Category Archives: Writing

Novel Track and NaNoWriMo

Current Facebook Status: is up and at ’em.  Lots to do and so little time to do it.  Or something.  At least she’s not so loopy she’s going on and on about candy pumpkins again ;).
Currently playing in the background: Playhouse Disney

EEP!  National Novel Writing Month is only a month away!

Double EEP!  Novel Track starts tomorrow!

Novel Track is ACFW’s answer to NaNo – four months a year, you set your own goal of at least 10K words and when you meet your goal, you get a badge to put on your blog or website :).  My goal for October Novel Track [January, April and July are the other months] is 50K words which should finish my WIP [Work in Progress] – the sequel to Unbreak Her Heart.  Well, it’ll finish the rough draft – which will be very, very rough, I’m sure.

I think I’ve decided on my NaNo project as well!  I’m going to do something completely different – based in part on the Flash Fiction from Sept. 10.  I wrote a couple paragraphs for a friend and outlined the basics in another paragraph – she liked it as much as I did :).  I’m contemplating turning it into a Romantic Suspense book but that would mean research into things like Witness Protection ;).  I’ve already started doing some other research – turns out a friend’s husband is on the board of an organization in town that my play a role, etc.

So – can I write 100K in the next two months?

Triple EEP!

Okay – yes, I can.  I wrote nearly 65K last Nano and 100K the year before that [nothing I could whip into publishable shape but I did it!] so it’s possible.  I just need to make sure I write 2K a day.  I can do that.  Um, yep.  I can.  [Technically, 50K a month is about 1667 words a day, but 2K a day gives a buffer for those days it doesn’t happen at all.]

One problem I anticipate having is writing in a vacuum. I have no beta readers/critique partners at the moment so no one to send it off to.  Except maybe one.  Hmmm… Will have to ask her about that.  We’ll see how the writing in a near vacuum goes…  ACFW has a critique group designed, as I understand it, to help with critiques and then help people find each other and break off into smaller critique groups.  There’s an orientation of sorts the first 2 business days of the month [tomorrow and Monday] so there’s hope of finding someone soon :).

In order to get it all done, I need to make To Do Lists and stick to them!  That’s my problem – I’m great at making them, not so great at sticking to them.  Working on that too…

So I will be eeping for the next two months as I try to get this done.  I’ll be posting my word counts and excerpts here [favorite sentence of the day maybe?] so watch this space!

The writing frenzy is about to begin!

NaNoWriMo, Novel Track

What I’ve Read Wednesday, Volume 4

Current Facebook Status: was watching Christopher dance and was sad when he stopped. But then he was a race car and now playing baseball. What a fun little guy :).

Currently Playing in the Background: The Hot Dog Dance – do it, you know you wanna ;).  Moving from Daisy’s Dance to Donald’s Balloon [yes, he should be asleep – I don’t watch these on my own :p]

I had planned on reading Code Triage by the fabulous Candace Calvert, but only got part of it read today :(.  Will finish it tomorrow and then post it next week.  Have been working on getting the books due back tomorrow reviewed so I have plenty in the queue.  Today, I’m going with the sequel to the previously reviewed One Tuesday Morning by Karen Kingsbury [and the book of hers I’ve had on hold since June is FINALLY ready for me to pick up].

From the back of the book:

Well, it has no copy on the back of the book so here’s the description from Zondervan’s website:

The hope-filled sequel to the bestselling One Tuesday Morning In this new novel by Karen Kingsbury, three years have passed since the terrorist attacks on New York City. Jamie Bryan, widow of a firefighter who lost his life on that terrible day, has found meaning in her season of loss by volunteering at St. Paul’s, the memorial chapel across the street from where the Twin Towers once stood. Here she meets a daily stream of people touched by the tragedy, including two men with whom she feels a connection. One is a firefighter also changed by the attacks, the other a police officer from Los Angeles. But as Jamie gets to know the police officer, she is stunned to find out that he is the brother of Eric Michaels, the man with the uncanny resemblance to Jamie’s husband, the man who lived with her for three months after September 11. Eric is the man she has vowed never to see again. Certain she could not share even a friendship with his brother, Jamie shuts out the police officer and delves deeper into her work at St. Paul’s. Now it will take the persistence of a tenacious man, the questions from her curious young daughter, and the words from her dead husband’s journal to move Jamie beyond one Tuesday morning.

