Ancestor's Call, it's out!!

Great news!  The ebook of Ancestor's Call is out today, print version should be available next week.  (I decided to retool the logo on the cover at the last moment....sorry about that.)

Right now Analinde & Ancestor's Call are both on sale (65% off) for the book launch, get it while it's $2.99.  :)

Stay tuned for a couple of collections of short stories set in the world of Loresse. They should be released in the next few weeks.  Also, the sequels to Trapped are coming soon.  Happy day!

Happy reading!
-Melissa

Discovery Writing and Outlining

I’m a discovery writer, of sorts.  Actually, I suppose I’m more of a hybrid writer.  A writer who has ideas of what needs to happen, and then discovery writes to get there.  I wasn't always this way, for the most part, I used to be a pure discovery writer.  However, when you're working with an epically long book series, you just can't write fast enough.  I have plot points coming out of my ears for books I haven't even started to pull together.  But I know what's going to happen, and it's exciting.

So I guess this makes me an outliner.  But I don't want to be an outliner.  I like to discovery write, so I think I'll call myself hybrid discovery writer.  Now, that sounds nice.

But I digress, let me back up.  When I first wrote Book II (it’s now at around 90k words), I was firmly in the discovery writing phase.  Oh, I had ideas of where the book needed to go, but I had no idea how I was going to get there.  Anyway, because of this, Book II is full of holes.  When you're writing a series in discovery writing mode, it's incredibly difficult to just write and get it down in the first pass.  As a matter of fact, it's downright impossible.

There are subplots and themes that need to be fully supported, ideas that you come up with later but need to go back and put in earlier.  And so I make an outline after the first draft is written.  This way I can find the holes, places that need to be fleshed out, and plot points that need to be built up to better.  It's kind of fun, but it also can be a painfully long process.

Doing this for Analindë (Book I), was tedious.  I'm hoping the process for Book II will go a lot more smoothly. 

Almost one year ago I was in Beijing, visiting a friend.  While she was at work, I stayed in her apartment and outlined Analindë, then at night we went out and explored the city together.  I also did a rough outline of Book II in the series, but my focus at the time was to get Book I going again.

Analindë will soon go to print, and just last night I finished redoing the outline for Book II. It's exciting, I'm looking forward to reworking the story, but I'm a little discouraged at the same time.  It's almost been a year since I last worked on Book II, and I realize yet again how fleeting time really is.

Thankfully I'm still on leave at the moment, and have time to charge forward with my revisions.  The goal is to work quickly and then move on to Book III.  We'll see how I fare.

In other news, I've almost finished tweaking the design of my website.  I hope you like the changes.  The cover art for Analindë is coming along nicely. My illustrator (Bryan Beus) and I have just reviewed the photos from the shoot held last Saturday and he’s moving forward to start the final sketches for the cover.  I'm really pleased with the model that we used, she makes a great Analindë.

- Melissa

Something New, coming in october

Call Me Crazy, yes actually - you should

As you may have noticed, I'm doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) this year. But I also just signed up to do 70 Days of Sweat as well. (You may remember 70 days of sweat from last year.)

So yeah, call me crazy. I'll be attempting to juggle two books at the same time. Do you think I'll be able to do it?

I guess only time will tell.

WIP Report:
Chronicles of Loresse, Book I - Final Draft stages
Chronicles of Loresse, Book II - NaNoWriMo, outline finished, starts Nov. 1st.
Historical Paranormal Romance - 70 Days, partial outline, starts Nov. 10th.

Wish me luck,
-Bitter

NaNoWriMo, you know you want to do it

Calling all writers, NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) starts in three days. It's not too late to sign up. Come on, you know you want to do it.

10 Reasons To Sign Up.

1. I am.
2. You can add me as your writing buddy.
3. I know you secretly want to.
4. It'll be fun, except for the parts where you have to force yourself to KYBICAHOK (Keep your but in chair & hands on keyboard.)
5. We can be writing buddies.
6. You can kick my rear end when I don't post my word counts, and I can do the same to you.
7. It'll be cool.
8. It's definitely doable.
9. It's free. (But donations are welcome.)
10. Um, and you'll hopefully actually finish writing a story.

-Bitter

p.s. here's my NaNoWriMo profile, just in case you decide that you absolutely need to add me as your, ahem, writing buddy.

