I redid what I lost last night. Packing in the research and learning some neat stuff. My 1958 guidebook on Aleppo arrived. Lot's of neat information some of which changed the plot but mostly it's changing itself as I write and discover my pretend plot was silly. Still a marriage under dire circumstances, but the circumstances are evolving. I killed off my first character yesterday, which I was too depressed to blog about after the big oops of August 20. A day of infamy, I tell you. Anyhow, this poor fellow had a stroke and well, he died,leaving the heroine all alone with another person who does not have her best interests at heart.

Neither does my hero, but he doesn't know yet just how low he's going to go. I don't have the heart to tell him. Besides, he'll find out eventually.

I have 41.5K words. Need more.

Off to bed. Will try to do better soon, I promise.

Labels: oops, plotting, research, writing

Alas poor plot, I knew you well.

But now I've kicked you to the curb in favor of a brighter, shinier plot. A better plot. Sorry. But them's the breaks when you're at the mercy of a professional writer and panster. It's not for the faint of heart, but there you have it.

Today, the machete came out. Maybe not the machete, but for sure it was the weed whacker. First, two or three days ago, I had this big but not enormous refinement which was great and good for more words. But right after I was almost done with that, I had a dream about a marriage under dire circumstances and it is just so way awesome a better plot I could hardly stand it.

Oh, new plot! I still get all shivery and excited just thinking about you.

I love you, brighter shinier plot!

But you are a High Maintenance kind of plot.

My New Plot is making me pay

Hence, the hacking and replacing. The new plot required that I change the names of some secondary but main characters, and first I changed it to Cartier because, well, it was half the solution to a crossword puzzle I've been working on and so it was on my mind. Only today I realized Ack! that left me with three names that start with C: Camilla, Crosshaven and Cartier.

Sigh.

So I changed that to Brooks becuase, well, confession time here. Meljean Brook's Demon Night was sitting on the top of a pile of stuff I need to do something with (like just about everything in my room) because I want to keep it since it's an awesome story, so I thought, hey, I'll just stick an S on the end of Brook and no one will ever know I stole Meljean's last name for my heroine's cousins. Mwahahahah!

But then the fun part was over and I had to pretty much redo chapter 1 and then I ran out of time. I should be in bed already. Only I'm not.

But I'm about to. Thinking about my shiny new High Maintenance Plot that I still love.

Labels: Names, plotting, writing freaking writing, writing process

• Got the RT review for My Wicked Enemy (see previous post)


• Didn't make it to the gym this AM because 4:30 was too early for someone who stayed up too late the night before. Came out of a dream at 5:15am--


• The dream was one of those dreams where I am observing as a commentator in case my dreaming self is too stupid to get the significance of dreaming about the characters in my book --


• Dream-observer Carolyn said something to the effect of: You DO realize that this is exactly the backstory that's missing from your book, right? Your h/h get married in Anatolia.


• Dream-observer appears to be right.


• Celebrated my son's 13th birthday. He acted just like a pre-teen, too. He was supremely uninterested in hanging with the family. He and his cousin disappeared into his room and performed Satanic almost-a-teenager rituals, I'm sure.


• Talked with siblings and in-laws.

And now I'm going to bed airquotesearlyairquotes. The sad thing is, that's exciting for me.

Labels: Dreams, plotting, reviews, writing

So, yeah. I'm not so sure how relaxing things have been. I've been trying to get all the stuff I've been ignoring for practically a year done and off the To-Do list. Today, I tackled a major one -- which is getting together the paperwork for submitting an extension course proposal to my alma mater. I'll refine it tomorrow and make a call to find out what I can email and what has to be snail-mailed.

Other than that, I've finally started in on the TBR pile. So far:

Mine to Possess By Nalini Singh. I've been meaning to read her forever, and at last I could. And am glad I did. Fun read!

The Short Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao By Junot Diaz (Still working on this one, but it's great!) Only, I've set it aside for:

Indian Killer By Sherman Alexie

I'm becoming a Sherman Alexie fangirl. His YA The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian was so freaking good -- rush out and buy or borrow this book, people -- I went out the next week and bought two of his adult titles. Wow. Just wow. He's amazing.

I should be ashamed about setting aside Diaz, but you know what? It's my TBR and I can read in whatever order I want and I can be reading as many books as I want at the same time, too.

Today, I notebooked some of the next historical and I think I nailed the basic idea. Things began very badly. All confusing and none of the parts were fitting together. But then I realized I needed to change the location and ta dah! everybody was very happy.

OK, off to bed because I want to read some before it's too late.

Labels: Authors, brainstorming, plotting, reading

I was busy all day and feel like I have nothing to show for it. That's not so uncommon, I suppose, but I do get tired of all the little things that eat up my days. Honestly. Anyhooo.... Today I mailed back the copy-edits for My Wicked Enemy. That feels good. And, I'm told the cover will have special effects on the flames and some decorative bits. That's pretty neat. Can't wait to see the final! Then I had a few website updates to do. That always takes longer than I want it to and there's managing or posting on the social sites like Twitter and My Space. Sigh.

