A Gritty Scrapper

Well, the Prologue of The Hushing Days has been completed.

If you’re expecting an exclamation point at the end of this statement you’re about 10 hours too late.

Let me explain.

While I will never, ever be truly satisfied with any opening gambit in any of my novels (perfectionist and psychiatrist-proven worry wart here, remember?), I was appropriately excited to get that prologuian beast off my back. Exclamation points were truly everywhere.

I felt so cocksure of myself that I even celebrated by browsing international real estate sites and drooling. I only dare do this when my writing is going so well that I can believe, for a fleeting moment or two, that someday I will make money enough to house shop.

This joy lasted approximately 3 hours  --until my brain finally caught up with my soaring heart.

Ice water was tossed.

Reality bit.

And that exclamation point was rubbed hastily out of existence.

But if you look really, really close and hold the paper just right, a stubborn shadow of my excitement can still be found.

My heart, you know, is quite a gritty scrapper.

*winks*

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Reflection Not Needed

With the end of the month hiding in tomorrow’s shadows, readying a caustic “Gotcha! January’s done, what have you done?”, we should really take this time to objectively review this month’s writing accomplishments. Evaluate what worked well, what didn’t work at all, and what worked but was a heck of a pain. Perhaps some kind of flow chart could be drawn up?

Or…

We could just concentrate on today’s work.

While writing is all about reflection, either fictional or factual, the writing craft is wary of mirrors.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Post Note: I have no idea what any of this means. It just popped into my head, sounded kind of wise, so I went for it. Apologies are probably in order. 

The Scrum Avoidance

I have either channeled a brilliant strategist or chickened out altogether.

The Prologue in The Hushing Days requires a fight/battle/all-out-scrum between 18^th century soldiers.

Alas, I am not a writer of scrum. At least not a very good one. Practice makes perfect, I suppose, but scrums with muskets are surprisingly rare in most contemporary romance. Pity, that.

Anyhow, I’ve decided to avoid putting fight to word completely. Instead, I am having a panicked character remember the fight (and retell it to the reader) in bright, angry flashes of memory. Hence, the plot points get across without the audience getting bogged down in useless detail. (This being a prologue, one must avoid bogging at all costs.)

Strategist or chicken? You decide.

I’m leaning toward some kind of feathery spawn, myself.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Assumptions

Assumptions. I’m going to break my freaking big toe on one of them before this is through.

*pauses: gathers thoughts, breath and whatnots; carries on with a teensy bit less spite*

Assumptions are tricky bastards. Let me illustrate.

Strangers assume that if you are dressed spiffily, answer pleasantly, smile appropriately and converse smartly that you are without staggering mental hiccups (i.e. anxiety, panic, OCD, etc). This is all well and good… except when they do inevitably find out the truth they are certain you are either exaggerating to gain pity or outright lying to gain some kind of mythical leverage.

These kind of assumptions have been tripping me up for decades. As a result, I’ve learned to loathe them and to try to avoid them at every turn.

A prologue to a historical romance, however, is all assumption. A writer must guess what a reader already knows. Very few readers of the genre are there for a historical treatise on the time period. The author must assume at least some basic knowledge on the era is known… but the tricky part is knowing how much. Give the reader too much credit and you lose them before Chapter One. Give the reader too little credit and you bore them to tears and still lose them before Chapter One.

*sighs*

Assumptions. I am crap at managing them. Just saying.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

A Prickly Tangle of Faith

If there is no doubt, there is no faith…

No, don’t run and hide.

This is not an expose on religion, Cubs baseball or UFO sightings. It is simply a wee peek into the workings of a mind which had spent the entirety of Monday approximating a Gordian knot of barbed wire.

No relaxation nor sense could be had.

Every thought was prickly and a-tangled.

It was incredibly tiresome and should have sent my exhausted brain straight to sleep… It did not.

