Back in the Saddle Again

Well, last week my laptop's hard drive burnt out. Like an idiot I didn't back anything up. I think you know where I am going with this, but for those of you who don't like to assume....I lost the entire manuscript. All 22,300+ words of it. I have started back on it. Reconstructing it. I've got 7,154 words so far. I'm a long way from where I was. BUT...and here's the positive in the roiling cesspool that is the negative....It's turning out to be more well rounded. I was struggling with how to bring the other characters into the forefront and be major players rather that stuck in the back scenes with the other carrion feeders.

The only drawback to this is that they are all screaming for their own blog. I told them they can't all have their own blog because then I would have to quit work and figure out a way to plug directly into the computer 24/7. I would look like something from a strange Cronenburg flick...Naked Lunch comes directly to mind. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $100.

They said that would be find with them. How rude! I told them I gave them life, I could take it away. I won't bore you with all the details, but there was some blood spilled, entrails strewn, and flesh charred. I'm alright, I just had to brush up on my sewing skill, which I had none of. Though I suppose it will leave a rather nice, nasty little scar. (Insert evil grin here)

So anyhow, to make a long, rather bloody, story short, I agreed to give two of them blogs. Now I am a bit upset because neither of them have felt it neccessary to write word one in them. Perhaps they are just getting used to the idea of the internet. I don't know what it is, but I am still needing blood transfusions, and there is an odd odor coming from the wound that I had to stitch up. I hope I didn't leave my cell phone in there. I bet that's why I couldn't find it.

And now that we are on a Videodrome reference....

Kokopelli has been very supportive of me in this time. If you don't know who Kokopelli is, you haven't been listening very well have you?? He lays by my feet as I write and snores. At least I know he is still alive, the lump. 

In other news....no not really....I am also working on a short story, that I am hoping will be done and ready in the next week or so. I am working on it during my lunch at work. I get about a half hour, so that allows me to get quite a bit in there. This one is scaring the shit out of me as I write it...though I am writing about one of my worst fears. What is that? You may ask. Ah. That will have to wait for another time as my time here is drawing to a close.

Work calls and until I can "break on through to the other side" I must pay bills with a mainstream job. This being at Subway. Ahhh...how I love smelling like fresh bread by the time I get home. At least I can let my demented mind run wild with the kick as ovens that cook bread thoroughly in ten minutes and toast in 15 seconds. Can anyone say "the ultimate suicide"? Think that one for a while. You will know when you are done thinking when you can hear the flesh sizzle and smell it for days.  (Insert evil laugh here)

14,000 Words In

The last 400 words was rough. I'm not to sure where it's heading now. I thought I did...lol. I can already tell there's going to be A LOT of editing and adjusting when I start in on the revision. My original plan was to make it into two books, but I have since decided to combine it and make it one book. Just two parts...lol. Hopefully it will be around 350-400 pages. At least that's what I am shooting for. We all know how plans work out though! LOL

I am also working on a short story to submit to some magazines. This is a horror story. I won't go into details, because I have only just started it...lol.

I have the weekend off, so I will be doing quite a bit of writing. I would love to get the short story done, but I don't think that's going to happen...lol. My goal is to write 4000 words on Saturday and on Sunday.

It's still raining. I can't wait for the rain to be done.

I am getting a desk tomorrow! My writing will thank me! :)

Pushin Through

Ugh! This session was rough. At least to get started. Wrote almost 2,000 words today. I think tomorrow I will bump it up to 2,000. I had to keep pausing because ideas started bombarding me and I had to write them down or I would forget them. I always write the idea down, whether the ms stays on course, that's another story. At the same time I am trying to compile a writing playlist. I can't just pick the songs, I have to listen to them while I am writing to see if they inspire or hinder me. So I had to pause there too, to make note of the song.

The pauses didn't affect my writing, it very rarely does....as long as it's not HUMAN pauses. Meaning, as long as people don't interrupt me I can generally find my way back. If someone interrupts me I usually lose all train of thought.

Anyhow, I have figured out how to turn this into a YA novel to an adult novel. No...no sex adult...just not focused on YA. Not that I have an issue with YA novels, it's just not something I want to do intentionally. I've also decided to condense the two book plan to a one book plan. I still have no idea how it's going to end, but that's what's fun about it. I discover the end just like you guys do!

I have been doing a lot of thinking about by website. I'm not sure whether to change it or leave it the way it is and hope I can afford a professional website at some point. I DO want to start an ezine. There just aren't a lot out there for horror/dark fiction.

My life is so boring...lol. I don't have a husband, I don't have kids. I don't have the money to go places to talk about...lol.

So I guess that's all on this front...lol. My brain hurts!

