Heather Wardell, Women's Fiction

Blank Slate Kate on tour!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:43:00 +0000

From January 23-27, "Blank Slate Kate" and I are hitting up a bunch of blogs (30 posts are scheduled!) for reviews and some guest posts and interviews.

You can see everywhere we'll be on my web site and I'd love to chat with you at any of the stops!

Artist Date Jan 6 - two paintings, one hour

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 21:02:00 +0000

Quite a while back I worked through Julia Cameron's great "The Artist's Way", in which she recommends a weekly "Artist Date" to get out of yourself and see/experience something different. I did these faithfully for a while, then unfaithfully, then stopped entirely. It's hard to take that kind of time, I find. Even just a few hours a week, saying "I am not going to work, I'm going to go refill my creative side" is tough.

But I took the week after Christmas off, figuring I was just feeling lackluster about everything because I was tired, and when I started writing again this week I am less tired but no less lackluster. And I don't like it. So I thought perhaps it was time to try the Artist Date again.

And, as it turns out, it was!

I went this afternoon to a gallery not too far from me. It was small, just one large room, but I stayed for about 90 minutes and feel all clean and refreshed.

The first half was all very modern art, interesting and unusual sketches like this one called "Study for Cathedral" by Sorel Etrog. But what caught my attention was the imperfections. I'm not sure this'll show up (all pictures come from my iPhone) but between the two halves of the cathedral there's a pencil line. There are others around the piece too. Part of me says "sloppy" and "slapdash", but I also hear "authentic" when I look at the work. Nothing's perfect, and yet these pieces are still worthy of being in a gallery. Perhaps aiming for perfection makes something NOT actually art?

I tend to be one of those uncultured types who can't get her head around really modern paintings like this one by Jack Bush called "Paris #5". The first picture is the whole thing and the second is a closeup, in which you can see that the painted segments overlap and bleed into each other. There are random brush strokes, areas that are devoid of color, and even a few brush bristles embedded in the paint. Looks like the kind of job I did when I painted the laundry room. And I don't see anything remotely reminiscent of Paris. (I guess the middle red part could be the Arc de Triomphe, but that's a stretch. :)

My immediate instinct was to pass on by rolling my mental eyes, but I decided to stick with it, figuring there had to be something to it. I don't actually know how long I stayed looking at it, or how many times I went back, because it started to take hold of me. I couldn't figure out which color went on first, and I began wondering whether there was significance in the overlapping edges and where they did not overlap. I must admit it's still not the kind of painting I'd put on my wall, but I think there's more going on here than I first thought and I'm still puzzling over it.

The other half of the exhibition was called "Dusk to Dawn" and was about various kinds of light in art. I fell immediately in love with an A.J. Casson painting called "Sunlit Isle". Isn't it gorgeous?

It lost some of its resonance in the photo, but I think you still get the feeling of stillness and the way that one area glows with sunlight. I could NOT leave this painting alone. I kept coming back, and even sat in front of it for a while. I feel like I want to go over to that other island and then look back at where I was and say, "Ah, I got here," but I also feel like once I got there I would be sad because the view wouldn't be as nice as the view I have now. I think it was being torn between those two feelings that kept me engrossed in the painting.

Will anything I saw today translate directly into a book? Quite likely not, although I can imagine there being a sun-dappled island as an excursion stop on my new book set on a cruise ship. But 'translating directly into a book' wasn't the point of the trip. I wanted to look at things differently, to get out of my house and my routine and almost step sideways out of time. And I did that in spades. Even if I'm still not sure what to make of "Paris #5".

I intend to do an Artist Date nearly every week (would love to do it weekly and I will aim for that but I'm not making myself a promise I may not keep) and I will report on them here for my own use as a scrapbook and maybe for yours too. I think we all have an artist inside - does yours want to go on a date? :)

Edited to add: When I tagged this post with "Artist's Way", I then looked at the last one I tagged thusly. 2008. Hmm. It's been a lot longer than I thought! (And I still use those tea towels and change them daily. :)

New blurb for "Blank Slate Kate"

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 20:02:00 +0000

So Eaglet's got a name now! And a cover, which I've included at the left for your viewing pleasure. :) All it still needs is its cover blurb. I've been playing around with it some more and here's what I have now. I'd love your comments and opinions - would you pick this book up? Why or why not?

