Augh!

Family Portraits -- Me and the sibling units. I'm second from the left.

One word: revisions. They're killing me. The bad part? I haven't actually started them yet. I have my editor's notes and I'm thinking through what I have to do. I'm in that weird place where I know what needs to be added, but finding the place to put the added material without messing up the flow or breaking the tension is the hard part.

It's all Ash's fault anyway. He has to be all mature and settled and not-having-a-deep-conflict.

I will figure this out. I will.

Sunday Check-In

Wow, I didn't mean to go a whole week without posting. It's been a crazy week. I keep thinking things will slow down, but somehow they don't. The good news is that it's only two weeks or so until Thanksgiving break. I need that (and we usually get paid early -- I really need that).

I've not made major progress this week, unless you count the twelve pages I wrote for grad school, but I have my first round of edits on Facing It to work on now (I'm 11 pages into 266) plus Fall Into Me is through final line edits. Whoo!

Normally, I don't share a lot about my works in progress, for a variety of reasons. However, at Esther's request, I had planned to talk some about each project this week, but never got around to it. So I'll share some tidbits with the word count meters tonight, okay?

Unseen

Not much progress this week on the book involving a St. Augustine homicide detective and a team of paranormal investigators, including a psychic kindergarten teacher whose life is turned upside down by the dark force providing her otherworldly information. (Hey, Carol told me to try writing something different to jumpstart my brain!)

1,001 / 90,000 (1.1%)

Gone

Um, not as much progress as I'd have liked. This is a Chandler County (i.e., Hearts of the South) book, but the protagonist is an outsider who's recently joined the sheriff's department. The former GBI agent delves into a missing-persons case while his marriage deteriorates around him.

2,242 / 90,000 (2.5%)

The Marriage Arrangment (although I'm thinking of retitling it Deeper Into You or With Each Breath)

This is Vince's book (Do I hear Bree going Eeeee?), the story of the business-arrangement-like marraige he makes with an old friend, only to find himself falling into love and out of control.

538 / 60,000 (0.9%)

Normally, I don't post WIP excerpts, but here's a brief, rough-draft, very unedited taste of Vince and his heroine:

“Marry me.”
Vince Falconetti set his orange juice aside, slanted the laptop away and granted Markie Ransome his undivided attention. “Pardon?”
Sunlight glinting off her blonde curls, she leaned back in the chair cater-corner to his and peeled the wrapper away from her poppy seed muffin. A touch of whimsy colored her smile. “You should marry me.”
He stretched out his legs, adopting a lounging posture, and let his gaze trail over her. He liked having her at his breakfast table, liked her easy friendship and teasing sense of humor. Relaxing, waiting for the punch line, he rested his elbow on the arm of his chair and rubbed his forefinger over his mouth. “And why is that?”
“Because we’re perfect for one another.” She broke off a morsel of muffin and popped it in her mouth. “And face it, Vince, you’re not getting any younger.”
“Thanks a lot.” He laughed and reached for his juice. His gaze strayed to the laptop screen. Even with the dive the market had taken the previous day, Falcon Security was up four points and—
“I’m serious.”
He stared, points and juice and everything else mundane forgotten. “You think we should get married.”
“I do. No pun intended.” She gazed at him, her pure blue eyes serene and steady.
Frowning, he allowed several moments to pass. He opened his mouth, closed it again, shook his head. “Explain.”
She didn’t react to his curt command with flustered dismay, not that he’d expected her to. With a lithe stretch, she set her muffin atop her plate and straightened. She eyed him with an earnest expression. “Your grandfather wants to see you settled. You said yourself, after Lee was born, you wouldn’t mind having a child. I already serve your hostess role. You need a wife who doesn’t need your money, and I don’t. I need a husband who won’t be threatened by my dedication to my business, and you won’t. We’re friends, and we enjoy each other’s company. Why shouldn’t we get married?”
He watched her, struck more by what she’d left unsaid than the reasons she’d trotted out. As arguments went, it wasn’t bad. Wonder if she’d worked out that whole “having a child” bit and what that actually entailed? An image flashed in his mind, her tall, slender body beneath his, fingers pressing into his back, the two of them joined in the most intimate of embraces. He narrowed his eyes. “I’m not interested in artificial insemination.”
Her shapely brows lifted, a slightly mocking light entering her eyes. “Neither am I.”
He tilted his head. “So you’re proposing a marriage in all aspects of the word?”
“Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“I won’t lose myself in you.” Her voice hardened for a moment, then the chilly stoniness of the words slipped away under another winsome smile. “I was thinking friends, with marital benefits and a wedding ring. I want a child, Vince, but I’m not interested in settling for just any man. I want someone who values what I do, but won’t expect me to subjugate my life to his, to become his arm candy when he feels like it.”Like her mother. The unspoken words trembled between them, but he heard them nonetheless.
**

I will make every attempt to be around more this week. Maybe things will settle down a little around here! (Although, somehow, I doubt it.)

