Category Archives: Novels

Art Nouveau and Aryneth.

One of the most notable after-effects of a trip to the Art Institute is that it never fails to inspire me to try my hand at art again. Now, writing has always been an obvious choice for me. I love it, I’m fairly good at it, I can’t imagine doing anything else with my life. However, I’ve also dabbled a little bit in other artistic forays, including drawing and such…nothing much, but I like to think I have a decent enough hand.

Decent enough to produce my own cover art? Probably not. Then again, I’ve been wondering about that recently, in light of seeing some covers out there that easily make me think, “I could do that/better than that,” if I may be so bold. While I’ll most likely turn all my cover art to friends more capable, the thought of at least sketching a draft for them to go off of has crossed my mind, and, heck, maybe with a little work, I could make it good enough myself.

In considering the potential covers for Serpent in a Cage and subsequent Aryneth novels, an interesting thought came to mind. I want something a little unique and different, and, to this point, I had been considering just a really simple, stark design, much like the designs for the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin. But that wouldn’t be very different, would it? I got to thinking that I’ve never really seen Art Nouveau style covers for much of anything, much less fantasy novels, and thought that would be such a cool design.

What do you think? I’m a huge fan of art nouveau, though I’ve never tried the style myself. Last night, after my foray into the Art Institute, I got out my pencils and papers, pulled up some reference images on my Kindle, and started to sketch a few potential designs for SiaC. The one I really took to still needs a lot of work, but I’m really stoked about this approach, the cover to SiaC featuring a stunning design with Auferrix and a serpent in a sweeping art nouveau style, not dissimilar from this image.

Do you think this design is a good move? Would you be intrigued by a fantasy cover in this style, or turned off? I know it’s becoming pretty popular to see all sorts of characters done up in art nouveau style (I even own a nouveau Samus Aran shirt). Is it too much of a fad, or is the style classic enough that it can rise above the current popularity? Any thoughts would be welcome. I thought of taking a picture of the sketch so far, but it’s no where near completion enough, I’m afraid.

Faster, Pussycat, Kill, Kill!

Quite often, especially lately, especially in the insanity that is being upper management for retail during the hoilday season, I find myself wishing on thing more than others. I wish I could be a faster writer.

At the start of this year, when I really started to cling to the idea of self-publishing and really dive right in, my goal was to publish two books. With the idea of a collection of short stories to begin with, I was on a good, strong path, having published Bowlful of Bunnies about halfway through the year. I had several books in the works, and one was nearly halfway done, so it seemed like it would all fall into place that I might be able to finish a draft by November and get things edited and published before December 31st, easy peasy.

…mmm, well, turns out, not so much. I shouldn’t be surprised that I’m sitting here at the start of December with no second book in sight. Bowlful of Bunnies is the amalgamation of stories from as far back as eight years ago (though there was some new stuff in there, too); I’ve been working Serpent in a Cage for nearly ten years. I’ve started and restarted and restarted again too many books to count. Though I certainly have the imagination to think of several new books a year, I do not have the writing prowess to write several new books a year.

Nothing’s wrong with that, of course. Some people just aren’t quick writers. I still published a book this year. I’m going to shoot for two again next year, but if I’m just a book a year kind of author, that okay. The slightly frustrating part for me is just that I have so many books inside my head, but they come out at a snail’s pace and it’s all going to bottle-neck pretty soon here…

What are some of your tips, if you have any, for more speedy word wrangling? Are you a speedy writer, or a more languid wordsmith? When do you feel the words really fly for you, or do just let it go with the turtle-paced flow more often than not?

Either way, I have two days off right now, so here’s top hoping maybe I can push it a little bit further past my usual page-a-day. Wish me luck, and happy writing!

The Second Asyentai: Let’s Get Political.

Last night, I realized that I’ve been reading an awful lot of political fantasy lately. I’ve got Melanie Rawn’s The Ruins of Ambrai for one, Terry Pratchett’s The Truth for another, and, most influential of all, George R. R. Martin’s A Feast for Crows, which is easily the most political of the Song of Ice and Fire books so far, as the game is changing and everyone’s rearranging their pieces, so to speak. Naturally, being the little writerly magpie that I am, my brain shifted gears and I seized the chance to start up my own political fantasy that I have been developing for a while but have yet to really attempt to put into paper.

