Finding home, finding love – writing romance, making clothes, growing food, and growing up

Adventures in living an authentic creative life

Tag Archives: editing


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Searching for zen clam, or calm even

zen clam
Photo by Tom Swift

After yesterday’s post I decided what I needed was a bit of zen calm. Except with my typing snarly-uppy-wordiness, it always comes out clam.

So, I found zen clam instead. That clam looks very zen.

What else I found was a plan for my writing. I need deadlines, I need a story that I really truly want to write, and I need motivation. Looks like all three may have collided and hopefully a beautiful mess will result.

No new story, I need to finish what I have. I’ve gone back to one of my favourite old stories, Lock and Cady’s story from the Haven Bay series.  I mind mapped the series today, and I have some new ideas that excite me. I hope I’ve finally found my way with the story in what will be its fourth incarnation.

First, a messy first draft written for a Book in a Week course. , with waaaay too much external conflict. Second, a revised partial that’s probably one of the best things I’ve written at sentence and word choice level, but oh so wrong at the goal and motivation level, quite rightly collecting a very kind rejection from a Harlequin SuperRomance editor. Third incarnation finally had a strong goal and motivation, high stakes for both hero and heroine, but that partial needed a lot more work before it would be ready to sub. Where that version came unstuck was winning a five page critique from a SuperRomance author. It didn’t seem sensible to keep working on the story while waiting on the critique (what if I still had it all wrong?) so I started working on a new story. The critique somehow got lost on its way back to me, then I found I wouldn’t be able to enter the story for New Voices and needed to work on another story for that, and the result is it’s taken me over a year and a lot of other stories to come back to this one.

I love the setting, Haven Bay, and I love these characters. With each incarnation, I get to know them better and go deeper and deeper into their emotions. It all feels so real to me now!

I hope I can get that out when I try to write their story again. Writing a new first draft, then editing, and possibly even rewriting. Whatever it takes to make their story the best I can get it. I’ve given myself deadlines for planning, first drafting, then editing.

I’m looking forward to this!


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Monday Musings- on menopause and creativity

At last the writing shed is being used as I designed it to be used- writing! I had a lovely afternoon yesterday beginning  edits of Believe in Me, my Christmas novella. It’s a wonderful space to write in, though I do admit to getting a bit twitchy after dark. Onder of those slightly creepy windy nights, and the cherry tree has a branch that rubs on the shed roof. If my husband had been home I don’t think I’d be so jittery, but he’d gone out.

Anyway, I’m so pleased and happy, using the shed to create in.

I’ve sorted out a lot of my sewing and crafting stuff too. I’m moving it all out of the house and into boxes in the shed. I think I’ll be able to fit everything in. I want to keep the shed looking uncluttered, so everything needs to have a place in the boxes on the shelves. That way, I will only have my current project on view and will be less likely to get distracted. That’s the theory anyway. I’m easily distracted! My brain has finally switched back on after menopause, and is whizzing in so many different creative directions.

So glad I am through menopause now.  I’m feeling like I have my brain back at last, though I’m still more forgetful than I was. Names and words for things in particular. I hated the feeling my head was full of wet cotton wool!

I do think I complicated my transition with a lot of resentment at not having a child, not wanting to let go of possible fertility. Then I got to the stage where I just wanted it over with. I had a couple of false stops, where I went many months without menstruating, then my cycle restarted.Every period was an annoyance and a reminder, tying me back to a phase I wanted to let go of. Once they really did stop and not come back, I felt more like I could mourn and let go of the wasted opportunities of that stage of my life. I do still very much regret not being able to have a child, but it’s time for me to move past that now and see what else I can do with my life.

I’m quite happy to develop into an interesting crone now, with cats and a garden and my creating shed. I really want to get into art too, not just writing. I always had this thing I couldn’t do “art”. Part comparing myself to a very talented younger sister, part internalised parental perfectionism, and the biggest part primary and high school teachers who insisted on very prescriptive art tasks with ridiculous rules for what a painting or drawing should be.

