Of Writing, Baking, and the Internet by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

I am going to make this post short and sweet because I haven’t got a lot of time to write it. For starters, my internet was down for several days, and I wasn’t about to get much writing done since I couldn’t access the cloud or anything.

Then of course there is the fact that today is the day before Thanksgiving, and I have some baking to do before tomorrow.

I admit that what baking I have to do is nothing compared to how busy Konnie is preparing for her Thanksgiving dinner. At Konnie’s house, everything is fixed from scratch, and I mean everything, including the bread for the stuffing.

At my place, I’m only providing a couple of desserts. Yes, from scratch, but well, there aren’t going to be a lot of people at my sister’s-in-law tomorrow. There just isn’t room over there for a lot of people, so I won’t need to make a bunch of pies, which Konnie is doing.

As far as Nano goes, I actually finished the challenge on the 12^th, much to Konnie’s surprise. I did post that fact on Facebook, and Konnie thought I was just posting that I was participating again this year.

No, I made my goal.

I have since added a few more words to my novel, just not a whole lot due mostly to my internet issues, but I can also blame the write-in I attended Saturday where the entire group got distracted when one of our members was having trouble finding the answer to a research question she had.

That took up a large chunk of the time we had for our write-in as everyone tried to find the answer for her.

One of the other members went so far as to call a friend and ask her if she knew the answer. She didn’t off the top of her head, but she managed to find the answer just as we were packing up to leave.

The problem was solved, but I went home to find my internet was down, so I wasn’t able to have what had become my usual weekend marathon of writing. And my internet was down until last night.

I guess I should be happy that I am already past the 50k mark, I was just hoping I could manage something along the lines of what I did when I wrote book one of this series. That was the year I got over 90k in November.  And I was doing so well! After all, I did make 50k well before the 15^th and when I wrote the first book, I was at like 30k on the 15^th. Yeah, I did a ton of writing in the last half of that month.

At least there is still time to get a bunch more words and I do have another weekend to do another marathon of writing.

On another note, a librarian friend of mine asked for a copy of the first book so she could read it. She was very excited to read it and even offered to get a copy for the library once I felt it was polished.

I had told her it was a rough draft.

I personally think she has too much faith in my writing as she made that offer before she read the manuscript.

Anyway, I need to get a bunch of stuff done before work today, so I’m going to say,
“Happy Thanksgiving! And happy writing everyone!”

 

NANO, Sci-Fi's and Editing by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 I have been working on my sci-fi like I said I would, just less than I had hoped. I did get to the point where I was ready to bridge the new scenes with the old stuff, whereupon I realized I didn’t “show” the correct stuff in some of the new scenes, and I even once showed them doing something that came later in the old stuff!

So now I have to do some major rewriting of a portion of the new scenes. Thankfully not all of them. But the most annoying part of all this is I didn’t show my hero’s emotions correctly in the new scenes. How could I have forgotten what was going on in the part of the story I did keep?

Then there is the issue that my office has been closed for the last two days. So today is my first day back at work this week. I’m having some financial issues, and yet another check is going to be short. I can barely make ends meet if I don’t miss any work.

On the bright side, I did go through my sci-fi manuscript, and I have removed the portion that is actually the second book of the series to a separate file. That does need some changes made, but I’ll work on it later. Right now, I want to finish book one!

And I am so close. I swear I am.

Once I fix the errors I made in the new scenes, it will mostly minor changes and simple editing. And believe me, major changes take way longer than minor changes and simple fixes. The major stuff is always a problem.

The worst part is I always seem to get to a point in the day when no words continue to come. It’s like my brain shuts down after a certain number of pages of writing. I’m lucky if I can manage ten pages a day, it's usually only five, which isn’t a thing to be happening right before NANO starts.

You see, to keep up with NANO I will have to write between six and seven pages a day. Shutting down around five pages isn’t going to cut it.

It sometimes amazes me that I manage to finish NANO most years. And it is even more amazing that in 2017 I managed to write over 90K words in November. That is the year I started this sci-fi.

Yeah, we’re talking over 90,000 words in just one month. Which is on par with the time I wrote an over 130K rough draft in just six weeks. (If you are curious, that one was my story everyone couldn’t decide if was a paranormal romance, or sci-fi, and it turns out it's speculative fiction, who knew?)

In other words, I write more and faster when I am not writing romance! I thought I was a romance writer. Go figure.

I swear, most of what I write is romance. Promise.

Just ask Konnie, she’ll tell you.

But I must say I am having fun with this sci-fi, and it isn’t like I have never liked sci-fi. I’m a Star Trek fan from way back.

Actually, that is something Konnie and I have in common – Star Trek.

She even used names associated with Star Trek in her opus sci-fi. And I mean a ton of names from the Star Trek universe, both character names and actor names. She’s even got Roddenberry in there, both Gene and Majel! She actually did a great job.

She’s got a Takai and a Sulu in there and every time I read at least Takai’s lines I hear George Takai saying the line in my head! I do not have any problems with most of the others. There is that issue with her character Crosby where I always envision Tasha Yar, but generally, I just have fun seeing all those familiar names on the page.