Waking up with a strange man is scary. Realizing you lost fifteen years of your life overnight? That's terrifying. With her memories from seventeen to thirty-two gone, Kate has no idea who she is and where she belongs. As she begins to fall for the man who found her, she wonders if she forgot those years for a reason. Should she keep trying to retrieve her original self, or start a new life?

Thanks! :)
Heather

Oh, and "Blank Slate Kate" will be out in December. :)

NaNoWriMo tips

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 11:50:00 +0000

Last year I did a blog post for Jennie of "Life is Short. Read Fast" (what a great blog name!) on how to write fast. Since it's NaNoWriMo time again, why not go check it out on her blog?

What's up this week? (Nov 1st)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 11:42:00 +0000

I meant to do this on Sunday but... well, I don't really know what happened. :) But anyhow, here it is!

Last week's plan:
- write 12,000 words of Gemstone, 10 hours of work time
- edit Eaglet, 5 hours
- work on covers/back cover blurbs for Eaglet
- run my 5 km race well
- practice my drums daily

Results from last week:
- 11,191 words of Gemstone, about 9 hours of work time (I got distracted by a laptop that wasn't working the way I expected any more)
- Eaglet got its 5 hours and will be done this week
- I have two sets of covers (you can see them at my Facebook page) and two partial blurbs for Eaglet
- I ACED the race! I did it exactly as I planned and it turned out to be only 20 seconds off my best time even though I wasn't trying to be fast. I felt so good after!
- I missed one day of drumming but am otherwise making progress

Overall, a good week. I don't like when I get distracted by technology but the laptop is back to normal and I think this coming week will be better!

Plans for this week:
- I don't particularly like (it turns out) setting a word count goal for first draft work. There are just too many ways I can not reach it during a particular work session. Therefore, this week's plan is 10 hours of gemstone.
- I will finish Eaglet's final polish and begin working on formatting its text for release.
- I will at least narrow the cover choices down to two or three and I hope to actually pick one. :)
- drum daily - the first rehearsal for Fame is Sunday and I want to have a solid clue of what I'm playing!

For anyone doing NaNoWriMo, good luck! I'm not officially doing it because I'm mid-book and like where I am, but I am going to finish this novel in November and I still need around 40-45,000 words, so I'll be close. :)

Have a great week!

Potential blurb for Eaglet - thoughts?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 20:04:00 +0000

I am hard at work getting Eaglet ready for its December debut. It still has no title (although I'm getting closer!) but here's my current draft of its back-cover description. Comments are welcome! Would you read a book with this description? Why or why not?

I open my eyes the morning after my best friend's seventeenth birthday to find myself in bed. With a strange man. Naked. I don't know how I got here, and when he calls me Kate I don't even know if that's my name.

To make matters worse, we soon realize I've forgotten the last fifteen years of my life. He tries to help me find out who I am and where I belong, but soon I'm longing to belong with him. If we manage to unlock the secrets of my past, will I like what I find? Will I still be Kate?

Thanks in advance for your feedback!

What's up this week? (Oct 23rd)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 13:03:00 +0000

I used to post a weekly "what I'm doing this week" thing, half a plan for me and half a "what does a writer do anyhow?" thing for you. I miss it, so it's back!

Writing

I'm writing the first draft of a book codenamed Gemstone, and it's currently at around 32,000 words. I will write for two hours a day, so a total of ten hours. I usually get around 2,500 words during those two hours so I'm aiming for 12,000 or thereabout to be added to the book. (I have a slight advantage because I have around 1,400 words lingering in a not-quite-finished scene from last week!)

I've tried doing my writing by having a word count goal, but I just find the time goal feels better to me. That two hours is handled like this. For 50 minutes I put my head down and write like the computer will blow up if I slow down. If I finish a scene, I go back and reread it to fix any little things that aren't quite right, then I go on. After that, it's a ten-minute break (usually spent crocheting!) and then another 50-minute burst. I'm tired after but it works for me.

Editing

The book currently known as Eaglet (see an excerpt on my Facebook page!) is going to be my December release. I'm about 1/3 done its final reread and polish, and I'll be spending an hour a day on that.

Business-type stuff

I can't exactly release Eaglet in December with a blank cover with the word "Eaglet" scribbled across it, so this week after I'm done writing and editing is all about finding the right title and cover. I may not have it perfect by the end of the week but I intend to have something.

