Once upon a time…

Once upon a time, a long time ago I had a dream – a desire – an inspiration to write a book about family bonds, adventure, friendship, a luxury yacht, and an evil doer. It didn’t take me long to write the book, but it has take taken me a long time to drag this book back into the light.

I know I haven’t been blogging recently – so consider this an update.

Mediterranean Dreams is just about complete. I have finished my final edit, and I’m currently doing my final read through. There are a few things I’m picking up on, and fixing in the process, but it’s just about there. Soon I will have to write the synopsis and cover letter, and let this manuscript go.

Is it scary? Definitely. I have only ever submitted short fiction before – never anything this ‘big’. Really the process shouldn’t be any different… but for some reason size matters to me this time round. I have a great team of people around me who are supporting me get through this – and I know that without them I probably would have taken forever to get this show on the road.

It’s funny, because I have read hundreds of blogs by different authors who all talk about their journey of the trials and tribulations of their road to publication, and I always thought that I wouldn’t blog about mine. But it’s taken so long to get where I am today due to other life commitments, and really – it’s this really huge thing that looms before me as a writer – just as it was a big thing for all those other authors before me.

I look at the past year, and wonder where it’s gone. I look at the past five years and wonder what on earth I was doing. But I know that I was writing and pumping out books. I just never prepped any of them like I have this one – for publishing.

This year I honestly thought that I would be able to get some serious writing work done while I was at home with Abby as a full time Mum for six months. Never did I expect her to not want to sleep for hours on end during the day. She is an active and engaging child, even when she was a newborn. Therefore I put all my 2012 writing aspirations on hold, without a moment of regret.

Now that I am back at work full time, life has become a journey into time management and coordination. I’m up at five am, Abby is up at six, I’m then on the train for an hour into the city, and writing my little heart out all the way. Then I walk a couple of kilometers to work, and start my day in the office. After work, I walk my way back to the train station, and head home – writing my way there, and once I finally get home at 6.15pm – I’m in the throws of sorting out dinner for us all, bathing, and bedtime. It’s insane. And then the very next day I get up and do it all over again. But I am getting results in terms of my writing. Some how, I can tune myself in and get work done while I’m on my way to and from work. At least it’s progress – even if it has been a bit slower than normal. It’s getting done.

I have also started writing something new. At the moment, I’m keeping it under my hat, but it is one of the ‘Night Series’ books. I can’t wait to get Mediterranean Dreams off my plate so I can turn my full focus to that project. I’m already four thousand words in – and I can’t wait to get to eighty thousand. At the moment it ‘feels’ good – probably because it’s all new and shiny. Good fun!

I’m going to get back into the blogging world just as soon as I can. I know that I have been slack on the blogging front – but I just don’t seem to have enough hours during the day to turn my attention and focus to it. Now that I have finished the major edit etc, I may be able to sort out my blog with a bit more coordination. In the mean time – you will all just have to bear with me.

This year is the first year in many that I am not participating in NaNoWriMo – but I will be cheering people on from the sidelines. Between working full time, Abby, my wifely duties, submitting Mediterranean Dreams, and writing my new book – I just don’t think I can juggle it. Those of you that know me, know that I am a huge and avid supporter of NaNoWriMo. I can’t wait to hear how everyone goes with it. It’s an awesome process, and you really can write a book in 30 days. Everyone knows that a first draft is crap, and usually it needs a thorough cleaning up job done on it – but its brilliant to be able to get down the foundations in 30 days.

And that is the end of my quick update.

For those of you who are unsure about whether to take the NaNoWriMo leap – here is a little image for you:

 

Monday Musings

For some of you it will be morning, and for some of you it won’t be. This morning our power went off right before I was about to jump in the shower. Needless to say, this morning has been a bit of an upheaval with me having to get everything together to go and shower at my office. I’m sure everyone really needed to know that. However, this brings me onto the subject of organisation. The only reason why I even managed this morning (in my ‘pregnant-brained’ state) was because I had everything ready last night. If I didn’t, then it really would have turned to chaos in our household.

And because I was so organised for writing on the weekend… I managed to crank through more than 22,000 words of edits on my manuscript. Yep, I know. That’s a hell of a lot. I now have about 12,500 words remaining in this manuscript to get through. However, there is a catch. This is the ending of the book that I am readjusting. I need to blow something significant up, kill a couple of people, throw another character into an awful state of depression, and then… just perhaps… everyone can live happily ever after. And that’s quite a bit to re-write and sort out. So… it may take me this week to get my head around it.

