Goobye '08, Hello '09

2008 was a year filled with many milestones. The birth of my first son, and second child. Seeing my daughter start what I believe will be a long gymnastics career. My first taste of life as a mom to a baby with some scary health problems. I met my breastfeeding goals. And yes, even acheiving some writing goals.

There are many more things I could go on about, but suffice it to say, it was a great year.

I'm hoping 2009 will be even better.

So, in no particular order, here are my goals for 2009 (because resolutions are just so Cliche).

1. I will survive AJ's surgery without valium, but instead with the love and support of my family and friends.

2. I will drop these last few baby INCHES from my waist. I'm determined not to worry about the scale, but rather the flatness of my stomach. I'll trade this flab for muscle any day!

3. I will try to be a better mom - because there is no such thing as perfect, and we can always improve ourselves.

4. I will continue reading at least two books every month.

5. I will complete In Gryphon's Snare, write a query, and send it out.

6. While waiting for the rejection slips to come in, I'll begin my next novel and begin the process all over again.

7. I will join a crit group and submerge myself back into the land of aspiring authors, because even the bestsellers were once where I am now.

Well, I think that's plenty to keep me busy for the next year. What about you? What do you have planned for the upcoming year?

JaNoWriMo

Yep, I made that up completely.

I'm almost 1/4 of the way through the first draft of IGS, and I'm really feeling the flow. Unfortunately, that sagging middle is coming up, and I'm starting to get a bit scared. Since I didn't get to participate in NaNo this year, I've decided to create my own. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll have Sven to whip my butt into shape and keep me in line, so I'll have to come up with my own piece of manmeat.

Patrick Dempsey...definitely.

Yes, McDreamy with a whip is certainly a vision to keep me motivated.

While I scour the net for a picture to post on my bulletin board so I can drool over him...I mean have him watch over me...while I get my MS finished up.

My JaNo goal is go have at least 80K written by the end of the month. This includes the 25K I will already have written by then (I am just over 21K now, and will have the other 4 done by New Years). So...I will write a total of 55K during the month of January.

Anyone else want to join Patrick and I for a little sweating in January?

Keeping Your Goals

Goals...as many of my crit partners can attest to, I suck at them. Well, that's not entirely true. I'm awesome when it comes to setting them. It's the accomplishing that I'm not so great at. So, when I sat down a month ago and decided to start writing again, I did it with the best intentions, but also with the idea in the back of my head that I wouldn't actually keep to it. Especially with Christmas coming up so fast.

The good news is, I've been sticking to my goals!!

Maybe I don't sit and stare at the computer screen absolutely every single day - but I am honest with myself in that if I'm just surfing the net, then I DO make sure I sit and stare. Some days, I just honestly can't make time to sit in front of the computer. As a mom of two very young kiddies and a husband who works two jobs...it happens. But, every day that I *can*, I *do*. That's all I can honestly expect of myself.

I am being honest with myself, and it's paying off.

I'm 17% of the way through the first draft of a WIP I've been tinkering with for over a year, and that makes me happy. 17% in just three short weeks is huge. I'm on track, I'm staying focused, and I'm keeping to my personal timeline.

It appears I can attain my goals after all :). GO ME!

Christmas!!

Am I the only one who hasn't finished Christmas shopping? I was supposed to do it last weekend, but unfortunately we had three days straight of snow, accumulating to almost 2 feet of the nasty stuff on the ground. I hate winter. Oh, and did I mention that I lost a rim on my car because one of the lovely towns around here doesn't spend enough money to keep their roads in decent condition? Most wonderful time of the year my arse.

So, I will be spending Christmas Eve Eve at the mall....with a double stroller...with two kids and a husband in tow. Why, you ask? Because I can't find a sitter and these gifts aren't going to buy themselves.

Next year, I'm shopping online.

Thursday Thirteen #1 Christmas Favorites P1

Thirteen of my Favorite Christmas Movies

1. Year Without a Santa Clause
2. Rudolf's Shiny New Year
3. A Christmas Story
4. Santa Clause is Coming to Town.
5. Charlie Brown Christmas
6. How The Grinch Stole Christmas
7. Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer
8. Frosty the Snowman
9. White Christmas
10. The Santa Clause
11. Miracle on 34th St.
12. Scrooge (The Musical with Albert Finney)
13. Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol

Writers Block: My Constant Companion

It never fails.

I wake up at 3:00 AM, wide awake and sitting upright in bed. The perfect scene! Knowing that these moments of brilliance are not to be ignored, I leap from bed, flip on the light (which earns a grumble from the bear in bed beside me), and head straight for the computer. I tap and click away swiftly, wanting to get this invaluable material out before my mind realizes it hasn't gotten nearly enough sleep to keep it running for more than a few token minutes. The bear than begins to growl, and words begin to become a bit intelligible. Something about lights, and clicking, and my impending funeral. Ignoring him, I continue typing away happily.

