Coffee and the Collar on Nightlight July 24!

In preparation for the launch of my serial story Coffee and the Collar on the Nightlight blog on July 24, I am posting the story that introduces its main character, Charlie. He only has a brief appearance here, but a couple paragraphs was all it took to launch a whole serial story!

Here is Treasure Hunt:


Ulysses P. Rathbone slapped his credit card on the counter, snatched the cell phone out of the sales clerk’s hands and started dialing. He still had no idea why those ducks had dive bombed him at the fountain and sent his Blackberry plunging to the depths of the wishing pool, but he’d finally gotten it replaced. Now he just needed to get a hold of Charlie and have him resend the email with the final Super Search clue.

“Hi, Boss!” came the enthusiastic reply from the other end of the line. Charlie was gay as a maypole and twice as chipper, but he was a genius with computers, so Ulysses put up with the sugar shock.

Writer's Retreat Blog posts

Although I have been neglecting my own blog, I have actually been posting elsewhere and thought I would share the links here.

The most recent one is around the recent Independence Day

The second one is a brief piece on Inspiration, something that came out of my work through Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way.


Enjoy!

Oh, that's right - I have a blog!

Apparently it's been a little longer than I thought since I posted here. So, quick update:

The first draft of Mistaken Identity is done, and came in at 3400 words. It needs editing, but it rolled out in such a rush, I wanted to breathe for a bit before I try to be objective about it.

Then I did a Duel on Romance Divas with a couple of my Knight characters, which was fun. I haven't gotten to play with Connor and Phallon very much for a while.

Then work blew up and I didn't get anything done at all.

Most recently, Gabe finally got his hands out of Travis's pants, although the story's not done. They need to talk, but men being men, they don't seem quite sure how to go about it.

The counters are updated, and even with a 0 week on there, it is a great reminder that I have been keeping at least in the ballpark of my objective of 1000 words a week. I'll take it!

It all started with a case of mistaken identity...

Given that Maddox and Kieran have been languishing and Gabe has his hand in Travis's pants, the last thing I probably needed was a new WIP. In a lot of ways, though I did.

At least, I needed this WIP.

It's short (really - I might not even make it to 3000 words on this one) so I can finish it quickly. I have a strong image of what's happening in the story in my head, and it's making its way onto the page almost exactly how I'm seeing it. I've had some issues with character names, and some of the voices are a little unexpected, but overall this is the kind of story that makes you actually feel like a writer. You have words to say, they flow easily out of your head and onto the page, and it just works.

Sometimes, I swear there is nothing better than that.

Week One

Well, last week was a bit hit or miss in terms of word count. Too many days with zero added up to not enough for the week. Still, the point of tracking word count is really to keep me productive, and seeing that I got to 399 reminds me that progress was made. Otherwise it would be much easier to write the week off as one where nothing got done, and that's not really true.

This week is off to a much better start, with 1444 words on Sunday. I've also managed to connect two separate parts of the Gabe and Travis story together, which is even better. I'm much more comfortable working in chronological order when I can.

I've gotten bogged down in the smutty part, as usual, but I need to keep working through it, because then I will be able to join the last piece to the whole and I'll be all caught up with it. I can't wait!

The Word Meter is Online!

Woohoo!

I feel like a total genius right this minute because I have managed to get a word meter to show up on my blog all by myself! I found the website for the counter, I looked up the html coding to make it show as an image, figured out which Blogger gadget to use to make it post....

And there it is! Over there, on the right! See it? (oooh....shiny...)

My (admittedly rather modest) goal is 1,o00 words a week right now that's actually WIP-oriented rather than Duels or exercises or something else. Theoretically then I could finish a novel in a year. The plan at the moment is to track three or four weeks in a row, see how I'm doing.

Anyway, I am so dang excited about that little picture I almost can't stand it. So enjoy. With any luck there'll actually be some word count on there shortly!

Day One

Well, here I am at last. I've finally taken a new step towards treating my writing as a profession instead of just a dream. I am still a long way from the reality of publishing, but baby steps, right? Wish me luck.