Life in progress

Category Archives: Writing


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JusJoJan25 the 16th – Personalities

This post is part of Just Jot it January, and the prompt word, “personality,” comes to us from Astrid. Check out her blog here!

In a way, I’m jealous of authors who can plot and plan a novel or an entire series before they start writing. I haven’t published a full-length novel in a year because I’ve been busy writing three of them in a continuing series, and I’m afraid to release the first one in case the details in the third one require a change at the beginning of the overall story.

All this because I’m a discovery writer, or a “pantser,” as we often call writers who write by the seat of their pants. I love being a pantser—finding out what’s going to happen in my story and to my characters as I write is both fun and fascinating.

Many times for me, an entire book will start with a single personality. And often, that personality will come to me from listening to a character’s voice and seeing them in my head.

It’s basically how I wrote my “Second Seat on the Right” series. Click for a random episode.

Because my stories are character-driven, personality is essential to pin down. Personality can often help me to decide what situations to put them in.

In Creamed, my latest release for instance, Tom comes to town and inadvertently steals Mary’s business at the Christmas market where they both have booths. If not for Tom’s strong feelings on the subject of fairness (he hates unfairness), the story might have gone a completely different way.

In other words, the personalities of characters have a lot to do with conflict and its resolution, and therefore, plot.

And that’s my lecture story structure for the day. Not sure how I came to this point, but here we are.

(Seriously, I didn’t plot this post ahead of time. 😏)

This wandering post is part of Just Jot it January! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!

Thanks again to Astrid for the prompt!


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JusJoJan25 & #SoCS the 4th – Sticking to it

This post is part of Just Jot it January and my weekly prompt, Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Find the prompt and see how you can join in HERE.

Every day, I write out two to-do lists for myself.

One is the stuff I need to get done “today,” things like edit this, write that, read a book, post for Just Jot it January … stuff I know I need to do without making a list, but it’s nice to be able to cross off the easy stuff.

The second list is stuff I need to get done in the near future—update my editing site, update my author site, get covers for my new series, etc. Some of the things on this list have been there for years.

Procrastination is a thing, and apparently so is self-sabotage. But I digress.

Every day, I see the things I need to do—the things in front of me.

But I only go back to see what I’ve accomplished—the things behind me—once a year.

Maybe I’d be less down on myself for not getting things done if I looked back more often and saw that there are things on my second list that I have accomplished.

This contemplative post is part of Just Jot it January and SoCS! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!

2019-2020 SoCS Badge by Shelley! https://www.quaintrevival.com/

 


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One-Liner Wednesday – This is the life

It took me half an hour to clean the ice off the car today (Tuesday). That’s what I get for staying indoors in my pajamas for six days.

If you would like to participate in this prompt, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a pingback, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post, and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below. Please ensure that the One-Liner Wednesday you’re pinging back to is this week’s! Otherwise, no one will likely see it but me.

NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), if you see a pingback from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.

Unlike SoCS, this is not a prompt so there’s no need to stick to the same “theme.”

The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:

1. Make it one sentence.

2. Try to make it either funny or inspirational.

3. Use our unique tag #1linerWeds.

4. Add our lovely badge to your post for extra exposure!

5. Have fun!

Badge by Laura @ riddlefromthemiddle.com

Available now! Click the image.


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One-Liner Wednesday – Why?

Why is it that I can write three books with a total of 280,000 words and can’t come up with one- to three-word titles for them?

In other news, look for my three new untitled novels coming out this year! 🙄

If you would like to participate in this prompt, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a pingback, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post, and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below. Please ensure that the One-Liner Wednesday you’re pinging back to is this week’s! Otherwise, no one will likely see it but me.

NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), if you see a pingback from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.

Unlike SoCS, this is not a prompt so there’s no need to stick to the same “theme.”

The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:

1. Make it one sentence.

2. Try to make it either funny or inspirational.

3. Use our unique tag #1linerWeds.

4. Add our lovely badge to your post for extra exposure!

5. Have fun!

Badge by Laura @ riddlefromthemiddle.com

Available now! Click the image!


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Time is running out!

I mentioned a while back that I have a subscription account with Ream, a platform where you can read and stay caught up with your favorite author’s worlds.

