I need a blog fix and some accountability!
How's everybody doing?
I received the quadruplet baby book back for copyedits. It arrived yesterday afternoon and they want the changes in NY on Monday. Huh? Naturally, we have visiting family to throw into the works. It just never amazes me the hurry up and wait aspects of this business. I'll work on the edits which are the lightest I've ever seen, and then it's back to work on the WIP which is taking baby steps toward creation. I have to admit that editing a story I just finished while beginning a new one is a little daunting. Can these five pages ever swell into almost three hundred? Right now it seems kind of impossible.
So, where are you, what are you up to, and those of you getting ready for the write a book in a month thing starting in November, explain to me how you get ready for it. I think Wavy said something about plotting -- does that mean you must have it plotted first? (The plotting is the thing that sometimes takes me a month!)
Have a great weekend!
8 comments:
Good luck on those copy edits, Alice. I agree...hurry up and wait seems to be the name of the game.
This week I finished SEDUCTION and sent it to my editor (Another hurry up and wait situation...she just got back from Italy, has work piled up and probably won't read it for several weeks). I also put my big promo mailing together for FURY, though I haven't taken it to the post office yet. It's on my agenda for Monday - the last two days have been 40th bday party prep for the DH (tonight's his BIG party). And I started researching for my option book. I have an idea for a new trilogy, but this time they'll be connected by an overarching plot - something I haven't done before. That portion of the series is going to require some serious planning. :)
Don't forget our meeting is NEXT Tuesday, everyone!!!
Copy edits. That's more or less what I'm doing with Miner today. Last run through before it goes to production. Hope to send it off this afternoon. Then I need to get the things the beta reader found in the contemporary straightened out. And just when I was on a roll with the historical series! There always seems to be something that drags you out of the groove. Sigh!
Good luck with the copy edits Alice and the company. Hope your dh has a blast at his party, Eli!
I didn't get much accomplished on the WIP this week, but I hope to make up for it today and tomorrow. Right now I'm working on a transition scene and I'm worried there's not enough conflict. I need to just write it, dang it, but... See, that's why NaNo is so helpful. The principal behind the book-in-a-month is that you don't obsess over this kind of stuff and just write the book. Fix it later.
I have some critiques to do for my Colorado group, so hopefully those won't take too long. It's a rather gloomy day today, so at least I won't feel like I should be outside enjoying the weather, like I felt yesterday.
Well, I got my copy edits done -- they were really light. Of course, to get it to NY by Monday, I would have to have driven twenty-five miles last night to an all night post office (are there such things?)
Eli, I hope the 40th bash lived up to your dh's expectations and that had fun! And how exciting that you're plotting three books with an arc.
Paty, wahoo, edits off! Good for you!
Karen, I feel your pain with the conflict thing. It's so hard to remember to keep it tight. I have a natural tendency to be a peacemaker -- not good when writing suspense -- and have to remind myself all the time not to resolve things too quickly.
While the rest of the family stacked and spilt and toted firewood yesterday, I did copy edits -- that took the sting out of sitting inside on a gloomy day -- every time I caught sight of them I was glad to be where I was! But the interesting thing I discovered in the copy edits this time was how I tended to repeat a word three times in one little paragraph or conversation. Good, good, good. Take, take, take. Ack! (Someone needs to reread their work more carefully before sending it in next time!)
Have a good week everyone.
Hi All,
I want to thank everyone for their kind words, thoughts and prayers.
This week has been absolutely unbelievable. I'm so stressed and frustrated I could spit. I haven't had time too grieve. I'm too busy putting out fires. My days and nights are so long and full right now I don't even know if I'm upright, upside down or flat on my face.
Keep zinging up prayers and good thoughts.
Blessings,
Lori
Good job, Alice. How nice that the edits weren't too bad. I'm horrible about using the same word several times, too.
Sometimes when rewriting a sentence, I change a word or two to something more powerful, and then I read the next sentence and discover I've already used the same word but wrote it two months earlier.
I like to think that I'm consistent.
Wow, that's a quick turnaround! As for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) - the plotting depends on the person. Some people (like myself) plot the book to death. So that when you come to write it, you're just filling in the connecting words. Or that's what my professor told me of the joys of writing a detailed outline on our massive term paper. Pfft. anyway :)
Other people just get a vague idea for a story and just write to see where it takes them. Just like any panster vs. plotter. Some people use it as a time to write a book they want to pursue to publish. Others use it as an exercise for their writing skills. Like a group of people writing a story based of the same idea, etc.
It's fun! But stressful. I'd love to do it this year. But if I do it, I'm not going to follow the rule of it has to be a new work, I think I'd just like to finish the one I'm on. :)
Good luck all!
Lori, you are in my thoughts right now, and I'm hoping for smoother sailing (and less spitting!) for you soon.
In the past, I've always started NaNo with an outline--I'm a plotter, and this is what works for me. Not that I end up sticking to my outline, but it really helps. I'm with Lisa's professor--I'd much rather fill in the blanks than confront white page after white page.
This time around, I don't have as detailed of an outline (horrors!), nor have I done story magic (more horrors!), and I've got a very rough sketch of where I'm headed with this new work. I'm kind of afraid of plotting it to death and loosing the magic of watching it unfold. I'll probably do a bit more plotting, especially with the workshop on the 8th, and will try to come up with a very rough time table before NaNo starts, but I think I'm just going to dive in without my usual stacks of papers and post it notes.
My mother, on the other hand, who is doing NaNo for the very first time (my hero!) and hoping her first finished novel-length MS in over a decade, is busy plotting and sifting through mountains of research. I think if you are going to write a historical (hers is a historical mystery set in 1897), it is a great idea to do all your research prior to November.
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