Where's the Beef?

As a writer, I generally serve up to publishers entrees.

A rack of smoked ribs, a bone-in pork chop smothered in gravy or a 2-inch thick T-bone steak medium rare and recently mooing, my tales have bone and gristle and fat. A reader can chew on them.

Twisted Intent is different.

Twisted Intent is a cupcake.

A tiny one on a doily.

Light-hearted, compact and sweet, I shudder to think how this will go down.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe 

Breaking Mirrors

The Writing Binge ends today.

With tomorrow being set aside for formatting, continuity-checking and grammar games, Twisted Intent will be pushed over the finish line by midnight tonight.

I am exhausted. Accomplished but bedraggled. I look like something dragged in by a psychotic cat. Really, please, look away.

But my story shines.

I’ll gladly break a few mirrors for that.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

The Sprint

Sprinting is good for the writer’s soul.

A day when you push, push, push yourself to pour out all the quality story your imagination and your skill can deliver can be an exhausting prospect, I know. But when you survive it --yes, when-- you will be rewarded with the writer’s version of a runner’s high.

Painful but glorious!

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Post-note: My sprint yesterday netted Twisted Intent 2,600 words! My mind’s aching but my soul’s smiling.

Report Card

A gold star for Organization.

A request for a parent/teacher conference for Execution.

If I was in kindergarten, this would be the report card sent home with me after five days of Twisted Intent writing binge.

With three days left, I promise to do better. Cross my heart.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Title: Endurance

Day Five of the Writing Binge has arrived! Twisted Intent is now the required minimum length. The 17k mark was reached yesterday despite…

1.) A spite-filled, inward-directed, drawn and quartering of myself phone call to my mother. Vile stuff was vomited out on her shoes, people. As always, she deserves a heck of a lot better than what I lay at her feet.

2.) The overnight docking of the Good Year Blimp in my right sinus cavity.

Endurance is apparently the name of the game with this project.

I wonder, is it too late to petition for a title change?

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Stay Calm and Write On

I think I’m going to finish it.

True, there’s no exclamation point at the end of that sentence. Nothing is in caps or in italics. It is overall a rather lackluster pronouncement but I’m still a little floored and a lot grateful just being able to murmur those words.

Twisted Intent will be able to handed over to Dreamspinner Press Feb. 28. It will be a lot shorter than I first imagined, but I believe it will be a lot stronger too.

Bottom line: Stay calm and write on.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Couth

Well, I’m screwed.

If I was a writer with less couth, I’d leave the post just like that. Crude but true. However, I am couthier than that. So, allow me to explain…

I have a cold. A bad cold. It’s 2am of Day 3 of my 8 day writing binge and I have yet to sleep a precious wink. I feel like lukewarm crap.

I don’t do sick. Sick is a panic button for me. A big, red, throbbing button that I avoid at all costs. Rule One of surviving my chronic panic disorder states: Do NOT get sick. Ever.

Hence, I’m screwed.

More than enough said.

Until tomorrow (unless I’ve worried myself into a Mayo Clinic stay)…

Chloe 

The Revolt

While Day One of the writing binge passed without incident, Night One saw the revolt of my four-legged, furry muse.

Five times my little sweetness and light demanded in no uncertain terms to go outside.

Five times my braindead self let the rebelling tyrant out into the Florida swamps.

While this may bode ill for Day Two, I and the grumbling muse will persevere. Twisted Intent will get done by the 28^th come hell or swamp.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Gut-Check Time

Hoisted up by the scruff of my neck, the giant dangles me in front of his nose and sniffs. Anxiety beads up on my writerly face. Grunting in apparent satisfaction, the Writing Binge Beast cracks opens his jaws and swallows me whole.

For the next 8 days I will be residing in this fearsome oaf’s belly. Twisted Intent is due February 28 and I will not draw breath out of the Writing Binge until then.

Goody.

Ok, people, it’s gut-check time.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Rain Dance

Sometimes the romance in me runs dry.

Right now, it’s a desert in here.

I have two days to get some love in me flowing. The 8-day writing binge to finish up Twisted Intent begins Monday. I need to get the “arid” out of me by then.

Tomorrow is a travel day. Hopefully that will be my rain dance.

Until Monday…

Chloe

Sluggish Woodpecker

Well, I pecked at Twisted Intent yesterday. Chipped a little off here, shaved a little off there.

It was the best I could do, but I felt more like a sluggish woodpecker than a writer.

Oh, well. Effort was made. Sometimes that’s all one can do.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

The Waiting Giant

Snoring just below the cusp of the horizon, sleeps a writing binge. Restlessly, it tosses. Grumbling, it turns. Next week, I will be forced to awaken this beast.

A writing jag of gargantuan proportions will be called upon to finish Twisted Intent before its Feb. 28^th deadline. It is not how I had planned to do things, but, alas, life has once again tossed itself down before fiction.

I have not called on this giant for a while. I do hope he remembers me.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Bunker Mentality

Having crawled out of the doomsday bunker I inhabit every Valentine’s Day, I am ready once again to take up pen and paper.

No writing was done yesterday. There never is on that dreaded 14^th. Childish as it might sound, I always fear my sourpuss attitude about Valentine’s might unintentionally bleed into my work.

Always protect the integrity of a story, ladies and gents, even if it means occasionally digging a hole and hiding in it for a day.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Pass the Buck

Pass the buck, young authors.

