Writing... or pretending to write

Moi.

Yo.

Me.

I am neglectful of this, my blog.

BUT, to be fair...

I work full time...

as an event planner for a college...

so it's cool. I'll get back on the ball after graduation and a vacation.

Basically, whenever anyone asks me how revisions are going lately, I'm like:



Anyways! I've heard from all the December 2015 #PitMad submissions, and since I'm not bouncing off the walls with uncontainable joy, they were all passes. 'Tis the life of a writer though, so I'm not throwing in the towel just yet. I'm just slowly slowly slowly working on that "bold decision" I mentioned in my last post in March (buh-bye April, whoops!).

I'm getting the itch again, though! Marriage and parenting and work (those silly little things) have been on the front burner for a bit, but this summer will open up a couple of hours a day to rediscover that habit of writing/revising daily.

Happy dance!

In the meantime, I'm trying to at least participate in #2bittues and #1linewed each week as a way to find places in Book One that need revising or rewriting. So far it's working; there are highlights and notes all over that thing.

Hi, I'm Nicole. And I have Writer's ADD.

Psst! now you go: Hi Nicole.



See? We help each other.

I've been bouncing back and forth between Book One and High School Friend Drama like... a bouncy ball. Last night I made a bold decision that I think will make Book One much much much much tighter. Think The CW's "Arrow." And that's all I'll say for now.

As for High School Friend Drama, I'm fleshing out characters and possibly goals, because it's still in the "cool concept" phase. However I think I may have MC names and I certainly have their personalities, being as they are based on my own experiences and all.

That said, the HSFD characters aren't going to be my high school friends with pseudonyms, but I do plan on pulling pieces of personalities from several of my friends and combining them into one character. Also planning on writing down some of the goofy crap we got into, but who will ever know what scenes were made up and which ones weren't?



That's the beauty of writing! Or one of the beauties. There's lots of beauties. Because writing is a beautiful thing.

 

Except this. This is a crappy collection of sentences.

I'm now solidly in the middle of the "you can expect to hear from us between x-number-of-weeks and x-number-of-weeks" countdown.

And it's awful. So I've done what any (in)sane person would do: I've started a new book idea.

This one is different from New Book that I *ahem* attempted to flesh out for NaNoWriMo 2015, which is totally fine. I may return to that idea at some point in the far-off future, but for now, that character is tucked away in my "ideas" folder.

This WIP shall be called..... Damn it. High School Friend Drama.

Why not?

Anyway, High School Friend Drama will hopefully turn out better than New Book did. I think it will because instead of world-building (something I've decided I'm not totally great at), I'm drawing on my own dramatic high school experiences and using them to TOTALLY DESTROY THESE TEENAGERS.



Just kidding. Sort of. Not really. You'll find out (maybe).

Monday: 


Or rather, I enter book giveaways. This week it was A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab (which is out in paperback today!) and An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir. And yes, I do realize that by including the links to the giveaway pages that I'm probably lowering my odds of winning, but hey, I'm a nice person and want other people to have a chance, too.

Tuesday:


(image from #2bitTues host @AngDonofrio) This hashtag is a fun way to show off that awesome line that sticks out like a beautiful flower in a barren wasteland of crap in your WIP.

Wednesday:


#1lineWed day! Pretty much the same concept as #2bitTues, but this is hosted by @RWAKissofDeath.

Thursday:


During lunch, I realize that the toddler-free work week is almost over, so I viciously write/edit as much as I can over that hour.

Friday:


Lunch writing doesn't exist. Lunch hour doesn't even exist. I can totally do it at home over the weekend...

Saturday/Sunday:


NOPE.