Of course, my current Aryneth WIP, Serpent in a Cage, is a little bit political, but that series doesn’t really get to the level of ASoIaF until the later books. I wanted something with conflicting factions and convultuted internal plotting now, so I stepped a little further back in Arynethian history to the Second Asyentai (Locke and Auferrix and crew are the Third Asyentai). These are the unsuspecting chosen ones that were lead on a fate that caused them to bring about the Sealing of the Gods from the world, thus creating a period of turmoil and chaos until we pick things back up a couple thousand years later in SiaC. Sweet Bianca, revolutionary Launce, fierce Katarina, playful Tigaren, serene Seo, and an admittedly unnamed Apylo who we’ll just call mysterious wind up being thrown together as the worlds they knew dissolves around them and they change the entire fate of the planet in the meantime. Much like a ASoIaF book, the narratives will switch between these six strangers as their stories mesh and meld in a big net of intrigue, religion, and maybe even a little romance.

So, please to enjoy the following excerpt, the first page of the new project written last night. I’m really enjoying the tone and the approach so far, so thought on what you think and if you’re eager to see more would be appreciated:

         With her heart heavy and her shoulders sagging, the princess laid the rose down on the glossy surface of the closed casket. Her rose was to be the first of many, and she drew her hand back slowly, wishing to let her fingers linger but for the thorns. She dropped her hand, as well as her head, and sniffled back her tears. Another hand fell on her shoulder and squeeze.
         “Bianca.”
         Startled, she jumped, blinking into the realization that she was not standing over her father’s corpse but was sitting in a rumbling carriage with squeaking wheels instead. The hand on her shoulder belonged to her cousin, Ewyn, who leaned forward to smile at her and pointed her attention out the window. “Look. What a beautiful sunset.”
         The transition from dreams and memory to stark reality was jarring, causing her to stare blankly at Ewyn’s handsome face before she could turn her head away. A deep, angry blush heated her skin, and she hoped no one could notice it in the darkening cabin. It was little wonder they all thought her to be slow and a little bit stupid; they couldn’t truly understand how her thoughts plagued and distracted her constantly. She stared out the window without seeing anything, tightening a fist in her lap.
         “Sunset,” she noted mildly, frowning, the expression knotting in her eyebrows. “So soon? It will be practically midnight by the time we arrive.”
         “The innkeepers will still be most receptive all the same,” Ewyn assured her complacently, “have no worries. The road to Cenmich is long and the proprietors of the Golden Light are accustomed to welcoming their important guests at strange hours due to the journey. They will be pleased to welcome us, Birdie.”
         “I would be pleased not to trouble them,” Bianca stated, frowning at her cousin now in a light attempt to convince him. But she knew that she had lost all respect and conviction the moment someone called her by that little pet name. “If we keep on, we can reach Cenmich by morning all the same.”
         “Wouldn’t it be better to let the horses rest a while?” In the red twilight, Ewyn’s smile was condescending and, she thought, perhaps a little predatory. “That way, everyone will arrive in the village refreshed and ready. It would leave a dismal impression should we present ourselves road-worn and weary, Birdie.”

Not much, as I said, about a page, but I’m intending to compose much more today. I’ve got a good feeling about this one, so here’s to hoping for a steady drive as I continue it! Wish me luck!

Back to Blog.

So, some of you may have noticed that things have been pretty quiet here at lsengler.com.

Okay, maybe not “pretty quiet.” More like “dead.”

You see, about two months ago, my computer went kaput thanks to an icky virus, and, as a result, I haven’t been able to have very good access to ways to type up posts and keep up with the blogs I like to follow. And, really, the longer you stay off the wagon, the harder it is to get back on. Thankfully, I have a roommate who doesn’t mind me sometimes ganking her laptop when our schedules have us home at different times of the day. Add to this the fact that I’ve just taken a pretty big promotion at work that requires a bit more time on the road and energy into the occupation, my brain hasn’t been as keyed into the strive for my writing platform as it used to be.