Fingers crossed that I finish it properly by the end of November. That’s still the goal. And if I finish it early, then I’ll try to wrap up the ending of the second book of the Talent trilogy.

Lots on my plate at the moment!! (Without even mentioning the fact that I work long hours, travel a lot, have a whole life I need to live, as well as grow a child.)

So what am I a’musing’ myself with this week?

1. I’m amping myself up to finish the edits on this book, and flick it through to friend in Spain so that she can double-check me on the facts, and through to another friend who is going to nitpick the crap out of it. Then it can go out into the great world. My goodness… the nerves I am experiencing right now is beyond belief. Who knows if anyone will accept it. There will probably be a boatload of rejections come in, and many more edits to go. But at least I’m giving this process a shot now, whereas in the past I have always hidden behind my many piles of draft manuscripts. I’m actually okay with this though. Perhaps it has just taken me this long to actually prepare myself mentally for this challenge that lies ahead. I didn’t want to jump before I was ready. I didn’t want to submit any half-assed manuscripts that I knew could have been better.
2. Our new bed arrived in last week, and far out – it’s amazing. Naturally, it took a night or two to get used to, but my goodness. I wake up, and actually feel as though the sleep I have had is decent – even if I wake up several times during the night for various reasons. I’m very impressed.
3. I can’t wait to finish the second book of Talent. I just simply cannot wait to get it off my plate. The fact that I hadn’t opened the darn thing since July is really saying something. My creative brain just simply was not functioning at full capacity, and I couldn’t work myself out of the rut. It took a huge break away from it, and focussing on other tasks to actually let me work out a solution to the problems I was facing with it.
4. Christmas is just over a month away, and I’m so not ready for this. This year, I have hardly bought any Christmas presents… I haven’t even discussed it with the husband, and my head is so wrapped up in the fact that I have these books to finish, and a child growing, that I can’t even begin to think about Christmas on top of it all. Most people I know are well and truly organised, and they have got most of their presents for their family. But I tell you what…. I am seriously looking forward to paddling around in a paddling pool when it’s too hot. At the end of last week, the heat was at about 20 odd degrees at our place, and I was seriously baking. I cannot wait for the paddling pool to arrive at our place from my sister-in-laws house so I can set it up and potter about in it. It’s either that, or I’m going out in public to throw myself in the sea at every opportune moment. (And I highly doubt the public will appreciate that!)
5. I’m still trying to work out where to put our flatmate, all her stuff, and all of Bumpkin’s stuff until Bumpkin’s room is finished and organised.
   Speaking of Bumpkin’s room… within the next couple of weeks, we are going to tear apart our spare room. Yes, seriously. The walls are coming down, so is the ceiling… new wiring and lighting is going in, insulation installed, and then it will be re-built. Properly. Sigh. Big job, and I am very quickly becoming rather useless with carrying/lifting anything of significant weight. Yes, I am now becoming a stately pregnant woman who goes to anti-natal classes every week, and meets with her midwife almost as often.

After reading through that list… I really do think I’m musing on enough this week. So I think I’ll love you and leave you all for the moment. Till next time…

 

Monday Musings

An interesting thing happened the other day. I was sitting on the train on my way into the city to meet with my husband to go to a 50th birthday, and I had my laptop open on my Nano novel. But for some unknown reason, the Nano novel just wasn’t calling to me like it should. I couldn’t pull my focus in the slightest to even remotely focus on it.

So I sat there, listening to music, day dreaming. After a few minutes, I slowly started to recognise the music in my ears as part of the soundtrack I had compiled together for my Urban Fantasy trilogy. The next thing I knew, I was opening up the second book of the trilogy (that I haven’t opened since July!) and I was reading the area that I stopped writing.

The Zen of sudden clarity in my world

With a sudden smack of clarity, I knew how to end this book. This is a concept that I have been struggling with since July. I’m not kidding. But I had turned my mind from it, and had been working on other things, knowing that due to my pregnancy – my creative side of my brain wasn’t quite functioning on all cylinders.

I actually still can’t quite believe that this has happened. I can’t believe that I now know how to finish off the second book. I knew that I had to raise the stakes, and hype it up for the lead into the third book… but there was so much going on that I just didn’t know how to do it. I had spent 80,000 words maneuvering my characters into the right positions… and then I managed to get myself stuck with no creative thought on how to get myself out.

I know that my critique partners out there are going to be rather chuffed that I have finally figured this out. It has been more than frustrating for me over the past few months. So… as part of the NaNoWriMo madness, I’m going to try to get the final 5000 words down to complete book II of the Talent Series.

