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Slacker

Sorry for my blog silence this month.  I just haven’t had much mojo, in blogging or in writing.  I’m still trudging along in The Bloodgate Warrior, specifically, the pyramid sacrifice scene.  Sex scenes can be really sloooow going, so I’m trying to be patient with a couple hundred words a day.  The backup laptop can’t handle more than one thing open at a time — just not enough RAM.  At least I can’t play any games to distract me!

I’m expecting the repair on my main laptop to run about $250.  I hope to get it next week, but it might run into the first week of June.  I’m trying to be patient.

We had a tagging party for all the Carina Press releases.  We all went out to Amazon and “liked” and “tagged” as many releases as possible.  It was fun, and a great chance to see all the gorgeous covers.  Anybody want to do this for some other publisher?  If you’re a writer and have a book out, remind me in comments and we can exchange “tags!”

I’m turning another year older this weekend (assuming the rapture doesn’t happen!!) so what would you like to have me do on the blog to celebrate?  A free book?  A sneak peek of something?  If you have a burning secret desire for something, let me know.  We’re planning another trip to Mythos — the monsters’ present to me — and I’ve asked for pens, paper, notebooks, and books.  My very favorite things!  Point me to the stationary or office supplies aisle and I’m one happy camper!

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The Backup Laptop Saga

After spending the entire weekend cleaning, defragging, scanning, etc. I finally have my original writing laptop up and running.

Seriously, what a headache.  I’ve had constant Norton virus protection on this device, but it still managed to pick up a trojan somewhere between the kids hitting Webkinz and Disney.  I knew something bad was going on as soon as I took it back from the monsters.  It was just too slow.  Norton couldn’t/hadn’t found this virus, but thankfully McAfee Stinger nailed it.  I un-installed tons of games and old programs, but defrags and scans still took HOURS.  AdAware took almost 6 hours.  What the heck?!?

I did some googling and finally realized that Microsoft never cleans up after itself.  Duh, silly of me to think that Windows would clean up previous updates.  Plus, this laptop is using Vista, which no one liked.  Four years of Windows Updates and restore points were bogging the poor old thing down.  I ran a registry cleaner first, then cleaned out all those old updates, then deleted all but my last clean restore point.  Freeing well over 20 gig of space!

The laptop is running much better now.  Hopefully the next virus scan won’t take 6 hours, either.

Oh, and I managed 366 words on The Bloodgate Warrior.  New file, of course, since my last file didn’t get backed up.  Even if I lose it, it’s only a couple of hundred words and I was not real happy with that day’s work anyway.  May is half gone — I really need to step it up or I’ll never get anywhere close to meeting all my MayNoWriMo goals!

P.S. More monster woes.  Middle Monster broke her bed while stripping off her sheets for laundry day.  It was a cheap put-together platform bed I bought a couple of years ago off Wal-Mart, and it’s been through several moves.  She stepped on the platform in the wrong place and cracked the particle board base.  So we spent a couple of hours bunk-bed shopping yesterday too.  More unexpected expenses but at least it’ll free up some nice space in their room.  And no particle board — this one is made out of metal!  Hopefully it’s Middle proofed for at least a few years….

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Dear Sir I’m Yours 10,000 Milestone

I got my Samhain royalty statement this weekend and I’ve been happy-teary ever since because Conn hit a significant milestone.  After its release in June 2009, Dear Sir, I’m Yours has sold 10,000 electronic copies!  I’m just stunned, honestly.  It’s absolutely amazing to think that more than 10,000 people have read a story I wrote.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you to each and every one of you who’ve read about the sexiest English teacher alive and went on to read about his wicked brother Victor…and hopefully their incredibly complicated sister, Vicki.

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MayNoWriMo Disasters

May has not been a nice month so far.  I’ve got a lot going on the personal front, which has a disastrous effect on my writing productivity.  Combine that with Evil Day Job stress…and…

Last night, Princess Monster stepped on my writing laptop and busted the screen (if not more).  With everything going on, I admit, I sobbed.  Yeah, it’s just a computer.  It was an accident.  I lost a couple of hundred words for the day, but I can get that back.  It’s just the point, you know?  Out of three computers she could have trashed, she had to bust my newest, dedicated writing device.