So, as I laid there in bed my mind and a good deal of my heart latched onto that opening statement. Eventually, I drifted off to sleep with that comforting thought on my mind… or, um, variations of that thought.

My OCD perked up and elbowed awake the editor in me, and I spent a good half-hour tinkering with the sentence. Word choice, grammatical structure, and flow off the tongue were all examined thoroughly with, finally, the above variation winning the lot (with “For there to be faith, there must be doubt” coming in a strong second.)

Bottom line: I am absurd. And while I often doubt God’s purpose for such a prickly tangle as me, I must have faith that there is one.

And here ends this wince-worthy peek.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

The Even Odds Fate

Three weeks into my new meds and my anxiety-riddled brain is still, well, riddled.

I’m not surprised, really. My psychiatrist said it was a fifty-fifty shot that it would help with my obsessive worry. It’ll either do a great deal of good or do nothing,” he said.

Point of fact: I suck at even odds. Always have. Give me a true/false question and I’ll give you a wrong answer. A coin toss? Pfft. I don’t even bother.

Probably a mental thing… But when your sanity is Swiss Cheese what isn’t?

Alright, enough moping about. I’ve got a Prologue to edit.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Immersion Required

“A teensy bit of immersion will be required when reading this novel. Please, bring your swimming cap and snorkel.”

This is not the type of warning an author wants to squeeze onto the front cover of his or her book. No matter how nicely you put the admonition, it is rather bossy and presumptuous and really should be avoided at all costs.

The Hushing Days, however, is a book that could rightfully use such a cover directive. While I have dialed back the dialogue only to hint at its 18^th century roots, there is a certain foreignness to the whole thing.

A tiny, noisy part of me wants to panic at this.

The rest of my gut wants to applaud.

Oh, I do really wish my mind would just shut up and let me write…

Yes, well, that statement makes no sense whatsoever. I believe I will depart before I toss up any more ridiculousness on your shoes.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Neglected Tendencies

One takes the bad with the good, I suppose.

Case in point: My full-body tackling of The Hushing Days edits this past week has left my travel blog unabashedly neglected.

I have not so much as touched my writing security blanket.

I have not even looked its warm and fuzzy, though thoroughly useless, way.

Bad travel blogger.

Good novelist.

Why can’t we all just get along?

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

The Cheating Heart

Have I cheated?

Oh, don’t even go there. I have not purloined, snatched, unintentionally nor intentionally pilfered someone else’s work or ideas as my own. Not only is it dastardly wrong and cowardly to boot, I honestly believe my head would implode from the very guilt of it.

So, as my troublesome head is still firmly attached and whole upon my neck be assured that my “cheating” had nothing to do with that.

Moving on or back or whatever the heck you want to say…

I split Chapter Eighteen into two. Not only did I cut it right in half, I sliced it up, declared the first half done and plopped the remainder back into the final editing-to-do slush pile with the rest of The Hushing Days.

Furthermore, I kind of partied when I did it. Patted myself on the back for another chapter edit well done, I did.

But now I wonder if I’ve somehow cheated?

*sighs*

It really is tiring being such a silly, silly thing as me.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

The Apparent Martini

While I haven’t peeked at the word count in a bit, The Hushing Days is hovering, I imagine, near 80k.

Despite that number making me a little slack-jawed and a lot proud of myself, an alarm bell has begun to ring inside my ever-loving OCD head.

Yesterday, I wrote the first true, all parties naked and humping sex scene.

Don’t worry. The way I’m bouncing around the final edits this does NOT mean there’s no loving until 80k in. It’s just I haven’t had to bother with the nitty gritty until now. While there will be at least three more hot and heavy scenes in the novel, their combined wordage will be less than 5-7k.

For a writer whose previous published novels all held a smut to no smut ratio of about 1:1, this is alarming… and, dare I say, mainstream-ish?

*gulps*

Apparently I’m really doing this mainstream thing.

Apparently, I’m really putting myself out there to be slapped down by the big boys.