So much of that teaching stifles creativity rather than developing it!

I want to give myself permission to make a mess and get things wrong. In writing and in other forms of creativity. I want to start keeping a sketchbook. I bought a better digital camera cheaply on eBay (still a point and click, but it has a zoom and a macro and takes pretty good photos) and I’m taking photos of anything I see that interests me. I’m trying to develop seeing things differently. I want to mess around with restyling clothes from the fifty p rack at my favourite charity shop,  especially doing things with texture and pattern for surface decoration.

I love Alisa Burke’s work, because her stuff is so wild and free and she doesn’t wait for “permission” to be an artist. She has an inspiring post here on being an artist.Age doesn’t matter. Having a Day Job and not being able to create full-time doesn’t matter. Life after fifty can be fun and interesting and more creative than when I was younger and all my energy got tied up in the longing for a child. Now, I’m free to focus on creating. On writing and sdewing and painting and drawing and however else I want to express my Muse.

I go back to part-time work next week. Not the two days I want, but three days a week  is at least a step in the right direction.  Getting the shed finished now is perfect timing.

 


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A room of my own for writing and creating- finished at last!

At last it’s done- my writing room is finished!

Well, almost! I still have a few things to do, like sewing a roll up blind for the window and a cushion for the chair. I need to sort through all my bags and boxes of crafting and sewing stuff and get them on the empty boxes, waiting on the shelves. But the main part of the work, all the building, is complete. I can put away my saw and my workbench and my hammer and my drill.  I can sit in there, close the door, and write.

I finished it yesterday, my birthday. A fabulous present for myself. I did nothing “exciting” and birthday-ish, didn’t even have a cake. But I finished the shed and that’s plenty exciting enough for me!

It feels wonderful! Even better, the satisfaction of doing it myself. It’s not perfect, by any means. But it’s my work. I created it. And that feels good.  It’s not quite how I planned, especially how long it’s taken and how much it’s cost, but the final result is waaaaaaay better than I thought it would be.
It was a lot cheaper than the other alternative, too, which was buy a vintage caravan to put on our parking bay. It would have to be vintage because nothing else fits on our tiny space or has the door on the right side, and they cost a bomb now. That wouldn’t have been nearly so practical either. I’m sure having the shed insulated and such a nice useful space adds more than I spent on it to the house value too.

But I don’t care about getting the money back.

The main thing is, I now have a perfect “room of my own.”  I can shut the door, put my earphones on, and write. Or I can sew. Or I can paint. I can make a mess, and no-one needs to see but me, and I don’t need to clear it away before dinner time!

I love all the white. I love the simplicity of it all. I love the huge desk. I love all the shelves.

The wall to the right of the desk is all wide white shelving, behind me if I face the window.  They weren’t there when I took the photo, but they come up to the edge of the green pinboard now. I worried I’d feel like they impinged on the desk space, but they don’t. They feel like they give me more desk space.

And I have loads of room on the shelves for my crafting and sewing stuff, all neatly packed in boxes so it doesn’t look cluttered and distracting, and labelled so I can actually find something when I want it.

I love that the little space feels so open, with the big window looking on to the garden. The whole shed is only the size of an ordinary double bed, but it feels far more spacious inside.

I want more than ever to build my own tiny house one day. Maybe when we’re living in Australia. For now, my shed is enough.

Now, time to write again. On the way home from work tonight, I started reading the rejected Christmas story, for the first time since I submitted it. Thank goodness, it needs work, for sure, but so far it’s not as bad as I feared it might be!

I uploaded it to my Kindle, as a rtf file. Amazing reading it like a “proper” e-book. I’ve never done that before. Such a different experience to reading on the computer screen. The things that need changing are jumping out at me. I know I can make this a far better story, and it’s clear how, too.

