YAY! Good day today! Had our monthly MozArks meeting! Tracey Bateman was our very special guest. Had a wonderful time chatting and learning from one of the very early members of ACFW.

Plus there were books.

Stayed at Panera until closing. Didn’t get as much done as I wanted but did get about 2300 written there. Another 700ish after getting home and I’m at 3015 for the day and 23018 for the month. Getting closer ;). If NaNo was still Saturday, I’d be 8655 words behind. But it’s already flipped over to Sunday… Here’s hoping to another good writing day tomorrow!

And word wars with Jessica. Because we both had great success when we did that last night.

But now… tis bedtime. Except 50 First Dates is on and I want to watch the end of it. Never mind that we have it on DVD and could watch it sans commericial interruptions if I’d just get the DVD out…

I’ve been meaning to post a snippet of CANDID Romance Book 1 so here it is. Keep in mind this is the very first, very rough draft. So…

Here’s a snippet of Jeremiah – who may or may not be half of a couple sometime soon ;).

Her eyes were the color of the clearest Caribbean sea. They reminded him of the time he’d taken his son and daughter to the Caymans for Christmas. The one year their mother had let him do such a thing. Mostly because she’d been taken with some new boyfriend. It was the last vacation he’d taken with his kids. One of the last times he’d seen them before…

But now, the bottomless depths of her eyes were beckoning to him. A man could drown in those eyes.

If only she weren’t pointing a gun at his head.

I banged the back of my head against the couch. This wasn’t working. The heroine’s eyes weren’t blue, for starters. They were a dull gray. Where had the whole “clearest Caribbean sea” come from?

My eyes closed as I tried to figure it out.

And it hit me.

The girl from the CANDID meeting. What was her name? I couldn’t remember. All I knew for sure about her was that she was gorgeous and had… I groaned as the thought ran through my head. Eyes the color of the clearest Caribbean sea. Eyes a man could drown in.

With a deep sigh, I highlighted the last few paragraphs and hit delete with a vicious tap. This was going nowhere fast. Maybe a run would help clear my head and get Cayman out of my mind.

Cayman? I shook my head at myself. “Giving a random girl a nickname. Nice,” I muttered. “What’s next? Doodling her name on your notebook? Except you don’t remember her name and looking it up would be a bit too stalkerish. Especially after…” I stopped myself from mentioning the incident that had sent me looking for a new place to live. Remembering it was something better left undone.

Mere minutes ago, I passed through the 20K mark for this manuscript and NaNoWriMo.

What did I do to celebrate?

Stop.

I’m exhausted after being up with the sick 10yo at 130 [even if it was only for a few minutes], then she joined us in our room about 6. The 4/6yos were up at 610 and though they were playing nicely together, they were LOUD!

But we got a new filter from Lowe’s so the ice/water in the freezer will taste good again. And picked up a few things at Walmart. After that and except for a trip to Chick-fil-A for dinner, I’ve been writing almost all day.

I hit 4412 for the day which takes me to just over 20K for the month. Tomorrow should be another big day.

First, house cleaning.

Second, MozArks ACFW meeting with special guest, Tracey Bateman.

Third, my very own write-in, write-a-thon.

Tonight, Jessica and I did word wars and they were very effective. Maybe again tomorrow night.

If I can keep my eyes open that long…

I think I managed about 50 words today – something in that range anyway. And it’s all I’m gonna get. I’m ready for bed ;).

But I did link up the new beginning/road trip to the original train trip. At least some. So some shuffling going on but mostly, it’s just been a mind-numbing day with no writing. I need sleep for that and didn’t get nearly enough last night. Such is the way it goes. Plus I had a sick 10yo who caused me to need to leave school early – and pick up the 4yo long before naptime at preschool. And he didn’t take a nap at home. And was cranky. Very. Very. Cranky.

Oh that he would have slept so I could too.

Ah well! They’re all sleeping now. 10yo is staying home tomorrow but she’s fun to have around – and easy to work around when she’s here unless she absolutely needs me.

