Volleyball Season is in Session...Whoot!

Last night our girls had their first volleyball scrimmage of the season. That officially kicked off the season. They played for two hours. About four different matches and different types of scrimmages. It was awesome. GO SEEGER! WHOOT! WHOOT ! It was an eye opening experience and one that made me realize that I really need one of those comfy cushiony thingys for my rump that was numb for an hour after that.

Bleachers are not made for comfort. I kid you not...Some may look pretty, but they are tricky little flat demons that pain your tail bone on purpose. Anyway. Yeah, can't wait for more games. We have two a week, meaning that my schedule is about to become hectic. Volleyball will be Tuesdays, Thursdays and some Saturdays and football every Friday night. PLUS...yes, there is a PLUS. Little one starts peanut football practice on the 24th and will have practices on some of the same nights that I have volleyball. Can we say crazy?

Lots of coffee and who knows what else (insert any prescription name here)will have to get me through. Maybe that is what is wrong with me lately. I haven't been chaotic enough. I seem to do better under stress. I have slacked off on my writing, editing...ya know, stuff. I am still beta reading and still jotting down ideas and some things for some of the WIPs I am working on, but...I lost motivation along the way. It will find me again though soon, like a stalker in the night sneaking up on its prey. It will find me, oh yes, it will.

And I say BRING IT ON! I am ready for my minions to head off to school and will try to get back on track.

What makes a title?

I’m sure that many of you have been through this before and are still struggling with this now.  How do you find the perfect title for you manuscript?  You have just spent so much time, weeks, months, even years working on perfecting your most treasured work…now what do you call it?

Where do you get inspiration for a name for your book? Where do you look for a name? Does it just come to you easily or are you someone who struggles with it?  I know that they say sometimes when you sign with a publisher that when they read your manuscript, they may want to make changes and may want to change the name. Can you live with that?

I mean that I have around six to seven WIPs…some I have titled. But I don’t know if they are solid titles. I know that there are some that I feel very strongly about and some I am mediocre about because I need to differentiate my works because I would be completely confused if I called them all untitled…lol.

Some titles come to me in my sleep or during the middle of the day. I have even just been listening to music and a title comes to mind. Sometimes I come up with titles that have nothing to do with any of the WIPs that I am writing but I write them down …just in case.

So tell me, where do you get your inspiration for a title?

Weekly Chapter Challenge Update # 3

Things seem to be moving along swiftly now. My story is flowing now with a little more fervor then it had in the past and I am grateful as ever for all of the input that my WCC partner Trisha Leaver gives me every week.

She has been ever so patient with me when life hits and if you have read here, you see it happens here often.  Life is my everlasting tornado sometimes leaving a path of destruction and sometimes bringing me beautiful things as well. I am patient and I am glad that there are others that work well with me.

I still struggle sometimes with shut down making it hard to focus on the task at hand which is the MS I am working on during the WCC, but I also have several WIPs and thoughts that plague my mind and lead me astray.

At least I can say that with the storylines that my mind creates, I will be able to be a part of the WCC for quite some time and will be able to recommend it to everyone that I know for many, many months to come. I am still enjoying the exchange and give props to my partner for such a wonderful MS she is creating and making my heart weep at times.

Being part of the group in WCC and in Writer’s Digest is like being part of a family. I like belonging to a family of people who thinks a lot like I do. I love all the criticism and support that comes with this family. So if you are not already a part of this family…my family, come join me.

The voices inside my head are going crazy…

There are actually so many things going on that I don't know where to start. Have you ever been like that before? Of course you have, it is common. I'm not some freak…ok, ok. So maybe I am--a little. A muse as its called that leads you from project to project and keeps those creative juices flowing. WELL-- I have several. Some good and some evil. Muhhaahaaww.

 

Actually I am looking for a way to either get them to all quite speaking at one time or to quiet down just a squidge so that I can concentrate just enough to focus on some things. I admit, life is hectic enough without them all pulling me in ten different directions and about five different genres…no seriously. They don't concur on a genre, they all have a different preference too.

 

So this has been making it hard for me when doing some writing. I have like five WIPs out there because I listen to the voices and let them guide me for a bit and then another one grabs me and I take off skipping hand and hand with them down another path of sparkles and rainbows or dark shadows and cobwebs. I tell you, that I know I should just focus on one, but the truth is that I know that they all have something important to say and I am afraid that if I don't follow them all around that I may miss an opportunity not to catch their important story and that it may get backlogged in the lost forever files of the IGNORE BOX of suppressed ideas not realized.

 

Besides, I am powerless to them. I can't tell them to STFU. I like all of them unconditionally. No matter who or what they are.