Sunday Check-In

H-ey! I'm no longer at zero on all three of my WIPs!

Here's Gone:

1,600 / 90,000 (1.8%)

And Unseen:

1,001 / 90,000 (1.1%)

Okay, so 1% or so on each book isn't fabulous, but it's better than zero. The goal is 500 words per day per book (or 1K total per day). We'll see where I am next week . . .

Check It Out!

Look at #10! (I've been knocked off by a new release already, but hey . . . I was there, baby!)

Progress Report

Scenes for St. Augustine: My photography skills probably leave much to be desired, but I love watching the different sail boats bobbing in the Bay of Matanzas. The horizon in the distance is Anastasia Island.

**
I'm making progress on Something More. The deal is, I have to write 1000 words a day. I can write more, but I have to make 1000. So far, I'm good. Here's how I measure up as of June 15:

36,971 / 80,000 (46.2%)

It probably helps that I'm loving Troy Lee and Angel. And that I'm through the main edits on Hearts Awakened. It's off to the FLE.

Frustrated

I really, really, really want to hurl the keyboard through the window.

Self-restraint is a good thing.

I will not be defeated by these {insert ugly words here} revisions.

Someone send chocolate.

Word Count

For Tuesday, 9/4: 1362.

Total on Facing It: 60,363

71% of my projected word count. I love the last third or so of a book. I like moving toward the climax. Writing the ending, not so much. Climax and resolution? Definitely.

I'm running a contest this week -- will post those details later today.

Smokin'

Is the only word. I'm probably jinxing it, but I wrote approximately 6000 words on Facing It in the last day or so.

I'm 69.4% finished with the MS. Yes, I need to update my word meter. No, I'm not doing it tonight. Too fiddly.

What are you up to tonight?

Progress Report

9 pages, 3715 words on Facing It.

4 apges, 1246 words on In Dreams.

Total: 13 pages, 4961 words total.

I just have to keep this up for 69 days.

Have I mentioned if I pull this off, my students are going to be in trouble? Because if I can do this, there's nothing they can't do if they put their minds to it. I think I'll borrow Sven for my classroom. A big "Sven Says Sweat" poster for the door.

Oh, Wait -- It Gets Better!

Not only did I sign up for 70 Days of Sweat (Thanks, Steph & Larissa! I needed more insanity in my life!), but I've let the DH help talk me into working on the ghost book.

And I'm going to attempt three pages daily on TWO SEPARATE BOOKS. Six pages, app. 2500 words total per day. I've so lost it.

Plus, they're not even the books I signed up for over at Alison's blog. Well, one is. I don't know yet. I can't decide. I have choices. So here's what's up:

1) The Southern ghost book, working title In Dreams.

plus . . .

2) Chandler Co. book #7: working title Facing It.

or

3) Chandler Co. book #8: working title Afterburn.

or

4) Cold case book, working title Cold Case #1 (because I have no working title, LOL).

I have lost my ever-lovin' mind for sure. And I've committed because I even put up word meters!

I'm thinking ghost book and Facing It because I have characters & plot ideas for the latter.

Has Anyone Seen My Mind?

I seem to have lost it.

After shelving SWM, otherwise known as the "book with no plot," I've signed up for 70 Days of Sweat.

I'm blaming it on Steph. And Larissa.

Starting tomorrow, I have to write 3 pages a day on a book I haven't finished the research on.

Will keep you updated.

Augh!

Yes, the sound of true writerly frustration, when you realize the book you've been working on is probably heading for the shelf.

I hate wasting time! And I feel like I have. I love Angie and Fish. I do. But. The books not doing it for me.

I think working on HOL and HOTM the last month has ruined me. HOL has a tight suspense plot, and HOTM has a meaty murder mystery. Next I'll be working on ABM, another "big" plot. Angie and Fish? Not so much. I enjoy the big stuff and I think that's why I'm just not feeling the love with Stay With Me right now. I have the synopsis, I can make the page count daily, but it's kinda like eating a Happy Meal burger when I want to be tearing into a thick juicy steak.

So I have two choices:

1) Keep going on SWM. Finish it before school starts.

2) Shelve it until a later time (maybe Christmas vacation?) and work on Chris's book, which is a big plot, and/or the non-Chandler County book, the first in a cold-case trilogy idea I have. It's a big plot, too.

I hate not finishing something I've started but I don't want to be frustrated later either.

So I have thinking to do. Great. Just wonderful. (Ignore me while I pout here a second.)

Pondering a promo contest too. More on that soon.

Standing on the Edge

I'm trying something new and a tad scary . . . working on more than one project at a time. I've edited one work while writing another before, but what I'm attempting this summer is bigger than that. Here's what's on the agenda:

1) First draft of Stay With Me.
2) First round edits (with conflict revisions) of His Ordinary Life
3) Rewrite of Hold On To Me (suspense plot remains the same, rewriting the backstory, which changes everything.)

