A Time For Everything

Despite two more games to play in their regular season, my Dallas Stars have been officially eliminated from the playoffs. While they won Friday, the team that needed to lose Saturday did not. Even if we won both remaining games, we'd only tie the team ahead of us, but the tie-breaker goes to them...as a result, we're out.

As I mentioned several posts ago, I am so sad for the players. A lot of things conspired against them--including themselves--and they just couldn't pull it off.

On the other hand, there are so many things to be grateful for and I won't bore you with all of them, but they'll have a nice long off-season to heal up physically and mentally. DD and I will be ready and rarin' to cheer them on to great heights again next season.

As for me, I'm a little disappointed, but mostly relieved, not only for myself, but for my pocketbook. :0)

I can now ramp up the writing projects and plan for my upcoming trips (three of them!), including the annual GRL conference. Without hockey playing such a prominent role in my schedule and my mind, I can focus and produce.

Hope you had a great weekend and a lovely Mother's Day if you are a mom, or you celebrated the mother of your children, or celebrated with your own mom.

I called both my moms, had lunch with one child and received phone calls from the other two, and otherwise enjoyed a quiet weekend just me, myself, and I... (DH went to visit his own momma.)

Here's to a great week...

 

 Not much going on in my little corner of the world right now...

Revisions for the epic lowlander historical I've been working on are proceeding apace. :0) Better and faster than I anticipated, since I opted to work on it while waiting for the cookie book to rest before I give it one last read-through before submitting, rather than jump into hockey book 5.

Hockey book 5 needed / still needs a little percolation time, so it's worked out better since I've had a couple of helpful revelations about the characters and plot arc.

Hope you're having a great week!

Catch you Friday...

Goal reached and then some! My goal for the weekend's writing was 5600+. Final word count for my four days was 5909-- Mission accomplished. Total word count after this morning's work is just over 10K. I'm barreling down on the end of the book and I'm expecting to reach 14K or 15K. Not bad for a month's or so work.

* * * * *

DD and I also finished up a craft project. Instead of buying our annual Dallas Stars ornament, I opted to DIY it. She'd purchased an ornament for another team and I decided to replicate it for the Stars this year.

From this...

...to this...

I'm quite pleased.

* * * * *

Hope you had a lovely long weekend.

Catch you Wednesday!

First and foremost, the WIP is no longer a Work In Progress. It's DONE. It came in 6K words over the requirement but it doesn't look like I'll have to chop chop chop. Whew! I really didn't know what was choppable.

Now it's time to get some sort of outline and/or synopsis going for the next WIP. Oh, boy!


I put my red, white, and blue fairy lights up this past weekend and enjoyed having them on whenever I was in my office. And I have enough of them that they cover three of four walls even having to go up and over the window. There is no chair rail on the fourth wall so no need / desire for lights on that one...



The first carb-fast was a success. I lost about an inch around the hips, but not much at waist or bust, but that's okay. On the other hand, I've suddenly noticed over the last few days how loose many of my pants and shirts fit, so something's disappearing from somewhere. :0)

Reward day (Sunday) was all it was cracked up to be.


So, yes, I ate that pint of ice cream and the bag of licorice. I had one box of those yogurt covered cranberries and three pumpkin cupcakes with frosting. I also had a coffee thing from Starbucks and a steak lunch (below) courtesy of DD. It was a gluttonous day, but well worth it. I was back on the carb-fast wagon Monday morning however and will be going for three weeks this time. I've also added back in my targeted exercise routines.



Anyway, have a great rest of your week!!

Yeah, I missed posting on Friday somehow. Got involved in various and sundry things early in my day and completely forgot.

I forget how much I like to be busy. Not too busy to breathe, but busy enough to have to prioritize.

I even ended up getting two inquiries regarding proofing services, although I'm not sure I'll actually get the jobs. I hope I do even though they'll cut into some of my conference prep time. But I could use the extra cash they'd provide. **fingers crossed**

The weekend was productive too. I did some proofing for that anthology I'm participating in. It's always an interesting endeavor to read other authors' work. You see writing ticks, if you will, that bother you and you have to ask yourself if you do that. If it bothers you in someone else's work, then eliminate it from your own.

