Showing posts with label Ten Rgs Texas Tales. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ten Rgs Texas Tales. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Time to Take a Step Back


I've been going great guns on getting book three written-- Only I'm churning out a lot of words with no clear direction as to where I'm trying to end up. I'm two-thirds of the way to my targeted word count, but I know I still have a lot of work to do. There will be a lot of revising in my very near future.

But I've gotten so into this writing thing that I've forgotten that I'm a hobby writer and that I don't have to be so intense about it. I need to do other things-- read, watch TV, listen to music, go outside, go places, do things, do nothing. I don't want to be "that" writer I've mentioned before. I need to feed the muse as well as let him rest.

There are also more aspects to completing a book than just the writing. I forget that too.

There's plotting. A weakness of mine and part of why I'm struggling with the direction of the book. There's revisions. Which I can do, which I don't mind doing, but I do need to know what the end goal is in order to make the proper revisions. Ugh.

And I didn't forget about Monday's blog post, but I had so many things to do, I just couldn't get to it. I hate that.... So as penance, I'll share this picture of book three's hero, Noah Drinkwater. He's a cutie, isn't he?

Friday, September 9, 2016

I Do Have an Office...And I'm (Not) Afraid to Use It


Yes, I do, although I'm usually working from the kitchen table, my bed, or the home office (on the days I work from home and need to be near the phone). Remember this room...?



Over the weekend, DH asked why I didn't work from my office because at least then he'd know I was working, and with the door closed, I wouldn't be so easily interrupted by him or distracted by everyone else moving around the house.

Of course, I had no good answer other than liking the comfort of my bed, and the kitchen table offers good seat-to-work-surface ratios for my short self.

As I was making the big push to complete book two this weekend--which I did!!!!--I realized that working in my office would be a good thing for another reason.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, I'm working to publish books in a series. And of course you want characters, places, and events to crossover two or three books at least, but keeping track of all that information on top of keeping track of the current books and its plot and characters can be difficult. Especially if you work more than one book at a time, which I'm trying to do.

So...

I'm thinking that in my office, I can put up a bulletin board or a white board (hey, I think I have some in the garage!!!) that I can just make lists of those things on, and they can be in plain view as I write to both remind me of what's available and to actually include it.

I got book one back from the editor a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't look at the document at the time, because I wanted to get book two done (in the sense that the story is complete, but there's still tweaking and word-smithing to do) before I went back to it.

Tuesday morning I spent an hour or so making the small corrections, spelling/punctuation/grammar stuff to book one, but I also noted the places where I could add mentions of upcoming characters or town establishments we'll visit in the future. I hadn't thought of those things way back in February when I first wrote this book, but a lot, A LOT, has changed since then, both externally to the series and internally, so, yeah.

Over the course of the next week or two, I'll be tidying up the office in preparation for working in there like a real professional writer.

WOO HOO!