I'm stuck

Lately I've been working at a good clip on my book- I'm down to the last chapter or two, which is incredibly exciting for me. 

Unfortunately- I'm a little stuck.  I know what has to happen, I am just drawing a blank how to get my characters where they need to go.

When it comes to times like these, I don't try to force it.  I'll spend sometime (not tomorrow, tomorrow is the SUPER BOWL!) sketching and outline of this next series of events. I'll even rework the previous chapter to see if I can take everyone down a new path which will open up things for me.

It is a very intense thing, writing a novel.  I almost wonder if I haven't put this wall in my own mind because I'm a little scared to finish the story.

Anyway, it's almost DONE. I anticipate having it finished in the next two weeks.  Then I'll go back, work my rewrites and get my readers lined up.

I'm really, really excited- writing is a passion of mine and I can't wait to submit an actual work.  I pray I can get it published, but even if I can't pick up an agent, there are so many options out there now- quite a few writers self-publish and when they show they can attract readers, are offered publishing contracts for subsequent books.

Wish me luck!

-Kristen

It's all over but the crying...

Is that a southern saying, or do other areas use it too?  "All over but the crying..."

I have decided that after many years, I'm giving up one of my hobbies.  I plan to sell out my herd of rabbits.  I have debated it quite a bit and I won't lie- there have been plenty of tears as I think of letting my beautiful babies and hard work leave me forever.

There are a lot of reasons, but this isn't the place to discuss them.  Instead, I want to focus on the New Year.

2014 is the year:

I will finish my book.  Yes, it's going to happen THIS YEAR. I've told myself you either finish it, or delete it.  No excuses.

I will work on my Thirty One business.  Things have been going really well, but I won't lie, I've also been lazy.  I'm going to ROCK this year and have more payouts like November- when I equaled what I would have made at my last job.

I will finally use my stash of yarn before I go off and buy more.  It's gotten a little ridiculous.  I am going to finish up some custom pieces, then build up a stockpile to sell in Greensboro, one of the last rabbit shows I have.

What are your goals for 2014?

-Kristen

Dave Ramsey's Guide to Budgeting

Go download Dave Ramsey's Guide to Budgeting now, while it is free.  DR's "Total Money Makeover" is what started this whole thing for me- the way I look at money, the way I view debt- even my intense couponing.

This guide to budgeting will help you understand how to make your money work for you.  It walks you through the fears people have about their money (fear of seeing that you are really eating out way too much in a month, for instance).  He'll explain his baby steps and the envelope system.  He covers various paycheck scenarios, marriage and having a baby!  This is just the icing on the financial cake, as obviously he goes more in depth in his books- the ones you have to pay for.  However, it's enough to get you facing in the right direction!

What are you waiting for? It's free and it just might start you on the journey to living debt-free. 

-Kristen

Book Update

Slowly but surely I'm getting closer to the end of the book- I'm working on "the beginning of the end" as we speak now.  After that, it's more edits, then I'll be ready to get a few folks to read it cover to cover for continuity and understanding.

Then it will be time to start Book 2- as well as shopping around for publishing options.

It's a very scary thing- writing a book.  You pour a lot of yourself in to it.  Even if it isn't written about you or people you know- or even your world, you created those characters, situations, interactions...it's very much one of the hardest things I've ever done.  I think I've put my roadblocks in my own path because I want this book to be perfect.  I have to accept it won't be perfect, but it will be the absolute best I can make it.  I will do justice to my characters.  If it works, it works.  If it doesn't, I will try again :).

-Kristen

Book Update

So, I posted a while back (here and here) about the book(s) I'm writing.

I've been concentrating on the one closest to completion, the one nearest and dearest to my heart.  I *think*, perhaps, I finally have a title.

The first 10 chapters have been sent to the beta reader and I'm getting some really positive feedback, as well as some valuable notes about anything that needs clarification.

Apparently I am also quite fond of commas.  I already knew this about myself.  I'm ok with it.

I'm currently working on some rewrites of later chapters.  The book started out going one direction and actually ended up metamorphosing into a whole new creatures as the characters developed their personalities beyond my first scribbled notes.  Regardless of how or why they changed, several chapters are severely out of date, trying to propel them down a path that just doesn't exist later on. I'm saving these chapters in case they fit into later projects and rewriting them from the ground up.

