Shanna Swendson's Blog, page 305

Girlfriends Cyber Circuit Presents Jennifer Echols

I was sooo very good yesterday. I didn't get the kitchen cleaned, but I did my radio scripts and got back into The Nagging Idea. It was good to really write again. I think I may need new code names to keep the various projects in progress straight. I don't talk about them by title for several reasons:
1) I often don't come up with a title until I've finished the book
2) the title is likely to change, and talking about it a lot under the working title (if I have one) will make me more emotionally

Time for Comedy?

Wouldn't you know that the day when I develop a raging case of the Don't Wannas is the day when I have stuff I really need to do. It will require an act of will to force myself to do a few things that are due today. Oddly, I think most of this is because I'm actually in a writing mood, and that's what I want to do. And clean my kitchen because it's starting to bother me.

While I was at that conference, I took advantage of the opportunity of having several high-up publishing executives opening the

The Travel Book Report

I think I'm more or less back to what passes for "normal" around here. I'm almost caught up on TV I taped while I was gone, I've waded through all the e-mail and I think I'm even caught up on rest. The new walking shoes seem to have worked because I did a lot of walking without any blisters, and I came home without being all that sore. I also owe American Airlines a thanks for their greedy policy to charge for any checked bags because that forced me to travel lighter than I usually do, and that

Treks in the City

I have returned, and I've spent most of the day so far getting caught up on life -- getting through the 400 or so e-mails that arrived while I was gone (which involved extensive use of the "delete" function, I must admit -- they were mostly mailing lists), paying bills, getting groceries, etc. I still haven't got my brain caught up because it's still full from the trip.

This was mostly a business trip, so I didn't do a lot of touristy stuff. I also wasn't feeling great by the weekend, not really

Using Your World Building

One last thing before I head for the airport ...

On my last how-to writing post, I talked about using your characters' backstories in a book. Now I'll address a related topic, how to incorporate your world-building into a novel. I won't get into how to do the world building because that's its own topic that probably could fill dozens of posts. But once you've done that work, how do you fit it into a story without writing an encyclopedia entry and boring your readers to death?

As with the character

More Stressed Ramblings

I got the wild and crazy idea yesterday to try to take care of as many of the to-do list items as possible so today wouldn't be quite as hectic. It may have worked, although the list kept growing, so I seem to have just as many items to do today as I did yesterday. However, those items would have been added anyway, leaving me that much more to do today. And most of those new items are last-minute, on-the-way-out-the-door items, like taking out the trash and locking the door. Most of the other th

Stress-Induced Ramblings

This is shaping up to be a wacky week, as I have a couple of days to get ready to go to New York. I felt like I had things more or less under control, since I'm even mostly packed -- I was planning and trying on outfits, and just put them in the suitcase as I went along. But I still somehow have a really long to-do list. Most of the items on the list are just things that need to be done before I go, not necessarily trip-related items. I'm packing light, as I'm trying to go with just a carry-on b

Rainy Days and Fridays

In spite of getting nothing accomplished work-wise yesterday, I had a pretty good day. My hair appointment took a rather long time, but it was time spent mostly reading while watching most of a Bollywood musical (I had to let the color set). But even better than the physical boost was the fact that the stylist thought that I was way too young to have started showing gray hairs. I pointed out that it wasn't exactly uncommon to start showing gray at 40, and it turned out she thought I was in my 20

Girlfriends Cyber Circuit Wants BRAAAIIINNNNSSS

I managed another thousand words yesterday. I think I'm still warming up, but I'm getting more of a feel for the characters. If I'm good today, I may get to the introduction of the other main character, but I'm also getting my hair done today (I realized it had reached my waist again, which is just too much hair to deal with) and I have ballet class tonight, so there's not a lot of writing time.

Since the collective wisdom of my readers never ceases to amaze me, I thought I'd throw this out there

Absolutely Everything Going On in My Life

I wrote the first 1,000 words in the new book yesterday. That usually seems to be the scariest part of a book for me, that moment when I first really meet the characters and commit to going down a particular path. I'm thinking today will be a good writing day, as it's cold and rainy (my favorite weather). However, I did get a late start because it's awfully hard to get out of bed on a cold, rainy day. It was even worse this morning because when I went to bed, it was hot and muggy, so I wore a li