Personal-type stuff

I'm running a 5K race this Saturday so I will do a few more light training runs and then get out there. I've been burned this year by trying so hard to go fast that I end up walking more than I like (I do not have a natural runner's build. I am built like a long-distance swimmer, or in more typical terms kind of like a refrigerator :). For this race I will run 2.5 km, walk for a minute, then run the rest. The final time is irrelevant. (Let's hope I remember that at the fourth km where in the past I've frequently come apart!)

In February I'll be playing drum set for a local production of "Fame: The Musical". We got our music this week and wow. Seriously challenging for a novice drummer like myself. There needs to be daily practice. And there will be. :)

Now I'm off to run, so I'll throw it out to you: what are you up to this week?

Whatever it is, I hope you have a great week! :)

Fresh air = fresh writing? I hope so!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 20:01:00 +0000

This was my view from the balcony this morning. I figured, since it will no doubt be freezing cold here soon, I might as well sit outside to work on Gemstone.

I wrote about 2600 words and got lots of fresh air! I would love to write out there every day, but that might be less fun when the snow arrives. :)

Are you the outdoorsy type? I really am not. :)

Who has the best readers! (Hint: ME!)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 15:17:00 +0000

Back in October I gave away a copy of "Planning to Live" via my mailing list. (I do occasional contests limited to members of it and my Facebook page, so if you're not already on one or the other, go for it. :)

That poor book had quite the journey. The winner, who I'll call A since that's her first initial, lives in India and was concerned that the mail wouldn't be reliable, so I sent the book to her friend in the States who was visiting her in December.

It made it there, and A said she wanted to crochet and send back to me a doily in thanks and asked what color I'd like. I crochet myself and I know how long things take, especially little detailed things, but she insisted so I said I'd like purple and I was sure I'd love it.

I just didn't know how much I'd love it.

Look at it! Not much bigger than my hand and yet so amazingly detailed. I can honestly say I've never made anything this gorgeous in all my years of crocheting. I can't decide where to put it, but at the moment it's on my writing desk and my iPhone/music player/time keeper sits on it while I work.

She also sent me a very cute potholder, also hand-crocheted, with a note saying how glad she was to get my book.

By no means do I expect my readers to shower me with gifts (although if anyone's got a spare iPad hanging around... :) but I'm so touched that she took the time to make this and send it along for me.

I get emails saying how much people like my books and I adore them (and turn them into pictures that I use on my screensaver on my writing computer), but there's something about the tangible nature of this that makes me warm and fuzzy every time I see it.

Which I'm off to do right now, because I want to finish editing Cookie this week! Doily power! :)

Where did January GO???

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 15:34:00 +0000

I wanted to post a "what I did in January" list, but I simply haven't had time. It's amazing how busy you can be while writing a first draft, editing a second, and promoting another book. Who'd have thunk it. :)

Anyhow, I'm going to post it now even though we're a week into February. I'm actually quite pleased with my January achievements! (I have rounded the numbers below to the nearest thousand, because my initial "I wrote 39,394 words" list seems ridiculous for some reason. :)

I wrote 39,000 words of the first draft of the book codenamed Dinosaur.
I edited 35,000 words of Cookie's first draft.
However, the total words in the second draft file are 39,000, which means I added 4,000 words to the book as I edited. Not a surprise; I'd thought the first draft was a bit thin.
Therefore, I edited 35,000 words and wrote a total of 43,000, which means I "touched"a total of 78,000 words. That's a full novel, pretty much! Not bad for one month, especially since I didn't start work until the fourth. :)

Since I track my work time, I can also report that I worked for 56 hours and 14 minutes this month. (I know that seems low. It seems low to me too. But I only track "head down at the desk" time, not the time I spend thinking about the books as I fall asleep or wake up or take a shower or drive or...)

I have already written over 20,000 words on Dinosaur's first draft in February, and I anticipate finishing it by Feb 12th. Then I'll go back to a more intense focus on Cookie AND start looking for the next one, Eaglet.

It's a little terrifying when I think about it... I'm planning to release three more books this year. Cookie, Dinosaur, and Eaglet will be those books. I don't know what Eaglet is yet. Eep!

So I don't think about that much. I just keep working. "Just keep swimming", as Dory said. Smart fish. :)

How much author contact is TOO much?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 12:52:00 +0000

I need your advice. Yes, yours. :)

I have Google Alerts set up for my name and for each of my books' titles, so I can see whenever anyone's talking about me online. This is great for reviews, since I like to add them all to my reviews page and being notified means I won't miss any.

