Meri Benson's Blog, page 19

Gettin’ Hot in Here

[image error] So, my weekends plans had me out and about this past weekend. I drove down to St. Louis, MO and had a wonderful time out in Tower Grove Park. If you live in the area and never been, I suggest it. If you’re visiting St. Louis and want a nice place to eat lunch all picnic in the park, I suggest it for that too. The park is absolutely beautiful.

Though, even more so when it’s packed for several blocks with vendors selling books, clothes, hand made soaps, jewelry, and the like. And even better when some of those vendors sell these amazing Kebabs and frozen lemonade.

I didn’t come home with a lot of items, except for a tarot reading and dream pouch from a beautiful and amazing woman, everything I bought was food. And only one of those food items came home with me. Normally I’m all over getting the cute things to hang in windows, or a book from one of the local authors that sells their books there. But this year I was really trying to scale back. I’m trying to take cleaning my house seriously, and for better or worse that includes not bringing stuff home from a big show like this.

The frozen lemonade though. Kept me running. This whole weekend was 100+ degrees. Thankfully a tree was kind enough to share it’s branches with me and keep me shaded for most of the day. What sun I received, that made me look like an angry lobster on Sunday, has already faded into a tan color. Being very pale (ancestors were Swedish, German, Polish, and Irish) it’s super weird to have a little color on me right now.

Between the heat and the activities, and the driving, I wasn’t able to write at all while I was away. And yesterday was writing fail. I came back from a four day weekend to find that basically everything was going wrong and the office I work for was sinking without me. Great for job security, not so great for being able to get a little writing in before hours, during lunch, and after hours. Coupled with my new mattress arriving, I was basically zonked out after I was able to lug it up to my room and get it all unwrapped and then sheet-ed. I’m hoping for a little more success with getting words on a page tonight after I get home. And while for you, my lovely readers, this counts as words on a page, I’m not counting it towards words on a page myself because it’s not words towards my WIP. So time to buckle down when I get home.

Granted, a lot of times I like to use my laptop and write from bed. The last couple months have been a little more difficult doing that because my mattress was uncomfortable and crap, so this new mattress should lead to more writing at night before I crash too. Here’s hoping anyway.

Until next time, let me know how your weekend went. Did you get a lot done? Did you relax due to the high heats? Leave me a comment below!

Updates and Cleaning

[image error]

So, with family obligations – birthday party things Memorial Day weekend – I wasn’t able to get a lot of writing done before the end of the month. Which means that WIP isn’t all that finished. I was able to get a few words done on it though. Slowly. Very slowly. Though, sadly, I’m not going to be able to get too much writing done this weekend either.

I have a Picnic in the Park event that I’m headed down to tomorrow, one state over from me so tomorrow is travel day.

While I won’t get much, if any writing done though, it will still be a beautiful time. There are some workshops I’m looking to attend at the event, and I get to see a friend I haven’t seen in like a year. So pretty excited about that too.

And who knows. Maybe I’ll be able to find some more inspiration for new stories. Though, I’m not sure I need TOO much more inspiration, before I finish projects.

Which brings me to the cleaning part of this. I’ve been trying to clean up some. Spring cleaning and what not in the house. And I ended up finding three different starts to stories.

Three.

I’m adding them to my idea binder so that I can hopefully work on them later. All in told I think I have like five or six starts to stories sitting and waiting for me to finish, and a myriad more in a journal that are currently merely concepts that need to be seriously flushed out. Soon, my pretties, soon.

And if you’re wondering where I get the flower pictures I put in my blog posts, I take them. I dabble in photography, and flowers are my favorite subject. Most tend to be taken in my own garden, or the gardens of friends and family.

Cheers everyone. I hope your first weekend in June is bright, beautiful, and full of inspiration!

Novella becomes Novel…? Maybe?

[image error]

So, last post I was calling one of my WIPs a novella. And then I took the time to actually look at it. And, hefty job, print it out at 100 pages printed from Word. Word was also kind enough to let me know that my WIP is currently 48,000 words approximately.

48,000 words.

Can I still call it a novella at this point?

I mean, no one would call The Great Gatsby a novella, and it’s roughly 50,000 words. And my WIP should be about that range when I finish.