I’d strongly recommend trying it! I plan to edit with the document open on the computer to make changes, and my reading copy on the Kindle in front of me. I’ll report back on how it goes!

Anyone got any other favourite editing tips to share?

PS- The hot glue gun is NOT going to be on display on that shelf permanently! I left it there to cool down after making the fabric covered pinboard from a leftover sheet of the insulation board. Only just noticed it in the photo!


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Put yourself into a mind space as if nothing has been written so far and you just had the idea yesterday. Know that your idea, the Universe, and the screenplay owe nothing to you. Arguably, you owe the Universe for the idea the best execution that you can bring to it, and it’s out there in some form, and all you can do is your best to find it. You have to be willing to throw away everything to do that, as if you are hacking away at a block of marble creating Michelangelo’s David.

You only need to dedicate yourself to the best possible version of the idea. You’re going to think that’s what you’ve already written. You have to challenge that preconception and dig down into the actual idea and ask, ‘Have I both delivered and over-delivered on the promises of this idea?’

As a writer you’re told to outline thoroughly, then put the outline away and be prepared for inspiration to come as you’re writing the script. You should treat not just your outline but your first draft this way as well, and indeed any subsequent draft the same way.


Chris Soth


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Work in progress- the writing shed, days 3 to 6

Work in progress

Still exhausted and doing no writing, I’ve been working eight hours a day on the shed. It’s coming along.

Slowly, a lot slower than I’d like, but I’m getting there. These jobs always take far longer and cost far more than planned, and the shed is no exception.

The photo is where I was yesterday morning. Today, the whole interior – walls, ceilings, and even the z-framed timber door, have polystyrene insulation. It’s not beautiful. I patchworked a lot of odd size pieces together to reduce the amount of wastage. But it should be functional, especially when I add a layer of foil over the top, which I hope will seal all the gaps well enough.

I don’t know how my husband worked in the shed when it was his computer workshop. He must have frozen his butt off in winter and barbecued it in summer. I grew up in Australia. Heat I’m okay with, but my cold tolerance is minimal. I normally wear three layers of thermal underwear under my clothes, and fingerless gloves inside our house in the British winter, so a freezing drafty shed is not doing to do it for me. Insulation is more important than how it looks!

I’m hoping I can achieve both a comfortable and an attractive writing space though.

Next comes the foil, and taping all the gaps in that, then I’ll staple up a tented ceiling from an old white sheet. Don’t want to risk anything heavier on the ceiling, there’s not enough to nail into. It would NOT help my writing to have the ceiling fall on my head! The walls will be light spruce tongue and groove boards.

I’ll need to ensure I fix the leaks, before I start that. There are a couple of broken edges on boards outside that I’ll patch. I’ve put new support under the shed and stopped the water tracking up where it rotted out in that damp corner. I’ve ordered better window perspex, and guttering and a water tank. My lovely husband is painting the outside for me.

Luckily, we finally have summer! No rain at all the last two days. It’s been beautifully sunny and all a British summer day should be, after raining heavily every day so far this month. I hope it stays dry. I won’t get much more done until Thursday now, between the Day Job and visiting the MiL.

The lovely thing about this sort of physical work is that my mind has been free to wander. Yesterday, I came up with a new story idea. It will be fun to write. At last some characters based on my Flying Doctor days I feel happy with! I don’t think they’re romance cliches. It doesn’t feel like it at this stage. I’m looking forward to mining that period of my life. The story needs a lot of development work yet. Mind mapping, and finding out more about who these people are.

But I’m resisting the temptation to chase the bright new shiny. I’ll edit the Christmas story first. I’m almost to the stage where I have enough distance from the writing of it to do the edits justice, and to want to start back into it again. With no words count constraints, I think it will end up around five thousand words longer than the version I submitted. I’ll address the issues the editor pointed out in the rejection. The choppy jerky writing and the lack of clarity, product of cutting too much to get word count within limits.

