I have to revamp the last chapter of my Blaze a bit and then I'm done.
Gulp.
Yep, I'm really done. Wow, that feels good to say. Of course, this is the first draft and I have a lot to still do to it, but it's over. I'm a little sad cos I love these two. But my brain is also so full of other ideas that are just dying to come out.
Which to me is a sign that the Blaze is really over. I get so wrapped up in a story, can only focus on it, it's all I think about. A tad ridiculous, but true. Now that it's pretty much done, my mind is wandering. I redid the first three chapters of my Modern Extra attempt yesterday, other ideas are flowing and I'm writing them down to save for later.
Sheesh, right now I feel like the well is endlessly full and won't dry up. Better latch onto all of these ideas and write them down before I forget. You know that well is going to dry up sooner or later, at least temporarily, and I'll be whining for an idea. Wondering what to do next.
Do any of you get so focused on your current wip that you can't think of anything else? Or are you constantly distracted by other story ideas? Just curious...
Thanks to Jenna for sharing this test. It's been making the rounds on the blogs, so I thought I would share my results.
free enneagram testI've been staying up way too late, writing. And today I am really, really feeling it. I know my friend Sarah complained about this as well recently.
My head hurts, my back aches. My kids are whiny, which makes me feel like whining. It's easy for an almost 2 year old to whine. He has an excuse. I don't think I do, since I'm old enough to know better.
So I plan on doing nothing on this holiday weekend. Relax. Clean around the house. My parents are coming on Sunday so that'll be nice. Do a little writing. Try not to stay up so late.
Hope everyone has a good holiday weekend. Anybody doing anything exciting? If you are, have fun!
P.S. ~ Thanks for all the compliments on my writing yesterday. Made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside!
April wanted to know what my heroine said after my poor now non-virgin hero poured his heart out to her.
Let me point this out - Janie's confused. And stubborn. And a little defensive. She doesn't think she's worthy of him. She's afraid of getting hurt, because she's been hurt in the past. She knows she's not the type of woman he envisioned himself being with, and truthfully, she's right. But to him, that doesn't matter anymore.
Cos he's in LOOOVE. (that's for Julie)
Can you tell I'm having fun figuring out how to link people in my blogs? Ha ha ha.
Anyway, here's an excerpt. I'm feelin' brave today, sharing my writing with you. A little disappointed that I didn't place in the Blaze pitch contest, but that's okay. I'm certainly not giving up. I love writing too much to do that!
“I - I think you're confusing all of these emotions you're feeling after we had sex for something more than what they really are.” She couldn't help it, she took a couple of steps forward until she was in front of him, stopping his incessant pacing. “What happened between us was better than nice, you know that,” she said softly. “But nothing else can come out of it. We agreed going into this it would just be a fling. What happened between us was temporary, experimental. Friends helping each other out, so to speak.”
Ray reached out and grabbed her by the arms, pulling her flush against him. She gasped at the feel of his body next to hers. “The problem is after we made love I didn't want it to end. And what’s happened these last few weeks certainly didn't feel temporary to me. There’s something between us, and you can go ahead and deny it all you want, but I felt it. I think you felt it, too.”
“Let go of me,” she whispered and realized her voice was trembling. She couldn't take him touching her. She already felt as if she could shatter into a million tiny pieces, and his big warm hands pressing into her skin were about to push her straight over the edge.
“No.” He placed his fingers under her chin, tilting her face up gently to look at him. “Look me in the eyes and tell me you feel nothing for me. Then I'll let you go.”
She stared up at him. Willed herself to hide the emotion from her face and eyes, a skill she was rather good at after all of those years modeling. At least something came out of it, she thought wryly. “You're my friend, Ray. That's it, that's all we can be. That's all I want.”
“You're a liar,” he whispered, and then he kissed her.
I'm sitting here listening to my iPod and writing. Well, really reading what I wrote and adding words, taking away words, etc. A little writing mathematics, if you will.
So I'm listening to Sheryl Crow (Tuesday Night Music Club CD - only 1 song on that entire CD I don't like, otherwise, great) and the song playing is "I Can't Cry Anymore." And the line that hit me was,
"...with my heart in my hands waiting for time to come and mend it."
And I'm like, wait a minute. I have a line just like that in this damn story. So that scroll button is a workin' on the mouse and I found it. My now deflowered virgin hero has found the love of his life after she ran out on him after deflowering him, and he's pissed at her. And he really wants her. And he's madly in love with her. So this is what he tells her,
“Am I a complete idiot to feel this way about you, Janie? Is it totally one-sided? Am I feeling this way because you were my first? 'Cos I'm standing here with my heart in my hands, ready to offer it to you and I feel like you're getting ready to stomp all over it.”
You just feel so damn original when you write something that you think is good, and then you realize a song crept into your brain and stayed there, and it bleeds out all over the page as you're writing. That's not the first time I've done that, and I'm sure it's not the last.
Hell, the title from this thing comes from a Madonna song. I guess music has been my muse.
Music and pictures of hot guys.
I'm on a writing blitz. After not writing a word for the past three days, I wrote at least 3,000 words tonight. Scenes seemed to write themselves. It was rather amazing.
This doesn't happen to me normally, but I didn't want to stop a good thing while it was rolling along. Therefore, it's 12:45 in the morning and yes, I'm still up. And I have to get up early in the morning to ride into town with my husband so I can pick up my car at the shop after not having it for a week. Yipee. Besides the fact I gotta take care of my kids like every other normal day.
But I don't care, it was worth staying up. I am at 66,217 words total. I am almost finished with this bad boy. For real. It feels freakin' wonderful.
In fact, I still feel like I could write more. But I gotta go to bed. Really. Hope the word flow is still in me tomorrow. Er, I mean later today.
Ever been at a point where you're writing and all your characters want to do is screw - like rabbits?
Um, that's happening to me right now. They finally broke the barriers and started messing around, and they seem to keep wanting to mess around. Like, they look at each other and it's all they can think about. It takes everything in their power to hold back and not jump each other.
I want to tell them, "There's more to this romance story than you two trying to get in each other's pants. Really."
They ignore me. Really they do. So I have to work extra hard to keep them on track.
They need to talk, for instance. They have issues that need to be resolved, so bottling them up and easing them with orgasms is not the answer (though they sure think orgasms are a cure all for everything!).
They need to do other things than stay in the bedroom and get naked. Like work, eat, shower, etc. Life does go on, even in a romance novel.
Try telling that to these two! Their eyes meet, their pulses quicken, things start a flutterin' and the next thing I know, they're in each other's arms again and trying to take each other's clothes off. Again.
Rather frustrating, actually. For me, though. Certainly not for them!
This is Jeremy Bloom. He's a skier and was on our Olympic team. I have no idea if he medaled or not - all I know is that I was looking for a photo of a hot guy and found him. 
He's damn cute.
I don't know if my eyes will ever be the same again after I did my search for hot man pics. Porn sites galore on my list! And if they didn't say porn in their description and I clicked the link, it would end up to be porn! Aahh!
Good thing no children were around.
He told her, and she didn't run screaming from the room like he thought she would.
Lucky him.
My sweet, sexy virgin is trying to get up the nerve to tell Miss Hotstuff that he is, in fact, a virgin.
He's having a hell of a time. It's so difficult that he decided to just kiss her instead. He has a hard time concentrating when he's around Miss Hotstuff. She has a way of distracting him without doing a damn thing.
I really need to get him to tell her this. Cos it's gonna set the story on its ear.
Crap.
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!
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!
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.
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!
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!
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
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.
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.
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!
