Nothing else matters ...

Good writing day! I think it's all about the motivational goals.
Because I want the next book in that series.

Today I managed to: throw some aspirations on our guy's sexual prowess, give some hints that the bodyguard might be destined for more than she currently is, and take our guy's shirt off so he could be ogled. Nice.

Tomorrow: I need to get my bad guy back into the picture. He's decided to hide out and inflict pain where no one can see him. That jerk. I also have to make sure that the kidnap victim is still alive. I'm pretty sure she is. She's tough like that.

In the land of real life: It is seriously breezy here. Like, I might need to shut my window because it's blowing hard. Ha! I said "blowing" and "hard". Together. Ha! Yes, I do crack myself up. Thank you for noticing.

I didn't finish my new book last night. I'm trying to draw it out. I'm almost done with it, though, so I'm pretty sure it's not going to last out the night. Poor thing.

Okay. I'm done.
Later.

I popped season 1 of Veronica Mars in earlier just because. I forgot how much I loved the first season. Just. Wow. Wow. Wow. The pilot episode. The Logan/Veronica hatred that morphs into full on lustiness. Two thumbs up!

I also wrote a bit ...

The bulk of that was done before noon. Which is nice. However, then I did the whole VM thing and didn't get much writing done after. Whoops. Easily distracted, that's me!

I did a little reading ... can you guess who the author is?
Book #118 - Down and Dirty by Moira Rogers - Another series of short stories. Wild Card is set in a time after a great war has decimated the human population and most technology has been cast aside, the werewolves live in relative harmony with the humans. Alpha Jack Owens and independent rancher Ginny Howard clash constantly. He craves her, she doesn't want to join the pack. A night of steamy sex and a set of rogue wolves determined to push Ginny off her land, leaves Jack with no choice but to claim her. Fun, quick and a nice little journey into a wild west universe. Calling the Bluff puts Hazel, a female werewolf about to enter her first heat, up against Oliver, the lone wolf widower who doesn't quite understand why Hazel is interested in him. When they get caught out alone and she goes into full heat, Oliver vows to make sure she's taken care of. In more ways than one. I liked that the framework for this story was laid out in #1 and it played out well. Ante Up gives us the Pack Beta Thomas, solid, steady and dependable, and Lottie, proprietor of one of the local whore houses who's looking for passion. A stolen kiss shows Lottie that she might be dismissing him without giving him a chance. A fire, a missing girl and some hot loving round out this story. Sweet.

-and-

Book #119 - Some Like it Haunted (Mystic Valley/Carnal Powers #2) by Moira Rogers - This book really had no relation to the first Carnal Powers book which is a pity since I really liked those crazy supernaturals. However, it did have a hot, powerful medium and a saucy, intellectual, almost magically-nil professor who are investigating a haunted house. Not bad, by any means. I was just hoping to get more face time with Lars, Claire, Kiara and Adrian.

So, there. I hope to get a little more writing done tonight. If I can just get that darn Veronica Mars off my TV.
Later.

Let's get this party started, shall we ...
Happy Birthday, heather13!
May all sorts of shiny, distracting things ... distract you!

Today's going to be one of those hard and fast posts. Why? Because I've been reading and I've been writing. And that's about it.

On the writing front: I finally poked and prodded myself through the beginning of the next chapter. I knew where I needed it to go, but I had a really hard time seeing where it started. Honestly, that's not a problem I normally have. If anything, the beginnings are usually easy for me. I love finding that one line that captures the attention and drags you in, kicking and screaming.

However, I worked through it and managed several pages of things happening that I've been working towards for the past few chapters.

So.

Not a huge amount of words, but I did go back and fix a few of the things that were bugging me. Most of them were little things (how close it was to the full moon, how many people died in the opening scene, wording on one scene that read so awkwardly that I'd cringe every time I came across it) but they were things I kept telling myself I'd go back and tweak. Now, on one hand I don't want to get so obsessed with writing everything absolutely perfectly the first time around that I start tweaking and tweaking and tweaking and give up on the actual writing, but these were things I knew I'd have to go back and change eventually. These were the things that I started out writing one way and figured out halfway through that in order to move the plot forward they'd need to be altered. Sometimes slightly, sometimes a lot.

