Sorting through the sludge

Do you ever have so much going on that you have to sort through all the things around you and prioritize?  That is what I have been working on for the past two weeks. Hectic sports schedules and being away from home make writing a challenge…but even more challenging is not having internet.

I have been without internet for over two months and it is making things difficult. I have to wait until I am somewhere that I can download files in order to do my beta reading and some of my other networking things. I did get myself an IPhone with internet, but it is not always easy to read on there nor do some of the documents that I would love to be doing instead of sitting through an hour and half football practice.

Don’t get me wrong, I love to watch my son practice…but, it is very time consuming to be away from the computer.  I really haven’t worked on the projects that I have been promising myself that I would work on…but I am getting to that.

I admire those who are more organized and structured than I am. I used to be very controlled and structured, but I think that for me I fell off the organization wagon after my husband was injured. He can be very time consuming also when we have to travel an hour and half to go to his therapy sessions and other doctors treating him.

So tell me…do you need a little more organization in your life?  Are there things that take over from time to time and leave you stranded like sports or other activities? How late do you stay up to get things done?

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?

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.

Mind in Many Places

I apologize to many of you if my mind is in many places and I do not seem on my game.

My momma is having surgery today. She is having a port put in her arm for dialysis because she is going to have to do it again because her kidneys are just about shot. And they are fixing a hernia that she received when she had to have a feeding tube in her stomach.

Momma had a heart attack a couple years ago and went down hill to where they put in stints to open blocked arteries in her heart and eventually did a valve replacement. Through the process she got an infection and it spread throughout her body-- when to her brain causing lesions and her spine turning parts of it to mush causing her to be bed ridden for 10 months. We almost lost her twice because she also has COPD and has congestive heart failure to where she would just fill up with fluid.

I took care of her for those two years that it took to get her up and running again and it took and emotional, physical toll on me. I had to take her to dialysis twice a week and be at her beckon call when my father and nephew couldn't take care of her. My sisters didn't live in the same town so they were not much help.

I wore down and I have been worried that with another procedure that she may get sick again. I know she needs the port in order for dialysis to remedy the kidney issue for a time, but all I ask is that all of you keep her in your prayers today.

So if I am sporadic, random, lost, brainless or anything else. I apologize. I do try my best to stay connected to the real world outside. Sometimes it is just really hard to do. Ok, sorry for the rambles. Everyone have a wonderful weekend and I hope to talk to you next week. Thank you and take care of you.

BETA READERS FOUND!!

Ok everyone, I promised to talk about beta readers. I have a few and I have a place where you can find them. My friend Nathalie from Writer's Digest has just started a new community for you to join if you are looking for beta readers to look over your work. Go to Writer's Digest and join Beta Reader Central.

I promise that you won't be disappointed that you join and have others read your work and give you insight. It will be fun and you will meet new people. So go--Yes, I mean RIGHT NOW!! Get your ass moving. Sign up and help an aspiring writer out.

I read all genres. I don't care, as long as I can help someone else out. I am there, come find me. I would be honored to beta read for anyone. You never know, one day, I could be asking you for a signed copy reminding you that I once beta read for you and that even though you didn't take any of my advice...I was there for you. lol

Anyway, I think that it has been a wonderful experience for me so far and I am enjoying it more and more every day that I do it and hope to get to meet more people and read more work. It does give you a break from your own work and then puts me back into the mode where I feel I can make my MS worth reading. Sometimes it is good to hear what a reader thinks since they may be the one that picks it up in the store someday. IMPORTANT!

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

What is your most indispensable possession and why?

Mine is my Blackberry. I know how riveting is that? It is only because if you know what kind of lifestyle I live then you know how imperative my calendar feature is to have on it. Managing my schedule and the schedule of my husband with his doctor’s appointments plus our five kids and their appointments and sporting events my calendar is always full.
It is a blessing because it tells me where I need to be most of the time because sometimes I get sidetracked with work and minor catastrophes that pop up when least expected. I have all my important phone numbers in it plus it is on me at all times so that I can be reached by any of the kids or family in an instant.
The funny thing is that believe it or not, I do not have the internet on it. I know that is crazy considering that is the whole purpose to have one, but I just love it for the calendar function and keeping my shit straight from time to time. It is like in the movie Steel Magnolias, ‘I don’t know if I’m scratching my watch or winding my butt’ kind of thing. – Love that movie.
There is always somewhere I have to be or someone that I need to be on the phone with at one time or another through my day. I know that it makes me sound more important than I really am – seriously, I am not famous. I am just a very busy mom, and loving wifey who has a lot to do to take care of her family.