What I Liked:

  • I liked this one better than One Tuesday Morning.  That one was too clichéd for my taste.  This one was better.
  • I liked Jamie’s work at St. Paul’s.  I hope it’s still going on if it’s still needed.
  • I still love her daughter.  I love her daughter’s questions.
  • I love Clay Michaels.  I liked him in the last book, but I loved him here.  I loved how he came to the rescue of those in need, when in need – including Jamie.
  • I liked Aaron.  I wish we’d seen more of what happened to him.
  • It was fairly obvious to me who Jamie was going to end up with – her late husband’s boss or the brother of the man who looks just like her late husband.  However, the ‘will they or won’t they’ aspect was still interesting enough.

What I Didn’t Like:

  • Nothing in particular.

Overall:
This book was better than the first one in my opinion.  It wasn’t fabulous but it was worth a reread from time to time – probably without having reread the first one first.  It can stand on its own after reading One Tuesday Morning once.  Tom Clancy books I feel the need to reread through the whole series before the new ones come out, but this one I won’t.

7.5 out of 10

Reviews

Flash Fiction Friday, Vol. 3

Current Facebook Status: heard the three things you don’t want to hear at 5am: the baby gate being opened, whiny 3 year old and ‘Mom, where are you? My s’eepin’ for weeeeeeeeeeeks’. So much for that last half hour of shut eye :p.

Currently Playing in the Background: NCIS Season 7, Disk 5, Episode 1, Double Identity

It’s Flash Fiction Friday!  Today’s prompt, once again, is the first sentence [or two sentences in this case].  Jan and I both took a few extra seconds to wrap them up, but that’s okay – our game, our rules ;).  And I changed the period of time to four years after we were officially done.

She was speechless. This was the exact same bracelet he’d given her for Christmas last year.  He was so proud of himself that she didn’t know what to say.  She didn’t want to dampen his spirits at all, but there were no words.

“I did good, didn’t I, Jenny?” he asked, his eyes bright.

She nodded.  “You did great, Dan.”  She kissed him softly.  “Thank you.  I’ll wear it every day.”

She would she would wear the bracelet every day.

And every night, she would put it back in the box, hide it in his underwear drawer and he’d give it to her all over again.

Tears filled her eyes as she went to start Christmas dinner.  Four whole years of this.  Four years of it always being Christmas.  Four years of living the day over and over and over.

And over.

Every day she wanted to move on, for him to start remembering.  But he never did.  He never remembered the drive to his mother’s house.  He never remembered the tractor trailer whose brakes had gone out and the heroic driver who somehow managed to only clip the rear quarter panel of the car as he careened over the side of the cliff, sparing their lives and probably the lives of several others in cars around them, while sacrificing his own.

Dan would never remember any of that.

She’d already dealt with the daily deluge of questions about his legs and why he was in a wheelchair.  She’d found ways to break it to him gently, but it was always hard.  Always.

And then he’d give her the bracelet.  Because he still loved her.

And because she still loved him, she took it.  And she cried.  And she kissed him.

Then she did it all over again.

Flash Fiction Friday

My New Theme Song: That’s What Faith Can Do

I have a new theme song.

Okay – I have a theme song.  I don’t think I’ve ever had one before.  I’ve heard the song a number of times.  Abbie sings it in the car with me sometimes.  That’s What Faith Can Do by Kutless.  For some reason, today the lyrics really struck me.

These lyrics in particular:

It doesn’t matter what you’ve heard
Impossible is not a word
It’s just a reason
For someone not to try

Impossible.  So many things seem impossible.  But they’re not.

Jesus replied, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.”  Luke 18:27

Getting published certainly seems impossible.  There’s a million people out there with books they’ve written – one stat I heard said that 85% of people say they have a book they’d like to right.  If even just 2 or 3% of those people actually do, that’s still a TON of people.

And then there’s li’l ole me.

I wrote my book.  Well, one of them.  I’m working on the others.  Slowly.  Surely.  But I’m still just me.  I’m not ‘anyone’.  I’m a nobody as far as the world is concerned.  No one is beating down my door trying to get the rights to my story – like say a Sarah Palin or Billy Graham or something.  You look at how many people have written good – and not so good – books and the odds are seemingly insurmountable.

