Wow, What a Week!!

Happy pre-Thanksgiving, everyone! I've been running around like a crazy person buying things for Thanksgiving, and writing like a crazier one. I cracked the Nano 50,000 word goal the day before yesterday, reaching 50,088. Not that I'm quitting for the month - oh, no! In fact, I've got a meeting with writing friends tonight. But I've got to get my Thanksgiving prep done first.

Goals:

I've made my 80 pages for this round, having done over 200 just for Nano.

Planning has suffered somewhat this month, as I've been focused on output alone. I've had a weird few scenes centered around a therapist office. My heroine had a breakthrough - and a meltdown. It made me tear up and leak a bit while I was writing it. (Since I was at work at the time, that might have been not so great. Luckily, my students know what I'm like and it doesn't faze them.) I got a couple of interesting motivations, from the werewolf guardian/secret assassin, so that's going to be fun to play with. Especially since one of her phone calls is overheard by the heroine's lover. Talk about it hitting the fan!

Exercise and junk food aversion fell by the wayside for the past week or so. My words were more important than anything, and my lack of kitchen participation showed it. Oh, well.

I've got to put a plug in here. Now, before I do, I have to say I'm in no way involved in this company and have not financial or personal interest in it whatsoever. My Nano output has been phenomenal this year. I've never done anything close to this in only 19 days. And I have to say that I don't think I could have done it without using Scrivener. I downloaded their Nano trial version, and it blew me away. It's now my go-to piece of writing software. I can't say enough about it. (Getting down from soapbox now.)

Off to go make some applesauce and some cranberry/orange compote.

Have a wonderful, safe Thanksgiving. (Isn't it wonderful - the leftovers mean we won't have to cook, and we will have time to write more! One more thing to put on the list of things to be thankful for.)

Shaking Off the Heat Wave

Wow, it's been a small slice of hell for a good part of the country! Down here in Florida it's not been quite so bad - except for when the air conditioning starts to leak through the ceiling.

 Houston...we have a problem...

This is why apartment living is so great. All you have to do is call the nice men in the maintenance uniforms and things are fixed. Wicked cool. And now it is.

Started my rewrites yesterday. My prologue has changed quite a bit since some accidental research showed up some major mythological errors. Things are going a bit slower than I'd like because of my Calculus class - the whole class failed a major test yesterday. My professor's NOT happy. Oops...!

But as soon as I finish this, I'm back off to Egypt to play with dead people, werejackals, and a lovesick but possibly psychopathic immortal.

Who said work wasn't fun?

Happy writing!

Lara

Goals This Round

Hi everyone! Back, refreshed, and ready to rock?

Me too. And I'm going to take the challenge to be an action verb. That's a great idea - not only for production, but to form and ingrain a new habit. And let's face it, if we want to be professionals, the first and foremost thing we have to do is...WRITE!

So, that's going to be my goal and my daily mantra. I'm putting it up as my screensaver. I've set up Penzu Post to send me reminder emails just in case I haven't put anything down that day. I'm setting it up in my Outlook as a repeating appointment - just me and my computer. What a cozy relationship we'll develop!

Now, if I can just keep the werewolves from gnawing on the chair legs when they're bored, it'll be a great challenge!

Lara

I'm Baaaaaaccccckkkk.......

Hi everyone!

Final exams are over, and just about all of my students made it through - at least, the ones who put forth the actual effort. So, barring one staff meeting on Wednesday, I'm free for fiction! Woo hoo!!

So, in the midst of finals madness, a weak spot in my WIP struck me. I really didn't have a good reason for Hayleigh's research assistant, Nasir, to travel with her back to the US. Then I realized that her countdown for success (or failure and death) wouldn't begin until AFTER the artifact was translated. And, since Nasir is also part of the Bani Anubis werejackal clan, he MIGHT have knowledge she would need at a critical juncture. So...now he has a reason for being in Rhode Island.

I'm off to my on-campus office in about half an hour to get some work done. It's so much easier to write away from home - that way, other tasks don't take my attention from the page. Yay!

See you all on Wednesday!

Lara

Revised Goals and Serial Killers

Reality has finally hit me on the head. And it hurt. I'm not certain when this first round ends (I am sure it will be much too soon for me), but I have to face the fact that I probably won't be able to catch up. Hence, the revised goals.

Okay. Here goes. I'm going to forget about trying to catch up. I'm just going to go on from here, but I'll still stick to my two pages per day.