While you are ultimately responsible for any and all character development, don’t lay the entire burden upon the narrator’s shoulders. A good deal of the heavy lifting of backstory can be handed off to minor and/or inconsequential characters.

Interactions with these often nameless folks can tell your readers more about the protagonist than the longest, sweetest internal diatribe sung by your narrator ever could.

So, throw in a “meaningless” conversation with a mailman. Toss in a noisy neighbor that needs to be calmed. Fling a cat needing to be rescued into a tree and have your man play hero.

Bottom line: Delegate.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe 

Reflection

Allow for reflection. Your characters need it. You need it.

Despite romance novels often being born of explosive encounters of either emotion or carnality, love stories require time alone. Plan your storylines with these crucial moments of introspection tucked in. 

Allow the characters space apart to think, to consider, to pine. This not only adds to the success of your plot, it adds to your manuscript’s length. A good thing all around, I’d say.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Patchwork Mantles

Apologies. A fiendish travel day jumped out of nowhere yesterday and yelled “Alabama!” at me. After peeling the four-legged, furry muse off the ceiling and driving 7 hours, all blogging capabilities were kaput.

Thankfully all writing systems seem to be a go this morning.

So yes, dear world, you may breathe again. I am back and I have blogged. (As you can see, my tattered robe of queenly self-importance also made the trip. Bottom line: Always pack your patchwork mantles.)

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Face Off

Histories, quirks, scars, desires and needs. The men of Twisted Intent have all of these. They’ve had them for weeks and weeks. Until yesterday, however, the boys had no faces.

That’s right. Hair, eyes, jawline, cheekbones, lips and brows had been ignored entirely by this veteran romance writer.

Appalled at this revelation, I got myself to a thesaurus and lashed myself to all manner of synonyms.

Now that appropriate noses have been found, we can all breathe again.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

The Cracking

You ever try to crack a coconut open with your teeth? (Don’t, by the way. It’s painful, infuriating and leaves you nothing but gummy.)

Well, lately, the Twisted Intent manuscript has been my coconut. Despite gnawing on it for days, I hadn’t managed to break into its sweet flakiness… That is, until yesterday.

There is a crack, ladies and gents! Bravo me!

*grins toothlessly*

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

The Experimentation Gamble

Still struggling with the whole urgency thing. I just can’t find that fire in my belly to sprint to the finish with Twisted Intent.

In an effort to jumpstart things, I’ve printed the whole thing out and set up the “to-do’s” as a “fill in the blank” project. A connection needed here. A scene to squeeze into there. Maybe this new approach will help. Maybe.

I’ll keep you updated.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Absconded

With only 3 weeks to go before the deadline for “Twisted Intent,” it is time for some urgency!

*sighs as nothing but a cloying silence greets the “Hip-Hip-Hooray”*

Yeah, that could be a problem.

You see, I’ve misplaced my urgency.

Perhaps it’s in a coat pocket somewhere? Or it’s slipped between the couch cushions? Maybe a lizard carried it off and is snuggling up to it as we speak?

Well, Mr. Lizard, drop that urgency! I need it back. Like now. Like urgently…

*rolls eyes and sighs*

Oh, good grief.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Post-Soliloquy

Pardon the delay in today’s post. I was performing a raw, bare-boned soliloquy for my psychiatrist this morning. As one who feels queasy just passing by center stage, these scheduled appointments knock me off my feet for a bit.  

So, please, allow me to slip unnoticed into the background today. That dark, dusty corner behind the prop tree calls to me and my headache. My silliness and I will spring back to form on the morrow.

Until that morrow…

Chloe

The Extraordinary Files

My little black book is full of dead people.

Long dead, in most cases.

Instead of listing possible hook-ups, sure-thing dates and ‘always there for you’ pals, my go-to book records names of past people whose unique, extraordinary lives beg to be put to story. It is a wish list, if you like, of my novels-to-be.

Silly and a wee-bit pathetic? Absolutely.

But I like to think of it as a wee-bit extraordinary as well.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

The Fix is In

A surprisingly strong day of writing yesterday in both word and thought. Not only was my daily word count goal reached for Twisted Intent, the restructured story’s one last plot hole was filled.

Although this “fix” has yet to reach paper or screen, it is now securely in my head. An improvement of great (honking ginormous) consequence, indeed.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

The Late Wrecking Ball

May I suggest not restructuring your entire plot 26 days out from its deadline?

Oh, it’s doable. I just did it. Yesterday. It was effective, too. I mean, I feel much better about Twisted Intent’s chances of success after its dismantling and rebuilding.

However, as a general rule, it’s a rather stupid thing to do so late in the game.

Bottom line: Avoid the late wrecking ball. The cleanup is daunting and your muse will likely snicker.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe 

The Leeway Complex

Only I would be jittery over leeway.

“Twisted Intent,” due at the end of this month, is contracted to be anywhere from 15k to 50k in length. My choice. My prerogative. My decision.

Instead of embracing this rare freedom, my skittery mind stands slack-jawed in front of the wide latitude and whimpers like a ninny.

I am such a doofus.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

The Stark Improbable

Fairy tale romance can happen in stark reality. This I believe wholeheartedly, and I strive to keep my fictitious lovers as shining examples of this paradigm.

However, putting all that haughty author talk aside for the moment, there is a place for whimsy. This sounds straightforward enough, but I have to battle with my OCD-rotted self to allow such stark improbable into my stories.

This utterly infuriates me. Just saying.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe