The Tally

I realize November still has two more days til it's over, but as far as my little NaNo deadline of hitting 40,000 words by the end of the month goes, it was pretty much over last night.  Too much running around to do tonight (it IS Thursday afer all, and we all know that means TVD night) and tomorrow I'll be Christmas shopping all day long with my mom and then heading to dinner with my eastside girls in the evening, which means I won't get home til late and I will be physically and mentally exhausted.  Which means the next time I'll get to write will be Saturday or Sunday, and then it's already December.  Agh.

Anyway, yes, I know my original goal was 41,000 words, which meant I had to write 25,000 words, but somewhere along the way I changed it to an even 40k.  Just had a better ring to it.  Nevermind that I was cutting 1000 words.  Nevermind that at all.  Ahem.

Did I hit that goal?  Welllllll...ok, no.  No I did not. 

But I'm okay with that.  The reason being is my total is now just under 37,000 words, so in just a little over three weeks I wrote a good 20,000 words!  I mean, that's actually pretty amazing when you take into consideration that I was only writing about 3-4 days a week, for about an hour or two each time I sat down with my laptop.  And at 37,000 words, my story is now officially at least half over.  I'll be very happy if I end up with 70,000 words with this one.

Clearly, I work better under deadlines.  Even self-imposed ones.

So let's see, if I managed 20,000 words in about 3 weeks, I should be about to write 25,000 in 4 weeks.  That means if I stick with this pace, I should be done with the first draft by mid-January.  Since things are going to get a little crazy with the holidays coming up, my goal to finish the book for real will be February. 

For now, off to my readers it goes.  I'm dying for some feedback!!

NaNoWriMo...uh oh

Ok, wait a minute...it's November already?  I blinked and October was over!  I think I say this every year, but 2012 seriously has been the fastest year EVER.  Geez.

Anyway, so it's November, and November means it's NaNoWriMo time!  NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, kids.  The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel between November 1st and November 30th, and you can't cheat by using any of your previous work- it has to be a fresh, new novel.  Which means I can't enter using my current WIP, which is over 16,000 words now.  And it'd really be cheating, considering I've been working on it for several months now. 

Several months, and I'm only at 16k.  Ugh.  The progress I feel I've been making lately suddenly seems much, much less impressive.  Sad face.

Part of me wants to try NaNo one of these days.  50,000 words in 30 days?  Pssshh.  No big deal.

Right.

The main problem is every time November rolls around (ok, well, these past three years when I've been really trying to write something worthwhile) I'm engrossed in something I already started.  I don't think it would make much sense for me to stop working on the WIP, just to try to create some super crappy first draft of another book. 

That said, I WILL use November as a month to be super motivated about writing.  Maybe I can get 50,000 words down in the WIP- which would make it almost finished.  My goal is usually around 70k for a completed story. 

Ok though, let's be honest here.  50k ain't happening.  I just don't have it in me to write so quickly.  I will be a bit more realistic and set my goal at 25k.  That sounds much more reasonable.  So, by November 30th, I need to have a total of around 41,000 words written in the WIP.

I can totally do it.

To anyone out there participating in NaNoWriMo this month, good luck, and happy writing!! 

another snippet

I'm not sure what my deal has been these past few weeks, but I've just completely lost my writing mojo.  Like, I haven't felt any urge to pick up my laptop and continue on with the WIP.  And that's weird in itself, because I'm really liking this WIP.  Meh. 

In any case, sometimes after I post snippets here my inspiration suddenly returns.  So let's hope that happens again, cuz I'd really like to get back into my writing routine.  I'd like to get back on track like last year, writing at least 2-3000 words per week until the first draft is done.  I have a long way to go, considering I'm only at around 11k right now.  Sigh.

Please enjoy this snippet and share your thoughts if you so desire.  Feedback helps!!  :o)

 

*   *   *   *   *

“Janie!  Oh my god, what are you doing?”

I stand up abruptly, dazed.  I’d been peering down into the well, trying to glimpse Connor’s note in its depths.  No matter how hard I squint and stare, I cannot see it; it has completely disappeared into the darkness.

