Writers of the Future Contest

Today I dropped my story, The Blazing Princess, off at the Post Office. It is on its way to the Writers of the Future Contest. I don't know if it's good enough to win, but I do belief it's the best I can make it. Wish me luck!

Tuesday Tally

Status of my novel
total words to date: 37,982
pages: 164
completed chapters: 8

Goals for this week:

• keep working on 100 day challenge
• complete editing for Blazing Princess, have someone do a last read through, then mail out (Deadline June 30!)
• finish 2 scenes in Emergence
  

Did more editing to my story than I thought I would. Going to try adding another short scene, see if I like it. Didn't get much done on Emergence, but did have forward progress which is good.

This chapter seems to be getting rather long. Or that could just be that I'm taking a long time to get it done. Still, considering cutting it into two chapters.

...

Ok, I went and checked the word count. It's standing at about 3k words, with four more scenes to write. So far my average is 4k, with the longest just over 6k. I'll have to finish the scenes and then see where I stand.

Looking forward to getting feedback from a critique I won from Manuscript Mavens. I sent them the first chapter of Emergence.

Head on over to the launch party!

This week has brought the debut blog of the Manuscript Mavens - a group of beautiful, talented, women writers. They have a party going on now, and you could win a critique by one or all of them! I look forward to reading their regular entries. =)

Update on me and family: On the upswing from being sick. Much more eating going on, and somewhat less sleeping. Hope to be back to semi-normal by Monday. Tired of being tired!

minor Tuesday Tally

I missed a day in writing. Stomach flu going around. Son got sick Friday, finally getting better when I got sick yesterday (3am). I was totally out of commission. Had to ask my hubby to come home cause I couldn't take care of our son. Luckily feeling better today, but still taking it slow. Hubby got sick last night though. My turn to take care of him.

Status of my novel
total words to date: 37,538
pages: 162
completed chapters: 8

Goals for this week:

• get well
• keep working on 100 day challenge
• do another edit on Blazing Princess so I can mail it next week
• write next Fantasy newsletter (due Monday!)
  

Tuesday Tally - some success

I surpassed my goal for Blazing Princess, completing another edit of the entire story. I have a couple of weeks until the contest deadline. Any volunteers for giving it a thorough critique? I've had some readers already, but wouldn't mind a couple more eyes to point out room for improvement.

I didn't, however, meet my other goal. Though I worked on Emergence a bit, I didn't finish a scene. I feel like I'm pulling teeth with it right now. Definitely not my smoothest writing. But no more procrastinating. I'll work on it more tonight. Robin McKinley's response to how many hours she writes is definitely one I can relate to. I still stand to the belief that writing this novel is the hardest and most wonderful thing I've ever done. Now to crank out more words until I reach the end.

Goals for this week:

• write a minimum of 700 words for Emergence (my min. for 100 Day Challenge)
  
• read Blazing Princess very carefully looking for flaws
• keep up the multiple blog posts a week

Accepting the Challenge - will you?

Erica is taking on the 100 Day Challenge (write 100 words every day for 100 days, no excuses or exceptions). When she asked who else is in, I stepped forward. I need a challenge to get back into my WIP on a regular basis. My personal rule: those 100 words must be for Emergence. I've done plenty of other writings, but need to finish this first draft of my novel, which is never going to happen if I let myself be distracted with too many other projects. The challenge begins Wednesday. Who else is in? I believe everyone has time for 100 words.

My Daemon

Celebrating

Last weekend was a good one. My husband's birthday was Sunday, so we celebrated mainly on Friday. I made a spice cake (lasted through yesterday). We dropped the boy off at his grandma's for the night, then went to Chili's for dinner. We ate fried cheese as an appetizer while waiting for our meals: deliciously spiced steamed broccoli, loaded mashed potatoes, and Monteray Chicken. Mmm. We even splurged and got strawberry lemonade to drink instead of the water we usually ask for. Afterward, we visited Gamestop, where I bought him two new video games (Quake 4 and Prey), and we lingered until we didn't feel quite so full. We ended our outing with a game of miniature golf at Boondocks. For the first time we didn't tie - hubby won by five points or so. It was a lot of fun. We slept in the next morning, ate breakfast at McDonald's (sausage McMuffins), and got our errands done in leisure before picking up our son. Sunday we ate dinner at his parents, then came back home to watch Mission Impossible: III. Great movie. I enjoyed it more than the first two. It had more of a plot line and character growth. It was great spending the quality time with my hubby.

Quick Tuesday Tally

No new words on Emergence, but I finished Mirror! Yay! My hubby finally read through my other fairy tale, The Blazing Princess, and gave me some great suggestions for improvement. I am very grateful to be married to a man who is not only able to see the weak points in my writing, but brave enough to point them out to me. One of the suggestions is a revision that will work it so my title still fits! Which is very good, as current title is original and I couldn't think of any other good ones. Hopefully my muse is now recovered enough to return to Emergence.

Goals for this week:

• write a minimum of one scene for Emergence
  
• rewrite "dream scene" in Blazing Princess
  

I will blog tomorrow about the wonderful weekend I had, celebrating my hubby's birthday. =)

Nintendo Wii and the Lonely Mii

Anyone have a Nintendo Wii?? My hubby and I are looking to mingle some Miis, but we need a Wii friend to do so. Neither of us know anyone that has one. All we would need to do is exchange Wii numbers. Anyone want to be my Wii friend?