This week was mostly work and no outlining. However, I did do some Tatting and worked on some Genealogy. So yay for some progress. I also finished Terry Brook's A Knight of the Word. So that's 2 Books read this year and 10 more to go.

I got a few hours of outlining done last week. I'm still struggling about how to divide the outline. I can't seem to get the two stories out so I'm just going to try and finish the outline and then see what looks out of place. I think also I may put the outline aside when I'm done and finish the final final edit of my 2YN 2004 Novel. I haven't received all of the responses back yet but I am not going to wait any longer.

On another note, I just ordered Family Tree Maker 2010. I've heard both good and bad about it but whenever I buy a new FTM I tend to spend a month working on my genealogy which I haven't done in a few months.

I started to write some more and found that I was having trouble. The current scene I'm writing was started in September and when I got back to it this month should have taken a few days to tweak and finish. However, it is taking way more than a few days and I am not happy with it. Honestly, the entire of AH keeps changing so much everytime I come back to the story that I am feeling a bit despondent.

So, I decided to change my focus and do a much more indepth outline of the story. Happily, I managed to work on the outline about 3 days this week. I'm taking advantage of lunchtimes at work and that helps with the busy schedule I have. I think I have figured out my problem though. It is the fact that I have two distinct concepts/stories mixed together. I like both concepts, I think they are too much for one story. I think they both need their own story. And so, I will need to work on the outline and figure out where to split the story, create two stories and then decide which one I want to work on now.

Wish me luck!

This week, I only wrote 1 day. Though that's 1 day more than before.

Starting Count: 4273
Ending Count: 4338
Total Words: 65

Anyway, rather than talk about writing, I'm off to write.

Here's my first progress of the new year:

Since my daughter is calling out from her bed and I'm refusing to pick her up, I'll sit here and post my progress.

Date: 1/3/2009
Writing Start: 3928 (Last counted in September 2009)
Writing End: 4273

Looks like I gained 345 words. Though that doesn't include the fact that all I did was read over the story and edit what I'd already had. So I had removed a bit of stuff I didn't like and added more so it's possible I actually did more writing than it seems.

I also on Saturday (1/2) did a little more Genealogy. Mostly I got my bearings as to what I needed to do next and scanned a 7 page document in.

Also, I read 1 book. The Coraline Graphic Novel. It was over 100 pages and I did read it during my daughter's afternoon nap which was supposed to be reserved for doing something else.

So, I made my new year goals a bit smaller and simpler this year. With 2 children and 2 jobs and I'm sure bigger family obligations, I don't expect that I'll get much done. As it is, I haven't really made any of my goals since I started this LJ but that's ok. I consider them more of a guideline than a hard and fast rule.

This year I have the following:

WRITING
EDITING
TATTING
GENEALOGY
READING

These are the things I want to work on. I have placed the specifics as a sidebar on my LJ page but I think as long as I touch on each of these this year, I'll be happy. My biggest one will be the Tatting goal. I am hard pressed to pull out my shuttle and thread when there isn't anyone around to tat with. I think I might need to find a group up here that does tatting or at the very least gets together to do some sort of craft.

Good luck to everyone and their goals.

I must have some sort of internal clock that really is good at what it does. I said earlier that I would wait until January to start any writing. Well, it's 4 1/2 hours before the new year and before January first and I'm feeling the first twitches of the need to write. Is that not timing or what?

Happy New Year!

So, the past month has been pretty wild. We managed to pack, move, unpack. I started a new job while maintaining my old job in the evenings, had to deal with sickness of the entire family and the stress that goes with all of this. On top of that there is also the stress of the holidays. At first I underwent an initial shock where I looked at my previous life and the beginnings of my new life and said despite the cliche: "What have I done?!"

However, I have managed to remind myself of the same thing I said to my son and that is we're having an adventure and we should enjoy the ride. So, I have been watching and examining my surroundings and thinking about how I would write this or that into a story or a scene.

For example, I had to deal with both my kids and my husband being sick over the past few days and I got to the point where both kids were crying and my husband was comatose and I was trying to make dinner and help with them and I could feel the hopelessness of the situation and at the same time the writer in me was thinking, this is just like in those books where a character has a breaking point after a series of bad events and then something critical happens.

That's of course just one of many times where I have started to step back and really examine things. I think also that has helped me cope with the situations that have arisen. That of course and the fact that I'm older and hopefully wiser and realize that no matter how low, we can always go lower but at the same time, we have great potential to go higher.

Anyway, this isn't a post about me doing writing but I hope it serves as a post about me thinking about writing.

Oh and...

Merry Christmass to those who celebrate it.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

It's been a whirlwind tour that keeps going and going. Still no writing, however, I'm hoping to get some time starting January 1. I can almost hear people say, "January 1? That's insane? It's so far in the future!" Well, I think there are so many things going on and I will be working 2 jobs (1 full time, 1 part time) that I don't think I will be able to handle much writing until I get a handle on everything else.

I will keep everyone posted! In the meantime, I look forward to seeing what everyone else is doing in writing and in life.

I am at the beach as I type. In the span of 24 hours, we have done so much. We went treasure hunting, collected seashells, fished (and even caught something), watched a movie, and made sand castles. Tomorrow we are going to see the aquarium and then go home.

As for writing, still nothing.

Regarding Genealogy, I mostly finished organizing the family name I was working on. I still need to make lots of prints but I think I am going to go to a copy store to do that. Otherwise, I'm moving onto the next family name. This next one is HUGE. We know alot of this side of the family. Part of the reason is a few years back I met someone who I discovered is a cousin on that side of the family. So between the two of us, we have large amounts of data.