Of course I still have little Betsy, the adorable pink netbook, but she’s hard to write on for very long.  The keyboard is just too small.  Great for the car or for writing bursts when I don’t want to be distracted by computer games, etc.  but my hands are bad enough that I can’t deal with the tiny keyboard for long.

I have my oldest writing laptop, a 4 year old Toshiba with Windows Vista on it.  I’d given it to the kids and it’s loaded with games and God only knows what kind of crap they’ve picked up on the internet.  It’s slower than molasses.  But it does have Word and my hands fit on the keyboard better.  I’ve spent the day cleaning it up, deleting the games (sorry kids), running virus checks, defragging, etc.  Hopefully I’ll be back in commission tomorrow or Monday at the latest.

Maybe the break will do me some good mentally and I’ll be in a better mood by then too.  At least until I get the bill for fixing my laptop.

Ironically, this poor old Toshiba also bears some monster damage.  My dad bought it for my birthday four years ago.  I was sitting outside writing while the kids rode their bikes in the driveway.  I hadn’t even had it a month yet and Middle Monster ran into my chair and I spilled coffee all over the keyboard.  Replacing the keyboard was only $140 or so.  I have no idea how much the screen will cost.

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MayNoWriMo’s Good News Monday

The MayNoWriMo edition!

  • I took Friday off from the Evil Day Job and we drove down to Joplin to eat at Conn’s (and my!) favorite restaurant, Mythos.  So yummy!  The kids were mad that we went without them, so we promised a lunch trip after they’re out of school.
  • I finished Victor’s galleys!  I just need to send the corrections back in.  (I thought they were due 5/6 but realized it said 5/16 instead.  So I’m early, yay!)
  • That Man’s boss let him off early enough Sunday that he was able to join us at church.  We ended up having a nice day out with the monsters.  Bonus:  I had a helper with the laundry and didn’t have to fold it all by myself!
  • The monsters got me a new coffee pot for Mother’s Day, which I sorely needed!  My old one was leaking everywhere.  I’m going to have to get the instruction manual out, though, because I couldn’t figure out how to program it last night for Dark & Early advance brewing.
  • Dark and Early this morning:  after a few days off working on Victor, it was hard to get back to Tecun.  However, I broke 30K this morning!  Woot!

What’s your good news?  Has May been a productive month for you?

Edited to add a Snippet from The Bloodgate Warrior:

“The dark creatures of the underworld will sacrifice the innocent without thought, and thereby gain power from their fear and pain, but that is not where my power lies.  My sacrifice must be willing.”

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MayNoWriMo Update

Whew boy has it been crazy around here. 

Princess Monster practically burned the house down yesterday in the five minutes I was gone to pick up her sisters in the rain at the bus stop.  Even though we’ve been over the “don’t cook while Mom isn’t home” rule a dozen (million) times, she tried to make some hot tea, somehow “tripped” (that’s her story and she’s sticking to it) and dropped a full bag of Splenda blend (the 50-50 sugar mix) on the hot burner.  The plastic bag melted and dumped a pound of sugar out on the GLASS TOP STOVE.  Needless to say, she now has the record for creating the worst mess (other than bodily functions) I’ve ever had to clean.  Luckily no monsters were harmed and the burnt sugar smell has now faded.

The Evil Day Job continues to be very busy right now, consuming my brain enough during the day that I don’t feel like writing much at night.  However, I am still getting up D&E, so I’m clearing about 1K a day.  I need more, but I’ll take what I can get until things settle down a bit.

I didn’t allow myself to come make an update here until I finished a promised interview that was a couple of days late.  Mea culpa.  Tomorrow, I can’t post an update until I complete the final read-thru of Hurt Me So Good before Victor goes to print.  Wheeeee!

Total word count:  28,846

I posted on Twitter this morning that I finished a tough scene, and the next one is THE DREAM SCENE.  The one I originally dreamed about that gave me the entire story in a lightning bolt of inspiration.  Yes, my friends, the pyramid sacrifice!  Whew.  It might take me a week to get through it, but afterwards, the plot will unfold super quickly.  I hope!

