Lauralynn Elliott's Blog, page 54

ROW80 Check In 1/29/12

It's been kind of a weird week. I took a break from writing (and most everything else) for a week because I really, really needed it. I started back on Tuesday, but I've only been writing every other day. On the days I have written, though, I've written more than my usual word count. My cumulative goal is 500 words per day. This is how it went: Tuesday-1220, Thursday-1384, Saturday-1312. So since I started back on Tuesday, I've written an average of about 783 per day. Not too shabby. Also, I started my Christian romance on Thursday and wrote 579 words that day and 980 on Friday. That story seems to be going well. I'm going to stick to my guns about only writing that one on my lunch hour at work so I can keep it separate from what I'm writing at home.

On the proofing, exercising, and housekeeping front…well, I've not done so well. It seems like the devil is out to get me on the exercise. Every time I plan on walking on the treadmill, I get an awful pain in my foot. It's not always the same foot, either. It's very strange.

I hope I'll get around to visiting some of your blogs today and tomorrow. I took a break from that, too, and I really miss it.

Blogspot vs WordPress

I just wanted to do a quick post to let some of my author friends know that I'm not purposely avoiding their blogs. There are some of you who have blogs that I really, really want to comment on. But, last night (and this happens often), I couldn't post ANYTHING on a blogspot blog. When I clicked the publish button, it would say "redirecting", and then it would just stay on the page. On a couple of blogs, I could momentarily see the part where I'm supposed to enter the code, then it would flash back to the original page. There's one author's blog that will NEVER let me comment. And then some are just sporadic. I wish there was something I could do to make WordPress and Blogspot talk to each other better. I always sign in as "open id" and use my WordPress id. Should I use something different? It used to work fine. Not anymore. Also, is there any way to be notified of follow up comments on Blogspot? On WordPress, you can click the box to see other comments on a blog post. I see nothing like that on Blogspot. So when I comment on a Blogspot post, I never know whether anyone answered my comment or not. Oh how I wish these two blogging sites would communicate better! Can't we just all get along? LOL

ROW80 Check In 1/25/12

I know a lot of you didn't see Sunday's post because I couldn't get the linky tool to work for some reason. It was just being wonky, I guess. But I had said that I just stopped everything and decided I needed a break. I took about a week off from writing and all the other stuff I had been doing. Last night, I picked back up on the writing. My goal is a cumulative 500 words per day. Taking a week off put me almost at 3500 words behind. Yesterday, I sat down and cranked out about 1200 words. I was pretty pleased with that. If I can just write a little more than 500 each day, I'll eventually get caught up. And I'm not going to stress about it. Hopefully, I'll be back to visiting everyone's blogs by the weekend. I might visit a few here and there until I build up my momentum again. But I think I'm back in the saddle again!

On another note, I have a strange idea. I know several of my fellow paranormal romance authors also write erotica under another pen name. I'm kind of thinking about going in another direction. I'm thinking of writing Christian romances under my REAL name. I have a lot of friends at church that like to read Christian romances, especially those by Karen Kingsbury. I just thought of an idea for a Christian romance and it keeps picking at my brain saying "Write Me!". The thing is, I've never been able to write two stories at the same time, and I don't want to fall behind on my paranormal romances. So I'm thinking I can write the Christian romance during my lunch hours at work. That way I can separate it from what I'm writing at home. I'm not going to tell anyone what I'm doing (except my mom and my cover artist) until one day I'll have a shiny new romance book to share with my church sisters. What do y'all think? Am I crazy? And I'm determined that mine won't be as sappy as Karen Kingsbury's. Because hers make everyone cry. LOL

A Strange Experience

This past weekend, I went on a business trip and my boss let me take my close friend and cover artist, Anya Kelleye with me. We had a booth set up at the Inn at the Biltmore and that's also where we stayed. Since this was a working trip, we didn't really have time to do much, but we were able to at least tour the Biltmore mansion for about an hour. And that's where something weird happened.

I write paranormal romance. I love paranormal stories. But, the thing is, I don't BELIEVE in the paranormal. As a Christian, I can't reconcile what the Bible says with the existence of ghosts. I'm a true skeptic when it comes to supernatural things, but I'm not a completely closed minded person. Anya and I were touring the house, and we had gone through several rooms, which I found interesting and beautiful. But I didn't get any kind of weird vibes or feelings from them. Until we entered the tapestry room. This is a room that's 90 feet long and there are several furniture groupings placed down the length of the room. When I entered that room, I had this overwhelming desire to cry. It was all I could do to hold it back. And I also had a desire to STAY THERE in the room. The feelings just flooded over me. When we left that room, the feeling was completely gone. I toured some other rooms with only an admiration and appreciation for what I was seeing. The tour took us back through the tapestry room and it happened again. I was choking back tears and pretty much freaking out for feeling that way. After we left the room, the feelings went away once again. And never returned in any other part of the house.

I can't explain what happened. It wasn't like I SAW anything or HEARD anything. I just FELT something. I'm still a little shaken by it. I'm a skeptic by nature, so this is a new thing for me. I hear people tell of all these experiences they've had, and I just kind of smile and nod, but I've never really believed them, even though I knew THEY believed it. (I don't think they were lying to me.) So this is what I'm wondering. Even if I don't believe in ghosts (although it would be cool if they were real), I'm thinking maybe a person leaves some kind of imprint behind. Some essence of themselves, of their personality. SOMETHING.

