Editing Slots, Award, and Camp NaNoWriMo

First, I still have two slots for editing the first ten pages of a manuscript, if anyone else is interested. (It's first come, first served.)


Second, thank you to Sherry Ellis at Mama Diaries, who graced me with the One Lovely Blog Award. ^_^

Third, is anyone participating in Camp NaNoWriMo?

 

It's basically a NaNo in June, but I'm not using it as NaNo. I mean, I'm not like "WORD COUNT! MUST GET WORD COUNT!" I did sign up because a) I'm still writing Rising Book 2, so I might as well and b) so I can offer encouragement to anyone else doing it by writing with them. But I'm just going to take this book the same way I've been taking it: one chapter at a time.


I have about 91,000 words on Rising Book 2. I have about twelve chapters and nine flashbacks left to write. I'm also up to my eyeballs in editing, which is why I haven't gotten as much writing done. And my husband and kids and I just went on a weekend vacation to visit some of his family in Ohio. The trip was awesome and so much fun, and it was great to see family. I'm in Vacation Recovery Mode right now--I love traveling; it's just very tiring!

Mid-April Update

I hope all of you doing the A-Z challenge have been having a blast with it! I can't believe it's already halfway through April. I haven't been blogging because all of my free time has been going to frantically writing Rising Book 2. I'm almost halfway done--I have about a chapter and three-fourths left to the halfway point. I think this will probably be my longest novel yet, considering I have 69,154 words already. There's just so much more story to tell and tie up in this one than the first one.

I've also been prepping for my daughter's birthday party, which is today. Her birthday was a couple of weeks ago, but today was the first day we had free to do it. She wanted a Yoshi cake from Mario Brothers, and let me tell you, that thing was hard to make. O_o I had made the head out of rice crispy treats, but it fell apart (slooooowly) after I attached the head to the body, so then I had to remake the head smaller. Plus, I was pretty much out of frosting at that point, which meant I had to steal some from around the body. Yeah. Definitely not my best cake ever, but it's together and it's edible, darn it.

Here is the end result:

I also had my next Taekwondo belt test this past week--I don't have the results for that yet. So. Yes. April has been busy.

I hope you all are having a wonderful month and that you have a fantastic day!! I need to go do final prep for a birthday party...

Welcome to July!

The first of July starts a month of craziness in my neck of the woods! This month, I have quite a few things happening and goals to meet. I plan to write half a novel. It's the sequel to the book I spent over a year writing. But I figure I've succeeded at NaNo in the past and written a whole book--I can do half in a month, right? Right!?!? O_O

(I should note that half of the book is probably going to be between 50,000 and 60,000 words.)

Next, I'm prepping my book, Confessions from the Realm of the Underworld (Also Known as High School) for publication at the end of the month. I'm waiting to hear back from my editor and from my final beta readers. My illustrator (the most awesome, patient illustrator anyone could ask for) sent me final sketch designs for the cover this morning and is going to start coloring it now. I'm so excited about this. I still have so much more preparation to do for this book and its release in the next couple of weeks.

My hubby starts his new job this week, and my sister is getting married in a week, and there is probably something else I'm missing. I suppose it's good that all of these things are happening when my kids are out of school for the summer, because I don't have to worry about starting up homeschooling again until next month. ;)

Plus, you know, I need to keep up with the blogosphere as much as possible.

What are you all doing this month? Any goals or plans? Vacations? Anything else? What's up in your life?

FINISHED!

I finally finished my novel, Rising Book 1, yesterday. It's was one of the most difficult books I have ever written and I would not have been able to do it without so much support along the way.

The great news for me is that the only thing missing on this story for the past couple of months has been the last chapter. I could not figure out how to end the book, and got so frustrated trying that I finally set it aside for a month to take a reading hiatus.  The rest of the story, however, has already been edited and revised multiple times, and put through several beta readers. This is going to make final editing super easy.  All I have to edit is the last chapter.

I'm so, so, so relieved that this book is done.

Time between the day I started this book and the day I finished:  1 year, 2 months, 15 days. 

Final word count: 119,554

Amount of sanity I have left: Um, did I have any to begin with?

Welcome to May

I hope that you all had a fabulous April.  I had a great time doing the April A-Z challenge, and now I'm busy figuring out what I'm doing this month.  I'm going to give myself a couple of days off of blogging, and then I'm going to start a series on world-building.  I'll aim for doing my first world-building post on Wednesday. 

In the meantime, I have some goals this month:

-Write the last chapter of my novel, Rising.  This book has been revised, edited, polished, put through betas, ripped apart, and put back together, and is completely ready to go--except that it's missing the last chapter. The reason for this is that I have to write the sequel, and I knew that whatever happened in the last chapter would be the precursor to starting the second book.  The good news is that because everything else has been edited/revised/polished/put through betas, it will make final editing a breeze: I'll only have one chapter to tackle!

-Start Rising Book 2.

-Keep up the regular blogging.

-Keep reading.  About a month ago, I took a break from writing to do some hardcore reading, because I desperately needed to step back from writing for a few weeks. I knew that when I was ready to write again, I would be chomping at the bit, and I'm about at that point, but I want to keep reading while I'm doing it.  I still have about ten books in my TBR pile.

There are other things that are not goals, but things that will happen, like spending time with my family and finishing most of my kids' homeschooling (some of it may carry into June).  But this is my list of writerly things. (Shh, writerly is a word. >_>)









 What are you doing this month?