To celebrate my beginnings there, I set up a subscription tier where you can get the first two months for free, and with that, you will receive:

  • four books at no cost in those two months (The Magician’s Curse, The Magician’s Blood, Saddled, and Rocked)
  • copies of all my published books in the months to follow
  • early access to all the books I write in the future—I’m almost finished writing the second book of a new sexy vampire reverse harem romance, so new content is coming soon!
  • inclusion in an exclusive community where I’ll keep you updated on all the news in my writing life and we can chat about books and all the things we love about them
  • free short stories published in anthologies, not all of which are currently available
  • and more!

And all at a lower monthly cost than anyone else will pay for all these features in the future.

You can join my Grand Entrance tier using the coupon code GRANDENTRANCE to get access to two months free and two free books right now. You can cancel any time, but I do hope you’ll stick around!

This offer expires April 1st, so only a few days left.

If you enjoy my stories, this is a deal that won’t be matched. I hope to see you there!

Here’s the link to my Ream page!


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One-Liner Wednesday – Weird

I don’t know why, but almost every time I write “humans” in my current work-in-progress (it’s vampire romance, so I use the word a lot), I write “human’s” in the possessive. It’s a weird brain glitch.

If you would like to participate in this prompt, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a pingback, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post, and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below. Please ensure that the One-Liner Wednesday you’re pinging back to is this week’s! Otherwise, no one will likely see it but me.

NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, like Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), if you see a pingback from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.

Unlike SoCS, this is not a prompt so there’s no need to stick to the same “theme.”

The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:

1. Make it one sentence.

2. Try to make it either funny or inspirational.

3. Use our unique tag #1linerWeds.

4. Add our lovely badge to your post for extra exposure!

5. Have fun!

Badge by Laura @ riddlefromthemiddle.com

Available now! Click the image!


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One-Liner Wednesday – So that happened…

Today (Monday), I was stopped at a light behind an SUV on which someone had written names in the dust on the back window. Of the seven names (including “MOM”), three of them were names of the characters in the book I’m writing: Blake, Mason, and Dexter.

What are the odds?

(Checks to make sure my OneDrive isn’t compromised.)

(Adds the other three names to my character list. haha!)

If you would like to participate in this prompt, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a pingback, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post, and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below. Please ensure that the One-Liner Wednesday you’re pinging back to is this week’s! Otherwise, no one will likely see it but me.

NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, like Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), if you see a pingback from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.

Unlike SoCS, this is not a prompt so there’s no need to stick to the same “theme.”

The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:

1. Make it one sentence.

2. Try to make it either funny or inspirational.

3. Use our unique tag #1linerWeds.

4. Add our lovely badge to your post for extra exposure!

5. Have fun!

Badge by Laura @ riddlefromthemiddle.com

Available now! Click the image!


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JusJoJan24 & #SoCS the 27th – The hardest thing

This post is part of Just Jot it January and my weekly prompt, Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Find the prompt and see how you can join in HERE.

When I post my SoCS prompts every week, I really take the idea of writing off the top of my head to heart when I sit down to write my own SoCS post. Sometimes.

Case in point: today, all day, I tried to figure out how I could put “make the call” into a post. What could I write about? I make so many calls every day, some literal, most not—I make a heck of a lot of decisions in a day.

But today, I just couldn’t decide what to write about.

So I made the call to just sit down and write my post.

And here I am.

Writing a post and having no idea what to write about … except not knowing what to write about.

Very meta.

This nonsensical post is part of Just Jot it January and SoCS! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!

2019-2020 SoCS Badge by Shelley! https://www.quaintrevival.com/

 


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JusJoJan24 the 23rd – So stoked

This post is part of Just Jot it January, and today’s prompt is courtesy of Nicole. Check out her blog here!

It doesn’t take much for me to get stoked over a new idea.

Whether it’s a concept I’ve come up with for a new novel, or a story I’ve written that I can’t wait for people to read … It’s exciting! Daunting sometimes, but exciting!

But now I’ve got this new thing I’m doing, and I am SO stoked, I can barely contain it!

It’s gonna be great!

What is it, you ask?

Just wait and see!

This cliffhangery post is part of Just Jot it January! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!

Thanks again, Nicole, for the prompt!


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JusJoJan24 & #SoCS the 20th – The hardest thing

This post is part of Just Jot it January and my weekly prompt, Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Find the prompt and see how you can join in HERE.

So I can write a novel of 50,000 words. I’ve even written one of 300,000 words.

But to create a tagline for one of those novels?

To boil the story down in a nutshell?

So very hard.

It’s easier to write the novel.

This surprisingly brief post is part of Just Jot it January and SoCS! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!

2019-2020 SoCS Badge by Shelley! https://www.quaintrevival.com/