Halloween into NaNo!

(copying myself from another blog)

I have dishes and laundry that needs doing before the day is out.

It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown! comes on at 3 in the afternoon here, which doesn't make sense to me, but oh well. Tonight once we get home and eat supper, which we'll be picking up while we're out, we'll be watching Kid Nation with the kids and then the LIVE Ghost Hunters comes on. I've joked that I should stay up and watch that, which will probably run for about 6 hours on Sci-Fi, and after midnight I could start working on my novel for NaNo. I would have to sleep almost all day though in order to stay up that late and still be able to be up to put my stepson on the school bus tomorrow morning.

I need to vent a little- The Rocky Horror Picture Show is NOT airing at all tonight. I would've been watching Ghost Hunters anyway, but I always try to find it on Halloween night. I'd SWEAR last year they aired it over and over on VH1 Classic, but this year...NOPE. It's always been one of my Halloween treats to watch RHPS, but I guess I won't get to see it this year. I definitely need to get that movie on DVD, so I can watch it whenever I want to.~ So there you have that. {stepping down from my tiny soapbox}

I also need to get my desk straightened up today and get all my novel notes laid out over here where I can easily get to it as of tomorrow.

So here's to only a few tricks and lots of treats tonight and as for NaNo~ BRING IT ON! Time to Write!

Got my NaNo shirt last Thursday. It's COMFY! Soft cotton and comfortable. I'll enjoy writing in it along with wearing the shirt I got last year.

I actually have been working on revisions on last year's Nanovel this past weekend. I've gone from around 80k to almost 83k. That was just from adding some of the scenes I felt were necessary from the main female character's POV.

She was lacking- a flat character who I wasn't sure held up her end of the bargain on being the woman a reader would WANT and HOPE the main male character would end up. So I'm giving her depth and even found a friend for her that I didn't know existed. When I originally wrote the story, I had written it strictly from the male M/C's POV, but after having reviewed it a bit, thought back on how things play out and had time to think about it long and hard because I knew something was missing, it hit me one day that she wasn't nearly as deserving of the role I gave her in his life unless I wrote more of her side too.

I've also discovered just how LONG my chapters ended up being. There were only 13 chapters when I finished. Several chapters ran very long, without scene breaks where they should be, so that's been part of my revision plans...breaking them up where they need to be broken down. Changing my sentences to flow more smoothly, adding here, extracting there. I feel like a surgeon. LOL

So now I'm off to work on that some more- Operation: Polish This Novel!

Have a great Monday!

The Approach of November & NaNoWriMo

With NaNo's approach and holidays coming up, I probably won't be posting any more installments of my little blog novel for a while. I think I have another complete chapter, but from there, I don't have much else of it written on it and my brain has not been very cooperative in the past few weeks. (I blame Mercury in Retrograde for that. It ends on November 1st I do believe, which is just in time for NaNoWriMo.)

I started doing some revisions on my novel from last year's NaNo, but after just a few pages a couple of days ago, I haven't been able to wrap my mind around it again. It's almost like I have closed off my editor already. He's bound and gagged in the back room.

Then I have several more books in my TBR pile that I haven't read and right now, I just can't seem to sit still long enough to take up a book and get into one. It also weighs on my mind all the other books I would LIKE to add to my TBR pile. Those are my TBB books. It seems the list keeps getting longer the less time I have to sit and read! Hahaha!

Well, I hope everyone has a wonderful Friday and nice weekend!

Haven't Posted in a While

I've been kind of out of it the past week or so since my last post. Headaches mostly and being tired or getting housework caught up.

Tomorrow is my husband's birthday so I baked him a pineapple upside down cake this morning since I know we're going to be busy tomorrow while he's off work and I wouldn't have time to bake it since we've got to get my stepson off to school, drop daughter off with the grandparents and then go to Wal-Mart, then hit the grocery on the way back home, getting back here in time for stepson to get home from school and then going back to grandparents for a cookout I believe.

I have also been thinking about my Autumn decorations and I did share them on my myspace blog, but hadn't posted any here. I had some spooky lights, but they were over ten years old and started overheating, so I had to toss them. I did get a picture of them though before I had to take them down. They were melting the plastic covers.

