Invaluable friends

Having organised a playdate yesterday for my kids turned out to be very fruitful for my muse.
This playdate was with a friend, who also happens to be a budding writing. We discussed our current WIPS and she detected a weakness of motivation or reason in my story about friends with benefits.
Discussing deeper reasons for why my heroine does what she does, and my heroes refusal has cemented their conflict, their past and hopefully their HEA.

Don't you love friends who you can discuss your writing with, and they 'get' it?!
I only hope i'm as much of a help to her as she is to me!

First three chapters

That is what i'm working on.
Billie and Cooper's beginning. Re-titled The Price of Passion. I'm polishing and rewriting the start to submit to Harlequin.
I wasn't going to do this until i'd finished writing the entire ms. But prompted by the New Voices comp when i polished the first chapter, i decided why not do the first 3?!
Now i'm just waiting on the list on the NV site to see if i'm one of the ones they are going to be following up before i submit :)
What are you all up to?

Backstory, POV, Problems, Oh my!

Yep, i'm having reworking and editing problems for my chapter for New Voices submission!
But probably so are a lot of people wanting to enter.
But i'm slowly working through them with the help of my fab writing buddy. In between the busyness of motherhood. I just hope it will be ready for my deadline of tomorrow :s

Too soon?

Arrrhh!
This is what is running through my head as i am editing and reshaping my first chapter for submitting for the competition.
I knew as i was writing my WIP i would have to edit and rework it but i was hoping to not have to until i'd finished and now i am doing it before i'm finished.
Am i doing it too soon, or will it make it stronger now?
Anyway, i'm cutting out quite a lot from the beginning as it has way too much of that dreaded backstory! Inevitable when you are working with characters who have a past, and a newbie writer :)
Now i'm trying to filter it in so it is more 'present' and makes sense while keeping the tension, and hopefully readable.
What do you think the word count should be for the first chapter? The conditions for the comp said no more than 10,000 but i think this is too many words for a first chapter personally, so do i do half this or do the whole lot???
Arrrhh!!!

Impromptu Critique

I sent my WIP to my good friend at Damsel in a Dirty Dress for an impromptu critique last week and i must say it is a fantastic shake up to the moral and a firing of the writing cylinders!
I wasn't going to read through it, was going to wait until i'd finished the story, but at the rate i've been going i didn't know how long that was going to take! And i was curious...

I've been plodding along writing maybe one afternoon a week, between doing housework and things for the kids and helping out at kindy and i think putting it off - why? I'm enjoying this story but i guess i was getting to that point where i was thinking that it wasn't any good you know?

But this critique has been honest and pointed out things i hadn't seen, asked questions i hadn't thought of and well, shaken me up! No more putting it off.

It is worth writing, and i am going to write more often. My daughter is turning 3 in a few weeks and will be at kindy 5 afternoons a week which will give me more free time to do it, i'm just too tired in the evenings and know i don't do it even if i mean to in the evenings! So the afternoons is going to be the time for me! No more putting it off!

New goal: 1st Draft will be completed by end of October! I don't see why i can't do that seeing as i am 60% percent there, so this is actually a doable goal. And i have made it October just in case daughter doesn't get in to kindy until end of September.
So fingers, be prepared for more tapping!

Naughty...but surprised!

Well, after not writing anything on my WIP for a long time due to other commitments, i had lost the flow.

Couldn't get the motivation, the feel, you know?

So i decided to read a few books in the genre to get the feel for it again...Some brilliant category romances by my new favourite author Nicola Marsh...but then i don't think should have picked a favourite!

Her writing is fantastic - see previous post for my gushing :)

It made me feel really bad about my own WIP. It is too slow paced, my characters are boring, the premise isn't good enough...you know the drill. Doubt sets in!

So i did a naughty thing.

I opened my document and instead of writing i read from the beginning, with the pure intention of hitting the delete key!

Imagine my shock, and delight, when i discovered that it isn't as slow as i thought, the characters aren't as boring.

It is raw. But it's a first draft. It's my first stab at category romance and the books i've just read by my new fav author is something like her 20th published work! Geez.

End of chapter one, i was re-inspired and hit the keys to get the end of the document and continued where i'd left off.

1000 words later and i'm slowly but surely getting there! ... Well in between demands from my little princess asking for dolls clothes that is!

Have you had doubts in your writing, but then been surprised when you've re-read it?