G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1401472148&sr=8-1&keywords=all+you+left+behind (hmmmm, I would watch this page, especially in the next few weeks...)

And....that's it, I suppose. Both of those links are also on the side of my page. The Goodreads page was really all I wanted to show, but then I remembered something I have planned for AYLB later in the month of June, so I thought I'd throw that up right now. The Goodreads page will (obviously) change in the coming weeks, since I think I've settled on a title. Now it's just a matter of settling on a cover image.

I'm still leaning toward the handsome male angel flipping us off. It does accurately portray how I felt most of the time while writing this book.

Pajama Party For Memorial Day!

Sorry that this is a little later than normal, but it's a holiday over here and I'll be honest, I just woke up about an hour ago. That's one of the perks of being an adult without any children. I thought about postponing this until tomorrow, but my schedule last week was a little messed up because of this holiday, and I didn't want to screw it up any more.

Anyway, the weekend wasn't as busy as planned, so I actually wrote some. I'm about 15,000 words into this new story and it's - surprisingly - going well. It feels like a NaNo story, though: I have no idea where I'm going with it. This isn't even an underpants gnome story; I have no middle or ending. I have a vague idea of what's happening and where I want this to go, but I didn't stop this weekend to plan this story out. My notecards at home aren't any help either: I think I have about six or seven of them and they all say things like, "Clem finds vamp" or "Clem and Pete in trouble". Well, obviously, Bree, since these two are planning on killing the most powerful vampire in the world. So I know I'm going to have to take a step back and maybe plan out some things, but I'm having a lot of fun just writing, seeing where these characters are taking me. Once I have it all figured out, I'll share with you guys.

That brings me back to Amory. It's only Monday, but four day work weeks usually go by pretty fast, and that means at the end of this week, I'm going to get back to her. After thinking it over, I realize that I hate the ending I wrote. It doesn't make much sense and if I wanted it to make sense, I would basically have to rewrite the whole two books over again. I don't know what I was thinking. So, instead, I sat on it for awhile. I pushed it all out of my head and waited patiently for some other idea to come to me. Luckily, we took a long car ride on Saturday and I do my best thinking in the car (fun side story: when I was a kid and teenager, whenever my mom and I would get in the car, the first thing I would say was, "I'm hungry." Perhaps I've replaced the food with ideas). So now, I'm going to try this idea out and see if it blends in better than the ending I have now. I hope so, because once I thought of it, I almost slapped myself because it was pretty obvious. So, keep your fingers crossed!

Okay, I accomplished something today, and that means I don't have to do anything for the rest of the day. I don't even have to change out of pajamas!

Sometimes being an adult is awesome.

Tumblr, Memorial Day, and Other 'Merica Things

Okay, I know it's only Thursday and if this throws your entire week out of whack, I'm really sorry. But it's Memorial Day weekend (side note: I had to look that up because I get that and Labor Day mixed up every freaking year) and it's going to be super busy. I had a few minutes right now to get this down and I always forget to put it up on Twitter when I schedule this thing for a future date, so we're going to see how this goes. We have about a billion things planned for this weekend and they're all at night, but I know I'm going to be sleeping during the day or just wanting to stare at my cat while she navigates my boyfriend's condo. Yes, he's being a brave soul and he invited her over for the weekend. He doesn't want her to be left alone for so long in my apartment, so he said I should bring her over for the long weekend. I'm sorry, but he is the sweetest, cutest thing ever. Even if his eye does swell shut and the other one gets all red and he starts itching like crazy. When that happens, then I can say those four beautiful, glorious words: I told you so.

I'm such a good girlfriend.

Anyway, this week has kind of flown by and I feel like I've done absolutely nothing. I think that's only because I'm done with Amory and I promised to take a few weeks sabbatical from it, and after dedicating most of my time to it, not touching it this week has made me feel like a bum. But I haven't been completely ignoring my creativity, no matter how much I tell it to shut up because I'm trying to sleep. My little vampire story is now transferred to Word (because I'm going to try writing a story on that thing) and the first two chapters I wrote a thousand years ago are edited to the best of my ability at the moment. I ended up writing two more chapters last night, because my fingers apparently wanted to fall off. I don't know what happened, but as I started writing, more things came to me and I just kept going. I suppose that's a good thing, right? I'm going to try to find little snippets of time this weekend to keep the momentum going, so keep your fingers crossed!