My hubby got me some purple lights but they are so dark they don't show up in pictures or I would post a picture of them.

I do have my front door decoration though that my mom made for me, pictured below. Next to it is a basket flower arrangement I made with some craft things my mom gave me.

I have a fiberoptic Jack O' Lantern too and though the picture is a bit blurry, I have included it as well. Hope you have a Great Day!

Beware The Boredom!

Over the next few weeks and the next month, I'm sure to blog a lot about participating in NaNoWriMo 2007. If I start to bore anyone to tears, let me know! LOL

Right now I'm trying not to think too much about my NaNovel. It makes my fingers all twitchy with anticipation. So in the meantime, I've been visiting the forums for NaNo and I made myself a tag for my signature for my novel. Here's what it looks like-

Here's a snippit of what my novel is about-

Can Wes, the man Melody once loved, forgive her betrayal? Especially when he finds out the truth about why she left him behind to become the big Nashville star? And will Melody's return to her small hometown years later reveal a secret that could destroy his love for her forever?

See, I have a blurb I wrote when I got the idea and though I don't normally share my stuff I'm working on, I will post it here.

"Melody Russell was as famous as any country singer could be. She had it all~ the money, the glitz, the glamour, best selling albums and sold out stadiums. She'd given up everything to follow her dream, but when her grandmother's heart attack calls her home after sixteen years away, she comes back to mixed emotions and opinions. While some are starstruck and in awe, her character comes under fire from others, but Melody begins to see having it all means nothing without being true to yourself, having family and most of all~ having Love.

Wes Stanford had always wondered why Melody had run off on him. He had been working hard in college to make a good life for them and he had thought that was what she wanted just as much as her music career. She left his heart crushed on his sleeve without saying goodbye, just when he'd intended to ask her to marry him. He hadn't forgotten her, nor had he moved on, as if always sensing she'd have to come "home" someday. Maybe then he'd get the answers he needed. How could he have known the 16-year-old secret that "haunted" Melody would surface upon her return and change their lives forever?

Would the truth drive Wes away from Melody? Or would he be able to hear the song of her heart and give her the one thing she'd regretfully given up all those years ago- the loves of her life."

Well, that's it for me for now- Have a great day.

Revving up for NaNo

Last year I participated for the first time in National Novel Writing Month and I succeeded in reaching the goal of 50,000 words in 30 days. I actually finished my novel by the end of November and I was proud and exhilarated.

See, I had previously been working on my 1st novel sporadically over the past decade or so. Life had always been too busy, too hectic, to finish it, but I had finally finished it at the end of September of last year. I was just thrilled I had finally completed my first draft of my first novel after struggling with it for ten years off and on.

It was shortly after that I found out about NaNoWriMo. The process intrigued me- write a 50k novel in 30 days! Impossible!

Or so I thought.

NaNo is truly a challenge with yourself. Of course you can chat with others, have discussions and whatnot on their forums, but it's not really a competition against others. It tests your own skills and pits you against your own fears and doubts, hopes and dreams. When I read up on what it was all about, I knew I had to do it. I mean, in all honesty, I thought it would take me ten years to write any novel. Look at how long it took to write my first one! LOL

But last November I made an amazing discovery about myself. I CAN write that much, if not moreso, in 30 days. Given a deadline made all the difference I believe. I wrote and finished the first draft of my 2nd novel during NaNo last year.

Of course, the high speed race to finish did leave me with brain drain for a couple of months after and I was going through a lot of stuff personally as well toward the end of the year last year. I've come a long way since then. Somewhere between Feb and April, I was blessed with an overflow of novel ideas.

I was also damned to almost insufferable pain with my teeth, but once that was over and I was back to myself, back to feeling "normal," I dug in, picked one of my favorite novel ideas that I just knew I had to write. I wrote and finished my 3rd novel between the middle of July and the middle of August.

Once I was done with that, I went back and did some major overhaul to my 1st novel- revisions, editing out stuff that just didn't fit, adding things that seemed to enhance the story. I've been participating in the Coffee Write story on Coffee Time Romance's forums and also including my "Arms of the Right Man" on here as a "blog novel." I call it my blog novel because I don't foresee ever submitting it to an agent or publisher, just something to play around with, testing my writing chops out in the open, which is taking a step outside my comfort zone. I rarely share anything I've written outside of family/friends. (BTW, any feedback, advice, or comments are welcome).

