why is it that kids these days, even with all of their crap, can never find something to do for more than five minutes?!

I swear, how on earth am I going to survive a whole summer of this constant need of activity? My wallet and my mind cannot take it another day longer.


Yesterday, went to the park, the pool, did a craft, watched a movie, made some popcorn, did another craft, played a board game, went to blockbuster, went out for ice cream, order a pizza, watched another movie, played the Wii, played DS, read a book, then bed!!!!

Today, a whole nother day of the same, only this time, real treat, I'm watching my neighbors boys for three hours!! UGH!

I have a book to finish another to edit and some research of agents, I do have a life somewhere buried under the endless needs and wants of my kids and their friends, HELP!

I've been working on a new project and so far it's coming a long quickly and easily. I'm already head over heels for my new MC. But recently I've hit a bit of a lull, only because I don't know if I should continue with my death idea for Margret Ann.


Question:

Is it legal to use factual events in your fiction?


I found an article from 1958, I wanted to use it, (twist a few things), but the date, location and event are perfect for my cause. So is it legal to use it or do I have to change the name of the location and date too?

I'm back at work today. It was a spinner of a week. Last day of school and big girls graduation.

But now it's over.

Summer is my favorite, sleeping in, pool all day then some writing while the kids sleep off their bliss of exhaustion. Love it--could live it all year long!

The book, gave me the worst headache I've ever had. I took three advil and a nap, but still it wouldn't go away. It could possibly be my pms but I hate that excuse or blame (depends who's saying it) I was working on my book when it blasted me, there's my logic.

I'm better today. I've written another five pages since my last post, not much I know. I've been doing a lot of research trying to find actual stories that could relate to my characters, make them seem more real, at least to me.

I found that I've been on the right track with Steven's death, it's actually posted on many websites and in news articles, so I won't need to alter or change it. I felt so proud of myself, I wasn't sure if it could possibly happen like it did.

AS for Margret Ann (MC) her death needs to be horrific, it'll explain to the readers so much about why she is the way she is, and who she is, or was, before her death. I think I found it, but I want to do some more research first.

I'm refusing to outline this one, it's typically my MO to have a full detailed outline but this book feels so free, and has taken on a life of it's own. I'm having fun listening to the characters, not knowing what's about to happen next. I sound crazy.

On that note back to work I go, I want to get 2,000 words done today, work out Margret demise and finish with Steven talking about his last years. Then it will be Samantha's turn, that will be a real painful to write and hopefully it will be equally emotional to read.

That is the working title of my brand new WIP. Dear sweet Penelope is sitting in my drawer waiting to be heard of once again at a later date. At the advice of some friends and family members I have, not given up, but taken a break from Gosserville. Book two and three are also resting comfortably on their mini vacations.

However, my new project has taken off like a lightening bolt.

I woke up two days ago at 4:30 in the am, (if any of you read this you know by now mornings are not my thing) and wrote 10 pages and formed the title. It felt so good, so freeing to write something new. My MC is eighteen, a lot different style than Miss 14 year old Penelope.

Any-who, just thought I would drop a line and start a track sheet of my progress.

May 31st, 4,378 words (total for the day)
June 1st, 3, 231 words
Can't wait to see what pours out of me tomorrow.

By this rate my first draft will be done in about two weeks, I'm estimated about 75,000 words, short and sweet for this one...yeah!

I'm finally getting over the rejections.

I thought I had it done, going to be sold, getting the great agent and best deal possible,I was wrong. Back to the black hole of edits.

Third person still seems the better fit, it's the grammar and tense issues that need addressing. Never been good when it comes to the tech. of writing. I am more the creative side of writing, but I've been reading some books and a lot of ideas have been worming their way through my thick skull. Hopefully, fingers and toes crossed in a painful tribute, I will be submitting by July. Please God, let it happen this time, if not it may be the end of the road for dear Penelope.

I woke up and I swear I had not idea it was Sunday.

I make pancakes (chocolate chip or blueberry) on Sundays, I read the paper while drinking my yummy coffee, I don't get dressed till noon and I watch a movie with the kids on the sofa. This is my Sunday routine--you don't mess with routine.


But...I woke up: made my bed, showered, dressed, brushed my teeth...I thought it was Saturday. My house cleaning, laundry, errand day...NOPE! My daughter woke up, rubbing her eyes--watching in disbelief as I stripped my bed and yelled for her to do the same. "But it's Sunday mom." She whined.

I seriously threw up in my mouth. I dropped like a bag of stones on the corner of my bed and wanted to cry. "I missed my Sunday." I whispered or weeped not sure now.

How did this happen?

It was the whirlwind of visitors from out of town and the amazing amount of social events that followed. I'm NOT complaining about having friends but I am complaining that my Sunday was stolen from me.


I look forward to this day of complete leisure all week, Because god knows the next day that follows my day of total relaxation is MONDAY--UGh, not a fan of Monday.

So, here I am back in my Pjs, trying to piece together what's left of my wonderful,restful Sunday, about to have pancakes and watch a flick with the kidos, oh, and sip my on yummy coffee. Have a great Sunday everyone.

Ps. and not think about my edits all day...well, we'll see.

My big girl's 11th birthday was this past weekend. We planned to take her to Disney World (our first trip); we had the whole three days planned out!

We made reservations at a fantastic hotel, with six pools and a waterslide. It was going to be perfect!!!

Only...Big girl came home sick from school, just as the news was broadcasting the horrific swine flu, doing their best to panic the public--with yet another deadly virus. Who can ever forget the killer bees, mad cow disease and the bird flu!! We were a little concerned but left for our trip optimistic that she would recover after seeing the waterslide.

Nope.

She actually seemed worse and the media just wouldn't let up...I have to admit we became a more than a little worried. But she's such a trooper and didn't want to leave. I couldn't blame her, we planned this trip for six months.

The first day was a complete flop...we had dinner, she had soup, we went in the pool, she sat in a pool chair. I was feeling so awful, like a horrible mother.

The next day-Disney--again, nope.

She woke with a fever, a high fever--ok now panic has set in--the media wasn't letting up, the phone calls from my mother-in-law and own mother wouldn't stop either...it was constant swine flu mania. Finally we bought into it, and almost rushed her into the ER. Only--the Er was full, very full, I didn't want to expose her if it wasn't truly necessary.

We prayed for her to get better and bought more motrin.

That night she seemed a little better, after wash cloths of cold water, rest and loads motrin.

We didn't bother staying the third night. In the morning we checked out of our dream hotel, it was so sad, big girl cried, she never did ride the waterslide.

We went to downtown disney, guilty shopping for the birthday that was a bust.

Somewhere between the Disney store (spent a fortune) and the Irish place we ate, I lost my phone. I felt naked the rest of the day without it. I forgot twice that I lost it and reached into my purse to make a call, only to remember it was lost--that was the worse part.

Now I have a new phone and even though it's shinny and has many more functions and fancy buttons...I miss MY phone.

I never even got to say goodbye...bye phone--you were good to me!!

Am I back in school? I hated school, and I don't usually use the word hate. Not a fan. In this case the word couldn't be more fitting, at least for me. School and I hated each other equally. I guess it's fair to hate it still.


I am currently reading five, yes five, books at the same time - on grammar and editing, not fun.

Self-Editing For Fiction Writers- Browne and King
The 28 Biggest Writers Blunders- Noble
Powerful Paragraphs- Ross-Larson
The first Five Pages- Lukeman
Painless Grammar- Elliott


I would much rather be reading the pile (9) of books I checked out this week from the library. I've started most of them, I tend to read more then one book at a time - old habit.

The Mystery of Grace- Charles De Lint
The Faerie Path- Frewin Jones
Janet Evanovich Fearless Fourteen- Stephaine Plum
Holly's Secret- Nancy Garden
The Giver- Lois Lowery
Mira, Mirror- Mette Ivie Harrison
Tithe- Holly Black
Rules- Cythia Lord (this is a re-read with my big girl-she loves your book Cindy!)
Sleepwaking in Daylight- Elizabeth Flock

Back to reading and hopefully writing. We're off to Disney World on Saturday, big girls turning 11, can hardly believe it!

