A new world: Romance to be published under a pen name, of course
Years ago someone dared me to write a steamy scene. I didn’t
take him up on the offer – until now. To say that writing a romance is out of
my comfort zone is an understatement. But working on the edge is the best way
to sharpen your skills and with the help and encouragement of a great critique
group, Big Hearts is finished.
Everyone deals with loss differently. This is Kimber Blackwell’s story. In a horrible accident involving two snow mobiles, a team of Belgian draft horses, and a sleigh full of children, Kimber loses her husband, her unborn baby, and a ten year old girl riding in the sleigh is also killed. Enter Jamison, personal injury lawyer. In only eighteen months Kimber also loses her 300 acre horse farm and Amish built home which has been in her family since it was homesteaded a hundred years ago. Also gone is her herd of horses and four generations of heirlooms.
Now it’s time for Kimber to move on. How can she move past the terrifying images of her past and find herself. How can she ever find love, when she’s taken that hope from others? Only with the help of two very special horses will she find the courage to pull through.
Hopefully we are in the final stages of revisions and maybe soon we will find a publisher.
Everyone deals with loss differently. This is Kimber Blackwell’s story. In a horrible accident involving two snow mobiles, a team of Belgian draft horses, and a sleigh full of children, Kimber loses her husband, her unborn baby, and a ten year old girl riding in the sleigh is also killed. Enter Jamison, personal injury lawyer. In only eighteen months Kimber also loses her 300 acre horse farm and Amish built home which has been in her family since it was homesteaded a hundred years ago. Also gone is her herd of horses and four generations of heirlooms.
Now it’s time for Kimber to move on. How can she move past the terrifying images of her past and find herself. How can she ever find love, when she’s taken that hope from others? Only with the help of two very special horses will she find the courage to pull through.
Hopefully we are in the final stages of revisions and maybe soon we will find a publisher.
NaNoWriMo
Can you imagine writing fifty thousand words in one month? Hey, piece of cake! No kidding, a little over sixteen hundred words a day. Anyone can do it, just babble away. Write a diary, compile a bunch of funny stories, dream up a different world for yourself.
AND THEN
Revise, edit, revise, correct, edit, share, cry, revise, throw it in the bottom drawer.
Oh, no you don't.
Try this instead. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writer's Month. It's November. They have a camp in the summer. They have a website with all sorts of help and encouragement.
Step one: decide to write.
Step two: decide what to write
Step three: draw up your characters - yea, sketch if you want, swipe a picture from the internet, and give that guy or gal a personality
Step four: invent a setting or two - I like to use Google Earth for ideas, or maybe your world is on some other planet
Step five: decide what is going to happen and how it's going to happen (hint: that's the plot)
Step six: plan to research - before, during, and after you write
Finally: jot down an outline
And Write.
Then you can do all that sad stuff in that other line without throwing it in the bottom drawer.
I've done two books for NaNo. Neither of them have made it very far past the first stage of revising and neither of them are even ready for a critique group just yet, but they are not in the bottom drawer.
My first one, finished in 2012, is titled The Flock.
Happening now, or maybe day after tomorrow, a very real possibility of a hostile takeover by some foreign government exists in many parts of our great nation (and yours if you happen to be one of my overseas readers). The first thing they do is infiltrate local government and begin to make subtle changes - all in the best interest of the community, of course. The next thing they do is attempt to disarm their citizens - yea sure, not on my watch and certainly not in Texas. Then they interrupt communications and restrict movement - under the guise of a natural disaster. In a meteor shower, asteroids have hit the surface of Earth. Satellites have been knocked out of the sky and martial law is in effect.
But in the past, communication was managed in ways other than technology. Messages were sent by homing pigeons. In spite of the new regime's attempts to quarantine all horses and pigeons, a small group of young people resist. To protect the flock means protecting the last line of communication with the outside world. To ensure the coordination of a new army, homers must be distributed and shared to be released at crucial moments. Do six kids have what it takes to turn the tide and recapture "New California" which covers all of the southwest and Texas? Do a few ten ounce descendants of the rock dove have the heart to fly hundreds of miles to take their messages outside these new closed borders? They must or the country will be forever fractured.