And now… bedtime, dear friends! Thank you for your support – I can’t tell you what it means to me.

And tomorrow – I hope to revive Flash Fiction Friday and if so will post a bit of the as-yet-without-a-working-title Book 1 of CANDID Romance :).

Well, as I said earlier, NaBloPoMo isn’t happening now :(. Missed yesterday and you HAVE to post everyday for it to count… Ah well. I’m still planning to finish out the month…

Today was the final dentist appointment for the 6yo. She hung out at home all day because the anesthesia stuff takes a while to wear off. After we picked up little brother from school, we hit the local movie place that has free kids’ movies and grabbed 3 – including one she’d been asking to rent for a while. After lunch, they went to watch it while I wrote.

Good day today! Was hoping for 3-3500 but I’ll settle for my 2355. That takes me to 15524 for the month and moves my ‘anticipated finish’ date on the NaNoWriMo website to before Christmas ;). Also lowered the number of words I need per day to finish on time. By about six words. If I pull those extra six then I’ll be a bit over 50K by the time it’s all said and done :D.

The new beginning is working out well. Right now, there’s a bunch of stuff that would end up being cut I think. It helps me to know the characters better and helps them to know each other better but would likely be a time where ‘telling’ would be better than ‘showing’ because… let’s face it… who wants to read about driving through South Center and SE Missouri and through big chunks of Tennessee – at least if you’re not stopping to see interesting things.

Speaking of interesting… I have a cousin I’ve never met. I think we’re second cousins but don’t hold me to that – our grandmas were sisters. She lives in TN. And my book is partially set in Nashville. So we’re thinking we need a girls weekend in Music City.

For research.

Of course.

And in or near Nashville resides writer friend Kaye Dacus as well as a friend I went to high school with and another friend from church in high school who spent a number of years in the mission field in China with her family. They’ve since returned to the States and live in the area. Gosh. That would be fun. Dunno when or how it could happen though. Not at the moment…

And other things that probably won’t happen soon… LOST Retreat with fellow authors [HA! Would you believe I typed ‘others’ there?!] Jess Keller and Kristy Cambron. But oh. Wouldn’t that be fun?!  A couple of days devoted to watching eps. Word wars in between. And laughs galore, I’m sure! Those ladies are fun! I had a chance to chat with Jess [though not nearly long enough] at conference [I hadn’t met Debbie Archer – my amazing crit partner yet and she walked up as I was talking to Jessica and we saw each other a few more times but never had a chance to really sit and chat :(]. And I’m fairly certain I *met* Kristy at conference, but goodness. Most of the people I didn’t already have some connection with have disappeared into the fog. I’m so looking forward to next year when I can say “KRISTY!” and give her a big hug.

If I don’t scare her off before then ;).

Or we don’t manage that LOST retreat. But let’s face it… the likelihood is slim. That’s okay. We’ll have to have a LOST-a-thon one night in Dallas next year. We’ll make it through about 2 eps before we all fall over from exhaustion ;).

Like I’m about to do. After writing, I finished grading one set of tests, graded two sets of unit assignments and another whole set of tests. And I’m about to crash.

So adios! Thank you again, to all of you, for your support! It means more than you know!

Edit: Jessica and Kristy both list “running” on the list of things they like to do. I may have to rethink this whole thing… 😉

And not because it’s talk like a pirate day :p.

I forgot to post last night which means I am officially out of NaBloPoMo [National Blog Posting Month]. Oh well. My only defense is that my browser was giving me fits and then I forgot :(.

So here’s yesterday’s post. I hope to have a book review up today and then a daily ‘how my NaNo is going’ post tonight. Don’t hate me for that ;).

Yesterday, I swung 2121 words for a total of 13169. I also did a 1200+ word hour. First time I’ve done one of those in months. Or longer. Don’t think I’ve done one this month even though I’ve had some okay days. I’m down to 2300 words a day needed to finish on time and current finish date is now up to the day after Christmas.