The first funny thing that happened today is one of those, it's scary to be a writer things: I'm going to be doing a few chapters of Xia in the Point of View (POV) of Kynan, the hero of the next book (this is assuming my publisher will want to go to contract on more; with a fancy cover, let's hope so!) and I've been wracking my brains about the circumstances of the chapter and the fact that I want him to meet his heroine (but not know it) in at least one of those chapters. How to do that, I've been muttering to myself these last few days. So in an unrelated plotting dilemma, now that I have my first crucial fight scene drafted, my vague intention was that someone -- didn't know who, would call Kynan who would then do some stuff -- careful, that's advanced panster plotting there! I mulled over a bunch of lame-o or otherwise unsatisfactory ideas and moved on. I started thinking about the fact that my heroine has called her best friend (Kynan's heroine-to-be) to arrange a get together, only the big fight comes along and by the time of the meeting Xia and Alexandrine are long gone from the house. So, I'm driving home and thinking about this and admitting that I cannot leave this appointment thing unresolved. What to do? I'm sure some of you are shouting the answer at me. Bear with me, please. So, I'm imagining the heroine-to-be standing at Alexandrine's house where it's obvious something awful has happened, and I swear to Dog, this is exactly what happened in my head --- Kynan walks up to her and says, "Are you Alexandrine Marit?"

See, the whole time, Kynan has been trying to get a hold of Xia but can't because Xia's cell phone was crushed in the big fight. So he finally drives over to talk to him about what's up and there's the heroine-to-be wondering where her best friend is. Two problems solved with one frightening glimpse into the writer's mind. Sometimes it's best not to look too hard. But it was like I was watching T.V. or something. Kynan just walks up and voila!

Another funny thing happened today. Over on the Crimson City blog where no one has posted for ever and ever, because, well, we're done with the City for now, it seems, someone posted two comments: Here they are for your reading pleasure, along with my response since, for good or ill, they were directed at my book:

my mom is reading "a darker crimson" with the characters Korzha, and Claudia Donovan, and I think the third is Lath. she's almost finish[ed] reading and wants to know if their story line continues?

Nice! I think. But, hey! not so fast, Carolyn!

never mind about the continuation, she finally finished the book. And is cursing..." how the hell can an ultra alpha gorgeous male die at the hand of a twit who didn't know her own lust. As she is banging on the table and cursing at the characters. it is a anti- climactic book. why could they both have her. love on one side lust on the other, the dumb twit didn't deserve her. he wasn't evil just true to his nature, i didn't agree with him but that twit should not have be able to kill him and he deserved better than her twit ass self." "maybe she could write that he vanished and he really wasn't dead. he deserves love too and make the twit jealous. maybe when he died he regenerated and now can have someone else better than her and make her jealous he just should go out like that"

Oh. But the thing is, I don't really disagree. My response:

Dear Anonymous:

In the un-revised version of A Darker Crimson Lath did not die. But my editor, and others, strongly believed that Lath had to die. ::Sigh:: So, I did the dirty deed. I didn't want to do it. Honest. But, I understood the Lath-Must-Die faction's point. It's not a traditional HEA ending if Tiber has a rival for Claudia's affections at the end. Still...

Lath was a total hottie. But with writing, you cross some lines, which I did with Lath, and see if you get pulled back. Which I did. If it helps, my story (DX) in Shards of Crimson, features a demon who doesn't die. And I have a book coming out where I got pulled back at a different line, a little further out. (Heh, heh!) So, yeah, I totally get your frustration.

Thanks for the comment, though. If you see this, feel free to email me directly, and I'll send you the original chapter where he doesn't die.

And I added my email address. I'm hoping she sees my reply either over there at the Crimson City blog

Labels: A Darker Crimson, plotting, writing, Xia

Ok, let me just say that I have been cold for two days. The boys won all 3 of their soccer games and so they advance in the tournament and play next weekend in the frozen south.

I got some work done on Xia, naturally not as much as I'd hoped, but some and then a 2 hour drive home during which I plotted.

I'm tired. As soon as the laundry is in the dryer, I'm putting on my jams and going to bed.

Labels: plotting, soccer, Xia

Hopefully I can keep this short and sweet. (Right. I write novels!. I went to the gym while my son was at soccer practice. His practice lasts longer than my workout, so I notebooked while I was waiting for him to finish up. I worked out a lot of stuff. Folks, I think I have a complete plot! I worked through what issues I need to deal with in the remaining chapters. I wrote the first half of one of them tonight.

Tomorrow the Darling Child's soccer game is 40 minutes away and he has to be there at 8:00 am. Sigh. Which is why I'm going to bed now. I have to get up early. But I'll have the afternoon to work, plus I'm not dead tired like I was last weekend.

Off to bed.

Labels: plotting, Scandal

Well, gee! Blogger ate my post. Now I'm really tired. I'll have to make it fast.

I'm tired. I worked a lot on Magellan's Witch today. I fixed some plotting issues. I have a book signing Saturday and haven't done anything to advertise it. I'm now even tireder.

Labels: Magellan's Witch, plotting

I exceeded my minimum word count tonight and hit my secret target count. Plus some cool stuff came out of all that agony, and I had an idea I can run with. Yay. So, right now, all's happy here.

My really exciting news is that today I used the credit card (sigh) and bought a GPS for the car. This weekend, my son has a soccer tournament down south a couple hundred miles (moved from the previous weekend) and I have spent the last two weeks feeling sick with the certainty that I will get lost. We're driving down Friday night, so gosh only knows we'd probably end up at Yosemite Lodge before I realized I really did miss a turn. It's just horrible and I hate it. So I bought the GPS and it took less than five minutes to set up and get working. Really really really easy. And when I picked my son up at Aikido, I told it I wanted to go home, and waddya know, it found my house. The dear child may possibly be MORE excited than I am.

Okay. It's late, I wrote more than 1,000 words, and I'm deeper in debt but not dreading the weekend quite so much.

Labels: GPS, plotting, writing