Have a great weekend.
NC

UGH! I swear, I'm not meant to write this dam story. There is no point in it any more!

The comments from the secret agent contest, they've really crushed me into nothing-seriously nothing! Apparently I have issues with my tense. This one I just don't see, maybe that's the problem. But I don't. I read it over and over, they all say it like it's so obvious and awful and I DON'T SEE IT! How can I fix something that I didn't think was a problem and still cannot detect? Another issue, the MC's description in dialogue, yes that's a bit overdone and boring, it can be easily fixed with a few deletes and changes.

I do agree that it could be a bit tighter in some places. But right now I just feel kind of fed up. I worked so dam hard-I cannot even begin to tell you the hoops I jumped with the kids and sleep. I worked around the clock fixing, revising, editing from first person to third. I altered the major plot taking it from journal format to narrative. It was a lot of hard, hard work. And now, it feels like it just wasn't enough. I don't know if I have anything left to give to this story.

At least not on my own, maybe I need a professional to help me, someone that understands grammar and the rules a lot better than myself. But who-how?


Right now I feel like burning the darn thing-just get it out of my house. It's so painful because I'm deep into book two and now I find out that book still needs work-UGH!


I'm going to bed-my head hurts (and so does my heart and ego)

Book two is well under way-chapter one done and chapter two is more than half-

Now I need to try and relax a bit on the inbox-poor inbox-I check and re-check-and yes re-check again! I want an agent so bad-my query sucks

So back to the whole drawing board with a new query-my book is so different now it's hard to not write the query matching the old style-but I love-my new re-do, it came out better than I could have hoped for so I need to write a stellar query to match!


I will try to be better about getting back here with the process-but if you don't catch me here I'm on facebook-sorta a junkie there-

right now I have six submissions out there and had four rejections so far-I'm going to not submit again until I fix my query-I'm giving myself till Monday-with book two taking up much of my writing time, I'll need the extra days. I need to take my time with this one-it will come-it will happen I feel it-


thanks for all your support and for sticking with me during this crazy process-

Stayed up so late finishing my one line hook-ouch that was hard work-but I did it! Not sure how good it is...what do you think?

On the eve her fourteenth birthday, Pretty Penelope Gosser, a garden fairy is given a dangerous gift-a diary and just as the town clock strikes midnight so, too, begins the journey of her secret life as one of her people’s most powerful fairies.



I woke up in a hurry-not usually my style. I was so excited about the three contests two of them started at 9 a.m. sharp. I had my e-mails ready and my finger on the send button. I sat and waited then finally-9 I hit the send button on e-mail one then e-mail two-finally the third was sent all before 9:01 a.m. I made it!

The confirm e-mail came stating that I was #2-wow-fast fingers

The second confirm stated that I was in and the third I haven't heard
from yet-

So now I'm hard at work with big girl getting her science project done-it feels more like my science project! UGH!

I'm done-I'm done-I'm done-done-done! My re-do-the stinky-rotten-pain in my behind-re-do is D-O-N-E!!!!

Now the really hard-not that taking my completed MS from first person to third was difficult enough-I now have to write a stellar query and sell the dam thing-


UGH query hell-


How is it that I can write then re-write 334 but a few simple paragraphs has me wanting to pull every strain of hair out of my head-slowly!

I will spend today and tomorrow polishing the darn letter than on the first to gets sent out-wish me luck-I have a feeling I will need as much as possible!

So I had the scare of my life the other morning. Woke up Wednesday morning, I pulled open my lap top-planning on checking my bank account and e-mail-something I do every morning. I punched in my pass word and nearly passed out-my heart raced and my palms went clamy-my lap top was back to factory status-it was like the first day I pulled it out of the box-it was even asking me to load microsoft word-WHAT! Where is my book-my pictures-all my music-BUT WHERE IS MY BOOK!!!!!



After crying, almost throwing up-swearing like I never have in my life-I called DELL!!!!



More crying and explaining-or trying to explain-I had no idea what happened!