I haven’t done the same, but Konnie’s sci-fi is set way far in Earth’s future whereas mine is set in an alien universe, so there is a big difference there.

There is one major change I’ve made to my sci-fi this last month or so and that is moving the first scene with my hero to before the first scene with my heroine. This seems kind of strange because this whole story started from a writing prompt competition, I entered ages ago. Everybody loved the first few lines I wrote from the prompt in the heroine’s POV.

The problem was that the stuff I later wrote in the hero’s POV happened well before the first scene in the heroine’s POV, so I had to make the change. Linear wise it makes more sense, so it needed done.

Anyway, happy writing everyone!

On Writing, Reading, and Other Things by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

Here I sit in front of my computer, staring at a blank screen.

You can’t fix a blank screen, but what do I write?

If you are curious about how last week went for me, I was on antibiotics, again. The third time this year! At least this time it wasn’t sepsis. This time it was bronchitis, so not much better. My paycheck is suffering horribly because of all this sick time, and I was having trouble making ends meet without missing work!

I’d write about my writing, but all I’ve managed to do is reread one of my old unfinished stories. This isn’t helpful because it’s so old, most of the characters don’t have cell phones, and all have a landline. Yeah, updating that one isn’t going to be easy. There were other issues besides the phones that made it outdated. Ergo, it may never be finished.

And I had wanted to get to the end of the edits for book one of my sci-fi before the end of October, I’m running out of time here plus rereading the Harry Potter series isn’t helping, but when I was sick this last time, I couldn’t think very clearly, nor did I have the energy to do anything. I mostly stayed in bed and read or called my neighbors for help a couple of times.

I needed my humidifier but didn’t have the energy to fill that up.

And of course, I’m a slow reader, but I also skipped between HP and my own stuff, so right now I am just past the halfway point on Goblet of Fire. I have three and a half books to go, but they’re the biggest books of the series!

Of course, I have no trouble finding time to read, or write. After all my house is always quiet, for the most part. I do watch TV sometimes and Patches likes to meow occasionally, but on the whole, my place is quiet.

Which I have mentioned before. Most particularly, the time Konnie was visiting me, and she put in a video just for the noise. She couldn’t write without it! I, on the other hand, can’t write at her house, there is too much going on. And I can’t tell you how many times I woke in the middle of the night to the sound of paws tapping across the wood floors while visiting her.

But then at home these days, I occasionally get woken up by a cat landing on top of me. Dogs are noisy; cats are quiet, ergo, I get scared a couple of nights a week. Patches likes waking me in the middle of the night.

You would think Konnie and I would be more alike, but when it comes to noise or the lack thereof, it is what we are used to. I live with a cat; Konnie still has kids at home and a menagerie of animals, primarily dogs.

I hate being at Konnie’s place when those dogs start barking. Actually, I hate being on the phone with her when those dogs start barking. Cats do meow, but they are not that loud!

Though sometimes, it would be nice to have a distraction around here. Just as long as it’s not me being ill again. I swear, if I have to take antibiotics again this year, I’m going to scream! Come on, enough already, isn’t three times more than sufficient?

At any rate, I’m not getting much done around here, and I still don’t know how I’m going to make my bills this next month.

However, I can at least report my water heater and tub are now in working order again, thankfully. Now all I need is for my current landlord to actually sell this place, so I don’t have to deal with him anymore.

At any rate, I have a lot to do and not enough time to do it, so I’m going to cut this post short.

Happy writing everyone!

Of Headaches and Writing by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

I hate blank pages. It can be hard to think about what to write, and lately, thinking hasn’t been easy. You see, I have a headache. I’ve had this headache for just over a week.

Try to do any writing when you can’t even think.

Of course, you can't edit a blank page, so I have to find the words somewhere.

Regarding writing in general, I haven’t done much more than rereading some of my older stories. It isn’t like I don’t have ideas running through my head, it's just that when faced with this screen, the ideas run away leaving me with the pain in my head.

For instance, I opened one of my unfinished manuscripts and I knew I really needed to add one detail in, and in several places rework things. I reread the whole thing and didn’t make a single change! Even when I got to the place, I knew I needed to make the most significant change, I just read it and moved on.

And when it comes to my sci-fi, well, I’m still on the first book, but my brain, when it wants to work is stuck on the second book.

Do you remember when I lamented that the twin brother of the hero in my first book wasn’t talking to me? Well, he’s talking now! I’m not ready for his POV.

And with a headache, I can’t think straight enough to work on my sci-fi anyway.

So, anyway, I haven’t gotten much done at all the last couple of weeks other than trying to get rid of this headache. My doctor prescribed me pain meds and is working on getting me a sleep study done. Looks like I need a C-PAP machine.

Man, I didn’t want to go there.

Hopefully, once I can get a decent night’s sleep again, I will be able to concentrate enough to do more than just stare at the screen.

Even now I doubt I’ll be able to get a full post done. My head hurts too much and frankly, I didn’t get enough sleep last night fretting over this post.