Occasionally I go through periods where I can't get the words down quickly enough.  Other times, like last night, it takes me well over an hour to bang out a few paragraphs to my satisfaction. It helps to have the pressure of the beta reader to keep me powering through the tough-to-perfect parts.  Even if I try to distract myself by cleaning (or blogging) I know I have to get back to work to keep ahead of the demand for new chapters.


So there you have it.  I'm still plugging along.

-Kristen

Selling Books

Tim and I spent Saturday bumming around the counties adjacent to the one we live in.  It was fun, we went to a festival that grossly misrepresented itself (150-200 vendors?  Try 15-20).  We walked the Farmer's Market, which was super crowded, then we headed to the county I grew up in to check out the Hospice Thrift Store.

I found a beautiful frame for a print Tim gave me for our anniversary- only it was $40 and had no glass! No thank you.  I did end up getting several other pieces of art though, so that was nice.

The biggest find was also the one I was least looking for.  Tim purchased several paperback books and I was browsing them in hopes of finding a few cheapies that might be fun to read.  I don't want to pay $10 on Kindle for a series I'm on the fence about.

Instead, I found books 1-3 of the Game of Thrones series.  I know that's not the series name, but you people know what I'm talking about.  I tried to read book 1 "Game of Thrones" years ago and couldn't get in to it.  At all.

So I called up my friend Becca to see if she needed Book 2 or 3- nope, she has them already, but asks that I pick up Game of Thrones because she loaned out her copy and the loanee is slow in returning it. 

I remember an app on my phone called "Redlaser"- it tells you the online prices of things with barcodes. I scan the two books and see both are selling for around $5.00 on amazon.  So, I take a deep breath and take the plunge, buying the two new books for 50 cents each.

Around 11:00am I listed both for sale and I'm thrilled to announce both have sold.  Yes.  In less than 8 hours I sold two books I've owned for less than 24 hours.

After Amazon takes their cut and after I ship them out, I'll be netting around $7 for both books. Not too shabby!  I was surprised that there was such a market since the books are hardly new- I first tried to read Game of Thrones 10 years ago and it wasn't new then!  I suppose the HBO series helps the books take on a new life.

Needless to say, I'll be more mindful when I'm checking out thrift stores from now on! I am thinking I'll do a follow up post soon on what to look for in items you'd like to resale.

-Kristen

Don't think I didn't notice!

Vacation is soon. So soon.  Yet not soon enough.  I still have an agonizing week of work to get through before glorious, glorious vacation. 

Anyway.

My poor laptop battery is shot.  I think it's the battery, anyway.  I've been eyeballing this replacement (offbrand, of course) on Amazon.com for a while. It was $18, but eligible for free shipping once I hit that $25 minimum.  I wasn't sure what else I wanted to buy (because I am morally opposed to spending $6 on shipping when I could spend $7 and get another item), so I have put off buying it.

I finally decided today to snatch up "The Scottish Prisoner" by Diana Gabaldon.  I had been going back and forth on the book for Kindle, or hardcover to match the others in the set.  I'm totally going with the hardcover to match because my OCD commands it of me.  I figure if I order it now, it will have arrived by the time I get home from vacation, so it's basically like not having to wait for it at all (I trick myself out of my impatience).  My cart informs me that the price of the battery has dropped from $18 to $12. Schweet.

I got ready to check out and suddenly my $26 purchase is $36+. Whaaaaaaat?
The sneaky bastards that are selling the laptop battery dropped the purchase price but now you have to pay shipping! Which brings my book under the minimum required amount for the Amazon free shipping- which adds almost $6 an item to my total.

Pfft. Don't think I don't know what you did there people.  You dropped the price so folks would rush out and pay the same price for the item once shipping is tacked on.

That irks me.  I don't like the sneaky tactics to try to sell things.  Plus, I was kind of looking forward to that free shipping from Amazon, which I am no longer eligible for. 

So now I am sad- no new book, no computer battery for me.  I guess I will wait until they switch the price back around to purchase the battery. 

Sorry Scottish Prisoner- it wasn't meant to be yet.  I'll read you some day soon though!

-Kristen

Edited 5/3:  Now the price for the battery is back to normal, with free super saver shipping.... I win!

