Today, I mailed out my homeschooling application and summary (finished them last night) and my character dossiers for the new book.  Yay!  As much as I love plotting and outlining, I hate creating character profiles.  I find it tedious.  But it’s done, and I couldn’t be happier.

This means, however, I put off working on the WIP, but I plan to get back to it soon.  Next week is Romance Divas’ NGTCC, and I will be handing out prizes for those four days.  I don’t plan on getting much else done, so I may not get back to the WIP until Aug. 3.  Then on the 4th I plan on hooking up with a bunch of other girls and creating out suspense group.  But no matter how long that takes me or how detailed it becomes, I will definitely be back to the WIP by or on the 4th.

for writing.  I actually didn’t even come downstairs and turn on the computer until noon, and then did get started writing until 2.  I finished by four–I was also chatting with a friend via IM, so it didn’t have my full concentration.  But I was pleasantly surprised to see how the words just flowed.  They may be shitty words, lol, but they didn’t start and stop.  Maybe it was NOT giving it my full attention that helped, or maybe it was knowing I’d be “buzzed” at any moment to help my friend with her issue.  So, thanks Friend.

For this week anyway!

I hate the parts that are such a struggle I’d rather poke out my eyeballs.

This week, however, and maybe I shouldn’t say this out loud, has been steadily ok.  I wrote one scene and finished another yesterday, then wrote another today.  I’m getting it done semi-early, so I still have the rest of the day to do home/mom stuff and work on the idea for the next book.  So Yay!!!

As for the next book…  This is the third and a half idea I’ve been brewing for a month or so.  The first one is still good, but it’s very typical, overdone.  It originated from a dream I had, so not the most original.  Plotting some of it allowed me to start thinking outside the box though.

Then one night, I got the itch to write a horror.  I won’t label my current work as such until I’m certain I can pull it off, but that idea ended up going the way of psychological thriller anyway.  This one, which I titled Smoke and Mirrors (love that), was going GREAT!  Then while writing my fingers off, I got the idea to change the villain and make it the hero.  But I can’t make my hero the villain, so then I needed to decide if I was writing a suspense with romantic elements or just a suspense.

I’m not opposed to having it labeled as just suspense; it’s mostly what I read, but I don’t know if I’m ready as a writer to make that a part of my “reputation”.  Make sense?  I’m not even published yet.  So instead, I decided to tweak the plot and add another character to either be the hero or to be the villain.  I worked on this for about a week before I finally had to throw in the towel and say “enough is enough”.  One day I may get back to the idea, and hopefully at that point I’ll have a stronger desire as to what I want, but until then I have to move forward.

Which is where I’m at now.  I started the new idea based off the last and with only one scene in my head.  Who are these people?  Where did they come from?  Who is after them?  It took a while to come up with answers, some of which are still hazy, but I’m working on it.  Which I’m going to get back to now.

I feel kinda guilty simply reporting Yay, another day of five pages written, every single post.  There has to be some unpubbed’s blog more interesting that this, right?  But…it’s all I have at the moment. :)  I can’t  spend time reading and roaming the web for juicy tidbits, or I can’t get done the writing and plotting and mothering and housecleaning and sleeping…you get the drift.

So, I got my scene written and not only did it go wonderfully, but it’s cute and a bit funny.  What more could I ask for?  The same for yesterday’s goal.  All done and I enjoyed it.  I almost didn’t work this morning.  I told myself to stick with the brainstorming for the day, because I had thought of a couple of plot points while falling to sleep last night that I did not write down.  But I opened my WriteWayPro program (highly recommend it) and just started writing the scene.  Before I knew it, it was completed and I could move on to the brainstorming.

Which brings me to….Smoke and Mirrors.  I’m currently writing the book journeys of each of about seven characters.  Not all of what I write will be shown, but it allows me to see the path they each take and how some events catalyst others.  After this, I will create a timeline, braiding the journeys together to create “one”.  After that, I will start outlining which scenes to use in great detail.  This time around, I want to outline/write the first draft, much how First Draft in 30 Days suggests, but not her way. :)  My way!  I’m not sure how it will go, but it’s my journey too.

Ok, off to work on that.  More boring writing progress tomorrow.

I don’t know why, but today’s scene went by better…and I hope was written better.

I didn’t sit over it humming and hawing.  It flowed rather quickly and felt good.  I wrote my standard of 5 pages, finished the scene and moved on.  Giada is “changed” but not drastically.  I figure I still have two-thirds of the book for all of that.

Now, I’m trying to get my emails and RD posting done, and then, instead of brainstorming, I’m going to judge another Stiletto entry.  I want to get two done this week, 3 if I can, and then I’ll only have four more to do.  No rush.  I have until the end of the month.

Whoo hoo!

Well there is editing and all that, but Act One is now completely written. Yay!  I’m so happy.

Tomorrow I will start Act Two and begin that looooong journey.  If I don’t slack off anymore (ok, did you hear that cackling?) I can have this book done by the end of August, as planned.  *crosses fingers*  Just in time (or slightly after) learning whether or not my entry finaled in the Stiletto contest.

Now, well after I make spaghetti and meatballs, I can continue with my brainstorming for Shadows and Mirrors.  I’d really like to start outlining that tomorrow, so I can have that done by the end of September.

The scene I wrote today was rather interesting.  So far, I’ve felt that most of the scenes since Giada has entered the house have been kinda distant and abstract.  Today’s scene involved a quiet moment between Giada and Jake–my heroine and hero.  It still needs to be fleshed out some, but it felt intimate and private, which was my intent.

I have one more scene in this chapter, which then takes us to beginning of Act Two and about 2 months in the future.  Most of the women are gone, so there will be a more intimate feel to the dealings with everyone.  Plus, at that point she has changed some too.  I don’t want it to feel like she made some huge dramatic change off page, but that pretty much is what will happen.  I’m hoping by having her not realize she’s changed, it will help the balance of it all.

If I took the time to show each change as it happens, there would be a lot of bullshit scenes.  At least I’m not telling what happened.  I’m going to start after she “changed” and then show the new changes as she continues in the show.  With her being unaware of her transformation, we’ll be able to see it more directly.

I believe that is where the story really kicks into gear and the scenes will become more varied and entertaining.  I mean, how many times can one have lunch of dinner with a group of women and make it sound interesting?  I truly can’t wait to break up the monotony.