Yay For Me!

After making my poor little wip sit and wait in a mid-revised state of distress, I have returned to my revisions. Finally! So maybe it should be Yay for WIP!

With the illnesses in the family and then the holiday and my mom's birthday and my mother-in-law's birthday, the 3rd and 4th respectively, I just got too busy to work on it. And there was the little side project I took on... Go Word Flirts!

But now the family seems to be recovering. The birthday mammas are all caked out and the Flirts are properly set off. So finally I get to return to my wip.

In the mean time, the hero from my wip has forced the other dueling heroes to back
off until I'm done revising. Just in case you forgot, a reminder of what he looks like is to the right.

The break has been nice, but I have to admit, I found the dueling quite... inspiring. Big sigh... I guess all good things must come to an end. At least it's only temporary.

My husband gave me the strangest look when he commented yesterday, "You look a lot less stressed." And I replied, "Yeah, the dueling has stopped for now." And went on about my business.

So I figure everyone hears characters from a story in their head. And if you don't, don't tell me. It'll only make me worry that I'm weirder than normal ;-). My question is this... How often do you find characters from one story interacting with characters from another? Sort of like the duel I've been experiencing?

April

Today's Post...

is at Word Flirts. :-)

April

How I Ended Up Married...

A question on Olga's blog brought back to mind for me, how my hubby and I ended up together.

You see, I met my hubby at the impressionable age of 11. The summer between our 6th and 7th grade years, my family moved to a new neighborhood. A neighborhood in which I was one of only two girls with a group of eight boys. Great odds for a young girl!

The story starts out rocky. Hubby lived a block away with his parents and younger brother. So it took longer for me to get to know him. In the mean time, the blond haired, green eyed pretty boy next door was attempting to make fast time with me. And sucker that I was for his dimples, I fell for him. Alas, that adolescent love was doomed from the beginning. Two years later green eyes moved away with his family when his father was restationed.

Hubby came around a bit more once green eyes was gone. And when I got my driver's license in high school, he rode to school with me too. Stubborn person that I was, I developed a crush on yet another guy. He was an older classman. And as embarrassing as it is to admit it now, hubby even rode along when I did the typical teenage drive by of my crush's house. Yet again, my poor little heart was destined to be broken to pits and pieces.

The summer between 10th and 11th grade, hubby and I spent a lot of time together. he worked on a project for his portfolio to get into Art school and I helped. Read: he needed to use my camcorder and I didn't trust him not to break it, so I supervised :-)

I can actually recall the moment I realized I felt more than friendship for him. We were walking through the halls of our school on our way to take the ACT, in the first few weeks of our junior year. And I looked up at him as he talked to a buddy. And I thought... "It's him. He's the one."

But I'm a coward. I mean... Hello, I'd already been crushed... TWICE! And I knew he'd laugh at me if I said anything.

So, I told the little first grader who lived on our street and was best buddies with hubby's little brother. I knew he couldn't keep a secret... but I also knew he was known for exaggerating and telling fibs. So if hubby reacted poorly, I'd just say he was lying. Only hubby threw a wrench in my plans. He decided for himself that the kid was lying. Argh!

Apparently this really offended the kid. And the next thing I know, the kid, hubby's little brother and their other first grade friend are working on setting hubby and I up. Long story short, the only thing that would convince hubby that it wasn't a joke was the horses mouth. But I wasn't talking. So, instead I did yet another typical teenage thing... I wrote a note. Check here if you like me too... Well, not that teenage, but still. It said something about liking him and being afraid to ruin a friendship, so no need to feel awkward if you think I'm a total dork. Not the best self-esteem. But hey.

So after waiting TWO WEEKS, hubby responded in kind and a first date was set. And now the rest is history....

As it turned out, he'd had a crush on me since the 7th grade, but didn't think I'd ever feel the same. Especially after riding past crush #2's house with me. Which I get reminded of from time to time :-).

And I explained to him that I'm a stubborn woman and he would have to just deal with that. I don't make up my mind until I'm good and ready. That may explain part of why it took us eleven years to get married.

As for green eyes, we still keep in touch and he's happily married with a little blond haired, green-eyed boy of his own now.

And the older classman... The last time I saw him was at a friend's wedding. He'd been in some trouble due to his bad boy ways, but was getting them straightened out. I hope he has.

As for me, who else can say they were set up by a bunch of first grade boys bent on match making?

How about you all? Any funny match making stories? Whether they worked out of not...

April

The Flirts...

Group blogs seem to be all the rage anymore... So, I am joining the craze along with a couple of other blog buddies.

Starting Wednesday, July 5th, I'll be posting here and at Word Flirts. See, Cole, it's not a secret :-).

I'll be joining Cole, Emma, Karen, Julie S, Sarah and Stacy in the venture. The current template is temporary, while another is in development. So check us out when you get a chance.

I will still be here full time and I promise to keep posting my... colorful pictures :-).