So now the time of NaNo is upon us again and I've got my novel idea picked out and I'm anxious to get started...but can't until November 1st. If I succeed again at writing and finishing a 50k+ novel again this year, I will have 4 novels written. Last night I started going through my printed manuscript of my novel from last year's NaNo, doing revisions- marking and highlighting changes I feel are necessary to the story.

I'm trying to distract myself from thinking about my NaNo novel for this year. It makes my fingers tingle at the idea of getting started. So for now I'll not think about it. Or try not to.

Have a great day. I will be posting the 6th installment of Arms of the Right Man later.

My Journey "Home"~ Through the Lens

This has been a rough week. Well, it wasn't so bad when we went to visit my family on Monday. It was a lovely day that started off with a beautiful sunrise sky filled with pinks, lavender grays and citrus burning oranges, as you can see to the right. I took my camera along for pics of my family of course, but I caught a lot of beauty in nature as well. This shot was taken just before we left out house that morning around 6:30am or so. I usually catch my breath at seeing nature unfold before my eyes, but to capture it on film humbles me and I thank the heavens for such an opportunity.

The sky directly above the car before we left the house was like cotton balls rolling across the sky, the pink tint reminding me of calamine lotion, leading me to ponder if the sky had poison ivy. LOL

Or if it had a hankering for cotton candy. Soft and transparent, sweet and satiny. If I could have reached up far enough, I could've imagined plucking it from the heavens to have a taste, the fluffy texture melting right on my tongue.

Everywhere I looked, I heard little gasps escape me. I couldn't believe what a gorgeous day we'd gotten up to or what a lovely day it would be.

Riding down the road away from home proved to show off more eyecatching arrays of the fabric makeup of the sky.

Some reminded me of ribbons and courdorouy, rippling across the sky. The shifting strands, the way the hidden globe beyond the horizon illuminates different layers. It was absolutely awe-inspiring. That touch of beauty...that touch of grace, in a world where we take so much for granted and forget about the small things as well as the important things.

Some, like silk, a bright thin blade slicing across the sky leaving a deep gash, opening it in golden rays of irridescent sheets, blanketing the morning in softness and sensuality. Tendering the heart and lightening the spirits. Deep breaths and fresh air, cool breeze blowing in the window, wheels speeding us along toward the place I called home for 26 years of my life. The place where my roots run deep and my surroundings are so familiar I could find them in the darkness before the light.

But then I saw, as I've always referred to them, "the fingers from heaven." Those rare times that the sunlight breaks through thick dark clouds and shoots of glowing fingers aim down toward the earth, clasping us in the protective hand of all that was, is and will be. Clouds with silver linings indeed, power hidden behind shiny gray armor that looks as soft as flannel. It's as though we're being spoken to, not with words, but with visions you can behold with the naked eye and warmth, like a touch, not just upon your skin, but your heart and soul.

The day was spent enjoying time with my aunt and cousins and my grandmother, along with my parents and sister. And just like the day came in bright and exhilariating, it seemed fitting that when we headed home that evening, around 6:30pm, the high of my day was settling. There was a calm in heading back to the place I now call home with my husband and children, and the sky had softened, reflecting my mood at the close of the day and the end of my visit with my family, my touch of home base, my roots.

Fading into dark pastels, the night began to cloak us, wrapping us in the change of mood, and hiding the heaviness of my heart that I had to leave once again.

It's hard to live so far from where I grew up. I get melancholy and wistful missing "home" and for a 32-year-old wife and mother, it's absurd to think that I long for my hometown and miss it so much. I suppose it's hard though considering that I grew up believing I would NEVER leave and though I made the decision to do so, sometimes I don't think it has really hit me that I really did leave.

In some ways, my roots run so deep that I don't think I've ever left it behind. Not really. And I doubt I ever will. It's where I'm from, but more than that, it's where my writer's heart was born. And my writer's heart cannot forsake it's birthplace.