For example, the use of italics, ellipses, and em dashes. I like these tools, but as I was reading along, I kept asking WHY? Why did the author choose to use the tool? Did it really do the job it's meant to? Most of the time the answer is no.

When I read italics, sometimes it's straightforward, and yes, that word or phrase needed to be italicized. Sometimes though, I think I would have italicized a different word. When I read my own work and I go back and forth between words, I end up not italicizing anything. The reader will often emphasize the word that makes the most sense to them while reading.

~

Book blurbs are a challenge. I've come up with a bit of process that seems to work well. I finished the one for the anthology book. I like it a lot, but it's long. Considering the book itself is only 15K words and I usually struggle with writing these for longer books, I had to laugh.

I sent it off to my trusted writer peeps to see what they thought. I got back a few suggested tweaks, which was great. And then-- I got a request from the anthology coordinator for a 300 character or less blurb for Amazon. I really had to get down to the nitty gritty of what was important info to impart to a reader. That was a challenge.

~

I did a bad, bad thing. I inadvertently deleted the file for the book (Snowball) I'm just about done with. Because of the software I use (Scrivener), once it's gone, it's gone. It doesn't go to the deleted-items folder. (Bad programming on their part.)

Luckily I had compiled/exported the entire thing to send to a friend, so the text itself is not lost. Thank the good Lord. That was 42K words I would not have had the heart to re-write. All I have to do is create a new Scrivener project and copy/paste the text back in. WHEW!

Hope you had good weekend.

I had to put my boy on a plane for his adopted home yesterday, but here's the latest selfie of the two of us. It was a short but sweet little visit and today we both are back to business as usual. School for him, working, writing, and exercising for me. Also for me: back to eating right. I've eaten so much junk for the last I-don't-even-know-how-long. I can feel it and I can see it in the pooch I've re-developed. I don't like it, so... back on the wagon.

~

I've completed the editing pass of "Snowball" I started while down at the lake last week. I'll go through it at least once more, but probably twice before I'll feel like it's where it needs to be. The first half probably only needs the one additional pass, but the second half has seen quite a bit of tweaking and will definitely need two more edits.

I'm also now percolating the next anthology submission I'm planning. I know more of one character than the other. I've got a couple of plot ideas, but I'm still hoping for a few more--especially the one that screams "I'M IT."

~

The new hockey season begins today, as does the period known as free-agency when teams can sign players from other teams whose contracts are expiring. The Stars have made a few trades these past couple of weeks and bought out a non-producing player in order to free up "cap space." Basically the NHL sets a limit on how much teams can spend on player contracts each year.

A lot of people in the know (mostly hockey reporters that I follow on Twitter.) have reported that the Stars will be signing two big names sometime today. And the Stars specific beat reporter thinks there might be something else in the works as well. Exciting times. We'll see how it plays out today and this week.

~

Hope you had a wonderful weekend.

Another lake retreat is in the books and was a great success for all six of us. My goal was to read through and edit the whole of "Snowball," which I did. The book's not ready to go to my editor just yet, but it's that much closer. There were a couple of scenes which needed big tweaks. Those got made. Most of the book just needed a more consistent arc of one of the protagonists' feeling about the plot I dropped him in. That hasn't been completely accomplished yet, but it's closer.

Of course, our friendships were cemented and we talked about how our lives have changed since last year's trip. Mostly all for the better.

As I mentioned at some point in the last couple of weeks, I switched projects from Book 7 of the first series called "A Certain Kind of Man" to Book 1 of the next series, called "A Snowball's Chance in Texas."

Last year at this time, I was hoping to have "Snowball" done by October for the conference I attend, so I had a cover made for it. For whatever reason, I didn't finish the book. Looking at what's written, I have no earthly idea why I couldn't finish it. But-- I'm gonna finish it this year and have a new book to take the conference.

