Today is day 2 of Fast Draft at Romance Divas.  So far so good.

Yesterday I wrote 16 pages and today I managed 13.  I signed up for 10 pages a day, but my personal goal is to complete one chapter each day, which I’ve done.  Yay!  My last scene didn’t go as planned though.  I saw it in my head much different.  The problem was that I didn’t “pla” it in detail, so while I wanted the other women to accuse Giada of being fake, I didn’t know HOW to accomplish this.  It resulted in a choppy scene that I need to majorly add to later on.

Our team is doing great too.  Chi, Ella and Rhonda are great teammates.

Please join us at Romance Divas THIS WEEKEND!

Friday October 10th and Saturday October 11th, we will be joined by some huge names in fantasy and fantasy-romance for a workshop on what the difference really is between the two genres.

So today’s my first day at Fast Draft, and so far I’ve spent the last hour fixing my blog.  Smart?  LOL  I’m going to laugh in the face of writing 10+ pages a day.  In fact, I’m terrified.  Not at the amount but at the topic.  I’m at a spot in the book where I’m a bit clueless.  Instead of spending so much time editing the first few godamn chapters, I should’ve edited some of the middle.

Anyway, I’m off to tackle that now. Wish me luck.

PLEASE wish me luck!

I didn’t plow through 11 chapters yesterday and surely won’t today.  As long as I fix the beginning, which is the rest of the scene I’m on and the next chapter, I’ll be ok.  I’m sick of the beginning of this book.  I’ve changed it what 3 or 4 times now.  I don’t want to see it every again.  The middle is what needs work.  If there was only one thing this all showed me it’d be how important my outlines are.  I didn’t do a full outline for this book, and I feel like I’m twisting in the wind, following each gust until I realize I’ve gone the wrong way.  It’s ridiculous, and no one could do this every time they write.  I, at least, don’t want to.

So, I need to not be in such a rush to get started on the next book.  As much as Raven’s voice is calling to me, I need to maybe listen a bit longer before I begin.  And then I want to outline it thoroughly.

In the meantime, I have other little things that need to get done today too, so I better get moving. Tomorrow starts Fast Draft at RD.

I’m presently working on two books right now.  I know I shouldn’t.  I need to finish AMTDF before starting BM, but it’s the time of year.  For the past two years, especially last year, October came along and the inspriation and desire to write something scary was prevalent.  This is the month we get nothing but movies and shows in time for Halloween, so it’s a great time for horror movies and things that go bump in the night.  So I’ve told myself to start a thriller during this time.  Unfortunately, I didn’t time things appropriately this year and October is here and AMTDF isn’t completed yet.

So, I want to start BM.  I agreed to join Fast Draft with the divas starting next Monday.  Two weeks of writing at least 10 pages a day.  What a great time to begin something new.  I’m thinking I can start BM and then when FD ends I can finish AMTDF.  I have to have that completed by Halloween.   It’ll be cutting it close, and I shouldn’t risk it, but I also don’t want to wait until next year.

Plus, I can’t get this new idea out of my head.  My heroine, Bailey, is 16 and the books starts off with her in the mental hospital.  She is screaming for me to let her go, so I feel I need to abide. ;)  Ok, so I simply like the idea of writing something scarish.  I have the next five days to plot it though, so wish me luck.  Actually, I started plotting this one a couple of months back, but then the main character was 32 and named Alexa.  I want to turn this into a YA for several reasons–one, being to give her less power, two, because of the voice and my natural ability to do casual well and three, because this idea had so much backstory, some of it taking place when she was a teen, it makes more sense to have it happen back then.

So, I’m off now to tackle the revised plot and characters.  Catch ya later!

Do you really call two weeks of cleaning house and writing a vacation?  Maybe I should say my break is over, referring only to my children.  Just as well too because I am terribly missing them–especially my little peanut.  He gives the best hugs in the world, and I haven’t had any in some time.  I told him he had a lot of hugging to do when he gets home.  I can’t wait!

So, I sent in the revised Stiletto entry, right?  Then I entered that entry (well the first, slightly condensed five pages) for RD’s WAW (Romance Diva’s We All Win contest) and several opinions were kinda average.  I hate average; I try not to do average.  That is easy.  I’ve been average my whole life, and I’m looking for a little greatness here.  Besides, I *know* the piece is great, it’s just a matter of whether or not I displayed it correctly.

Which has me thinking I started it wrong again.  I cut out the first chapter based on advice from one of the Stiletto judges.  But starting where I did and adding enough backstory to have it make sense is too much.  It slows down the action.  Then I was thinking of the advice I got from Gemma Halliday (yes, *that* Gemma Halliday).  She said she likes her mysteries to be linear and to start with the action.

Where is the action?

See, a couple of people kept saying the action began when my heroine enters the reality show house, but I kept disagreeing.  I felt a look into her ordinary life was important.  Not just to add scenes but because how she lived before is a direct contradiction of how she has to live in the house.  Everything she has to become is all she’s against.  If I don’t show her as herself, in reality, without internal monologue, doesn’t it take away from what I’m trying to establish?

I believe it does, and now I believe it even more.  What I’ve learned through all of this (so, I guess the revised entry is a “mistake”, and I’ve learned a lesson–grew) is that I was correct in wanting to show some of her life, but originally maybe I was showing too much.  One chapter of beforeness is fine, and that chapter will include her makeover aftermath and interactions with her dead friend.  Those things are important to the story, well the friend is, and no one who read the WAW entry picked up on any of it.

I guess I could totally rewrite the scene to reflect it all doesn’t have considering it was written as is with different intentions originally, but I like this other way better.  The scenes I have planned were my two funniest ones anyway, plus, with my heroine talking with her sister and dead friend, it gives me opportunities to add in the backstory through questions and clarifications–dialogue rather than monologue.  Much more effective!

So, today I will be spending a bit more time with my characters, creating these sheets for them based on some info I just got from EPIC.  Then come Monday it’s back to making the changes and finishing the damn book.  It’s gonna have to be a decent first draft thought, cause I don’t want to see this damn thing for a couple of months after.