I know it will take a lot of work, and I’m looking forward to that!


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Rejection- and a lesson on how I need to write


Image source sawyeriii

I’m Autumn, and I’m an optimist.

There, now I’ve confessed the terrible truth, I can start the change process, right?

Optimism is normally considered a good thing. And it can be. The hope of a good outcome lets us start ambitious new projects. It keeps us going when times are tough. It lets us bounce back from defeats, because things are bound to get better. Even when we have defeats and face disappointments, at least we’ve felt good along the way.

Optimism is good. But it can also cause problems. Unrealistic expectations. Look where optimism got Mr Micawber.

Now, that doesn’t mean I want to be a pessimist. I’m married to one. Believe me, one in any household is enough. Pessimism has it’s own set of problems. I’ve had pessimistic periods in my life, and I’ve worked hard to leave that behind.

Pessimism leads to ideas that never get acted on. Projects abandoned at the first road bump, because “It was never going to work out, anyway.” Yes, pessimists can be pleasantly surprised, while optimists are often disappointed, but oh my, the misery along the way for the pessimist.

Problem is, optimism can lead to taking on too much. Overestimating what we can do and how long it will take to do it. Setting deadlines (or accepting deadline requests from someone else), that we just can’t meet. Or we bust a gut to meet, but with work that’s not as good as it could be, bent out of shape to meet the deadline. Saying “Yes” to things we’d be better saying “No” to.

I want to be a realist (better yet, an awesomist!).

I don’t have an editor dishing out  writing work to me specifically yet, but I have a nasty habit of setting self-made deadlines that are just plain crazy. Like seeing a Call for Submissions with an impossibly close due date and deciding to go for it, because idea machine my brain is, I can’t see a Call without getting at least one idea.

The answer may just be to avoid reading those Call for Submissions posts on editor’s blogs. Or if I’m gonna read them, read them when they’re first posted, not a month and a half later!

That alone might not help me, unfortunately. Long deadlines do the “I’ve got ages to write this so I’ll do that first” thing for me. Without the time pressure, getting down and doing the work easily slides to the end of my To Do list, because I optimistically hope it will take a lot less time than it actually does.

*sigh*

If I want to write full-time, knowing what makes a realistic deadline for me and how to keep it is one of the first lessons I need to learn.

The trigger for this ramble was this post, and my Christmas story getting rejected.

The email waited when I got home from visiting my mother-in-law yesterday (as if that wasn’t enough bad for one day!).

Now at least I didn’t have a long wait. But I had hopes for this story. I worked so hard on it. I do believe it’s the best thing I’ve written. I truly thought I’d cracked it with this one. I won’t pretend the rejection didn’t hurt, it did. When I read the email, it kicked me in the guts. I had a little cry. But I can’t stay hurt, unless I want to give up writing.

Here’s what he said-

I adore your premise, but the writing is a little too choppy/disjointed, and it’s hard to get a clear sense of what’s happening.

He’s right.

I knew this when I submitted the story, but I simply didn’t have time to fix it. To reduce the word count, I mangled the story. Too many short sentences. Missed words that really need to be there. It doesn’t flow well. I dropped two and a half k in the first round of edits, a lot on a twenty k novella, and lost more than just excess words with those cuts.

Trying to avoid my usual sin of rambling and overwriting, I took my writing spare to the point of losing the meaning and readability. The story needed to be twenty k. Yes, I needed to trim my first draft, tighten it and lose some weak bits and strengthen other things. But I didn’t need to damage my story so badly in the process.

Anyway, I know what to do now. I’ll let the story sit for a month or so, get some distance from it while I work on something else. Then I’ll come back to it. Do another round or three of edits and put back in much of what I took out. I’ll let the story be as long as it needs to be to tell the story right, without drifting into overwriting.

Then I’ll probably self-publish it, just for the fun of it and because I’ve wanted to have a go at self-pubbing for a long time.

