Golden Knave Update: Vice’s Story is Done!!

Yep, I’ve finally finished the second draft of Vice’s story. It ended up being oonnly about 30,000 words, but that’s okay. I can now begin the end when both characters’ stories merge. I am a bit scared now because I’m completely rewriting the original ending. I just didn’t like it so, I’m changing it.

Wish me luck and lollipops with this part because I’m going to need it!! I plan for it to be at least 20,000 words too so I really need to think out the scenes and keep the ball rolling so you’ll want to read the my next book: Ebon Angel.

I’ll keep you posted on when the second draft is done and then, I’ll need to type it up and get it to Beta Readers. If you’d like to be a Beta Reader, let me know! The more, the merrier!!

See you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!!

Golden Knave Update – Sept

I’ve been writing twice a day every day since Sept. 12 except for yesterday, Sept 19 and today, Sept 20. I started with a writing sprint event put on by DIY MFA. a fantastic writing site I’ve already wrote a post about. After the weekend long event, I was so pumped up about writing I decided to keep going.

“Practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice makes permanent.” – Gabriela Pereira

That is a beautifully put phrase, and it’s one I can’t forget. This past weekend, since I didn’t have to work, I decided to do three writing sprint sessions a day instead of two. I just finished my third one, and I already can’t wait until tomorrow.

I don’t write in big spurts. I don’t even try to. My body, and my brain, won’t allow it. I can’t sit in one place for very long before my lower back and shoulders start screaming. My attention span won’t hold out very long either. It had become so frustruating my writing eventually stalled out….again.

These writing sprints were one hour long. I focused just on handwriting two pages – one page both sides actually. It equals about 600 words per session. I wasn’t interested in the word count. Word count will matter when I’m putting things on the computer and working towards my final draft. I just wanted to write. I wrote. I wrote some more. I can’t not write. I plan out each writing session, and I get antsy if I think I’m going to miss one.

I’m pleased I’m writing again. I’m even happier I found a way to do so without killing myself or my project. I do plan to up the stakes starting tomorrow. My new goal is to create four handwritten pages, two pages front and back. I plan to stay with the two sprints a day during the day and three on weekends. I won’t go past two hours at a time because I know that won’t work. I’ve tried it before.

So, in closing, Golden Knave is back on track again! Vice is about to steal a boat in fact! A Golden Duchess for a Golden Knave no less!!

See you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!!

Personal Update – 9 Sept 2020

Greetings and Salutations!

I know it’s been a while since I last posted. I’ve been blessed with yet another life change, and this one is turning out to be better than I’d thought it would be.

I grew up believing I had to have a steady job with benefits and such outside the home to have a “real” job. That it wasn’t a proper job if I didn’t have to leave home to work. With my health issues, I’ve struggled to find work that wouldn’t cause my condition to worsen, even a little bit. Time was doing a great job of that all by itself, it didn’t need my help. Anyway, because of this, I never felt right trying to get a stay at home job, not even when I had kids.

Covid-19 has thrown everything for a loop, and it has caused me a lot of sleepless nights worrying about work and my financial stability. I lost my job at the plant early in the year and was in a panic until I got a job at a gas station about a month later. While out of work, I started paying more attention to my freelance writing efforts as I may have mentioned in another post. Then, a month ago, or so, I lost my job at the gas station – I can’t abide fools and the general manager there is one of the biggest fools that I did my best to deal with before I had to give it up or go to jail. Seriously.

I’ve been forced to really focus on my freelancing efforts, and I have joined several sites. Upwork and I are not on speaking terms right now, and I’m not feeling too friendly towards Freelancer.com right now either. I don’t have the time or patience to deal with searching for work and bidding. I have tried on Freelancer but most of the people whom I’ve dealt with so far have had language issues with me. They also wanted me to work for far less than I get paid on other sites, and I can’t do that. My two biggest sources of revenue are Textbroker and Guru. I was surprised by Guru, but it has panned out for me. In fact, I’m working as a Virtual Assistant now because of an employer on Guru. The income I will make from these three sources will take care of my debts, and I’ll eventually be able to move closer to my gentleman friend.