For now, I'm getting back to the revisions! See, Cole... I'm being good. Hubby is heading out of town to camp with his parent for the weekend, but he'll be back Sunday night. Just enough time for me to get some real work done. Hopefully. Then we're heading to my mom's house for the 4th. Her birthday is the 3rd, so we're going to cook out and eat birthday cake!

What are your plans for the holiday weekend?

April

Getting Back On Track...

On our trip back through the mountains of Tennessee, we stopped to watch the white water rafters take off on the Ocoee River, the site of the 1996 Olympic river games. It's a great run of white water and since it was the weekend, it was of course packed.

There were all types of people there. Families... school groups... sexy outdoorsmen... :-) After watching for a while, we got back in the car to finish out trek.

Only problem, for me at least, was that the car had filled up with some very sexy characters and exciting stories. A group of brothers in particular. And it seems that they are ganging up against the hero who's not-so-patiently waiting for his suspense story to get written.

They're claim is that their stories will be so exciting that they'll get written fast, so he won't have to wait long.

He's not buying it, so I'm letting them duke it out for who's next.

In the mean time, I thought I'd share a picture of my inspiration for the brother whose story will go first. Whether it's before or after the suspense remains to be seen.



At least their arguing is getting me back in the writing frame of mind. So today I will tackle my revisions again. I think I'll up my goal to 2 chapters a day. Maybe...

How's you're writing going?

April

Who Wants To Be My Relative?...

Thanks for all the well wishes for my grandmother! I'm happy to report she's home now and recovering. She had a scare with some chest pains this morning, but refused to allow the EMTs to take her to the hospital. I don't know if she's just so scared that any pain makes her jump or if it's something to really be concerned about. So, we're all keeping a close eye on the situation.

When I got home last night, my father-in-law had just been admitted into the hospital here. He had stroke like symptoms and he has had a stroke and a heart attack before, so that was the first concern. But we just heard that he is apparently suffering withdrawal from where they changed his diabetes medicine two weeks ago. Who knew... So now he's resting comfortably too and hopefully will be able to come home by tomorrow.

In the meantime, Hubby's grandfather in VA has been rushed into emergency surgery. He had two disks removed from his neck around father's day. And an infection has settled in where they did the surgery. So now he's back in surgery.

Did I mention my hubby's great aunt died last Thursday.

I'm afraid family members are going to start excommunicating themselves from the family to save themselves!

But we're all doing okay and holding down the fort. At least for right now, it looks as though everyone is going to pull through their illnesses.

So, here's my question for today: Who's brave enough to want to be my relative?

April

Changing formats...

I think it was Dee who recently gave this bit of advice and I decided to try it. Edited after original post: It was actually Karen who had blogged about learning it in a class she's taking. Which you'd think I would have recalled since I then asked her for a butt load of info on the class and instructor because I'm hoping to get her to teach a class for my chapter online. Anyway, Thanks, Karen!

She recommended changing the format of your ms while revising. For example, I compose in courier new 12 pt font, with double spaced lines. So I'm revising it single spaced, in times new roman.

The idea is that the new format will make the story look new to you and things will jump out easier.

I decided to do this for the first time with my second chapter of revisions and I was astonished at the difference it made! I saw so much more. And even better, it dropped the page count from 15 to 9 or 10, so it seemed shorter :-).

So I thought I'd pass along the idea to anyone who hadn't heard it.

It's so easy to miss things when you not only wrote the page, but have been staring at it for what seems like an eternity. Do you have any "tricks" to picking up things in revisions?

April

Also added after original post:
PS I'm leaving town this afternoon. My grandmother is sick and we're going to see her. So I won't be around this weekend and I didn't want anyone to wonder if my revisions had swallowed me whole :-)

Setting Things Up...

Recently there was some conversation on the Harlequin Blaze Boards about setting. Since I'm currently mulling over my next idea, setting is something that has been on my mind.

Just like in the movies, a book's setting should be an integral part of the story. In my humble opinion at least.

But setting intimidates me because I wouldn't call myself well traveled. I've been to all of the conventional places on the east coast. But since I live in the Southeast, I am most familiar with locations in that region. So I've been debating with myself whether or not I should stick to that area. But then I think... Would that be boring? I find that I often feel like I need to pick settings "away" from me.

Someone pointed out that a lot of Linda Howard's books are set in Alabama. I think that's where she resides. And they said it didn't disturb them that they were mainly set in that area.

The problem with setting my stories "away" is that I'm not as familiar with the places. The internet has a bunch of info, but you know it's not all correct and if you get a detail like that way wrong because of poor information, you stand to piss off some people pretty badly.

Which brings me back to setting my stories where "I know". Thankfully I've been to NY, DC, Miami, & Atlanta in addition to nearly all the areas between, so I do have SOME choices.

Still, I worry over the decision of where to set a story.

So my question is this: How do you decide where to set a story? And is it always somewhere you have been before?

April

New Beginnings...

Thank you everyone for your sweet sentiments on my previous post. We didn't make it to the park, but we have plans to go this upcoming weekend!