Apparently, I’m going to be needing a martini.

A freaking lot of martinis.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Truth Before Tact

*claps hands together, blows into them anxiously*

*stares down at Chapter Eighteen, who lies sprawled but wiggling on the editing block, soft belly exposed and trembling*

I feel like I’m about to gut a puppy.

Eighteen is everything good about The Hushing Days. It is the manuscript’s core, its beating heart, its soft, squishy soul...

Yep, gutting a puppy here.

So, you go enjoy your day. I surely won’t be enjoying mine.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Post-Note: Sorry about the imagery here, but editing can be ugly business. Sometimes truth must come before tact… now, excuse me while I go smooch my furry, four-legged muse silly.

Righteous Strutting

Chapter Fourteen is done! Not only did I meet my self-imposed deadline of midnight last night, I blew it out of the water with nearly 10 hours to spare.

So, yes, the peacock strut through the study, the kitchen, the bedroom and up and down the stairs three times was necessary… the snickering by my dogged muse at this most righteous display was not.

Oh well. Time to pluck another chapter out of the huge Final Edits pile and get back to work.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Going Down

Thoroughly fed up with myself -and the procrastination that eats away at me with a spoon- I have given myself a hard deadline: I will finish the final edits of Chapter Fourteen of The Hushing Days by midnight tonight!

*”Well, whoop-de-do,” the four-legged, furry muse at my side emotes as she rolls over and yawns.*

Mock me if you must, world…

Throw previous vows in my face…

Scoff, if you will…

Fourteen is going down today!

Now, excuse me. There is hogtieing to do.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Malcontent Lover

My novel tires of me, I believe.

I briefly glanced at it yesterday (I do try to take Sundays off whenever I can) and the manuscript sighed at me. “Not this again,” I swore I could hear it grumble. “Not more of your fingering at me. 

Either finish me off or be done with me.”

When The Hushing Days turned into a peevish, malcontent lover I do not know.

Could someone please spin a yarn of romance around me and my dear novel. I do believe we both need a little help in finding our happily ever after.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Trade Secret

When I have nothing particular to say in this daily writing blog, I read a story and pluck out a word that stirs me. Most often this is a word I had forgotten existed. A word, for whatever reason, I never use.

I, then, type that word on my blank computer screen and write around it.

Sometimes it’s easy to wrap my authorly life around it. Sometimes it’s not. But once this strange process has begun, I will not stop until its done. I am nothing if not a stout never-give-up-er.

Sometimes I will even give up trade secrets to the cause… such secrets as plucking stray words out of stray stories just to work the word “stout” into a blog.

*winks*

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Covert Self-Portraiture

In an attempt to jumpstart my writing mood –which has stalled at the edge of frowny and fatalistic- I am shoving out another travel blog post today.

As I’ve belabored the point before, my travel blog is my blankie. Warm, soft and easy to write, I tuck my face into its familiar fluff and just breathe for an hour or two.

I have two issues with this: 1.) Who the crap has a writing blankie? Seriously. And 2.) Why am I constantly shying away from the final edits of The Hushing Days?

Unfortunately, I know the two answers:  1.) Stupid, little me has a writing blankie, that’s who. And 2.) Fear, mixed with a genetic helping of procrastination.

Of course, this little exercise in self-examination means nothing, helps no one and is generally a waste of literary space…

*pauses, runs that last sentence through brain a couple hundred times and winces*

Well, crap. I hate when self-portraiture sneaks up and bites you on the ass.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe 

Hard Decision

Hard decision time. Here are the facts:

The new meds my psychiatrist has put me on to hopefully beat back my obsessive worrying are expensive.

While I’m assured by my family that my idea of “expensive” will not be a problem at all, it is one heck of a problem for my brain which scrimps and saves obsessively every half-penny.

Here’s the quandary: Do I abandon full-time work on The Hushing Days to parse out valuable hours to short stories in genre romance that pay fifty dollars here and there? Or do I put all my eggs in my 18^th novel’s basket?