But I wonder about other kinds of contact. Goodreads lets readers post automatic "I'm 25% done with "Stir Until Thoroughly Confused" by Heather Wardell" notices, and of course I see those in my alerts as well.

I follow an author who retweets every single one of those alerts, and another who does the same with notes like "don't bother her, she's reading!" added.

I have books by both of these authors waiting to be read and I'm finding myself not wanting to read them because I dislike this level of "look, people are talking about me and reading my work".

This is obviously not their intent.

I have instead been replying to these sorts of alerts and telling the reader, "Thanks for reading my book and I hope you enjoy it." This feels better to me, but is it really?

How much contact, as a reader, do you want an author to have with you? I am doing my absolute best to respond to every reader-initiated contact, since if they wrote to me I feel I owe them an answer, but these are different since they aren't really directed at me.

Would you like to see "thanks for reading my book" in your Twitter feed or as a comment on your "reading Heather's book" blog post? Or should I just keep my mouth shut? (Fingers shut? :)

Sneaky Kegan, Putting Yourself on Amazon!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 21:11:00 +0000

It never fails: when I think it'll take a day or two to get a book posted somewhere, it takes weeks. When I expect it to take a week, well...

I posted "Stir Until Thoroughly Confused" on Amazon's Kindle store yesterday. Today, it's alive!

NOT that I am complaining, of course. :) My official launch date is January 24th, which gives me time to email about a bazillion bloggers to offer review copies. (If you've reviewed for me before and I haven't emailed you yet, don't feel insulted. I will, I promise. I'm working down the list! :) But if Kegan wants to be available before the 24th, well, he's hard to resist. :)

Feel free to check out "Stir Until Thoroughly Confused" for just $0.99 on Amazon.com for the Kindle or at my web site for an excerpt and a wide variety of electronic formats. Paper is coming shortly. :)

Happy reading! :)

Introducing Trinity

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 23:05:00 +0000

I was so grateful for all the support after my lovely cat Sapphire had to be put to sleep. At the time, I honestly wasn't sure if we'd be getting another cat, but things happened, as they often do, and...
This is Trinity. She's about three years old, according to the shelter, and such a sweet girl. She likes to sit on laps, stick her tail in food, and get in the way while you're using the computer.

But she's so well-behaved too, and friendly and inquisitive and amazingly shiny, and we officially brought her home in early December and I am in love with this cat. So I thought I'd show her to you. :)

:)

(also, that last picture makes it so clear I need to tidy my "non-writing" desk. The writing one is clean, but my "mess around on the computer" space is indeed a mess. :)

2011 Chick Lit Challenge - I am in!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 22:53:00 +0000

The lovely Samantha of "Chick Lit Plus" is running a Chick Lit Reading Challenge in 2011. Read twelve chick lit books, including at least two by debut authors, in 2011. I think this will go well with Jennie's 111 in 2011 challenge, so I'm in! If you'd like to be in too, click the link above and sign up!

I'll list my twelve planned books here (I'll fill in the gaps below as I go along), and will include a brief review once they're read. This is not necessarily the order in which I'll be reading: that depends on my mood at the time. :)

I'll be reading:

"London is the Best City in America" by Laura Dave
"The Opposite of Love" by Julie Buxbaum - read Jan 2-4, 2011: gorgeous writing but I somehow didn't connect with the main character to the degree I wanted to
"Six Weeks to Toxic" by Louisa Mccormack
"Reunion" by J.L. Penn
"The Goddess of Fried Okra" by Jean Brashear
"The Blonde Theory" by Kristen Harmel
"According to Jane" by Marilyn Brant
"Faking It" by Jennifer Crusie
"My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult
another something
a book by a debut 2011 author
a book by a debut 2011 author

I plan to do about one a month for this challenge, but if I get hepped up I'll go through them faster. After all, I need to be reading more than two a week to get to 111 by December 31, 2011!

This is going to be quite the year. Reading lots, writing lots, and maybe taking the occasional break. Just occasional, though. :)

Bon Voyage!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 10:56:00 +0000

It's 5:45am and I am in the airport awaiting my 6:45am flight to Orlando. I'll be back on the 19th, so the blog will likely be quiet for the next week.

After that, though, it'll be time to gear up for "Stir Until Thoroughly Confused" (the book formerly known as Blueberry), which I will be releasing in late January.

