Monday Miscellany

Expect to see a couple of posts about word use in the near future. I'm working on them now, though they're currently in one massive post, so I'll be splitting it up. It might even get split into three posts, I'm not sure yet. Anyway, I went to review some word use rules, and I thought, "If I could use the refresher, chances are, so could other people." I even learned a few new things!

I am finally making some real progress on "Invitation to Eden" and I am so happy. Here's the unedited beginning of the story:

"The heat of the Louisiana summer pressed down on Celeste as she lay in bed. She stared up at the ceiling, where the ugly words her mother had spoken seemed to float like angry ghosts. They haunted her. Angeline's voice played over and over, confirming what Celeste had always suspected. She counted the days until her eighteenth birthday, when the law would free her parents of the burden of her, and she found the time between the present and that far-off day to be unbearable. There had to be another way to escape."

The story still needs a lot of work, but that opening paragraph is a hell of a lot better than it was just yesterday.

Did you see this? Justin Timberlake is going to the Marine Corps Ball with a Marine who asked him out via YouTube. That is so cool.

As soon as I finish The Book of Lost Souls (which I'm hoping is soon, because things have just gotten seriously interesting), I plan to post a review. Even before I do that, you should all buy it and read it, though. Seriously. It's so much fun. It really does have a Buffy the Vampire Slayer feel to it. I loved Buffy. Anyway, I was reading a little but this morning, and I kept thinking that I can't wait for my daughter to be old enough to enjoy it.

If you're looking for royalty-free stock photography, you should check out Dreamstime. I've found a ton of great free images there, and the prices for the paid photos are very reasonable.

SitRep Saturday: Strawberry Moon, Cass Gets Her Kicks, and Invitation to Eden

My dad is working on a cover for Strawberry Moon and I haven't done much to the manuscript. I know, I know, bad Ellie. I've been focusing on other projects.

For instance, I completed the action drafts of the last couple of stories in Cass Gets Her Kicks: "Santa Rosa" and "Flagstaff." I also started drafting the second story, "Vega." (The first story has already been drafted and is waiting for revisions and edits.)

I also have most of the rewriting done for a short called "Invitation to Eden" that I intend to put up on the website. I printed it out this afternoon to start the revising and editing process. I also have the theme worked out and have a clear idea of the message of the story, which always makes writing easier for me. I started looking at stock photos to use for story art.

There's even a blog post in the works about words and word choice. It won't be a long one, but it will be a post!

Even though I didn't make any progress on the novel this week, I am making progress with my writing. I just have to keep plugging along.

SitRep Saturday: Strawberry Moon and Other Projects

Happy Saturday, dear readers!

Yes, I am in a good mood. Why do you ask?

The situation with Strawberry Moon is as follows: I have printed it out (133 pages, double spaced to make it easier to make notes) and have made handwritten notes and revisions on 106 pages; I have discovered that I will have to rearrange some events and add a pivotal scene; and there is no way I am going to be finished with it by the end of the month, but that's okay, because I will be finished by the end of the summer.

I read Chuck Wendig's "25 Things You Should Know About Writing A Novel" and decided that it was okay to see other projects while I work on the novel. Strawberry Moon was killing me a little, which is normal (it's funny what "normal" is for writers) and for most of my writing life, I've been a short story writer, so a novel really tries my ability to focus. For the last... oh, six or seven years or so, I've been writing smut. So I wrote some smut. It's definitely not YA friendly, a fact which made my husband nervous when I announced that I had action-drafted and begun the draft of an erotic short and that I had plans to expand it into a three- or four-story arc featuring the same female character and that there was a chance I would end up putting it out first, but I'm not as nervous. I'm a little nervous--of course I am!--but I trust the audience.

So I have that sitting on my computer. I have also decided to revise and edit an old story I wrote probably ten years ago called "Invitation to Eden" with the intention of posting it on the website. My website is sadly lacking in content.

That, my friends, is the situation. I'm going to try to be more diligent about posting, I promise.