Category: works in progress

For the past year I have had trouble focusing on writing and I’ve found every excuse in the book. (Or so I think.)

But then along comes a blog post that motivates me beyond any of my expectations. There are a couple of folks I truly follow. One is Kristen Lamb and the other is Rachel Gardner. It almost seems like they synchronize their posts at times.

A recent post from Kristen talked about writers who may suffer from some amount of ADD. They tend to lose focus very easily. Those are the writers who have multiple projects going at one time. I was one of those a couple of years ago. Now I have two unfinished works to prove it.

Her post about keeping focus was right on.

People who find all sorts of excuses not to write can be contagious and I really do need to steer clear from them.

I have to write every day – even if it is only 200 words. I just have to do it, whether it is this blog or my work in progress or both.

During the last Round of Words in 80 Days I never set a true goal except for finishing Road Salt. That was back in January. Hello, it is now what – July? What is wrong with this picture? Along Came Neil should be done and in the middle of edits right now.

I know it is tough and I don’t know much about writing Romances. But I do know how to imagine how things could go in life even if the story is not realistic. Isn’t that what fiction is all about anyways. It is just a story and a good thing too. I wouldn’t want to be my main character after all she has been through and will continue to go through. Anyways, that’s what creating stories are all about.

Hello Land of Make Believe. Goodbye Reality.

By the way – I can’t stand Reality TV Shows. Give me a Soap Opera any day before you insist that I have to sit down and watch one episode of Big Brother or the Amazing Race.

I watch TV for the same reason I write, to escape reality.

So now that I have taken care of my latest excuse not to be working on my work in progress, I will now follow it with a bowl of ice cream and then get back to work.

 

J – Keep on Writing 6k words to go to the minimum word count for Along Came Neil. – I can do this – I can do this – I can do this…

Summer is in mid-swing and I have slipped and missed the completion date I had given myself for the first draft of Along Came Neil. This is the book that I thought I would have finished months ago.

Teen Contemporary is not an easy subject for me to write. Why I chose this subject to begin with is beyond me. Except for the fact that the first book I ever wrote was a Teen Contemporary. It was my way of dealing with feelings I was trying to process after my then 18 year old daughter had left me with when she had suddenly decided to leave home unexpectedly. Yes she had run away from home. I guess she thought the world would be a lot kinder to her than I was.

As time went on I learned that it really wasn’t me she was running from. She was told by a friend that since she was 18 she was an adult and she could do anything she wanted without consequences.

Well she learned otherwise as time went on.

Now I am proud to say she has begun to do well for herself and my now 3 year old granddaughter. I don’t get to see them often enough but I do know that she is surviving and doing the best she can do on her own.

Our relationship is not perfect but I do see that someday in the future when she is older and wiser we are sure to have that mother daughter relationship we always wanted.

So getting back to Teen Contemporary –

Since I’m not so crazy about writing Teen Contemporary why have I committed myself to writing this series?

First – I knew that Karla and Carol were going to have to reappear in another story. I wasn’t done with them just yet.

Then my son entered a long term drug rehab and he passed Friends of Choice off to his counselor. He was so proud that his mom wrote books.

She liked it and wanted me to write more of it.

What was I to say?

She was the one who sparked me to write Road Salt. She even loved the title of the book.

Then while I was trying to get past the first three chapters of Road Salt a close friend of mine said, “Linda, how about going to this writers group with me that meets in Bow, NH. I think you are really going to like them.”

This was last September. The group was the New Hampshire Chapter of Romance Writers of America.

I must say, this group changed the way I look at writing. No longer is this just a hobby that I do after work each day or on the weekend. My eyes are now open to a long term career.

At the moment I am self-published. Will I always be just a self-published author? Who can say?

Would I welcome an agent into my writing life? Well of course, I wouldn’t think of turning them down, especially if they were very compatible with me. I’m pretty easy going so it probably would be an easy fit.

Then there are the publishing houses – would I consider one?

Well, of course. I just haven’t learned the art of query letters yet.

So getting back on track – I have to get this Teen Romance done. Endings are one of the hardest parts for me and I want to get away from the loping off the ending for the sake of ending the book. It doesn’t work.

Once again I am stuck. I was stuck in the middle a few months back. That was when I had them catch the kitchen on fire. Now I have to calmly end the book without any disasters. There has to be some sort of compromise with the characters in the story so everyone gets something. It might not be what they want but it has to be something that they need. I just don’t know what that happens to be just yet.

As far as that Romance Writers Group – I will definitely be rejoining it this September. It is the best group I have met yet.

 

I can’t wait to get to work on the next book in my fantasy series – Orgarlan Saga. This is the other motivation for me to get Along Came Neil finished.