Happy and sad

So I'm pretty happy with what I did today. I wrote over 10,000 words and finished the third book in the Love Under Construction series with 101,302 words (pre-edit, of course!). I'm rolling right along. I set up a log and it looks like I have 23 books to work on. Yikes! I don't know how I'm going to do that. Wait, I do - one word at a time!

I'm sad, though, because my little man is sick. He hasn't felt good all week, but today he's been really down, and he hasn't eaten much of anything in 48 hours. So tomorrow it's off to the vet's office for him. Hope I can get him in (pretty sure I can). Here's my little Mickey Joe with dirt on his nose after he's been digging in the yard. Precious, huh?

As for new work, the novel I wrote 13 years ago that I just found recently has been surveyed by yours truly. Looks like it needs 17 "mini chapters" to get it ready to go, plus some custom artwork for the cover, and then the photography for same cover. And I won't even bore you with the other stuff - it's massive.

So wish me luck tomorrow. I'm missing a meeting I really wanted to go to in Nashville, but if he's sick, he's my first priority.

Heck, if I need a pick-me-up, all I have to do is look at yesterday's blog post. That'll make me smile. (Thanks, Vic - you're a doll, sweetie!)

Uh-huh!

I looked up from my work and guess who had come to visit? (Talk about yummy . . .)

See? I told you I had something to show you! I assume you know who this is? If you don't, you should go back and read the prequel and both novels again, because you either don't understand English or you have no imagination. But if you only understand Italian, well, le mie scuse!

Working, working, working!

I wrote another 6,300+ words today on the third novel in the first series. It was an amazing experience. I cried through a good part of it. Good stuff.

I also did something else amazing. I drew out the chapter synopses for The Celtic Fan and I'll be working on the parallel novel next while I continue to work on Renovating a Heart. I've discovered that the parallel work probably won't be as difficult as I originally thought. So hang in there. In the next couple of weeks, I'm going to try to start posting excerpts from it. The other challenge will be the cover art. It's very specific, and I don't know how I'm going to work it out, but I'll figure out something. I will, however, be the model - that I already know. And I don't really want to have to go and have a . . . no, I can't say. You'll just have to wait and see.

And tomorrow I have something to show you, or rather someone. Come back and see! (You'll love it, I promise!)

An announcement you won't want to miss!

First of all, let me update by saying I wrote 9,014 words today on the new novel, the third in the Love Under Construction series. I checked and, by my calculations, I'm putting out about 82 words per minute. And that's while doing some rudimentary editing on the fly. Just sayin'. Be happy for me, haters!

Now for the announcement I promised.

I think some of you know this already, but on Halloween I had the surprising fortune of finding a crapton of writing projects from years back. I'd thought they were gone, and somehow, some way, they showed up on my brand-new external hard drive. I'm still trying to figure that one out.

There were lots of things in there, but the most significant was a novel that I wrote years ago, The Celtic Fan. I did a little math and consulted with someone who was experiencing an event at the same time I was writing it, and I determined that it was written in 2000. It's an unusual piece, written from first person POV, and is a novel within a novel. But I'll share the basic premise with you.

There is a novel written that's taken the nation by storm, and the writer, Nick Roberts, is a mystery. No one has ever seen him, talked to him, interviewed him, nothing. There are even fan websites set up offering rewards to anyone who can find him.

Four guys go on a "Hangover"-type trip each year together. Some have been good, some pretty crappy. One of them gets the idea to use their trip to try to find Nick Roberts, and he has connections to the publishing house Roberts' book came through, which renders a P.O. box number in a tiny North Carolina town. The male protagonist in the book, Steve, another one of the four, is a journalist with the Knoxville newspaper. Once he reads the book, at the insistence of one of his buddies, he jumps on the bandwagon and decides that he will be the one of the four to find Roberts, and that maybe, just maybe, he'll continue to keep the secret.

But what Steve finds when he goes out in search of Roberts is nothing he would've ever expected. And when he finds out who Nick Roberts is, keeping Roberts' identity a secret is an even bigger priority than before.

This book is a sweet, simple sensual romance (not erotic) written from a man's point of view. At the end of each chapter is an excerpt from Nick Roberts' novel, The Celtic Fan, that runs parallel with the novel itself. I know, but it's not really as confusing as it sounds. You'll understand when you read it.