Part of the problem is my perspective.  I know that.  I read a blog post recently about a woman who had her first book published this year and has had FOUR more published already [I don’t remember who it was – I read it on Novel Journey – I think].  I see that and I don’t see ‘Wow!  If it happened to her, it can happen to me!’  No.  I look at it and I see something more like Yahtzee.  Like ‘Oh.  Well, guess that fills the quota of ‘first time novelist with five books out already’ slots.  That one’s taken…’

But that’s not how God works.  God’s perspective is more like that first one.  “Look, Child.  With Me NOTHING is impossible.  What I did for her, I can do for you.”

So what can faith do?    Faith can move mountains.  Miracles can happen.  Hope doesn’t end, even when the sky falls.

Overcome the odds
You don’t have a chance
(That’s what faith can do)
When the world says you can’t
It’ll tell you that you can!

You can!  I can!

Am I going to end up published by a major publishing house and not just printing off a few dozen copies for family and friends?  I don’t know.  I don’t know for certain that God’s plan for my life includes writing ‘full time’.  I hope it does.  I pray it does.  But if it doesn’t, the journey I’m taking right now is a part of where He wants me to end up.  It may be difficult to accept at some point that my path is going elsewhere, but the journey is what’s important now.

Learning to trust God.
To put my faith in him.
When the world says I can’t, faith tells me I can.

With God, all things are possible.

That’s what faith can do.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiBNkZHOBI8&fs=1&hl=en_US]

Writing

Very Cool Prize Won and Some Musings…

Current Facebook Status: woke up thinking it was Saturday. She nearly cried when she realized it wasn’t. Not really, but was very disappointed. 😉

Plus posted this pic today:

Currently playing in the background: NCIS, season 6, next to last ep [whatever number that is] and my DVD is skipping…

There it was.  Nathan Bransford’s 1000th blog post.  He was offering a critique of the query letter and first five pages of the manuscript for the 1000th commenter.  So I joined in the fun.  Lots of Princess Bride quotes and Star Wars questions – along with a few [dozen?] recs for Castle [and Nathan Fillion!].  So I made a few comments, possibly a few new friends and then it said 970 comments… Could I get two more in?!  ‘Eek!  Who will it be?’  And the next page said like 1014 comments!  I’d missed it!  Or had I?!  I went back a page and… voila!

That did it!  Comment 1000!  So I am now the proud winner of a query letter/5 pages critique by super cool agent Nathan Bransford – who also had the distinction of being my first rejection ;).  Now to fret over them a bit before sending them to him.

Seriously, as I’m getting ready to send queries out to the agents that I really, really want to work with – this is huge!  Thank you, God.  It’s a total God thing!

So that was the cool prize, now the musings…

After a rough end of the week last week, I read this blog post today in Novel Journey’s author interview with A. K. Arenz:

At what point did you stop juggling suggestions and critiques and trust yourself (as a writer)?

In the mid 90s I took a class called Creative Writing in Fiction at a nearby university. One of the things I walked away with was that if you truly wanted to write, if it’s what you felt you were called to do, you had to trust your gut. Sometimes relying on critiques and such can stifle you—but that’s something each individual has to decide.

Wow.  Trust my gut.  I so need to do that.  [Yes, Jan, I know you said it the other day, too!] Additional confirmation from those you love – and who love you – and trust is always awesome, but sometimes you just gotta go with your gut.  Like Gibbs.

In all seriousness, that’s making light of the ‘gut’ thing.  It’s also that still, small voice.  It’s the voice that told me to pack everything in the van two hours before my water broke with Emily [Matt thought I was nuts].  It’s the voice that told me when the pregnancy tests would be positive – and when they’d be negative when the docs were trying to decide if Em was going to stick around.  It’s the voice that told me to put myself on virtual bedrest when I was pregnant with Christopher, because even though his due date was Aug. 24, he was going to be a July baby [July 25 to be exact].  It’s the voice that told me surgery at 4mos was the right thing to do for him.  It’s the voice that told me to have the ambulance come to the surgery center and take him to the hospital after his tonsils/adenoids last month.  I didn’t listen then and he ended up turning blue at home.  Twice.  And then got the ambulance ride anyway.