But it has gotten to a point where I’m ready to change that. I’m ready to get back to posting and back into the writing community that I’ve missed so much. There’s a lot to catch up on, but hopefully the usual patterns will come back quickly. I definitely won’t be posting as often as I used to, but I’ll be posting a lot more than I have been.

If anyone’s been wondering, I’ve been working on a few projects, too. Serpent in a Cage has taken a slight pause, partially for NaNoWriMo, which started out as a time travel/world jumping novel exploring the lives of Emalia’s parents (from my short story “The Space Between Worlds”) and became instead a rediscovery of my Ace Cooper mystery novels, thanks to a recent viewing of Skyfall (which was incredible). My horror story, tentatively titled Rosewood, is continuing along, as well. I’ve been reading a lot and I’m pretty far behind on reviews, so maybe a few of those will be coming up soon.

Speaking of reviews, I’d like to also send out a very big thank you to Grace over at Books Without Any Pictures for her wonderful review of my short story collection, Bowlful of Bunnies. I adore Grace’s reviews, and it’s a real honor to be among the great things she takes the time to read and appreciate. Definitely the sort of thing to make me want to get back in the game and assure my readers that I’m still in the game and striving to get out my next book.

Happy writing, everyone! See you around.

The Chronicles of the Missing Notebook.

So, an interesting thing happened two nights ago, as I sat down and went to type up my “at least a page” of Serpent in a Cage. I was typing away, frowning a little to myself because things weren’t panning out as I thought they had. At first, I chalked it up to that distance one gets between drafts, when the details need a lot of attention and hemming so that they fit in with the rest of the piece better. As some of you know, this version of SiaC I’m working on is actually the third draft. I had the first draft that I finished sometime in 2007 (I think), and then I was rewriting it in an attempt to revisit it. Then I decided toward the end of that draft that things weren’t working right and I scrapped the entire thing and started putting the pieces of the plot together in a different way, one that worked much better, made more sense, and was generally more enjoyable and better crafted. The evolution of this book has been astounding, and I’m pretty sure there’s more evolving ahead, too.

I’ll be honest, though; I was troubled. Anyone who follows this blog has a good idea of how important SiaC is…it’s the opening act of an opus I’ve been crafting for over a decade. Yes, as I was transcribing the draft, things didn’t seem right. Here I had restructured the whole thing to avoid the wavering plot from collapsing, and yet I was getting those same feelings that made me stop with the second draft. What was happening? Did I need to reconsider and restructure the plot yet again, as the opening was struggling to reach the pitch that I thought I had accomplished in the rewrite?

And then a thought hit me: was this the rewrite?

Cue frantic flipping through the pages, hoping to find a part that I knew for certain was cut or completely changed. I find the evidence and realize that this whole time, more than 20,000 into transcribing it, I was working with the second draft the whole time.

And then another thought hit me: wait. Where’s the third draft???

Cue frantic scavenging through the library, which is currently still covered in strewn-about notebooks as though some literary hurricane swept through. My heart sank to the bottom of my toes as I realized I had located all of the little notebooks I used for that draft to discover that none of them contained the rewrite. It was gone. I couldn’t find it anywhere. Maybe it was elsewhere, but, right then, I had to bolster myself for the hard truth that Serpent in a Cage might have to find itself facing a fourth draft, and this one relatively from scratch as I wanted to follow the new plotline, not the old.

Maybe I knew things would work out well, or that I’d eventually find it, because I didn’t feel too stressed about it. Maybe it just hadn’t registered yet. But when I sat down at my computer and looked over and saw two other notebooks I had previous forgotten about because they weren’t in the library, my heart leaped. I reached for one, flipped it open, and let out a relieved sigh to discover those familiar words of the third draft staring back at me. The clouds broke and sunbeams burst down, despite it being night time by then, and the angels were a-singing. Hallelujah!

I only have to retype 20,000 words to be back where I was…

…Ahhhh, writing.

Considering the third draft is in tact and I don’t have to completely rewrite it, things turned out well, but it was definitely one of those moments that encapsulates, for me, what a weird profession this is. Has anyone else ever had this happen to them? Or other similar stories about missing drafts, working on the wrong thing for a certain amount of time, or just plain stupid things while writing?

