The end of NaNo but not The End

Yes yes, NaNoWriMo ended 6 days ago. However, I retreated from almost everything writing related after day 30. I've spent the time recovering from the over-caffienation, over-stimulation, and general awesomeness that was the support of the NaNo community. I hope I have the energy to do this next year. Hmm, should probably stock up on candy bars, coffee gift cards, and wrist braces, cause oh did my wrists suffer.

All worth it though. During the month of Nov I managed to write 67,232 words which put my WIP at 81,352 words. 90% complete yo!* I can finally sees "the end" on the horizon. It looks...blurry. : )

I'm still not positive how Carmen is getting from the climax to the finish. I know where I want her to end up, even have a picture of the scene in my head, but these last few chapters have been torturous. Partly because I am literally torturing Carmen, the other part because I'm not sure I'm being realistic about the level of mean. In fact, might have to get meaner. Still not sure how that will work.

See - fuzzy.

While I've been mulling on that, some story points became clear and my desktop is full of stickies with those ideas before they can flit away. Thank goodness these are the electronic kind. I am easily finding my little reminders and best of all, Monkey can't take them away to make them "pretty" with her crayons and Munchkin can't run away with them period. Kid is a genius at hiding stuff at 14 mos. Only good things can come from this, right?

Yea, didn't think so.

*Yes, I said "yo". I blame my baby sister, nine years younger than me, who tries to influence my 4 yo to talk this way but manages to stick the worms in my head instead. Thank goodness her lesson in teaching Monkey thug-talk failed. Instead of "gangsta", 4yo kept saying "gang-STAR!" So much cuter. Though I could have done without her throwing a peace sign as she said it.

My family - they's classy.

Let me live vicariously through you!

Thanks to a bug that made me lose almost an entire week of necessary writing, I cannot take part in #PitchWars. I always seem to miss the awesome opportunities. *sobs quietly* If it's not having a baby, it's sick baby, or worst of all - sick me. Seriously, you don't want to be in my house right now. I think my roof is where all germs percolate and become bigger, badass versions of themselves. Outbreak? Child's play. Contagion? *scoff* I don't need no pig-bat infested banana to bring you down - my virus is home made.

:P

If your manuscript is finished and polished, go check out bios from mentor links on Brenda Drake's blog. All of the mentors seem awesome. They're witty and fun and the competition has been fierce amongst the mentors. I can't count the number of times I saw Ninja stars, poisoned apples, and bows & arrows tossed around cyberspace. All in good fun, though. As far as I know no mentors or unicorns were actually hurt during the verbal throwdowns.

I've been stalking following the mentors since the #PitchWars hastag pinged my radar. I would know ;) If you take part, let me know so I can stalk your every move as well. Don't worry, I won't hurt you, I just gots ta know!

Hopefully I'll be ready when the next pitch event rolls around. Please let there be one soon!

*wish granted*

Oh - here's another pitch opportunity I just picked up on: #PitchMas. Again, I won't be able to take part because submissions can be submitted on 12/6 via Twitter.

*sobs loudly* *disturbs cat who offers a dirty look as he stalks to a quieter corner*

But seriously, let me know if you pitch. I'll hold hands with you, make you coffee (note to self: must recall how to make coffee), and offer chocolate as we wait for your result.

Good luck to all!

Fun Tool?

You know what I found today? A free trial of Scrivener for the month of November through Dec 7th. Best part is that if you "win" NaNo '12 you'll get the full version at half price. You must, however, be a registered NaNoWriMo participant. All the details are here. 

I've read a lot of good things about Scrivener, so I'm pretty excited about this. I might try to organize my NaNo novel into the software so all my notes and outlines are in one place. Doing so will also free up space in my Dropbox. I'm pretty sure I'm close to the limit of the free 2 gigs. 

Twitter is probably the reason for my poor word counts these last few nights. I'm addicted to it. I'm a woman who loves instant gratification, and I totally get that satisfaction by Twitter. When you Tweet me back that is. Tweeters, why do you leave me hanging? I miss you :(

I've done a poor job of informing you of my word count, so here's a quick rundown:

1-Nov	2633
2-Nov	2523
3-Nov	1681
4-Nov	2100
5-Nov	2166

Total: 11,103 words

You're probably thinking I'm crazy for saying "poor word counts" above. That's because I'd set a goal of 2500 wrds/day for NaNo and I'm slowly falling behind. Although I'm on track to meet over 50,000 words, I'm not sure I'll have a complete first draft.

Want to help me out? Tweet me BICHOK (butt in chair hands on keyboard). After making a face at enough of you, I might just do it.