So, this is what I have on my mind at the moment:

• My gorgeous sister is bringing her new dude to come and stay with us this week. Very excited to have her coming. I miss her a lot, and us siblings are very close, so I am reallylooking to spending some quality time with her. She also wants to be introduced to Bumpkin as well… so I guess now is her chance. She’s probably going to find it just a little odd that her big sister is pregnant. (I think that I would find that odd if it were the other way around.)
  

  S Dali - Persistence of Time

• I’m behind on my editing and revision of The Mediterranean Source. I really need to get through this hump that I am at, at the moment. The part that I am revising requires a crapload of focus… and I just need to really pay attention. But there are so many interruptions at the moment with everything else that’s happening… that I can’t seem to grasp a decent amount of time to pull my focus. I’m just going to have to keep trying.
• I had a big book clear out in the weekend. Boxes of them. It’s a seriously marvellous feeling to clean out your crap. I just love it. There is a lot to be said about this nesting business. I would like to tackle even more rooms if I can get the chance. Perhaps this Thursday when I take the day off. Will just have to wait and see. I should probably be ‘slowing down’ a little, but I just can’t see it happening.

I think that’s it from me at this stage. I only have three days in the office this week, so I’m rather chuffed with that. Hopefully being at home a bit more this week will allow me to sort a few more words on the page.

I hope that you all have a great week, and that those you are getting Nano’d, do so good and proper

 

Monday Musings

What is it about November?

Every year I commit myself to thirty days and nights of literary abandon, only to find that life generally gets in the way of this mission – a lot! However, we just need to deal with these little interruptions, and continue on chasing our dreams.

NaNoWriMo is an extremely hard thing to commit to and undertake for thirty days. It is basically committing yourself to writing around 2000 words per day to comfortably make it through to the end without too much stress and hassle. But 2000 words are not always easy to come by, especially on days when you just don’t feel like it! The writer really needs to turn off their Internal Editor for the period, because once that Internal Editor gets their slimy little grips on your draft manuscript, then its over. You will end up spending your month editing all the free-writing you have just managed to get down.

My friend Kim likes to send her Internal Editor off on holiday in November. She thinks it does her editor good to go and stay on a remote island somewhere to drink pina coladas.

My internal editor is really in full swing right now though, since I have chosen to undertake my NaNoWriMo duties sightly differently this year. As you would have seen from my last post about Menorca last week, I am going to find it really hard to let this book go. And perhaps that is why I have been holding onto this book for years now, and not having the willpower to deal with it properly. Well… the time has now come where I really just have to let the damn thing go into the great yonder, and fend for itself.

The bottom line is… NaNoWriMo is hard work. Some days are just full of awesomesauce. Some days they aren’t. Other days – life gets in the way, and you need to focus on something else other than your book. This can be extremely frustrating at the time, but when you look back and reflect on it – you know that it was time out for your brain – and that was probably worthwhile.

So what am I musing about this week?

• My house is still a mess, and I’m starting to panick that I’m not going to get it sorted out. I’m seriously feeling the pressure to get it back into a livable state at the moment. God only knows what I’m going to be like when my husband pulls Bumpkin’s future room apart for a bit of a rebuild. I’m going to be useless! All I’ll want to do is clean, when it will be pointless. Bugger this nesting instinct!
• I have started planning writing work for when Bump joins the world. Yes, I know that I shouldn’t be counting my chickens before they hatch, but I really want to utilise the time that I have away from work for a little writing, as well as introducing a newborn into this world of ours. Who knows what will happen. Things may not go to plan – in fact, I’m almost certain they won’t. Bumpkin may be a good sleeper, or it may not be. Whatever the outcome, a little productivity on my side wouldn’t go astray.
• Plans are going into place for who I am going to start submissions of The Mediterranean Source to for publishing. This scares the bejeebers out of me. I have been writing for so long, and I have been in my comfort zone for far too long – that I am not used to the unknown. And the publishing process and rejection process of a full length novel is really outside of my comfort zone. I always hope that I’ll just be ‘one of the lucky ones’ and get accepted straight away. (LOL  - I know – the writing world simply doesn’t operate that way!) I can always dream though… after all – its dreams that feed writers to do what they do, isn’t it?
• Terribly proud of all the ‘Wrimos out there, who are writing their hearts out this November! I have no idea how many are involved this year, but I seem to be communicating with a heap of them on a daily basis. Good fun.
  