My dumb, stupid, foolish head has beaten itself up over this the last days. It’s been ugly and exhausting and I really, really hate this OCD-thing I’ve got going on up there.

*sighs*

Hard decision was finally made yesterday.

If the publishing world has seen fit to put to print 17 of my novels, I’m going to trust that they will see fit to put to print one more.

I will not turn back from this decision.

I will not.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Irons in the Fire

I have too many irons in the fire.

I know this.

But I keep shoving more into the flames.

In a rather unimaginative attempt to make up for lost career time these last few months, I have this last week thrown my lot into an absurd number of things. Most of these, of course, will never pan out. 

But I keep shoving.

Please, somebody call me the hopeless fool I am and make me stop.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Gullywash

I will not be shy about this. Yesterday was a rather brilliant day of writing.

Not only did words flow, they cascaded off of my fingertips like a flooded creek through a canyon. I was a force of literary nature!

Thoughts came in full, well-metered sentences.

My calling card characterizations did not suffocate the text, they simply enhanced the tale.

No tangents led me astray.

In brief, It was good solid fun and I’d like to request a double dose of that today.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Post Note: Always cherish the gullywash days of writing for they come but once a stray season.

The Authoritative Voice?

*clears throat and begins in a most professorly manner…*

When writing Historical Romance you must not only sound as if an historian is perched upon your shoulder whispering factual sundries into your ear. You must sound as if your muse has wed the dear fellow and bore a child together.

However…

When your muse is a dog who has been neutered longer than you, and when no worth-his-salt historian could, would or should suffer your company for longer than a day, problems arise in this treatise.

In this case, stumbling blind through the process is your only option. Do so in an authoritative voice and a wary eye to the exits and you should be fine.

Should.

I’ll let you know if by the luck of the literary gods I ever survive myself.

Thank you and good day.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Pop Goes the Weasel

I am rarely lax in anything I do. Rather, I’m a Rottweiler-at-a-bone about things. Gnawing until my gums bleed and I’m hacking marrow all over the place is one of my favorite fortes, in fact.

So, when I was actually able to make it through the entirety of Sunday and not so much as touch The Hushing Days edits I was rather proud of myself. (Any kind of release from responsibilities is hard to come by in my world. I do love to cuddle my guilt.)

But what does an anxiety-spotted, OCD-riddled thing like me do instead?

Yep, you got it.

Worry.

Not about the work, oh no. About the new meds my psychiatrist gave me five days ago to help make my Prozac “Pop!” in my system.

Well, I’m unaccustomed to “Pop!”

I worry about “Pop!”

*looks a little guiltily at the mangled but dry bone on the plate, pokes it cautiously with my fingertip and sighs*

We’ll see how today goes before rushing to any judgment about this whole “Pop!” lark.

I’ll keep you updated.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Flagrant Appreciation

Good, solid work on my book eighteen edits in the morning.

Flagrant, shameful football watching in the afternoon.

More flagrant, shameful football watching in the evening.

Excessive celebration thereafter. (Doughnuts were involved.)

Geez, somebody should flow a flag or something. Seriously. Things are clearly getting out of hand if 

I’m having this much fun.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe, the girl eating her return home up with a spoon and sprinkles

Mirror Image

I’m considering a post-it note to the forehead.

Center noggin, red block letters written with a fat Sharpie.

“Romance Writer, NOT Historian!” it would read… it would read, backwards, I suppose, because it would be completely for me.

If the shape and span of my forehead would allow addendum post-it notes, I would add: “Goal: Sell the Story,” and right beside it: “Goal: NOT Perfection.”  Yes, more of those block letters on that last one. Might even stick a freaking gold star on it too.

I am writing an historical romance.

The Hushing Days is not a doctoral thesis I will have to defend in front of a board of deans.

It is “just” a love story.

Keep it simple. Keep it good.