Editing will commence as soon as I have a minute between other projects.
My second NaNo project was finished in 2014.
Inspired by my friend's huge pearl ring, The Jewel of Veenah is set hundreds of years in the future, centuries after the Earth has been claimed by a reptilian species from another planet. In their attempt to rid the world of parasites and pests - including humans, they sprayed a hormone to sterilize the population. But life always finds a way. Now only one in five women may be able to have a child, and all male children are born with no arms or legs, but they are virile. The family is made up of five strong females, each with a specialization in hunting and combat, construction, or homemaking. Once these five fems have proven their dedication in a one month bonding quest in the wilderness they may court and hope to win one of the very few mems available.
But a quest is a quest, and historically these bonding quests were designed so the unattached fems might have the possibility of fulfilling the prophecy. Something no one understands anymore holds the key to saving the human race and returning them to power, if only someone is able to interpret the words of the song.
Someday this story will also migrate back to the top of the pile and into the prestigious arena of revisions.
AND THEN
Revise, edit, revise, correct, edit, share, cry, revise, throw it in the bottom drawer.
Oh, no you don't.
Try this instead. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writer's Month. It's November. They have a camp in the summer. They have a website with all sorts of help and encouragement.
Step one: decide to write.
Step two: decide what to write
Step three: draw up your characters - yea, sketch if you want, swipe a picture from the internet, and give that guy or gal a personality
Step four: invent a setting or two - I like to use Google Earth for ideas, or maybe your world is on some other planet
Step five: decide what is going to happen and how it's going to happen (hint: that's the plot)
Step six: plan to research - before, during, and after you write
Finally: jot down an outline
And Write.
Then you can do all that sad stuff in that other line without throwing it in the bottom drawer.
I've done two books for NaNo. Neither of them have made it very far past the first stage of revising and neither of them are even ready for a critique group just yet, but they are not in the bottom drawer.
My first one, finished in 2012, is titled The Flock.
Happening now, or maybe day after tomorrow, a very real possibility of a hostile takeover by some foreign government exists in many parts of our great nation (and yours if you happen to be one of my overseas readers). The first thing they do is infiltrate local government and begin to make subtle changes - all in the best interest of the community, of course. The next thing they do is attempt to disarm their citizens - yea sure, not on my watch and certainly not in Texas. Then they interrupt communications and restrict movement - under the guise of a natural disaster. In a meteor shower, asteroids have hit the surface of Earth. Satellites have been knocked out of the sky and martial law is in effect.
But in the past, communication was managed in ways other than technology. Messages were sent by homing pigeons. In spite of the new regime's attempts to quarantine all horses and pigeons, a small group of young people resist. To protect the flock means protecting the last line of communication with the outside world. To ensure the coordination of a new army, homers must be distributed and shared to be released at crucial moments. Do six kids have what it takes to turn the tide and recapture "New California" which covers all of the southwest and Texas? Do a few ten ounce descendants of the rock dove have the heart to fly hundreds of miles to take their messages outside these new closed borders? They must or the country will be forever fractured.
Editing will commence as soon as I have a minute between other projects.
My second NaNo project was finished in 2014.
Inspired by my friend's huge pearl ring, The Jewel of Veenah is set hundreds of years in the future, centuries after the Earth has been claimed by a reptilian species from another planet. In their attempt to rid the world of parasites and pests - including humans, they sprayed a hormone to sterilize the population. But life always finds a way. Now only one in five women may be able to have a child, and all male children are born with no arms or legs, but they are virile. The family is made up of five strong females, each with a specialization in hunting and combat, construction, or homemaking. Once these five fems have proven their dedication in a one month bonding quest in the wilderness they may court and hope to win one of the very few mems available.
But a quest is a quest, and historically these bonding quests were designed so the unattached fems might have the possibility of fulfilling the prophecy. Something no one understands anymore holds the key to saving the human race and returning them to power, if only someone is able to interpret the words of the song.
Someday this story will also migrate back to the top of the pile and into the prestigious arena of revisions.