Have a great week! :)

111 in '11 Challenge - ready to read?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 21:40:00 +0000

Jennie of "Life is Short. Read Fast" has started a challenge: read 111 books in 2011. I haven't read nearly that many this year but I want to read more books next year so I am IN!

If you'd like to be in too, check out the challenge post and sign up! There will be prizes, including a bunch of ebooks from some weird polar-bear-obsessed writer. ;) (Everything I've published by the end of the contest will be included, and since I'm hoping to release four new books next year it'll be at least eight novels and maybe more.)

Happy reading, everyone!

A title AND a cover?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 13:13:00 +0000

Meet "Stir Until Thoroughly Confused", the novel formerly known as Blueberry. :)

I have two potential covers for this at the moment, with one slight difference between them. I'd love to know which you prefer, left or right, and why! If you have other comments, let's hear them!

In other news, Dinosaur (still known as Dinosaur :) is now ready to write! I will be starting it January 2nd. :)

Busy week so far!

Please do let me know what you think of the covers. If you want to see them a little bigger you can click the picture above for more detail. :)

Weekly Report: December 4, 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 03:15:00 +0000

This week, I learned that when you have a busy day coming, you should notice this and not assume you'll get the same amount done as on a day when you have nothing planned. (Obvious, yes, but I can be a little slow. :)

My plans for this week were:

Spend 1:30 with Dinosaur each day, for a total of 7:30 for the week.
Spend 2 hours a day on Blueberry and/or Cookie (which needs to be reread in preparation for its second draft) depending on which seems to need me when. I'm starting with Blueberry and might not get to Cookie this week, but it's here in case I do! Total of 10 hours on these two books.
Spend about 2-3 hours on promotion. I need to review what I've done so far and see what I want to change for Blueberry, and will also be emailing my mailing list next week so I need to finalize that.
The week's total is 19-20 hours depending on how much time the promotion needs.

What I actually did:

Dinosaur got 6:00 for the week.
Blueberry got 10:10 and I didn't get to Cookie.
Promotion took 2:34.
The week's total was 18:45

This isn't bad given that Thursday afternoon was spent at an elementary school band rehearsal (helping out with the band that's joining my concert band for tomorrow's concert). I knew that ahead of time, so why I didn't take it into account when making my plans I'm not sure. But I was still awfully close to where I wanted to be, so that was great!

On the 101 list front:

I DID finish the dog fur yarn set! About 20 minutes ago. :) But it is DONE! Pictures to come - I'll take them when it's not dark out. It looks really good!
I complimented a cashier on her gorgeous white furry jacket.
I ran 4 times this week.
I finished NaBloPoMo!

So pretty good there too! It's funny, really... a few weeks ago when I decided to buckle down and track my time, I was struggling to get past 12 productive hours a week. Now a ROUGH week is nearly 19. It amazes me how much harder I can work than I usually think I can!

This week, I have my band concert tomorrow, so the day will be less than productive. Including that, my plans for the week are:

Spend 10 hours on Dinosaur. I want the scene list finished (I'm getting there!) so that it can rest until January when I'll begin the first draft.
Spend 4-5 hours on Blueberry and Cookie. I'm not positive yet whether I want to have Blueberry's print proof ordered before we leave for Florida; if I decide yes, it'll get all the time, if not, I will reread Cookie instead. We shall see. :)
Spend 1-2 hours on promotion. I want to have a draft plan of how to promote Blueberry in place before Florida so that I can reread it after with a little distance.
Aim for 18 hours of work. More is good. :)

I don't have a lot of time for 101 tasks this week, but I will continue with my running, photograph and then post about the dog fur set, and see if we can get tickets to the Arrogant Worms concert in Toronto in December.

Oh yes, and I want my Christmas shopping done before we leave on the 12th. :0

That sounds like just about enough to keep me out of trouble! :)

Have an amazing week!

Some news, and a contest!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 12:53:00 +0000

Readers have been asking for this, and I've finally made it happen: all four of my novels are now available in paperback! "Planning to Live" and "Seven Exes Are Eight Too Many" have been available for a while, but if you've been wanting "Life, Love, and a Polar Bear Tattoo" or "Go Small or Go Home", here you go. :) They're currently available at Createspace.com and Amazon.com, and the links above will take you to my web site where you can find the purchase links plus excerpts and reviews.

And now, the contest!

Speaking of reviews, to celebrate this milestone we're going to have a contest. It's pretty simple, really: write a review of one or more of my books, and be entered in a draw to win a $25 US gift certificate to the book seller of your choice.