So it’s that still, small voice that’s telling me I can do this.  I have talent.  It may need work, but I am good enough.

How ironic that the post that was going to be just ‘musings about when to ignore critiques’ comes the same day I win a critique from an agent?

Or maybe it’s just a God thing.

So – time to trust my gut and get those pages to Nathan.

Agents, Writing

Flash Fiction Friday, Vol. 2

After a kinda crummy morning, I had a good time chatting with Jan and doing our Flash Fiction Friday.  This one needs a couple of caveats, but I’ll post them at the end.  Jan will be posting hers on her blog shortly.

So we set the timer for ten minutes and away we went!  The first sentence was the prompt.

The diver entered the hull of the ship through the gaping hole that sank her.  He wanted to explore a bit before he had to head back up to the surface.  He glanced behind him and saw his wife and dive partner close behind.  They slowly worked their way through the ship and then out through a portal on the deck.  He motioned to her that he was going to go over the side to look at that part of the ship.  She nodded and followed him.

The shipwreck was at least 200 years old according to the dive master.  The aging of the wood, the overgrowth of the [stuff] attested to that.  He went around the bow of the ship and came to an abrupt halt.  Or as abrupt a halt as one can come to when in the water.

His wife touched his arm as she rounded the bow behind him.  Bubbles floated in front of his face as he pointed towards the site that had stopped him mid-swim stroke.

There on the floor of the ocean was a dead sailor.  It wouldn’t be shocking if it was the bones of a sailor that had belonged to the ship when it sank, but this sailor was different.

The body was only partially decomposed.  He could see dog tags.  The uniform was modern.

So what was a dead sailor doing pinned underneath an old shipwreck in his dress whites?

He shook his head, grabbed his wife’s hand and kicked rapidly, propelling them upwards.  Time to call NCIS.

Caveats:

I know nothing about diving.  The little I do know comes from a couple old Baywatch episodes and random stuff I may or may not have picked up here and there from somewhere – or at least I think I did.  So I may be way off on the diving stuff.  Ah well.  No research allowed for Flash Fiction :).

NCIS is my all time favorite television show.  Ship at the bottom of the ocean [combined with the inability to get the opening scene from season 1 episode The Immortals out of my head] and you get NCIS :).

Flash Fiction Friday

What I Read Wednesday on Thursday, Vol. 1

Let’s hope there’s no Volume 2 of this edition =D.

I had hoped to finish rereading Disaster Status last night but didn’t and it’s unlikely I’ll be able to today so instead of waiting on it, I’ll pull another review out of the archives and post it.  I plan on Disaster Status next week :).  Of course, I have about 16 books still sitting on the table next to me to either be reviewed or be read [mostly reviewed] and some editing to do, but I’m sure I can finish it again – especially as I’m giving a test on Tuesday ;).

In honor of last weekend’s anniversary of 9/11, I’m going to post the review I wrote a couple weeks ago of Karen Kingsbury’s One Tuesday Morning.

Review:
I’m fascinated by all things 9/11 [more or less] so when I saw Karen Kingsbury had a 9/11 series, I had to check it out [literally – from the library; the budget doesn’t let me buy near as many books as I’d like so I have to read them first – surely someone out there can relate, right?].  Her first series of books had been recommended to me by a friend, but there’s only one copy of the first book in the series in all of our county library system, so while I was waiting, I moved on to other stuff.  One Tuesday Morning is one of the other things I read [as was everything else reviewed on the blog to this point plus all those others waiting to be reviewed – two and a half months later I’m still waiting…]

Front Cover

A devoted fireman and a driven businessman, strangers with the same face. On that fateful Tuesday, one will leave the Twin Towers alive–but will he ever find his way home?

From the Back Cover

I’m a firefighter, God, so I know I’ve been in some tough places before. But this . . . this not knowing the people I love . . . this is the hardest thing I can imagine.

The last thing Jake Bryan knew was the roar of the World Trade Center collapsing on top of him and his fellow firefighters. The man in the hospital bed remembers nothing. Not rushing with his teammates up the stairway of the south tower to help trapped victims. Not being blasted from the building. And not the woman sitting by his bedside who says she is his wife.