Two, actually. :0)

Remember that 15K word thing I wrote back in March/April? Well, after 90 days of being a part of the anthology--more to come on that soon--it'll go on sale in October as a standalone. It's called "No Protocol for Love" and I've contracted a cover for it, which I should have by mid-July. I'm really excited about this book in and of itself as well as the opportunity to participate in a few more anthologies with these same authors. It's also a chance to expand my fan base a little. Maybe. I'm pretty sure I'm the only MM author in the collection, but I read across genres, so others do too. Now, whether they read my genre is anybody's guess, but we'll see.

I think I learned that I work better under someone else's deadlines. Despite all the excitement of post-season hockey, I still met the deadlines and got that bad boy written. So yeah. Gonna keep participating as long as they'll have me and I have ideas.

~

We're getting a lot of rain here in North Texas. I shouldn't complain because we always need the rain and other parts of the country have it worse in terms of way MOAR rain than they need or not enough rain, but yeesh.

~


Sonshine is coming home for a week's visit come Sunday. I'll be at the lake still and I'll miss a couple of days with him, but any time I get to see him is welcome. He'll get some one on one time with his dad though, so that's a good thing too.

~

All right, my friends... Friday will be busy as I'll be meeting my daughter and a friend, but I'll try to post something at some point. If I don't see you, have a great weekend.

As you know most of my life was on hiatus due to my hockey team's run in the post season. But that's over now and it's time to get life back on track. That includes eating better and cooking meals, as well as exercising at home or going to the gym again. The trick with the gym will be finding a good time to go.

My brain works so much better for the writing early in the morning. I can exercise without needing too much brain power, however, so it looks like I can exchange live hockey games or watching parties for trips to the gym. :0) Trips to the gym will also take less time.

Now that the short story is turned in, it's time to focus back on my other works-in-progress. I've chosen book seven of the original series. I've already opened the documents and read the thing through. Right now, I'm trying to get a handle on the character arcs using lessons from a couple of online classes whose lessons resonated for me.

Also, it's the weekend...

Another day or two to rest and recoop before I dive back into my regularly scheduled life.

Have a great weekend!!

My short story is told!!

I have a cohesive tale from the beginning to the end that hits all the beats. I'm pretty sure anyway.

Now, I'm not done, mind you. There are still edits and tweaks to be made, but the with the exception of the second-to-last scene, there will be no more major changes.

I'm excited and definitely relieved. I can even take a short break from the whole thing after I finish transferring all the first-pass, start-to-finish edits I made over the weekend.

I did end up about 300 words over the limit. I'm not sure what the window is, because the coordinator did allow a little leeway. But I may be able to reduce that with the tweak to that scene mentioned above. And I have a few other places noted where statements could be removed if absolutely necessary.

I have a couple of friends who might beta read this for me just to give me a heads up on any major issues I might be blinded to, so that's on the agenda for today. Asking if they would help me out.

The weekend was lovely, if a bit windy, but that's one aspect of spring in North Texas.

DD and I enjoyed a lovely Saturday afternoon in Victory Plaza--a courtyard off one end of the American Airlines Center where the Dallas Stars play--watching the Stars game (they were playing in St. Louis). The Stars pulled out the win to even the series at one win a piece. A great position for the Stars to be in heading home for games 3 and 4 of the series Monday and Wednesday nights, respectively. DD and I will be there, cheering our boys on.

This will be the last series DD and I see in person. I squeezed in tickets to game 4 with blessings from DH, but I just can't keep up with the pace of it, nor the expense, more to the point. So after this, it'll be watch parties either at our house or DD's BFF's house.

Hope your weekend was delightful or productive or both.

Take care!

And as always:

Finally took some time to look at any other projects currently floating around in my files and found a pair of books (a duet, linked together by siblings) that I can convert from male/female (that's how old they are) to male/male romances...and do something with.

I'll be at a local writers gathering/retreat this weekend and will spend some quality alone time with these books. I'd already started the conversion process of one book, so YAY. The other one will be a lot more tricky since there's an unplanned pregnancy that's an integral part of the plot. I'll have to figure out how everyone can/should be related now and reduce the unplanned pregnancy to a sub-plot...

Now that I have something concrete to work on, I'm looking more forward to this weekend and hoping I can make a lot of progress.