You can write your review on any book seller site (Amazon, Chapters, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and so on), on a reading-related site (Goodreads, LibraryThing, etc.), on your blog, or anywhere else that I'll be able to see it. If you've written a review in the past, thanks so much, and of course you're still eligible to win. :)

Once you've got at least one review posted, let me know where to find it (or just post a comment to this message). Be sure to tell me a) where you wrote the review(s) b) whatever I need to know to find your review (the name it's under, the approximate date if it's been a while). Each review earns you one entry in the draw, and posting the same review in three places does count as three entries (as long as the postings meet the criteria in the fine print below).

The contest begins... now, and ends on December 7th at 8AM EST.

The (not-so-)fine print:

There will be one randomly selected winner of the prize of a $25 US gift certificate, or equivalent if in a non-US-dollar currency, to the book store of your choice. I will buy and email you said gift certificate, so it needs to be from a store that will let me do that. (Anything online should be just fine.)
The review must be at a level of detail that would help other readers decide whether the book is for them. I think at least one full sentence is required, with at least one reason why you liked/disliked the book.
The review does not have to be a five-star love-fest. (It can be, of course. :) I am looking for honest reviews, so let the world know what you think!
Postings will not count if they are posted at places that have nothing to do with books and reading. (In other words, please don't spam.) The only exception to this would be your own blog or web site.

That's about it! Write those reviews, or let me know about your existing ones, and good luck. :)

Dinosaur Bones Everywhere!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 01:49:00 +0000

Poor Dinosaur. I busted it!

But I don't think it's permanently disassembled. See, sometimes the process of planning a book seems to move along in a nice orderly fashion. And sometimes it's more like herding fifty kittens with ADHD. Guess which one Dinosaur is? Right. Cat central.

This time, the surface plot turns out to not really be what the book's about. On the surface it's about the music industry but the real story is about accepting who you are. I do always try to have multiple layers to my books, but it hasn't ever been so dramatic before so it's making the planning process much trickier. My desk currently bears THREE different scene lists with very little in common.

It's both frustrating and fun, surprisingly. The frustration aspect I'm sure is obvious ("how will these pieces become a plot?") but the fun might not be. I want to get better with every book, and the workout Dinosaur is putting me through can only make me stronger.

Unless it makes me extinct. :)

Sorry, Bonsai Story Generator, Those Ain't Titles

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 02:22:00 +0000

I am still hunting for a title for Blueberry. I have several in the works, but nothing is really grabbing me.

A while back Lynn Viehl blogged about ways to find titles and mentioned the Bonsai Story Generator. Basically, you paste in text from the book and it recombines the sentences into new ones.

I did this with Blueberry's entire manuscript today, and while I didn't get titles I did get some interesting sentences. Please note that none of these are actually in the book. :) I particularly like the second-last one for its "well, of course" aspects and the last one for its "what drug are you on and where do I get it?" feel. :)

Here are the highlights of what the Bonsai Story Generator gave me.

To my surprise, Kegan's neck and he couldn't get divorced next to me.
I will go home and said, I saw it No doubt.
He wrapped an ass, then back at me.
I couldn't let him say it wasn't his mouth, lost my momentary control of those was feeling like that first No.
I couldn't look like they're red-hot metal.
I bit my brush with you.
Unbelievably, I spun around me.
He picked a long moment, savoring how to rebuild his head sharply.
My body was only half a glass.
He left without my behind-the-scenes work.
He went out with my shoes.
And I'd let it swell within the stones.
She trailed off, and I didn't want Kegan making cookies.
Fire flashed through my confusion.
could she be a little whimper, unable to escape this idiot.
And you were sitting with me and it's because I knew better.
We had sex with the big ones, anyhow.
I'm a chorus of a cat, lime green with another man.

So they're not titles. But a few made me think ("my body was only half a glass" is especially neat somehow) and several made me laugh out loud. So I'm glad I tried it out!

Weekly Report: November 27, 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 01:37:00 +0000

For this last week, I tried out moving my work week from Sunday-Thursday instead of Monday-Friday. I usually do a long run on Friday, and after that I'm never in a mood to do much more than lounge on the couch. So now I can! It worked great this week - I ran yesterday then watched the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie and worked on my mother's dog fur mitts. It was great!