Now I’m off to take a 6yo to the dentist [again! Last time!], breakfast at Chick-fil-A, do laundry and start a fire at some point. Planning to write while at the dentist. We’ll see how that goes…

First and foremost…

As I mentioned yesterday, Amie and I went to Branson to see Muse Watson [Mike Franks from NCIS]. It was a blast. The play was good and Muse was very nice. Had a 10-15 minute conversation with us without that ‘oh. fans. i must talk to them.’ feeling.

Went to lunch with a local writer friend. She had something come up and pushed back our meeting time by half an hour so the 4yo and I went to this little park. It’s not much more than a pond with a path around it and a few picnic tables, but we got out and walked most of the way around, then turned around and went back the other way. I took a bunch of pictures but I can’t get them to email :(. Here’s one:

And another:

But the great ones with the ducks? Yeah. Not happening.

I did write 757 words yesterday and 1022 this morning to put me over the 10K mark. And now that this blog is done, I’m gonna go try to write a few more ;).

[Oh yay! One of them came through!]

I’ll post more [including pictures] tomorrow, but today I went to Branson with a friend to see MUSE WATSON! [that’s Mike Franks from NCIS!!!!!!] in A Christmas Snow. Play was good. Meeting Muse was WAY COOL. We made sure we were at the end of the line for pictures/autographs and we got to talk to him for about 10-15 minutes. He was very nice and it wasn’t just that ‘oh, look. Fans I have to be nice to’ thing. Gave us both a couple hugs. Told us teeny tiny tidbits about NCIS coming up. And talked about life in general a bit.

Just getting ready to hit the manuscript for the night. Hoping to get a couple K in. But have to go back and start a couple months earlier. The hero/heroine need to meet a couple months before I had them meeting. Not much. Just a couple run-ins at a local gathering. But need to go write it.

Best get to it! But before I do… excuse me while I squeal like a schoolgirl.

I MET MIKE FRANKS!!!!

/ahem/ At least he knew we weren’t really stalkers ;).

I’m up to nearly 1000 words for the day and nearly 7500 for the month. Still behind and may get some more in before I go to bed but sis and I are watching a movie ;).

Still, I had to get my blog up today. We went to see the new VeggieTales Christmas DVD at a local theater – it’s the largest Veggie premiere in the country with over 2500 people most times. It was really good! The best one in a while IMO. It’s the story of the little drummer boy and tells the Christmas story. I’d been hoping for that for years. Also found a couple books on sale at the book store while we were there. With the $1 off coupon [the Veggies ticket], I got them for about 5 bucks each. Always nice!

Tomorrow, I’m headed to see MIKE FRANKS!!! [Okay, Muse Watson from NCIS] in A Christmas Snow down in Branson. Meeting with a friend and going together.

Okay – back to the movie! But I did manage new content both on the blog and in the manuscript.

Now I have to hope that my idea of moving the MS from a conference to ‘back home’ isn’t the right one, because that would mean MAJOR rewrites… /sigh/ Or really scrapping it all and starting over… /sigh/

But the more I think about it, the more I think it might be the right choice… /sigh/

There You’ll Find Me by Jenny B. Jones

Can I just say I <3 Jenny’s books? This YA novel is a sequel of sorts to her latest rom com, Save the Date. You can find my review of it here.

Grief brought Finley to Ireland. LOVE WILL LEAD HER HOME.

Finley Sinclair is not your typical eighteen-year-old. She’s witty, tough, and driven. With an upcoming interview at the Manhattan music conservatory, Finley needs to compose her audition piece. But her creativity disappeared with the death of her older brother, Will.

She decides to study abroad in Ireland so she can follow Will’s travel journal. It’s the place he felt closest to God, and she’s hopeful being there will help her make peace over losing him. So she agrees to an exchange program and boards the plane.

Beckett Rush, teen heartthrob and Hollywood bad boy, is flying to Ireland to finish filming his latest vampire movie. On the flight, he meets Finley. She’s the one girl who seems immune to his charm. Undeterred, Beckett convinces her to be his assistant in exchange for his help as a tour guide.

