Committing Murder: One Verb At A Time

First I want to give a big thanks to those of you who volunteered last week to read my first fifty pages. The feedback I've gotten back so far has be uber helpful. Which means I haven't spent any time on my new WIP, I've thrown myself back into fine tuning Wanderlust.

In addition to tweaking those first fifty pages, I've been going line by line murdering weak verbs and practicing step 11 of the layering I talked about yesterday, trying to find the exact right way to say what I'm trying to say. It's a tedious process, but I've almost made it halfway through the manuscript and I am feeling good about the changes. It's amazing to me how one word change can make a sentence sound so much better. Examples from yesterday's revisions:

 

Before: Sweat, cold and clammy, covered her back.

After: Sweat, cold and clammy, glazed her back.

Before: He pinned her with his gaze.

After: He speared her with his gaze.

 

Simple changes to a simple sentences, but there is something about finding that exact word I was looking for that gives me a little thrill. I just have to be careful that I'm finding a better word, not just a different word. I don't want the thing to read like a thesaurus.

Also, instead of using a thesaurus all the time, btw, I've started writing down verbs or turns of phrase that strike me as I come across them in my pleasure reading. Then after I'm done with writing a rough draft, I can Find/Search words I know I overuse like looked and walked and go to my list I've created to stimulate some ideas.

How is it that we writers have this ginormous vocabulary, but when writing the rough draft, all the damn words disappear and we suddenly have the word bank of a second grader?

Progress this week: Even though I didn't add word count to the new WIP. I did add 500 to the old one and have gone through almost a hundred pages of editing.

Plan for the coming week: Get through the whole manuscript and possibly plump up my ending. I had a few betas tell me that the story wrapped up a little quickly and they wanted to see more (at least that means they weren't like--*groan* thank God this is over.) I have room in my word count to do that, so I'm going to play around with it a bit.

Okay, and finally, a few AWARDS...

Natalie over at The Sound of Rain gifted me with the Heartfelt Award. Thanks so much!

Julie Dao over at Silver Lining passed along the Lovely Blog Award, which was, well, lovely of her. :)

And Gavin over at Insanity's Musings, sent the From Me To You award over. Thanks, you're too kind!

If you're not following these three people, you are so not hanging with the cool kids--go follow!

I am not energetic enough today to come up with specific blogs I'd like to pass these along to. My son climbed/fell out of his crib last week, so we've moved him to a toddler bed, which he thinks gives him free reign to wake up every hour crying and running around his room like a headless chicken in footie pajamas. So I'm existing on fumes today. Here he is on Halloween (as a rockstar). This is the "who me?" look he gives me when I go in his room and fuss him for getting up yet again.

*Pic removed

 

So for these awards, my favorite bloggers are those of you who take the time to comment on my posts and brighten my day. Therefore, if you comment today, feel free to select one of these awards for your own blog. I ♥ you all!

So what do you find yourself slaughtering when revising? Am I the only one whose vocabulary regresses to kindergarten quality while writing a rough draft?

**Today's Theme Song**

"Getting Away With Murder"-- Papa Roach

(player in sidebar, take a listen)

WIP Wednesday & Choosing a New Baby

First off, I want to say thank you to all you guys and gals that follow my blog and regularly comment. I've passed the 75 followers mark and am so grateful to all of you. Your comments and your blogs are such a wealth of information and insight, I can't believe I waited so long to join the blogging world. You guys rock!

Now for WIP Wednesday. I can't say that I have too much to report. Since I was on vacation much of last week, I only managed to revise two chapters in my WIP. The good news is I'm almost through the first round of edits. It's gone way quicker than I expected, so I'm happy about that. It helps that the book is category length, so it's 30k less words to slog through than my first manuscript.

So now that I'm getting close to round one edits being over, I'm itching to start another project. I feel restless when I'm not writing. I have a few ideas knocking around in the bat cave, but I haven't decided which baby to choose yet. 