So now the weekly report will come on Saturday instead of Sunday. Mark your calendar. :)

This week, I planned to:

Spend 1:15 a day on Dinosaur, 6:15 for the week.
Spend 2 hours a day on Blueberry, 10:00 for the week.
Do 3 hours of promotion-related tasks.
Achieve 19:15 of work time.

What did I actually do?

Dinosaur: 6:37
Blueberry: 10:01 (I didn't do the extra minute on purpose, that just happened to be when I was done :)
Promotion 2:54
Total 19:32

Not bad, huh? I spent a bit of time on promotion that didn't get counted in that time, mostly involving sending out review requests for various books, so I'm not sad about being six minutes short there. And I'm especially happy...

Because Blueberry is done! :) This coming week I will read it top to bottom, and then find it a title and a cover and get it ready to be released in January! Woo! :)

Getting 19:32 was a bit of a challenge, so I'm going to stick with a 19-20 hour work week this week. (Again, don't think I spend the rest of my days on the couch with bonbons. Laundry and housework and drum practice and groceries and checking email and cooking and all those sorts of things get done before the bonbon time. :)

This week, I will:

Spend 1:30 with Dinosaur each day, for a total of 7:30 for the week.
Spend 2 hours a day on Blueberry and/or Cookie (which needs to be reread in preparation for its second draft) depending on which seems to need me when. I'm starting with Blueberry and might not get to Cookie this week, but it's here in case I do! Total of 10 hours on these two books.
Spend about 2-3 hours on promotion. I need to review what I've done so far and see what I want to change for Blueberry, and will also be emailing my mailing list next week so I need to finalize that.
The week's total is 19-20 hours depending on how much time the promotion needs.

As for the 101 list:

I'm beginning to think I'm incapable of finishing the dog fur yarn set! But it WILL happen this week. I have nearly finished the mittens and then just need to add the fur cuffs and put the pompom on the hat and we're done. I'm seeing my mother this coming weekend so it'll be done by then if I have to stay up until midnight. :)
I was to give a stranger a compliment and I totally forgot. =( So that'll stay on the list!
I tried two new recipes. Both Ravioli with Apples and Walnuts and Spaghetti with Sweet Potatoes and Ricotta were quite good and will be added to my cookbook.
I didn't post re my Kuwait trip. It's a bigger project than I thought it would be, since I have tons of pictures and need to narrow them down, and it got overwhelming given how busy my week was.

This week, 101-wise, I will:

finish the dog fur yarn set regardless. No more excuses. :)
NOT plan to do the Kuwait post. I want to take time to relax and really savor the memory of it and this just isn't the right week for that.
find a stranger and compliment it. :)
continue with my running and NaBloPoMo's daily blogging.

I'm tired but it's the good kind, from having worked hard and made good progress. I feel good about the coming week, and I hope you do too! :)

This doesn't require a comment

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 01:54:00 +0000

Any comment I made would simply distract from the... um... this. :)

A picture's worth 88,601 words

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 03:15:00 +0000

Woo freaking hoo! :)

I'm quite pleased with it, although I have my usual "I should edit it AGAIN even though I didn't find any big problems" feeling. Every time it's the same thing. You'd think I'd expect it by now. :)

So next week, I'll reread it top to bottom (always my last step), and then I'll give it a name and get it ready to be released in January!

Kegan's back in this one, ladies. :)

I can smell the blueberry now!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 04:07:00 +0000

I'd like to promise there will be no food-related book updates in the future but since the next one's codenamed Cookie...

Anyhow, I have about 8,000 words left to edit (in the vicinity of 32 pages of finished book) and barring any kablooies I will finish them tomorrow. There can be kablooies at the end (I am writing this on my iPhone and it has just added kablooies to my autocorrect dictionary and this makes me ridiculously happy. Kablooies! (Is that a real word? I think so but I'm not sure.)

(I have lost my train of thought so completely I don't even know to which station I should head to find it again.)

Oh, right. Kablooies. Fun to type, bad to have in a book. I think Blueberry is going to be fine, though, as I edited the stuffing (gratuitous thanksgiving reference) out of it for the second draft. Either way, it'll be done in the next few days and then it's time to move on to Cookie.

I told you there's no rest for the wicked!

Cookie, sadly, is probably about 40% kablooies at this point, so there is much work to be done. But the other 60% kind of rocks. So there's that.

To sum up: Blueberry done soon, Cookie next, kablooies more fun to type than to fix. ;)