Year: 2008

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

Happy Independence Day, America!

Today was another major day of cleaning, packing, and organizing. I have one massive bookshelf entirely packed now, as well as several containers of toys out of the monsters’ room. We (that is significant) reorganized the garage to make it easier to get stuff out of the house and still park the van inside. I have a dedicated corner for donation items (already made one delivery load yesterday) and another corner for trash. That Man even cleaned out his closet and eliminated several bags of old shirts, etc. that I can donate.

A long sweaty day, requiring a second shower tonight after the local fireworks display (which was AWESOME–they shot them just a block or so away so it was like our own personal display while we sat in our driveway. Too bad we’re moving. *rolls eyes*)

Tomorrow, That Man is taking the monsters over to his parents’ house and I’m staying behind to continue the packing. My #1 task tomorrow is to tackle our storage facility and identify as much as possible for donation. Hey, we haven’t used it in nearly two years–maybe I can get rid of it now. Especially while That Man isn’t looking…

I even sorted toys tonight… Barbie, animals, books, etc. into containers with labels. They won’t stay that way for long…

P.S. and while no one is looking tomorrow, I do plan to reward myself with a little writing, too.

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

It wasn’t exactly midnight…but around 11:30 p.m. last night we had a rescue mission.

Just as I was getting ready to go to bed, Princess Monster (she was allowed to stay up extra late since school is out. She *loves* staying up late by herself. I have no idea who she gets that from. *innocent look*) took the dog out for me and came rushing back inside.

“MOM, there’s a hurt bird outside! We have to help it!”

I’ll admit, even after seeing the little creature, I wasn’t sure what we coud do for it. When she’d first seen it, the bird was lively enough to hop around that at first she thought it was a frog, but it couldn’t fly. I didn’t personally see it with wings beating or anything, so I don’t know if it got hit by a car and a wing is broken or what happened. I hesitated to try and catch it, especially so late, with all the craziness going on as it is…

“Mom, remember the song about the nightingale?”

Oh, this monster knows exactly how to manipulate me. She reminded me of the Christmas song about the hurt nightingale which becomes Maria’s offering to baby Jesus. On the right day, it can make me cry. So I sent her inside for an old towel. While she was looking for a box (you wouldn’t think that would be so hard since we’re moving, but I’d used up nearly all the boxes I had!), I easily caught the bird in the towel. He didn’t even try to hop or fly — probably petrified to death.

I ended up using one of my larger boxes and carefully set him inside, towel and all. We got a little dish of water in case he was thirsty. The little guy made it through the night, and the two youngest monsters are enthralled with the little bird. Later today I’ll call our local conservation office and see what they recommend we do with him.

Here’s a picture of the little guy. I have no idea what kind of bird he is.

ETA: I talked to the conversation office and they recommended setting him outside beneath a towel to see if he was merely in shock. Once he recovered, he would simply hop out and fly away. I went out to the garage (with an eager troop of monsters) with another towel, opened the box, and the little bugger hopped/flapped out. Chaos ensued. We opened the garage door, and with just a little gentle shooing, little birdie flew out and across the street to our neighbor’s yard.

Yay! I think he’s recovered.

Of course, Littlest Monster had gone outside barefoot and stepped in the bird’s departing gift of poo on the garage floor.

Wailing ensued…

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

Whew boy, I’m just flying. *snort* 809 words, 16,944 polished. I started the evening off by cutting several paragraphs from that new section I added (foreshadowing became big dark glob) and then connected it to the old draft. The next few sections *should* go quicker because I don’t foresee adding anything new, but who knows.

Packed 5 more kitchen boxes (2 were small, spices, etc. that I won’t be using between now and the 18th) and finished cleaning the garage out. This holiday weekend, I’ll be cleaning out our storage unit to donate as much as possible (hey, if we haven’t used it in almost 2 years, why keep it now?) and then moving some of this clutter out of here so I can keep working. I’m also doing some touch-up painting, crossing fingers that the matched paint actually matches and doesn’t look horrible…

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

Only 803 words tonight, but they’re new words for a brand new scene that I need using the new character I added yesterday. NSR is up to 16,185. Plus I packed 4 boxes of kitchen stuff and set aside 2 boxes of yard sale/donate items. Yes, it’s official. We’re moving.

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

It’s no secret that I adore both Lynn Viehl’s blog and her books. I’m celebrating, because Twilight Fall releases today!

I’ve been a Darkyn fan since the beginning with If Angels Burn. While I can’t afford to give away the whole series like I did for Evermore, I did buy an extra copy of Valentin’s story that I’ll put up for grabs this week while I’m in Revision Hell.

Because I blew my postage budget with the last contest, I can only afford to send this copy to US residents. (I do regularly have contests for anyone on the planet, but not this time, sorry!!) Simply comment on THIS POST ONLY by midnight CST Friday, July 4th to be entered, or you may e-mail me once at joely AT joelysueburkhart DOT com with “Lynn Viehl” or some other identifier in the subject so I can easily find you if you fall into my spam folder.

ETA: As always, I do not retain your name or address if you enter.