When I started it, I didn’t expect it to be much longer than maybe 30,000 words or so. That total would put it firmly in the novella category, and I never really paid too much mind to the word count while I was working on it. I never noticed when I passed the 30K mark, and then the 40K mark.

Of course, this thing needs a heavy revision after I finish it, but really, I guess I should start calling it a novel? It’s kind of crazy to me that my tiny idea turned itself into a full fledged novel.

When do you consider a work a novel, instead of a novella?

NaNo Flop & Moving Forward

[image error]

So, it’s probably easy to tell that I never ended up finishing NaNo. The lack of posts tooting my progress, explaining my struggles, and cheering my victory? They never came. Truthfully, a lot never came.

I could go into reasons, and I could give excuses as to why the words didn’t come, why the blog didn’t get updated, why I haven’t been on twitter all that often. But really, at the end of the day, I don’t want to get caught up in the past.

I want to get back on track.

I want to leave the past in the past.

I want to move forward.

So this is me, shaking off the past. I’m going to shed it, kind of like a second skin and leave it where it belongs. Behind me. This isn’t to say I’m going to forget why and what all happened. After all, those that forget the past are doomed to repeat it. But, I don’t want to focus on it.

I have a couple projects that have been sitting by the wayside for far too long. One novelle needs to be finished – a cutesy cozy mystery, and one high fantasy that needs me to actually go through and do structural and line editing on it so it’s polished and I can finally decide once and for all if I’m going to be self publishing or going the query letter/traditional publishing route.

I know people have strong opinions about both, but after attending a panel at a convention where an author basically said you can do either/or, or be a hybrid, it’s up to you and what you feel is best for your novel, I’m back on the fence with trying the traditional way.

At the same time, I just watched a friend query a book and she had three agents write her back to tell her that they loved her book, but they wouldn’t be picking it up.  And it’s left her wondering, if they loved her book enough to say so, why. Because the letters don’t say. It’s a little disheartening to hear that, and my heart goes out to her because she’s trying to take a critical eye to her story and make some changes in the hopes that next time she sends out query letters maybe someone will love it AND pick it up.

The question for me is, do I really want to go that route? Spend time querying it, potentially not get any takers, and even if I do not see it released for a year or two based on any publishers wanting it, and if they do having it fit into their schedule for release and marketing. It’s a lot of time to sit on a finished product.

Truthfully, I don’t know. I’d love to see it published by a company, and on the shelves in stores. But at the same time, I want to see it sell period. And sitting in a publisher’s cue for one to two years, that’s a long time to wait for it to be released.

Choices, choices, as they say.

I guess I’ll mostly cross that bridge when I get there. When the novel is as good as I can make it after some heavy editing.

Right now, the novella needs to be finished. So my goal, I’m setting one officially, is to be finished writing the novella by the end of May. That way I can take a breather and then circle back to it mid-June for edits. This seems like a super short timeline that I’m giving myself, I’m sure. But truthfully, the novella is about one or two chapters from being done. So I’m hoping by setting this deadline I can really strive and push myself to get it done.

Here’s hoping, at least.

Prepping and Thinking and Writing and Winning

 Two weeks, give or take a few days. That’s all we have until National Novel Writing Month is upon us. Two weeks to get my notes all in order. And truthfully, my notes are currently ‘kingdom 1’  ‘ruled by king – who has three children’. It’s not a lot to go on yet. I think the biggest help my friend gave me was to not dwell too hard on names of things, places and people just yet. To work out the world, the laws, the governing bodies first. Work out the landscape some, which thanks to a map maker I have a map! so I at least know the layout of the world, the potential resources for each kingdom.

But, you know. Go me for choosing to create an entirely new fantasy world three weeks before NaNo to start with. Ambition, thy name is Meri and she holds a mighty pen. Don’t think about the fact that I have way too much on my plate going on.

What, might you ask, do I have on my plate?