Oh, also, I know that I've had a Tumblr button on the side of this thing forever now, but I've only used that website to re-post a bunch of ridiculous pictures of Doctor Who or Moriarty. Seriously, it's a problem, please help me. Honestly, I never know what to really do with that thing. I have this blog and I didn't see the reason for another blog. But now I do! While searching for more pictures for the cover, I found a couple that made me fall absolutely in love with how ridiculous they were. Instead of waiting to put them up on this thing, I went to Tumblr, because that seemed more appropriate for these pictures. I'm still posting pictures of the good Doctors and Moriarty because, please. Most of my posts go straight to Twitter, so if you check that thing, you'll see how insane I am, but I just thought I'd let everyone know that I've gone crazy and started using that website as it's supposed to be used.

Warning: Tumblr is weird.

Anyway, I should run and prepare as much as I can for this weekend. I'm not looking forward to the drive with the cat. She's a talker and gets car sick. So. Much. Fun.

(Oh, side note 2: Please, whatever you do, don't listen to people when they tell you to read certain fan fiction. It's terrifying, but so incredibly hilarious that you find yourself moving onto the second freaking book because you know it's going to be so much worse than the first one, then you end up staying up until 2 in the morning because what do you have to wake up for and you have to find out why this idiotic girl can't just let this jerk go. Just. Don't. Do. It.)

Gossip Girl Reminds Us of Fallen Angels

Who has two thumbs, a big huge smile, and is done editing her manuscript? Yep, you guessed it: this girl! I finished on Saturday, even though we all know that I'm not really finished. I added about 15,000 more words, yet it's still about 30,000 words less than the first book. I'm not trying to add words to match that first one, but I wrote so much on Saturday that I started falling back into that mental state of oh my gosh, my fingers are about to fall off so I should just end this scene as quickly as possible. Needless to say, there are a few things that I need to add and even subtract, but the first draft is done and out of the way. Since I finished earlier than I thought, I think I might fast track it and not give it all of June to marinate in my head. I have just give it a couple of weeks and then get back to it. I changed the ending, but I'm not entirely sure I like it, so that's one of the reasons why I don't want to wait too long. I want to get back to it, but I have to give it a little time, just to see if I might like it. If I keep it, I also have to go back through the whole thing and make sure that it all adds up to the ending. So we shall see.

So what does that mean for the next couple of weeks? Am I going to sit around watching TV and not touching my computer? Yeah, right. I've already started mapping out another story and want to get that going. But I also know that I have to start the whole process of creating a book out of a manuscript, and I did start that last night. I had forgotten how terrible it was to make a book jacket, but it's also somewhat of an adventure. I remembered some of the pictures I found when I typed in fallen angel into Google, but this year, the search engine really outdid itself. What's one of the first pictures I found while I was searching?

Oh yes. For my cover, I would love to have Jenny Humphrey walking the red carpet. I think that she perfectly captures the feeling and essence of the novel. Fallen angels, a world falling apart, danger at every corner...It's practically a Gossip Girl sequel! 

Sigh. For real, Google? The sad part is, this was the most tame picture that I could show. Apparently, fallen angels conjure images of extremely thin women in short dresses, high heels, and they're all blonde.

Don't even get me started on the images I found for end of the world.

This is going to be another tedious process. I wish I knew how to draw. I know I've said that before, but really. Why couldn't I have honed that skill while writing all those weird stories when I was kid? I used stencils and traced from a "how to draw a horse" book. Someone should have smacked me upside the head and said, "Kid! Do you realize what kind of pictures are going to be on the Internet when you grow up? Oh, what's the Internet? Well..." It would have been helpful, trust me.

So, for now, I'm going to crawl through the millions of strange and disturbing images on Google and Shutterstock for something I can maybe use. A Goodreads page should be up this week. I have a list of things that I need to do this week, and I'm really trying to get through it all. First up: cleaning the house and making it stop smell of wet cat food. That's what happens when it's a thousand degrees outside for the last week and the air conditioning does nothing to cool down the apartment. I leave all the cleaning for today and then promptly sit down to write this thing. I think I made a good decision.

No Editing Complaints!

Summer is the worst. Growing up near San Francisco, I've enjoyed rainy falls and winters, cool springs, and mild summers. But southern California (and the bajillions of people living down here) has different ideas. You know it's bad when I'm sitting here thinking, My gosh, it's only 85 at nine in the morning? It's going to be a good day! My poor cat and I have been sprawling across any cool surface this week, the air conditioner going full blast, sheets pulled from the freezer. My apartment is a mess because it's been too hot and sticky to do anything.

...Except editing!

Ha! You thought that whole paragraph was one big lead up to how I haven't been editing, didn't you? Well, sucker, let me tell you what. I have about forty pages left and I'm rolling along. Since it's been far too hot to do anything else, I've plopped down on the carpet in front of the air conditioner and edited for hours. It's been kind of a lovely process. I've added about 10,000 more words and probably taken out just as many. It's funny reading through stuff that I wrote so many months ago and didn't remember while writing the second half. So now I have notecards scattered on notecards with things I have to add or remember or subtract. I also inadvertently answered questions that I posed in the second half of the story. So, yay!