Down the Rabbit Hole

I want to share how I got into writing, so I suppose I should just jump right in. I've always been told that you need to look before you leap. That way something horrible doesn't happen to you. Well....I'll tell ya. 25 years ago I didn't look before I leaped. I didn't fall into a mud puddle or a tangle of venomous snakes. No. I dropped into something much more sinister. When I thought my feet should hit the ground, there was nothing. No soft thud. No vibration running the length of my legs. No clash of teeth. There was nothing but air. That told me I was still falling.

Eventually I did land. My whole body landed. I had come to a hard rest in muck and mire. Shadows moved. The smell was worse than stopped up toilet (if that's possible). I looked up and realized just how far I had fallen. There was nothing but a pinhole of light. Had I fallen into some twisted version of Alice In Wonderland? Will I see things labeled with instructions for me to eat or drink? I couldn't be here. I didn't see a white rabbit. But exactly what was I doing to have made that uninvestigated hole, I couldn't tell ya.

I continued to explore the dank, disgusting maze. Partly because I was curious and partly because I was painfully aware of something behind me. The farther I went the faster I had to go. It was pushing me with it's rotted breath. And the heat. It felt like a volcano breathing on me. I didn't want the thing to catch me. I didn't want to see it even. I could hear it's nails grating on the stone under the mire. I didn't know if the thing would rend my limbs from my body if it caught me or if it would suck out my eyeballs and then my soul through the empty sockets.

I don't know how log I was running for. It had to be a while. I was becoming the stench, the muck. I was becoming the "hole". My legs gave out at some point and I fell. The thing is, I wasn't disgusted. I welcomed the fall. I embraced it. Then, the thing that was following me pounced. It tore at my flesh with it's claws. Exhaled it's rotted breath in my face. Something dripped on me too. It was thick and even more putrid than the air that was expelled from the thing's lungs. The mucus burned and I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out. I realized, shortly after the demon dripped it's soul on me, that I was becoming the thing. It was becoming me.


After shaking the fog from my brain I looked down and realized the "hole" I had stepped in was the wonderful world of writing. And the "thing" that was following me was my creativity. Once I had embraced it (after the first thing I had written, good or not), things flowed more freely. What I put on paper (and now on my trusty (sometimes rusty) laptop) is liberating. Whether it be poetry, short stories or full length novellas. This was a passion that would always follow me with it's putrid stinking breath. Urging me to writing from the heart and write the truth.

This most likely will not win me any popularity contests, but it's who I am and no one can change that.

So yea...I write the darkness and the shadows. I do write fantasy and "super-hero" type things, but horror and shadows is my preference.

Welcome to my world I can my brain. Dare to step inside? <-----insert evil laugh there....

Movin Along

So the last time I was here, I was only on the first page of my third manuscript. I am now on page 22. I know. doesn't seem like much, but life came up and hit me hard. I know that shouldn't be an excuse, but it happens sometimes.

My 17 year old cat, Puma, has been sick for a while. Kidney disease. He was put to rest on 05/06/11. I had to help him to be born. I had to break the sack and clean him off. He wasn't breathing and I had to help him to breathe. He was my best friend. The process was pretty difficult, but he's at peace now.

So anyway, off to the races here. I am working on my manuscript and also reading about how to make my website looking better. I am not liking it too much, so I need to change something. I am a starving artist here so I can't afford to pay someone to do it for me! lol. I have to work on it myself.

So the manuscript is coming along. There are also some other ideas that have been floating around in there since high school that I will be working on as well. All of them short stories, so I need to look into shopping those around in a different market...lol.

On to the personal training aspect. I have no clients and continue to pound the pavement. Hopefully something will give soon.

Anyhow, that's what's going on here.

That's What You Get

So I am starting work on my third ms. OMG! This one is rougher than any of the others I have ever written and I am just on the first page!! There is something missing, I can already tell. I keep asking the questions, but my characters REFUSE to answer me. I suppose this is what I get for casting Egyptian Gods....hhhmmmm. {insert quirky smirk here}.

I've got Stevie Nicks playing, but even she's not pulling anything out of them! Granted, it is only the first draft so there are bound to be things to work out. I just hate having something missing so early in the work! Oh well, I suppose all I can do is buckle down, keep writing and hope it works out on it's own. If not I will just have to pass it around to a few of my friends to see if they can find the proverbial (and cliche) needle in the haystack.

So anyhow, I suppose that's all. I guess I had better get back to it, the ms isn't going to write itself!

Lost and Found

Sometimes there comes a period in your life when you stray from your path. I have been strayed for a long time. At least ten years. I have found my way back. I am still walking with one foot on and one foot off the path, but it's better than miles away.