Well, for starters there’s work that runs from 8am – 6pm during the week. Now, I work a 9-5 job, but I get into work at 8, and I’m usually working by 8:30. And I don’t usually get dragged away from work until about 5/5:30pm, which puts me at home between 6/7 pending if there’s any last minute shopping that needs to be done before I get home. This takes up a good chunk of my time in general.
I have a Non-Profit Newsletter to finish revising, and a couple articles for it that I need to poke some people into giving me, because it’s technically due out the 15th (that’s two days folks).
I have a house that is in desperate need for some cleaning, and lets face it we write better in a clean environment too.
I took it upon myself to take a business class this semester in the hopes of maybe learning a little about business and the art of learning, though while I am learning nothing so far can help me because it’s mostly focused on globally done business not small business.
My health has been up and down with my iron deficiancy and my back being a cronic source of pain. Both have been slowly clearing up as I try to balance though. I take too little iron in a week and I’m exhasuted from the moment I get out of bed, but I take too much and it screws with my heart and causes chest pains. And my back, well, I invested in one of those back massagers that you put on a chair, lean back and just fall asleep while it works the stress and knots away with rollers and heat. And I have to say, that has made a world of difference in how I’m sleeping and waking up all on its own. May not be cheap, but it’s doing a damn fine job.

It’s a lot, to be sure. And I’m trying to work through it some and carve out plotting time. Because that plotting time will slowly turn to November’s writing time. And I want to make sure that I have a little of it throughout each and every day.

Not to mention, my mom and I are considering just bucking off for a week near the end of November, beginning of December to just get away from the world after Thanksgiving. Just take some time for ourselves and relax a little so we can de-stress before the new year starts.

But at the end of the day, yeah. I have six kingdoms to work out for my WIP. I have all six families, as well as how they rule their kingdom, I still haven’t settled on if it’s purely human or if there are other races, magic, ect. There’s still a LOT of planning I need to think about, work out, and get back into everything. Get that creative juice flowing. But I have faith in myself. I’ve come this far, and dedicated my time to it. And I am nothing if not stubborn enough to push through, if only because I said I would and could!

On the plus side, I’ve dedicated an entire notebook to planning out this world, from people to rules to kingdoms. And I have no doubt in my mind that it will be full, if not spilling into a second notebook come completion.

How is your NaNo prep going? Are you still in serious planning mode? Are you outlined and set and ready to go for everything come Nov. 1st already?

Life – Forever Tired & NaNo Prep

Hello wide world of readers, I hope that your day, your week, is going well so far. Though, it is only Monday.

I wish I had exciting news about why I’ve been so missing, but in reality it’s fairly boring. With everything going on, coupled with a re-emerging issue with low iron, I’ve pretty much had no energy to do much of anything but sleep after I get home from work. Which, means that there’s also very little time for writing, editing, and plotting out new books. I keep hoping things will change, who knows, as I try to take iron to supplement the problem, maybe I’ll find it a little easier to try and get more work done. I can, as ever, hope.

And I’m sure you’re asking, well what about weekends? That would be a good question. Weekends have been fairly busy doing stuff for a non-for-profit organization that I’m part of. This last weekend, as we transitioned into October was the first free weekend I’ve had in a long while, and I spent Saturday DnD’ing with a group of friends to blow off some steam and have fun – we ended the night watching Deadpool, and Sunday ended up being a mass cleaning day. The always sleeping or out of the house hasn’t just affected my writing but also the cleanliness of my house, so I’m now trying to fix that some and create a better writing environment for myself.

Which does kind of bring me to my, hopefully, exciting news, which is that I’m going to dedicate my November to writing and participate in a new year of NaNoWriMo!

I’m thinking of doing a set of shorts, possible. Though I have a friend that’s been wanting to co-author a book with me, so if we can get that planned out and it works we may try to write that together for NaNo instead. I really need to dig into the edits for my two previous novels, but that will hopefully come in December, when I’ve gotten back into the writing habit and working habit, and with more iron in my system hopefully giving me more energy over all.

Wish me luck!

Are you participating in NaNo? Leave a note and let me know in the comments!

Book Review: Sideswiped by Kim Harrison

Author: Kim Harrison

Publisher: Pocket Star

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Rating:  3 Stars

Sideswiped is the pre-novella for Kim Harrison’s new series, and while the series stars Peri Reed, this pre-novella focuses on Silas with only a small glimpse of the soon to be main character. The idea behind releasing a short before the first novel, I am sure, was to let the readers get a taste of this new world she’s created. It’s a vastly different world from her Hollows series, and takes a little getting used to over all.

The main characters in the novella fall into two main categories at their University that is the setting, Drafters – who can ‘go back’ in time to fix something anywhere from ten seconds to a minute – and Anchors – who help the Drafters remember what they changed and for why. Without an Anchor, the Drafter doesn’t remember any of the time they changed – first version or the second.