Overall, it's slowly coming together. I should be done in plenty of time before the end of May, so that's a wonderful thing. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to put it up right away. Sorry! I have a little plan that I want to stick to. Another story that's been sitting in the wings for almost two years has been pushing its way to the front of my brain, so I'm going to take June to map it out and get it started. During that month, I'm going to get a paper version of Amory so I can go through it again. Going over it on the computer is all fine and dandy, but there's something about it being on paper that helps me. I catch little mistakes much better and I'm able to flip through it so much easier.

Oy, I just realized that I still have to come up with a cover and a title and format this thing and...and...and...

The list seems neverending. See, this is why I need to be a wizard. I'm pretty sure Gilderoy Lockhart never had this problem. He just posed for a picture and then other people took care of all that boring stuff. Oh, I guess I don't have to be a wizard. Just a really rich author.

Do rich authors write blogs while crying over the season finale of The Vampire Diaries? Oh, they do? Great, I'm halfway there.

Editing is Ridiculous

You know those moments when you think you're doing a lot - and doing it all very well - and then realize that you haven't done as much as you thought?

Yep, that's editing for you.

I've been steadily working this weekend, getting through a few pages here and there, and then last night I kind of took off. An hour of editing felt like a thousand years, and I knew I'd have to be at least halfway through my book. Of course I would be. But then, once I finished, I saw that I'm only four chapters down. Four freaking chapters! Each time I glanced at the page numbers, I thought I was doing great, because I had about twenty pages down. And then when I stopped for the night, it was only chapter five.

Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.

Don't get me wrong: I'm totally proud of myself for some of the things I wrote during these little editing trips. But I just thought that I would have gotten more done. Of course, I shouldn't be saying that as I sit here blogging and watching Once Upon a Time. Still, I'm working through it. I have three weeks until June 1st. Sure, Memorial Day weekend is going to be crazy nuts, but I have a secret weapon: I actually like the stuff I wrote.

The more I reread this manuscript, the more I realize how much I like this story. It may have jumped the tracks once or twice, but that's what editing is for. But I do like this story better than the first one, especially since I've been connecting everything and smoothing all the rough edges. Sure, most of that editing remains in my mind for the time being, but I think that once it's down on paper, it might be pretty okay.

Of course, this is all just wishful thinking. None of this matters if I don't get out there and promote myself. So now you can look forward to all the crippling self-doubt posts that will most likely come in the next few months. Yay, right? Trust me, I'm dreading them as much as you are. Maybe we can skip them this time around, yes?

Hmmmmmmmmm maybe.

Quick Editing Update

I want to go on the record and say that I opened this page at 8:45, thinking that I would be done a little after nine and then I could get on with my day. Then I made the mistake of checking my email and seeing that there's a Doctor Who sale on ThinkGeek, and that's where I've spent the last forty-five minutes. I'm not even sorry about that.

My steadily worsening obsession with Doctor Who aside, what have I been up to this week?

Do you want me to say that I'm almost done editing? Well, I'm not. Not even close. But I am chugging along. I've been doing pretty well, actually, considering that halfway during the week, I realized how much I hate editing on the computer. First, there's the glare that comes off the screen that dries out my eyes after no more than an hour. Someone online suggested changing the background color to a mint green, and that seems to work pretty well, because I can read for days before getting tired, but it's still not what I'm used to, I guess. I feel like I'm skipping so much or only reading a little bit of the whole. I don't know what it is about reading on the computer, but my eyes tend to wander more easily than on a paper page. Still, I'm pushing through and reading as much as I can before I feel like I've messed up greatly. It's slow going, but it's something, right?

How's promoting going, you ask? My goodness, you ask a lot of questions! You know, it's...going. Yes, that does mean that I've done nothing for it this week. This week has been a bit of a mess since I've been trying a whole new schedule. About a month ago, I did something to my ankle. I can't even say twisted it, because I have no idea what I did. But it hurts. The treadmill for thirty minutes has helped greatly, and then I had the crazy idea to use the chest press machine in my apartment's gym. Now, not only do my legs feel like jelly most days, my arms and shoulders are killing me because I don't work out. I just don't. And instead of easing myself back into working out, I went all out this week. Because I'm brilliant like that.

But now that I've spilled my guts, I suppose I should get back to editing. Since I wasted most of my morning away with Doctor Who junk, I need to actually work to make up for that time lost. Thank goodness it's only the beginning of May.

But maybe one more peek at ThinkGeek won't hurt...