I have to say, one happy side-effect of this whole adventure is that I”m even more excited to get to the actual transcribing now, with the scrapped second draft so fresh in my head! Wish me luck!

And don’t forget! There are three more days left for submitting your poems and stories to my autumn anthology! Will I receive enough to publish them? Time will tell! Get those submissions in!

Oh, Here It Goes Again.

So, I’ve taken a little bit of a break from writing and from the blog to have some well-spent time with a friend, which I have a feeling I’ll be doing a lot of on the weekends if this new schedule that gives me Sundays off stays consistent. From what I hear, this is typical for the position I’m going to be taking a different store, so I’m pretty stoked about that. While there’s more work and demands and probably a likelihood of having to more on any given week, a certain regularity to when I’ll need to be there will be kind of nice. I’m definitely excited for it…

…but I’m also excited that it’s Monday and I have at least the week to try to get back into the swing of writing and get some work done there, too. It’s definitely going to be an exciting week on that front; I got a letter from Amazon regarding my first royalty check coming through, which should happen any time this week, so I can officially say I’m a published, paid, professional writer. Booyah.

I’m still running my Autumn Anthology contest, though I realized that ‘anthology’ was spelled wrong in the title of that particular post, which probably doesn’t help my street cred too much. That’s okay, though; I’m embracing my laziness about actually fixing it. There’s also been an exciting change! I will be accepting all of your short stories and poetry fit for a thrills and chills Halloween-esque anthology! Honestly, as I told the Writing Poetry Group on Facebook, I’m surprised I didn’t think of poetry. I think I’d love to accept any images, too, especially for a potential cover. So, send me your stories, your poems, your artwork or photography for consideration! You have until September 30th to submit! I can’t wait to see what you come up with, and be sure to share the contest with your friends, too!

Other than that, I’ll be plugging away at Serpent in a Cage, reading a lot (as usual!), and trying to get a grasp on what I want to do for NaNoWriMo. I really want to be proactive and go out to the get-togethers they were holding last year in Naperville that I was too shy or spastic or busy to attend last year. This is definitely going to be the year I finish NaNo! I am determined. Besides, it’ll be good to have a finished draft just in case it looks like neither the anthology or SiaC are coming out by the end of 2012 (since I did that whole ‘going to publish two books this year’ plan and everything). I know there’s another round of RoW80 starting soon, so I’ll have to access my goals there, too.

I’m also looking forward to catching up with everyone and their blogs, but if I’ve missed something good and interesting over the weekend, let me know! How’s everyone getting on? I can’t wait to get to work this week.

Question Time!

So, I’ve seen this on a few blogs. No one tagged me for this, but I wanted to do it anyway. So there. It’s a collection of questions about you as a writer and your latest work in progress, so I thought I’d spend a little idle time and answer there, whether anyone’s interested or not. Because I love these things. Here we go!

What is the working title of your book?
Serpent in a Cage (potentially with The Asyentai Chronicles or The Age of Return involved in there, too)

Where did the idea come from for the book?
Sometimes, when you’ve been working on a book for as long as I’ve been working on Serpent in a Cage, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when inspiration struck. The first draft, which was completely and entirely different and nothing like the current incarnation except for the presence of I think two characters (out of a very large cast!), was written when I was in sixth grade, but it was such a different tale then that I don’t even know if I could count it. But, in my mind, the world that SiaC opens up to the world started when I was ten years old, in a memory that’s as vivid with meaning as it is hazy with detail. I hold in my mind traipsing around Mission Creek Woodland Park in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, pretending to be characters from the DragonLance book series, when all of a sudden, the characters started to change a little and become slightly different, and they grew from there into the vast world of Aryneth…A world of my own, a world yet unknown, a world that has stuck with me ever since and hopefully will for a very, very long time.

What genre does your book fall under?
Serpent in a Cage is definitely a fantasy novel, which is still hard for me to unabashedly admit since college tried to get it through my head that genre fiction is bad. I’m tempted to talk about how it’s more character driven with fantastical elements, and that’s true, but, I’m going to put down my foot, toss back my head, and proclaim, “Yup. It’s fantasy. Deal with it.”