Anyway, I tried.

I hope all of you are doing better than I am.

Happy writing everyone.

Backups and brainstorming by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

Okay, in my last post, I mentioned that I’d lost a scene I know I wrote. Well, I mentioned it to Konnie, and she asked if I’d checked our shared files. I said I had, but also mentioned that I know I wrote it and shared it with her because she had once commented on the bit about my main female character sitting on the shoulders of the main male character. 

Konnie asked me how long ago I shared it with her, but I couldn’t remember. I did however remember that I shared it via email because it was before we acquired the ability to share our changes automatically through a program she is paying for. 

So, Konnie searched through her old emails! And I have my scene restored! Not only that, but it has changes in it I’d forgotten about, so now I’m working to combine the best parts of the previous version and the current version. 

This isn’t as easy as it seems because the current version has several significant changes in it, including the names of half the men in the story which needs to be dealt with. 

And then when I am rereading the old version, I noticed I had a feature in there that I hadn’t carried over to the current version that was excellent, and I had to rework the feature of the hero’s ship into the current version and work in a short bit of scene into the current version, which required changes because it's happening at a different time than I originally had it.  

Of course, that different time is the big issue because between writing the previous version and the current version, I decided some of the things they do need to take days longer than what I had. Ergo, that excellent interaction between the hero and heroine takes place days after I originally had it happen. 

And that will continue to be an issue, as well as the fact that I added details that weren’t in the previous version. And all of that makes a difference. 

The best part is I was afraid to scan ahead in the current version to see if I lost another fantastic scene that happens later in the story. And frankly, I still haven’t checked, but in rereading the obsolete version, I found I still had that scene as well. 

This is such great news. I can’t tell you how glad I am that Konnie is my backup. But now we have to be sure we are always saving the newest version! Or we’ll lose our changes. 

Just remember when Word tells you, you already have a file by that name, please remember to save the current version, not the older one! Then you won’t have this issue. 

I might add, Konnie and I have used each other as backup before. Once I had to send Konnie all her stories that I had stored on my flash drive because her computer or her flash drive crashed. And this isn’t the first time she happened to have the version of a story that I managed to lose somehow.

Do any of you have a friend or family member you can share your work with, so you have it stored somewhere else? 

For that matter, do any of you have a family member with which you can brainstorm?

Not too long ago, Konnie called me because she was editing her sci-fi and she realized she needed one character to have a first name, not just a title and last name. And she’d already exhausted her list of alien names. 

Hence the reason she called me. 

Yeah, my strong suits are male POVs and alien names even though most of what I write is contemporary romance.  

The thing is Konnie’s strong suits are meek and timid female characters and making up titles. She’s even better at blurbs than I am. 

I do have a couple of female characters with phobias, and Konnie had to help me get those scenes right in the way I help her with male POVs. 

On the other hand, my best blurbs are in reality her work, and most of my titles are her work as well. I have one where the title for my story came from a friend, but the story idea was his too, he just insisted I was better suited to write it. And I have another one that the title came to me along with the main character. 

As much as we work together and complement each other, it's no wonder people have wondered why we don’t collaborate on a story.

All I can say is we work better alone, except when we need help. 

Anyway, happy writing everyone!

Of Sleep and Word Flows by Konnie Enos

Have you ever tried to go to sleep and found all you did was toss for a while?

 You realize the sun’s been down for hours and only the night owls are moving about. It’s bedtime and you should be sleeping, not reading, doing sudoku or puzzles, or maybe even watching something. None of them help you shut off your brain so you can sleep, but I think the worst offender is writing.

You’re not sleeping if you’re thinking about the next word, sentence, or scene. You’re brain is going a million miles a minute. It’s those times when attempting to sleep will just have you tossing for hours getting little to no actual rest.

I’m sure sleepless nights happen to everyone, but you can’t go forever without sleep.

What do you do when you’ve been up half the night, or longer, and now you need sleep?

When I was younger, I’d just hide in my bedroom and hope the household noises didn’t disturb me. It doesn’t work anymore, because all the ruckus of several animals and humans moving about their day is sure to disrupt any attempts to sleep. Either that or the sun is a deterrent.

Recently, I had places to go the next day but I could not get to sleep. I sat up all night, doing little of nothing, but otherwise occupying my time until morning. Just as the sun was coming up I forced myself to go to bed but sleep never really came.

Yes, I got comfortable and closed my eyes. And no, I never managed to sleep. My brain just never fully shut off. Between the bright light and others talking, I finally gave up after only a few hours. Needless to say, I went to bed much earlier that night.

Then there are other times when I think I’m simply not going to get tired enough to sleep and decide to write something, only to fall asleep in the middle of typing a word. And no matter how hard you try when you get back to it, it’s impossible to remember what you were trying to say.

I have one story that I got interrupted on in the middle of a word and I still have not been able to get my train of thought back since. It’s been years.

I can also remember times when getting some rest or stopping for any other activity didn’t stem the flow of words for days, even weeks. Days when you spend nearly every waking moment typing the words onto the page, and when you’re not typing you’re thinking about the next word, sentence, or scene, never losing your train of thought even when interrupted.

