Archive for May, 2006

May 12, 2006

11:38 am • Filed under: Uncategorized

That’s me right now. I got nothin’ to say cos it feels like nothin’ much is happening. I’m writing away, working hard on the Blaze. It’s tentatively titled The Very First Time. Cos it is literally about a lot of firsts for everyone involved.

You see, as I work on my virgin hero story, the Madonna song Like A Virgin keeps running through my head. So that’s where my title came from. You know, “Touched for the very first time…”

Anywhoo, I just wrapped up chapter four and they’ve only kissed once. I need to get these two involved in some sort of action. I believe chapter five is the turning point.

I guess I had a little more to say than I thought. Everyone have a fab weekend!

May 10, 2006

5:23 pm • Filed under: Uncategorized

I feel like I’ve been whining like a big baby lately. My little baby has been particularly whiny these last few days so maybe he’s rubbing off on me. Well, I’m done with it. Let’s talk about something fun!

It’s a beautiful day here. Sunny and very warm (ok, hot), and my husband’s day off. So we took the kids to the pool and let them splash around, then got in ourselves. It felt good to be out there, a bit cold at first, but fun. I’m so glad we put the pool in (had it built in 04), cos with the kids and my husband’s crazy work schedule, we don’t get much chance to go on vacation. That pool is our vacation. For a few years to come, at least.

Which makes me think of the smells of summer. Freshly cut grass, bbq grill burning, sunscreen/suntan lotion . . . all of those scents scream summer to me. And make me feel good. Now ask me in August how I feel about summer and I’ll gripe at ya about the heat, but right now it feels good.

So what time of year makes YOU feel good? And what scents remind you of summer? Share with me people!

May 9, 2006

12:08 pm • Filed under: Uncategorized

That’s what I’ve been doing. For every couple of thousands words I write, I tend to delete just as many or more. The little status bar on my Blaze Rewrite over there to the side? Not so accurate anymore. Subtract about one thousand words and you’ve got it.

Frustrating to watch the word count fluctuate but I am making progress, so that’s good. You just can’t tell by word count. And I wrote my one page synopsis yesterday, and with a few minor tweaks I think it’s good. Glad to have that mostly out of the way.

My only problem now? I have a good intro, a great ending, some really good middle to end, but I need some work on the next few chapters, specifically chapters 3, 4 and maybe 5. Major work. Ugh.

Rewriting/restructuring sucks.

May 8, 2006

12:21 pm • Filed under: Uncategorized

I rewrote the first chapter on my Blaze. Thought it was decent, changed the storyline a bit, gave my H/h a situation where they had to be together A LOT. I was pleased.

Then I was eating lunch on Saturday and reading the latest issue of Cosmopolitan I picked up at the store. Now listen. I’m not a Cosmo girl anymore. I’m a mid-30s housewife with three kids and a mortgage. But I buy the mag cos it helps me get into the single girl mindset. It gives me a little inspiration, ideas, and the sexual positions, oh my!

Anyway, so I’m reading the steamy confessions page (my favorite page - supposed real life situtaions that are naughty or funny or embarrassing - or a combination of all three) and one of them was about a woman who made out with her boyfriend in a closet while playing hide and seek with friends. When she told her boyfriend later that she enjoyed their make out session, he told her it wasn’t him.

Oops.

It got me thinking. What if my heroine got pushed into a closet while playing a silly game of hide and seek at a party and she realizes she’s not alone. And she ends up kissing this guy, having the best kiss of her life, and he whispers her name. Which freaks her out cos she has no idea who it is, but assumes it’s some jerk who somehow rigged it to get her in that closet. She’s mad, she’s humiliated and she runs out, not looking back to see who it really was.

But she can’t get him out of her mind. Can’t get that kiss out of her mind. She starts thinking every guy she talks to could have been the kisser in the closet. And it drives her nuts.

Especially when the man she’s closest to is the one who kissed her, but he doesn’t confess. Yet.

Hah! So I wrote that chapter Saturday night and yesterday and I love it. Way more exciting intro to the entire story. Of course, it still needs a lot of work and I need to get back to it but I had to share my excitement.