Mass Transit, how I got my word count in for the day

I actually got to sweat today while attempting to reach my goal of writing 1250 words for the today. Yes, I said the word sweat.

The great thing about writing today, was that I accomplished 90% of it while riding around on mass transit. I wrote during my 40 minute commute to work, then during the 20 minute ride out to the Wal-Mart in Jersey (where I bought a blowup mattress), during the 25 minute wait for the bus in the Wal-Mart parking lot in 90° weather (this is where the sweating happened), and during the 45 minute commute back home.

While in the parking lot, I couldn't help but laugh as sweat rolled down my back and formed on my face. One would say I glistened, but when you get right down to it, it's sweat. I could only think of Sven, and hoped one day of sweating would be enough. I think I'd prefer to keep my writing locations air-conditioned.

The last bit of writing was the trickiest, the ride home on the A-Train with all my loot. You see, I picked up just a little bit more than a Coleman queen-size blowup mattress. I routinely seem to forget how much I'm capable of carrying home on trips like this. Each time I swear that next time I'm gunna bring a grandma cart, but I never do because every time I go out shopping "I know" I'm only going to buy one or two things.

I piled and stacked my bulky purchases in front of me and on my lap, the tower threatened to topple over many times while sacks slid off my lap, and I worried about the cheap plastic sacks ripping. Somehow, I managed to pull out a notebook and write nonetheless.

I made it home this time, but just barely. I had to stop every 25 feet or so while in the subway and out on the street, to let my hands and forearms rest. (Wal-Mart didn't have big enough bags to hold the storage containers I'd purchased.) Suffice it to say, that the compulsory wide grip I maintained in order to carry the container and miscellaneous goodies home gave my hands a workout that rivaled any workout session using one of these little beauties.

Much to my relief, I made it home with bags intact.

Word count for the day, 1401. Turned out quite well, if I do say so myself. (1796 if you count this post, well it was 1796 until I started editing this post in blogger.)

-Bitter

Update: It's 1:00 in the morning and 85°'s outside. How sad it that?

Seventy Days of Sweat, or whatever it is that writers do when they write

You're probably wondering what this photo has to do with 70 days and sweat. Why absolutely nothing of course! Except that biker blurring across the bottom right-hand corner, he's probably sweating up a storm. (I just remembered you can't see the biker. Until I tweak my blog layout, my photos will continue to get chopped off. . . if you really want to see him, just double click on the photo.)

Moving on, yesterday I happened to surf past Diana Peterfreund's blog and became very excited when I read that there was a writing challenge going on. I liked the terms of the challenge, and the thought of working together as a group and being accountable to the other writers sounded perfect.

Of course, that was yesterday. Today, I'm still glad I signed up, but my wheels in my mind are still spinning.

Last fall when I wrote Book 1, I finished the first rough draft--all 60,000 words of it--in a month and a half. I wrote every day, and though uncomfortable, I kept on typing. All the things I'd read in Stephen King's book On Writing, and online--mostly at Holly Lisle's site--reinforced the impression that writing is hard work and you just have to buckle down and do it, so I did it. Each time my rear end started to ache from sitting on a hard plastic chair too long, or I became uncomfortable from sitting at my makeshift desk, I'd just adjust my posture and keep on going. (I straddled a rectangular cardboard box in front of a credenza, with my iMac on the credenza and my keyboard on the box, I'd type until I couldn't sit there any longer, or my arms began to ache.)

So, it's been a little crazy for me since I started Book 2 a month and a half ago. Sometimes I write, but most the time I don't. Today, like many days that have come before, I sat here in front of my laptop for three hours, document open and cursor blinking unable to put words to page.

It's not a matter of not knowing what to write. Beyond the story arc, I have a few paragraphs ready to transcribe, written during a commute to work last week. I know what comes next.

For me, I think it's just a matter of delving in and getting started. Once the words begin to flow, it becomes easier, and time slips by more quickly. The trick is getting started.

So here I go, wish me luck. If all turns out well, I'll have at least six new pages written by the time I close up shop for the night.

