Thursday, March 05, 2009

Stuff on My Plate

Now that I finished the revisions on After the Storm, and am putting it aside for a bit to let it simmer before I give it that last read-through, it's time to tackle some of the other projects on my to-do list.

First, I finally got back to the gym. My back is feeling good and I'm only a little sore. It was six weeks of inactivity and it felt wonderful to be back. Keep your fingers crossed that I never, ever hurt my back again. It's a bad, bad thing to have happen.

My website's up and going, and so far, I haven't had any complaints (and if I did, I certainly wouldn't have any complaints about my Web Guy. Oh - right - I'm my web guy. And I won't jerk me around like my last web guy...)

Which left only a return to writing. I'm still researching for a story I want to write, but first I have a few more WIP to get off my desk. One is another Montgomery historical (After the Storm is the first in what I hope will be a series around the Montgomery family.) The second is an historical/paranormal that I let derail in spectacular fashion last spring - I haven't really looked at it yet, so I don't know if it can be salvaged, but I'm willing to try.

Now the last is a complete 180 from what I normally write. Not only is a contemporary romance, but it's a category romance as well. It's just about ready for submission, and I learned that it's much easier for me to write an 85k word novel than it is to write a 55k manuscript. I've had to slow down and switch gears because category length involves a much tighter writing style and less room for subplots and many characters (at least the line I'm targeting leaves less room for these things.)

The original draft of the story was somewhere around 65k - still ten thousand words too many. It's been difficult, going from sweeping, descriptive passages to tight, need-to-know basis passages. It's been a good lesson for tightening my writing, though, even if it hasn't been the easiest manuscript to write.

So, that's that, in a nutshell. I keep trying to get back to regular blogging, but I honestly don't know if I'll be able to until I get the sick out of my house. Since the middle of January, someone in my house has been sick. It's this evil boomerang sick that just won't go away completely, and I have to air out my house to get rid of it. It's supposed to in the 60s this weekend, so I'm really hoping to get the windows opened and get these stupid germs out of my house. Maybe then, we'll all get healthy and stay healthy.

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