Other than scrambling to pay bills, I have spent some time with my gentleman friend, he is still tied to a traditional job though I am gently encouraging him to spend more time on the business he has started and only uses as a side hustle. He could do so much more on his own and have a lot less stress. Still, it’s his choice.

That’s it for now folks, I hope this finds you well and doing what you love. See you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!!

Website is Updated! 9 Feb. 2020

It’s been a while since I update my website over on sitey, but I finally did it. I need to tweak a few things still, but all the links to my book, Crimson Knight, are now active. This makes me feel better. I still have a ways to go to get everything the way I want it, over here and over there, but it’s in the making so Yay Me!!

Anyone else have issues with keeping their websites updated?? Feel free to share your story/ies here!

See you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!!

Crimson Knight print version : https://www.amazon.com/dp/1794494480

Crimson Knight ebook version : https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008W9ZH22 This is available for free from Kindle Unlimited.

Crimson Knight audio book version: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RWFD7TC

Please leave a review no matter which version you get. If I don’t know how you feel, I can’t fix things or make things better.

*Note* I know about the formatting issues in the print and ebook versions, and they are being worked out.

Golden Knave Update – An Annoying Setback and Moving Forward

Almost a month ago I crowed about completing the second draft of my sequel novel to Crimson Knight, Golden Knave and how it now needed to be sent off to my Beta readers.

*Note to self* NEVER clean while both having an argument and cleaning!!

I have was having an argument via phone before work one day was quickly cleaning before I left because I had other things planned for after work. I do spur of the moment cleaning as well. At this time, I was arguing with a service trying to bill me twice for something, and I was not happy.

Long story short, my son’s cat had knocked my papers onto the floor and among them were the loose leaf sheets of my finished work. I hadn’t had a chance to add them to the main story in a notebook yet. I write all my work long hand and then, after placing it in one notebook, I put everything on computer.

Cue the tragic music: I threw away the 14 handwritten pages that completed Kitya’s part of Golden Knave. I had been struggling with the ending for some time, and this was a tear jerker – when I realized what I had done almost two weeks later. In that time, I’d looked everywhere several times before I remembered throwing the papers away. I was devastated to say the least.

Fast forward to last weekend. I sat down and wrote the ending again. This time, for some reason, things came a bit easier. It flowed. I wrote it all in one sitting – another 14 glorious pages! Then, I began adding them to the main story, and those pages, those scenes, GREW!! I was only able to get 1 1/2 pages transferred before I got pulled away, but those 1 1/2 pages had become 5 in the notebook!! The scenes had expanded, the dialogue had continued!! I was thrilled!!

I haven’t been able to work on the transferral since because of work and my life in general, but I’ll have the time tomorrow. Then, the tedious chore of putting it all on computer begins. I’ll have to do it in spurts, but it will get done!!

So there you have it, my update 🙂 I hope you all have a wonderful day/evening/night depending on where you are in the world.

See you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!!

Crimson Knight print version : https://www.amazon.com/dp/1794494480

Crimson Knight ebook version : https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008W9ZH22 This is available for free from Kindle Unlimited.

Crimson Knight audio book version: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RWFD7TC

Please leave a review no matter which version you get. If I don’t know how you feel, I can’t fix things or make things better.

*Note* I know about the formatting issues in the print and ebook versions, and they are being worked out.

Crimson Knight Update – 1/27/19

Today was my only day off this week which meant trying to pack a bunch of things I wanted/needed to do into this one day.

One of those things I wanted/needed to do was work on Crimson Knight’s manuscript formatting so I could get it rereleased by Kindle Direct Publishing. I was working with the site’s book creator program last week, and I had a lot of issues with it when it came to the formatting part.

I decided to use Scrivener to create a new manuscript using only the sizing and formatting required by the program for Kindle. I got this Scrivener program years ago for free for participating in NaNoWriMo, and I’ve been quick to update it every chance I get. It’s a user friendly program. 🙂 I have copied and pasted from my original digital manuscript to the Scrivener program and now, I’m just tweaking things so it all looks uniform. Once I get it looking like I want it to, I’ll use the program from KDP to create printable version of Crimson Knight. I am hoping this time, things go a lot easier and faster so I can move on to getting an audio book version started.

That’s all I have for this week. I would’ve done more on the manuscript, but I did have other things I had to do as well. I’ll work on it again on my next day off, and I’ll let you know how things go.

See you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and screwdriver!

Quickie Update

I am writing this now instead of tomorrow because I’ll be either passed out or severely out of it from drugs and pain.

Quick thing first: I learned something new today. No matter what color it is, curry sauce is always spicy!!

Now, on to the main event:

I am getting my implants in tomorrow. These are going to be bigger than the first set, and there will be only four instead of six. This should give you some idea of how big these things are going to be. Physically, they won’t be that big, but then, my jaw isn’t that big either!

I will be put out this time, and there will be a major need for painkillers after. Ugh! I am super nervous about the whole thing. I’m really hoping it works this time too! I was disappointed in a major way when the original six didn’t stay in. So, we’ll see.

See you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver! Maybe a demon killing knife wouldn’t hurt either. 🙂

Update – June 27, 2018

Another month is coming to a close. We’re almost halfway through the year. Time flies, rushing away behind us while always urging us to move forward. The sun chases the moon who laughs and dances behind the sun in a circle; something that has been happening since long before our little planet had any kind of life on it. Only humans have attempted to harness and control the phenomenon called Time. We have created calendars and clocks and schedules and so many others things in this effort. Animals watch us and laugh at us because to them, time isn’t a thing that matters. They live their lives from day to day, minute to minute, enjoying every bit of it without worrying about what the future will bring. In some ways, this is good and in some, bad – or so we are told by those who are supposedly “experts” in how to live life.

I’ve been thinking about time and the future some lately. I don’t have any sort of social life – my choice so don’t feel bad for me – but as time goes by, I’m beginning to feel the need again for companionship. I’m not looking for a boyfriend/man friend, whatever they are called for someone my age, but my co-workers who seem to think my social life(or lack thereof)is their business as wel as mine, seem to think I do.

Personally, I just want someone, or more than one since friends are more what I want, to do things with. I want to share things with someone. I want them to understand that my work schedule and my projects are very important and yet, I am willing to go do something on the spur of the moment if they just ask. I’m tired of thinking about going to a movie or something and then not going because I don’t want to go alone. If my son and his fiancee lived in town, I’d do things with them when our schedules work out. That’s a way to avoid being social on most levels though, or so I’m told.

At the urging of my well meaning co-workers, I got on a dating site. I put on there I’m just looking for friendship, not a relationship. I don’t need that kind of thing – not at this point in my life. I hate when it asks for pictures. I don’t like having my picture taken, and I don’t like how people choose their potential friends and partners based on looks – something we are all guilty of, even me. Still, I forced myself to take a picture of myself and posted it too. I have already received close to a dozen messages from male members of the site, and I’ve responded to several.

Does this make me happy? It scares me to be honest. Talking about myself has never been something I like to do. I am very private. I also don’t know what to say to sound interesting. I am honest and blunt, and this can be off putting. Do I pretend to be someone else just so someone will like me? Not a chance in hell. You either like me as I am or you can step off. I’ve worked too hard to become who I am today, and I’m not changing or pretending for anyone. I guess that’s why this attempt is scary. I’m afraid the men I’ll be talking to and eventually, meeting, will be frauds despite what they say about honesty. I’ve made a fool of myself too many times to feel comfortable with my own decision making where it comes to the opposite sex.

Still, I’m moving forward with this thing, as much as my job will allow. Speaking of which, I am supposed to finally take my test to get promoted to Trainer – if I pass. The manager wasn’t giving it to me before because there were no spots open for me to get promoted to. Now, there are. Wish me luck.

See you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver! Impala!!

Personal Update – June 5, 2018

Public: Hello there! Nice to see you so soon after your last post!