So, it's done. For the most part. Let's just say that I'm happier with it now and move along.

Onward to the books. Are you ready for this?
Book #110 - Sanctuary's Price (Red Rock Pass #3) by Moira Rogers - One thing I've found myself really enjoying with this series is that the main characters from prior books are brought back and we get to see them in a slightly different light. Dylan, the wolf who helped Abby escape the clutches of the mad Alpha in book #1, finds his relationship with Cindy, the town doctor, falling apart after the events at the end of book #2. Drawn to Sasha, an apprentice witch trying to help the Pack in their struggle against the Helena wolves, Dylan has to let go of a decade of being abused to help her overcome her terror at finding herself thrown into a full on Were-war without her mentor. This was a nice slow ride after Brynn and Joe's tumultuous coming together in the last book. Dylan's not a strong wolf, more a middle of the pack kind of guy, and Sasha is a witch who doesn't quite know the full range of her power, having lost her mentor before she was fully trained. I'm not saying it wasn't hot, because it was. I'm just saying that it was very different from Brynn's moon-crazed coming together with a highly Alpha wolf. If you can't tell, I'm seriously enjoying this series.

-and-

Book #111 - Sanctuary Unbound (Red Rock Pass #4) by Moira Rogers - We finally get to meet some vampires. Adam Dubois, the lumberjack vampire from Maine, friend of the Alpha, who Dylan, Sascha, Brynn and Joe go to recruit to their side (book #3) takes center stage when he comes to Red Rock to help the wolves with their Helena problem. He falls for Cindy, the town doctor, but he has a deep dark secret he's not thrilled to let out. She's kinda screwed up too. Apparently, being secretive means you'll have hot sex. Often. First off, did you see the part about a lumberjack vampire? Awesome. Secondly, this book gives us some pretty solid resolution on the whole Helena issue. We learn who's pulling the strings and how far their willing to go to get what they want. Although the main story arc has been resolved, I'm still hoping for more in this series. I'm not holding my breath, but I think it would be really, really nice to see how things work out down the line.

-and-

Book #112 - Short Stories from Red Rock Pass by Moira Rogers - Two short stories set in the Red Rock universe. The first was Becoming, which I read (and reviewed) the other day. It was a very good glimpse into Sam's life when she was first brought to Red Rock and how she becomes one of the forces behind allowing the town to grow into the sanctuary we see in later books. The second story was Little Things, which starts with Gavin giving young Keith some advice on courting the ladies as he prepares to ask Sam to marry him. 40 years later, Keith uses that advice to show Abby how much he loves her. Surprisingly complex for a short story, it ended up being sweet and giving you a bit more insight into the Alpha males of the Pack.

-and-

Book #112.5 - Honor Bound by Moira Rogers - I've honestly been impressed with the level of story you get with Moira Rogers' short stories. I never once felt like I was being slighted with the amount of story I was given. The characters are well developed (sometimes more so than characters in other full-length novels by other authors) and you want to know what happens to them. Amaia is a demon who betrays her people to save a child werewolf. Returning her to her Pack puts Amaia in the path of the child's brother, Orion. He agrees to help her escape the death sentence she's put herself under and ends up mating himself to her after a night of hot sex. Honestly, I would go for more in this universe. It was fun and different enough from the Red Rock universe to keep me interested.

Wow. That's a lot of books I read.
Later.

Umm, where did my evening go? I mean, whoa. I was sitting here, innocently reading some short stories of the naughty variety before I settled in to work on my epic masterpiece and somehow I got sucked into trying to figure out some of the finer points of Word so that I could transfer some of my guilty pleasures to my new Kindle (YAY!) when it finally arrives. Suddenly it's almost 11 and I've done no writing today.

Good thing I had all that coffee earlier and don't have a problem with staying up late. Right? Right.

Speaking of the epic masterpiece (aka-The Burning Plot Bunny), I was talking about some of the names I'm using in it with Eric earlier and how I'm doing research on those names and the various ancestries and meanings. It got me thinking along a path that looks promising. Not in this story because I'm afraid this story is going to get out of control if I don't start reigning myself in a little bit. I'm looking toward the horizon with this line of thought. I'm looking at how things evolved in the Werewolf Packs that stem from different cultures. I'm thinking about how my heroine doesn't know who she is and there could be a perfect opportunity there to explore that. For the record, I know who she is. I've known since early on. I don't think I'm going to spill the beans in this story, but I do know.

