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Texas Redbud in bloom.

I seem to be starting a new tradition of only posting on the last day of the month. I’ll be hard-pressed to keep that up, with Easter falling on the last day of March (and how crazy is that, anyway?). So maybe I’ll get into a more frequent posting groove.

Or not.

Spring has…sprung. Sprang? Sprung. Sprung. Is that even a word now? Sprung. Ahem. The skies are blue, flowers are blooming, birds are singing, and our children have gone stark. Raving. MAD.

What is it about Spring that makes them so completely insane? L can barely get through a school day without being reprimanded for goofing off and distracting the other kids lately. M is…M, but moreso. Those of you who know my children personally will understand how trying that is.

Meanwhile, my husband has escaped by taking a business trip to San Diego. I can’t wait for him to get home in a few hours so I can flee the house  let him get some quality time with the boys. Maybe then I can relax enough to get some work done. I need to update my goals, because I’ve had zero luck sneaking in work time between refereeing the rodeo of Spring Madness and preparing for our Spring Break plans.

Writing Goals:

• Complete revision on Palace of Bone by the end of June 2013
• Rework unnamed Earth Warden story for submission by Feb 28 (This so didn’t happen–try again!)
• Rework unnamed Earth Warden story for submission by end of March
• Finish draft of “To Eat Dragon” by March 20
• Attend Dreamin’ in Dallas Conference March 29 – 30
• Re-do outline for “Dancer” story, still not working

The new timeline is all wishful thinking. Between Spring Break right around the corner, M‘s birthday right after that, and then the conference and Easter right at the end of the month, I figure I’ll be lucky to get one of these done. But hey, you never know until you try!

Photo by bogenfreund, used under Creative Commons license.

So how is everyone else faring in this post-Mayan-Apocalypse world? I have to say I’m pretty pleased the world didn’t end in December. The holidays were good to me, aside from the inevitable fifteen pounds I gained from “things I really shouldn’t eat but family made them, so I’ll just have a taste.” Oh, and immediately after New Year’s everyone in our family got sick. That made it a tad difficult to get back on the work-out wagon, but there’s always tomorrow. Or next month. Pass the Girl Scout cookies.

In the meantime, I’m starting over on my revisions with Palace of Bone. I’ve started the “How To Revise Your Novel” course by author Holly Lisle, and while the process is difficult for me (hello analytical brain, nice to know you’re still in there) it makes so much more sense than what I was doing, which basically amounted to agonizing over individual word choices while covering my ears and yelling “LA LA LA, I can’t hear you!” at the glaring plot holes and inconsistencies.

There’s something about reading your manuscript on paper that makes it look more real. Suddenly I can’t just wipe out an embarrassing typo with two clicks of the mouse. Nor can I delete the three sentences of redundant dialogue that make my protagonist sound like a babbling idiot and blithely pretend I never wrote that drivel in the first place. I have to face my drivel. It’s humbling, and it’s hard to get through it without wanting to give up.

I have faith that the story will emerge from this process stronger and better. Or, at the very least, I will have learned a few things about crafting a story without plot holes you could drive a Mack truck through. Hopefully. Wish me luck, won’t you?

Or send cookies.

Writing Goals:

• Complete revision on Palace of Bone by the end of June 2013
• Rework unnamed Earth Warden story for submission by Feb 28
• Finish draft of “To Eat Dragon” by March 10?
• Attend Dreamin’ in Dallas Conference March 29 – 30
• Re-do outline for “Dancer” story, still not working

Photo by Ed Schipul, used under Creative Commons License

I know it’s still actually summer. And for large swathes of the country, it’s even still summer vacation. Not here, baby! Yeehaw!

L went back to school on Monday, M is in preschool three days a week, and all the crazy running-around-to-visit-family is behind us for a while. Not that I don’t love visiting. It just plays merry hell with any attempt at scheduling, routine, and writing.

This has left me a little depressed, to be honest. I feel like I’m falling behind (weird, since I have no deadlines as such). There’s a sort of pressure that builds up inside when I’m not actively working on anything, and it tends to come out as…crazy. Yeah. So, time to let off some steam!