-Bitter

p.s. If you're interested in either joining or learning more details about the challenge that Alison Kent, Larissa Ione, Stephanie Tyler, Jo Leigh and HelenKay Dimon have issued, you can read about it here.

p.p.s. During the next several weeks, feel free to prod, poke, and spur me along if you don't see any writing progress showing in the sidebar on the right. If I'm keeping it up and doing well, congratulations and words of encouragement will be accepted just as readily.

Update 7/8/07, 4:22: Okay, I'm a wimp! After reading this, I'm done complaining. I've written consistently before, I can do it again. I just needed to realize, again, how much I want it. (To write that is.)

Fairway, like no other market

So there I was, minding my own business waiting in the check-out line of the local Fairway, when my cell starts ringing. I pulled out my phone, saw it was The Mother of Boys calling, then shoved it back into my purse. I'm sorry to say I didn't pick up.

Hey, I was almost to the register, and here in The 212 if you're not ready to speedily check out at the register, you get dirty looks and sometimes mean verbal prods. And when I say speedy, I mean speedy. They have a cable connection hooked up to the registers and so not two seconds after you've swiped your card, the approved/declined message flashes across the screen. Talk about fast.

I called The Mother of Boys back and walked, with my heavy groceries, huffing and puffing, over to Central Park West, where I sat and chatted with her about the current WIP that she's editing. She's very excited about the story and both she and The Professor can't wait to get their hands on next installment. Too bad it's still in my head...

-Bitter

Clarification: You get dirty looks and verbal prods from other customers, not the employees. The employees are too busy restocking the shelves and ringing up your stuff to give you dirty looks...

Bon Voyage WIP, aka Freedom!

I mailed my manuscript off to The Professor and The Mother of Boys today. It felt good to hand it over to the US Mail system.

I’m looking forward to my time away from the story. In about a month or so, I’ll be able to look at it with fresh eyes. Plus, it’ll give me the chance to catch up on some reading, and work on some photos that I’ve been itching to retouch. I’ve also thought about starting another book, this one outside of the adventure and genre that I’ve been working on since October. I’ll keep you posted.

The weather is supposed to be nice this weekend. I think I’ll spend some time in the park. Talked myself out of buying the Canon Rebel X camera again tonight. I Really, Really want it. As I am currently camera-less, keep me in mind if you have an old one you want to send my way. Or if you work for Canon or Nikon, send one to me, I’ll write up a great review. Well, ‘great,’ meaning that it’ll be well written. Can’t say if it’ll be positive, but I have high hopes.

-Bitter

The Current WIP

Did I mention that I’ll be taking weekends off? No? Consider yourself warned, you won't hear from me before Monday (unless my apartment burns down). And while I’m in announcement mode, within the next few days I’ll be migrating my blog to my own address, www.i-m-bitter.com, so if you come to read or say hi and can’t make it through, don’t worry I’ll be back (as soon as all the DNS Servers around the world update).

Now back to our regularly scheduled blog.

I was going to go out and buy a new camera tonight, but then reality kicked in and I realized I can’t afford one. I would really like a nice Digital SLR Nikon camera, or one of the Cannon Rebel Series, but alas, I need to pay the rent. Maybe in a year or two. . .

Since I spent the day contemplating my financial woes, I decided that tonight, I need a pick-me-up. ’Land Thai Kitchen’, here I come! They make the best food. Tonight I’m going to get ‘Root Vegetable Spring Rolls’ which are delicious, and the ‘Wok Basil with Beef,’ mild of course. Yummy, yummy! I can’t wait.

If you ever come to NYC, make sure to visit Land on the Upper West Side, or their new location on the Upper East Side.

This weekend is dedicated to finishing the first draft of the current work in progress. I’m on my fourth revision, and as soon as I have all my edits in, I’ll be printing it out and shipping it off to The Professor and his wife for proofing.

They’ll both be excellent first readers, one of The Professor’s degrees is English, they’ve both taught English, and will give great feedback. Besides, I'd rather hear that I’ve got broccoli stuck in my teeth (holes in my plot) or other more disturbing things from someone close, than hearing it from a potential agent. Sometimes you’re just too close to judge your own work, and even though I think my story’s great and lined with gold, I worry that it really might be crap.

So wish me luck. If all goes well, by Monday I’ll emerge from my darkened apartment into the light of day, ready to work my 9-5 with finished first draft in hand.