Today is day one of this adventure. My plan thus far is to work daily on writing the draft of Stay With Me. If I can knock out a few pages every day, I'll be happy. I've discovered that the only way I'll be able to really tackle the conflict revisions for HOL is to work with a hard copy and picture-frame it. At the time, I'm letting HOTM marinate, and I'm thinking through the changes to scenes and characters I need to do on that. At some point, I know I'll be juggling both HOL and HOTM -- I think that's the scariest part.

We won't discuss the two to three other story ideas floating around my head . . .

Just Wondering . . .

Actually, I'm being nosy, but how much money do you spend on books per month, average? I have to admit the dollar amount I spend is probably low. I tend to utilize the library a lot (hey, I'm poor, okay? My growing Monsters eat gargantuan amounts of groceries!).

But recently I've discovered some people spend a lot of money on books.

Like hundreds of dollars a month. Even before I had children, I might spend a fifty to sixty dollars a month on books. Now, I'm doing good if I get to buy 1-2 books a month (again, I read more than that . . . but I have to borrow right now).

Did you get that? Hundreds of dollars.

I so want to be able to do that. Can you imagine?

While I'm wishing, I really want a masters in English. I know, I know, I need one in education. But I want one in English. Or even better, I'd love to be able to take a year's sabbatical and do an MFA in creative writing. (Yes, Wayne, I know . . . I could go to Oxford. Scroll back and look at that line about the Monsters eating gargantuan amounts of food. I have to clothe them and send them to college in a few years. No Oxford for me!)

Oh, and being here would be nice:



I'm grading poetry anthologies, with the fabulous array of American poetry my kids find every year, and it tends to make me wistful for something I can't name. I know what I write has value . . . I believe all written work has value. But there's something ephemeral that I want, that I think might always be out of my grasp, and I see it in the poetry of Frost and Angelou and Collins and Ginsberg and Olds and countless others . . .

I don't see it in my work, not yet, and I'm afraid I won't ever see it there.

But it's something to think about.

Something to wonder about.

And something to work toward.

Memo to Sgt. Adam (Fish) Williams

Fine. Whatever. I have edits to finish. Research papers to grade.

Here's a key to the Basement. Go hang out with the rest of them.

***

Note to self: Ask Steph about the best way to handle insistent military heroes.

Memorandum

To: Linda Winfree, author

From: Sgt. Adam "Fish" Williams

Subject: Going Away

***

No.

Excuse me. Make that: "No, ma'am!"

Attention, Angie and Fish!

Go away.

Get out of my head.

Yes, I know he's being sent to Fallujah. I know all about your hidden feelings. I know he's ready to force the subject.

But I have edits to finish.

I have another book lined up to write, and I can't see y'all being a whole book. Do you, really?

So . . . be quiet and go away for a little while, 'kay?

'kay.

Good News!

Elisabeth and Mary both finaled in the Golden Heart! Whoo-hoo! Gina Welborn finaled as well. And Allison Brennan finaled in the RITA!

For updates on RITA and GH finalists, check in here.

And you know what? Since Samhain is now RWA recognized . . . I can enter the RITA next year! Double whoo-hoo!

Why Plot?

Because if I didn't, I'd go insane during the writing process. I have to know what's coming next -- it's the whole obsessive-compulsive personality trait, I think. Afterburn is making me crazy with how slowly the plot is unfolding in my head. I do believe school stress is getting in the way. I hate to see what happens if I actually take on the second job I'm looking for . . . but one must do what one must do, right?

I was thinking about plotting today, while I was teaching (well, covering) a class for a colleague who was in a meeting. It was an English class and the kids were researching, so I didn't have much trouble with it. But I know I function much better when I've worked out a lesson plan ahead of time -- everything from assessment to what the kids need to know and do to what standards I'm addressing and how I'm going to approach the lesson.

Writing a book? Same principle. I need to know where I'm going, where the turning points in my plot are. Does the book often turn out differently than my plan? All the time, but I think that's normal. I still end up in the same place, just with a slightly different route.

I can't imagine writing without a map, though.

What about you? Plotting or no plotting? And why?

Waiting . . .

I'm having an affair with my refresh button today. I'm not sure when the new books go live, so I keep checking.

It's kinda like waiting for Karin Tabke to put up her first line contest winners weekly. By the way, I have to write another sentence! That's very cool, too, since I expected to be out after this last week -- I couldn't get my new line exactly the way I wanted it.

Over at the Samhain blog, my new editor is blogging about her process of evaluating submissions, which is pretty interesting. (Especially to me, since I have two subs in her slush pile right now!) Also, in another post, author Lauren Dane is talking about the anti-hero -- a topic near and dear to my heart.

Speaking of anti-heroes . . . a certain one of mine is hanging around today, waiting as well. Maybe he'll chime in later . . .