We fixed it after an hour of trying-the tech took hold my computer and found my BOOK-and all of my files it was fully restored but I never wanted this to happen again-I thought someone hacked into my computer and wiped it clean but it turns out the computer did this all on it's own-what-have you ever heard of this before-NOT ME!





It turned out to be a computer normal function-not mal-function-



I'm new to the whole Dell/Pc venture I've always had MAC, but I couldn't afford the lap top I wanted and wouldn't settle for less from MAc, so I bought this Dell. With a Dell you have to update the software all the time, well I didn't-it takes so long and such a pain in the but-I would put it off-well the computer said enough is enough and took matters in it's own hands and installed ALL of the updates at once-at 3a.m. Wednesday then returned it's to factory status. Apparently you have to shut down then re start after installing-so I turned that sucker off from automatic-never again will I ignore the status and to make sure I never feel so alarmed again-I bought anit-virus protection and a protable harddrive-back up for my back up!



How was your week?

the wind down has finally begun-my re-do is coming to a close. Three chapters to go and I'll be done-the light is visible-but...

...the fear of having to write a query and submit is starting to set in-I'm so confused still on how to present my book-do I mention the series or just stick with book one for now-it's hard to not dive into the series as a whole with my query-I feel overwhelmed with this ordeal-any advice?

I'm more than half way through my re-do. I am way past my deadline-at first this bothered me to no end, but now I think to myself at least I'm still with it. It needed more work than I realized and it's turning out better than I could have prayed for-so the whole deadline thing-whatever!

It's still crazy to me how certain chapter give me such grief. I can be plugging away, 2,000 to 3,000 words a day then bam-nothing-not one word seems right or makes sense. It was three days straight last week during chapter 14-what a hellish ordeal-I thought about giving up-or cutting the chapter out-but in the end it was well worth the wait and pain. It may be one my favorite chapter so far. I'm happy to report that chapter 15 is much more willing to come out and play-with three left to right the end feels near-but then the real will begin!

It's no secert that I'm in the mist of re-do hell, it's become my life! I've been trying to push myself to finish, but I just realized (I don't know what took me so long) that it doesn't work-the whole pushing yourself idea. A least not with me and my writing.

Last night, after five hours of working my brain was mush! I couldn't even see straight-literally. The computer looked like soup of words but I didn't want to stop, I was shaking from the excitement of finishing a chapter before bed, so I pushed on.

This morning I woke up, grabbed a cup of coffee and happily opened to the lastest finished chapter-it's crap, no it's CRAP! I had to delete about half and start again. Now it's mid day and I'm exactly where I was last night. So this time I'm taking a bit of a break. I'm going to regroup with a snack, maybe an hour of tv or nap, then return to finish.


I'm not sure how it is for other writers, maybe I'm too new at this process to be able to push myself. But I've learned that my best writing comes to me when I feel refreshed. It's better for my ego to take the break then to ever again have to review the crap that I wrote last night! YUCK!

Welcome to the first of many monday mournings'.


1. My coffee break went way to fast.

My husband makes "the worlds best cup of coffee" (I swear it's better than any other coffee I've ever tried-I lived in LA for 17 years-I've had my fair sample) He made a small pot! One cup, ok one and a small half-Monday's are at the very least a two cup starter!

2. I woke up to gray skies-

I live in West Palm Beach Florida "The sunshine state"-I never get excited to actually get out of my warm, comfortable be when there's no sun-it's the main reason I moved here (well that and my husband had no job left in So. Cal)-kinda had no choice in leaving LA but I did have a choice on where to go-SUNSHINE-that's all I'm sayin!

3. Big girl is still not feeling good!

But if anyone is from Florida, you might know a thing or two about this F-CAT business-it's not pretty people! My daughter had to miss three days last week, they are cramming for this examine-which will determine whether or not she passes the fifth grade. So coughing, runny nose, complaining of aches and a headache-she went-crying out the door! I felt like mommy dearest!

