Tag Archives: novels

Updating my review schedule

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I received my copy of Oliver Chase’s new book, Levant Mirage, yesterday afternoon. With it in my hands, I can put it on my calendar and say the review will be posted on October 5th. It’ll give me plenty of time to read it and give it the thoughtful consideration it deserves. However, if history is any indication, I’ll read it on the 4th and hastily type it up. Bad habits die hard.

While I’m on the subject of reviews, I also got an email from Christa Yelich-Koth, and she too has a new book coming out next week, Illusion. She asked for a review, and though she’s out of hard copies to hand out (bummer), she promised to send a .pdf copy immediately. As soon as she does, I’ll put in on my calendar as well. Just need to decide if it’ll also be in October, which would put it on the 19th, or wait until the 2nd of November.

And while I wrote this, I checked my email and my copy is here. Yay! It’s fun to write in real-time. So I’m planning on posting the review of Illusion on the 19th. I’ll update my Book Review page to reflect the changes. This is going to be fun.

If you have a book you would like me to review, I’ll set aside the first Monday in November and in December for reviews. I’ll make any additions as needed, and open up months into the new year should I be asked for more. Let’s see what happens. Until then, happy reading and good luck to these two authors as they release their new books!

Giving planning another go

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20150720_210140I bought myself a composition notebook yesterday after I left my writer’s group. I didn’t hadn’t planned on it, but I needed to buy a few things at the store and I saw that they had begun to set Back to School. I decided to check it out and lo and behold, I saw a stack of them for fifty cents. I bought two.

So today at lunch, as I sat in my car, I pulled one of them out and began to loosely sketch out who my main characters are, what their role will be and their probable motivations. I’ve tried to plan and plot before, but it’s never worked for me. I’m going to try again. I probably won’t create a strict outline, I know that won’t work, but I think I general idea of major plot points will suffice.

I should get going. I have a reality to create, a journey to figure out, and frankly I need a snack. I’m thinking cake. Cake goes good with writing, at least that’s what I believe. If anyone wants to bring me a coffee, that would be awesome, too.

New ideas

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I have a new idea. Yes, I have an old idea, in the form of a book that needs to be completed, but I have a new idea, one that I’m excited about. I’m going to have to force myself to complete Jasmine, something that’s I’ve been saying for years now, so I can move on to this new project. It’s about…

Well, I think I’d rather not say, at least not yet. There’s still a lot of details that are vague at the moment. All I have are two characters and an idea of what brings the unlikely pair together. I’m excited about it, which says a lot. I’ve lost interest in Jasmine. I love the story, I’m just a little burnt out on it.

Fixing Gwyn

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I’m currently at the Georgia St. Roasters, a coffee shop in Amarillo. I’m still working on my rewrites, struggling to fix one of my characters. I haven’t been as diligent on my writing as I should have been, but I’m back on track, again, and I hope to keep up my momentum.

I just finished Chapter Three and oddly enough I’m about to tackle Chapter Four. I’ve lost a few scenes, ones that just didn’t fit with the story. While I liked what I had written, it served no other purpose than to add to my word count. With no function in furthering the story, I had to make the decision to cut it out. Deciding to do it was harder than actually cutting it out.

This whole process feels like a surgical procedure. Snipping away the excess while keeping the integrity of the whole intact. What makes it all the harder is that I don’t want the whole thing to unravel. I just need to stitch it back together seamlessly so that the reader won’t miss what I cut away. So far, so good.

But the trouble lies ahead with my character Gwyn. Who is she? What’s her motivation? Is she crazy? (Yes!) Does she suffer from Dissociative Personality Disorder? (I don’t think so.) So if not, what then? I know she suffers from social anxiety, but what else? I don’t know.

It’s this question that has me stalled. It’s driving me crazy, all the more because I have another story that’s brewing in my mind that I would love to turn my attention towards. I have to get this one done.

I don’t know when I’ll be able to finish this and walk away. Maybe it’s not worth trying to fix, but if I give up on every story that has problems I’ll never finish anything. This is my line in the sand! I will get this one finished or die trying!

For now I’m going to get off and let my brain rest. I have a meeting to attend at work, which should only last an hour. Then I’ll go home, get out my red pen and start editing the next chapter. It’s not an easy task, but anything worth doing is worth suffering for. At least that’s what I’ve been led to believe.

Tangled mess

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As I try to rewrite this tangled mess that I laughably call a book, I’ve come to realize that writers are a masochistic bunch. Luckily I am indeed a masochist, or at least that’s what I took away from the tangled mess of what once was my love life.