The Book is Done!

The book has been done for a couple days, in fact, but it's taken me that long to recover and get my brain back into some sort of working order. And actually, it's not completely done. Russ is reading it for me to help with some editing and to help put together an index. Then, off it will go! And I'll be done with it! Yay!

I am now working on the last run through on Silky 2, which should have been done before now, but had to be put aside or else I wouldn't have gotten either book done. Silky 2 is moving along very well now. I'm glad I didn't push it, because I've found a few places that needed considerable work. I've added quite a bit already.

But here is a little section from the first chapter that I really like:

"Oh, do watch yourself, my lord." Queen Maris leaned forward and this time
Garver sat back, his face paling just a little, and his hands fluttering as
though he expected her to leap forward and attack. "Do be very careful of
what you say in my presence. I have put up with a great deal of your
boorish bad manners in the last year, and I have decided this is the last
warning you are going to get. I brought you to my palace this morning
because you made statements last night in the presence of foreign dignitaries,
and they found your statements both outrageous and even treasonous. They
came to me to tell me of such things -- this from people who are not even my
subjects. I am inclined to think you are only stupid -- don't glare, Lord
Garver, because treasonous is not entirely out of the question yet since that is
the other choice. Am I clear on this, Lord Garver?"

I've already written about 4k on a new outline as well. I really didn't need to start a new outline, but I had used some bits of it for examples in the nonfiction book, and I decided I wanted to see where it would go. I think it is going to be a NaNo book if I can work my way through the rest of it.

I just spent this morning trying to get caught up on the extra little DAZ work I need to do. I have to start working on the next newsletter, but that shouldn't be too bad. I just have to get my mind around the items for this week and figure out what pieces could go with them.

And they are trenching out in my alley today. They supposedly have all the underground stuff marked, but I keep expecting to lose power or Internet. Life works that way for me. I'm just curious why they had to mark the underground stuff all the way from the front of my house back to the alley. I sure hope they don't intend to do more than dig up the alley!

Okay, it's time for me to get back to work. I have other things I need to get caught up on as well, but mostly I'm going to go back to work on Silky 2!

Going well!

The book is over 60,000 words and I still have a bit more to write, so all is going well there. Russ was supposed to come home this weekend, but it looks like we'll have to wait for Labor Day weekend instead. As things go lately, that's not so long a wait.

I've been doing a lot of research for this book, pulling out a number of favorite nonfiction books from Matt Ridley's Genome to J. Bronowski's The Ascent of Man. I haven't looked at that last one in a long time, and I'd forgotten how readable and fun it was. I think I'm going to put it aside to re-read after I get other things done.

I've also been listening to one of the Barnes and Noble Portable Professor collections -- this one on Ancient Rome. I had listened to part of it before and I really loved it. Last night, I took it into bed and listened to the first two lectures, and it was wonderful. We have a large collection of these types of things, most of them on American History (Russ's favorite), so I'll likely be listening to quite a few for a while here. It was interesting, with the lights off and the head phones on, and to have nothing at all distracting me from what was being said.

Learning things is always so much fun.

I've still been walking most mornings -- though not this morning because of a major storm. I am, however, working at switching my days around so that it's not the last thing I do before I sleep, but rather the first thing I do when I wake up. This is a big change, and I don't know if I'll like it. If not, I'll just go back to night work. I just figure it doesn't hurt to switch things around now and then. The good thing about doing much of my work at night is that there are no distractions at all... except for the cats and an occasional storm. Day time has noises, birds in the yard, mail going by... and things I could be doing rather than writing.

Maybe I need to have some of those other things. Maybe not. We'll see.

Anyway, back to the book. I'm working in the last few pieces and then I have to look at the ending piece again, because I really don't think I like it. I may still pull a couple thousand words and do something different.

I think it's turned out to be a good book. Let's hope the publisher thinks so as well! Though, having mentioned this work to one other publisher has gotten that one interested, so maybe all will not be lost anyway!

I've still be walking most mornings. Couldn't go yesterday because of a storm, but I've already been out for a walk today. It was a great day for it, too. Lots of lovely pictures, including the one I posted here. I just got back, and I think I'm going to go back to work on some writing.

Closer to done!

Hello. Yes, back already! I thought I'd just write some notes out during the day as they occur to me, and then post later. Maybe.

Today's work is divided between the DAZ Studio PC Newsletter and the nonfiction book. It's only 10:30 am and I've already been bouncing back and forth between them. Keeping focus is difficult some days... but I did finally have a breakthrough on the newsletter. That's always good.

