I’m happy I’m writing for three different publishers. I really am. I promise.

But damn, it hard. Especially when two sets of edits land on my desk at the same time.

It’s then that all of the little differences, the house styles, come into play. With one of my books, I have to change all of the chapter headings to words (3 to three). With the other, they were changed the other way. LOL.

One publisher softens the language, the other harshes it up.

And of course it’s not helping that the two books I’m editing are probably the two most opposite in both tone and content that I’ve ever written!!

Loving Fate is VERY emotional story taking place on Mount Olympus, complete with faeries, dragons and unicorns.

Double Jeopardy is a hard core futuristic complete with an ass-kicking heroine and twin brothers trying to escape from the island where they’re being held prisoner.

Confuse much?

Unfortunately, I’m starting to think that maybe I didn’t approach the edits the right way. I did all the easy stuff, changing words, reworking sentences, but now I have to do the hard stuff, the adding of whole scenes, long paragraphs of text.

But to do that I have to get myself in two very different moods!

Hey, totally off topic, but guess what I’m doing on Friday night? Yeah, I’m going to dinner with Jenny Crusie and Bob Meyer (this is when I wish I’d get aroundd to installing smiles)! They’re doing a workshop here in Maryland on Saturday and we’re (the MRW board) taking them out to dinner beforehand. Then Saturday evening I’ll get my hot little hands on a signed copy of Don’t Look Down. (Yes, I know it’s hardback and I’ve been ranting about expensive books, but if there’s every a reason to spend lots of $$ on a book, this has got to be it!)

Anyway, does anyone have any good plans for the weekend?

After a not so great writing day where I slogged through a love scene (can someone say heavy editing coming up) I’m off to take the Hubster to a meeting and then 3 uninturrputed hours of writing at Starbucks.

Ah, bliss.

Just a reminder, if you’d like a promo pack from me (including pens!) you can go answer questions here. And one lucky question answerer will win a grand prize (I just don’t know what yet).

If you don’t want to answer all the questions, that’s cool, too, just one or two is fine. Oh, and if you’ve already answered the questions (April, Kaitlin, Robin, Cole, Cece, Michelle and Kris) send me your snail mail address and I’ll send you some goodies.

But I’m not going to post my email here (it’s on the contact page if you don’t know it - or it’s emma at first name plus last name dot come) cause the damn spammers are giving me fits lately!

Happy Writing Vibes to one and all today!!

So, I’ve been working on my edits for Tempting Fate, for LSB.

First, I have to say that I thought this story was pretty darn good or I wouldn’t have submitted it in the first place.

But…

Then I got the edits.

And that’s when I learned I’m a barely literate fool only pretending to write.

OK, that’s not true, if it were they wouldn’t have bought the book in the first place, but damn, when I open that document and see all of the suggestions/changes, that’s what it feels like. Every time.

And then, I start reading through the changes. They’re absolutly brilliant, they make the story so much better - they change words to be spelled right (d’oh) and I’m back to the - I can’t beleive I thought this was good the first time!

Throughout the ms, my editor has LOTS of changes, some notes to herself, and then occasionally they’re a little “hee” when she finds something funny or a compliment about phrasing or something.

Let me tell you, the high that I get from those little comments - you’d think I just was selling the book again (and yes, perhaps there’s some happy dancing invovled).

So editing for me is like a roller coaster of emotions. One second I can barely string a sentence together, the next I’m on top of the world.

Maybe it’d be better if we writers weren’t such an emotional lot.

So now that the damn book is finished, it’s time to work on edits (or someone could just kill me now and I’d be okay with that).

So, I’m reading through.

The writing is pretty good - Thank God!! - it’s just in need of some minor line edits (deleting the 5000 that’s). But there’s still that whole problem of the book not actually having a plot.

In other words, I managed to write an entire book - the HOW of everything, without ever knowing WHY anyone was doing what they were doing.

Missing motivation much?

Now, actually (will wonders never cease - usually he won’t talk writing with me) The Hubster actually came up with a great WHY last night.

And he made it incredibly easier than I was trying to (I was trying to involve the government and make it all 1984ish - he said why not just a straight forward ‘bad guy’ - then I said ‘duh’ while smacking myself on the head).

So, to make things easier on myself (ie, doing work without having to think too hard) I’ve been going through, mostly doing line edits, and highlighting the things that are going to need to change. Luckily it seems to be mostly at the beginning and the end, but there will need to be some minor changes in the middle, too. Just a line here and there though.

And my heroine’s backstory has to change, but it makes her motivation a little more clear, I think.

