Posts Tagged ‘Progress’

Today, my writing session at Starbucks allowed me to reach another milestone: Cassie & Dustin’s story is now the correct length for Harlequin American Romance.

They want 55,000 to 60,000. Cassie & Dustin now come in at 55,686.

That makes another completed first draft. I had to add about 10,000 words to beef it up to the meet the word requirement. (I’ll have to do the same thing to Bree & Mike’s story, too. Guess that’s next on my list.)

Also on my list? Printing this puppy out for editing purposes, but that will have to wait until I get my computer back. This one isn’t equipped to print with my printer.

Crap. It just hit me: Now I have to write a synopsis and query letter, too. Ugh. Can’t I just hire someone else to do that for me?

March 27, 2010

Synopses

No comments

Nothing like a little disappointment — or a lot — to make you realize you need to work harder.

Today, I spent some time before work trying to come up with a synopsis for next year’s GH entry, which I want to enter in a contest with an April 10 deadline.

More later.

March 24, 2010

Meg & Matt, Progress

2 comments

Normally, I sleep until at least 9 a.m. I have to, after working until midnight most nights and not getting to sleep until after 3 a.m.

This morning, however, I wanted to take advantage of “Free Pastry Day” at Starbucks. (It’s not often you can get something for nothing, after all.) So I set the alarm for 8 a.m., but beat it up by 15 minutes because the Boyfriend called on his way to work.

I was hangin’ at the local Starbucks by 8:30, low-fat banana chocolate-chip coffee cake in one hand, a Dark Cherry Mocha iced coffee in the other and the laptop balanced on  my knees.

Writing was slow at first. It got much easier to type once the drink and cake were gone — and that didn’t take long. Next thing I knew, I was on a roll.

I sat there for more than FIVE hours — breaking at one point for a pit-stop and a large iced green tea. But I didn’t want to leave. I was on a roll … such a roll that in five hours, I wrote 4,511 words …

… AND completed my rough draft!

Yes, I know I’ll end up changing things. I’ll have to go back in and layer in more emotions, etc. I have a tendency to rush my endings — I don’t want my characters to suffer very much.

But it still feels fantastic to have a completed MS sitting beside me as I type this.

As it stands now, “Beauty and the Ballplayer” weighs in at 209 pages and a little more than 56,500 words. That leaves plenty of room for editing.

Of course, if I start chopping, it’ll be short. But that’s another problem. I’ll cross that bridge if (when) I come to it. I’ve already started to wonder if there’s too much backstory in my first few pages …

Ah, the things I wouldn’t have even thought about a year ago! Growth is a good thing, right? 😀

Thanks to inspiration that struck on the drive down to the Boyfriend’s, I ended up writing 2,595 words today.

According to the Excel spreadsheet I’ve been keeping, that’s almost the most words I’ve written in a single day. (Only one day is higher, with 2702.)

Now I’m that much closer to finished with this manuscript. Maybe I’ll even be able to finish before the month is out.

I still have at least a couple of scenes to write before I get to the dreaded Black Moment … and then I’ll have to make them miserable for a while. (I’m really not good at that part. I hate making my characters suffer … probably why I struggle with conflict so much, but that’s another story. I’ll get to that post soon, I promise.)