Ooh, I like that one. Maybe I can fit a post-it note on my chin?

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Free Falling

Apparently to counter the very nice and encouraging uptick in my daily writing work now that I’m back home, my maturity level took a nosedive last night.

Swan dived right off the plane with nary a parachute in sight, I should say.

I stayed up until 2am playing a video game… a superheroes video game (not even something grown-up-y like Call of Duty or the like.)

And worse yet, I enjoyed the heck out of it.

I had no idea what I was doing, mind you; but I was punching and clawing and horse-collaring and drop-kicking folks with a giddiness ferocious in nature.

It was all rather alarming.

And fun.

Loads of fun, actually.

So, condemn me if you choose… just remember I have a nasty roundhouse kick combo up my gaming sleeve.

Crap, how old am I again?

Until tomorrow…

Chloe, 43 years old and falling fast

Evasive Action Required

Bullet point morning!

Feel free to take evasive action.

--The edits of Chapter Fourteen of The Hushing Days are going suspiciously, even mockingly well. I keep expecting the real Fourteen (of a mischievous strain, no doubt, like his brothers) to jump out of the closet and yell “Boo!”

--Not directly related to but certainly attached somehow to that first point is this: my psychiatrist has officially diagnosed me as having Obsessive Worry. While I could have said, “Yeah, well, duh,” he responded with new meds to add to my repertoire. As I haven’t added anything to my prescription oeuvre in over ten years, I’m a bit worried about the whole thing... Yeah, well, duh.

--Published a new post on my travel blog late last night basically just to get it off my back. Yes, my obsessive tendencies have been working overtime in that area too. Fortunately there’s no medical diagnosis for Obsessive Blogging. Yet. I’d keep an eye on me, psychiatrists of the world.

As this has turned out a bit more wordy than I had planned, I will leave you there, with several rounds still in my chamber.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

The Loose Screw

Closing my eyes, screwing my mouth shut in a look, no doubt, of utter stupidity, I reached into the bag of files known as my 18^th novel and fished out a chapter…

And that is how Chapter Fourteen, the single standalone chapter of The Hushing Days arrived on my lap yesterday.

I smiled at my good fortune.

Having only poked at the final edits of the manuscript since August (family comes first as it always shall and always should), I was a little leery of where to restart my efforts.

After having worked a year on my first mainstream romance attempt, I didn’t want to screw it up with an over-eager hand. Mess with one string of subplot over here and a whole other plot might come tumbling down over there. Tricky, tricky situation… or so my anxiety-riddled gray matter had muttered to me for days on end.

Anyhow, it all worked out in the end. Fourteen is a superb chapter in which to get my editing feet wet again.

Whew.

Just so you know, I’m not blind as to how ridiculous this all sounds. I simply ignore it and go on with my day. When there is a screw loose in a place you can never reach, what other choice do you have?

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Squirrel in the Larder

It is true. As reported last night in my potentially flammable post, I and the four-legged, furry muse are at last home!

The Hushing Days, in all its 18^th novel splendor, can finally come out of hiding and present itself properly to me for its much-delayed Final Edits…

If only it was that easy.

Alas, The Hushing Days is not a soldier under my command. It is under no obligation to do anything I say (which is pretty crappy if you ask me; I am the freaking author of it, but I digress.)

If we must keep with the military analogy, I would liken the book to a squirrel loose in my mess tent. Actually laying hands on the little scoundrel is battle enough, but trying to train it to sit quietly while I, editors, agents and publishers poke and prod its ticklish roundness is another matter entirely.

So, please, wish me luck as I try to catch the spry, tempestuous critter today. I do hope to find him before he spies the abundance of nuts in my larder.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Stop, Drop & Sonata

Once again I have crossed the American South with dog at side and classical music on board.

This journey saw the likes of Birmingham, Montgomery, Dothan, Schubert, Schumann, Beethoven and Chopin… This, I suppose, would explain the blown fuse currently sizzling in my right cortex.