Over all, the premise is interesting. I’m intrigued by the ability, and I’m intrigued by this new world Kim is trying to share with us. But I’m really unsure about some aspects of the ability. I don’t understand why the Drafter remembers nothing in the time that they’ve changed – it doesn’t make sense that they’d just have this serious hole in time when they’re the one changing time. And I’m not entirely sold that this is an awesome ability when most can’t shift more than a few measly seconds.

The story itself, Silas’s whole reason for being at the University and studying, is because he’s trying to prove that Drafters don’t actually go BACK in time to change things, but side step into a parallel universe and draw that start back with them (ultimately creating a parallel universe for those moments in time to subsequently draft them into the current time, so they can fix something).

We do meet Peri in this novella, as a secondary character, though it doesn’t give me the greatest impression of a character that I’m ultimately supposed to want to continue reading about. She’s from money, all of the characters you meet are because the label dropping for who they’re wearing is large in this book, and because of who her guardian is, she gets away with basically anything she wants to because he can get her out of it. Over all, I feel like she’s a spoiled brat that can’t do wrong. I’m not sure that’s the intention, but that’s what I took away from her personally.

Did the novella make me want to read The Drafter?

Yes. Which I guess, in the end means that it did its job.

I’m interested enough, and hoping more of the abilities actually get explained, that I’m willing to give The Drafter a shot. I’m hoping that things get flushed out a little better in the full novel, and I’m hoping that I come to get to know Peri and like her as a character I’ll want to follow. But right now, all I know is I’d read another novel/novella about Silas, because his backstory and emotions connected me enough that I really like his character.

Have you read Sideswiped? Leave your thoughts on the novella in the comments!

The Busy Girl and the Non-Existent Updates.

 Back in January I set up some goals for myself. Personal things I wanted to accomplish with this blog. And looking back on everything now, I’m left standing here wondering exactly where the last three months went.

Time. It’s something that everyone wants, and we just never seem to have enough of. I’ve been told I’m bad at budgeting my time, a fact that I make no mistake in denying. Working a 9-5 job Monday through Friday means that I have very little time left for myself personally, and my downtime, what helps me to destress a lot recently has been video games – specifically Stardew Valley and Sims 4. So when I could be writing, I’m playing video games for a little bit before bed. When I could be writing, I’m playing video games before mom’s up and moving and we’re starting our day on the weekends. A end up playing a lot when I’m not entirely in the writing mood, or too tired to really do anything else. But, I do also agree, I need to get back into better writing habits. Not just for my WIPs but for these blog posts as well.

I always have the best of intentions, and I don’t always follow through on them. I’m a serial procrastinator to boot.

So all I can do is try. Try to do better writing. Try to do better updating. Try to not let my 9-5 job eat so much of my time and energy that I don’t have any when I get home. I’m kind of a WIP myself, trying to do better and not fall into the same, old, bad habits.

I’ve been reading a little more, so I’m hoping to get a few reviews up soon. And hopefully more and more as I read more, and write more. Here’s hopin’ right?

2016 – Revitalizing and Refocusing

Hi everyone. If you’ve been around, or deduced by the handle of this blog, my name is Meri. If you’re new to my blog, welcome! If you’re returning, welcome back!

This blog was originally started back in 2013, as a way to keep up with thoughts, ideas, and things that came to me while writing, but also where I could review books as I read them and give my honest opinion on them.  And for the most part, that is what’s happened here on this blog, but at a very sporadic and nearly chaotic schedule.

To give a little background, I’m an aspiring author who is trying to make a living at writing. The catch is that, naturally, I have a life away from the computer. I have pets, a house to take care of, as well as a mother with cancer that I’m looking after – she’s strong, and doing well but I want and need to be there for her. And, as if that wasn’t enough, I have a full 9-5 job that takes up most of my time during the week, so most of the house things take up my weekend.

Every time I mark off that I’m going to buckle down, really get writing, and commit to doing better at this blog, life tends to throw me curve balls. But, with this new year I am putting my foot down and saying no more. I will find the time, I will put in the focus, and I will get posts done. Because I want to commit to this, I want to grow my online presence not just as a blogger but as an author. It’s not just good enough to put books and shorts up on Amazon, which I’m still working to get on a decent schedule as well.