 

I wish that I could say that I was organized and everything had a place and a plan and I wrote a chapter a day and that everything goes as planned, but the truth is…I am a windstorm throwing things down here and there and cleaning up the mess afterward but that's me. To be honest, I like me, I understand me. I just wish that I could calm me down a little. I feel like I get so overwhelmed with all of them (muses) that I mentally shut down sometimes and that is counterproductive.

 

Ok--So here goes. Who has some advice…ideas…words of wisdom…tell me to STFU…Just puttin it out there. LOL

Weekly Chapter Challenge Update # 2

So far things are going great. I have stumbled a couple of times because I am having some split personality issues of wanting to write in first person and then switch to third limited and then back to first and so on and so on.

Thankfully, I have someone who is understanding and helping me cope with my dilemma of wanting to portray the other person’s POV other than the MC. It has been a tough road, but I have been diligently reworking my thoughts to convey the first person POV only.

When we are done, I will go back and revamp the MS with it written all in first POV. I thought about it for a while and stewed on it and then decided I liked the voice it had when I wrote it in first.  I liked the third person vision to give light to the pain of my other characters so that I could explain their intensity of passion/feelings within the MS, but if I do it the right way in first person, you will get it.

I guess that means I just need to work that much harder. So thanks to my buddy, I am doing just that. I am trying to morph my multiple personality into one so that I can write my MS the best I can.

Best of luck to you writers. I believe in you. Keep writing… and take care of you.

Weekly Chapter Challenge Post Prompt

Ok…so I am a little behind on this post because I was promising to do it on Monday and life happened as usual. Thank goodness, I am breathing. Wheew!

So I am part of the Weekly Chapter Challenge on the Writer’s Digest Website and anyone who is aspiring to be a writer really should become a member of Writer’s Digest and go to the Weekly Chapter Challenge and find a writing buddy.

I wasn’t sure I was ready for one at first so I put it off for a couple of months and then I joined and hooked up with a wonderful YA writer, Trisha Leaver, who is represented by Jessica Sinsheimer of The Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency and is diligently working on edits for her manuscript Cedar.

In her spare time, she is exchanging chapters with me, beta reading for others and maintaining her family. I look at her with awe, because she is a magnificent beta reader and she tells me directly what she thinks…with tact. She never comes across the wrong way. She is always appropriate in her comments

If it hadn’t been for EJ starting the group, then I wouldn’t have found her. So thank you EJ. Much appreciated. I also found a couple of other people that I beta read with and am having a blast sharing my work and reading others. I guess I never thought in a million years I would be brave enough to let anyone read my work, but everyone has been so kind and honest with their feedback and that makes it easier to want to share it with the WORLD.


Also, this is the fist time that I have tried to work with links and such on my blog, so forgive me if they aren't working out. I haven't mastered the blog world yet. Post me and let me know if I miffed it up bad, real bad, really, really bad, or just forget trying it again Regina. LOL.


So this is mainly about the WCC so watch out later when I give a huge shout out to my beta crew who I hope to continue to work with them on future projects. I like their input. So go... yes, RIGHT NOW to Writer's Digest and friend me. Then go to the Weekly Chapter Challenge and get cracken on those chapters. I know you can do it. I believe in you. So go, get movin and take care of you. See you there.

Migraine Suffers I sympathize

I am about half out of my mind at this point. I am having several people carefully screening over my MS showing all of my muck ups and am trying diligently to fix them and get it in tip top shape.

With a killer migraine that I suffer from often, I just want to shut myself off from the world for a couple of hours…OK, I LIED. Days would be better. It is hard to stay focused and controlled when fighting these. The doctors try to manage them with medications, but sometimes I get so side tracked with all the things that I am trying to do (ie: with work full time, family (five kids 16, 15, 15, 13, 6), injured hubby (see below ***) and of course………Writing. That I sometimes forget to take it. {ALL OF THIS MAKES ME MORE CREATIVE…..I HOPE!!}

Today I am to blame. It will cost me a couple of days and I need to kick my own ass if the migraine wasn’t already doing a great job. Anyone who suffers from them, you know what I am talking about. DARK HOLE, here I come. Climbing down in to hide for several hours. It is best if I just pass out unconscious.

Hubby wants to go workout at the gym tonight, so I don’t know when I will get to the dark hole. Don’t judge yet. ***Hubby comes first, because he, unlike me, was injured three years ago in a construction accident and can no longer drive or work because he has moments where he blanks out causing him to (if he were driving …he would wreck.) or sometimes he takes a walk and ends up out in the middle of our field. He also suffers from short term memory issues. (Let me tell you this helps give me a lot to write about also).

So when hubby is stranded at home all day and cannot go anywhere until I get there to take him, then it is my duty to take him where he wants to go. He needs exercise too. I love him to the ends of the Earth and that means that I can endure the migraine until he gets his workout in.***

Enough about my pity party. I know from now on I need to take my meds. Crazy biznatch shouldn’t forget anymore, but any of you that know me knows that I will forget occasionally because that is the nature of the beast.