:)

I'll do better

I disappeared again, I know. I have just discovered twitter and it will be my downfall. Who'd have thought I have so much to say? Not me. And, ok, it's a lot of nonsense, but I feel that tweeters will forgive my nonsense. Or ignore it. Either way, I'm probably safe ;)

Things you've missed:

• It's NaNo day 5! Though I won't be able to write until it's full dark and all the scaries come out to play, I've managed 8937 words in four days. I'm about 1100 words behind my goal, but I hope to make up the lost momentum over the next few days. Last night I might have clocked my my best time: 2100 words in less than 1.5 hours. It helped that I was writing a scene I had 1) already mapped out and 2) thought about for some time. It was the scene right after the inciting incident. My Heroine had to eat her words and they did not taste good. But the scene? Oh so yummy.
• Both of my babies are passing various bugs amongst themselves. 
• The 4yo had a stomach bug from two Fridays ago until this past Thursday. Though the bug is gone, the crankiness remains, which in turn makes me cranky. We're both hardheaded (I know you're thinking a stubborn 4yo? no way!) so this is not a good thing. 
• The 1yo has been snotty so it makes sleeping nearly impossible for him; this results in no sleep for me and again, a cranky momma.
• On a more pleasant note: he pooped in his bath Saturday morning and cried bloody murder when I tried to take him out. I doubt I'll ever understand boys. My girl wouldn't have tolerated that for a second. Yes, even as a 1yo. She gets that pickiness for cleanliness from me :) 
• The above means I'll prob be a zombie by the end of NaNo. A harsh but inevitable side effect that many of us NaNoers no doubt suffer. In fact, I might need to eat some brains after. Any voluntary victims out there?
• I've made the disastrous decision to start my workout plan two weeks early. Today, the torture will commence.
• Side effects include: posture like The Hunchback of Notre Dame, more crankiness, and wheezing as I write. Why the wheezing while I write you ask? Don't know , just sounded good.
• I refused to hold Thanksgiving at my house this year. I've unceremoniously foisted the hosting on my sister. I love them dearly, but there's no polite way to kick family out of the house. I'd rather have the option of kicking myself out of hers.

I'm sure there's more, but I can't think right now. Caffeine is rattling my brain. Good thing I'm not writing. 

Lofty goals

I should have written this post yesterday before the crazy struck my home. My 4yo has been suffering a stomach bug since last Friday. Last night her fever hit 104 so I rushed her to the ER. I felt kinda silly about it at first...and then she vomited in the bathroom of the waiting area. My poor girl; she suffers, but she doesn't cry about it. Her stomach is cleaned out and she immediately asks for something to eat. No tears, no fuss. I love her so.

NaNo is nigh. Seriously, only a couple of hours away. In the back of my head I'm hoping for an average of 2500 words/day. If I can keep to this, I'll have a complete first draft by the end of November. Here's hoping I keep to it.

I'm going to check over my outline one last time and then hit the sack.

Good luck to my fellow NaNoers!

Batman! The pigs - they fly!

Yep, that's how I felt right after I read, and reread, and then triple checked the request for my full from the pitch fest over at Casablanca Authors, and you know what made me hit dirt faster than you can say what?

I've lost the piece. Crap, crap, crap!

Let me explain. About three years ago, hubby gave me a brand new laptop for Christmas. It was shiny and pretty and had tons of snazziness that I loved - and then it crashed. When revived, all of my files were gone, sacrificed to the laptop gods. Over a year, it crashed three more times, which means I lost all documents in the notebook all over again. Thankfully, I learned a lesson in there somewhere and started to back up my files on a thumb drive.

What do you do when the thumb drive's gone missing? According to hubby: "should've loaded them to a place like Google docs".

Thanks hon, but that's not really helping at the moment. Right now, my head (my groggy, stuffed up head) spins with the possibility of writing over 90,000 words from memory - oh yea, and as soon as possible.

Now, I'm not pointing fingers, but Monkey, if you did something with mommy's stuff, will you please tell me?

Didn't think so.

~Hetal

Just remember to breath

Oh boy, I've really done it this time. For practice, I decided to post a pitch to Deb Werksman's pitch fest thinking no way in heck was I going to get the formula to attract the editor's attention. I've tried this pitch bit a few times with epic failure, but it seems I might have gotten something right this time. She asked for the full! Eep!

I know I shouldn't let this request cool for too long, but I really want to comb through some pages and make sure I've hit all the elements this time. After my light bulb moment a few days ago, I'm unsure I didn't totally foul up this piece. At a whopping 9 times longer than that short that tripped me up, there's more room for mistakes.

To do:

1. Send Doubt on vacation. Yes, the little hag's still on my back.
2. Get over this cold. For crying out loud, it's been a week! Go away.
3. Read, edit, read, edit, read...you get the picture.
4. Oh yea, eat, sleep, brush teeth, and all the rest of those little things.