The most developed idea is for a YA (non-supernatural) romance. I also wrote Shadow Falls with intent for a sequel, so I could start that. Although, I have this superstitious thing about starting a sequel to a book that isn't agented yet.

Also, I had so much fun writing the adult romance I just finished, that I'm wondering if I should do another one of those. I have a suspense storyline in my idea notebook that I could turn into an adult romantic suspense. Hmm. Decisions. Decisions.

How do you decide which project is the perfect one to start next? Do you stick to writing the same genre or switch around? Do you start sequels before the first book has gotten picked up? How's your WIP going?

**Today's Theme Song**

"Perfect One" - Lit

(player in sidebar--go ahead, take a listen, everyone needs a love song in their day)

WIP Wednesday & Award

It's that time of the week again. I feel like kind of a slacker because I'm now in revising mode vs. writing mode so I don't have a word count to report. However, I have done a first round revision on five chapters of my romance so that I could submit them to my crit buddies. So I feel pretty good about that.

I also have been doing a lot of critiquing for others which has been a nice break from staring at my own words incessantly. :) Critiquing is hard work and being critiqued can be painful, but I think both sides of it are invaluable learning experiences. Hopefully, we will all come out the other side stronger writers.

This week I think I'm going to attempt to draft a query letter for the romance. The novel is, by no means, ready to be sent into the world, but I want to have that letter done and waiting once I'm through with revisions. Last time I waited until the end and my brain was so fried that the query letter seemed beyond overwhelming to write. I'm hoping *crossing fingers* that this second query letter will be easier. The story is WAY more straightforward than my YA. No supernatural, no mythology, no world building. So we'll see. I have a feeling I'll still end up half-bald with hair-pulling.

So now for an award. Lazy Writer and Anna C. Morrison have passed along the Splish Splash award to me. This award is for a dazzling blog. I'm so excited to find out that my little site dazzles. I'm like a vampire, oh wait, that's sparkles, never mind. :)

Thanks ladies! Both of their sites received the award as well, so if you haven't checked them out, I highly recommend it.

And now to pass it on. I'm picked five people that I read regularly but that I haven't passed along an award to yet.

1. Dawn at Plotting and Scheming

2. T. Anne at White Platonic Dreams

3. Tabitha Bird at Books, Bubs, and Writing Blabber

4. Mandi at Smexy Books

5. Weronika at Weronika Janczuk

So how's your WIP going? (Feel free to leave a link in the comments section for your WIP Wed. update.) Is anyone else going through the critiquing stage right now? What are you critters catching that you totally missed?

**Today's Theme Song**

"Misery Business" - Paramore

(player in sidebar--go ahead, take a listen)

Okay, so only the title works and not the lyrics when referring to querying, but it's a good song anyway. :)

Work In Progress Wednesday #4

*wipes sweat off forehead* Hallelujah. I just fixed my internet. After spending my entire evening on the phone with Time Warner (fun times), I went to bed and still had no internet. This morning, nothing had changed. So I've spent the last two hours playing with buttons and functions I shouldn't touch and lo and behold--internet! I have no idea what I did to fix it (something about DNS servers and IP addresses, who knows), but I'm not complaining.

Okay, so now for good 'ol WIP Wednesday. The one benefit of having no internet yesterday was that I was able to finish the rough draft of Wanderlust. Woo-hoo! It's a thousand words shy of where I wanted to be, but I'm a layerer. When I revise, I add words vs. cut, so I don't doubt that it will get to where it needs to be during revision. Therefore, I'm going to focus on the fact that I was able to type THE END. :)

As for the other manuscript, it is now with two agents. I sent out my newly revised query letter a week or so ago and received a request for a partial! :) So that means one agency has a full, the other a partial. I'm sure it will be a decent wait to hear back from either of them, but I'll let everyone know when I have more info.