Rina grabs me and yanks me away from the well.  She engulfs me in her arms, which feels strange.  Rina isn’t the touchy-feely type, and I am about six inches taller than her.  My chin rests on the top of her head, her silky black hair smelling of strawberries.

“You officially are scaring the crap out of me,” she says, choking a little.

“What?  Why?” I hear the words come out of my mouth, but it doesn’t feel like I’m the one saying them.  I sound distant, my voice not attached to me.

She pulls back and stares into my eyes.  “Janie, it seriously looked like you were about to throw yourself into the well.  You know.  Like Gabby did?”

I blink rapidly.  That thought hadn’t even crossed my mind.  I glimpse back at the well and wriggle out of her arms.  “I wasn’t going to do that,” I tell her.

Rina’s almond-shaped eyes narrow a little.  “What are you doing out here, anyway?”

I hesitate, feeling foolish.  Rina didn’t really believe the legends about Gabby’s ghost, either, and would undoubtedly make fun of me for throwing Connor’s note into the well.  “I just had to get out of the house.”

She cocks her head at me.  “And you came here.  Of all places.”

I look at the ground, slipping my foot into and out of my flip flop.  “Why not?”

“Because I know what this place means to you and Connor.”

I don’t answer.

Rina reaches over and takes my hand.  “Janie, you’ve gotta be strong for him right now.  What happened was-“

“What happened was my fault,” I interrupt, wrenching away.  I stride back over to the well and plop down on the edge of it, not caring if my shorts are being stained by the mushy green moss coating the rim.

“I was going to say an accident.  Like I’ve told you a hundred times, you didn’t make him get in that car that night.”

I snort.  “Yes, I did.”

“Oh, right.  You physically shoved him in and locked the door from the outside, right?  Is that what happened?  My mistake.”

“You know what I mean, Ree.”  I run my hand along the edge of my shorts.  “I-I didn’t believe him.  And it devastated him.”

Rina walks over and sits down next to me.  “You have to stop blaming yourself at some point.”

“I can’t.  Not until he’s okay.”

Rina lets out a breath.  She won’t look at me, because she knows as well as I do that he might not ever be okay again. “Have you seen him again?’

“Yesterday.  Only for a minute.  It was…terrible.”

She nods.  “I went today.  No change, by the way.”

I close my eyes.  The sun is shining right into my face and I’m beginning to get a headache from the glare. 

“They say we should talk to him.  That if he hears familiar voices it might help pull him back to us.”

“I can’t,” I whisper, picturing my strong, handsome Connor weak and pale, hooked up to all those machines.

“He needs you, Janie.”

“I’m the last thing he needs.”

“He loves you,” Rina says simply.

I shake my head, my hair falling around my face like a curtain.

Rina sighs. “I hope you change your mind.  Because I, for one, truly think that if he hears your voice, knows that you’re back and that you believe him, that’ll be the key he needs to wake up.  Call me crazy.”  She stands, wiping off the back of her shorts and grimacing when she feels the dampness the moss left.  “You guys have something special, you know?  It’s not a normal kind of love.”  With that, she heads back into the woods and leaves me to my thoughts.

Not a normal kind of love.  For so long, I’d believed that about us.  What we’d had together wasn’t just silly teenage lust.  Connor and I had almost a sort of telepathy between us.  I could feel what he was thinking most of the time, and vice versa.  We could speak to each other with just a glance.  When we were apart I could still feel his presence somewhere, like a magnet pulling me in his direction.  He was the air I breathed, and without him, I am slowly drowning.

I gaze back down into the blackness of the well to find it is no longer completely darkened.  A mist is swirling up, reminding me of a fog rolling in over the hills.  I blink, certain I am seeing things, but it keeps rising and rising until I stumble backwards, watching it churn into the air.

And then, suddenly, the mist is sucked back down, like the well itself opened up its mouth and took a deep breath in, inhaling it completely.