~Hetal

Catching Up

You've no idea how many times I've started writing a new post only to quit one or two sentences in. My brain fizzled and fried on the pan that used to be the creativity of my mind. Not a very good sign, I'd say, except that my writings coming along quite smoothly. Granted I'm using a whole different approach - a pantser/plotter combo - so maybe this means I've found my stride. Nailing my "voice" however, eludes me.  :)

My online friend Ferdous asked in a recent comment: how do you keep track of the story without plotting? Do you find yourself veering down a wrong path requiring rewrites of a previous chapter? Well, let me tell you, even when I plan, the characters often drag me a different direction. Despite the most in depth character sketch, the character might reveal quirks about themselves I never would've thought of. I think it's that organic bit I love most about writing, the constant learning, not only of mechanics, but also of each person we create.

Okay, and I know this is many days (weeks?) late, but I want to thank Kaily Hart and Ju Dimello for the Happy Cupcake Awards they passed onto me. And now, I must reach into that big bag of tricks inside me and list ten things that make me happy.

1. Newly fallen snow
2. My baby's smile. She does this scrunching of her entire face, wrinkly nosed thing...well, you prob have to be there.
3. The hubby doing dishes without being asked.
4. My baby's laugh, a rarity really, because even when tickled, she more grunts then giggles.
5. A lazy Sunday morning.
6. When the sister's and I get together because craziness ensues.
7. When my mom and dad smile at one another. Really. Their marriage might have been arranged, but they are one of the lucky couples who really learned to love each other after.
8. When baby girl tries to pull cranky cat onto her lap. She adores the fatty but the feeling's not so mutual.
9. Pride and Prejudice. I literally smile every time this movie plays. Book's pretty good too. ;)
10. Chocolate. The kind filled with caramel's the best!

~Hetal

Falling off the face of the Earth

At least, that's what it's going to feel like. On any given day, I can be on the net - surfing, checking my groups or emails, killing time - for four to six hours. I don't understand this compulsion to digest useless info or join yet another group, and I came to a conclusion the other day: I'm avoiding my writing under the guise of research.

Hubby  asked e the other night how my writing's coming along. Um...I haven't touched a MS in...going on two weeks now. I don't know what let all the steam out of me, but I just haven't been able to pen anything. I'm stuck in a loop of plot-construct-research-research some more-try to plot...

You get the idea :) I'm a natural pantser, mind plotting my piece along the way, and trying to actually plot this next piece has completely gummed up my mental works. In any case, this has made me realize that I need to cut back my web browsing time. I'm going to try to limit myself to surfing for only two hours a day and spend the rest of the time in front of the computer spitting words onto page.

This should be interesting.

~Hetal

I'm so Mad!

How did life manage to completely sidetrack me from a chat I was really looking forward to participating in? I missed "speaking" with two agents from The Knight Agency tonight and am now completely bummed. If I ever start querying for an agent, this company is one of my top picks, and I really wanted to get that invaluable info they provided tonight.

I don't even know if I can start the piece that's occupying my every thought - even though I figured out the opening scene tonight.

Silly Monkey. Mama loves you but really wishes you'd trip daddy sometimes instead. 

Return to Reality

This weekend was spent cheering on baby sis at a dance competition, eating A LOT of crappy-for-me food, some laughs, some bad moods, with cold drinks (gotta have those), and family. It was nice to take a break from my writing after agonizing over a two paragraph pitch blurb or an entire week. I even bounced it off of my non-romance reading brother and sisters - thank goodness too, they pointed out ambiguities I hadn't even noticed - and finally sent off what I thought was a pretty concise, action & romance packed blurb.

I managed to keep it at 178 words, no small feat for me as I tend to overthink and therefore overwrite, and I was fairly happy with it. In a moment of "I just can't look at this anymore" I sent it off, now it's time to play the waiting game.

I really need to get back to the MS now, but having just got home means catching up after the weekend. Oh well, as always, writing comes after life. Usually, late at night after baby's down for the day...

Speaking of Monkey, she's trying to play peek-a-boo with me, which means she covers my eyes instead of her own, so I've got to go. Mommyhood calls.

~Hetal

Write or Die weekend

Well, I am without Monkey this weekend which should give me ample time to finish my novella and the dreaded blurb. I've had all afternoon but have spent most of it critiquing other people's pieces. Hey, while I'm in a writing rut, others should benefit I say.


I'm more than halfway through both the piece and the blurb, so this should be a piece of cake, no? Well, yes, if only thoughts of Monkey weren't running through my head...

Thursday? Really?