Editing and an Adorable Doggie

Oh, man, I am so late. I know this. I've been stressing over it since yesterday morning. I thought about writing last night, but then I opted to edit instead, so I would have something writerly to talk about on this thing, since that's what I've chosen to concentrate on here (why couldn't I have picked celebrities?!). My schedule was interrupted yesterday by this thing...

So, really, can you blame me? Look at that face. Look at it! If I had said no to seeing him, the entire world would have blown up from his sadness. I couldn't have that happen, so I went to see him and I forgot to bring my computer. But you're welcome, by the way, for me saving the world.

I wish I could say that I've been editing every waking moment. But, reality check, I have not. But that doesn't mean that I have nothing done. I've been writing scenes and adding a few things here and there, but the actually editing process has been kind of pushed to the side. My original plan was to read through it, adding the things I need as I edited, but that fell through almost immediately once I started writing again. The excitement started pumping through my veins while getting down more information about this story. It's a bit different having two different sides of the story, and I've only tried differing points of view in little Camp NaNo stories, so this is a whole new world for me. Hopefully it all makes sense and people don't read this, thinking, What on earth is going on here? (Maybe I should include that picture in my book so if people get angry at the confusion, they can just look at the picture and get happy again.)

May is about to get crazy here in a few weeks, so I'm hoping to get as much done as I can before then. I'm not saying that I'm going to be done with the whole thing, but 75%, that's a good maybe. I'm shooting for an end of the summer release, or maybe early fall, because I'm going to try promotion this time around. That means I have to get the cover done and get the word out there. I've started that process, but it's so awkward. I hate contacting people and saying, Hey, here's my book, do something with it, okay? Thanks, I'll just be over here freaking out about Captain Hook and Emma Swan, don't mind me, let me know when you've sold my book to a bajillion people, okaythanksbyeeeeeee.

That's really how the conversation goes in my head.

So for the next couple of weekends, I'm going to remember to take my computer with me when I go to my boyfriend's and I'm going to work over there. I'm going to work for an hour or more each day, and hopefully my allergies don't get in the way. That's what's really been stopping me the last week and a half: my nose, my eyes, the absolute lack of energy I've been feeling because of these stupid allergies. But at least I'm not really sick! That's something to be excited about!

Now that I've wasted enough time writing about nonsense, I suppose I should get back to editing. It's staring me right in the face, waiting impatiently, tapping it's foot. My manuscript is apparently super rude. But I'm skipping a session tonight in favor of Fargo and cookies, so I guess I shouldn't call it names yet. YET.

Falling Back In Love

You know the worst combination of anything in the entire world? Allergies and editing. I've been working on the manuscript this whole week and it has not been fun. Not only because I've been adding things and moving things around, but because it's been about a thousand degrees this week, with our lovely winds, and my allergies have come galloping back full force. To add to the horror that has been this week, there's a rather large spider somewhere in my tiny apartment, one that smells like Febreeze and Kaboom, one that may be dead. In the five months that I've been living by myself, I haven't had to deal with any spiders and I considered myself lucky. But leaving the patio door and window open all day has caused my luck to run out. So now I'm tiptoeing around my apartment, trying to edit and not die.

So, the whole adding things to the novel. Awhile back (and I know I've mentioned this), I had an idea of what I could do to prepare everyone for the third novel while also adding more information to this book because I knew there were some things missing. But I could only do so much with Amory as my narrator. She's stuck on Earth with no chance to make it back to Heaven, so I had to get creative. I had one chapter dedicated to another character in Heaven, but that didn't seem enough for me, especially because that one character also had a limited view and none of that view had anything to do with the villain. So I decided to add a few chapters of another character, this one in the thick of things, and now I have to add those scenes while making sure it all meshes well with the entire story.

What. Absolute. Fun.

I've been rewriting this morning and I like what I have down so far, but it's going to be a process. Not only because of the writing, but I've realized something the more I write this character: I don't like this character. I mean, I'm not supposed to like this character because he/she is kind of a jerk, but do you know how hard it is to write someone you don't like? Every little thing he/she does, I roll my eyes and laugh because he/she is such a jerk. So this is going to be not only a rewriting, but also a little vacation for he/she and I. I've changed the entire end of the series (perhaps...still not entirely sure), and I'm going to have to fall in love with this character before the end. But it's not going to be in this novel. He/She is still going to be somewhat of an a-hole this entire novel, but I'm just laying the ground work. The healing process between us has already begun and hopefully it'll work in my favor.

But now I'm going to get my actual day going, since I just realized the time and I need to find that stupid spider before I start cleaning. Because I don't want my neighbors to hear my scream when I find it while vacuuming. They heard enough of that last night while I sprayed the crap out of the offending spider with cleaning products.