This week has also been a good week for contests for me. I won a three chapter critique from Once Upon a Crime, so I'm excited about that. I'll let ya'll know how it goes. And I also was selected for a spot in a romance critique group, Rumored Romantics, over at Lynnette Labelle's site Chatterbox Chitchat. I'm really happy about becoming a member because I have been wanting to join a critique group for a while. Hopefully, all these things will help me grow as a writer.

So I think that's it for now. I'll be spending my day doing some beta reading and critiquing since I was sans computer yesterday.

How's your WIP going? Feel free to leave a link for your WIP post in the comments.

Work In Progress Wednesday #3

I'm a week behind on this update, so this is actually going to be my progress over the last two weeks.

First, I would like to give a shout out (do people still say that or am I a complete dork? lol) to Lynnette at Chatterbox Chit Chat for giving me the Kreativ blogger award. Since I just posted on that award a few days ago, I will spare you seven more things about me. I'm not that interesting. But I wanted to thank Lynette and also recommend her site to those of you who haven't checked it out yet. She has some great information over there.

Also, I am so excited to see that I have hit 50 followers. Thanks you guys! I feel so lucky to have met so many great people since I've started blogging. Who knew this could be so fun?

Alright, now for the nitty gritty.

I was cruising along on my current WIP the week before last. I added 4k words and am now within a chapter and epilogue of finishing the first draft. I probably would have finished if not for the surprise request from that agent on my previous novel. I immediately put down my current project to dive back into that one and make the necessary edits (based on a previous agent's feedback).

So last week, I did nothing but revise that novel. I didn't blog, I barely slept, my toddler watched way too much Barney, my husband cooked dinner for the first time in probably a year. I stayed up until 2am each night. It was ugly. I went line by line. I murdered prologues, cut entire chapters, and executed adverbs and dialogue tags without mercy. I also rewrote three entire chapters, reworked the mythology, and completely changed the ending. By the end of the week, I had written 6500 new words. The process was hellacious but I am much happier with the new version, so hopefully the agent likes it too.

So that's it for me. How's your WIP going?

Work In Progress Wednesday #2

It's that time of week again. Like a Weight Watchers weigh in where I admit that I used all my points on brownies that week instead of sticking to the plan, I am holding myself accountable to you guys.

First things first, I got 4000 words completed this week. Not as much as I wanted, but better than last week. I'm am roughly 9k-15k words away from category romance length, so the end is in sight. Unfortunately, these last few chapters have been so much more difficult to write than the first two thirds of the book. I know how I want it to end, but I feel like I'm swimming through peanut butter to get there.

I stare at the blank screen, I start a scene, then question myself, hit delete, start the scene at a different place, stare at the screen some more. Grr. I'm trying to do the "just write, it's a rough draft, and fix later" thing, but my internal editor is being completely obnoxious. And don't even get me started on my muse. I think she's somewhere in the corner painting her toenails and watching reruns of The Hills. Because she's definitely not helping me out any.

Perhaps I should jump to the end, write than part, then come back to the part I'm struggling with. I'm a chronological writer, so that would push me out of my comfort zone, but it might be worth a shot.

How is your WIP going? Is your muse being nice to you? And are you a chronological writer or a jump to the scene that inspires you person?

Work In Progress Wednesday #1

So I've noticed that a number of my bloggy friends participate in WIP Wednesday, where they report on their writing status. I enjoy reading others updates, so I thought I may give it a shot as well. This week has not been productive in word count. I've managed to get 2000 words done, which is less than I had hoped. However, I had been stuck at one point in the book for a while, and was not sure how I wanted to proceed for the final five chapters. (This is the plight of my pantser plan instead of the well organized plotter way. I know where my characters need to get to, but not sure how I want them to get there.) But luckily, yesterday, I had a breakthrough and finally know what I want to do with them. Woo-hoo! So, I'm going to count this week as a success.

Here is an excerpt from my very rough draft:

(redacted)--oops you missed it! Only posted temporarily.

That's it for now. How's your WIP going?