Anybody else had a break through this weekend? Or at any time in your writing process that changed the tone, etc. of your story? Share!

May 5, 2006

11:06 am • Filed under: Uncategorized

I’m sending myself there. For a few days at least. I really need to work on my Blaze cos of the pitch contest. I went through a major chopping of it yesterday and took it from almost 70k to 50k. Now I need to weave in the new stuff in regards to the plot changes and tighten the puppy up.

Besides the fact I need to write the synopsis - a double space one pager that sends chills up my spine every time I think about it. And not the good kind of chills either.

So I hope everyone has a wonderful writing weekend and I’ll see you on Monday!

May 4, 2006

12:52 pm • Filed under: Uncategorized

I’m taking a shower this morning, getting some good thinking time in. Do a lot of you think in the shower? I can come up with some great stuff about my characters, etc. while in the shower and driving. Maybe not a good thing when I’m driving, since I’m supposed to be paying attention to the road…

Anyway, I’m coming up with some decent stuff in my head for the synopsis, after much reading of the Evil Editor’s blog this morning inspired me (I have his link under the blogs I read, if you haven’t checked him out yet). I suddenly realize, I don’t have a title for the story I want to pitch to Blaze.

Crap! I need a title. I’m terrible at titles. I don’t know what to call it at all. Maybe I should come up with some ideas like Julie and take a poll. But first I have to come up with ideas.

Double crap!

Let me think of this and maybe I’ll do that voting poll.

Anybody else have trouble with titles? Remember, I’m the one who called a book Question Mark! Ha ha ha ha ha

May 3, 2006

4:50 pm • Filed under: Uncategorized

She just asked me how the bra writing went. Doesn’t that sound odd? Bra writing? I’m a freak.

Well, I wrote a lot yesterday, and yes they got sizzlin’ hot in one scene. Did the bra help? Maybe. But I gotta say this - it’s really comfortable! I’m thinking sexy can be comfortable too, right? How sexy is it when you’re uncomfortable? Not very in my opinion.

I still have a giant mess of a wip, though. I’m having to go through it and really weed stuff out. That’s my goal for the next few days. Weeding. So my 61k plus wip is going to shrink in size considerably. Oh well.

Wish me luck on the weeding.

May 2, 2006

11:11 am • Filed under: Uncategorized

I’m at Target yesterday and I found all of these cute bras. Bright colors w/ contrasting lace, they looked like pieces of candy. I had a hard time picking out which ones I wanted (cos the minute I saw them I knew I had to have at least one), so I bought two. Took them home, tried one on and it fit really comfortably, yet was pretty.

Why am I talking about bra buying at Target? Because after I took that bra off and stared at it lying on my bed, I realized that dressing sexy, or wearing sexy underwear can make you feel sexy, hence write sexy.

Well, duh! You’re all thinking. And I’m kinda thinking that right now too. I’m no sex fiend trollop (though I write like one) who dresses like a tramp (I’m a stay at home mom - I wear sweats and t-shirts!), but I’m telling you, those bras put me in a different mind set for the rest of the day. And I wasn’t even wearing one of them!

So now I’m going to go take a shower and I’m wearing one of those bras today. My characters better watch out, cos I’ll probably end up putting them in compromising positions all day long.

May 1, 2006

10:20 am • Filed under: Uncategorized

So after my confession of rereading my NaNo wip and realizing it wasn’t as bad as I thought, I’ve now decided to go full force and rework that puppy so I can enter it in the Blaze pitch contest at HQ.

But I find I’m having a problem connecting to the characters. I think Stacy blogged about this a while ago, but it’s been nearly six months since I’ve written in these characters’ mind sets, so to speak, and it’s hard to get back into it. I don’t want to just write and hope for the best, only to find out the completed story is disjointed because of the two different writing times. So I’m finding I have to take it slow, and do a lot of rereading.

This process is hard! But I believe in the story so I can’t give up.

In the meanwhile, the Bride wip is simmering on the backburner, waiting to be picked back up once I have this potential Blaze squared away. The pitch contest deadline is May 18. I need to work on the one page synopsis for it.

Yikes!