Much To Do :: So Few Hours

Wow, anyone else welcome in the Taurus energy today? I've been feeling the flow, that's for sure. It's been a busy day, but everything is happening at a much slower pace than usual. The bus was late both arriving to pick Mini up this morning, and dropping him off after school.

My lessons went pretty much the same way. I was slow to get started, and haven't finished my assignments yet. I'm still working on the lessons from Monday and Tuesday for one class, and I need to read through the coursework and assignments that were posted in the college forum this afternoon. Oh, and I still need to type up that report I promised my writing group. My to-do list seems to get longer every time I look at it.

I have until Friday to catch up on everything, which means I need to finish as much of it as I can tonight. Tomorrow is Dad's birthday, and that takes precedence over everything else. I still need to go shopping for a card and some wrapping paper for the man. While I'm there, I should probably go ahead and pick up mom's gift for Mother's Day, too.

After hubby is off work Thursday evening, we're going to my parents' house for a small party. Nothing stuffy or formal, just cake and gifts, and chatting on the porch. Good times. I don't want to be thinking about assignments when I'm over there. So, I've been staying up late working on projects and such. Anyway, there's a lot to do in a short amount of time this week, and I'm definitely feeling the pinch.

On the writing front, I'm currently working on three projects. That's craziness, I know. I'm already busy, so add multiple projects to that. Brilliant, right? I'm currently reworking a story that was previously published in an anthology. I just managed to straighten out all the formatting issues with the main story last night. What a total pain in the ass. It only took me three days to fix that one. Yeah, okay. I'm seriously considering paying a friend to format the final document for me, to save myself the headache.

I'm also working on the fantasy romance novel. It's the project I most want to see finished, so of course, that one is coming along slowly. Very. Slowly. Can you feel my agony? This story is killing me. I imagine my characters are a little bit like this:

Trust me, the idea of killing the cast has crossed my mind. But I think the issue lies in the motivation. The characters aren't acting on the page because my heroine isn't properly motivated. I've rewritten the beginning of that book at least three times, and the last time I did it, I stripped away the original setup so the story would more closely match what I had in mind when I first came up with the idea. I like it much better now, but I need to get my heroine fired up about...something. Anything. She has a goal; she just needs a reason to hit the bricks. 

The elaborate setup I packed on that story was truly more trouble than it was worth. The heroine had a lot of motivation to kick off her journey, yes, but it was taking her twenty pages just to get going. So, I've snipped and rewritten and scaled back and...hey! I think just came up with a simple motivation fix. I need to put one of the heroine's loved ones in jeopardy. She's very family oriented, so that would work. Hmm. I think maybe one of her relatives is about to get arrested? *_* {scribbling down notes} 

Anyhoo...I wanted to point this out: if your characters refuse to talk to you, or they lie there lifelessly on the page, check the motivation aspect of their GMC chart. It probably needs tweaking.

The third story on my list is a completed draft I wrote not too long ago targeting Nocturne Cravings. I set it to the side, and haven't picked it up only a couple of days ago. I'm using it now as a study/editing piece in a month-long workshop I'm taking over at FF&P. Hopefully by the time the month is up, that one will be ready for submission somewhere. Whether or not I send it to Harlequin depends on what the heat level looks like when I'm finished with it. So we'll see.

On the completed and submitted side of things, I have a couple of short stories contracted that haven't been  released yet. Two are going to be in trade paper format, which I'm excited about. I'll post about those stories when I hear more information, and right now, I don't know when that will be.

Anyway, that's what's what here in the land of La. They guys just came in, and the oven time just went off, so I think I'm going to grab a bite to eat. Bye bye for now. I hope you've all had a lovely Wednesday!