So what do you think? Do you believe in ghosts? Have you ever had a paranormal experience? What do you think was going on with me at the Biltmore? I would love to hear what you all think. This is all kind of intriguing.

ROW80 Update

I missed the check in yesterday because I was on the road. I've been on a business trip at the Inn on the Biltmore and have had almost no computer time. Anyway, here's the dirty truth.

I've just stopped. I've stopped writing, stopped exercising, stopped proofreading, stopped commenting on other people's blog. Now, before you start worrying about me…I promise this is temporary. I just needed to take a break. I've had some really rough days at work where I came home exhausted. Then I left on the business trip Friday morning, knowing that I still had a lot of work to do and that it would be here when I got back. I don't know when I'll pick things back up, but I'm shooting for Tuesday (tomorrow). I have a birthday dinner to attend tonight, and I don't want to be stressed there, so I'm waiting until things get back to normal.

I've really missed checking in with everybody. I may try to stop by a few places today and tomorrow and get caught back up with my online friends. Thanks for understanding!

Tomorrow, I'm planning on writing a post about something odd that happened to me at the Biltmore house. It was kind of strange for a skeptic like me!

ROW80, Migraines, and Shoulders…Oh My!

This has been a totally frustrating few days. On Sunday, I somehow injured my shoulder. I wasn't really doing anything…I just felt a sharp pain. Then I couldn't pull on anything (like to open doors) or move it in certain directions without horrible pain. So that really put a damper on the exercise. It seems to be a little better today, but that's what I thought yesterday until there was a big clap of thunder which caused me to jump…and then to scream in pain. I think the people here in the office just thought I yelled because the thunder scared me.

Yesterday, I developed a migraine right before I left for work. I know it was due to the storm that passed through because changes in barometric pressure usually trigger my migraines. When I got home, I didn't feel like doing anything but sacking out on the couch and watching TV. Then my power went out. Bleh. Needless to say, I didn't get any writing done last night, which put me just a little bit behind on my word count. Luckily, I was a little ahead, so I'm not a whole day behind.

I really hope the rest of you had better days this week!

ROW80 Check In 1/15/12

First…if you haven't checked out my previous post for today, do it! There's a giveaway! When I scheduled that post, I had forgotten it was the same day as a ROW80 check in day. But I HAD to do it today because, well, it's my birthday.

Anyway, back to the subject of this post. I'm a little bit ahead of my cumulative word count. I didn't do my 30 minutes a day on proofing the print book, but I spent about an hour and a half on it today, so I made up for a few days. I've enjoyed this proofing because I had forgotten how much I loved one of the stories in this collection, See Me. It has a little more humor than most of my books. Exercise and housework has been a massive fail. And I have an excuse for this. I got hooked on The Vampire Diaries and was watching several episodes a night on Netflix. That show is addictive. I'm happy to say that I'm caught up now and will only be watching it once a week on TV. I'm watching the original Dark Shadows on Netflix now, but I'm not getting caught up in it, so next week I'll be taking time to do what I'm supposed to instead of drooling over Damon watching The Vampire Diaries.

Anybody doing better than me on exercise? I hope so!

Birthday Book Giveaway- Today Only!!!

Happy birthday to me…happy birthday to me…..

Wait…is it my birthday? Why, yes it is. But the really cool thing about it is that I'm giving SOMEONE a gift for MY birthday. What gift, you ask? Well, everyone who comments on this post TODAY will be entered into a drawing for my entire ebook collection. That's right, the winner will get coupon codes from smashwords.com for ALL of my novels and novellas. That's nine books. Free. But you have to comment TODAY to enter, so take a minute to do that. Also, please remember to include your email address so I can email the coupon codes if you win. Happy birthday to you…um…me!

By the way, my short story, The Beast in the Mirror, is already free on smashwords.com, so go ahead and download that, too!

What TV Moments Made You Cry?

I used to cry a lot more easily than I do now. I've toughened up through the years. But there are still some TV and movie moments that make me tear up, and some that actually make me weep. Here are a few of my moments. There are more, but for the sake of brevity, I'll limit them. And for those of you that haven't watched these yet, there may be some spoilers.

1. BuffY the Vampire Slayer: The one that absolutely made me bawl was when Oz left Willow. Oz was one of my favorite characters and I didn't want him to go. Willow was also a favorite of mine, and I couldn't stand watching her heart break.

2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: At the very end when Spike sacrificed himself to "save the world". Buffy finally says "I love you". Then Spike says "No, you don't. But thanks for saying it."

3. The Vampire Diaries: When Damon tells Elena for the first time that he loves her. He says, "I don't deserve you. But my brother does." And he says, "God, I wish you didn't have to forget this. But you do." And this big tear falls out of his eye. Then he makes her forget the whole thing.

4. Moonlight: When Beth tells Mick they can't live in each other's world and that she "can't do this anymore". He walks out and goes down the hall and stops and puts his forehead against the wall like he's going to cry. She puts her head on her arm against the wall of her apartment and starts sobbing. I thought it was going to end that way. That one actually has a happy ending, but I won't say how in case someone wants to watch it and hasn't yet.

These are just a few of mine. What are some of yours? I would love to hear from you!

Surprise on January 15!

Be sure to check out my blog post this coming Sunday, January 15. It might be worth your while.

I'll be doing two posts that day. I'll have my usual ROW80 check in post, but there's a reason I need to do this other post on the same day. You'll see.