Anyway, that’s down the track a bit. What’s immediate is deciding what story to start on next, and learning the lesson here.

I already have plenty of ideas for my next project, rewriting the rejected Valentine’s Day novella, set in my imaginary Australian country town of Koowindra. From that starting point, I have three or four possible stories, all different enough I could write all of them without self-plagiarism. Now I need to develop each idea enough that I can see which one grabs me the most to start first. 

I can write so many variations on this story. Coming home is a recurring theme for me. Whether it’s the hero or the heroine, someone who’s never had or  who has lost their sense of home is finding what their home is. And who their home is with.

Finding home, finding love.

That’s the truth of all my stories. Home means love, and love means home. Either they go to the place that’s home for them, and find love there waiting for them; or they find that love gives them the sense of home they’ve been missing. Either way, the theme is the same. I have so many possible variations on this. Five or six different ideas just for Koowindra stories. The Haven Bay series, another five or six stories. All different, all with the same core theme.

That’s okay, I think. It won’t make my stories too samey. I’m writing what’s important to me. I hope that will resonate with my readers too. The key to writing authentic romance stories is coming from my own emotional truth, I believe. Not writing cynically, writing what I think will sell. Writing from my heart- what I hope and believe and know.

And that’s the lesson. Not so much “don’t set unrealistic goals”. Not so much stop being an optimist. But be true to what I know about my stories.

I knew once I got to the halfway point in first draft that the story needed around twenty k, way over the required word count. I changed the outline, to keep it going even further over. That was a good choice, it strengthened the story structure.

The bad choice was then hacking the first draft not only beyond recognition but beyond readability to get word count down.

I had two other options at that stage- let the story be what I knew it needed to be, and sub it long anyway, to the same or a different publisher through regular submission routes. Not  through the Call for Submissions, as it didn’t meet what the editor requested. Or if I really desperately wanted to sub to the Call, start a new version. Change the story and the characters and the conflict enough to fit the requested word count. That’s what I’ll need to do when I’m a published writer, working on contract, with deadlines that have to be met. I need to give the editor what I promised.

It’s about staying true to the integrity of the story, and keeping my promise as a writer, both at the same time. If I sub something to an editor, it must  be what they’ve asked for. If the story isn’t they asked for, I shouldn’t sub that story to them. Doesn’t make it a bad story, it just means it’s not the right story for that particular editor for that particular request. Destroying the integrity of the story isn’t the answer. Keeping my promises is.

So back to the beginning again- the need for realistic promises! Maybe, knowing I’m an optimist, what I need to do is guess the time I think something will take, and double it.

Now on to fixing up the writing shed. It needs insulating, lining, and decorating. I can do that in a weekend, right?


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Happily ever after


Photo by {eclaire}

I’m discovering what hard work full-time writing can be.

I edited for about sixteen hours yesterday, with only short breaks. Finished second draft at 3am.

Today, I’ve done another pass through. So much that still needed work. My morning pages today were three pages of all I wanted to make sure I’d fixed. Mainly character arc stuff. Making sure the throughlines are clear. Fixing or at least explaining the inconsistencies in the heroine’s voice. Showing the emotional changes they catalyse in each other, the things that make it possible for them to be in a relationship.

To me, that’s the heart of a good romance. Not so much the romance stuff, but the believable emotional growth of each main character. The changes they have to go through to make their happy ever after happen. Their journey from living behind a mask to living their truth.

I’ve lived my truth, this last week. I truly have transitioned from being a part-time writer to a full-time writer.

Third draft is now done.

I think I’ve nailed it. I hope I’ve nailed it, anyway. So hard to know.

The black moment makes me cry. The happy ending gives me the aahh factor. I feel the meaning of Christmas in my heart, as Scrooge says at the end of A Christmas Carol. I’ve tried to capture the flavour of a London Christmas, all the things I love and hate about it. It works for me.