The last time that happened to me, my one story turned into five.

Sometimes the lack of adequate sleep conspires against you to stem the flow of words while others, you have to fight to stay awake long enough to keep up with the flow.

The only constant about sleepless nights is you end up dragging, your head aching and your body fighting to be in a more comfortable position, so rest can be obtained.

I don’t know about anybody else but those times when it happens too frequently are the worst. You barely recover from one sleepless night and find yourself stuck in another one before you fully recover, making the whole experience much worse. This happens enough and soon it’s obvious you’re not getting enough sleep to everyone around you.

What brought this train of thought on?

One, some of my recent sleepless nights. Two, I’m working on some scenes to show one side character’s extreme tiredness. So, yes, I’m thinking about all the reasons that might cause it but also what signs and symptoms your friends and family might see.

How long can you keep going without others noticing?

How soon do those close to you start to worry?

Though one thing I’ve realized is that in a story, you have to pinpoint what is causing it. In real life, sometimes it can be harder to define.

True. Most of the time you know.

That night when you are just too interested in reading that really good book or binge-watching that great show. Or maybe concern about a family, or all those things you need to do. Or it just might be the inability to get comfortable and all the reasons that might occur.

Or just a combination of several factors.

Last night started with attempting to write about that sleepless character. Then it segued onto fixing some errors in the story, which required backtracking. When I gave up, I tried to write this post. Tried being the operative word.

Oh well. Maybe I can sneak in a nap later.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

 

Of Weather and Writing by Bonnie Le Hamilton

Well, here it is the middle of July, and there are heat advisories out for my area. Yes, my area. I do not want to know how bad it is in Vegas. Though I get the feeling it’s cooler here than down south in Vegas. So, I’m not going to complain too much.

And if that wasn’t enough, I’ve got a much longer tale of woe. Starting with I am on IV antibiotics, again. Yip, I spent another three days in the hospital, for the same reason as last time. At least this time they didn’t need to cut open my ankle. I can count that as a blessing.

However, my poor cat is so stressed out about me being gone that long, he’s pulling his hair out again. And I haven’t even finished with all my problems.

I was still in the hospital when my landlord called me and because he hadn’t as yet received the one hundred dollars of my rent my local church leader promised to pay for me. I had already paid five hundred dollars, and he threatened me with eviction over one hundred dollars!

Let alone it turned out that my landlord is stubbornly refusing to present my local church leader with an invoice for the amount I need help with before he gets the money, yet our rules say we need the invoice before a check can be sent, and my landlord has been told this.

And now I’m going to need church help with rent next month, as in for all of it, just like last time I ended up in the hospital, I’m not going to have enough money to meet all my bills. Just great.

And then, two days after I got home, my landlord up and surprises everyone in the building by putting up a for sale sign! Wonderful. This is the cheapest place in town that isn’t subsidized housing. It is also a dump with an access road badly in need of repaving. My hope is it doesn’t sell anytime soon, especially since every place in town has long waiting lists, and one-bedrooms around here are going for more than my two-bedroom. I have no savings for things like the deposit and the first month’s rent.

Anyway, between more doctor’s visits (I am now seeing my podiatrist regularly as well as my primary) and trying to bury myself in reading to take my mind off my worries (starting before the issues with the landlord) I haven’t done any writing or editing in a week or more. I have been rereading the few Linda Goodnight books I have on my reader.

At least when I asked my friend to take me to the ER this last time, I decided to be prepared for an overnight stay. I packed my laptop, my reader, and my phone along with all their chargers into my backpack. I also packed my eyeglass case and a few other things. And I’m glad I did.

The problem is I never once took my laptop out of the bag! I just read my books. I really need to finish editing my sci-fi manuscript. Then again, right before my foot got so bad again, I discovered that I’d somehow lost a scene I know I wrote. I don’t have it anywhere, and it was so good! Now I have to rewrite it from memory.

I hate having to do that.

And I have no idea how I lost it unless I just failed to save those changes. I have had issues lately about having several versions of the manuscript, and I honestly think I either didn’t save that scene or when I was confronted with two files of the same name, I mistakenly saved the older file, not the newer one. I’m sure it’s something like that because I’ve had that issue a few times before, I finally renamed the file I was working on by adding the word “current” to the file to save it when that happened the last time, but that version clearly didn’t have this really good scene in it.

Between wishing I didn’t have to start from scratch on that scene and trying to stay cool in this heat wave (Konnie, I don’t want to hear how bad you have it. This is hot here and I no longer have trees shading my apartment!) I hate triple-digit temps. They are awful.

Plus, I’ve been thinking more about a couple of my romance manuscripts than I have my sci-fi. Maybe I should stop reading romances and dig out my sci-fi novels instead. Maybe that will get me back into my sci-fi, even though I read more mysteries than anything, and I can’t write those!

Anyway, happy writing everyone!

Writing About Birthdays by Bonnie Le Hamilton

Today I am remembering my birthday. And there are so many birthdays to remember.

