Happy Mom's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there. I didn't realize it was mom's day until my husband wished me a happy Mother's Day. I'll hear from my kids today, but we don't exchange gifts. This is the second year I won't be making a call to my mom. Still, I'll always think of her every year on this day.

I just opened a new file for my WIP. I call it Draft 3000. It seems like I've written that many revisions. This will be the fourth. Listening to that inner voice that nags me, you all probably have one like it. It always knows when something just isn't right. I think I've figured it out this time. At this point in the game, I may have to shut that voice off or I'll never finish this book. I'm at the point where I need to stop doubting myself.

I know the mistakes I made with my first book and I'm trying to avoid making the same blunders in this book. My problem is becoming word count. I'm in danger of cutting too much. My original goal was 60K. I made that goal, but find I've cut around 5K out. It's still okay, but I can't afford anymore cuts.

I need to find a beta reader, I think. There's still a lot of work to do before I get to the point where anyone else can read it. If there's any volunteers, I'd love to hear from you.

The reason I've been so lax about my blog is we're getting ready to move. When I say move, I mean move cross country, back to Washington state. We bought a house out there already and plan to move most everything out in late June. I'm so excited. Lots of things going on right now. They say, the more new stuff you have to look forward to, time will slow a bit for you. What do they know. I'll try and stay with you a little more. I'd say by August or September, I'll be blogging so much, you all will get sick of me. Take care.

Is every word important?

Not only that, every sentence and every paragraph. The first few draft of a project, we write like we talk. For some, that might suffice, some people's talk is meaningful and compact. One of the joys of writing is tightening what you've already written. It amazes me how many different ways a sentence can be phrased. The challenge is keeping it real. Every paragraph has a sentence, and every sentence has words, so how important is every word you write? I suspect, pretty important. If three words change to one without sacrificing ambiguity or continuity, your story sounds polished. That's what is meant by tightening a paragraph. How to do that? Find an amazing thesaurus. You might want to check my favorite one here

Short but sweet. God bless. Until next time.

On the Home Stretch

Good news, I'm almost done with my second draft of "That Girl." I've had a little time off work and I've worked hard to get so much done. So it's proud of myself, I am. The third draft will be the one where I work on the presentation, so to speak. For that, I'm going to do a lot of reading.

Does anyone else get stuck when trying to describe what actions and mannerisms a person uses while talking? Some authors seem able to divers away from the norm. I find when I read a lot, I get a better sense of people's idiosyncrasies. You can only scratch your head, purse your lips, furrow your brows so many times before it becomes obvious to readers that you have no imagination. Hands on hips, clenched fists, lame humor can become boring in time. Tears, really how often does a person tear up. In real life people's feelings get hurt and their reactions are internal. Their hearts harden, their pulse quickens, they even feel the sting of tears behind their eyes. It becomes a dilemma for authors. It's easy to get in a rut. I don't think I'm alone in this. If you read the same author over and over again, it becomes obvious. I guess you could call it that author's style of writing and I think that would be true, but we know a lot of times there are no words. So you have to go and find them, whether through observing or experimenting.

These are just my thoughts on things. I'm by no means an expert, if I were, I'd be a best selling author. I just know what I know.

To all who read, God bless and happy reading.

Reading not on the best seller's list and censoring

I've come to enjoy free ebooks. What did we do without them. Free is always good and made better because it's, well, free. Something about a free book just makes it a good read, no matter how labor intensive it is to get through. I wish I could read all the free ebook, but I've already got bunches I haven't gotten to yet.

Hey, what about Pay Pal censoring what they deem to be immoral books? They are a private company and I guess it's okay if they censor, though it seems un-American to me. We have to be very careful about censoring. It starts out small and grows like a malignancy. Pretty soon they are censoring books with questionable language, then religious themes, then violence, and next love. Seems like it's possible they might try and censor emotions as well.

That's all the wisdom I have today. Maybe tomorrow I'll be bestowed with more. God bless.

More complaining about second drafts

I feel like I've written four or five books, instead of three, though only one of them is published. Consider first drafts, for instance. I'm sure there are a lot of people who write first drafts and then don't turn around and totally rewrite the second. For me, the first draft is one to just get down on paper as quick as possible so as to get 'er done, as Larry the Cable Guy would say. The second draft is where I start the weeding process. I prune it and prune it until there's hardly anything left except a few of the strongest scenes, then I watch them flower. This is where I start getting really excited, but this, of course, is not the end of the rewrite, even when I'm done with the second draft. What do you think, another draft? Well, yes. This one will undergo more tightening and weeding, but it's also the start of some serious proofing. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but a stitch in time, saves nine. Let me tell you something about proofing. It's never done. Even the proofers of the best writers of the best novels don't get all the mistakes. It seems to me that errors seem to stand out more in ebooks, doesn't it? A lot of that, I think, is due to ebook glitches, but I still more proofing errors in my Kindle that when I'm just reading a paperback.

So, until next time, take care and God bless.

Finding the right words

As we age, changes start to happen. When you're young, you think you can beat the odds. I don't want to burst anyone's bubble, but you can only beat them for awhile. Having said that, I'll go on record by saying, attending to your health can prolong the aging process immensely. Eat a lot of Omega3 and Omega6 product, pop a bunch of pills like fish oil and flax seed to fight off the free radicals in your brain. I do the flaxseed because the fish oil comes back at me (eew) even the burpless ones. Get lots of exercise and rest, and stay away from smoking and alcohol. The smoking is easy, the alcohol, not so much. In everything, moderation is the key.

Sorry for the lecture. Everything you want to know is but an internet search away. What I've noticed and no amount of meds and food seem to matter, I have a harder time grasping just the right words, sometimes. I know what word I want, but it won't come. I use a thesaurus a lot, but that takes time. So, on top of all the other roadblocks we writers experience, here's another one to hurdle. For you younger writers, it's never too early to start a healthy regiment that includes brain food.

I hope this helps, Until next time, good bye and God bless.

Still,

Dates and Consistency

It's important to write and write and write. Word count is key to writing, but so is consistency, specifically dates and times. As your WIP progresses and evolves, it's easy to forget those tiny details. It can be frustrating to keep track of if you don't develop a method. There are several ways to manage this. You can keep a calender of events, plot an Excel work sheet, use your word processor's document map or spreadsheet, use a writing software package like yWriter, which is free, or Randy Engermanson's Snowflake Method, but manage it, you must. The worse thing you can do is to try and figure it all out after the fact. True as that may be, that's exactly where I'm at, now.

Personally, I enjoy using Microsoft Word's Document Map and Microsoft Excel for details. It's all right there in one, easy to use (not so easy for beginners) program. My WIP has an event that takes place at a specific date. The events that lead up to it must be plotted into the story. Easy, you might say. Well, you'd be right if nothing ever changed or something never got mixed up or moved around. Since I never do those things, it's a piece of cake. Ha, I am the worse offender of rearrangement that ever breathed. I exaggerate, but you get my drift, I hope. So happy writing, my friends and until next time, God Bless.