But the next two days are gonna be busy, PUCK SOUP LIVE PODCAST (I'm SOOO excited!!!) event on Thursday night and NHL Draft event on Friday. I might just want to sleep all weekend.

Have a great rest of your week...

I might have something posted Friday, I might not. Just depends. I'll be back Monday for sure.

Now that I've reached a point in time (good weather, after a writers group meeting), it's time to get back on the wagons I fell off of. Those wagons are as follows:

a) the exercise wagon
b) the healthy eating wagon
c) the writing/publishing wagon
d) the prepping for my October writers conference

In addition to that, there are activities at work that require my participation, so that's a new wagon maybe?

a) I'm still not in the mood to hit the gym again really, so the home treadmill will have to suffice for calorie burnage. The plan for now is @ 26 minutes in the morning and in the evening to burn a total of 320 calories a day. That's on top of general daily calorie consumption and my thrice weekly walks to the post office while working from the office.

b) I purged the house last week of anything filled with sugar or carbs that is remotely tempting to me--by eating it. (I didn't get to grocery shop last week, so it was also eat or starve. I opted not to starve.) That included jelly beans, tortillas (despite being the carb-light variety), yogurt (except I left one at the office--darn, I'll have to eat it), and any remaining dried fruits. It's back to veggies and protein for a week or two until the jiggly puff of a belly I'm sporting recedes. Then we'll see.

c) This is going to be the toughest wagon to get back on. I'm not feeling the words. And while I'm not looking to be a best seller on any list and support myself, I still owe any new and/or loyal readers the next book at some point (sooner rather than later) and I do want to finish the series. Also a new book will keep the royalties steady--which I need for...

d) Conference expenses. I've registered and bought a ticket, but I'll need funds to pay for the hotel and food come October. In the meantime, I need to buy swag and order physical books. Swag is cheaper, but physical books are more important. One conundrum is which books do I get in physical copy and how many of each. I have six books as of now, hopefully seven by the summer.

e) DH aka Bossman is trying to better the company and take it to the next level, so we're reading a book, chapter by chapter and discussing it. This particular book also has audio to go with it, so I've got to find time to get started on the audio and make sure I'm prepared to discuss Ch. 2 today...


It's time shake off the lazies and get motivated.

Have a great week...

One of my story-telling goals this year is to make my writing better. I mean, a writer should always be striving to improve his or her writing, so yeah. There's a best-selling, 60+ novels-to-her-name author in my writers group who said in a conversation several months ago that she still works to improve her writing. She's been at this for close to twenty years. If she's still working at it, then I, sure-as-shootin', should be too.

So the questions become--a) improve in what area? and b) how?

I had a vague notion last year and I tried to work on it, but I didn't stick with it. Not that it's an excuse, really, but there was a lot going on and I let my efforts fall by the wayside. I think the issue is intrinsically intertwined with the struggles I've been having in getting the last couple of books written.

So that means I need to figure something out. And quickly.

First thing I figured out is what I need to work on: plotting and conflict. I hate conflict in real life.

I know, I know, who does? Most of you deal with conflict like adults and that's a thing I struggle with. I hate it. I avoid it. I'm better now, but it's still a chore to communicate with the people with whom I have an issue.

So putting my hunky heroes into conflict?? Ugh.

But readers want to read about those same hunky heroes overcoming whatever obstacles stand between them and true love, not just sappy sunshine-and-rainbows-filled treacle. I prefer those kinds of books too--so there you go.


The next thing I need to figure out is where to find/how to create conflict between my heroes. I understand that conflict stems from each character: what their goal is and what baggage they carry, but beyond that, how do I determine what wounds to poke at, what paths to go down, etc. What makes for the strongest and most compelling conflict. Or how do I support the conflict I want to write about?

My options for education are blog posts (usually free), books, (generally not free), classes (generally not free), and brainstorming with others (usually free), and one-on-one consulting sessions (usually expensive).

While I love the concept of brainstorming, I don't have much success with it because I haven't yet found that one person whose thought processes gel with mine. Not that I don't ask for help, because there are still ideas to be gleaned from the effort. And maybe communicating my needs better is a skill I need to learn. But sometimes, I hate imposing on other authors to spend their valuable time on me.