Once the scene is finished, I save and close Word, shut off the light, and slip back beneath the covers; a self satisfied smile on my lips. I know that when I'm ready to sit down tomorrow, I've got a great jump off point to get the juices flowing.

HA!

The next morning, usually around 10am (once I've got both munchkins napping and I've had my shower), to do my daily writing. I tell myself "ten pages a day - if it's not possible then I'll sit and stare at the blank screen for at least an hour." No internet, no checking the mail, and no reading. Just myself and the computer screen for at least an hour.

That's quite the daunting thing, let me tell you.

So, as I relax, with my cup of tea in hand and blissful silence reigning, I open word.

And wonder what the hell I was thinking.

The jibgerish that seemed so perfect at 3am is complete rubbish by the light of day. OK, maybe not rubbish - the idea for the scene was OK, but it's going to take a lot of work. Not only that...but it's the fricking resolution!!! I'm not even through the first six chapters, and already the characters are speaking to me of the resolution.

Bastards.

So, I put that off to the side since it does me no good when I haven't even finished the beginning of the story yet. I open up the chapter I'm working on, and stare at the two pages I've written for it already. They suck. I know what I want to accomplish in this chapter, but I can't find a way to accomplish it. I rewrite it several times, each version seemingly worse than the last.

I can hear the muses laughing at my expense.

It's about this time that I feel like putting my fist through the laptop screen, and so I resort to the dreaded staring at a blank screen. As if to mock me, the characters end their mute defiance, and tell me all about this great scene that needs to happen next. Yep, it's their first kiss. And, I must admit, I liked the scene very much and it's going to work perfectly. Unfortunately, I need a few scenes/chapters in between. However, since I don't want to lose it, I write the scene anyway.

So, I've accomplished my ten pages, and then some, but I'm still stuck on that blasted chapter I can't seem to write. I tried thinking of a way to get around writing it, but I can't. It's the chapter introducing the heroine and her goals. It's just that every time I do it, the whole thing sounds cheesey and contrived. Maybe I should write that chapter last and write the rest of the book around it.

Eventually it'll come to me...right?

Every New Beginning Comes From Some Other Beginning's End.

Linked books. Man, I love them! To me, there's nothing greater than when you close the book with a happy sigh and sink into your covers and dream about the next book, where you know you'll get a glimpse of these happily ever afters once more. I'm not even talking series, so much as books where people from other books just sort of "pop up".

Sabrina Jeffries is a favorite of mine when it comes to linking her books. While they are grouped together on her webpage as being a part of a series, they are all very independent books themselves. As a matter of fact, I've ready every single one of her books, save two (one of which I'm in the middle of, and the other which I'll be reading once I'm done with the first), and not once did I have a problem following the plot line because of something I'd "missed" with one of her other books.

Even more interesting is when the H/h of one book becomes a minor plot in one of the others. One in particular that I remember (because I just read them a few weeks ago) are A Dangerous Love, and After The Abduction. In ADL we meet Griff and Rosalind who, true to my trashy romance tastes, absolutely loathe each other from the onset. Griff is masquerading as a man of affairs, and Rosalind is one of several spinster sisters who is going to be forced to marry Griff's "boss". Of course, Griff really is the man who will marry one of the girls and he's fallen quite madly for Rosalind - who wants nothing more than to become an actress. They fight, they love, they fight some more, and eventually they fall into their happily ever after.

Or so we think.

In ATA, we find Griff and Rosalind a few years after their vows, not nearly as happy as we had once thought. Sure they still love each other, deeply and passionately and that's why they are so miserable. You see...Rosalind has been having quite the hard time when it comes to giving Griff his heir. While the story itself revolves around Juliet, Rosalind's younger sister, I can't help but admit I was quite worried for Griff and Rosalind as well. I was just as eager to see their problem resolved as I was the main couple.

When an author starts writing a book, do you think they are already planning ahead to who will be paired with whom in the other books? Do you think that the secondary characters take a life of their own after the fact and merely demand their own stories? Perhaps it's even a bit of the two.

I think when Sabrina began writing her Swanlea Spinster Series, she probably did plan for each of the girls to have their own books. But what about her Heiresses Series? Do you think Cousin Michael and Mrs. Harris were always meant to have their own book?

Back From The Dead

Having taken a year hiatus from writing, I'm back in the saddle and eager to go! I've been extremely busy in the last months, reading like crazy (I finished Sabrina Jeffries' back list, WOOT!), and I even discovered a few new authors (Nicole Jordan, for one). Most importantly, I gave birth to my second beautiful baby - a boy this time. Now that he's finally sleeping through the night, and life is returning to the chaos that I consider normal, I feel it's well past time to get back to what truly keeps me sane.

I've spent the entire month of November, and so far all of December as well, reading up on my favorite craft books (Karen Wiesner and Donald Maas, most notably), and I finally feel up to the challenge. Having missed Nano this year, I'm determined to catch up. So....with no further ado, here is the first goal of my newly resurected writing life.

By Summer of 2009, I plan to have a submittable manuscript.

Think I can do it? I know I can!