Since I have finished the first draft of my wip, I am sitting myself back in the writer's seat. I plan to focus on doing revisions. However, I am also doing preliminary work on my next project.

A few weeks ago I posted about a workshop I'd been to, given by my RWA chapter. The speaker, Alicia Rasley spoke about Acts, and plot and scene structure. Her teaching has been bouncing around in my head for quite a while. And as a result, I think I'm going to take a different approach with this next story.

I've tried setting everything out before writing. With my first story, I did it all, the characterizations, the blurb, the synopsis, the detailed plotting, everything, before I wrote it. And I found it difficult to stick to the original plan.

With my last story, I did very little preliminary work. I wrote from the seat of pants pretty much completely. And it was a fun experience, but at times, I felt very weighed down by the fact that I wasn't sure what came next or if I was really headed where I wanted to be.

So, with this one, I plan to find a happy medium. Alicia spoke about plot points and specific ones. And I decided I would use this to outline my story and plot it out without filling in all of the "details". I think this might prove to an effective way for me to plot.

But in the mean time, I'm going to work on my revisions before my cp beats me :-)

Is there a plotting technique you've found that works for you?

Edited to add: GO Hurricanes! Who would have thought the Stanley Cup would ever venture so far South?

April

Daddy's Day...

When I was just a day old, my dad could look down at me in his arms, and make me smile wide enough to show the two front teeth I was born with.

I can remember thinking as a little girl that my dad was the most handsome man ever. I can remember playing games and going camping and fishing. I don't have any brothers, so my dad often enjoyed my tomboy inclinations. He'd take me fishing, toss my line into the water in just the right spot. And after telling me NOT to touch the pole a half billion times, I'm not known for my patience you know, he'd coach me on how to watch for a bite and then hook a fish and reel it in. Without fail, I'd catch something bigger than him.

We lived on the edge of a forest that was part of a state park when I was young. He would take me on walks and tell me all about the plants and animals we saw along the way. A native Tennessean, he was a true outdoorsman. On one of those walks, he taught me about acorns, and how when planted, they'd take root and grow into a tree. We planted one and sure enough, not long after, a small sapling broke ground. That was nearly 25 years ago.

Fourteen years later, I graduated from high school. Despite my parents divorcing when I was three, they'd maintained an amicable relationship so that I could have them both in my life. And they were both there in the audience to cheer me on as I walked across the stage. That evening we all went to dinner and my dad got his first crack at the new man in my life (who is now my hubby). I asked if he approved. He said that he always wanted me to remember how special I am and that as long as I'm being treated with the love and care I deserve, he would approve.

My dad was always a healthy guy. At just under six feet tall, he weighed an athletic 160 pounds. He played basketball and baseball with my sister and me and our little cousins. It was a shock to us when a month after I graduated from high school, he had a massive heart attack. Thankfully, he miraculously pulled through after spending months in the hospital.

He'd suffered some damage to his short term memory ability due to lack of oxygen. Thanks to some cruel and thoughtless kids, the street sign to my grandparents house (where he was at the time) was missing. As a result the ambulance got lost. He was "normal" when he came home. But sometimes, he would think it was six years prior and I was twelve. But he'd see me and the most wonderful smile would spread across his face and he'd say, "Wow, you've grown and you're beautiful..." He complained that sometimes he felt foggy, as though he had all the memories, but couldn't always put his mental fingers on them.

I'm so thankful for the two and a half years I was graced with him after his heart attack. It had served as a warning that loved ones wouldn't be here forever and I got to do and say all of those things many people don't get to do and say to and with a loved one before loosing them. I spent most weekends traveling fourteen hours back and forth between school here and his home in Tennessee. During the summers when I didn't have classes, I could stay for longer periods.

He passed away two years and five months to the day from the time he had his heart attack. He was suffering from rapidly developing pneumonia, which was in part related to the ARDS he'd developed while in the hospital two years prior. He was comfortable, cared for and surrounded by loved ones when it happened.

That was eight and a half years ago. In the years since, Father's Day has of course not been the same. My dad's words and memory are a constant companion to me. And it isn't something that I've set aside a special day to think about. Maybe in part because I wasn't sure I could handle putting that sort of focus on it.

This year I'll be celebrating Father's Day with my hubby's family. He had to remind me tonight that it is tomorrow. And I'll admit that celebrating Father's Day for the first time in eight or so years will be awkward and maybe even a bit painful. But his dad is a wonderful man. And I couldn't be happier to celebrate with him tomorrow.

I think after we leave there though, I might ask hubby if we can visit the state park and take a nature walk. I'm sure the little sapling we planted is no longer so little and probably mixed in with hundreds of others. But it would be a way of remembering a special time I spent with my dad and I think he'd like that...

For those of you who are still Blessed to have your father here, I hope your time with him is as special and magical as the time I spent with mine and for those whose father has passed on, I hope you also have special memories to cherish on Father's Day.

April