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
Since the cast of Serpent in a Cage is so large, it would be hard to cast most of them, so I’ll stick with the three main ones. I know, visually, the only ones I have in mind for Locke Mandrake Battarack and Gilferen Allok are models who have questionable acting skills, though one of the Phelps twins could do a good run as Gilferen. For Auferrix Ferrore, I can’t help thinking Frida Pinto would be glorious if it turned out that we can rough her up a bit and make her more bad-ass.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
A plot to save a captured princess should be easy enough, but the Battaracks are about to discover a world that goes much, much deeper than they would have ever expected.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
Self-published, baby! I always imagined myself trying to traditionally publish the Aryneth series, but now the thought is almost anathema, unless any publishers just happened to want to take it over because it’s doing so awesomely, lol, /dreaming.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
The ‘first draft’ in its completed form took me probably about four years to write, from the time I sat down with the new approach and dedicated myself to finishing it. I believe it was completed sometime in 2009 or 2010, and I started to revise it in 2011, only to discover I wanted to completely rewrite it. I’m still working on the second draft, though it’s going quite well. These dates are mostly just guesses; I’m feeling too lazy to look into the actualities of it.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Oof. That’s a tough one, since I try my best to keep myself from being comparable to other tales in this genre. I want it to be more like A Song of Ice and Fire, a big sweeping epic, but it’s not (yet). I suppose I could compare it to The Wheel of Time in that there’s the unlikely hero, the big prophesies, etc, etc, but again, I wanted to break the mold with Serpent in a Cage in that the first book is really a pretty simple tale, and it’s not a sweeping epic, though it will be…eventually. In that respect, I’d almost compare it to The Hobbit, in that it’s the little bit that starts up a much bigger thing later on. The style and the structure, though, I think, still lends an awful lot to the DragonLance books that originally inspired it so many years ago.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?
You can tell that there have been a great many books to inspire me along this path, and that this book is a long time in the making. But if I had to attribute this book to any one source of inspiration, I would have to say my father. It was through his own love of books, passed down to his eager, starry-eyed daughter, that I was able to discover and embrace this incredible power to create. Thanks, Dad.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
Besides the fact that it’s awesome? Aryneth to me is a complete world, fully realized and exceptionally detailed, and I should like to think that it’s a world people will enjoy getting lost in. The characters are all unique, but relateable, on several levels. They’re regular people, in a fantastical world, in an extraordinary situation. To me, that’s what fantasy is all about, and I really hope I’m able to accomplish that feeling of wonder and relateability through Serpent in a Cage and the subsequent epic to follow.

I’m not going to tag anyone for the questions because no one tagged me. I’ll just leave it to whoever wants to talk about their upcoming works to tackle if they so desire!

I am going to take a moment, though, to thank my newest subscribers, Chris Martin and Patti Niehoff! Thanks so much for following!

The 100 Books Project: Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue.

“I would hope, however, that we might think of these things as what they are: arbitrary fashions of formal language that we must attend to just as we dress according to the random dictates of the fashions of our moment. Remember that what is considered ‘proper’ English varies with the times just as fashion does.”


“Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English” by John McWhorter

When this little gem of a language book fell into my possession after being found dirt-cheap on a bargain shelf, I was pretty stoked. Not stoked enough, as is usually the case, to dig right into it, but stoked to know, all the same, that it wound up in my TBR pile to eventually rise to the top to be devoured. As a writer, I’m a great lover of language and words, and McWhorter’s slim little volume promised to open my mind to a dramatic new approach to the way we view the development of English, and it naturally brought to mind one of my favorite quotes from James D. Nichol: “English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.” and the subsequently similar poster/t-shirt.

Alas, McWhorter seems more interested in beating down fellow grammarians and linguists than he does beating down the actual language, and yet I did not find anything remarkably note-worthy in the volume. It was an incredibly nice breath of fresh air to encounter another of the opinion that language is fluid, what is ‘proper’ in language is sometimes a suggestion of fashion more than actual language, and it’s nice to have someone promising not to go all grammar-nazi on a person who uses “they” when speaking of an generic individual and might even go easy on you if should you misuse “he and I” (something I am not nearly as forgiving about).