The Book

I wrote before about my books.  The plan had been to read it as objectively as possible, then start editing and writing more. 

That completely fell by the wayside.  After the month from Hell I dealt with in December, I figured it would be smarter to just wait and make a fresh start in January.

After reading the Hunger Games, it really slowed down my inspiration to iron out some plot wrinkles. It's hard to concentrate on writing your own story after just having finished someone else's.

I pulled out a pad at work yesterday and started a general sketch of another story that has been bouncing around my head.  Suddenly the ideas began to flow for the one I most want to work on and get finished.  It figures that it was time to head home as these ideas spewed out of my pen, so I was trying to write trigger words on a pad, in my lap, at stoplights.   Of course, it also figures this is the one time I don't get stopped by any stoplights on the way home.

So, I'm re-energized and excited about this project! My goal is to work for a month and in February, print the book out and hand it to Tim to get some feed back.  Then I want to edit it again and start bugging friends to take a critical look at it.

I'm excited! Finally, I'm excited again about writing.

-Kristen

The Hunger Games

I finished The Hunger Games Trilogy. Actually- I finished the entire thing in less than 24 hours.  Because I get like that sometimes.  It's not real, but I think I read so quickly so that I don't prolong the pain of the characters.

I originally resisted the urge to read these books because of the hype.  I did the same thing with Harry Potter.  I continue to do this with Twilight, but because I actually picked up a book once and read 3 sentences in it...and couldn't handle the mental torture of truly terrible writing.  I digress.

I resisted reading the books because they didn't sound like "my thing."  I like Fantasy.  Dragons, elves, magic- not post-apocalyptic worlds.   However, because Tim got a Kindle Fire, we have a free month of Amazon Prime.  With Prime comes the Kindle Lending Library and Hunger Games were some of the books I could borrow.  I have been out of new books to read for a while now, so I thought what the heck- we'll give it a shot.

I sometimes delve too deeply in to books.  I get too caught up in the books, I identify too much with one particular character.  I found one of those characters in The Hunger Games- so I became sucked into a dark trilogy full of pain and death.  Not too many fun moments, but I did find myself giggling out loud once or twice.  These moments were rare.

I am always a little at a loss after I finish a novel or series that I've become deeply involved in.  I find myself running over parts in my mind, analyzing motives, delving for more meaning.  It's hard to break out of the world.  In a dark book, it can sometimes be problematic.   Another symptom of my tendency towards seasonal depression, I guess.  Perhaps I should save the dark books for the summer months?  Going to see a movie helps throw me out of that post-book depression. After all, I don't lose myself in movies the way I do books.

The books are worth the hype they've received.  The writing style is a little odd- it occasionally throws me off, but the story is captivating.  I much preferred the first book to the other two, though I've heard others prefer the second or third.

Has anyone else read The Hunger Games?  What did you think?

Back in the Saddle

So, I've been doing a lot of thinking lately.

Years ago- and I do mean years, I started writing a novel.  I was fifteen at the time. My computer crashed and I lost it all.  I started over at sixteen and worked on it as time allowed for two years.  Then my laptop died and I lost it.

I started another novel, since I didn't have the heart to try to rewrite the first two.  I worked on it a while and would hit a block.  School, getting married, work, moving- so many things kept getting in the way.  Then I'd start reading it to try to get the creative flow back and it would dissolve in to frantic edits, rewrites, etc.  Then I'd try to write more, but still be bogged down by something that didn't read perfectly (in my mind).

Tim got the information off of the original laptop for me as a gift one year.  I had my original novel back! Oh but it was awful.  Ok, it wasn't awful.  The story wasn't bad, but it was written when I was so young that the sentence structure was overly simplistic and it was just- well, childish writing.  I also leaned too heavily on what I knew from reading, rather than creating a more unique world.  So the rewrites began.

Then I got frustrated, put both novels aside and haven't touched either in two years.  I think I'm ready to pick them up again and finally get them finished.  My goal is to read the notes I kept around about each story, tweak my outline a bit, then just start reading.  No rewrites.  What is the point of having a beautifully edited story that is only half completed?

So- I'm back in the writing saddle. I'm ready to see where this might take me.

Wish me luck! Promise that if I can get it published, you'll buy a copy. 

-Kristen