Me: Hi! Yep, I’m scheduling more time for blogging, but I’m not going to do it every day like I was because it becomes too much like a chore and isn’t much fun.

Public: We fully understand. So, what’s new?

Me: I took down my Etsy store – I hated the name was the main reason. I’ll open another one when I’ve had some time to really do some research. I can’t afford to put money into something that isn’t going to do much.

Public: We don’t think anyone does. Are you still making things for charity?

Me: Oh yes! I’ve just sent off a bag full of hats, nearly finished a lapghan, and I’m getting ready to make more squares for two granny lapghans I’m working on.

Public: Have you heard back about The Inbetween yet?

Me: No, but the submission said I’d hear back by the end of June so, still waiting. I’ve scheduled time to work on Mr. Nobody so I can get it on Wattpad by the end of the month. I’ve decided not to make it into a full novel because the story just won’t gel for me.

Public: At least you’ll be writing again.

Me: Very true. I’m also making time for reading, and I’m about to start on Jeffrey Deaver’s Solitude Creek.

Public: Sounds interesting.

Me: I hope it is. Well, I’ve got to go, I’ve got to work tonight so I need to get some sleep.

Catch you all on the flipside and don’t forget your towels and sonic screwdrivers!!

Personal Update – Feb. 15

First off, I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine’s Day. 🙂

The Dentist and I – Still an ongoing dance with this. I had misspoke on a previous post talking about this. I was to see the dentist on the 12th of Feb, not see him in 21 days – sorry about that. So anyway, saw the dentist and still waiting to get the inserts put in my denture so the pins will have something to snap onto. Dr. Shirley(a man so no snide comments please) wants to make sure the bone is solid around the pins so the pins won’t come out the first time I eat something like ribs. I don’t want the pins coming out either – getting them in in the first place was not something I want to repeat.

Writing – I am working on a short story I plan to submit to FunDead Publications. I love the name of the company, don’t you. Punnish Gothic lol. I got an email that had information about submitting entries for their upcoming anthology and after reading the guidelines, I decided to try my luck.

Not long after I read all of that, I was on Facebook trolling about. I saw a meme that had the little story about Nobody, Anybody, Somebody and Everybody. It was cute and a bit amusing. Once I read it, I decided to name my story Mr. Nobody. I don’t normally name my stories first, usually I write them and then name them. Now, I had a name but no story. Over a period of nearly a week, I mulled over the story, coming up with openings, partial plots and not liking anything. I almost chucked the idea entirely.

Then, as I was crocheting and playing a farming game, an idea came to me. I did some research to make sure it was feasible, or at best, believable – something else I don’t normally do since my work is typically fantasy so all those things get thrown out the window(along with the kitchen sink at times). So, here I am musing over an idea, and I remember seeing the picture of an old house I liked the look at some time ago. I dug up the picture, and the beginning of the story began to form. Yay me!

Still, I had nothing concrete so I kept thinking things over while crocheting. I like to work stories out in my head, scenes anyway. I had characters starting to show up and talk to me. Then, out of the blue, an ending came to me. It gave me the shivers how clear the entire thing was to me. So now, I have a bit of a beginning, some players ready for parts and a great(to me anyway) ending. I am still working on how to get from Point A to Point B and then to Point C. Stories always have three points: a beginning, a middle and an end. I’m still working on it. I have until March 11 so I have time.

Crafting – I mention crocheting because it’s the main thing I like to do. I have tried, half assed, and at times, barely assed, getting them sold online. I have decided I’m tired of worrying about if it’s going to work or not. I am going to do my best to start and run an online shop selling my handcrafts as well as those of others when I’m big enough. I am a great fiber artist, and I want to show the world what I can do!! Wish me well!!

And that is all I have to report at this time. Golden Knight is still being edited in spurts. I don’t write when I don’t feel like it, and I haven’t felt like it in a while. Perhaps, with the short story, I can kick start my writing urge and get GK done so I can get it to my Beta Readers. We’ll see.

See you all on the flipside and don’t forget to bring your towel and sonic screwdriver!