Thinking & Adding

Hey, how's it going? 

December is here and for us, that means that the temperature is heating up. That's right, our festive season is in the middle of summer, so we've been having some super hot days this week. And that leads to a bunch of storms. It's actually raining today and when we went to bed, a thunderstorm was raging outside.

I don't mind thunderstorms and rainstorms. Unless I get caught in the downpour, which happened to me last Friday. 😖

Well, this week turned out to be a bit wobbly, which always happens when I finish writing a first draft. I mean, it's also a thing during revision, but after a first draft the story is still so fresh in my mind, and it's all I've been thinking about all month, that there's bound to be some leftover thoughts.

A hangover, really.

Last (long) weekend I started a Revision List that ended up including a lot of extra stuff. So, I decided to tackle some of the more involved changes/additions on Tuesday. I even updated my research/inspirational pic folders, and reshuffled my Playlist. There are 31 songs from the 80s on this awesome Playlist that I've been listening to all week.

Anyway, after that, I thought I was done with the story until the second draft. So I spent a few days hanging out with hubby before work, going for walks, daydreaming about other stories, and I read the latest Stephanie Plum book.

Then Friday hit and I woke up from a dream about my characters, and several songs from the Playlist were actually playing in these dreams like a soundtrack. So, I opened up the doc again and spent last night making a few more changes/additions.

This is the new word count: 87,148.

I have no doubt that part of the reason why so many thoughts were circling my brain had something to do with watching THE LOST BOYS last weekend. I mean, I've seen this movie a thousand times but never get sick of it. Actually, I love it more each time. And the fact that it's one of the inspirations for my WIP, well... it was bound to affect me.

BTW, both THE LOST BOYS and NOW OR NEVER were my rewards for finishing the draft. 😁

Now that I've made these changes I need to take a break from the story. I usually like to take one or two months away to get some distance. Either way, I won't be revising until next year.

Writing this novel has been a LOT of fun, and that means a lot to me. In many ways, this year hasn't been kind in regards to publishing and I didn't get a chance to write anything new. Until now. And that makes me very happy.

That's it for now. Just wanted to spill some of my muddled thoughts.

Hope you all have an awesome weekend!

NOW OR NEVER by Janet Evanovich

Now or Never by Janet Evanovich
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A few weeks ago, we went to K-Mart and my husband found this book on the shelf. I was so excited and couldn't wait to get stuck into it, but I was busy writing a book of my own during November and decided this would be my reward.

Stephanie has managed to say yes to the two men in her life, and still can't decide which one she's going to marry. Luckily, she's got a lot on her plate at the moment. There's an influencer, a YouTube star, a wholesale criminal, and a vampire. That's before considering the new man trying to insert himself into her life...

OMG. As usual, I had a blast with Stephanie's latest adventure. In typical Plum style, the hilarious situations and zany characters are balanced out by some pretty serious and dangerous situations. And everything fits together seamlessly.

This instalment also had an added mystery that you don't find out until the very end: who does she choose as her husband? Is it the hot and dangerous Ranger? Or the hot and irresistible Morelli? Hard choice. No wonder she said yes to both. 😅

Anyway, Lula, Grandma Mazur, Connie, Bob, and Steph's family go along for the ride. Like I said before, SO MUCH FUN!!

One last thing: it was great to meet Mr. Big because you can never have too many cool doggies in the mix.

Can't wait for the next book!


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My WIP is done!

Hi! How are you? I'm pretty good. Even if I got caught in a downpour and got drenched during my walk.

So, my right side/lat muscle prob is still there but it feels like it might be getting a bit better. It's hard to tell because every day is different. But I've got my fingers crossed and hope that being patient helps. We did a yoga workout the other day that seemed to help, so that's cool.

Anyway, enough about that. Let's talk about writing.

At he beginning of the week I decided that getting to the end of the first draft I've been working on this month would be great. For several reasons: I wanted to finish by the end of this month, and my husband has an RDO on Monday so we have a long weekend together. Awesome!

So, how did I do? Here's how it went:

• Monday: 65,135 (+6,612w)
• Tuesday: 70.543 (+5,408w)
• Wednesday: 77,843 (+7,300w)
• Thursday: 83,063 (+5,220w)
• Friday: 85,411 (+2,348w)

The first draft is done & I'm SO excited! ☺️🎉

As you can see from the daily word count numbers, it really wasn't that hard to write the rest of this novel because this story has been eating my brain. All week, it's been waking me up. I've also been dreaming about the characters. And taking lots of notes as everything came to me while sleeping, walking, or just talking about it with my husband.

I've really talked his ear off during the writing of this book. He's also been very helpful. Sometimes just knowing that he was listening to my endless chatter about everything helped me. A lot.

Yeah, he's awesome. 😍

The idea for this story hit me back in April while listening to one of my favourite songs ever, Boys of Summer by Don Henley, and thinking about my fave movie ever, The Lost Boys. So yeah, it's been scratching at my brain for months, which might explain why it pretty much poured out of me.

