Just Dropping In

Long time, no post. I hope everyone who celebrates Thanksgiving had a wonderful one!

I think this might be the longest I've gone between blog posts in a few years, maybe even the longest ever. I just haven't really had all that much to blog about over the last three weeks. Partly because I just haven't had much to say, but also partly because I was deeply immersed in this year's NaNoWriMo.

I started it late this year due to the hurricane (or superstorm, or whatever it actually was.) Well, sort of late. I did begin it on November 1, writing longhand in a spiral notebook I'd bought in anticipation of losing power with the hurricane (based on what happened after Tropical Storm Irene, I took no chances when Sandy was bearing down on us.) So while we had no electricity, I managed to fill nearly twenty pages of that notebook. Which then had to be transcribed into the computer, which took a few days. Then I was able to get back into the story. And it just took off.

Some NaNos are a real battle. Tiger Eyes began life as a NaNo project and every one of those 50k words was a struggle. It wasn't until about 3/4s of the way into that book, that writing it became enjoyable. Then there was the year I did NaNo while in the midst of edits on several other books. Because of the past, I almost decided not to do NaNo this year. I didn't sign up until the very end of October because I wasn't sure I wanted to put myself through it again.

But this time around, the story came easily. Despite the late start, I had a bunch of days where I did 5k+ words, so I quickly made up for the lost time. And this project was fun to work on - for the most part. There were still a few days when I just didn't want to be bothered, so I took those days off and said to hell with the daily word count. And I found out that doing so actually worked to my advantage. I took a day here, a day there, and when I came back, I was a writing fool.

And now we're getting into the swing of the holiday season, so I doubt I'll be back to regular blogging any time soon. I'm halfway through the book that my NaNo project is going to be and the writing is going well, so I'm concentrating on that. It's a bit of a change from my previous books - this one takes place in 1885 in the Southwest, so it deals with cowboys and bounty hunters and a road trip through the New Mexico Territory to Chicago and it's been fun to write so far. Fun, but time consuming.

So, if I don't see you before then, have a Merry Christmas (or a Happy Hanukkah) and I'll see you in 2013 (unless the Mayans were onto something and the world ends on December 21st. :D)

Home Projects

We've lived in our house almost five years now, and I'm still in the process of making it ours. When we lived in the townhouse, it looked the same the day we moved out, as it did the day we moved in. How sad is that? I think I changed the curtains in the kitch--nope, now that I think about it, even the damn kitchen curtains remained the same. They were white, lace-type curtains with geese and ducks on them. Geese. And. Ducks. Damn, how lame it that?

I'm proud to say there are no geese and ducks in my house now. But I am still making this my home, even if it is taking forever. It needs to be repainted, but that's a job I'm dreading, so I'll put it off for as long as possible. Besides, my son's room gets a redo first and I'm planning that for this spring/early summer. One thing at a time. First his room, then the Girl's room (which has the ugliest paint scheme I have ever seen. One wall is pale green, the other three are this awful shocking Pepto-Bismol pink. So. Effing. Ugly. I can't stand it. And the pink's going to be a nightmare to cover, I'm sure.) Then I'll tackle the rest of the house.

When we first moved in, and my kids finally had their own rooms, I bought the cutest valances for the Boy's room. I don't know why I didn't for the Girl's room, but I didn't. They both had miniblinds, and that was fine. Until the Boy ripped off the cord on one of the miniblinds in his room. For the last year, the blinds have been down on the one window. It takes me a while to get around to these projects - mostly because they never go smoothly and I'm afraid the spike in my blood pressure will make the top of my head blow right off and because my kids don't need to be exposed to the type of swearing such projects usually bring forth. I'm very creative when properly riled.

Well, I got sick of his room always being kind of dark, so I thought curtains would be nice. For both kids, since I can't really buy for one and not the other. So I'm going to get curtains and hang them. No problem.

Riiiight.

Ugh. There are two windows in the Boy's room. First, I had to wrestle off the valance rods. Managed to do that without wrecking anything. Then, I dropped the first screw for the first bracket probably a dozen times before I got it to stay anchored. After that, it was relatively smooth sailing. It only took about 2 hours longer than I expected and I was able to take down the miniblinds without destroying the wood around the window, so yay me! I'll tackle the Girl's room later on today. Hers shouldn't be too bad, since she only has the blinds and they are staying put because, unlike her brother, she didn't wreck them.

Of course, I probably just jinxed myself. If you hear someone weaving a colorful tapestry of obscenities later on, it's probably me and I'm not going to apologize. :D

Shifting Gears

OMG.

Yes. I'm blogging. Woo hoo!

Well, now don't get too excited, since every time I think (and say) I'm back, I go **poof** just as quickly.

So, let's just enjoy this while we can, 'mkay?

Anyway, first off, thank you so much to everyone who commented on my last post. You have no idea how much it meant, reading your kind words. It helped me get through what's been undoubtedly the roughest few months of my life. My mother is doing a little better, but not much. Still, each day is a gift and that's how I have to look at it.


Things are starting to calm down a little. A Perfect Lady is off to my editor. I'm going through the print galleys for Tiger Eyes (**coughcough**available on Amazon for preorder. Order early. Order often**shamelessplug**coughcough**) and that's it. I'll have a clear schedule (until the edits for APL come in, that is) and I'm already plotting out two more books, and finishing the third Sebastiano book. Yay!

I'm taking a break from the Georgian/Regency era for a while. You Belong to Me, After the Storm, Devil in Disguise, The Pursuit, Playing with Fire, and A Perfect Lady are all set in those time periods and I'm a little burned out from it. For some time, I've wanted to write a western-set historical, which I did for NaNoWriMo, and I'm planning (hoping?) on finishing that sometime before the end of the year.

I'm looking forward to the change. I love the Georgian/Regency eras, but I don't know if I'll write any more books set in either time period. At least, not in the strictest sense of the words. I'm a strict believer in never-say-never, but right now, I have no plans to. I do have two WIPs that are nearly finished (as in submission ready) so while I may sub those somewhere, I have no plans to write anything new.

Change is good for the soul. Hopefully it'll be good for the stories, too. :D

And Done!

Change finals to edits, and you have... ME!

ahem...


Okay - so I've had Angel of Darkness on hold for what seemed like forever. The characters (Gabriel and Regan) just wouldn't see reason, and I got tired of fighting with them so I shelved them. In the meantime, I've been busy with other, less frustrating projects. I've been editing. I've been revising (and how! My Aspen Mountain Editor is beyond tough. But, I have to admit, The Pursuit is going to be one kick-ass book when it's whipped into shape!)

Well, at the end of last week, I took a little break to prevent some serious burn out. For some reason, I decided to skim through Angel. It was the first time I'd looked at it since shelving it and I wasn't planning on working on it. I just wanted to peruse it.

Next thing I knew, I had a breakthrough and ended up adding about 10k words to finish the damn first draft. Yay! So that's one more project off my to-do list. My goal was to get all current projects finished in some way, shape, or form. Now I get to check this one off and there was a time when I wasn't at all sure it would ever even see the words The End tacked onto it.

Whew.

And now back to the revisions...