Way back in 1976, I was in the summer band. My band class always met on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. That year the 5^th fell on Monday. Everyone in the clarinet section knew this.

I can still picture the look of utter confusion on our band leader’s face at the end of the parade right after he announced there would be no band classes on Monday. And it must have been really confusing because every other section cheered except the clarinet section. All but one of the girls snapped their fingers and stomped their feet in the classic, “uh shoot!” expression while one girl dang near collapsed to the ground in utter relief, and the lone boy in the section just stood there unfazed.

I was the one sighing with relief. And believe me, until he announced no classes on Monday, I was seriously considering skipping class that Monday, because all those girls were planning to ambush me so all of them, could spank me fourteen times and each give me a pinch to grow an inch. I even know why they were planning to do it.

I had done the very unwise thing of mentioning I hadn’t received any birthday spankings in years, let alone a pinch to grow an inch.

Considering how short I am, that was very stupid of me to mention. I was the oldest, and shortest, kid in our band. All the kids in the clarinet section knew this, and they were prepared to make sure I got all those pinches in order for me to grow at least an inch.

I tried to tell them I didn’t think that old myth would work, but they wouldn’t listen, and I wasn’t about to endure their attack just to prove it didn’t work.

Thankfully I didn’t have to.

Though I think Konnie will agree with me when I say our worst birthday is still our 6th birthday, and that’s surpassing last year when I had COVID or the year before when she had COVID, or back in ’88 because I was stuck at home waiting for my husband to get off watch to come home and give my present which was in the trunk of our car, when our dad called, and, without preamble, announced, “He’s taller than you.”

Not fun, but still not as horrible as opening two of everything on our 6^th birthday.

How do you feel about birthdays? Do you have a worst one?

For that matter, how do your characters feel about their birthdays?

Some families have traditions that only make a fuss over the birthdays of the children, never the adults, who are lucky to get a card, and simple well wishes. While others don’t celebrate birthdays at all.

What sort of birthday traditions do you have? What sort of birthday traditions do your characters have?

I honestly don’t know for most of my characters, though for most of them, their birthdays don’t occur during the story, so that isn’t too bad that I don’t know. I do know for one character that her father (who raised her) didn’t pay attention to birthdays at all, but I know that because the story starts on her birthday, and she doesn’t realize it until she sees a calendar noting the date.

I have another character who probably didn’t have birthday celebrations at all, just not sure about her. I know they didn’t celebrate Christmas in her family. And no, they were not Jewish or any known religion that doesn’t celebrate Christmas. Her stepfather was more like a cult leader, but it was a very small cult.

I do have one story where the birthdays of several characters are mentioned and celebrated, but I really don’t have the main characters feeling about their birthdays except for the one depicted in the story in which her father ruined everything. Can’t help but know her feelings when she’s bawling her eyes out.

And one (in an unfinished story) who hates her birthday because for all the ones she could remember, something tragic happened to her on her birthday. I have a scene where she doesn’t want to live through another birthday.

The thing is everyone views their birthday differently, depending on their family traditions and or traumatic past.

Konnie and I could hate our birthdays because of the events on our 6^th birthday, but well, bad things did happen, but they could have happened on any other day, it was just made worse, and notable because it was our birthday.

Some people avoid even mentioning their birthday because of their traumatic past, while others look forward to theirs and make sure everyone knows when it is.

Anyway, happy writing everyone!  

Of Editing and Re-writing by Konnie Enos

Last week Bonnie wrote about her editing woes. Specifically about all the backtracking she’s had to do to fix the timeline, and plot holes. She also mentioned discovering that my copy of book 4 in my sci-fi series started with well over a hundred pages of scenes that were now in book 3.

What she failed to notice is that I had decided to end book three at a much later point than it had originally ended. Meaning, I’d copied those pages and pasted them into book 3, where I intended to keep them. The issue was, I hadn’t removed them from book 4 yet. Mostly because I was still working on edits to book 1.

However, when she mentioned the issue it’d been long enough since I’d done that for me to forget I had. Though I did remember while I was checking those files for myself. And doing that got me back into working on the edits to my books.

I quickly breezed through book 1, which I had mostly edited already anyway. Then I worked on book 2. It took a bit longer because I hadn’t done as much editing on it previously. Then I started book 3. It needed a bit more work. But with some effort, I finally got through it.

Now at this point, what I have for books 4 and 5 isn’t enough to cover two books, but more than I need for one. Also, what I have for book 5 (both title and content) is not in keeping with the theme/pattern of the previous ones.

Though the biggest issue is the reason I ended book 3 at a different spot. I wanted the story to be a better match for the title, therefore ending in a different spot was needed. This also means that book 4 must end at a different spot.

The other issue I have with both books 4 and 5 is that since I last worked on them, I’ve added aliens and languages, not to mention other details. I’ve even changed some scenes. So both books are going to be more work.

Book five is going to be the most work because of the changes in content, plus needing more material to fill the novel. Different beginning and slightly different ending.