So, with that in mind, here are my goals for September:

• Finish revisions on unnamed Bell Hunter story.
• Complete current revision pass on Palace of Bone through at least chapter 10.
• Rough draft of “dancer” story.
• Use more unordered lists on the blog because I love those cute little spirals!

Yesterday, I asked my brain to get serious about this whole “editing and revising” thing we’re supposed to be doing. Instead, my brain flashed a shiny new 4000 word short story at me.

So we went with that. Now I have two things to edit and revise. I ask you, brain, what the hell was the point of that little detour, hmm?

Still, it did let me work out some world building and details for a character who’s been kicking around the back of my head for a while. Once my brain has recovered from its current puddingy consistency (don’t ask), I’ll write up a bit about Bell. I think you’re going to like her.

Well, I like her, anyway. That’s good enough for now.

Yeah, I totally geeked out on the title there, sorry. Still, some +5 Shears of Editing would come in really handy right about now.

This particular novel wanted to be Young Adult, whatever I thought about that plan (I’m actually quite enjoying it). The average length on a YA novel tends to be on the lower. I’ve seen estimates ranging from 40,000 to 80,000 words with the caveat that only books with speculative fiction elements should be at the higher end of that range.

When I pitched this at Desert Dreams 2012, I couldn’t remember my exact word count after the latest revisions. I guesstimated that it was around 90,000 words–too high, but not ridiculously outside the realm of possibility, especially for fantasy.

Imagine my surprise when I finally sat down to work on further revisions this week and saw the actual word count: 94,000. Whoopsie!

Thankfully I already had plans to axe a couple of scenes. That brought me down to about 90,000 words yesterday. Today I condensed three more scenes, so I was feeling pretty good about my progress. Then I checked my current word count: 90,500.

I’ll be damned if the thing is getting shorter, but it’s definitely getting better.

Beth Cato and I stealthily blend into the landscaping.

So for those of you following along at home, Desert Dreams 2012 was a writers’ conference in Arizona, hosted by the excellent ladies of the Desert Rose chapter of the RWA. They did a fantastic job.

This was my first writing conference, and a chance to go somewhere sans children, so I was very excited. I planned to pitch my novel to an agent for the first time. I got the news late in the week that I’d be pitching to my friend Beth Cato’s agent, Rebecca Strauss. So yeah, I was a nervous wreck.

Complicating my plans was the fact that my older son came home sick during the week before the conference, severely cutting into my preparation time. Okay, I also discovered a tendency to panic and find a dozen last minute chores to take care of every time I sat down to work on my pitch, so that may have impacted my productivity as well. But hey, my cats are nicely waxed, so at least I have that going for me. Thankfully my travel plans went smoothly, kicking off with two of the women working the security checkpoint complimenting my hair. It was a weirdly auspicious start for the weekend. Anyway, here are a few notable moments from my trip to Desert  Dreams.

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That pretty much describes how I’m feeling post-conference. I came up too fast from my dive into the publishing world and tried to hit the ground running in Mom/hostess mode. Yeah…not so much.

Desert Dreams was a fantastic experience! It was inspiring to spend so much time around other people who understand where I’m coming from and why I spend long periods of time making things up for fun. I will write a more comprehensive post about the conference when I’ve recovered a little.

It will be a daring tale of cheese ninjas, blood sacrifice, and why you should always always drink the wine at the “Practice What You Pitch” panel.

No really. Seriously. Drink the damn wine.

I’ve had a few people ask about my previously published short fiction since my recent post about the new piece that will be published in June. For ease of reference, here are my previous short stories:

Eclectic Flash Volume 2

• “Payment Plan,” Eclectic Flash Volume 2 (April 2011)
• “Ma Sutton,” Silver Blade Magazine Issue 13 (Winter 2012)

They’re dark and darker, though one is at least darkly humorous. I’ll let you figure out which is which. How many times can I repeat the words in this paragraph before they stop looking like real words?

Well, after several days of panic-induced fiddling with installation, plugins, and whatnot, I finally have the site up and running again. Sort of, anyway. There will be some construction dust in the next few weeks as I try to restore as much of the site as possible, but for now, I’m just pleased that it’s visible and no longer randomly trying to direct people to websites I’d rather not associate with. Ahem.

Did I mention I’m taking a closer look at WordPress security measures? Yes indeedy. *sigh*