The newsletter takes a lot more imagination and writing skill than you might expect for something so short. I'm handed the three files with the items so I can test them out, and I edit the pages on the site as well -- which actually helps, because it allows me to start thinking about them a few days before I have to do the work. Sometimes the newsletter items are all related, and I can do a little 'story' with them. I also choose four older items to go with the material and write a single line for each, linking them back to whatever item it is related to. The only other part is a short paragraph on the render challenge of the month, and pick out two pictures from the last week to showcase there. I also grab pictures for all the items, something out of the gallery, and a few other odds and ends. Then I put it all together and I'm done for a couple days until the new stuff comes out.

It's not a lot of writing, and the html is pretty easy stuff once you get the template done. It's fun, in fact, most weeks.

Oh look, it's actually the next morning. I guess I'll post this in a few minutes and get to work on other stuff! Or maybe I'll get other things done first. (grin) FM is now updated, and a huge amount of updates to the County site are done, and I even managed some work on the book.

I am looking forward to having the book done, which I think is going to happen in the next couple days. I have a large section I'm still debating -- about 3k words -- that might come out, but that's still not a lot more writing even if I have to replace it with something else.

It's coming down to the end, and my mind is already starting to leap over to the idea of finishing a couple fiction pieces. That's probably not good -- I need to focus on the last of this book. But I'll get there!

And I think I'll go ahead and post this before I think of any other boring stuff to write!

Ummm.... Hello!

Hello

I'm embarrassed to not have come back here more often. I don't know why I don't. I think about it now and then, but almost immediately get buried under something else. And it's not been a good month or two anyway. Maybe if I feel as though I have something good to write about, I'll come back here?

I am writing, of course. I had to do something I've rarely had to do in the past, though. Since I have a nonfiction book due in early September, and it was just dragging along, I dropped everything else and won't allow myself to write any fiction until I'm done with it.

That little ploy worked. I have about 7,000 more words to go. I expect to be done within a week. And you know what? I'm actually enjoying it. Once I forced myself to concentrate, the book started to flow and I've been having a great time writing it.

The only other real work I have is for the DAZ Newsletter. It's going pretty well, too. Other things... not so great in many ways, but I'm pulling through it. Russ might be home around the 8th of August, though we're not certain. I hope he can make it. I'd like a little human company for a day or two. And maybe get away from the house, too.

Though, on the really good side, I have started taking walks at dawn most mornings. I found that the local bike path goes down to the river, which makes a pleasant place to walk, partly through some wild trees and then through corn fields and down under the railroad bridge. It's generally cool enough in the mornings that it doesn't bother me. Heat and I don't get along at all. There are lots of birds, rabbits, and I saw a couple raccoons, too. I've been told that in the spring and fall there are a good many deer -- which are there now, but you can't see them because the corn is too high.

I am behind on a few other things, though. The second Silky book should have been turned in this month. I just couldn't do it. I will have it done in August.

And I have so many unfinished projects from this year that I'm not certain how I'm going to get them all written before the end of December! There's something to really push me on to get this one done! I'm running out of time. That doesn't happen very often!

I am tempted to try and make a daily entry here for a while, just to get back into the habit of it. And you know, talk about that writing stuff that I enjoy so much.

I wrote something interesting...but....

I wrote something I really liked today... but there is a problem with it:

Mark Carter should never have followed the ghost of Allisia, his murdered wife, down a dead end street.

Two years after the shocking death of his wife, Mark has finally put aside his grief, sold his home, packed away his wedding pictures, and taken a new job. At twenty-five, he's even found a new romance. Then, on a stormy afternoon, he sees the ghostly apparition of Allisia jogging along the road where she had died. In a frenzy of shock and grief, he leaps from the car and runs after her... and into a perilous world of shadows and ghosts, truths and deceptions.

Mark has stumbled into a world that parallels his own, and there he learns that his wife was not really human and is not fully dead, but rather is trapped in the area between worlds, where dangers he could never have imagined stalk her -- and now hunt him as well, as the link back to the world of light.

He also learns of Allisia's part in a plot to invade his world, but that she had defected and is now paying the price for her love of him. Uncertain whom he can trust in this new world, and learning he might become trapped as well, he still joins forces with her to fight back her former commander and defeat the dark forces bent on invasion. Their success is bittersweet, however, since Allisia can't come back with him, and he
must leave the shadow lands or risk being the key that opens the doors for others.

Dead End Street is a completed urban fantasy novel of 96,500 words. The book has potential for additional stand-alone novels featuring Mark, his dead wife and the trouble brewing between the two worlds.

So, what's the problem?

I haven't written this book. And now I want to. And I have far too many other things to do.

But it does look like an interesting little story, doesn't it?

My life is getting too odd when I can write the synopsis and then think about the novel.