So it is with great pleasure that I announce that it will probably be released in the next two to three months. It needs surprisingly little work and is by far one of the nicest pieces of work I've ever done. It's about 78,000 words and will retail for $2.99, a sweet price for a sweet story. After thirteen years, I still cried as I read it.

Stay tuned. I'll let you know more as I go along. And if you know someone who draws quite well, I'm looking for an artist to do a particularly simple piece of artwork that will be part of the cover, so just shoot me a PM and give me contact information.

Something new on the horizon!

I checked my word county for today - 2,622 words. I don't think that's bad, considering I wasn't home most of the day.

What time I was home, I worked on cleaning up my desk a little. I put together a file tub full of hanging folders with a manilla folder in each one. They're just waiting for labels when I need them.

Tomorrow, in addition to my writing, I'll make up some forms for workflow and fill them out. I may fill out a few character profiles. I may take a nap. I'm tired.

But in the next few days, I've got an announcement to make, and I'm very, very happy about it. And I think you'll like it too. So stay tuned.

What's that crazy noise?

10,171. That's my word count for today.

I know that there are people out there who think I'm lying about this. I'm not. My eyes tell me I'm not - they're bloodshot. My fingers tell me I'm not - they're sore. My butt tells me I'm not - it's numb from sitting. And yet I keep going. Dunno. I just do.

And at some point today I made a big pot of pasta e fagioli and - DA-dada-da-da-da-DAAAAA - naan! Yes, I made naan right here in my kitchen! And yes, I set the smoke detectors off! Shut up. It's not funny. Well, yeah, it kinda is.

But even though the sun was shining today, it's been a gloomy day for writing. While I got the joy of writing about the wedding of one of my favorite characters, I experienced the distinct agony of saying goodbye to another as they were laid to rest. Believe it or not, it was super, super hard to do. Even harder, another character who seems to have no feelings at all is overwhelmed by the loss and stands at the funeral to tell everyone what that person had meant to him in his life. I couldn't help it - I cried. I'm sitting here thinking about it and I'm starting to cry again. Silly, right?

Not really. You see, I truly care about my characters. I spend a lot of time developing them. They grow into their own, and it's like being the proud parent of an accomplished kid. I know their middle names, their eye color, their birthdates, what kind of cars they drive, their favorite dessert, favorite color, favorite drink, favorite music. They share all of that with me, and I feel privileged to know them.

Now I know you're thinking, She's delusional. These aren't real people. What the hell is wrong with this woman? But you have to understand: I've lived with them in my head for years. I know them very well because, just like a god, I know what's going on inside them. I hear their internal dialogue when they're too scared to speak. I feel their greatest fears and their most stupendous joys. They're a part of me, so when one of them dies, a little piece of me dies too. I hate it - I hate losing any of them. But people die. Others are born. Life goes on.

So here's the bottom line: You read my work, you're going to fall in love with my characters. Guaranteed. Before I'm finished, you'll love them as much as I do. And you ask yourself, Why does she go to all this trouble?

Because if I don't give a damn about my characters, why should you? Relating to lovable, believable characters - isn't that why people read?

I did it!

Originally posted on November 9, 2013

I made NaNoWriNo today. I checked my word count.

13,315 today for a total of 58,009 words in this book so far since November 1.

That's insane. But I'm getting close to the wedding in the third book, and I'm excited. Plus this afternoon I wrote one of the steamiest sex scenes I've ever written. I mean, steam rolling. Who knew mild-mannered Doug Benton was such a stud? Well, he is. Major stud. Um-hmm.

So I've kicked NaNoWriMo's ass. I've overkicked its ass. And I'm going to continue on kicking its ass until this book is done which, at this rate, will be before the end of the month, possibly before the end of next week. Then I can set it aside for a future edit and move on to a couple of other projects that I want to get crackin' on. They're going to be good, and I can't wait to get them done. One is the novel that I wrote thirteen years ago and found on Halloween. It's sweet.

So for anyone who thinks NaNoWriMo is an unreachable goal, I say . . .

pshawwwww. It's so doable it's not even funny.

And I'm exhausted. Think I'll go have another glass of harvest sangria and call myself done for the day.