I shake my head, squeezing my eyes shut.  Clearly, I’m hallucinating.  I try to think when the last time I ate something was and I find I can’t remember.  Yesterday?  Two days ago?  Time is passing by so quickly that all my days blur together into one big mass of colors, looking like a photo taken from a moving car.  I open my eyes and decide to go home.  There is nothing else I can do here, and my stomach feels queasy now.  Whether that’s because it’s empty or I because I feel ridiculous for throwing Connor’s note into the well, losing it forever, I cannot say.

I am about to cross into the woods when I hear it.  It could be the breeze, which has picked up again, or it may just be my imagination.  But I swear I hear a voice calling to me from across the Patterson fields.

“Don’t…go…”

Randomness

Today's blog post is not going to have any one central theme.  Mainly because the ol' noggin is swirling around with thoughts right now and I can't focus on any one of them long enough to come up with a coherent, continuous thought.  So here are some of the things I need to just get out of my system. 

1) I'm on a roll with my current WIP.  I officially surpassed 10,000 words last week, and I haven't even really focused on writing it consistently for any length of time so that's sort of crazy.  This one is a lot different from the other two in that I'm basically writing snippets of it as I think of them - it's not following any specific timeline at the moment.  I mean, it is and it isn't.  And I know that doesn't make sense, really, but it is what it is.  And the story is either going to work out the way it's going, or I'll have to go back and put everything in order.  I'm not worried about that right now though.  It just feels good to get words down as they come.

2) Speaking of WIPs, I've been feeling very mehhhh about my last one.  I'm not sure if that's because the new one is going so well, or because I just have been away from it for SO long now, or if I'm just having doubts about it overall.  Third time's a charm, right?  Maybe?  Regardless, I do know with each story my writing has improved.  And that's something I'm proud of.

3) I hate being an adult.  I really, really do.  Right now I'm looking into refinancing our current mortgage, and researching all these banks and rates is mind-numbingly dull to me.  It really needs to get done (see previous post about how broke I am- saving any money monthly would help my situation out greatly), but this is one of those times I wish someone else would just take over and do it all FOR me.  Just tell me what to do.  Better yet, go ahead and set it all up for me and let me know what the outcome is.  Kthx.

4) My sweet gramma has been in the hospital going on a week now, and I'm really worried about her.  It's nothing life-threatening- just some really horrible back pain she's been dealing with a few months- but seeing her usual very active self lying in a bed, all pale and in pain is horrible. I used to meet her for lunch every single Wednesday, and we haven't done that since May because she's been lying low, scared to even get in her car and drive somewhere because of the pain.  I'm making an effort to go visit with her at least once a week.  If nothing else, just to break up her day for awhile and try to make her smile, to feel some sort of normalcy again.

5) My third anniversary with Dan is coming up in about a month already.  Three freaking years.  It feels like just yesterday that I was going for my final dress fitting and tying tiny bow after endless tiny bow on favor boxes.  And then this Halloween will be our ninth year together, which is also crazy.  But I can't imagine my life without him- it's hard for me to even remember my life before him at this point. 

6) My little baby kitten, Gus, is getting so big already!  He's just about six months old now, if I believe the date the shelter said he was born (March 23).  He's the best thing that has happened to us this year, even though at times he does remind us eerily of Ollie.  He's got some of Ollie's mannerisms and the same rattely ol' purr.  But instead of sleeping on my legs at night, Gus LOVES to be right by my head.  Sometimes he even sleeps ON my head- well, on my pillow, curled up near the top of my head.  He has helped my heart heal when I was positive it would be broken for a long, long time.

7) Speaking of cats, I was also hollered at by my ENT about having them because of my severe allergies.  Doooops.  It's just ridiculous how bad my allergies have gotten over the past few years- I swear I never had them this bad in my twenties or teens.  They're so bad that I'll be starting weekly allergy shots - that's right, WEEKLY - for six months to a year to try to control them.  I suppose if I can actually feel healthy and normal again it'll be worth it.  I'm pretty sure I don't know what it's like to be able to breathe well on a regular basis at this point.

All right, I think I've babbled on long enough. 

Happy Tuesday!

Back at it- new snippet!