Blogs are good, but sometimes the explanations or concepts are too abstract for me. Straight reading is not my best learning style. Also the posts are higher-level in concept than execution level information. Still helpful though, because adding new concepts and insights is never a bad thing. And one never knows where one will find the the switch that sheds light on everything else.

I like classes because I get a lesson. Information as well as homework and, most importantly, someone to explain more if I don't grasp something. There's also someone to evaluate my efforts and give me feedback.

I took a class last year that I'd love to take again. So I've contacted the author and asked if she's offering it anywhere this year. *fingers crossed*

But coming at an issue (how to develop/build conflict in books) from various viewpoints is a good thing, so I'll keep my eyes open for additional class opportunities on how to write conflict better.

I'm not opposed to books either, but, like blogs, they can be a bit abstract. And they're not cheap, so it could take a lot of frogs, I mean books, until I find something that resonates and makes sense to me. That would get expensive very quickly.

I certainly can't afford a consultation with a professional author--yet. But my writing group is putting together some programs, so maybe I'll get lucky and win a session of some sort or another.

For now, I'll be Google-searching blog posts and using tools already in my toolbox to plot out books 7, 8, and 9.

Wish me luck!

Last Friday I mentioned I was having issues making progress on my book. Churning out books is still new to me even though this is the six one of the series. Books three and five were already written, so they just needed some adjustments. Major adjustments to be sure, but I wasn't coming up with everything from scratch.

Now's the time when things are going to get hairy...having to write books from the ground up, if you will. Having to plot and pull the story together start to finish in a designated amount of time.

On Friday, I put out a call to my chapter mates for some brainstorming help, and one dear soul offered to help me talk through some of my issues. Was I ready to write once we'd signed off? I said 'yes' but was thinking 'no.' I had a few 'a ha' moments while we were chatting, so that was definitely good, but I still didn't feel ready to dive back in.

Did I have a choice? Not really. I didn't get to write at all Friday because the day ended up getting chewed up by a lot of other things I needed to get to done.

So Saturday morning I got out of bed and plopped myself in front of the laptop. I started reading from chapter one, armed with the new info I had and the decisions I'd made about one of the characters. By the end of the day, I'd added just over a thousand words to chapters one, two, and part of three. My daily goal is nine hundred words, so I achieved that, and my first two chapters are stronger and better than they were before.

Sunday morning I skimmed chapter two to get back into the character head space and moved on to make headway / finish chapter three. Did I succeed? Not as well as I'd hoped, but progress was made.

Sometimes having to stop for the day is bad for the momentum. You're in a character's head. You know where he or she is coming from. You're on a roll, feeling good. But we authors can't always write all day every day. Also I refuse. I've mentioned being a slave to the process and I don't want to be that.

Right now, it takes me much longer than I like to get those 1K words everyday. I'm trying to polish my plotting skills because when I know what's going on with the characters and the plot, I can actually write pretty fast.

Anyway...the point of this post is that sometimes you just have to ram your way through. I've often had to just sit myself down and say: You have to do this. You don't have choice. You can do this.

And you know what? I do. It might not be great, but it's something. There's a saying in the writing world: You can't fix a blank page. So some days I just have to get words on the page and not worry about how crappy I think they are or the fact that it's all dialogue and I may not even know who's saying what.

But then, once they're on the page, I can add to them or change them. I have a starting point. I can enhance. I can add in the emotion. I can sort out who says what. I can make them say what I really want them to say.

So--that was my weekend. How was yours??

Well, technically it began in November, but judging began this past Sunday. Meaning lots and lots of emails to send out. Scores to receive and log. In a continuous cycle until the beginning of April. Getting started is the busiest part because you're sending books out to all judges. Once that first blast is complete, then it slows down because everyone reads at different speeds. I'll might get a day or two of a reprieve, but then the score sheets will start to trickle in, which means sending another book to those judges. And so on and so on until all books have gotten the minimum number of scores.

