Category: WIP updates

I finished the edits of Simple Sarah. Phew.

It is a freakin’ fantastic story. I have always loved it and believe it will be one of my best work.

Now to decide how to deal with it. Do I keep going and write the next one? Or do I send this one off as soon as Lorna is done reading it?

Keep writing is a good thing because then the facts are kept in line and I have the privilege of changing the first one should the second or third one change it.

Sending it off is a good thing because then it is OUT OF HERE.

This is different that the BG books. In the BG books, each one focuses on different characters. They all share the same geographic location and characters from one book will/can appear in other books. But there’s no real story line that is shared other than location and time. Any of the books can be read in any order.

With the Simple Sarah books, it is the same storyline in each book following the same characters.

Opinions? Thoughts?

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Listening to: Joan Jett & The Blackhearts – Heartbeat
via FoxyTunes

I’ve made great strides in the editing of Simple Sarah. I went through all of the print out, making notes as I went. My beta readers, D and R, did a freakin’ fantastic job!

I am on page 310 of what is so far 365 pages. It has climbed to over 91K, which is the best part. There are sections where I will back up and add a scene or two and there are scenes to add and/or work on in the sections coming up.

I’ve still not come up with a name for the nation. I stare at it and my brain freezes.

Meanwhile, I have been slowly going through the huge honkin’ double spaced print out of BG3. I am only at page 59 with about 200 more to go. The story isn’t finished but I need to go over it and decide where it is going.

When finished with SS, I will print it out (single spaced) and turn it over to Lorna for her critical reading. She’s read it so many times, though, but I don’t think she’s read this version so it will be a treat. While she is reading that, I will get back to work on BG3.

So that is where I am now and what I have been doing.

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Listening to: Paul Simon – Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes
via FoxyTunes

I printed out 251 pages of a novel. BG3, to be exact. 251 pages and roughly 56.5K words. This is just over half of where it will be, hopefully, when finished. With the print-out, I can go over what I have already written and do some minor editing. Then I will be able to continue with the plot holes I keep finding.

Oh what fun. Oh what joy. Oh the giddiness I feel deep in my bones.

Okay, I got it fixed. Phew!

Easier than I thought, really. Isn’t is always? You worry and fret over something you think is big and it turns out to be some little thing?

Taking part of the scene outside worked well. There were some other parts that had to be changed but overall, it went smoothly. The scene works well, too.

The book takes an odd turn soon and I’m not sure whether that turn is needed or not. I think I will drop it all and use another idea I had. There’s been hints to it before, and I’ve not seen a way to work it in until now. This new direction is just what the book needs, I think.

I want to get this book, BG3 done quickly, make it pretty and send it off to the publisher. Then I want to work on the first of the Simple Sarah books and send that one off as well. Won’t that be cool? To have two books bought in one year? The same year my first book was released? I can do this, yes.

No goals this time. I’m just doing it. I don’t seem to do well with goals. Just like the current US gov’t administration, I fight deadlines. But at least with me, it is word counts, not body counts.

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Listening to: Joan Jett & The Blackhearts – Black Leather
via FoxyTunes

It’s been a year and a half since BGCFA sold. What have I done since then, writing wise? Diddlysquat.

I am quite motivated recently, though, and have been writing. Cutting and pasteing is a better term for it but writing sounds better. I’m working on BG3 (tentatively called Butch Girls and Stereotypes) and I hope to get it done soon. I totally missed my personal deadline but Real Life had the damn nerve to intrude.

Simple Sarah has been beta read by two intelligent women who, while they say the absolutely loved it, think it ended in a very stupid place. We were supposed to meet for a baseball game and I’d get the manuscript back (they printed it out and used two different colored pens) but, again, Real Life happened.

I wrote an essay for possible submission to an anthology titled Women. Period. (An Anthology of Women Writing for and About Menstruation; Edited by Parneshia Jones, Jo Ruby, Elizabeth Slade and Julia Watts) I like how it turned out and need to show it to Lorna for her okeedokee before I bother to edit it.

I also have an essay of sorts and some recipes (yes, food recipes) that has been accepted for an upcoming book titled Butch Cook Book. THE Lee Lynch is the author/editor/whatever of it. If everything goes as planned, they will also be using some lines from BGCFA, which I think is cool. I don’t know the progress of the book and the fer shurness of my inclusion in it. Either way, just to be accepted by THE Lee Lynch (and the other womyn working on the book with her) is a big ego boost.

Slowly but surely I am getting BG3 done (it is now at 15,289). It’s not that writing it is difficult, it’s just that writing is difficult. There’s a lot on my mind lately and only a small fraction of it has anything to do with writing.

It is interesting to read what I am writing now compared to when I first started BG3. I started it nearly two years ago as a short story in a challenge over at the Forward Motion website. (just realized I’ve not been there in, like, ever!)

The folks at Forward Motion helped me realize I could do this. And also helped me realize I was not in the right place. I needed to hang around folks of my own kind. Kinda like grouping critters at the zoo. A chimpanzee might be just fine with orangutans as it learns to climb but, really, a chimp needs to be with other chimps.

Which is good that I found Golden Crown Literary Society. Cool group of lesbian writers and readers. It was through their Yahoo! Groups list that I found my publisher.

Where was I? Oh, right. Writing BG3. I need to do that, don’t I?

I got some sporadic writing done today. It all added up to a decent count for the day, which is good, right?

BG3 is going good. It finally crossed the 10K mark. One-eighth of the way done. :rolleyes:

I’ve set a goal to reach at least 80K in 20 days. I’m going up Nawth around April 21st and I want it done before I go. Done, dammit, done! That means around 3500 words a day. I can do this. I can. Yep.

Whilst out of the realm of the WWW, I did some weally wonderful writing.

At last I mentioned it, I was writing/struggling with BG2. After starting over umpteen times, I dropped it like a hot ‘tater. BG2 is back on the shelf. Not even on a back burner.

Instead, I am now working on BG3. While it sits just over 7K words, it is going very well.

BG1–Butch Girls Can Fix Anything–was about Kelly and Grace.

BG2–title unknown–is (was?) about Nikki and Ellen.

BG3–Butch(es) Girls and Stereotypes– is about Harri and Liz.

BG4–Butch Girls Have Many Talents–is about Chaz, Rain’s sister, and Sam, Ellen’s best friend.

BG5 will be about Rain and Deb, a protagonist from BG1.

BG6 will be about the matriarchs, Annette and Kaye.

Of all the characters, Harri is the butchest. She’s also the most unsure of herself, the most underestimated person in the whole series. My goal is to help her come out of her shell. I like this book and always have. I’d like to get it finished by the end of March but, ha, that ain’t gonna happen since that means 7K words a day.