Now, however, I have an issue. I have seven POV characters in my sci-fi but each book has a main focus on one or two of them. (Book 1 is Hero and Heroine 1, book 2 is Hero and Heroine 2, and books three, four, and five are Hero 3, 4, and 5 respectively.)

I’ve also written prologues for books 1 through 4 but I still need one for book 5. However, I’m unsure how to go about it. Each of the four prologues is in the POV of one of the heroes. Book 1 is about Hero and Heroine 1 and the prologue is in the POV of Hero 2. Book 2 is the same, just switched the POVs. Book three is about Hero 3 with a prologue in Hero 4’s POV. Again, Book 4 is switched POVs. All of these prologues are set several years in the past. I don’t have a counterpoint POV character to provide that glimpse of the past for Hero 5. It should be interesting to come up with his prologue.

The other issue she pointed out in her blog was all the backtracking she had to do to fix plot holes and other discrepancies.

Yes, I’ve been doing a lot of that.

Either that or I’ll have to backtrack to check what I have written previously. So I don’t contradict myself. Like saying where an office is in book one, then putting it in a completely different place in book three. I changed book one only to later realize I needed that office where book 1 originally said. So backtrack again and change both book 1 and book 3 so they will match book 4. Yes, that was a bit complicated.

But I think the really fun part is when I realized I’d changed at least one scene in book 3 to take out Hero 5. However, I need the deleted content for scenes I need to add later in the story (book 4 or 5). I went looking for the previous version with Hero 5 still in it. I could not find it.

It wasn’t in previous versions of book 3. I panicked, looking everywhere I could think of for the old files of book 3. It took searching through several more files before it sank into my panicked brain as to why I couldn’t find it.

I’d moved several scenes from book 4 to book 3!

I found it.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day. 

Lack of Focus And Pets

 

Sometimes getting my mind to focus on what I need to be doing, instead of what I want to be doing is dang hard.

Like last night, I needed to fix my lunch for today and work on this post, what I did do is continue rereading an older version of one of my manuscripts. I really want to get that one in working order.

Then again, I have several I want to get in working order and finish! Just not getting far. Maybe I could use some brainstorming, but the thing is, Konnie has been trying to finish one of her manuscripts and has been asking me for brainstorming time. She contacted me when I was at work yesterday asking for just that and I told her, “Not today, I get off at 5 and I still need to write my post.”

I really wanted to get to bed on time, but when I opened my computer, I still had my manuscript open which I read until bedtime Monday night, and I started reading again. For some reason, I thought I was near the end of what I’d written, without checking how many pages I have left to read.

Big mistake. I am a slow reader.

So, it was past bedtime when I closed all that out and started trying to write my post.

And that’s starting to sound a lot like Konnie, who often stays up to the wee hours of the morning writing, but Konnie has to write at night! There are far too many people and pets to interrupt her if she tried writing during the day.

I have visited her place, and I can not write while I’m there. There’s too much going on, too many people, and too many dogs. The dogs bark a lot, and they are loud.

The thing is Konnie has visited my place, and she had trouble writing at my home. Why?

Because it was too quiet!

The person who hardly ever watches TV put a video in, just for the noise, so she could write.

Okay, yeah, sometimes I turn on the TV just for the noise, but never when I’m writing!

I should also point out that when Konnie visited me, her phone was going off rather regularly, as in several times a day, and at least once, several times in a matter of minutes. When I visited her, she was interrupted way more often than that by her family, so they were clearly holding back.

I obviously, don’t have that issue.

I rarely get calls and it's even rarer when I’m with Konnie since some of the calls I do get come from her. And when I’m visiting Konnie, my sister-in-law isn’t calling me for rides or to come to dinner, because I’m too far away for that. And it’s not like she calls me that much anyhow. Two or three times a week at most, just not when I’m in Vegas.

I can go whole days without my phone ringing and when I’m visiting Konnie, I generally don’t get any calls. Konnie’s phone doesn’t ring almost non-stop when she’s home, but it certainly rings a few times a day.

Then again, Konnie is the mother of five and her husband is still alive add in all those pets, and she’s way busier than I am.

I live with Patches and only Patches. And he can’t call me at work or ever. Plus, my sister-in-law tries very hard not to call me at work.

Konnie works at home.

Then again, if I worked at home, I’d still not be getting interrupted too much. Though sometimes Patches does try to walk on my keyboard. At least it's not every time I’m on my computer, just when he wants attention from me. He is a cat after all.

Konnie has more than one dog near her most of the time she’s trying to write. And by near, I mean on the bed up against her, near her.

Patches is on my bed right now, at the moment, but he isn’t sleeping, so who knows how long that will last, and he isn’t cuddled against me. He is in fact at the foot of the bed, right where I can barely reach him if I was laying down, which I clearly am not.

And speaking of pets, I want to express my condolences to Konnie and her family, this last week they lost two of their fur babies. Tiger and Reeses will be sorely missed. Though I’m not going to miss one less dog barking when I call. I am going to miss Konnie’s consternation when Tiger will go to me but not her.