I finally got my writing groove back. Well, I say that, but really I forced myself to do what needed to be done, whatever it was. What I mean is that I created a new document for book three and copied and pasted chapters in, one at a time, reading through them as I went and fixing whatever needed to be fixed. The first seven / eight chapters were fine, which I knew, but things started getting a little more messed up around chapter ten. So nose to the grindstone. Read and fix, read and fix, read and fix.

Anyway, it worked. I made really great progress last weekend. My self-imposed deadline for getting this book in order is January 28th, two weeks from this past Saturday. I'm not talking ready-for-the-editor finished, but all pieces in place even if they're a little rough around the edges. Then I'll go back with the sandpaper and smooth those edges.

My time is going to be very precious for the next couple of months, but it's good training for publishing three books a year. That's a goal for 2018 and beyond.

Hope you had a relaxing or productive weekend!

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?

So I've got a lot of work adventuring ahead of me, but I don't want to become: "All writing and no play, makes Jen a dull/stressed/unhappy/cranky girl."

I've met too many authors like that and I never wanted to be one of them.

Since this "I'm going to indie publish my damn books" bug hit me about a month and a half ago, I've been going at various tasks pretty steadily.

I stopped listening to music in the car, because I was using the time to work out plot puzzles or character arcs in those ten/fifteen minutes between home and work.

I haven't gone in search of any other TV shows because I didn't want to get sucked in and get lured into a binge-watching frenzy.

I have re-read the same fan fics over and over because I know what happens and I won't be tempted into the reading rabbit hole.

But not partaking of the things I enjoy for the next nine months/two years in the name of writing books isn't feasible. Nor is it healthy. Living life informs an authors writing.

I've been a pretty happy and healthy person over the last couple of months and I'd like to stay that way. Which means another item on the grand to do list is to start enjoying the other things in life:

• going outside, enjoying the fresh air and sunshine (to be fair, I'm pretty good about this)
• walking the dog--I finally got a no-pull harness for my sweet Rayna, so now we can both get some exercize (more exercise more me, just any exercise at all for her)
• reading stuff I haven't already read
• working on my cross stitch again
• coloring--remember I got coloring books and markers for my anniversary :)
• adding another TV show (or two) to my repertoire--the new TV season is ramping up, so I can pick one of those shows I started last year, which only air one ep per week and start re-watching one of my other faves (I've seen that show three times already, I know what's going to happen)...so any binging tendencies are negated

Granted, this isn't world-travel/new-experiences kind of living life, but it's a start.

Small steps!

In the aftermath of the discussion of whether to publish my books as they're ready or to save them up and dump into the great sea of books lashed together as a discoverability raft, I got to thinking about deadlines and when book three needs to be completed by, when it needs to get to the content/copy editor, etc...

It's the only book that has no progress to it. It's still a glimmer in my eye, with nothing but ideas and a few plot points and character details jotted down. There are absolutely no words save an idea for the first paragraph written down.

One thing I learned early on was that deadlines imposed by others scared the pants off me. I couldn't write fast enough. I see a handful of my writer friends chained to their computers slaving away to make deadline after deadline after deadline. And I never wanted that. Writing is something I enjoy doing and I didn't want the life sucked out of my pleasure.

So I got to thinking about when book three had to be done and to the copy editor, when book four had to be done, book five... and oh my goodness can I even sustain that kind of cycle? Can I make deadlines? Can I complete books in a timely fashion? Because successful at money making from being an author requires a certain regularity of new product.

And I started freaking out! Writing a lot of coherent words in a shortish amount of time has never been a strong point of mine. Of course, it's never had to be.

One of the PROs of being an indie author, however, is that I get to decide those deadlines. It's a CON too, I know. But nothing tragic is going to happen if I miss a deadline. If I publish a book a month alter than I intended.

Can I up my productivity? I think I can, and I think I already have. Can I up it more? Possibly. Do I want to? I'm not sure. I still have a life and things outside of writing that I want to enjoy, and this journey is meant to be fun and with as few pressures to it as possible.

The writing of books one and two have given me a bit of a barometer as to how long it takes me to write, but that's hindsight and faulty memory. When it comes time to write book three, I'll pay more attention to milestones and try to get a better handle on timelines. I want to track how long it takes. Gauge how many books I might be able to get out into the world a year....

