Watermarks

Story is printed and ready for tomorrow’s mail. Electronic copy just got sent too. I’m glad I dumped the first version — it just wasn’t the story I wanted to tell. I’m much more confident about this version.

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Okay…so I hated the 1200 words I put down. Dumped those and started over again. I am now 1200 words into version 2. We’ll see where it goes from here.

Update: 12:20 AM – Story is D-O-N-E Done!! Whew…I really struggled with the opening on this one. Was really hard to GET to the story, but I found it and a surprise or two along the way. Will check spelling and typos tomorrow and get it ready to mail for Monday. Yay!!! Just hope it doesn’t suck. : /

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So…I’m working on my workshop story. It’s going pretty well so far. I’m about 1200 words in and I know where the story goes from here — always a good thing, LOL. No working title yet. Got something running around in my head, but nothing concrete yet. Will probably wait until I finish it to see if this hazy title will fit.

Just finished up the final tweaks on my mini collection, soon-to-be available in print via CreateSpace. Awaiting the proofs to see if I got it right this time. : )

Got all my travel arrangements made for my trip to Oregon at the end of February. The multiple circles of hell that was dealing with my father’s estate has almost come to a close with a not-so-good ending that will haunt me for many many years. As will the greed and deceit of human beings. The big lesson I have taken from this ugly mess is to never EVER let anyone else be in charge of any facet of business. As I move forward with my own business, I will never let anyone have that kind of control. Icky stuff.

Anyway…moving on to better things I hope in 2011. Hey, it’s gotta be better than the last two years. ; )

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So…I didn’t get my new novel started. Too much real life. I am hoping that things will quiet down now. Just found out that my job (that has been in jeopardy for 6-8 months now) is safe. Well, as safe as anything can be in this life. It might all change tomorrow, but for now, it’s okay.

I went to an awesome workshop on proposal writing in October and holy crap, I came home with proposals for six new novels!! I need to find time to start writing these things. There just never seems to be enough time anymore. I am hoping I can make some time to get started on these soon.

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Been so crazy busy at work and dealing with my father’s business…and the electronic versions of my stories…well, I haven’t had any time to write anything. Also, at the moment, I’m questioning my abilities as a short story writer. So, I’m hoping to switch gears and write a new novel this month. Working title is called Statuesque. I’m hoping to get started on it over the long weekend. It’s going to be a fun fantasy romance type story, something I haven’t written in a while. Something I haven’t been able to even think about writing for over a year due to last year’s breakup. I’ve survived a lot of that pain and I would love to say I’m completely over it. Sadly, I’m not yet.

There’s still a great deal of pain left to overcome, but I’m better than I was this time last year. For the longest time, I couldn’t even look at anything involving romance. But this fun idea came to me a couple of weeks or so ago and I think I’m ready to give a romance novel a shot. I wrote out a synopsis just to crystallize the plot in my head and now, I’m ready to write it. Wish me luck!

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Trying to find my focus. I have been very distracted since the Oregon workshop, working on getting some of my short fiction available electronically. This process is unfortunately a lot of work. I’ve managed to get 11 stories available on Smashwords and Amazon. And I admit, it’s been a pleasant distraction from writing which isn’t going well. Just can’t seem to write anything that’s any good. Stories I really thought would do well have gotten the exact opposite reaction that I’d expected. Don’t know why my fiction still sucks after all these years and why everyone else seems to get better and I don’t. Maybe I should just keep writing stories, but stop sending them out? Maybe after writing a couple hundred more stories I will have moved a little bit forward. I love writing the stories; the rejections and continued failure are just really getting me down.

Sorry, downer post. This horrid dry spell is my worst on record and I just can’t seem to break it. Three years of no sales is a terribly long time. And it’s really getting to me.

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Okay, so way too much stuff going on, none of which is writing. But I’m experimenting with online fiction and have just posted my first short story to Smashwords. It was one published a number of years ago, so it was a good choice for this format.

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Got back Monday night, but have been too swamped with stuff to post. More Life Rolls craziness. Still dealing with my father’s business and the will stuff (being the executor) as well as my brother’s impending divorce and the job unrest. Things are changing too quickly to keep up with unfortunately. Started a new story, but haven’t managed to get past the first page yet. Maybe I’ll get more written this weekend. Workshop was very good and very insightful, gave me WAY too much to think about. With so little time left in my days, it will take me a good while to get going on some things. I need to write a business plan and do some other things related to my writing. These are things I need to think about without interruption, but that hasn’t been possible this week. argh!

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I was able to cut about 350 words from the story. Final title is Raven Among Angels. Still feeling uncomfortable with this story, but maybe that’s good. Will get it sent out tomorrow, I hope.

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Just now finished this one. This is the longest story I’ve written since 2003. Retitled for the moment to Confessor for the Dead. Weirdest story I’ve written in a while. Not even sure what to say about this one. At 8565 words, that’s gonna be a tough submission. Had no clue when I started this one that it’d be so long. Will come back to it tomorrow and read it all the way through, to see what I think about it.

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