Last Chance

Today is your last chance before I chose a winner of Janet Evanovich's Lean Mean Thirteen.

Comment on this post to enter!

Bring Me To Life

Between studying for an awful quiz for today, writing my little heart out this weekend and working on a paper for class, my brain is fried. But I thought I'd share a few musings with all of you.

Characters are the life blood of novel writing. Sure there is suspense, romance, humor, but what makes that all come together? Your characters. So consider this for me: What makes your characters come to life for you?

Is it their name? That photo you found on the internet? A scent? An encounter with a stranger or someone you know in reality?

Sometimes it's all of those for me, but mostly a photo. I will find my favorite actor/actress/celebrity at that point in time and almost build a story around them. It all just seems to fit together. I even use their real first or last name or part of a name they've used on the big screen in order to keep things simple. But then there are characters of my own making through research and culture.

I'm still in Queryland for my second novel, All Because of You. I did receive a request for more material, but learned this weekend that my first chapters just didn't cut it. No problemo. I submitted to another 5 agents on Saturday and look forward to hearing back from them in the next few weeks.

The current WiP is coming along nicely. Still having a few hiccups in the research department, so I'm writing around those scenes for now (Chapters 7 and 8). Maybe some day I can find exactly what I'm looking for, but it doesn't seem to be on the internet. I fulfilled my goal for the month of September and hope my October goal will include the completion of my first draft for My Demonic Love. Let's hope.

I started with the second in my Afterlife Series, My Mortal Eclipse, this weekend and wrote about 4,000+ words. It seems when I'm having trouble with the current WiP, I just need to work on something else. It helps!

What do you writers out there do when you have writer's block or you feel like you just can't write any more?

Life and Crap

Due to time constraints, tomorrow's post is here today. :)

Life is getting in the way of writing and by all the comments of my previous post, it sounds like that happens to a lot of other writers. I'm so close to my goal for the month (75% completion for the current W.i.P) that I can taste it. Right now it tastes like avocado (that's what I'm eating for snack time) and chocolate (my other favorite food).

I have a 750 word paper due Monday for my Modern Grammar class (yes, I said grammar). It's really more of a feeler paper for our bigger paper due in December. We're supposed to discuss what we'd like our big paper to focus on, how we're going to get there with research and our personal experience with this topic. Mine is grammar rules used in word processing software. I've discussed all the points I'm supposed to cover and....I'm only at 530 words. Crappy!

I've been trying to keep up on all your great blogs. Sorry if I don't comment on all of them. I'm trying! You guys have been so welcoming into this community and I can't thank you enough. Thank you for following me on this journey and I hope I can make it worth your while!

Show Me Yours

Yep, I want to know all about you! And how you write, of course :) Tell me how you find time to write and what you're writing. What is your personal writing process? Do other hobbies tear you away from the computer (laptop, pencil, paper, etc)? Do you have a job that gives you the ability to write your heart away?

One last question: What are you doing to network or market? We all know the publishing industry has changed over the years and it seems us writers need to be more like business managers now days. So what are you doing that gets the word out about yourself and your work?

Just a reminder September's Giveaway Contest is coming to a close in 11 days. To win a copy of Janet Evanovich's Lean Mean Thirteen, all you have to do is comment on this post.

Thank you for stopping by to my new followers. Introduce yourselves! I want to know all about you!

It's Friday

Hello, friends. I have some good news. Well, a couple pieces of good news.

#1. It's Friday! Oh, how I've longed for this day for so long. It seems this week was the longest of my life for some reason.

Good news #2. I received a partial request on my second novel, All Because of You!