Cats are funny that way sometimes. 😊

Anyway, happy writing everyone.

My Scattered Brain by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

I was getting ready for bed last night when I remembered that today is Wednesday and it’s my turn to write a post. I don’t usually remember this late at night, and I really have no excuse because after work yesterday I took my sister-in-law shopping, and at the end of the evening, she asked me, “Tomorrow is Wednesday, isn’t it? Are we going to our knitting group tomorrow?”

“Yeah, it's Wednesday, and yes I’m planning on it,” I said, and yet it didn’t sink in that I also had to write my post until hours later when I was getting ready for bed.

Had I remembered I needed to write a post earlier this wouldn’t be an issue. And here I wanted to try and be more organized this year.

So much for that.

And what makes it worse, last week, on Tuesday evening as I was getting ready for bed, I messaged Konnie and said, “Please tell me it’s your turn to post.”

Too bad, that wouldn’t get the same results this week.

Actually, I’m surprised I haven’t received a message from Konnie reminding me, she usually does. Though of course, she isn’t feeling well right now.

Something I wouldn’t know except the other night I couldn’t sleep, so I started reading one of her manuscripts on our shared drive. It is an unfinished manuscript and I wanted to be assured that the two main characters did not end up being biologically related, from the clues given there was a possibility there, since the heroine's mother had no memory of her life before meeting the heroine’s father and uncle, and she shared some features with his cousin.

So, Monday I called Konnie to ask her about it. She couldn’t talk right then because she was in the ER. She called me when they were on the way home. I did beg her to tell me they were not biologically related. She assured me they weren’t, though they share some relations, they are related on different sides of the family tree. Good news there.

Bad news, she’s sick so she hasn’t noticed I haven’t posted yet. She usually does. I promise. She usually reminds me like on Tuesday morning, or at least well before my usual bedtime that it's my turn. She knows I can be scatterbrained. After all, she’s lived with me for a couple of decades.

As hard as I try to stay organized, what my house looks more like is orderly chaos. I can generally find what I’m looking for unless Patches managed to move it to someplace else.

I have little nests here and there piled with things, and I know what things are in what nests. I know where they are, but it's still a mess. I’m working on it.

But again, I’ve always been like this. I try to be neat and orderly, but I have piles of papers and notebooks, and sometimes books all over the place. Some of the mess is also mail I really should be dealing with.

Once, many years ago, my husband asked where a certain paper was. My answer was something like this, “Oh, in that pile on my desk. It should be somewhere between the yellow paper and the pink paper.”

He just stared at me in shock. There was a rainbow of color in that pile, and it was pretty tall for a pile of papers. I walked over and pulled what he needed out of the middle of that mess, somewhere between the two colors I had mentioned. He was still in shock when I handed it to him.

Give me a break. I try to be organized, but at least I can remember where I put things.

In contrast, my husband was always misplacing things.

Once when we returned home, he unlocked and entered the house ahead of me, as I entered, I heard metal hitting wood, which had to be his keys landing somewhere, only logical.

A few hours later, he had to go somewhere, and couldn’t find his keys. He panicked. I considered how far ahead of me he was when I heard the keys land on wood and looked toward the nearest piece of wooden furniture to that location. And there they were, right on top in plain sight. I could see them from across the room.

He could never figure out how I could stay so calm when he was panicking. I used my head instead of zigzagging around the house searching every hiding place he could think of. The man was literally looking under and between the couch cushions!

Let’s see, it hit wood. Oh! There it is!

So, I guess I’m a "logical scatterbrain." How about you?

Happy writing everyone!

Distracting Research by Bonnie Le Hamilton

Time is running out, and I am way behind in my writing this month. I’d like to say my transportation issues are what is causing me to be so far behind on Nano but the truth is it's still social media. Really need to stop scrolling through the stories on Facebook.

I’ve read so much about rude people, entitled people, and dumb people and it totally surprises there are so many stories like this.

I was just reading a story about a guy who helpfully raised his hand so the witness could identify him! And that wasn’t even the dumbest story in the post. And some of the "rude people" stories were so outrageous I wondered how they could keep their jobs, but then in some of those the employees did lose their jobs, just not all, in most of them, they only lost a customer.

And that doesn’t even come to the entitled people.

I mean I’ve read stories where these insane people think they can claim to know the owner of some business to get away with all sorts of shenanigans, but the funniest ones are when they claim to know the owner and they are speaking to the owner! Though I read one where the business was owned by three siblings, and one customer claimed to know the oldest of the three and even used his first name in the claim, but the next second one of the sibling owners walk past and the customer says hi to him calling him by the younger brother’s name – it was the elder brother.

I read some were about the customers claiming to be a wife, or some other family of the owner while talking to an actual relative to the owner, but the best one was when a guy tried to claim to be the owner’s favorite grandnephew, he knew the name and everything.

Only two problems. The owner’s oldest (and favorite) grandnephew was in his late teens but the guy making the claim was clearly closer to thirty. And the second problem? That idiot was talking to the owner of the identity he'd claimed as his. The kid had a name tag on and everything.