Snippet:

I imagined him standing on top of pyramid with a bloody heart in his hand, and my stomach heaved.

He laughed, but it was a harsh, wry sound that made my eyes burn.  “Exactly.  Although the kind of sacrifice I require would not involve pulling your still-beating heart from your chest, noyollotl.”

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Fast Draft Becomes MayNoWriMo

Well, I didn’t finish the novella like I hoped — but I’ll take my 26K+ and build on it next month.  I’m 10-15K from finishing, a very doable task the first week or two of May. 

A few things slowed me down these last few days.  I had a major commitment at the Evil Day Job come to a head this past week, and the stress carried over into my writing time.  I just couldn’t get as much done as I hoped – my brain wouldn’t cooperate.  This weekend so far, I’ve spent all my time catching up on laundry (never got last week’s done because the dryer quit) and helping Princess with her science fair project.  I edited her papers, summaries, etc. and then helped her print out all the documents.  Also used her raw data to create a cool line chart.

You wouldn’t believe her project:  Poop to Us, Food for Plants.  She took three kinds of manure from Papa’s farm — quail, horse, and cow — and compared the growth rates to Miracle-Gro and regular potting soil.  I was shocked that horse poop outgrew everything.  The quail poop never sprouted.  Papa warned that it was a “hot” manure and would work best if composted for awhile first. 

I’ll be glad to get our spare table back and all those smelly pots outside.

I need a serious mental health day after all the craziness lately — maybe a whole bottle of wine, sigh, which I don’t have.  It’d totally screw up my diet anyway.  (Happy to report I’ve lost 30 pounds!!)  I’ll spend tomorrow getting the MayNoWriMo list up and running, organizing my goals, etc.  Ideally, I’ll get into BGW too and set myself up well for Monday, but I’m not going to stress myself out if I don’t get that far.  My other goals for May will be to finalize the plot for Phantom — including a rough synopsis — and to get a first-draft plot outline for Lord Regret’s Price.  I had some interesting realizations this week that I need to jot down before I forget.

P.S. I’ve heard from my editor at Drollerie Press that the formatting for Return to Shanhasson is DONE!  We’re waiting on cover art now, but we should *crosses fingers, throws salt, etc.* be able to release in May!

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MayNoWriMo 2011

So it looks like several of you would like to jump into May and write your fannies off!  As last year, you do NOT have to write 50K in May.  You can define any measurable goal you’d like to attempt in May.  Revise a story, work on one already in progress, write a short story, plot a novel…  It’s totally up to you.  If you’re interested and not already a member of last year’s group, you can sign up here.

If you can’t commit to MayNoWriMo next month but would like to offer a free download of a book, etc. drop me a note at joelysueburkhart AT gmail DOT com, and thank you very much!  Prizes always make goals easier to achieve!

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Fast Draft Day 016

I admit, I’ve been getting a little discouraged with these 1K days.  That’s not “Fast Draft.”  Plus the month is almost over and I have at least 1/3 of a novella to write yet.  Then I remember that I have made great progress this month, and if I need an extra week or so in May to finish, so be it.  I’d rather have a solid foundation to revise than a bunch of crap slung on the page.

Speaking of which:  does anyone want to do a MayNoWriMo?  I’m not sure if I can commit to 50K in May, but I’ve had a few people ask me about it on Twitter.  I’m considering it — but I do wish I’d already finished BGW.  (By the way:  Coyote Con is postponed indefinitely because of Deena’s health.  We’re hoping to take a look at our fall schedule.)

Today’s words: 1,235

Total:  26,241

Snippet:

“I am a creature of magic, blood, and yes, violence.  The dreams we shared are only the beginning of my true self revealed to you.”

“Then show me some more.”

P.S. I won’t be shooting for Dark & Early tomorrow. I’m just too tired and too stressed at the Evil Day Job. I’ll shoot for a fairly early day on Saturday instead — and hope I can squeeze in another 1K over lunch or tomorrow evening.  If I post a day 017, it’ll be late as a result.