Best of luck to all of my writer friends out there…keep it going and keep it strong and remember to take care of you.

~Regina

Interesting Analogy

A friend emailed me today with this little poem in it.

Yesterday is History,
Tomorrow is a Mystery,
Today is a gift,
That's why we call it the Present.

I liked it and wanted to share with everyone.
Live life to the fullest and have a great time.
Take care of you!!

New blog that I came across. Please check it out!

Leaguewriters.blogspot.com The League of Extraordinary Writers where they Debut YA Dystopian Writers. I found it when I was on someone else's blog and promised to mention it on mine. So if you can go check it out. It is really neat and has different talents on there to read about. I found it very interesting. So if you can I urge you to take a peak...Thanks.

What is your sanity?

I often wonder how my days fly by without me even knowing where the time goes.
Example.

Yesterday.
Wake up and get ready for work - get kids off to school.
Go to work and work on items throughout the day until my lunch hour.
Lunch hour I leave for a doctor's appointment.
Get done from doctor get back to work late.
Leave work at closing time, pick up boys and drop them off home.
Go to town to pick up a prescription and visit with mother -in- law.
Leave her town to drive back home.
Go to pharmacy to fill prescription.
Get home fix dinner, help kindergartener with homework.
Eat dinner and then go to bed by nine.

Then wonder why I don't have time to write when I want. I have to stay up uber late to get anything accomplished. Days vary with tasks that need accomplished after work. Groceries, sporting events, programs to attend, etc. Sometimes balance is not always achieved, but that is the consequence of the beast of family and career and writing hobby. Yes writing is classified as a hobby for now because I cannot devote enough time to it to pay the bills. I will never give this hobby up because it is also my sanity. It keeps me grounded and helps me escape when I need to from time to time. I can go to another world and become another person for a little while before I have to step back into my shoes. I love my life and would not change it for the world, but sometimes we all need a little distraction and writing is a wonderful distraction for me. It is my survival technique. Many of us have them for different aspects of our lives to overcome and prevail. So for those of you writers out there, keep writing. I believe in you and your abilities.

I'm lost and the Monkeys won't shut the $@#@& up!

Sometimes I get lost. I mean really get lost. I want to write and make my novels the best they can be so I do a lot of research and I mean a lot. I am not in any writing classes so having to read up on good plots or voice sometimes makes me want to pull my hair out.

I have read several books that have helped tremendously and I am now an avid blog reader. I am following around 40 or so blogs. I just can’t help myself. Some days it takes the whole day just to read everyone’s posts. Some of them are authors, some are agents, and some are research, I also have found some very witty, fascinating and unique individuals that I call friends.

I love reading all their posts and follow what they have going on and read the material from agents and advice and research and then I find more blogs to follow and then I have failed to be productive in writing my own novels. I guess you could say I have taken a mini break and am addicted to reading what others post. I have also fallen a bit behind on mine because I am lost.

I can’t say that I want to have a huge following, but I would like to know that people are interested in the things that I have to say or write about. I appreciate everyone who reads mine now and tell you that your support means a lot. Some people have themes for the days of the week and I considered that, but I don’t have the time to squeeze that in or be consistent.

I’m getting ready to put feelers out for beta readers for my genre. Which ever one that will be. For some reason I cannot stay in the same boundaries. I write paranormal romance, mystery, adult fiction, and some YA. I am all over the place. I just go where the written word takes me. Blogging is a lot like journaling to me. I journaled my whole life and love to write, even if it is about nothing. There are always voices in my head telling me something so I feel compelled to write it down.

It plagues me when I try to sleep also. I cannot fall asleep because my mind is always going. My yoga instructor calls it ‘Monkey Chatter’. So while my monkeys are chattering and I am trying to tell them to go to sleep I provoke them and they become angry making things even harder for me. I notice if I try to fight them, it gets worse instead of better. So I just give up with exhaustion in the end.

What is something that you are optimistic about?

Something that I am optimistic about is that no matter what happens in life my family and I will be just fine. I have dreamed that someday I will be able to publish one or all of the novels that I write but that is something that may or may not happen in my lifetime. However, I know that without that happening I am content with my life the way it is just being able to write my manuscripts and have the love and support of my family the entire journey.
I told my husband that no matter what, I would get them all printed at least once for my own private library to have to look at on the shelf to appease my own lust to see them in bound form. I know that would make me just as happy as if they were printed for real and on every bookshelf around the World.
The love and support of my family makes me optimistic for so many things in my future. I know because of them that even if I don’t make it as a novelist that I am a well respected writer in their eyes and they appreciate the work that I put into my craft. They see how passionate I am about writing and try to help with whatever they can and that is what makes me so positive about my future.