POV Character Emotions

While the weather is bitter cold in North East Ohio today, I step onto my new treedmill, turn on my music and drift off to Ferane. If only every place was magical and took away the everyday burdens that tense our muscles and make us wish we could go back to bed. When a novel can change our mood to match that of the POV character, the author has done something right. For that, I am grateful today.

Third Place- 2012 HOW Contest

Awards Ceremony was held Saturday, October 6th at the Utah RWA Conference.  I placed third in the YA category.  I'm happy, but sad all at the same time.  Happy because my first time out, I made the finals in a writing contest.  How amazing is that?  Pretty damn amazing if you ask me!  Then sad of course because I didn't win.  How can I allow that to sadden me at all?  It shouldn't.  First manuscript, first contest, I can't expect to be perfect already, the next JK Rowling.  What I do have, is validation that I have a nack to pull others into my world of make believe.

I need to continue writing, learning and perfecting my craft.  Someday, my name will be a household name.  I know it.

HOW Romance Contest Finalist!

While working on WIP - CANDACE, I received an email stating I am a finalist in the HOW Romance contest YA category! RAE scored an 86 and 94! (that's out of 100)  I am beside myself! Now RAE is being judged by a Lit Agent from NYC! They are announcing the winners at their Conference in UT on October 6th. I'm not going so I won't find out until after that date. Wonder if I will still have any nails left by that time?

WIP CANDACE'S CHOICE

I have a new WIP thanks to Candace that has been keeping me pretty busy as of late. My working title is Candace's Choice. I am so excited about this WIP because I feel so close to my characters and what I find funny is that I've only been with them for such a short while unlike WIP - Rae. These characters just magically came alive. I only knew the minimum about them, age, looks and what has made them who they are. After two weeks, I had over 280 hand written pages. Took me a little longer to finish it off because I took a few days break and then I didnt make myself write 20 pages EVERYDAY. I hand wrote 343 (going back and typing some along the way with my hubby's help) and then the end of the book I wrote on a Sunday so I sat down and typed 17 pages. Wow! Now I have to go back and type pages 279-343. Wish me luck! And then comes the editing. UGH!

Candace Havens' One day workshop.

I'm amazed! Candace stuffed so much new information in my brain in one eight hour day than I know what to do with! Good thing I took notes! HA-HA! She taught me that there are a lot of ways to plot my story before I begin, such as a synopsis, scene wish list, guide posts and six stage plot structure, which includes opprotunity, intising incident, point of no return, all is lost, climax and resolution.
She reminded me that I we have to give our hero what they need and not what they want. That reminds me, when I wrote my first novel my heroine had the chioce of two boys, the one she knew her whole life or the new boy. I like both boys, but now I know why I picked the boy I did.
Candace's workshop however, was about FAST DRAFT in TWO WEEKS. No whining, no excuses, unless you are dead or in a coma. The hardest thing to learn and perfect, if we can ever actually do that, is to turn off our internal editor. This means no going back, no looking for the perfect word, no spell check. Then let your story rest, do the research you need for editing, then enter EDITING HELL in TWO WEEKS.
If you are a writer, I highly recommend this course.  Desk clean, distractions eliminated, pens up, get writing.