Mini-NaNo

Well, I suppose my Mini-NaNo is officially over now - but during approximately 15 days I completed an 18-chapter novella and four chapters on the sequel.

I'm going to keep plugging away at the second story and get it finished before I go back and start any revisions. I have to say this has been the most productive two weeks of writing I've had in over a year.

Maybe next year I'll do the full NaNo and see what develops.

Dum and Dummer

So the IDIOTS at Fox cancelled Joss Whedon's Dollhouse.

When are these morons going to learn? First: Anything written by Joss Whedon is genius and needs to be seen by the entire American public, and Second: You don't mess with women who can kick yer candy-asses all over the network.

Sheesh. Some people.

I feel like Nora

Yep. Today I feel like Nora Roberts.

Why, you ask? Not because I am a multi-published best-selling author who has earned the title of Reigning Queen of Romance. Nope. [I wish]

Not because there are millions of copies of my books in prints. Nope. [I also wish]

I feel like Nora Roberts because right now, I don't want to stop writing. I read once, a long time ago, that Ms. Roberts wrote every day. She didn't take breaks or give herself a lot of down time because she was afraid that if she stopped the flow of words, she might not get it back.

That's how I feel today. I'm on a roll. With butter. Today I finished the rough draft of the novella I started thirteen days ago. Finished it.

And I immediately started on the sequel now while everything is still fresh in my mind. I'm still living in this world I created and I'm still loving it, so I'm not going to stop. I'm not going to rest on my laurels or take too much time to pat myself on the back [just a little time]. I'm going to keep plugging away until I get another novella done. THEN, I can rest. Then I'll start working on my revisions and edits and fussy persnickety commas and choosing just the right word here and the right word there, but for now, I'm sailing and I'm not going to stop because I'm afraid if I do I won't be able to start again.

Wish me luck! Mini-NaNo continues!

In the Zone

Maybe it's the time of year, maybe it's just a harmonic convergence. I don't know. But I'm totally in the writing zone.

So far my Mini-NaNo has produced FIFTEEN chapters and the synopsis for a sequel.

It's all handwritten, so I can't say how many words it is, but it's flowing like water.

Now the question is, how do I train myself to write like this all the time?

Fight the fight

On one of my e-mail loops a fellow Amber Quill author posted a link to this blog:

http://writersevolution.blogspot.com/2009/11/e-piracyyou-can-do-something.html

which contains some interesting information on how to combat e-pirates. It's worth taking a look.

Having followed a lot of discussions on how e-piracy affects authors, I've drawn my own conclusions on the best way to deal with them. Even though e-pirates are, in my opinion, stealing from authors, I tend to think the time spent tracking them down, joining their insidiouis little sites, posting cease and desist notices, getting into flame wars with them, getting banned form their sites, etc, also steals something valuable from authors. It steals our time.

As much as I hate to see authors' work [and my own] available for free on pirate sites to people who are actually dumb enough to think I'm wealthy and won't miss hundreds of dollars in royalties, I hate even more to give up my writing time, or time with family to pursue these people, many of whom are based outside the country and are technically not subject to many of the laws that govern intellectual property, not to mention common decency. My time is much more valuable than that. It's just too frustrating for me to spend hours or days hunting criminals on line. That's why this blog is interesting. It makes the process a little less intimidating and hopefully shows authors how to send information directly to the people who are better equipped to do something about the pirates.

What is your policy on dealing with pirates? Do you take time to hunt them? Do you join pirate sites so you can post cease and desist notices? Do you ignore them?

If you could do something to stop piracy that was guaranteed to work, what would you do? I would scour the pirate sites for e-mail addys and URLs of any users and fine each one of them the entire amount due to all publishers for each copy of every book downloaded. So rather than having to pay for one copy of a book illegally downloaded, a user would get hit with the bill for all the downloads from the entire site. Then let them prove which books they DIDN'T steal.

Yeah, it's a fantasy.

So that's my mini-rant for the day. Speaking of mini--

Mini-NaNo progress - NINE Chapters.

The creature in the closet

You never know what might be lurking in the linen closet. Always bring your camera with you.

Mini-NaNo progress - 4 chapters!

Best of the Best!

I try not to post twice in one day, mostly because I only have so much to say and I like to spread it out, but since I can officially annouce it now, I just had to come back and crow a bit.




The Matchmakers came in second place in the Best of the Best eBook Contest at the Editor Jennifer Blog!*


You can drop by Editor Jennifer to see what she had to say about the book, and stay tuned for info on my prize, an AudioBook version to be produced by AudioLark.

All this month Editor Jennifer has been posting the finalists in the contest. The Matchmakers was up against some stiff competition, so I'm thrilled to have been one of the final winners.

*Note: Though my name is Jennifer and I am an editor, I am not Editor Jennifer. Just sayin'.

Bummerz

It actually rained on Halloween. Not all day, but once it got dark - you know when the die hard trick-or-treaters come out - boom. Poured.

Our last trick-or-treaters showed up around 7:00 PM, leaving us with most of the candy we bought for the occasion. The kids came home with truck loads of their own loot - apprently people in the neighborhood, knowing there would not be a good turnout, were giving away handfuls of stuff.

Not that I planned to diet between now and New Year's...but there goes any possibility of losing so much as an ounce.

The upside of Halloween was that while everyone was out, and I stayed home to give out candy, the bell rang so few times that I managed to write a chapter and a half of my min-NaNo WIP. Yay me!

In other news...

A couple of months ago we saw a commercial being filmed at our local Dunkin' Donuts and today DH came across the commerical on TV. The art of video editing is pretty cool, I must say, since they removed an entire office complex from the background and put trees behind the building instead. If you watch commercials, look for the one where the guy is giving a hay ride tour and they pull into a Dunkin' Donuts.