Funny thing is, that as much as I knew about the story and what would happen, what I ended up writing was full of surprises. Of things I hadn't expected. Twists and turns that actually made everything even darker and better.

I love this vampire tale. It's dark. It's sexy. It's got some twisty stuff going on. And every moment I spent in this world with these characters made me happy. 🦇

Like I've said many times, writing is magical and I love every minute of it. And this story in particular is special to me because it's the first full-length draft I've written after a year full of publishing disappointments. And like Only Darkness, this book helped me deal with everything and find my way back to what really matters to me the most: telling stories.

Well, that's about it. I'm going to take a mental break and to celebrate, we're going to watch the 4K Ultra HD version of The Lost Boys. Can't wait.

Have a good one!! 😃

The Writing Continues...

Hey, how are you today? I hope you all had a great week. What did you get up to? Can you believe we're halfway through November?! OMG. How? 😳

Last week I mentioned that we got routine blood tests done, and we got the results, which were good. So I'm glad about that. I also finished taking the capsules the doctor prescribed and I don't actually know if it made much of a difference. My right side/lat muscle still hurts when I go uphill and sit a certain way, but it might be getting a bit duller. I don't know. I need to keep avoiding really steep inclines and keep an eye on it. I know that muscle/nerve strains take a while to heal, so I think I just need to be patient.

Hopefully it will clear away soon.🤞

So, I've been writing up a storm.

Here's my WIP progress:

• Monday: 41,064 (+5,585w) 
• Tuesday: 45,422 (+4,458w)
• Wednesday: 50,372 (+4,850w)
• Thursday: 54,215 (+3,843w)
• Friday: 58,523 (+4,308w)

Not bad, right? ☺️

When I first started writing this story, I wasn't sure if it was going to be a novella or a novel, but since I crossed the 50k mark... I guess that means I've entered novel-length territory. Yay.

Progress this week has been pretty constant because every time I sat down with my laptop, the words poured out of me in such a rush that I had to backtrack the next time because I had to add things that got lost in the whirlwind. LOL.

The coolest thing happened the other night, too. I reached that part of the story where the rest of the novel revealed itself and the road to the end is starting to become clearer. Now it's time to make my way to the end, which is going to be fun. 

Well, for me. Not necessarily for all the characters.

This story is really eating my brain. So much that it keeps waking me up at night. Or too early. I even dream about it because the characters won't STFU, which is actually awesome.

Anyway, that's about it for now. I'm going to take a two-day mental break away from the novel and spend some time with my husband.

There'll probably be some note-taking and brainstorming, but that's it.

Have a great weekend!!

A Week Full of Words

Hi, how are you today? What did you get up to?

This week my husband and I went to get our annual blood tests. I also have to take an anti-inflammatory capsule for a week because I somehow hurt my right side/lat muscle. The weird thing is that I don't know how it happened. I mean, it could've been all the walking, or a particular exercise. Hell, maybe I hurt myself while sleeping. All I know is that I can't do the last bit of my daily walk for two weeks because the steep uphill incline triggers the pain plus pins and needles down my arm. Very, very strange. The doctor suspects it might be related to the nerves/muscle running across my lat and the back of my shoulder. 😫

Anyway. We'll see how it goes.

The other thing I did today was... I finally left Twitter. That's right. After 15 years, I deactivated my account. My husband deactivated his at the beginning of the week and to be honest, I was determined to stick around for a while. Even toyed with locking my account to private and only disconnecting temporarily. But the new AI bullshit was added, plus I'm over all the gross fascist crap that's going on over there.

Either way, I'm done. I deactivated and uninstalled the app from my phone. It's better this way because there's nothing left over there. Twitter died a long time ago and we were all holding onto a very thin memory of the place.

Besides, I'm still active on Bluesky (which I'm enjoy more and more), Threads and IG.

So, let's talk about writing.

Here's how I did:

• Monday: 21,550w (added 4,015) 
• Tuesday: 25,450w (added (3,900)
• Wednesday: no new words
• Thursday: 29,247w (added 3,797)
• Friday: 35,479w (added 6,232)

As you can see, even though I missed a day, this week's total word count was great. The numbers are good but what's even better is how the story keeps eating my brain so much that I'm constantly thinking about it. I keep dreaming about the characters, and can't stop images and snippets (about what's going to happen next) from popping into my head.

Yeah, I've been taking a lot of notes and looking for more inspirational pics. I also talk to my husband about it all the time. LOL.

This particular idea has been with me for MONTHS, so I'm not surprised that the words are flowing. Every time I sit down, the characters take over and I find myself getting lost in the story. I love when that happens!

Last week I mentioned that I wasn't sure if this was going to be a novella or a novel, but now that I've passed 35k and know what's to come, I'm pretty sure the total word count will surpass the novella length.

Well, asides from all this writing I also finished reading an excellent and very creepy book. You can read my review of DIAVOLA below. (Or hit the title for the direct link.)

That's it for this week, I think.

It's time to weekend. Have a good one!