How did I miss Wednesday? I recall editing a bit and realizing my chapter three will not actually be a great chapter three but a better chapter four, so now I'm mind-plotting a new chapter three without compromising my word count. Hmm, maybe I should try plotting before I write to avoid such snags.

Nah!

Did I lose you above? Sorry about the ramble, but hey, it's what I do. Ask (sister) number three, she'll tell you. :)

Anyhow, back to losing my Wednesday. I surfed, took care of Monkey (my 18 month old), cleaned house, checked email, checked group sites, checked blog...accomplished nothing, yet it's now Thursday night and I have nothing to show for it. I should really get on with this writing thing...

Started to work on my pitch "blurb" late today. It's so hard to condense a story to two paragraphs, much harder than a full snyopsis, and I'm worried I'm not getting the right tone. Because the line I'm targeting is "dark and sensual", the blurb - as well as the story - should portray this. I don't think I have it yet.

And Ack!, it's due Feb 1st. Not to mention I have to finish this short by then as well (because I want to submit it whether or not my blurb is chosen).

Maybe I should lay off the internet, excepting research, until then...

Nah!

~Hetal

Happy New Year!

I don't know about you, but I can't make resolutions - at least, none that I've ever been able to keep.  The typical has always made my list: eat better, exercise more, cut back on the chocolate, find a better job, be closer to my family, etc.  Always, I seem to come close to, then utterly fail all my goals.

So no resolutions for me.  Nope, I'm going to live as I write: by the seat of my pants.

Speaking of, finally managed to add some words to the MS I'm reworking and was able to add another 1000 wds.  Woo-hoo!  Unfortunately, they only tacked onto my first chapter which means I have many more to go.  Slow and steady and I'll hopefully accomplish something big:  submission of a partial by the end of January.

I'm squeaking on the inside, both in fear and excitement.  Fingers crossed that I don't chicken out this time.

I May be Back...

...but my mind is still on vacation!  We got back late Sunday trading the veritably sunny skies of FL for the leaden, powdery ones of OH.  Remember when I said I missed the snow?  Well, I didn't miss it quite this much.

I love to look at the white stuff from the comfort of my home, but make me step foot in it, and I balk.  No, really - I do.  For example:  we've been gone for nine days so our house needed to be put back in order.  You know, groceries, books (in my case), the return to a regular exercise routine (my hubby), diapers, baby's food/snacks/milk...well, you get the picture.  Do you think I went out to accomplish all these things?

If your answer was yes, you are sadly mistaken.  Twice in two days, I found ways to convince the husband to get the necessities (and not-so-necessities) for me.  I'm such a sweetie.  :)

In any case, it is good to be home.  Baby and I have already laid down in front of the Christmas tree several times to look up at the lights, I will no longer complain about my bed as this mattress is far superior to the one I occupied last week, and even the cat was happy to see us, though he's taken to "crying" at three in the morning just to make sure someone's around to hear him.

I have yet to write/revise, but give me time.  I'll get to it.  My mind's still recounting palm trees.

~Hetal

Greetings from Florida

For some reason, I thought the weather would be better...but I shouldn't complain.  The variable 65-75 degree temperatures in Orlando are much better than the 30 degrees with flurries currently painting my hometown a pristine white.  That is, until the snow plows get ahold of the powder and turn it a slushy gray.  Still, for those few hours before the city comes out en force to clear paths to workplaces/schools/other, the world is like the inside of a prismatic crystal.

I'm kind of missing the snow right now.

~Hetal

Countdown

To a family vacation!  We leave for Florida on Saturday, but this is not your typical family getaway.  Oh no, we're doing it Desi style (Desi just refers to us as Indians).

My mom was really the mastermind behind the idea, but all planning has fallen upon the shoulders of my sisters and I.  My parents, three sisters, one cousin, hubby, baby, his brother's son (nephew in law?), and I will be down in Orlando for nine days.  Hopefully we'll see Mickey as the nephew's eight and would really enjoy it and my baby sister probably doesn't remember meeting him the first time.

Thankfully, there will be two cars for the sixteen hour drive down, but oy!  Can you imagine the potential dramas/crisis' that will arise?  Relaxing this will not be.

Oh well, why am I complaining?  At least I'll get out of the frigidness that is Ohio for awhile.   ;)

~Hetal

Turkey Day tomorrow!

But, shh!  Don't tell my mom how much I love the stuff.  Yes, sadly, even after twenty nine years, I let my mom believe that I'm vegetarian because we're Hindu.  It's a little white lie that let's her have peace of mind and hurts no one, so I don't argue it.

Anyhow, I'm only quickly dropping in to say Happy Thanksgiving to all.  Enjoy the family and friends and food, and I'll catch up with you after the holiday.

~Hetal