My New Resolutions for this Blog are:

To post regularly (two or three times a week)
To read more books, there by writing more reviews
Update on my WIPs more – because as a writer I’m working on my WIPs more.

What are your resolutions for the New Year? Leave them in the comments!

New Year, Interesting Start

 Happy New Year, Everyone!

The end of 2015 went out in one of the most challenging ways possible. And, truth be told, I’m fairly glad that it’s over and that we’re starting a new, fabulous new year.

The long of my last week of 2015 under the reader’s cut. If you want to skip it, the end is, I’m glad 2015 is over, I’m glad to have my internet back, and I am excited to start 2016! Stay tuned in the next few days for my goals and hopes post!

So, the last week of 2015, started off with a huge ice/snow storm on Monday where the ground and everything froze. Normally, because I was already home, this wouldn’t have been a big deal, but it warmed up Tuesday and because the ice and snow was melting, but the ground was frozen and the river right by my house was already high our basement flooded. And I’m not just talking a little water, I’m talking ankle deep in the lowest spot of the basement.

So Tuesday saw my router, which the power source happened to end up in the water, blow. No internet. And, the router itself, kind of zappy and trying to electrocute anyone that wanted to touch it. Tuesday was spent pumping water out of the basement, through a hose, to the street and the sewer drain to get rid of the water. It took all of Tuesday, all night Tuesday, and most of Wednesday to get the water out.

I ended up in a tiny bump of an accident on Tuesday because, after spending all day pumping water, and up and down stairs my mom and I didn’t want to cook dinner. So we went out. My Mom backed out of a parking spot, this guy randomly just appeared behind her (I swear, we were both watching and when she started to move, there was no one. And they didn’t even honk when they saw us coming up to their car to warn us they were there and we had missed him) and we tapped him. Tiny scratch that if you rub it for a little bit just goes away. And he blew up, yelled at us while calling the cops, yelled at me in front of the cop which had the cop tell him very sternly to just go sit in his car, and had me have a fairly nice chit chat with said cop while he typed up the report, since because it was called in he has to report it. And because it was a parking lot thing, even though the guy was on the wrong side of the road, it was our fault for coming out of the space.

Thursday, with the basement now dry, I treated my mom to the new Star Wars movie. We went out with a a couple of my friends, made a day of it, and over all, had a fabulous time getting out of the house. The movie? Fantastic. I won’t post spoilers, I know people still have to see it. But seriously, go see it. It’s amazing, they did a fantastic job on everything, and I’m already excited for Episode VIII! Ringing in the New Year itself was a quiet affair. I’m not a big one for clubs and all my friends either celebrated quietly or were out of town partying it up.

The New Year started off with a day spent at my Aunt’s with family. Some of the usual family had another shindig to go to, so it was a smaller set of people, which made it nicer because I was able to talk to family I don’t always have time to talk to when ALL of the family is there. (My family is kind of huge. A good chunk of us flew into a small town in Ohio for my Great Aunt’s 90th birthday this last October and it kind of took over the main hotel in the town for a few days, and that was only about a fourth of the actual family. My mom is one of six kids, my grandfather was one of four, and many children are kind of a running theme in our family. So even a small get together is kind of large.) So yes, the 1st was spent with good food, good family, and a lot of talking. And because I’m going to attempt a temperature blanket, a stop at JoAnn Fabric for my color base for the different temperatures.

Yesterday saw the internet tech arrive to fix the router. Mostly, take the old router away, and bring the new router in. We even discussed it and moved the router out of the basement and up to the first floor, so that the flooding zappy problem wouldn’t ever happen again. Though according to his reader, something down there is still sending MASSIVE electrical readings, so when we go to unplug the computer set up and move it upstairs I was told to be exceedingly careful with it all. And the night ended with my friend coming over, us finishing season three of 2 Broke Girls, and watching Age of Adaline.

So, 2015, kind of a crappy end to the year. 2016, had a warm, inviting feel to it. I’m excited to start the new year, I’m excited for the wonders the new year might hold, and I’m excited to tell you all the things I have planned for the new year! But this post has grown kind of long, so I will leave you hear for now, lovely readers.

How did your New Year start off? With a fabulous party? With a quiet night at home with friends and family? With a nap and an alarm clock to wake you just in time to count down? Let me know in the comments!