Epic! Fail! February

So some of you might remember this post where I declared that February would be the month that I Got Stuff Done(!). Namely revisions on my WIP Whisper. Such big plans I had. Like finishing revisions, working on my query and synopsis, maybe even wrapping up my other WIP. Two hours after my Focus February post, my grandma died. What followed was a month of physical and emotional exhaustion taking care of my grandma's stuff. It's been difficult and what free time I did have I was just too drained to revise.

But I did manage to do a few things. I posted my opening on Secret Agent and got some great feedback. And this week I posted a section of dialogue over at Miss Snark's First Victim's Talkin' Heads crit roundup. My entry is (#48) here if you're interested. I've already gotten some great feedback and done some revising again. "Mutual Attraction" is not really a good description for what's going on in that scene but I was in a time crunch and couldn't think of anything better. Still, it's one of my favorite scenes in the book. With one of my favorite characters.

Anyhoo. I've declared February a loss as far as revisions go, but I'm all set for some of my own personal March Madness! I have to get my WIP revised because the one good thing that came out of my time away from writing is a very Shiny New Idea that I really really want to start working on. It's so different from anything else I've written and I can't wait to get started on it, but I won't let myself until I finish my WIP revisions and get it out to my Crit group.

I'm on a mission in March to Get Stuff Done(!) for real. And maybe have a contest or two. What about you? Do you have any March Madness goals?

NaNoWriMo Wordle - week 2

It's week two and I'm just under halfway done! Here's my week two wordle with 24,980 words.


It's interesting that the most prominent words now are words like "like" and "just" and "looked". I thought for sure that "shrugged" would be in there. I swear it seems like the only thing my characters do is shrug! I'm glad to see that that's not the case.

I didn't get as much writing done this week as last, but I'm still happy with my progress. I worked out a few new plot twists that will help me make my way out of the middle and overall I'm really excited to finish this draft so I can get started revising and making it into a manuscript I can be proud of.

How was week two for you?

Teaser Tuesday

It's Teaser Tuesday! I thought for a change I'd share a teaser of my own work. So here's a couple of the few sentences from my nano project I'm actually willing to show the world right now.

"They found Jenna in the woods, her brown eyes gray with early morning frost. Laid out amongst the moss and tall grass like an offering to some goddess of the forest."

There you go! Now back to writing!

Things I Do When I Should Be Writing - Fake Cover!

Ah procrastination, how I love thee!

So today my goal is 3,000 words on my nano project, which will take me to 20,000. What have I been doing? Making a totally craptastic cover for my unfinished book. Check it out:



Um... yeah. What's sad is that my female MC is not even on the cover (that's her dead best friend at the bottom) and also, I realized after I finished, my story takes place in early April so none of those trees should have leaves. This was actually particularly distressing because it totally ruins the mental imagery I had going for the book. How this escaped me before now I don't know. I blame it on all my years living in LA, where the trees never lose their leaves.

Anyway, back to writing! How's it going for you? Anyone else make a cover? I'd love to see!

NaNoWriMo - week 1 Wordle

So I'm obsessed with Wordle. I've been using it every day on my nano project. It's been interesting to watch it change over the week. Up until today, the biggest word by far was "Jenna" which was funny because Jenna is dead, the murder victim at the core of my mystery. Today she's finally evened out with most of the rest of my characters. I'm still so amazed that I'm over 15,000 words in just 6 days!

Week 1 Wordle:



Just a note, the word "something" is what I use when I need to come back and name something or fill in detail, so that's why it's so big. I think!

Twittercation Day 5

So I've been off Twitter for 5 days now, just 2 more to go, and I have to admit, Nova Ren Suma was right, Twitter kills novels. Because in just four days I managed to write over 11,000 words on my NaNoWriMo project. 11,000 in 4 days!! It boggles the mind. Most of it will need major revision but I'm still really happy with the way the story is flowing. It's so much darker than I thought it would be, which I love.

I've seen a lot of other people do this and I figured why not. Here's one of my favorite lines I've written so far:

"I stared out at the lake, wishing I could smell the water, feel the sand, leave an effing mark - something that would prove I was a part of her world." Ben - Whisper

How's NaNo going for you?

NaNo Playlist

I spent some time this weekend making notes on the book I'm going to write for NaNoWriMo next month. It's my first time doing NaNo and I'm pretty excited. I've had this idea floating around in my brain for a while. It's a YA (of course) ghost story/paranormal romance called Whisper. I always make playlists for my writing projects so I thought I'd share this one.

They didn't have a couple of the songs I'm using, including Stay by Lillix, which sucked, but oh well, you get the idea.

I'm looking for writing buddies for NaNo! If you want to be buddies, I'm valeriekwrites over there!