This round of submissions only included about 7 agents. I have a list of about 50, but I'm too busy (*clears throat* ...lazy) to finish the rest of the research I need to do for each agent. I'd received two rejections prior, but yesterday, I opened my inbox and viola. A request :)

Now, since this is a Friday post, it's time to tell you how the week went. I'm up to about 70% finished with the first draft of My Demonic Love. This is my first try at a paranormal romance and it seems I've been having to do A LOT of research for it. If you've read my post below, I had a hard time researching the daily life of a cardiac surgeon, but with the help of one my of loyal followers, Anne, I was able to get through it! Thanks, Anne! Now, I'm onto researching vaults. Specifically a vault that will store an ancient book or document. I haven't come across a lot of information on the subject. I remember Dan Brown, in his novel Angels and Demons, chose the Vatican as his location for his MC to study ancient documents and that's the type of vault (archive, safe, etc) I want. However, when I try to Google for information, all I get is what's supposedly inside the Vatican archives. I don't want that!

Anyway, enough with the rant :)

I haven't really been working much on my short story, Relief, this month. It's supposed to be ready to submit to a contest at the end of the month, but seeing as how it's the first chapter from my first novel (and I'm kind of sick of my first novel), I haven't really been motivated to work on it. Suggestions?

What is your good news this week? How did your writing go? Any fun plans for the weekend?

Schedule

Out in the blogging world other writers I connect with seem to have a blogging schedule. This gives them a chance to focus on more important things, like writing (as I should be doing). So it comes down to this: My blogging schedule is now going to be Monday's (to let you know how the weekend was) and Friday's (to let you know how the week was).

So on to how the weekend went...

It was GREAT. I got A LOT of writing done this weekend for some reason, most of it being yesterday. Not only did I write an astounding 17 pages on My Demonic Love, the current WiP, I started writing a chapter of my Sleuth (to be actively worked on in 2011). For some reason, I woke up with an idea in my head that wouldn't leave and I had to sit down and write 10 pages of the novel. I also did a lot of research for My Demonic Love, trying to get inside the head of my hero and daily life as a cardiac surgeon. Here are some articles I found helpful if you ever need to work with this subject:

http://www.ctsnet.org/sections/residents/newhorizons/article-10.html
http://asianannals.ctsnetjournals.org/cgi/content/full/7/3/165

http://www.ehow.com/about_6613038_life-heart-surgeon.html

I also asked my aunt, who lives with my Nana, how my Nana's valve replacement went, what the surgeon explained, how long the surgery took, etc. to get a more personal touch into the mix. I think I'm done writing the mechanics of it and am focusing more on the daily life of a surgeon since novels are character driven. Hopefully it turns out well.

What did you do this weekend? Did you surprise yourself as I did?

I also want to welcome new followers! Thanks for being a part of this journey with me. Hope you enjoy :)

The Wait Begins

I've submitted queries...I'm a little nervous.

Research

My hero of My Demonic Love is having an identity crisis, or rather, I have a problem with his career choice. He's a heart surgeon, loves his job, but I am having a bit of trouble doing research for this particular character. I feel I need to learn as much as I can about the human heart in order to portray my character's life as close to reality as possible, but where do I start? How much do I need to learn in order to make it believable? I've tried watching heart surgery videos, but I understand NOTHING of what is going on or what the surgeon is talking about.

Do you have any advice?
Are there more writer's out there who think they've bitten off more than they can chew?

Progress Report

This week I've been focused on my second novel, All Because of You, and getting it ready to submit to agents. I have my list of about fifty agents to submit this work to and I'm researching each and every one to see which will be the appropriate homes for my book. Lots of fun :/

I've still been working on my current work in progress every now and then, treading through the murky waters of the middle of the novel and think I have a solution. The middle of novels are just filler really. The most important parts of a book being the middle and the end. Well, I always write the beginning and the end first, leaving me to deal with the filler, something I hate. The newlywed feeling of a new work in progress is gone at that time and you really have to motivate yourself to keep going. But keep going you must, or it will never be finished. It's going well though.

I've completely outlined my first try at a Sleuth, called Never Too Early, and just might start working on that book next. Right now, its fourth on my list, but I'm really excited about it and may start early.

So far only one person has commented on my contest for the month! You guys need to get it in gear if you want a chance to get Lean Mean Thirteen for free!

Hope you guys are having a good holiday weekend!