Jamie Bryan will do anything to help her beloved husband regain his memory, and with it their storybook family life with their small daughter, Sierra. But that means helping Jake rediscover the one thing Jamie has never shared with him: his deep faith in God.

Jake’s fondest prayer for his wife is about to have an impact beyond anything he could possibly have conceived. One Tuesday Morning is a love story like none you have ever read: tender, poignant, commemorating the tragedy and heroism of September 11 and portraying the far-reaching power of God’s faithfulness and a good man’s love.

What I Liked:

  • The same 9/11 stuff I think most of us would.  The descriptions as realistic as possible from someone who wasn’t there [and using a made-up group of firefighters as her characters].
  • I liked Jamie and Jake Bryan.  They were real.  Flawed.  He loved his wife more than anything but his God.  He loved his daughter the same way.  He loved life.  He loved his job.  Jamie knew and accepted that.  She could deal with that.
  • The family and friends of the Bryans.  Also real.  Also flawed.  Also hurting after the towers came down.
  • The same is true of Laura and Eric.  Real.  Flawed.  At the end of their marital rope.
  • Clay – Eric’s brother.  A strong Christian.  Falling for his sister-in-law after 9/11 [and maybe even before].  An all around good guy – there when you need him.

What I didn’t like:

  • The plot seemed… clichéd.  Very predictable and very… trite?  Very uninspiring [in the plot sense, not the ‘inspirational’ part of ‘inspirational fiction’ sense].  The book itself was well-written and entertaining enough that I didn’t put it down but the overall plot was a bit too… sort of… blah or something.
  • That’s about it – but that’s enough.

Overall:
Would I read it again?  Yeah, probably.  Would I buy it?  Not at full price.  Maybe if I saw it used for a really good deal and needed to fill up an order on Amazon or something and didn’t have any other options in the budget, but it’s unlikely.  Am I totally put off on Karen Kingsbury?  Not by this.  I’ve already read the other two and will review them in the future and am still waiting on the first in the Baxter series.  However, I was really not that impressed based on this book alone.

6 of 10 stars.

Reviews

Star Ratings

So it’s not overly creative and it’s based mainly on whether or not I would actually buy the particular book in question [gotta love libraries!] but since tomorrow is ‘What I Read Wednesday’, here’s how I’m using a 10 star rating :).  I reserve the right to change this at any time – because, hey, it’s my blog and therefore my prerogative ;).

10. This one goes to the top of the Amazon wish list, to be purchased at my earliest convenience, will be reread regularly and gushingly recommended to friends.

9. This book will be put on the Amazon wish list to be purchased when finances allow, will be reread fairly often and highly recommended to friends.

8. This book goes on the Amazon list but with no special rush on it.  It will be reread as the mood strikes and recommended to friends I know have an interest in the particular genre.

7. This goes on the Amazon list but only if it’s a good deal.  It will be reread on occasion and mentioned to friends with an interest.

6. This one may or may not go on the Amazon list to be purchased if it’s a good deal, there’s nothing higher on the list to purchase or I need to reach $25 for free shipping without going over and it fits the bill.  It will get reread if the mood strikes, which may not be often.  It may or may not be recommended to others.

5. Unlikely to go on the Amazon list.  Probably won’t be recommended unless a friend has a strong interest in the subject.  I finished it and it may have had a redeeming quality or three but I won’t reread it unless I’m bored out of my mind.

4. If by some chance, the book is already in my possession, it will be a. donated; b. given as a white elephant gift; or c. used for an object lesson of some sort.  Unlikely to be recommended.  I probably finished it, but it took some effort.

3. If by some chance, the book is already in my possession, it will be a. donated; b. used to put under a wobbly leg; or c. used to kill the spiders that frequent the basement in the summer.  Very unlikely to be recommended.  I likely finished it but it was probably torturous to do so.

2. If, by some chance, the book is already in my possession, it will be a. donated; b. used to line the bird cage we don’t have; or c. given to someone who has a bird cage.  I will strongly warn against it because it’s so bad.  Recommend it?  Really?  I probably finished it only because I hate not to.