Am I starting to think too big? Is the story going to become a monstrous thing that scares me and gives me nightmares? Maybe. I'm okay with that today, though. Ask me again tomorrow and we'll see if I have the same answer.

Anyway. I have to write. For serious.
Later.

After journaling last night I tooled around on my story. At that point I had written maybe 300 words for the day. Maybe. I went back and re-read some of the parts that I've been mulling over as being either too rough or needing a little tweaking because of things that came later. Then I sat down and actually wrote. I think I turned the computer off around midnight.

Amazingly, I turned out nearly 2000 words total yesterday. More, if you count the changes I noodled around with.
So.

I added another 200-300 words today and I'm still seeing the path this story is taking. I finished off chapter 5 and got a good start on chapter 6. I'm still contemplating killing someone, but it kinda depends on whether my bad guy is as bad as I think he is. It also depends on whether the victim has to guts to keep going in the face of adversity. I've laid the groundwork for some scenes between the two mains that I knew were going to happen from the beginning. Some of these scenes were the ones that tipped the scales in favor of me trying to write this story. Once I saw them I wanted to know how they ended. I wanted to know how my heroine worked her way out of the hole she'd been thrown into. Metaphorically. I wanted to see if my hero had the foresight to fight for the things worth fighting for.

Thus far, they haven't disappointed me.

*happy sigh*

Yes, this story feels all-consuming sometimes, but it's so worth it. I love the feeling I get when the words I'm writing go from a jumble of ideas to a cohesive story.

Enough writing talk. I went to Verizon today to have them take a look at my phone. The tech did a few things and told me that it was all fixed and shouldn't freeze up again. I'm like, hmm, let me see. I opened up the Twitter app, flipped the phone and handed it right back to him when the funky lines that should not be appeared. His response? "Wow. I've never seen that happen before." Yeah, yeah, buddy. Whatever. I'm having a new phone shipped to me. It should be here no later than Monday, although probably Saturday. As a plus, my phone is working now. It just randomly gives me the squiggly lines of DOOM every so often and then it gets over itself. Yay?

Since we were down in San Jose doing the Verizon thing I asked Cole if he wanted to go up to the bookstore at the mall. We went, I bought a book. I dragged Cole into Hot Topic because I love the clothes that store carries and have only actually shopped there online. 3 t-shirts for Cole (Halo, Star Wars and Deadliest Warrior), a new pair of fingerless gloves (for me), a new pair of over the knee socks (for me) and a mini skirt (obviously for me) later we managed to make our way out.

I'll be wearing that mini skirt tomorrow. Maybe with my completely awesome Fangtasia shirt. Don't be jealous, you can't all be as wickedly goth as me!
Ha!
Okay. I have things to do.
Later!

Today's writing fun!

Chapter 5 is nearly complete. We got some mythology behind the Werewolves, a full-on shift, and the girl is finally out of her injury-induced sleep.

Next up: Close out chapter 5 with a meeting between wolf and girl. Send our hero out into the big, bad world to hunt some more baddies. Decide whether the kidnap victim survives.

I plan on finishing out that chapter tonight.

On top of the random writing I've been doing, I'm helping a certain lovely someone edit her novel. It's rather fun, if I do say so. Except that sometimes I have to go back and re-read becasue I forget the actual editing part. :) That's a good thing, though, because it means that THE STORY IS A GOOD ONE!

Cole, Hailey and I have a date with Amber, Phil, and Ryan to go berry picking tomorrow morning. Two cars, berry-stained fingers, hours of fun!

Wow. I might have to shut my window. It's getting a little chilly. Annnnd. I still have to take the dogs out. I guess I'd better find my sweater.
Later.

jenah and her son come over for the day. Jenn and I watched the 5 aired episodes of Happy Town. I know that show only has 3 more eps to go, but I'm really, really hoping they tie up the ongoing storyline. Sadly, I don't know if that was in done before it was canceled, but I like the damn thing. I'll be a little sad to see it go. Boo.