While I find McWhorter’s exploration of certain oddities about the English language and where these were most likely developed (Celts, Vikings, Icelandic origins) fascinating and interesting, it never came across as anything new. Perhaps it’s my own Germanic language background, but the connections he made seemed fairly obvious to this particular scholar, which made the fact that so much of the book’s energy spent on debunking things contrary to these points pretty unwieldy. Vikings and Celts butchered the original English language? We have weird quirks that are similar to Welsh? English is related to these languages? Are people actually contending that? Apparently they are, and that boggled my head a little bit.

Either way, the contentions that I wasn’t really aware about in the world of English language history aside, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue is an amusing little volume expounding the things I pretty much already believed. That language is fluid and liquid and completely changeable, that what we know as “proper” language today is usually a reflection of society and that change in language is inevitable based on what’s going on around it, what it’s being used for, and by who.

Or is that by whom?

Books read: 31/100.

And, on another note, I’d love to welcome Word Fusion to the blog as my latest subscriber! Thanks so much for coming along!

RoW80 Check-In: More Like a Catch-Up.

“‘I smell Ssark on the wind,” Tayahyla said, her face made of stone. ‘That reek is unmistakeable, a hunting party, though a small one. Still, we’d better move quickly before they start taking to the idea of Human flesh to break their fast.’”

As you may have realized, not only did I skipp Sunday’s Round of Words in 80 Days post, but I’ve also missed a few regular days of posting in between. Sometimes, it happens. Sometimes, it happens especially because a person’s life is so busy she barely has time to do anything else except what’s going on. There’s been socialization. There’s been print copies to review. There’s been a trip to Michigan to plan. There’s been a lot of stuff at work. Oh, yeah, and there was a Labyrinth party.

Needless to say, I’ve been pretty busy. RoW80 is the writing challenge that “knows you have a life,” and that’s definitely become evident these past few weeks for me. So particular goals have gone right out the window, and I’ve been working more on vague projects instead. Here’s a look at what I’ve got going on and, once things settle a little, will have coming up:

-Serpent in a Cage: I’m plugging along at SiaC as usual. I’m just heading into a battle scene, which moves things along nicely, but shortly after this is another battle scene, and then that leads us into the BIG battle scene, and I wonder if it’s almost too much action. There’s stuff happening in between, though, so I guess I’ll see when it’s written! Since my trip requires a six hour train ride, I’m hoping to really blow through the rest of this chapter later today when there’s little else to do but watch the scenery fly by.

-Bowlful of Bunnies: The second print proof for BoB came in yesterday and it is perfect, so I’m estatic and excited and wish I had more time to sit down and actually formulate a marketing approach for it, but I’ve had no such time. I know I want to do some contests, maybe a give-away, that sort of thing, so planning that is on the agenda for my little “retreat,” too. It’s currently available at the CreateSpace store here for $5.99 USD, with eventual Amazon listing to follow in a few days. It looks phenomenal. I couldn’t be happier. And I’ll bet you’d be hard pressed to find cuter page markings than these ones, too.

-Potential Anthology: In a conversation with my roommate, the subject of a special, brief Halloween horror anthology came up briefly, and I’ve been toying with the idea of making it a contest instead of just a collection of whatever I could clomp together before October 31st. I still need to hash out a few details, but I would love to know if this would be something anyone would be interested in. You could submit whatever, there’d likely be a Kindle and print version, and there may be daily or occasional prompts for inspiration, ala the contest Morgan Dragonwillow ran not too long ago that had left me so inspired. Thoughts would be appreciated! If I decide to go for it, I’ll likely have more information available next week.

Those are the main three writerly things that have been occupying my mind in the (very) rare moments lately when I have time. Even today is jam packed with stuff (laundry! cleaning the cat box! job interview! packing! get to the train station on time!), but I’ve made myself take some time to do a little scribbling and a little reading, because I’ve missed the chance to do that and I’m so looking forward to this train ride at four so that I can do nothing but just sit and relax. Ahhhhh.