Another adventure within an adventure begins.

For most of my writing career...we'll call it that despite lack of publication...I've always written from a third person point of view in the past tense. Fanfic from a couple of the fandoms I started reading this year are written almost exclusively third person POV, present tense.

What's the difference?

3rd/past: Justin thought he heard a knock and went to investigate.

3rd/present: Justin thinks he hears a knock and goes to investigate.

A lot of readers have a preference, a lot don't. First person definitely isn't my thing unless it's especially well done, but first person is more prevalent in genres I don't read so I don't come across it much.

Because of all the 3rd/present I've been reading and enjoying, I decided to give writing it try. Once I get in the right zone, it's not hard to stay on track. I struggled a bit when I worked on two projects using different tenses, but since writing exclusively on this book, it's been fine.

Remember the critique I got from the editor a couple of weeks ago? The page I submitted was 3rd/present. She thought it an interesting choice, but felt it was hard on both writers and readers for long books. Well, everything is subjective, isn't it? And when she said that, I couldn't help but disagree.

I didn't find it any more challenging to write than 3rd/past (but it's only 24K at this point) and as a reader I don't find it difficult to read 30K, 40K, 50K fics written this way. Maybe some people do--if you're a die hard and have a definite preference. For others, a well-written story is a well-written story and not much is going to mar their enjoyment of it.

So now I have this one book written in 3rd/present and everything else is 3rd/past. Except everything else is in various stages of completion and wouldn't take much more work to convert to present tense if I choose to finish them and drop them into this series.

The dilemma is do I just write and publish in whatever tense appeals to me at the time of writing OR do I change this one book to a 3rd/past so as to stay consistent OR do I change everything else to 3rd/present?

The obvious decision is to change the single 3rd/present book to 3rd/past. It's the least amount of work to maintain a consistent voice across this body of work.

3rd/present isn't a choice I've seen in romance that I can recall. Then again, I read almost 100% fan fiction, so my knowledge of what's going on from that aspect of the publishing world is zip, zilch, nada. But I'm almost certain 3rd/past is still the most prevalent choice.

My perverse preference at this point is to publish what's in past tense as is and write in present tense from here on out. Why? Because it's different. It's outside the norm. Outside the box. And that can be really hard to find in romance.

While I'm not necessarily in this for the money, I don't want to shoot myself in the foot. I think a mix of tenses could be detrimental, and if I'm going to spend money on content/copy editors and professional looking covers, then I need to not make other decisions that potentially wastes those expenses.

Hm...got some thinking to do. Please feel free to share your thoughts!

This past Saturday was writers group meeting day, and one of my favorite days of the month. I get to hang out with some of my most favorite people in the world and sometimes I get to hear a really good speaker and learn some stuff. The speaker (a Harlequin editor for 25 years) was worthwhile for many, but her topic, "What Editors Want" was of little interest to me because I'm not following the traditional path of submitting to an editor of a Big Six (Five???) publisher. I'm self-pubbing, which means I can write and publish what I want. I don't have to get past an editorial gatekeeper.

BUT

As part of her programming for the weekend, she accepted (in advance) one page of writing from a certain sub-group of our chapter (to which I belong) and critiqued it. I couldn't pass up a chance to have my work in front of a professional's eyes.

Her comments were minor and a couple of them shouldn't have/wouldn't have even been an issue if I hadn't cheated and sent, not the very first page of book two, but the scene where my two protagonists meet, a page two farther into the book.

What I'd forgotten--because *I* of course know what happens--is that a couple of off hand internal comments made by one of the characters only made sense if you'd read the pages prior to the page I sent. Duh.

What that means though, is that because I know those things make sense within the whole text, they're a non-issue. Her other comment was valid, and I'll tweak the verbiage to address the issue. Everything else she said was positive, such as thinking one of my protags sounded interesting and she wanted to know more about him. Score!

A lot of writers I know feel, at some point during any given book, is that their writing is crap. For me to receive minimal constructive criticism meant a lot and really bolstered my confidence.

I'm starting the week with an increased enthusiasm for getting words on the page and completing book two.

Woot woot!!