Romance Is In The Air...

I've started working some more on finishing up Anemone's Song, my novel. I'm probably into the last third of my book, now. I'm hoping to finish it by the end of August, latest, if I can keep the momentum going that I have right now. I've written pages and pages in the last two days. See, I write at work. Whenever our queue is empty, we are allowed to read or write or basically do most anything except use the computer for non-work purposes or play with anything that makes noise, like cell phones. So it's kind of like working two jobs at the same time, some days. I figure I may as well take advantage of this while I have the chance, and I realized that I hadn't been, much. So, I forced myself to start writing at work, and although it was a little difficult to start at first, I managed to muddle my way through a scene that was giving me trouble. Then things started to fall into place, and I'm writing like the blazes now. I just hope I can keep it up.

I discovered today, though, that my ending had changed somewhat. But I really think it's a better ending, overall, and I think I know a way to incorporate at least a bit of the old ending into the new one, so it's almost like having the best of both worlds. And...and I think it may not be a one shot, after all. I mean, it will stand alone, but I think I have an idea for a sequel of sorts. I'll have to develop it
more later to see if it will actually work, though.

I think that the two main love interests in the story are almost my favorite couple, as far as my characters go. Second only to another couple. Maybe even on par with them. And it's not because the couples are similar to each other. Actually, they're very different in a lot of ways. But there's just something about this particular couple. They just have a ton of chemistry, much like another couple of characters I know. *happy sigh*

Well, now that the new ending is finished (I completed it just before posting this), I just need to go back and fill in the pages between part three and the ending.

Life is good.

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Settling In

I found my Writer's Market, as well as a whole host of other writing books and manuals, but I know there are others somewhere that I have yet to unpack. It just doesn't look like enough. I have to have more than that. I'm at least missing a few. I hope I find them soon.

So I am currently trying to sort through and organize all of my books, including my writing books. We bought a new bookshelf at a yard sale for a good price, and now it's just a matter of time and organization to get them all set up the way I want to.

And being that I worked in a bookstore for a little over two years, you can bet I am anal about my books. I organize them into different sections, then alpha by author, then by series order, if say a prequel was published after a series. If not, then I put them in publication order, and...well...it seems like I get more anal every time I organize them. And as such, it takes days.

Which is why it is a once or twice a year project at most.

Are other writers as picky as I am about having books organized? (I still find myself tidying up and re-organizing books into the proper order in bookstores to this day; usually I don't even notice until someone else points it out.) Or is it just because I used to work in a bookstore?

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Pure Masochism

Submitted my short story about the vampire cows to a magazine called Weird Tales, on Sunday. Unfortunately, they are almost filled up for 2009, so my chances aren't that great. The move to our new place kind of threw everything out of whack for a while, and I didn't get to submit it even close to as soon as I orignally wanted to.

Still working at my temporary job. No idea how much longer they'll need me. Hopefully for a while yet.

I'm going to see if I can find where I put my Writer's Market after I unpacked my writing books, and start compiling a list of other publications to reject my story.

No, I'm not depressed. In a very masochistic way, I find it amusing, even while I'd rather just have someone stomp all over me repeatedly. I need to get all of my rejection letters out and hang them on the wall again, so I can laugh maniacally until someone comes at me with a straight-jacket.

Writing is a love-hate relationship with the voices in your head.

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Ending an Ending?

I've almost finished my newest short story. Or perhaps I have finished it, depending on how you look at it. See, the ending that I intended to write isn't yet written, and the end of the scene I wrote last night would make a great ending, if somewhat more depressing (but powerful). So I have to decide whether to end it there or not. I'm very tempted to, based on my instincts. And yet, I almost hate to leave it ended without some snippet of hope.

But maybe if I end it the way I orignally intended, it wouldn't be half as good, you know?

I have a lot to mull over.

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Not Dead Yet...

It's been way too long since I last posted. Do I have an excuse? Eh, not really. I lost my job a few weeks ago, and I just haven't had the heart or the willpower to bother posting on my blog, even though I've been accomplishing a decent amount of writing.

I started a new short story, which I'm almost finished with already. I'd guess that I'm 2/3 of the way through, if not more. And I have some other short story ideas that I've been jotting down for later use. I bought a new short story compendium the other day; it's called Many Bloody Returns, and it features one of my favorite authors, Charlaine Harris, but it also includes Jim Butcher, another author that I've recently started to like a lot, thanks to my husband lending me his Dresden Files books after he finishes them.

Anyway, between that compendium, which I'm still reading, and a couple of other short story collections I have, I find that coming up with workable ideas for short stories is getting easier--but not yet what I would call easy, by any means. I've found myself analyzing them as I read, and I think that it helps. It's nice to know that even though I've never met these authors, they're teaching me and helping me with their writing and they don't even know it. I hope that I can do the same for other writers one day.

But first I have to get published.

I'm working on it, believe me. More to come on that at a later date. My daughter is getting restless and wants to eat.

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Happy Easter!

For all of those who celebrate Easter, I hope that today was a very peaceful and joyous occasion for you. For my own family, we had a good Easter, if a rather uneventful one. And yet, that does not bother me too much. My days are so hectic since I started working again that I can use some peaceful, uneventful weekends. There's time enough for the craziness of easter egg hunts and the like next year, when our daughter is old enough for them.

My daughter is one year old now. She had her birthday last weekend, just before Easter. It is hard to believe that a whole year has gone by already. She's growing up so fast.

In terms of my writing, I haven't been able to do as much as I'd like since my evenings are so hectic after work, but my daughter is starting to sleep until mornings now, and so I'm able to get a little writing in again on some nights. I'm trying really hard to finish up my novel, Anemone's Song, and I'm looking at markets for my short story about the vampire cows. I'm really hoping to get published this year, whether it's a short story or a novel (looking doubtful on this front, given the current pace of my writing), or poetry. I just hope it's soon.

You see, I have really been wanting to re-dye my hair red. I have this obsession with red hair since I think it's so beautiful, and I used to dye it back in college. Long story short, I went back to brown, my natural color, before I got married, and so I've been a brunette for a couple of years or so now. But I really want to dye my hair red again. Only I decided that I won't allow myself to dye my hair again until I get published.

I'm hoping it will serve as extra motivation to get more writing done and to keep plugging away at trying to get published. I'm just afraid that now that I've promised myself that, I'll never have red hair again...

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To Market, To Market...

As I sat down to update this blog and pondered what to write about, my daughter decided that she wanted to climb into my lap and volunteer her services. Being that most people are not fluent in reading baby gibberish, however, the backspace key came quite in handy.

I have been perusing markets to submit my short story to, seeing as it didn't win the contest. I have found some promising leads; one in particular seems like it would be a perfect match. They are not open to new submissions until March 31st, however, so in the meantime, I'm going to go back over my story and see if there's anything I want to change. I felt like I pared my story down so much, cutting out a lot of good description and dialogue, just to meet the word limit for the contest. This particular publication, however, has larger word limits, and so I might add some things back in.

I don't want to add things just for the sake of adding, though. I think I will have to get some outside opinions on this.

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