Once in Ireland, Finley starts to break down. The loss of her brother and the pressure of school, her audition, and whatever it is that is happening between her and Beckett, leads her to a new and dangerous vice. When is God going to show up for her in this emerald paradise?

Then she experiences something that radically changes her perspective on life. Could it be God convincing her that everything she’s been looking for has been with her all along?

Finley Sinclair is the little sister of the hero in the last offering and so we get to see a bit of Alex and Lucy through phone calls, emails and text messages which is nice. I’m always a sucker for knowing what happens after ‘happily ever after’.

Finley is a bit lost. She’s searching for something – for God, for friendship, for love, for [to quote Michael W. Smith] her “place in this world”. Her older brother, Will, had been killed doing humanitarian work halfway around the world, but before that he’d spent time in Ireland as a foreign exchange student. Finley is following in his footsteps, hoping to find what he had – enduring faith.

Almost immediately she finds herself in the presence of the star of a Twilight-like series of movies. The latest heartthrob to grace the pages of every magazine and teeny-bopper website. She’s unimpressed and only spends time with him because she has to. Can the forced togetherness lead to something more? Can she trust what he says rather than what she sees with her own eyes? And what other problems are tormenting her – to the point that she may not even realize it?

With catty teenager girls bent on making the lives of Finley and her new friends [the daughter of her host family and the friends she makes through them] difficult as only teenage girls can, Finley comes to know the true love of Christ. As with her other books, Ms. Jones shares compelling Biblical truths as she waves a wonderful story for us to enjoy.

Overall Rating: 8.5 out of 10 stars

Thanks to both Jenny B. Jones and Thomas Nelson as well as Wynn Wynn media for influencer and review copies [still not sure how I ended up with two… One is being passed on to another reviewer friend :D].

Tonight, we took my 4 kids to my sister’s high school to see their production of Beauty and the Beast. Hubby brought me and the 2 little kids home early because they were done. 4yo started asking if it was over before Gaston even showed up… 6yo told us by the end of the first act that she was going to need two chairs if she was going to lay down and go to sleep…

So here I am posting. I did make over 1700 words yesterday. Not sure where I’m at today but did get some done. Am still WAY behind of course.

I was over on Seekerville where Tricia Goyer is sharing a story for Veteran’s Day. She’s on the Pentalk Blog today too. Both will give you chills.

As I was commenting on Seekerville, my WOW playlist randomly landed on Mark Shultz’s Letters From War. So I had to go watch the video…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuvbBwsMTgI]

And that led to Toby Keith’s American Soldier…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWrMeBR8W-c]

And John Michael Montgomery’s Letters from Home… [Okay – this is some random person video taping their TV but I can’t get the others to embed and can’t find an actual video on YouTube so try this one.]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lN7ox5XPZY]

And of course, Lonestar’s I’m Already There.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jm5gfuT9Z4&ob=av2n]

I already tagged all my friends and family I could think of on Facebook, but I want to take a moment, again, to publicly thank the friends and family who have served – or stayed behind, often as a single parent, so they could keep me, and my family, free.

Because freedom isn’t free. Your sacrifices are never forgotten and always appreciated.

• Joe: Navy
• My mother-in-law [who was married to my FIL at the time] and step-father-in-law who also served in the Navy, though long before they knew each other
• Ivan [and Liz]: Marines, Army Reserves
• Dusty [and Kim, my cousin]: Army
• Amy and Joel: Army x2
• Marty [and Christine]: Army? I’m ashamed I don’t know for sure
• Jayson: Coast Guard
• Dave [and Jennifer]: Marines
• Steve [and Sarah]: Air Force
• Chris: Air Force
• Tina Radcliffe: Army
• Cara Lynn James and her hubby: Navy x2
• Karen: Army
• Ava
• And so many more that I can’t remember, or don’t know, and can’t name for whatever reason.

THANK YOU