Archive for the ‘Stories’ Category
Unlike the crew from “Saturday Night Live,” I don’t have a lot to report: I’ve been reading/editing most of the weekend.
That means I’ve done no new writing … and I’m waffling about entering a third MS into the Golden Heart. A couple of nights ago, I started to wonder if I should enter Bree & Mike’s story. (I reread it, and I still think it’s pretty good. I LOVE Mike James. Visually, he’s beautiful and he’s interesting on the page — sordid past he keeps to himself, potentially questionable morals.)
Right now I’m leaning toward not, though. It’d be in the same category with Meg & Matt, the story I think is stronger … It had better be, since I’ve been honing my craft between the two. Of course, a lot of what I really like about Bree & Mike’s story is the stuff I went back and added in this spring, when I was expanding it to the proper length. (It started out at about 38,000 words.)
Besides, I’d have to write a synopsis AND come up with a better title. The frontrunner, thanks to my Facebook clan, is “She’s Snow Virgin” … but I don’t think even that works. (Better than “To Catch a Wife,” though, which is what I’ve been calling it.)
Does SNL even do “Weekend Update” anymore? Working most Saturday nights, I haven’t had a chance to watch in years.
In preparing “Beauty and the Ballplayer” to send to the friends who’ve volunteered to read it, I found something handy to share. It’s a free service that converts Word documents into pdf files.
Nice, eh? And so much easier than the way I thought I’d have to do it … laying it out in an InDesign file (all 205 pages of it!) and then converting from there.
For better or worse, it’s in the hands of three volunteers. I can’t wait to see what they think of it.
I know my writer friends are busy — some of them getting ready for the same contest I plan to enter. As such, they’re probably too busy to read anything of mine. (And they could well be my competition!)
With that thought in mind, I posted on Facebook that I was looking for friends to give me feedback on “Beauty and the Ballplayer.”
That was at about 1 a.m., and I had no idea what to expect in the way of responses … So imagine my surprise when I checked my page this morning and had not one, not two but FIVE takers.
How exciting! Now I’m waiting for them to e-mail me so I can send them an e-copy of the story.
This is the tale I got a little feedback on from NARWA members at our July meeting. (That was the day we read through the first three pages of several stores submitted by members. It was anonymous, but we really didn’t have much trouble guessing whose was whose … I think we all confessed to writing our stories in the car on the way home. Ah, carpools!)
Still, I’m eager to see what other people think of it. Hopefully they’ll be able to point out any plot holes big enough to drive a truck through … Although I don’t think there are any of those.
After months of writing like gangbusters and ignoring the healthier lifestyle I’m supposed to be living, I feel the pendulum swinging back in the other direction.
My weight loss blog has been getting all the attention (and is already closing in on 400 hits for the month), but I haven’t been doing a whole lot of writing on my novel.
I need to strike a balance between the two, I know. Of course, if I knew how to do that, I’d both be at my goal weight and have a novel or two actually published. (Hey, a girl can dream, right?)
Today, I tried. I whipped up a healthy lunch, then packed some snacks and headed off to the Barnes & Noble Cafe to write before work.
It worked: I actually wrote more than 600 words today. Add that to the 600+ I wrote on Wednesday and my week’s total is upwards of 1,2oo.
It might not be much, but at least it’s something. Even if they’re not quality words, they’re on the page. I can go back and edit later.
Perhaps the problem is I’ve reached “the sagging middle.” Or maybe it’s because I’ve gone off on a bit of a tangent. Bethany’s mother called after 13 years of silence, and now instead of getting ready for the trip, she and Cody are dealing with her mother issues. That’s not much fun to write.
There will be no more writing tonight. I need to get busy reading our book club’s next book, “A Soft Place to Land.” Since I recommended it and am hosting Wednesday’s meeting, I can’t very well NOT finish the book.
But I know I need to get back into writing/editing mode soon. The Golden Heart contest deadline will be here before I know it — and this year, I want to enter in TWO categories.
I’d better get back to work. 😉
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