So, pardon the shortness of today’s post.

I believe I may be a fire hazard.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Bringing Home the Bacon

I’ve apparently petered out.

Blog-wise, that is.

After four posts to two blogs in the last two days there is very little  share-worthy left in my brain, I fear. Let’s see what we can find, however. (I am nothing if not tedious in my responsibilities, after all.)

As I touted yesterday, I have returned to The Hushing Days… in one short burst. Hauling the pachyderm-sized manuscript out while family is buzzing about is useless I’ve found. Please, allow me to fractionalize…

When given a two hour period in which to work with company milling around, the time is generally broken up into these parts :

¼ of the time = gathering the bits and pieces of The Hushing Days into arm’s length distance (i.e. Scrivener on the laptop, Word on the laptop, the laptop, first edit printouts, second edit handwritten notes, notebook of research, files –both digital and paper- on character backgrounds, pens, highlighters, staplers, staples and dog)

¼ of the time = priming the pump (i.e. reading selected outtakes from brilliantly written stories on the web that get both my imagination and my skill in the mood to knock out some equally brilliant stuff… at least that is the goal)

¼ of the time = choosing a chapter of THD in which to work, then feeling out the scenes to see which stoke my writerly interest that cold, winter’s day

¼ of the time = pecking out anywhere from 2 words to 200 to the chosen scene before flagging total exasperation as my two hour window swings shut

And there you see my problem. When novelling, I am not a short-order writer. When blogging, however, I can fry you up two eggs and a side of bacon while dolling out a reasonably readable post in an hour tops.

So, how do you like bacon, everyone?

*winks*

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Two

Two things to note from the first day of 2016…

1.) I actually got The Hushing Days’ manuscript out of storage (i.e. an old trapper-keeper in my suitcase) and fondled it (figuratively speaking, of course) for an hour or so. My poor 18^th novel, and first of mainstream blood, hadn’t seen daylight in over a month. Starved for my touch, it was. Which directly leads to…

2.) My travel blog has become my baby blanket… Um, let me explain.

When The Hushing Days expressed its neediness for its long-absent author, when the story stalled in final edits threw open its unkempt chapters at me, I panicked.

Yes, yes, I know that’s what I do. Panic junkie, hello. But I hadn’t expected such a stomach-churning, spine-numbing reaction to the dear tale. I was a wee-bit physically ill at the sight of her.

Not good.

Not good in the very least.

To soothe my freaked out soul, I scrambled back to the Tiptoeing Soul blog and hastily (i.e. in 3 hours) published an unplanned post.

I felt better after time with my blankie.

Bottom line: My ridiculousness sometimes amazes even me.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Dry Docked

Alright. New Year’s wisdom. They’ll be expecting it, you know? Your daily writing blog will begin Year Three this month and thoughtful words of inspiration should be on tap for all comers.

*checks tap; finds it bloody dry*

Fine. Perhaps you should complain? That’s always worked well in the past to fill the empty spots. “Poor Me” plays well on every station, right?

*thumps head on keyboard and groans*

Just not feeling the self-pity today. Of all times for that little well to run dry...

Ok, ok, no need to panic…

*laughs hysterically at the Panic Disorder maven saying that*

How about you toss out some advice? Put your sanctimonious penny-poor writer’s cap on and tout some wisdom?...

Crap. I’m back to the wisdom thing, aren’t I?

*four-legged, furry muse rouses from her nap and snorts at the daily stupidity she must face*

Before you embarrass yourself even more, why don’t you just wish the nice people “Happy New Year” and let them go? Maybe, maybe, they’ll blot this post out of their memory and come back tomorrow?

*sighs, nods and wishes ever-so heartily…*

Happy New Year!

And please, please, come back tomorrow.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Post Note: Even if you can’t find anything to say, say it verbosely. It’s a skill always helpful for a writer to keep in their back pocket.