Well, the title says it all. I'm still recovering from being sick. My lungs have been just rebelling against all that is trying to make them feel better. And it doesn't help that whatever the dr gave me is not helping me in the department of sleep so I have had many restless nights. Which of course leads me to the point of not being able to write because I'm too tired to write but too unsettled to really sleep.

So what did I decide to do? Continue organizing my genealogy.

I think a part of the reason why I decided to do this now was also because the new Family Tree Maker 2010 came out (though I did NOT buy it) and that family was heading to Germany and wanted to know locations he might like to visit based off the research. Well, he's back from Germany and lo and behold, last night, I found two new names and a brand new location that he could've checked out. *sigh* Oh well. But I am terribly excited and am hoping to give him a call and tell him the good news. Unfortunately, what I do have is so disorganized because sometime about 2007/2008 I was working from two computers and somehow overwrote files from the Family Tree Maker program and things got jumbled. I thankfully did the right thing by creating backups throughout that time and actually restored what I think is a version that has some correct information I can repaste into my current file.

Anyway, I'm guessing writing will have to be on hold at least long enough for my meds to wean down...maybe in a week.

How's everyone out there!

Last week I didn't get much done. I did get some done early in the week but I don't have those word counts right now. I ended up getting sick and then the meds didn't work and ended up with a fever and an extremely bad asthma issues. To top it off, I had family in town as my daughter turned one on friday. I went backto the doctor for more meds and my fever seems gone and my asthma is still there but much better than the night before when I was using my rescue inhaler more than I should have.

I don't know if I mentioned that for Olvidan I sent out to family and my other beta reader after_the_light. I got back replies from 2 of the 4 family members. I got a little bit of feedback but mostly editing mistakes. I'm hoping at some point I'll get some more feedback. Hubby's one of the readers but he hasn't said anything yet. Hopefully he'll get me something soon as I think he would understand most the type of feedback I am looking for.

How is everyone else doing?

This week was pretty good. Except for Thursday and Friday, I wrote the rest of the week. I may or may not write today.

9/13/09: 2426
9/14/09: 2651
9/15/09: 2724
9/16/09: 2954

Total Words written: 623

That's not alot of words but at least it's steady words.

Plus, I have been having this strange idea to create a sort of Story Wiki. It's kind of grabbed my brain and won't let go. If something comes of the thought I will post more on that. Right now, the only thing I can think is that my brain is too busy to add another task to the list. I guess that's what happens when I start writing regularly...I get more ideas.

Well, I've had some more progress. I found I was having trouble getting to the next part of this first scene. As usual, it turned out the reason was that I was doing something that wasn't jiving. Plus the action was lacking. So, I changed the person my MC runs into and instead of just coming across her, he ends up having to grab her from jumping out a window.

Starting Word Count: 1941
Ending Word Count: 2331

That's 390 words today. A huge difference and more in one sitting for a long time.

How's everyone doing?

Started: 9/7/2009
Ended: 9/9/2009

Total Words Written: 545

Not alot of words, but I've managed to write a little bit each of these days. Though one of the days I was lucky to get 10 words written.

I am going to try to post more regularly with my writing progress. I am hoping that will help me keep motivated.

Ok. Here's the plan...
This weekend is a three day weekend for me. (Thank you labor day). After my son's first full week of kindergarten, I'm as tired as he is. However, this week has given me a glimpse of what my new regular schedule will look like.

It seems that my old scheudule has become my new schedule and my "me" time has returned to the time between the hours of 8pm and 10pm (at the latest).

this weekend I'm going to rev myself up and get myself ready to start regularly writing again. I have stopped for a long time (at least for me) and I need to get back into the groove again. I did enjoy writing in the mornings as I am more fresh, but beggers can't be choosers so I must take what I can get.

So...

WISH ME LUCK!

So, I've been absent (no surprise). I've been on vacation and have things other than writing on my mind. During my vacation, my youngest decided she didn't want to leave my side so I ended up carrying her and feeding her, and bathing her, and pretty much doing nothing but taking care of her. (some vacation). Suffice to say, all I seem to be able to do is lay down and do nothing. Even going online is tiring. Yesterday, I actually went to lie down in bed and just lay there staring up at the ceiling.

I am so tired.


Hopefully I'll be able to get to writing after my oldest starts kindergarten and we get into a new routine. I want to make sure I'm in pure mommy mode.

Seems like the rest of LJ land is doing well.

Thought I would give a writing update. On Sunday I was able to get about 600 words written for AH. Not bad for only writing once a week for about 3 hours. Also, this morning, I had some inspiration about the next part of the scene I am writing. I wrote it down and am hoping I don't forget when next I sit down to write.

Other than that, I'm just trying to survive work long enough to make it to the weekend. Not that the weekend is any less tiring. It just means that I can do things with the people I want to, mainly friends and family.

I'm slowly getting time to write. I got some good writing time Sunday morning on AH and then I had some nice evening time to write a very short scene with Nadie in it. It's nothing big, but it's something. The scene is after a series of gruesome events happened (seeing hundreds of people dead and mutilated like reavers on a space station, having her father reappear after playing dead for a good decade and stealing her ship under the pretense of protecting her, and learning that someone performed unremembered surgery on her and stole memories from her and her crew) leading up to the proverbial "straw" in which Nadie ends up killing someone who looks exactly like her. For those of you who are Firefly fans, the person was wearing blue gloves and wielding one of those nasty items that uses sound to kill a person.

Anyway, you can see the short little scene into the insanity of Nadie here:
Disjointed Throughts

I think I've mostly slept this week. I've been awfully tired and hubby has been nice about giving me some unwind time when I come home. I did get a little bit of work on AH outlining. I'm working on an idea to combine both plotlines though I'm not sure if I want to yet.

We've also been playing Serenity and I've been interested in my Nadie character again. I'm hoping that I'll have some more diary entries to write soon.