But I wrote it! Will it affect a reader the same way? I don’t know.

I do know, this story is the best I’ve written. I know it’s as good as I can get it now.

I won’t do another pass through. This will have to be it. Deadline for submissions is today.

It’s still too long, over required word count by way more than I’d like. I can’t do anything more about that. I’ve cut out as much fat as I can. I can’t tell this couple’s story in fewer words. Praying the editor will like it enough for it not to matter. Dear God, I hope so!

Even if it gets rejected, the twenty-four days since I saw the Call for Submissions have been the best adventure in discovering my writing process. I’ve learned so much. And I still have the other idea to write sometime in the future, the one I spent the first ten days working on before I realised it would be even longer!

I hope this story won’t be rejected though! I believe in it. I want Cara and Nick’s story out there. I feel it’s a story worth telling, and a story worth reading.

I’m pretty sure I’ll self-pub, if Entangled don’t buy it. But oh my, I hope they do!

Okay, more work to do.

On to formatting, a query letter, and tweaking the synopsis!


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Red pencil day


Photo by Rat Phlegm

Editing is fun, but hard work!

I had a great day today editing my novella.

Progress is slower than I’d like, but I love it. Today feels like a good, satisfying got-a-lot-done day. I’m certainly exhausted.

All I really managed was to write a not very good synopsis (too much emphasis on what they do, not enough on how they change, and why) and edit three chapters. That took me all day. I stopped at around 10pm, when I finished chapter 3, suddenly realising I was starving and had to eat straight away or I’d go all wobbly!

I’m quietly happy with this story. It still may not be good enough to sell, but it certainly is the best thing I’ve written.

Only problem is- 11 more chapters to go, two days to do them in. You do the math. I’m just hoping the later chapters, once I had a clearer idea of the characters and their story, won’t need as nearly much editing.

There’s still the synopsis to tweak again too, and a query letter to write. All before midnight on Tuesday.

Wish me luck! I need it!


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A writing free day – getting ready to edit

I’m up against an insanely tight deadline to get this story ready to submit. Despite that, I took the day off writing today.

I got loads of other stuff done instead.

Went to my favourite charity shop (thrift store in the US, op shop in Aus!) to shop their 50p rack. I love wearing my £1 and £2 outfits! It’s a great source for clothes for refashioning too. Nothing spectacular today, but I picked up a pretty white embroidered shirt that I may dye, a nice  orange linen vest top, and a couple of soft lightweight jumpers a couple of sizes too big to turn into cardigans or shrugs.

So that meant spending some time browsing crafting blogs for refashioning ideas.

Then time for some raw vegan food prep. While doing the grocery shop I picked up 2.5 kg of bruised bananas for 25p! Time to make carob banana pudding (see photo. I’ll post a recipe soon- it’s delish and one of my favourite things to have for supper when I get home late from the Day Job) and cut up the rest into 2 banana batches to freeze. Then I made tomato & spinach linseed crackers (again- it’s yummy, I’ll put up a recipe for that soon too), and seeing I had the dehydrator going put in a batch of halved cherry tomatoes to make some semi-dried tomatoes for salads.

Then out to the badly neglected food garden, mostly in pots. I repotted the apple tree I bought because I felt sorry for it as the last broken pitiful dead looking stick in the bare rooted tree bin. It’s doing well but needed a bigger pot. It’s now at the writing shed door. Repotted the goji berry (no idea if I’ll ever get fruit off this) which was looking very sorry for itself and found despite regular watering the compost had completely dried out, the poor thing had dehydrated. Harvested the garlic I planted from a couple of supermarket bulbs that sprouted. Planted a thornless blackberry and some strawberries that weren’t happy in pots into the rose hedge, which I’m slowly adding more food plants to. Took out the saladings that had run to seed and put in some lovely pink flowered strawberries I got for half price because they’d wilted. All they needed was a good drink! Planted out the few tomato seedling the slugs hadn’t got. We’ve had such a wet cool summer, the slugs are a nightmare.