I don't know when it was that I lost my faith. I just remember waking up one day with a hole inside. That was about four years ago. I felt so empty. I felt lost, but I didn't know how to find myself. I spent years wandering trying to find what I had lost. I traveled different paths, but ultimately, they brought me back to one, single, solitary road. I didn't recognize the path for what it was until recently.

I suppose we all go through times in our lives when we question our belief and the path we are on. We all have to do some soul searching and discovering. I just always thought it would be more conscious than what it was. I never thought I would soul search without realizing it until I looked back and saw where I had been.

Only when I had looked at where I had been, was the path ahead of me clear. It's like when you are laying in bed at night and watching the shadows dance on the ceiling. The only way you can see them clearly is when you don't look directly at them. You have to look behind you to understand the path ahead of you.

Life is funny that way, but I think I am finally understanding it.

Progression

If the problem has a solution, worrying is pointless, in the end the problem will be solved. If the problem has no solution, there is no reason to worry, because it can't be solved. -Zen Quote

This is an extremely relevant quote for me right now. There are so many stresses, so many nerves, so many everything...lol. I freak and then sit down and think about "it" logically and rationally. This quote is soooo prevelant now, for everyone, not just nationwide, but world wide. There is so much going on around the world that sometimes we lose sight of what's really important. WE are important. Living breathing beings. Not stuff.

Anyhow, off of my soapbox now...lol. I am going to try so hard to NOT ramble this time, but I can't promise anything.

So I finished my personal training course, got a 92%. Now I am off and looking for a training job (this is one reason this quote is so important to me right now...lol). I went on an interview and the guy wants me to come in for two weeks on a trial basis. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. That's all great! It's for an hour a day and in Newark, which is about 45 minutes from me. Ok...just got a bit worse, but I am so passionate about this I am doing it. The class is at 5:30am...um...ok. 4am. That's all right. Just come home and take a nap! The first week will be the real test. If I can make it through the week, I should be fine...lol.

Reformed....What's that? It's book two of the Re series. This time we are living the life of a werewolf. Reborn is in the production phase now. We've signed the contract, submitted author info, and now the artist is working on the cover. I really hope it turns out the way I see it in my head. One of these days I will have the money to hire a graphic artist.

So anyhow. Reformed. It's in the developmental stage now. I am investigating the characters, plotting how I want the book to progress, etc. Then I will be sitting down and writing the rough draft. Once I start writing the rough draft, I will be putting the feelers out for beta readers. These are people who read the book looking for continuity issues, character flaws, contradictions. So not an editor, more like an overly critical reader...lol. Beta readers are usually volunteers. If anyone out there wants to read the book for free and be my beta reader let me know! lol. I can't pay, but I may be able to "pay" in a free copy once the book gets published. ;)

Let's see...what else. I am still at Subway and loving it now. The new owners rock! They are so fun to work with/for. They like to make the environment fun, but you know that you are supposed to work while you are there. It's very seldom you find bosses like these two...lol. Even though it's Subway, there's a respect there. You WANT to work while you are there just because you respect the owners. I don't know if that makes any sense, but it makes perfect sense to me.

I am thinking about selling a kick but nutritional suppliment program called advocare. It's soooo amazing! I just have to slow my roll and take it one step at a time. I need to get the money to be able to sell it. This is the ONLY product I will stand behind as a trainer. There are so many products out there that just spew a bunch of crap, but this product backs it up!

Anyhow, I think that's all...lol.

Til next time....

The Muddy Road

Tanzan and Ekido were once traveling together down a muddy road. A heavy rain was still falling.

Coming around a bend, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono and sash, unable to cross the intersection.

"Come on, girl" said Tanzan at once. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her over the mud.

Ekido did not speak again until that night when they reached a lodging temple. Then he no longer could restrain himself. "We monks don't go near females," he told Tanzan, "especially not young and lovely ones. It is dangerous. Why did you do that?"

"I left the girl there," said Tanzan. "Are you still carrying her?" 

-Zen Koan 

The Muse is Back from Vacation

Wooohooo! My muse is back from vaca. Been long enough! Reborn is in the process of getting published. The contract signing phase now, then we will move on to submitting author info, then I will be put into contact with the design team, then it goes to the presses! While all this is going on I am working on book 2 of the series. My site is back up and running. Just finished working out all of the kinks today.

There will be five books initially, and if all goes well there will be an infinite number of books. Not only that but I have the Eldhin books that need to continue. If I didn't have enough on my writing plate, I have three other ideas that have jumped into the planning out phase.

Now I have the focus of where and how to advertise. A book is only as good as the advertising it gets. I sit here and think about all of the really good books not getting the notice they deserve because of lack of advertising. Then I look at all of the crap books out there that got to where they are only because of the advertising.

My point here? I really need to think about advertising...even now...lol.

Everyone keep your eyes open and on my site for updates on where to buy my book!!