  Golden Blood, Time Spirit Trilogy, Book One

• Something else happened today as well! The release of my friend Melissa Pearl’s book! Yep, I know… nothing like discovering new reading material to sink yourself into. Pick it up from Amazon for just 99 cents. Personally – I can’t wait to read it. This is one I have been waiting for. Big congrats, Mel!

I really did have a lovely weekend spending time with my family, extended family, and my brother and his partner. It was awesome, and I wish that I had more time these days to go and visit them all. However, that just isn’t the way that life has dealt its cards. It just means that I appreciate them all more and more whenever I get the chance to see them and spend time with them.

Okay, I think that’s the lot from me today. I have somehow managed to catch up on three days of NaNoWriMo this morning. Do not as me how – I was already ahead to pick up some of the slack that I was going to incur. Thank god for pre-planning.

Have a great week everyone!! Oh… and Write On ‘Wrimos!

 

Additional note:

I wanted to post a picture of my freshly painted kitchen yesterday, but due to some severe Omega-3 deficiencies in my brain (thanks Bumpkin!), I forgot my phone that had the photos on it. (Amongst other vitally important things and information!)

So – anyhoo. Here is a photo of my freshly painted kitchen for you to all ‘Ooooh and Ahhhh’ over. As you can see – I don’t even have all our crap in the shelves yet!! I imagine it will start looking a little more cluttered once that junk reinstalls itself. Oh – and just to give you a little idea about the colour the walls were before we painted? Check out the plastic bag colour hanging on my pantry door. That precise colour. Oh yes – it was that attractive.

It seems that at the moment – if I am not painting our unborn child little canvases for it’s bedroom, I’m painting kitchens. I do have high hopes of possibly painting the hallway over the next week or two – but we’ll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, it’s now November and I should really forget the whole painting buzz, and focus on gettin’ Nano’d instead.

 

Monday Musings

Well… It’s Monday Morning. But it’s not just any Monday morning. Every year – the 31st of October is the same for me. Firstly, it’s my husband’s birthday today. Secondly, it’s also the ‘scariest’ day of the year, which means that there will be many Halloween celebrations happening around the world…. and thirdly, it’s the day before NaNoWriMo starts.

Needless to say, today I am feeling a mixture of things. I’m apprehensive because I don’t feel ready for NaNoWriMo. I’m also excited because it’s NaNoWriMo, and there is nothing quite like the amazing 30 day adrenaline rush that you get during NaNo. I’m happy because it’s my husbands birthday, and that’s always a good day during the year. I’m weary because I have to be at work today, and I would really and truly just prefer to be at home pottering about. And then there is Halloween. It’s not really a big thing in NZ… We never get kids around, and probably because we live where there is 60% elderly population, and I somehow don’t think they are going to dress up for candy. Each year, we buy yummy stuff just in case one comes knocking, but usually it’s very quiet. . Then I just end up eating it. So – a pointless exercise really.

And so my October ends, and a new week begins.

In the meantime. This is what I am musing about today.

• Thinking that I seriously need to be more organised for NaNoWriMo starting tomorrow. But – I have actually been less organised for November in the past… I’m sure I’ll be fine.
• So amazingly impressed about our kitchen. My mother in law came up last week, and felt inspired to clean down our kitchen so we could paint it. We have been meaning to paint our kitchen since we moved into the house more than five years ago… and it was a delicious colour of bright, bright yellow. Now it looks much better in an off white sort of colour, with a lovely white ceiling. Much, much better. Would love to post a picture, but I left my phone at home this morning, so no can do. My living room is absolutely covered in crap from our kitchen. I still cannot quite believe it all came out of the shelves and the pantry…
• There is so much more to do at home. I’m going to start a clear out of my books. There are thousands of them, and I will keep the best of them… but some (I hate to say this since I know how much work goes into producing one….) are rubbish. And it is time for them to leave my premises, and go to the loving home of someone else in this world.
• We bought a new bed! Yippeee!!! Cannot wait till it arrives. Super excited. This will require a bedroom shift to make it all work. Magical. Perhaps this will assist with the multitude of sleeping issues I am having at the moment. *fingers crossed*

I’m pretty sure that’s it from me this morning. Looking forward to culling some of the rubbish out of my house. It’s Spring… actually – it’s more t han halfway through spring, but that’s all good!

Have a good week / Halloween everyone! Oh – and best of luck to those of you participating in NaNoWriMo this year! May the words be with you.