1. If, by some chance, the book is already in my possession, it will be a. donated; b. used to raise the height of the top of the cabinets in the kitchen so that the decorative items on top can be seen better; or c. used as kindling.  I will recommend friends steer clear for the sake of their own mental health.  If I finished it, it’s only so I could rant about how bad it is.

0. This book gives credence to the idea that printing books kills trees and should be avoided at all costs.  It has no redeeming value.  At.  All.  It’s doubtful I finished it.  And donating it would just subject someone else to it.  Kindling is a far more likely use.

Reviews

Flash Fiction Friday! Volume 1

Yay!  It’s Flash Fiction Friday! I’m kidless for a few hours [woohoo!] so Jan and I got together on Skype, bemoaned the lack of good writing prompts [open a magazine to a page and write about the first picture you see.  Um, no], then trawled around the ‘net some more and I finally made one up to honor the heroes of 9/11.

Tim would never forget where he was when he heard planes had crashed into the Twin Towers.

We took the sentence, set the timer for seven minutes [oops!  Supposed to be five!], and away we went. This would need a lot of work to get into some sort of publishable shape but that’s okay :).  You can find Jan’s on her blog.  What about you?  Can you come up with a story in five minutes?  Or, to quote Alan Jackson, ‘where were you when the world stopped turning that September day’?

Tim would never forget where he was when he heard planes had crashed into the Twin Towers.  He was driving down the highway, his head bobbing to the beat of the song blaring from his stereo.  He’d had his favorite CD in or he would have known much earlier, but his mood was more suited for Metallica than it was for talk radio and the FM stereo in his car didn’t work.

He’d been in a funk.  Jessica had left him.  She’d moved in with some other guy.  They’d been living together for two years when suddenly, out of the blue, she announced that she’d met someone else.  She’d been sleeping with him for months already and then she just left.  That was Sept 8.  Tuesday, the rest of the world fell apart just as his had.

He’d dreamed of spending the rest of his life with Jessica.  He was going to propose to her on their anniversary on September 15.  He wondered if he could get his money back on the ring.  What did guys say when they tried to return engagement rings?  ‘Sorry went with something bigger from somewhere else?’

He’d planned on burning all of his pictures and gifts – everything Jessica had left from their time together, but she’d called.  Early that fateful Tuesday morning.  He’d planned on heading into Manhattan early for work, but the ringing phone had woken him at 630. Not only had she left him, but she was pregnant.  With his baby.  How she knew for sure the baby was his since she’d been sleeping with both of them at the same time… well, he wasn’t exactly sure how she knew, but she was insistent.  So he’d called and left a voice mail for his boss at the Store of Knowledge in the concourse at the base of the towers and he’d gone for a drive.

It wasn’t until nearly ten when his phone rang.  Again.  His brother had called him about fifteen times.  He’d ignored every one.  But Joe wouldn’t call that much that often if it wasn’t something uber important so he finally answered.

And that was when he found out the entire world had changed.  Not just his world.  The whole world.

Flash Fiction Friday

Flash Fiction Friday! Coming Soon!

Okay – it’s coming tomorrow.  Today, Jan [my ‘other mom’] and I did a Five Minute Flash Fiction exercise.  We had a prompt.  We had five minutes and…

GO!

We spent five minutes writing about

Alice tried to remember who had given her the key.

then we exchanged our version of Alice and the key.  She posted it on one of her blogs and I posted mine in the comments.  We decided to make it a weekly thing.  Our plan is to get together in Skype and do it together [though we may not every week based on schedules, etc. or we may do it on Thursday for posting on Friday if we know we have busy days but that’s the plan], then post on our respective blogs.

Once we’ve posted ours, we both want to know what you come up with!  What can you write about Alice and her key?!

My personal rules include: using the prompt as the first sentence whenever possible and very little editing [spelling and punctuation only, if that] so what you’ll see is what I wrote.  Unedited.  Eesh!  Am I sure that’s what I want on a blog that I hope agents may look at someday?!  Ah well, them’s the rules!  My rules, but still ;).

So – anyone else have any ideas about Alice?  Stick your story in the comments – otherwise look for the first official Flash Fiction Friday tomorrow :).

Flash Fiction Friday
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