One story had a woman claiming to be the wife of the owner. The so-called “mere” employee she claimed she was going to get fired stared at her and said, “That’s funny; you don’t look like Mom.”

I mean really, how can dumb can you get? Claiming to know people you don’t know! Things like that can be proven.

I read one where the customer wreaked some havoc and then claimed the owner would believe him, a supposed best bud, over some mere employee and the employee was going get fired. The so-called employee turned and called into the next room and said, “Hey, Dad, you want to come out here and hear this customer’s complaint?”

That’s even better than all the various stories I’ve read where disgruntled customers go into a tirade demanding to speak to the manager, only to have the person they are ranting at, give the fool some version of, “You’re speaking to him.”

But the one I really liked was the kid who, in response to a request for the manager, said, “Sure, I’ll go get the manager on duty,” then walked into the other room, turned around, and came back out and asked the ranting customer, “How can I help you?”

Cute.

The best part was the customer had been calling the kid all sorts of names, mostly deriding her about being female, and that manager would put her in her place. Yeah, right.

Like the grandmother arguing with the manager (name tag indicating that and all) and asking a nearby employee to please go get her boss. The said employee pointed to the person she was railing at. The grandmother refused to believe a person of color could be the manager and demanded to speak to another manager in the place.

The only other manager on duty that day was also a person of color.

I admit I got hooked on these stories a few months ago when I was doing some research to be sure the antics of the “Karyn” in one of my stories weren’t unbelievably over the top. Folks, I had to amp it up, because I wasn’t even close! Not by a long shot!

But I keep reading to find more fodder for my story. Except it's not the one I’m working on!

I really need to work on this new one. And I hate the idea of not finishing but it looks like I may not finish this year. I’ll keep plugging away, though I clearly will not be done by Thanksgiving, not a prayer.

Happy writing everyone!

Nano and Me by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

Here it is October 26 and Nano is less than a week away, and I have no idea what I’m going write this year.

Oh, I have a character, but that’s about all. I have no idea what sort of story this will be, and I don’t have an outline. Okay, I usually don’t have an outline, but I also usually have more than just a character in my head by this time too.

Actually, I usually have a bit of an outline in my head but not written down before I start any project. I mean I do know things likes and dislikes of the characters, what in general is going to happen. I can think of lots of times I’ve asked for help brainstorming and told the person helping me their ideas won’t work because of some reason I already had in the story that I hadn’t written down yet. So, in essence, I outline in my mind and rarely write it down.

But this year, I think I’ve spent far too much time editing my epic sci-fi to be thinking about something new. And then there is the issue of how many novels I’ve started and never finished. Some I just can’t seem to think of something more to add, others I have ideas right up until I open the manuscript to start writing then my mind goes blank.

I’m thinking that the ones I can’t think of more to add to I need to scrap. Though I am not sure about even that. A few might even count as novellas if I just had a satisfying ending. Some others have clear skips in the storyline that need filling in, and I keep drawing a blank on just how to write those scenes.

Actually, I have trouble with any story where I skipped around. If I manage to write sequentially, I am more likely to finish it. This really bothers me because I know of writers who do skip around during the rough draft. They write what scene comes to mind at the moment then when they edit, they move the scenes around.

I can’t seem to master that. I am trying. I actually have two stories that I can think of where I have been adding scenes into the middle of them during edits.

Actually, on both of them my rough draft was more like an exceptionally long synopsis: boring and telling. I have been going back and not just adding detail but showing the story.

If I think about it, all my rough drafts fall into that category. I have to work pretty hard to show the story. Show don’t Tell is something I have always had issues with, so maybe I need more practice on that.

On another note, this will be my 21^st Nano. I can hardly believe it’s been that long, but my first Nano was in 2001 and here it is 2022. I am officially the old pro in my group.

In fact, back on the 15^th, my group had their Preptober meeting, and one of the ladies who attended mentioned this was her first official Nano, and that she wasn’t sure if she could manage it, which prompted a brief discussion on who had done it the longest, which ended up being me. Everyone else, including our two leaders, started participating after me.

There wasn’t even a local group when I first started. I did the first couple of Nanos without a single write-in or group get-together. And even then, the lady who organized our first write-ins has since dropped out because she was too busy.

And I know one writer who only participated a few times, even though she still writes, during the winter, when there isn’t a whole lot to do around her farm. She’s one busy lady.

Actually, not too long ago, I was talking to a friend and happened to mention I know a local published author, and even mentioned that her first book was “A Monster Like Me” and the person I was talking to freaked at the idea I knew the author. She loves the book, and she asked me if I could manage to get her copy autographed. I mentioned the author’s connection to a locally well-known farm.

The person I was talking to hadn’t realized she’d met the author at the farmer’s market! It had never dawned on her that the author was even local let alone that I might know the woman.

And for those of you who don’t know, the author is Wendy Swore.

Anyway, are any of you doing Nano this year? If so let me know. I’d like to know what you are writing and how you are doing on it.

Happy writing everyone, and good luck on Nano!