Still, I won’t complain. It’s been an awesome last few weeks, and I definitely can’t gripe about a day that includes the arrival of a perfect print proof and a phone call I’ve been waiting about for an interview for a promotion, with a brief little “mini-vacation” to follow. Life’s pretty good right now. A whirlwind, but I’m willing to let it sweep me up.

Needless to say, I haven’t been able to keep up with my fellow RoWers lately (though you can do so easily here). How is everyone else doing? Are you planning to get in some Happy Writing?

RoW80 Check-In: What Happened to the Weekend?

“     ‘We’re paying you to care about rescuing the girl,’ Estialog stated simply. ‘What happens afterwards is categorically none of your business.’
     ‘And if we have a moral concern?’
     Tayahyla snorted again, but held back comment. ‘An odd bunch of brigands,’ Estialog murmured, ‘to be concerned with morality.’
     ‘We never claimed to be typical.’”

As I was writing the title of this Wednesday’s Round of Words in 80 Days check-in, I’m thinking to myself, “But, L, it’s Wednesday. You’re halfway to the next weekend already.” And that just really highlights how busy last weekend has felt, in the fact that my brain is still back there on Sunday or something, while time rushes on through to the next weekend.

I’m used to the weekends being busy and a little crazy; it’s par for the course when you work in retail, and it’s usually the weekdays that mean relaxation, especially the earlier, mid-week days that aren’t so hot for shopping. There’s a lot of crazy, exciting things going on where I work, so everything’s in a whirlwind, things are really crazy, and I was really looking forward to spend today getting back in touch with my writing, and then a coworker asks if I can cover for her tonight. Sigh. This means working six days this week, including one day for 9 hours in an 11 hour span (I got a 2 hour break in between, half of which was driving between locations). I want to shake my fists and just yell “ARRRGGGH,” but I know that this is just the start. There’s a good chance things will get crazier, so I’m bracing myself.

And using all the wonderful writing and reading to keep myself centered and Zen. Everyone’s been noting how I really seem in control of my shit lately, and I intend to keep in control and ride through the chaos like an unfappable breeze of serenity. And I think it’s my writing and the fact that, no matter what happens with my Day Job, things are happening with my Dream Job, too, and that’s just incredible.

The print proof for Bowlful of Bunnies arrived the other day, which is such a trip. I took it to work and showed it off to everyone, too, but I think I want a much smaller size, so today I’m reformatting and resubmitting it for review. Part of my brain wanted to just go with what I have now, but then I had to remind myself that patience is a virtue. While it would be exciting to start shilling this print version now, it’s much better to make sure it’s exactly what I want it to be before I let it out in the world. CreateSpace was incredibly fast…much quicker than they had projected…so I doubt I’d have to wait too long again. Plus, the excitement gets me in a fabulous mood, and, whenever I start to get irritated, all I have to do is think about how, in a few days, I’ll have a print proof of my potential book that people without Kindles can actually buy, whaaaaaat?

I’ve been plugging along with Serpent in a Cage, too, finally getting to the point where I think the dragging middle expositionary section gets back into the action again, which should pick things up. I played around with the idea of bringing in Tayahyla as a narrator again, but I think three is enough for now. Her story can be told better in the next book. I’m also poking at Soulless, the haunted house, and the western with dragons a little bit, too, and wondering if I should skip NaNoWriMo this year or go for it. There’s still time, I must remind myself. People are already talking about it, though, which gets me flailing slightly. I have trouble refusing a challenge when it’s presented, yet maybe I should force myself to show some restraint. We shall have to see.

I’ve still got those book reviews to do (I’ve realized that I’ve been putting them off because I don’t particularly like doing negative reviews, and these ones are not glowing, no), but, other than that, all my attention has been mostly on BoB and SiaC and this craziness that is my life lately. Next week, I might be taking what I’m going to call a brief “writer’s retreat” for a few days, and that should definitely help me anchor my center through the chaos…and allow me some uninterrupted, undistracted chunks of time for writing!

How everyone else doing? Did you get a chance to check out any other RoWers today? (If not, you can find them here!) I’m off to do more formatting and reading and scribbling.

Happy writing!