LA Reid's House in Hamptons - A perfect writers retreat for an aspiring 'Wrimo

 

Belated Monday Musings

I realise that I have been slightly useless with Monday Musings recently – and that I should have posted one yesterday! You know what? Completely forgot. Actually – I completely forgot it was even Monday, because it’s a public holiday here in New Zealand. So, it did not even cross my mind until I walked through the office door this morning, and voila! Magically, I remembered that it was Tuesday, that I had missed Monday, and that I only have a four day work week. A very sad fact was that I felt excitement because I only have to work four days!

Having a long weekend is a great way to get rid of your bad juju, and actually feel a little revived without going on a big holiday. Now we are on the downward slope to Christmas holidays. And right in amongst everything is NaNoWriMo, which will make it all come round even faster.

So, here are my musings for the moment.

 - I didn’t manage to get any writing related work done in the weekend, and I feel guilty! I know. This is technically the third weekend in a row. The first weekend, I was at my friend Cassie’s place. The second weekend – staying with my Mother…. This weekend was a long weekend, and I managed to stay home and get no writing done! I honestly have no idea where the time went.

Bumpkin’s new paintings and armchair

 - Apart from the fact that I spent a lot of time planning for our unborn child. Like buying it a ‘nightlight’ lava lamp. (Oh, how very kitsch.) Or my mother in law buying it a little armchair for its bedroom. Or even painting it some animals on canvas for its bedroom… Please bear in mind that I haven’t actually painted anything for about 2 years. In fact, there is still a half finished painting sitting in one of our bedrooms that I keep meaning to ‘get around to’ one day.

 - I’m pretty excited about doing my iNaNoWriMo challenge this November. I’m really really looking forward to getting into some decent writing and editing routines. This has been seriously lacking in my life lately.

 - New Zealand is chuffed with itself. Absolutely over the moon. Everyone is celebrating. Why? Because we just won the 2011 Rugby World Cup. Not only did we manage to host this enormous event for the past six weeks, we managed to beat France by one point on Sunday night! Needless to say, the majority of New Zealand were hungover yesterday from all the celebrating. And the celebrations will continue throughout this week as well. They always say that the All Blacks are the most revered and talented rugby team in the world, but yet we haven’t managed to win a world cup since 1987.

And on that note – here is a song for our beloved All Blacks, for a job well done. I raise my Mocktail to them!

 

interNational Novel Writing Month

Oh, I know that it’s officially named National Novel Writing Month, but since I live in New Zealand, and people all over the world join in the fun each November… I’m renaming it to be interNational.

Now, getting down to business. If you are joining in with all the NaNoWriMo madness this year – what are you planning to do? Much to my own surprise, I have decided to do something a little different this year. Instead of writing 50,000 words… I’m going to edit and revise 50,000 words, which is the amount remaining that I have to edit on The Mediterranean Source to  finish this final edit and revision. Then hopefully I can convince my friend to help me polish it in December. 

Every year in March, there is a month called NaNoEdMo, which is a month specifically designed for editing your NaNoWriMo novel. They base it on 50 hours of solid editing over the month. I’m going to do my November challenge just slightly differently. It will work the same way as NaNoWriMo with word counts of my edits, etc. So that is how I am going to track myself over the month of November. Same principle, slightly different methodology, same NaNoWriMo tools (word count and daily goal).

You may be wondering why on earth I am thwarting away from my annual writing challenge – the one that I participate religiously in… Because this year I am pregnant, and honestly, I can only fit so much information into my head. I think that it would probably be a seriously nasty thing to do to myself if I tried to squash in an entire novel in there and produce it within 30 days. That’s a bit rough!

So this is my alternative. And when I look at it objectively – I think it’s a pretty good solution and alternative to work with. I need to finish the editing on this book, and this is a prime opportunity to get stuck in and do it.

I know that plotting out a novel can be rather overwhelming at the best of times – let alone one that you are going to produce within a month! Whether you are a Plotter or a Pantser, there will always be a little initial planning that goes into your novel – whether it is research, or character development, or scene and setting. There is always a little planning that goes into these things.

So…. here is a little treat for those of you who are currently plotting out your NaNoWriMo novels. Alexandra Sokoloff’s Narrative Structure Cheat Sheet. Seriously – whether you are plotting a Nano novel or not – this is a brilliant tool to use! When I saw it yesterday – the first thing I wanted to do was to print it out and use it straight away. A fantabulous tool for any writer to use. So thank you very much, Ms Sokoloff – your brilliance will benefit all creative writers!

So off you go. Plot, plan, and dream up your new novels that you’re planning to write. Let me know how your progress is going.