I wanted to get some reading done too, but it’s late here now!

Anyway, tomorrow I need to start on the edits. No more time to put it aside. But I needed to empty my mind of my own story. I did think the last four chapters I did on Friday were pretty good. I’m sure muse was at work, because I had that lovely experience of writing something and being surprised, in a where-did-that-come-from? way. Wonderful!

But the problem with that is , I’m too close to it. The early chapters will be easier to edit, because I have a week or so of distance from when I wrote them. The last chapters – not so much. So the glamour and the love of my own words and the ooh-aren’t-I-clever will still be stronger than is helpful.

I really need my CPs to rip into this one hard for me.

And I need to be without ego in the process. I need to be honestly willing to admit where my work sucks. Sometimes that global “My story is crap” is a cover for very deep pride in it. And partially, that’s justified. Anyone who’s completed a first draft has done something so many other people who dream of writers but don’t put in the work will never do. But it’s also a trap. Because it stops us looking at what is really there. Finishing first draft is only half the writing process.

Now I need to lose my love of what I’ve written and examine it honestly, with a surgeon’s eye. There are parts that needing cut out. There are parts that need repair work, sometimes just  cosmetic surgery, sometimes deeper more structural work (orthopaedics, to stretch the surgery analogy!).

The story, as it is now, is not fit for reading by anyone else. It’s full of typos. It’s full of cliches, where I just grabbed the first easy way of saying something so looking for a better way to say it didn’t slow me down. There are some places where my words are just plain clunky. There are too many repetitions, I know I do that a lot. And there are places where because I understood what was going on, what the character was doing and why they did what they did, I didn’t explain it enough to the reader.

 There are other places where I didn’t have a clue why the character did what they did, I just knew they did so I wrote it and hoped I’d get the reason why later! Well, I have those reasons now, a whole little scene for the heroine came in yesterday’s morning pages, and the hero’s motivation will be just a matter of sprinkling in a few additional sentences here and there.

Word count will be my biggest issue. This is supposed to be a very short novella, ten to fifteen k. what I have tips in at closer to twenty, before I add the extra material!

Eep!

So some serious word cutting is needed. All my repetitions. All my redundant words. Sentence structure needs tweaking to trim words (often a good way to eliminate passive voice, too, I’ve noticed). Any scenes or parts of scenes which don’t do enough to move the story forward need to go.

That will be the biggest challenge. This is essential a date story, with characters who superficially are complete opposites but under that are very similar. Neither of them want a relationship. They’ve just agreed to a series of very specific dates. So the conflict is in the push-pull of the developing relationship. The pull of their deep Essences calling them to each other, the push of the superficial Identity keeping them apart. I’m not sure that’s enough.

We’ll see.


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Hero inspiration

See the hero inspiration for the Christmas romance I’m working on over at the group blog, Seven Sassy Sisters.

My first draft is misbehaving.

I hoped to have it finished today, but the story grew way past the word count I wanted, and I had to rejig the outline. Which means my major turning points are all messed up. Plus I’ve been on call for the Day Job and had numerous calls. It’s back to the office tomorrow, so I won’t get much word count. Not sure how late I can stay up writing tonight, because I got up at 5.30am this morning to write, and I’ll be getting up at 5.30am again tomorrow to go to work.

Welcome to being a full-time writer!

Of course, the story may not be accepted, either.

*sigh*

I have four more writing days to the deadline, to get this story sorted out.

On the plus side, some of the changes actually make it better than the original plan, so that’s a bonus.

I’m secretly quite happy with it, but I’m too close to be able to tell at this stage. I do know it’s going to need some serious edits to get it into shape to submit. It’s been a great learning process, even if the publisher I’m aiming for rejects it.

If so, this may become my first self-publishing project. That will be fun.

Nowhere near as much fun as having it accepted though!

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