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

So much for going to bed early. *growls at self*

NSR is up to 15,376 polished words. I added a red herring character which required a little research, and then wove him into chapter 4 before moving onward. I’m still going at a snail’s pace but oh well. I’ll take it!

Not planning on any early writing tomorrow, but maybe I’ll wake up early. Heh. Oh, the delusions I create for myself…

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

…is up at All Romance Ebooks here! Also, look for the “Girl on Fire” ARe ad in the July issue of the Romantic Times, and you’ll see Isabella’s lovely cover.

Watch for a review at Book Room Reviews later this week, and I’ll also be guest blogging with them Monday, July 7th. Tracy just had a wonderfully crazy weekend reading books like a madwoman for a Read-A-Thon. Now that sounds right up my alley! Maybe next year…

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

Yeah, I know I missed a bunch of days, so this technically isn’t “three” but life happens. In fact, life happens a lot, and if this month goes the way I suspect, I’ll be extremely lucky to get any revisions done at all. But I made a commitment to myself when I shipped NSR out, and so I must work on it as much as I’m able.

This morning, I got up early before work and took a survey of where I am. I managed to add about 4K since I started Revision Hell. Not much at all. However, I smoothed several things that were bothering me. Eliminated some redundancy. Dropped a few more hints early, weaving them in hopefully seamlessly. I re-arranged some sections that were out of order.

Some good changes. I’m back to the Evil Day Job today and will just have to see how the week progresses. My sleep/writing schedule is in tatters right now, and I’m sure if I flip back to this time last year, I’d see the same thing. With the summer hours, I want to stay up late, but the kids are out of school, so they stay up late, which means I don’t get started on MY stuff until even later. If I’m not careful, I’m up until midnight every night, and I start work at 6:30 a.m. Not good. I really need to be in bed by 11:00 if possible, but that hasn’t happened yet.

You’d think it would be easier to get up Dark & Early with the sun, but it’s not, because my body wants to stay up late. Ideally, I’d move to a D&E writing schedule and leave the nights completely open to chance, but I just can’t seem to get up that early. I’m going to experiment this week and see if I can get to bed earlier. Unfortunately, that might cut into this week’s progress. If I oversleep in the morning, and make myself go to bed early, then I won’t see any numbers on the writing.

I’ll just have to see what I can do.

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

BUST.

I should have remembered that a day of vacation–with That Man and the monsters underfoot–means no writing time whatsoever. I tinkered with NSR a little, maybe a couple of hundred words, but I’m seriously behind. At this rate, I won’t really get a good start until Monday.

I started reading a VERY high concept book that was VERY disappointing (not by anyone I “know” on the blogosphere, so nobody worry!). I couldn’t even make it 50 pages. What a waste of a good idea.

We watched The Bucket List, which made me bawl. Not a feel-good bawl at all. That Man’s got the new-ish Rambo movie Tivo’d too, which he’ll probably make me suffer through tomorrow.

On the bright side, at this rate, I’ll be EXCITED to return to work on Monday.

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

I was hoping to get through my entire planning stage last night – each scene of the story documented in a notecard — but it just didn’t happen. Too much drama on the home front. So today I’ll get as far as I can on revisions, and go back and forth with smoothing/fixing to reading ahead and documenting the rest of the story.

Notecards are important for me, although I still haven’t found the perfect way to handle a story yet. Color is highly important when I’m putting a story together, and notecards in the right colors are difficult if not impossible to find. This story actually works pretty well with the neon orange, green, and yellow standard cards since it’s Mayan. These colors would NOT work at all for the Blood and Shadows world (black, red, white). For those stories, I use white notecards and switch back and forth between colored pens. A pain, but it worked enough. The colored cards make it much easier to see the balance of story without flipping through to see the color of ink I used.

Why is this painful process necessary? For me, I need to SEE the story complete in my head like a plotted-out graph or equation. Going back to my numerical analysis background, I don’t like a plot point to deviate too far off the curve (Story) I’m approximating (writing). Maybe that point should be tossed entirely and a better approximation written instead. I also need symmetry and balance, so when I have too many orange cards (Jaid’s POV) in a row, it screams to me that I need a green one (Ruin’s POV) in between. The physical cards and colors help me see the symmetry and shape of the story I’m building in a way that a flat file cannot.

I’ve also been making notes of things to fix as I go, mostly a failure to give the story a strong sense of PLACE. Once the characters converge in my made-up ruin, my setting takes over (because it’s MINE), but up until then, the story could take place anywhere, in any season. Not good. So I’ll definitely work on that in this pass. I chose Texas as the starting point because I’ve lived there. I might as well make use of my memories, even though only a chapter or two actually take place in Texas. (Austin specifically, and we never lived there, but I think I can make it work.)

I’ll update throughout the day with my progress.

• Fixed the setting, sense of place/time/season in chapter 2 with a little paragraph. 64 very important words.
• Cut 180 words from the beginning of chapter 4 – I need to insert a scene in Ruin’s POV instead.
• New 448 word scene in Ruin’s POV to kick off Chapter 4.
• 807 words in Jaid’s POV.

Today’s goal wasn’t met but I got off to a decent start. Hoping for better tomorrow.