So, all in all, I’m pretty happy and hope I can have this sucker finished and ready to be sent off by this time next week!

How’s your writing going?

I haven’t been around much because beleive it or not, I’ve been writing.

I have no idea how much as it’s been all by hand and honestly, I’m afraid to count. I don’t want anything to get in the way of my flow.

So, I haven’t necessarily been posting on blogs or commenting where I should.

But interestingly, when the writing is going well I fell like the posts I do post elsewhere (on message boards or yahoo or wherever) are more intelligent.

There may be less of me, but I look smarter. And I always like looking smarter.

Here, check out this link. It’s a Valentine’s Day article that several people in my chapter participated in. The title is a bit on the unfortunate side but I think it’s a good article, actually, I think it’s hilarious.

So, what are your plans for the weekend?

I’ve been struggling a lot lately with the writing. The WIP that I wanted to have finished at the end of January is still not finished, is about half way finished. I’ve been lucky if I’ve been getting a couple of paragraphs per day.

What have I been doing? Blog hopping, web shopping, procrastinating.

I’ve tried turning off the email and actually closing my web browser, but it’s just too easy to turn it back on. And I do it without even thinking.

So today I picked up a notebook, plopped on the couch and wrote A TON!!

Isn’t it strange how a simple change of medium can make me so much more productive. Hopefully this will be much more final once I type it in, too, because I can edit as I go.

I’m pretty sure this is how Gena Showalter works. And she’s obviously brilliant so I figure I can’t go wrong with her system.

What things have you tried that you’ve found boosts your productivity?

Any idea how?

My original goal was to finish this WIP by January 31. Yeah, considering that’s tomorrow, it ain’t gonna happen. My guess is I’ve got another 100 pages to go. It’s going much slower than I’d anticipated.

That, coupled with my extreme procrastination and I’m in serious trouble.

So, I’ve finally gotten in the right headspace, am ready to write my tushie off today, but then there’s all that other stuff that I have to do…

Since I’m already not writing, well, I might as well procrastinate, right?

So, here’s my question for the day, something I need EXTREME help with - How do I stop procrastinating?

Oh, and have you heard of this myspace thing? How much time will that cost me in terms of procrastinating?

My write all week wiht nothing else to do got inturrupted this morning when I got edits for my Spring Fling Story.

I haven’t looked at them yet, but it’s a short story so they can’t be too bad, right? Right?

I think the most time intensive thing is going to be coming up with a new name. It seems as if they only want one story per book with Spring in the title (makes sense, otherwise it gets confusing). So can anyone think of a story title about Spring Break that doesn’t have the words Spring in it?

Yeah, I can’t yet.

If you’re around this evening looking for something to do, there’s a Whiskey Creek Torrid Chat at the FAR Chatroom this evening at 9:00pmEST. I’ll be there (assuming I remember) so hope to see you there, too.

Yes, I actually somehow managed to hurt my leg in my sleep. It takes some extra talent to do that.

I got this new Salsa workout video but I couldn’t make it though the warm-up this morning because my leg hurt. Talk about pathetic.

Anyway I guess it’ll give me more time to write today. Yay! I’m pretty sure I managed to get all (or most of) the crappy life stuff out of the way yesterday, leaving me free to write for the rest of the week, too.

Good thing since my self imposed deadline is rapidly approaching and I’m not close to being finished!

But I hit an exciting part yesterday so hopefully that will carry me on for awhile. Yay!

Oh, and if I owe you a prize for something it’s finally going to go in the mail this afternoong. Sorry, the hubster has been using my car for the past few weeks leaving me stranded at home (not that I mind, but I haven’t been able to go to the post office).

So, how’s your work going so far this week

Why is writing so hard sometimes?

In the past week I’ve been staring at my computer pretty much all day and what do I have to show for it?

10 measly pages!?!?!

I guess to some that’s considered a lot but why can I sometimes sit down and do those same ten pages in a matter of hours and sometimes it takes me three days? Andn I don’t even think they’re 10 good pages!

I don’t know what the problem is.

I’m excited about this story. Really excited. I don’t know which direction I want it to go in, but I never do so that shouldn’t be slowing me down.

I hate this. I hate the teeth pulling, what feels like the opening of a vein to get things down on paper…

Hell, I can’t even manage to get the words to come out in a blog post.

So, somebody tell me, how do I make this go away. I’ve already given myself permission to write crap (and oh boy, am I). I want to get back with the flow. Won’t someone out there wave their magic wand and make it so?