I'm considering another project, one that might help my productivity in a sideways sort of way. I'll be on spring break next week, so I'm considered converting my dining room into an exercise room for my treadmill, free weights, and yoga stuff. That way, if I don't have my butt in the chair working on my WIP, I will have to be on the treadmill working in another way.

I wonder how much my complete dislike for the treadmill will motivate my writing?

I'm having a lot of fun with my serial killer werewolf. I made some changes today, and I'm really excited to get home to get more on the page.

See you all Sunday for another update!

From Werewolves to Aliens...

The oddest thing happened to me yesterday. I saw my first alien. And I don't mean someone with questionable immigrant status. And I don't mean to be derogatory - just describing what I saw. I was walking into Publix to do my usual Saturday morning shopping, and this very odd woman walked by me on the sidewalk. At least, I'm pretty sure the individual was female.

She(?) was very short, shorter than your average human. That's even taking into consideration her slightly hunched posture. She looked at me and smiled, but it wasn't like any human smile I'd ever seen before. It was more of a grimace than anything. And every single one of her teeth were pointed. Yup. Sharp. Hair? Didn't see any, but she had a bandana on her head. It wasn't smooth, though.

Now, I know what you're thinking...maybe she had curlers under there, like our grandmothers used to. The shapes weren't predictable or symmetrical, or anything recognizable. It was just...weird. And bumpy.

I guess this is why people-watching is good. You never know what you'll see. And maybe it will be something that can be used later. (And I have to wonder - if she was an alien, what would she be getting at the grocery store? She didn't have anything in her hands. Maybe because nothing there satisfied her requirements? Hmm...taking a detour into Storyland again...)

I haven't caught up yet, but I'm still working on it. I have a plan for a quicker catch-up. I won't jinx it by talking about it, but I'll let you know next time if it works.

Happy and productive writing, everyone!

Losing Werewolf Bits

I'm continuing to get better. So much so that I'm feeling guilty about not hitting the gym quite yet. My day will come.

Something really crappy happened on Wednesday (which is probably why I forgot my semi-weekly post!). I wrote a relatively long bit of material on werewolf genetics. I went through about 5 or 6 pages, deciding recessives, dominants, reproductive cycles, hormones, pheremones - the whole thing. I loved it. Then I lost it.

I checked my computer. I checked my house. I even checked with my writer friend Olivia, because we'd gotten together earlier in the week. Nothing. It vanished. Poof. Into thin air. I came to the painful but necessary decision to rewrite it. And, boy, am I glad I did!

In the process of pulling it all back together, I discovered an incongruity. If werewolves and shifters reproductive systems only kick into gear when they meet their perfect genetic match, they would only reproduce with other weres or shifters. Anything else would be less than ideal, and would not be in keeping with species survival. So...it turns out there's a combination of genes that need to be inherited for the shifting or the were ability to be actually expressed. And that's better, because...

Our twin werewolves each "recognize" a person who is not a shifter, or not pack. However, both of these mundanes are of Italian descent. It turns out they each carry a few genes from that original Etruscan werewolf pack. Potential problem solved. Whew!

Now, how to solve the problem of writing what appears right now to be pure dreck...? Today it all seems like it's blowing chunks. I mean, do my readers really need to know what Dawar's compound looks like? I'm bored writing it, so I can only imagine people would be bored reading it.

But, I will take La Nora's advice. In a nutshell, it's this, paraphrased: vomit it out and get it on paper. You can always fix it later. But you can't edit a blank page. I'm going to try and make that my mantra. And, while I'm sitting here in the bookstore waiting for one of my students, I'm going to yank out a blank page and keep going.

(No, I'm still not caught up....)

Check-In January 4th

I'm sick. I had a Starbuck's meeting with a friend who also writes. I'm supposed to be there in seven minutes. Guess what's not happening. I'm going back to bed with some hot tea and my laptop. Yeah, I know they don't sound like a good mix, but I've got a lovely insulated steel Starbuck's mug. It keeps things hot if you want and cold if you want - and doesn't spill. Mandatory for me in situations like this.

Ok, here goes. Got my page count on opening day. Yesterday? Bubkis. Today, I'm hoping to make it up.

On the bright side, because I'm feeling so crappy, I can probably write that scene where my werewolf is going through a good deal of angst before she becomes a serial killer.

See? There's a bright spot to everything.