Burning Plot Bunny update: Wrote a page or two of character/back story sketches since I didn't have actual computer time. According to Word, I have 24 pages written. I think I have 9 pages of notes. o_O If I'm not careful, my notes are going to overtake the written pages soon. It'll be anarchy! There will be rioting in the streets! Looting! Screaming! Never-before-seen shenanigans! It'll be downright wild.

And that pretty much sums up my day. Cole has ensconced himself downstairs for the evening since (in his words) "it's just cooler down there". I don't think it's all that much cooler. It does get a bit of a breeze, however. I don't know. My room is grotesquely hot. Blech.

I'm outta here.
Later.

I haven't written anything on my story in the past two days. Wait. No. That's not correct. I've written things on it, it just hasn't been of the plot variety. Basically, I have these unconnected scenes that are flipping through my head. For the most part, I can see where they're going to go in the overall plot-line so I started thinking, Hmmm, I'd better get the bare bones of these ideas down on paper before I can't remember all the bits and pieces. Five pages of notes later ...

Guys, I've never been this organized when it comes to writing. NEVER. And this story keeps humping other parts of itself and spawning new ideas and I almost can't keep up.

Trust me when I say that I'm not complaining in any way, shape or form. I love how this story is evolving. I love how it's falling out of my head. I'm simply stunned and amazed at how quickly it's growing.

So, those pages of notes would be why I didn't journal yesterday. I lose track of time like crazy. The other day I even put off eating so I could get those last few sentences down. Yeah. An hour later I realized that I was starving and it was time to eat. The end. No excuses. It was kinda awesome.

My manic glee at my current writing project aside, I ordered the newest book by Sherrilyn Kenyon the other day. It's set in her Dark-Hunter universe but it's in the Young Adult genre. I loved the last book I read that followed this formula (The Darkest Powers trilogy by Kelley Armstrong which is set in her Otherworld universe) so I have pretty high hopes for this book. That might not make sense since they're written by different authors, but Kelley Armstrong set the bar high with Chloe's story and I fully expect Sherrilyn Kenyon to do her part in keeping me happy on the reading front.

Well, I got a decent nap in today in preparation for a late night writing. Yes, my world revolves around when I can get a few hundred words down in Word. You know, I'm okay with that.
Later.

I have the funniest piece of dialog running through my head right now. If I could find a way to work it into the burning plot bunny that's eating a hole through my brain I TOTALLY WOULD! It's all about what exactly constitutes sex in different cultures. ( I'll cut this so as not to offend delicate eyes, although it's not really explicit, but still ... )

And this just proves that I'm going to end up writing porn, oops, erotica in the near future. It was all those bodice ripping romance novels I read in my youth! They warped my fragile mind and make me think of things in terms of literary sex. AWESOME!

In news that does not involve talks about boy parts, I totally saw Iron Man 2 today and I think I kinda love it! I'm planning on watching the first movie tonight. I have to say that IM2 was completely what I was expecting it to be. It was loud, shiny, pretty, fast, and Tony Stark was perfect. Loved it!

In the land of the aforementioned burning plot bunny, I've written over 8000 words and I'm only half way through chapter 3. Holy crap! No, I haven't written anything today. Yet. The night's still young. Or maybe it's not even night yet. Whatever. I have time. I plan on writing. After I watch Iron Man. Excellent.

Alright. I've got things to do. Very, very important things.
Later.

I went with malkovich03 to her mom's house for a barbecue today and I might (or might not) have done some drunken tweeting. I'm just saying. Once again, I'm not actually saying this happened, but here's the proof on both my twitter and Mal's (the latter was when I totally stole her phone and tweeted without her knowledge).

I'm extremely tired right now, so this is probably going to be short.

I wrote another 500 or so words this morning on the burning plot bunny. It's definitely moving forward with leaps and bounds. Hopefully tomorrow I'll close out chapter 3 and get a start on chapter 4. Lacey was given the first half of chapter 1 to read just because I needed someone to share it with. Hopefully she'll remember that it's in her car.

*blink, blink*

Tiredness setting in with a vengeance. My fingers are beginning to refuse to hit the correct keys. That's never good.
I'm out.