Recovery and Nano

So, I made it through! WooHoo! I'm not exactly loving this, though.

Last Thursday, I had my carpal tunnel surgery. So far, other than I can't really used my right hand for much of anything yet, the hand hasn't bothered me. I did not have the best reaction to the anesthesia though. Ending up sleeping the rest of the day when I wasn't throwing up. Worst. Halloween. Ever.

But I'm a trooper. I still got up on Friday and went to work AND made it through the whole day. I didn't accomplish a whole lot, I will admit, but it was my last day at my old job anyway and I was just tying up some loose ends.

That was the first day of NaNo, and that night I busted out the old microphone and loaded up Dragon and got to work. I still haven't been able to pull ahead yet, but at least I'm keeping up. I will have the next two days all to myself, and I'm hoping I can really lay some tracks down. As I've fleeting mentioned in some of my past posts, we are selling our house. It went up on the market on Thursday (what a day!) and we've already got offers, so keep you fingers crossed! We might be moving soon.

That will cut into a lot of Nano time, but I'm a fighter. Not gonna let that stop me! The book is still set in the TPC world, so I'm eager to keep writing.

Also, I AM typing this right now. Amazing, huh?? I would post a pic of the incision, but it's pretty gruesome. When I took the bandage off, I was not mentally prepared to deal with the wound. Ugh, so creepy. Looked like a shriveled zombie hand. The stitches don't come out till the 14th, so the next couple weeks are going to be interesting. Hell, this whole month is going to be interesting.

LASTLY for today... If you missed it, After - Part Two is now available on Amazon. Help me spread the word! I am so thrilled!

I should be back to my regular posting schedule this week. Sorry I got off track for a bit there. :)

After - Part Two

Happy Halloween!!

What a wonderful Halloween it is. So my surgery is today, and this is the last post I'm sending to you with my crippled hand. I'm nervous and excited! I'm hoping everything goes well and I recover quickly!

Also, I was up past midnight last night, doing my final read-through of After - Part 2. It was around 12:30 when I pressed the save button, tears in my eyes. It's finished. I hope I never get over that joy of completing a story.

And then it took forever for Amazon to get it listed, well, felt like forever. :)

Its finally here and I am so happy!

After - Part Two

A List of Winners!

I am sorry I didn't get around to listing the winners earlier. I had two giveaways going on at the same time, and both ending while I was traveling! What timing!

First, I'll list the Off the Beaten Path winners. This was the bigger give away. A special shout-out to Angela Roquet for orchestrating this all!

Grand Prize winner of bound book $10 Amazon card: Felicia T.
Triple winners of 2 $5 Amazon cards and Off the Beaten Path ebook: Tanya J. and Amy H.
Double winners of $5 Amazon card and Off the Beaten Path ebook: Teresa E.
Winners of Off the Beaten Path ebook: Tiffany M., Seth C., Kirsty E., and Tiffany K.
Winners of $5 Amazon card: Clare T., Jackie B., and Rose W.

And the two winners of the first edition paperback of After - Part One, which included a rockin' The Phoenix Curse pen (and not so rockin' key-chain) are...

Elizabeth C. and Nate A.

Thanks everyone for signing up, and for those of you who won, I hope you enjoy all the gifts!

Congratulations all!!!

Deleted Scenes

And, as promised, here are the deleted scenes for the very beginning of part two. Remember, the story line is still accurate but, in the published book, this scene will be through Joss's eyes, not Ali's.

http://www.thephoenixcurse.com/p/after-part-two-deleted-scenes.html

This past week went really well. I finished up the Amarillo chapters and was sad once I wrote those final words. They are now in the done pile and I have moved on to rework the other chapters of part two. It's going well! 

I'm still expecting to hit the October deadline but I don't have an exact date worked out just yet. Hopefully there will be no more setbacks between then and now but I really don't foresee anything like that happening. I hope I don't jinx myself by saying this but it looks like smooth sailing from here! It's on to Boulder City.

Well, I will leave you with that since I know you guys have a little extra reading to do today. ;)

Happy reading! And to my indies, happy writing!

Have a wonderful, wonderful weekend and I will be here next Tuesday with a new and exciting post!