So it's already August...which means summer is officially starting to come to a close.  I have to say, I'm ready for the cooler air and pretty colors that come along with September and October.  What comes after those months- not so much. 

I'm also looking forward to summer winding down because all the crazy activities that have been keeping me so busy and away from writing also begin to wind down!  I can't remember the last time I've been able to sit down on a weekday night, or even a Sunday and write for a few hours.  I know, I know, it's all about MAKING time for it...maybe I've felt a bit like I need a break or something since finishing the revisions on the last one.  I haven't even looked at or thought about that story since I sent it off to my readers.  And that's been somewhat freeing, actually.

However, I actually did start a new story about a month or so ago, which I think I've mentioned before.  I have just over 6500 words written- about 15 pages. I'm hoping perhaps a little feedback will spark my creativity and get me motivated to continue on with this one.  So, without further ado- here's a snippet from the first three pages of my current WIP.  Please remember this is a first draft, so any typos and icky sounding stuff will get cleared up later. 

Thoughts, comments, questions welcome!

* * * * *

The breeze whispers secrets to me as I emerge from the woods and into the fields of the old Patterson farm.  The wishing well looms about a hundred feet away, camouflaged in the tall, yellow grass scratching at my bare legs.  I pause, clutching the paper in my hand so hard it crinkles and almost tears beneath my well-bitten fingernails.  A sharp wind dances across the field, lifting my dark hair off my neck and momentarily cooling me from the hot summer sun.   I stand motionless, listening, and hear nothing but the sound of my own blood ringing in my ears.

No one knows how long the wishing well has been here.  Weeds grow as tall as its crumbly walls that are slick with soft, green mold.  Darkness swallows the inside halfway down, making it impossible to see what lay in its depths.  As children, we imagined countless coins, a veritable treasure, all coated with grime and algae, each one representing a well-thought out wish.  And supposedly, along with the coins, the spirit of Gabrielle King rests, forever drifting amidst the cool stone walls.

Gabby plunged to her death by falling headfirst into the well fifty years earlier, although it is said she actually died of a broken heart.  When her romance with her first love ended abruptly, Gabby was so distraught she visited the well with the intent to cast her in her coin and beg for him to return to her.  No one really knows if she fell in on purpose or not, but her body was finally dredged up out of the well about a month after her disappearance.  A rumor spread in the years following her death:  Gabby became the keeper of all wishes; it was up to her whether or not they were granted.  Gifts other than coins began getting thrown into the well; flowers, letters, jewelry- all tossed in with the hope that Gabby would be persuaded to grant the gift-givers’ desires.

People claim to see Gabby pacing in the fields near the well, sobbing quietly into her hands.  Even when you can’t see her, it’s said if you listen close enough  you can hear her desperate cries floating up from the bottomless well.  It’s a sound of pure, aching sadness, the pain of a heart shattering like a crystal vase thrown violently to the ground.

And I’d never believed any of it.

A memory overcomes me as I stare at the well, and pain slices through my heart with icy talons so quickly I almost drop to my knees.  I take a few deep breaths as it all comes flooding back to me.

It was my junior year, the autumn before last, the air cool and crisp and ripe with the smell of burning leaves.  Parties in the Patterson fields were common that year, starting up as soon as the school year did. I leaned against the well beside Connor, urging him to go talk to Amanda Kappler, the girl he claimed to have a crush on the entire summer and who didn’t know he existed.  She was several yards away with a group of girls, standing as close to the bonfire as they could without getting burned, holding their hands out to it to warm them from the chilly night.

“I can’t, Janie.  She’ll just laugh at me,” he insisted.

“Come on, don’t say that.  You’re a total catch,” I told him, smiling into his chocolate brown eyes.

He threw his head back and looked up at the sky.  “I’m not like you.  I can’t just go up to people and pledge my undying love to them.”

"When have I ever done that?”

“Well, let’s see.  There was Jack Rubinsky.  Adam Francis.  Colin Peck-”

"All right, all right.  God, you’re making me sound like a whore.”

Connor looked at me then and grinned, and I remember thinking at that moment his smile was the most beautiful thing in the world.  It light up the dark night like a meteor shower, sparkling stars falling all around me.  “You’re not a whore.  Just someone who knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to go after it.  Or him, as the case may be.”

"Ok, whatever.  You want Amanda?”

He bit his lip and nodded, but looked uncertain for some reason.

“Then this is what you do.” I scooted closer to him and nuzzled my nose into his neck, inhaling his fresh, soapy scent.  I felt him stiffen beside me.  “You go up to her like this,” I murmured, placing one hand on his cheek and turning his face to mine.  “And give her a kiss she’ll never forget.”  I touched my lips gently to his, pulling back to look him in his shock-filled eyes.  I’d only ever kissed him on the cheek, and felt a small jolt run down my spine as his lips lingered briefly on mine.  At first, I thought it was from just the chill in the air.  “You do that, and she’ll melt in your arms,” I breathed, our noses almost touching.

I hadn’t been expecting him to grab me, to twine his fingers in my hair and tug me back to him, his mouth moving over mine with a passion I didn’t know he possessed.  We sat there against the well, the stone wall cold on our backs, kissing, touching; practically consuming each other, while the party behind us raged on.

Connor and I had been friends, best friends, for over a year at that point and in that time not once had either of us made a move towards the other.  I was always dating someone and breaking up with them, and Connor was always my shoulder to cry on when it ended.  As it turned out, it was me he’d wanted all along, not Amanda, not anyone else.  All it had taken was that simple kiss to give him the courage to express how he really felt about me.  And it was as simple as breathing from that kiss on to just be with him.  I’d fallen in love with him at that precise moment, encircled by his arms, leaning against the wishing well.  But I think I’d already loved him since the day we met.

And now it looms before me, dusty and lonely in the vast field of the long-forgotten Patterson apple farm.  I can see offerings to Gabby scattered around the well’s base, sunlight glinting off the trinkets and papers.  This is where it all began for us.  It only seems appropriate that this should be where another new beginning can take place, too. 

Because right now, in a hospital bed several miles away, Connor is fighting for his life.  And it is all my fault.

Fifty Shades of Meh

I started writing a new story, you guys!  I know, I know, there's that whole revising thing still going on for my last one, which I am also pretty dang excited about, but this new one...eeeeeeee!  It's only about a thousand words right now, and I have no idea how often I'll get to work on it, but the idea is there and I really like it.  It's another ghosty-type of story, but it'll be a lot different from the last one.  Very different concept, sort of along the lines of Gayle Forman's If I Stay (which you should read if you haven't.  Which reminds me, I still need to read the sequel, Where She Went.)  I already, like, have a title and everything for this one, and don't think it'll be changing- unlike my title my current WIP, which I might as well tell you I've changed from After the Dream to Restless.  Simpler, to the point, etc.  I likey.

I just finished reading another fabulous book by Jellicoe Road author, Melina Marchetta, called The Piper's Son.   Not quite as moving as JR, but holy crap do I love Melina Marchetta.  She just has a way of making you FEEL things the same way her characters are feeling them.  I didn't fall to pieces reading this one like I did with Jellicoe, but it was still so. good.  Check her out. 

And now, I'm currently reading the second book in that wildly popular Fifty Shades series.  I read the first one a few weeks ago and I was less than impressed.  I seriously do NOT understand the mass appeal of these books.  Sure, there are very saucy scenes, probably unlike anything most peeps have read I'm sure, but those scenes are not enough to make up for the terrible writing and weak storyline-  which is basically girl meets boy, boy is into dominant/submissive relationships, boy makes girl sign contract to have a "relationship" with him, girl still somehow falls in love with him regardless of his stalkery tendencies, etc.  I just didn't find it in any way believable.  But I suppose when I think about it, Twilight was completely unrealistic, too, and look how crazy people are for that series.  The second book so far has been a bit of a snoozefest for me, too, but I feel like I need to keep reading it to try to understand the appeal.

Or maybe I'm just jealous the Fifty Shades author had so much success with her first series of books EVER. 

Hmph.