4. Bought a gift for forgiveness!

All day I felt so dam guilty for sending big girl to school-she did look so miserable! To top it off I forgot to write her a note to get out of PE-bad mom! So I did what all bad mom's do-I bought her a present! I learned long ago that gifts-they make up for the bad mommy blues! At least for me! I bought her the cutest bell-bottom jeans with flowers and butterflies sewn in on the back pockets. I also found a pet shop figure that she doesn't already own-now that deserves a pat on the back-if you could only see her collection!

LAst but not least!
5. No room in the quiet area of the library!

Yes it's true-it's monday and I should have known better. I never have good luck on Mondays-not sure why, maybe my complete hatred for them-it could have a little to do with it! But I packed up all of my gear-lap-top and WIP in print, pens, notes extra-went to the library determined to make a dent in my re-do, when BAM-all the quiets rooms are full. Not to worry I'll sit with the common folk-right-never again! I had people coming up to me-I never thought it was possible-hitting on me, asking me the lamest questions! I was interrupted more at the library then I am on my days with my three old! Seriously! I think in all I wrote two pages before I called it a day and checked out some books! All was not lost I found three great books. Came home hubby made a great soup and cleaned the house.

I'm ending my Monday with a smile on my face and tomorrow they are predicting SUN!

1. I realized that my first deadline for my re-do wasn't going to work so I gave myself a two week grace period. Now I feel like I'm slacking a bit, maybe I should have given myself only a one week extenstion.

2. Is so frustrated with my cold. I've been to the doctors twice and still it has survived, through two bouts of antibotics-it's the most stubborn cold I've ever had~

3. I'm so tired from nursing my kidos, they are both sick now (most likely from mommy) big girl missed three days of school. She's not the kind of student that can afford that kind of time off, I'm gettig worried about her taking the F-cats this year! If she doesn't get a passing grade she won't be able to pass 5th.

4. I'm wondering when I'll ever understand Lost-I watched it twice once on Thursday and again tonight,still-I'm LOST!

5. Is looking forward to finishing my re-do. This has been the most challenging in all of my writing years. Taking a WIP from once person to third is just hair-pulling-ly hard! Come on let's get it done already!

Don't you just love progress! It really doesn't matter what kind or how much, pushing forward and upward always excites me! So only five pages done today, little one sick at home, wasn't the right environment for loads of work! I had to make tea, little turkey sandwiches with the crust cut off, lots of ginger ale (it our family sick drink, not sure why), loading movies in and out, in short-there was lots of "mommy"'s being called out and now mommy's legs are exhausted from the staircase!

Tomorrw I have a plan, wake up early and write what I was supposed to do today-well, we'll see how many "mommy"'s there will be in the night-that will be a direct effect on how early I get up.

I'm not much of a morning person, I like the moon-so perhaps staying up late tonight would be a better choice, but then the hubby will want my time too-I need two of me!

Any one know how to make a clone that writes 24-7*smiles & sighs* that would be so nice!

Oh, that's my girl can't you hear her weak "Mommy"

*sighs* I just pray it's only one of those 24 hour buggies!

SO I'm powering through chapter ten and then it hits me-this is chapter ten and Penelope is having her first day at magic school there is no way that I only have four chapters left. So I go through the stack of papers left sifting the chapters out*while pulling out my hair and bitting my lip*UGH there is at least another ten chapters-at the very least! I jump out of my seat and start to cry, I will never make my deadline! Not even if I don't ever sleep in the next 11 days I still will not be able to finish! What to do*I start to pace and panic*I made a vow to throw this work in the trash-forever if I didn't finish on time-what to do!


I sit down and cut, I cut about 3,000 words-it's not enough-but I can't cut anymore without carving into the story line-I can't carve into the story*smiles* can I? No-impossible the story line is set in stone-heck it has to be maintained for five to seven more books-tamper with that and I might as well throw it in the trash and not even worry about a dam deadline!


So what then?

Well I figure there is about 30% extra work so maybe I can ask myself for a little extenstion?


A publisher would grant me a least two extra weeks-right?

So I told myself that two extra weeks seemed fair and very necessary-after all it's not just about getting it done-it's mainly about getting done right-so that this puppy sells-finally!


No pressure though-