No excuse

Courtesy of our new house, I have a study (okay, not I but Smart Guy and I) that is away from the clutter of the house (Yes, with my housekeeping abilities, even the new house has clutter, I just didn't get that gene from my mom and have accepted it :-)), to write. I've always wanted a study because maybe then I would feel more writerly?

My Dad who was also a writer had one and he would get really angry at all of us if we so much as touched a pen on his writing table. Even though I didn't understand what the fuss was back then, I do now. Having a space that you can call your own, something you don't have to share with anyone including Smart Guys and Naughty Toddlers is just great. Now if I can convince the liitle girl to play on her own for a couple of hours a day, I should really get some work done.

In other not so happy matters, I just found out that the contest I entered has received 544 entries. Yes, 544 entries.

Even though if one's entry is good, one's entry should still fare well among that high number, it definitely makes things seem different. Which brings me to the question what if?

Better get cracking on the next WIP, for if there's no good word about this entry, I need to have a partial ready to submit which means I need to write and finish another WIP.

Well, December already seems full. That's good, right?

Sent!

I just hit send on my competition entry and I feel... nothing actually except for a certain detachment for the WIP. I loooove this story and even if I don't get a request for full, I think I will still be proud of how much I learnt with this one, the second one I ever finished.

Life has been busy the last month with moving into our new house (our very first, YAY), unpacking( will go on for the next couple of months) and dealing with a major hot oil burn on my left wrist (which really hurts when I'm typing). Luckily, I finished writing this WIP last year and had it polished to submit when I heard of this competition.

So, now that it's gone, I think I need to sit down and think of an action plan for the next month since the results will be announced on Dec. 2nd. As usual, I'm itching to jump into something new, but this time, I have to come up with a working plan even for a first draft, because I really want to have a cleaner first draft and not be daunted by the amount of energy and time it takes to rewrite a dirty first draft.

I need to make sure of where I'm going in terms of character arcs, GMCs and the overall structure and get it right the first time around. So, no racing against the clock to finish the WIP but working on one chapter a time with my mind on the overall picture.

Starting trouble

I'm still in the process of rewritig the first chapter of SBTH and it's not really going well.

I have so much info dumped in the first version that I'm unable to think with an objective mind as to how much I put in there to indulge myself vs. how much the reader needs to know.

But there's a lot that needs to go.

The H and h have known each other forever, so there's a lot of backstory and they are both nursing old hurts which have to be revealed a little bit for their meeting in the first chapter to make sense. And it has to be done cleverly so that it doesn't sound like this:

Xavier: You did that. *frown*

Sam: I did that only because you said this. *sob*

Xavier: But I said it only because of that thing that happened when you said that. *glare*

Sam: Oh, really. Fine. Go to Hell. *slap*

Xavier: Oh, no. You didn't. *Kiss*

Ugh.

In the mean time, here's a pic of my heroine, Samantha Miller. I don't really look at pics for my hero and heroine inspiration usually but something in Anne Hathaway's expression here made me think of Sam in my story.

A new routine

I called the post 'A new routine', although I should probably just call it routine because I don't have one and I've always resisted one with all my might.

After several false starts, I finally listened to Smart Guy's advice and decided to wake up early in the morning, and by early, I mean 6 AM to get a start on my writing.

Now, if you have known me for a while, you know that I'm an insomniac who doesn't see the light of the day before 8 or 9AM. So the notion of setting an alarm clock when I didn't have to go to work was for me a radical idea.

But for the past couple of days, thanks to Jetlag and cutting down on my cup of evening tea (which is a great achievement in itself because I'm a coffee and tea junkie), I've discovered that I can fall asleep by around 11, which means there's no real reason I couldn't try to wake up a couple of hours before toddler girl wakes up, providing myself with the peace and quiet to hear my own thoughts.

So, I did today. And even though the two hours weren't the most productive, I still got a head start. Let's see how long that lasts.

Coming to my current project:

I've started rewriting my Desire MS and have set myself a deadline. I don't want to jinx myself by saying what it is. But I know that I need to meet it or else...

I collected a few pitcures when the initial idea for this story crawled into my head. So I decided to post a few pics to inspire myself while I did the revisions.

So here's the first one. Montgomery Manor, Xavier's ancestral home.

For Xavier, being an unsentimental cynic, the Manor has no special meaning, even though it's going to be his one day. He has left it four years ago with no qualms and has only returned now.

But for Sam, once the housekeeper's daughter and now the widowed daughter-in-law, the Manor means everything. It's the home that she always wanted to be hers when she was a child, and in her heart, she knows that she doesn't belong there even though now she lives there.

Next up, I will post pics of Samantha Miller or what I thought she would look like in my head.

P.S. Hubby will be hereafter referred to as Smart Guy. For the obvious reason that he was smart enough to marry me.

Ready

I'm back at home after more than two months away. Have finished cleaning the house to get rid of all the wonderful smells that have made our house their own.

Haven't worked on anything in so long and have been bursting with doubts and ideas regarding my writing.

Have conquered most of the doubts and given wings to ideas.

Have made a working plan as to what I want to tackle in the next three months after wonderful input from a smart lady.

I'm jumping back into the field with all swords drawn.

Hear me roar!

Reading Alert: Just finished reading Linda Lael Miller's A Wanted Man and loved it. Haven't read too many western historical romances but loved the way she so realistically created the town of Stone Creek. Have to read more of her books.

Ouch

Nope, my log line didn't make it to the top 9 that were picked for the Editor Pitch for Silhouette Desire and it hurts.

Real bad.

Wow, losing based on the log line is making me feel so crushed, then Kudos to those who persevere rejection after rejection till they sell.

I guess I better be prepared.

It ain't gonna be a smooth ride.

Done

My first draft for the manuscript for the Desire pitch is finally done. I forced myself to write the last few thousand words. Every word felt like drawing blood from a stone, and the last chapter is utterly crappy with she said, he said, but it's done.

Now I can travel in peace (oh, did I say peace- 24 hour journey with a toddler, yeah, right?) and will revisit the manuscript again on Thursday or Friday when I've had a couple of nights of sleep after reaching India.

This being the third MS I finished, I should feel quite happy with myself but I'm not. I think it's because it's a very rough draft and needs a lot of work.

The log line for the contest is ready but will submit it once I'm on the other side of the Atlantic. It's going to be so hard to open a laptop and work again with family, food (Yes, I have to decided to bilge as I feel quite deprived of good food) and shopping for my sister's wedding on my mind constantly( and not necessarily in that order) but having finished the WIP, I have to give my all to shaping it up into something decent that an editor will want to see.