now in paperback! Beneath the Neon Moon

Beneath the Neon Moon, 2nd edition, in print! 

(for $6.29 and free shipping with Amazon Prime)

 

http://tinyurl.com/pp5e5kx

such a simple thing

Susanna's Pacemaker

Rising Wolf has taken me so very long to publish. Like a lot of you, I've been through seemingly unending upheavals in terms of my personal life, finances, health. It's been overwhelming. Along with other health issues, then the MS diagnosis and trying to find a course of treatment that slows the progress, next came depression - something I've got a bit of familiarity with.

But.

I'm on Rebif, three shots a week, and methotrexate once a week. I can't say they make me feel well but I've noticed, finally, an uptick in energy and the ability to complete some tasks, along with less brain fog. So now is the time to get my book done, right?

Susanna's Pacemaker is a very simple app - you plug in the words you think the project needs (okay so I'm terrible at estimating, but I plugged in that Book II needs the same number of words as Book I), the date you'd like to be finished, if you'd like weekends off, if you'd like a steady flow of words, and it spits out a chart. So I did that. And I've been following it, because it lets me see what I need to do to get this book out, plain and simple. And it's more difficult than I ever would have thought, but still, I'm hanging in.

RW is a bonafide novel, and I'm looking at a 160,000 word estimate (I did say I'm terrible at estimating word count, but seems reasonable). I have 107,000 words as of now. If I do get finished in August per my plan, I could FINALLY have a release in the fall. Oh my god, am I hoping for that.

Maybe, quite possibly there's nobody out there to read it after my extended off-time with no new releases. I really hope that's not true, but this thing has become bigger than that, even. For me it's a symbol: never say die, never give up. And, oh yes, these characters deserve to have their story told.

So yeah, a biggie for me.

I hope everyone is doing well. 

nature - let's rethink it

So much for embracing nature, even from my wide, breezy porch. I sit down to write and a spider crawls up my side. DO NOT WANT.
Try again. Sit on the porch itself, turn around and see my cat after a lizard without a tail. Oh, wait, without a tail NOW - there's the tail, wiggling on the porch. I'm guarding the lizard while two dogs and a cat try to get to it.
The dog picks the wriggling tail up in its mouth, takes it off the porch. She's back in less than a minute, and ugh, we know where THAT went. She noses interestedly around me. Cat still trying to get past me. I build a barricade because I cannot bring myself to pick up the tailless lizard (it might, oh, WRIGGLE. Or wiggle, like a tailless thing. Or a severed tail).
Yeah, maybe I'll try this another day.

mystery solved

So, what's been wrong with me for so long: apparently I have multiple sclerosis.

It's quite an adjustment, trying to understand that my damn brain is being attacked (by my own screwy self) when hey, all I've wanted is to be able to think clearly. After all, I have adventures to write. I am writing them, dammit.

I am the tortoise. Slow and steady (except when I'm not) and all that shit ... explains why I feel so damn foggy at least.

I know it's not funny, not at all, but even a tentative diagnosis of a lousy thing like MS gives me knowledge of what's happening to me, and that's power.

Dropping the Methotrexate and starting on Avonex next week. Wish me luck.

There are 24 chapters to Book I of Mal and Zach's Most Excellent Adventure(s), aka Rising Wolf. 

nowadays

A thousand words a day is a magical thing. I know there are others who write much more, but (at this point at least) I will take it:)

saw this from Gina Storm Grant: 7/7/7

It's like this: seven pages into your WIP, go seven lines down and post the next seven lines of your WIP. Which I did.


Zach shifted in his sleep, restless, back pressed to Mal's chest. Mal leaned his head closer and heard him mutter something, not words but a sound. Something fearful.

"We're out, Zach. You're home, you're safe." Mal put a careful hand to Zach's chest, knowing he'd awakened by the tension beneath his fingers.


Zach reached up and gripped his hand, saying nothing.

____


I finally managed to finish Book I in longhand, which is something I thought I'd never do again, but I can take pen and paper everywhere I go. 

I have no appointments scheduled this week and the kids are in school, so I'll start Book II.

It's really true

that in writing as in most things: KISS, or keep it simple, stupid.

Because this piece (Rising Wolf) has come to mean many things to me, including the victory of knowing I finished (when I do), there's a corresponding pressure. Which does me not one wit of good.

So, Theda: keep your stage direction to a minimum. You don't have to convey every single visual. Nobody cares if he turns right, scratches his head, belches, squints and goes to the bathroom. I mean any of those things can be pertinent, but likely not so much.

I realized this when I wrote a fan fiction, short but just breezed it out, and it was *easy.* Cuz I kept it simple, stupid (not you, me).

I do hope I will never stop learning things about writing.

I'm also laughing at a post I made here where I had a cute little writerly progress bar for Rising Wolf. Something like 20,000 words out of 50,000 done. Go me! Except I'm at 80,000 now and nope, not done.

Thought Book I was pretty well edited, but there's a problem, I realize. Too much back story in the ms where maybe it should have been things I need to know, but not necessarily the reader. So I'll have to go check that out, reducing word count but hopefully flowing better.

Yeah, I haven't written in a while. But I'm currently back at it, hoping to keep at it.

Life. She's a mountain to climb, right?