Amarillo By Morning

This week has just been totally awesome. I feel like me again and I've been able to fully focus on my writing and, once again, I'm so happy that things are back to normal!

For reference, I'm writing this post on Wednesday night to auto post tomorrow morning.

So, I had a moment today. It's one of those moments that every writer loves to have. It's when inspiration gets behind you and just launches you forward. The story grabs you, takes hold of you and starts running away while you're furiously typing as fast as you can, doing everything you can to keep up. You're nothing but a spec of dust in the face of a hurricane. The story has control.

And you type, and you type, and you type.

And an hour and 3k words later, you look up to face reality and wonder what the hell just happened.

It. Is. Magical.

Now, this was not my first moment and I love it every time it happens, (the feeling is indescribable) but this time it was so important because of the surrounding circumstances.

I've been trying to tie Amarillo to Boulder City now for two months. For those of you that have been with me since the very very beginning, who actually downloaded my NaNoWriMo manuscript from Smashwords last November, knows that Amarillo simply didn't exist in my first draft. It was only a vague idea that never got written. When I made the decision to flesh out the world, Amarillo was back in.

And then I got stuck.

The original plan for Amarillo was only supposed to cover two scenes but, as I wrote, the story began to demand more time. Things went into flux and I had to rewrite scenes and perspectives, and now I'm looking at two full chapters for Amarillo. These are not stretched-out filler scenes, mind you, but action-packed adventures.

This morning I started the last Amarillo scene, thinking it would just be a hop, skip and a jump to Boulder City. I've had a foggy vision of how this would play out in my head for a while now, so figured I would get it over with fast and continue with the editing process.

And then things... happened...

I was mid sentence, trying to figure out my wording, when I thought to myself... What if? and BAM! The scene unfolded in my brain as the fog cleared and I went into a daze. An hour later it was like I woke up from a dream. Just a few more shots fired and Amarillo is complete... And it's not even Friday yet!

I just can't wait to see what the weekend brings!

Oh, and just as a reminder, that first deleted scene for Amarillo will be posted next Thursday! It's purely optional if you want to read it. The scene will be accurate to the story line, just in a different perspective than what will actually be published.

Have a wonderful, wonderful weekend!

Stuttering

Obligatory vacation picture.

So vacation was a much needed break from regular life. I was super happy to get home though. I think everyone knows that feeling. I jumped right back into the rewrites the night I got home. It felt like I was so far behind!

An interesting thing about being away from the actual writing for a while is I had time to think about the story; the character interaction, the scenes, the plot, the intricacies. It helps to let everything dance and mesh around in my head for awhile because I came back with a solid plan to fix some of the things I thought were wrong.

Like Chapter 1.

I realized this one vacation night while I was tossing and turning in my unfamiliar hotel bed. The story line of chapter 1 isn't wrong and I was VERY happy with everything I had written which is what made the decision to do a rewrite so hard. The idea had been gnawing on me for a while actually. I tried to avoid it but the eventuality of it finally settled in and I accepted it's fate.

The problem was simple. Chapter 1 was written from Ali's eyes when it needed to be from Joss's.

Since I've been back, I've been furiously correcting this and I'm almost caught back up just after a couple days. Rewriting a scene from a different POV wasn't actually that hard and I found it to be a good exercise. It's been fun drawing sharp lines between the different ways Ali and Joss see, feel and interact with the world around them. It's just another learning experience in my writing journey.

Now, the interesting news I promised. Hopefully everyone will find this exciting.

I can't bring myself to trash Ali's chapter. I know I can't put it in the book, it no longer has a place there, but I can't let it go. I will continue to edit it, and will post it on the website as a prelude to the release of After - Part Two. 

Perhaps that will smooth over those that weren't such a fan of the cliffhanger ending of Part One. My daughter falls in that group. She texted me as soon as she was done reading and was quite unhappy with me, to which I cackled with glee. My goal was to make the reader feel for the characters and leave them wanting more. Mission accomplished, at least where she was concerned.

However, if I didn't get this part quite correct, I apologize. I will make a solid attempt in the future to avoid leaving my precious characters in dire straights. Sometimes the story does what the story wills, though. I'm just the goofball with the pen in my hand.