First things first – good news is all around!

Fellow Mid-Willamette Valley RWA chapter member (and past Prez) Paty Jager won an Eppie on Saturday at the EPICon conference, which honors the best in electronic publishing!!! Head on over to Paty’s blog to read more about her win and to congratulate her.

We’re starting up a new challenge over at our chapter blog. If you need some motivation to get busy, head on over and join in the fun. Everyone’s setting their own goals and we have check-ins on Saturdays.

I’m still looking for a new tagline. Remember it has to have something to do with romantic adventure. On St. Patty’s day I’ll be drawing a name from a hat from all the people who email me suggestions at emcamp99 at yahoo dot com, or leave a suggestion in the comment section of my blog. The winner will get an autographed copy of Alice Sharpe’s March Harlequin Intrigue release, Avenging Angel.

And finally…I need some help from those of you who are familiar with San Francisco. I’m getting set to book my flight for the National conference in July and because I’m flying in Wed. morning, I need to figure out which airport is the better choice. I’m wondering how far the Oakland airport is from downtown SF. There’s a flight that gets me in to Oakland earlier than the SFO flight, but if the drive from Oakland into downtown is longer (and worse in rush hour traffic), it cancels out the benefits of flying into Oakland. Anyone know?

I guess I should start this by reassuring Lexi I haven’t fallen off the challenge bandwagon. While I haven’t been writing consistently every day (I’ve been sheepish the past two weeks as I transitioned into a new proposal and found myself floundering), I am very much still a part of the 100-Day challenge and even posted an update (renewed challenge?) at my chapter blog on Friday. As of last check (Friday), I was on day 40 and had written 49,000 words. So I’m nearly halfway to my 100K word goal with 60 days to go. Not bad. How are the rest of you doing?

Now to changes. Don’t worry, I haven’t totally lost my mind (as evidenced by my last post a few weeks ago), but I’m close. What had me in such a tither? Change. I’ll admit I’m not great with it. But as Alice so eloquently pointed out on my day of frustration, it really was a Star Wars moment after all, and I eventually did step up and face my destiny. Two weeks ago I was going to run for vice president of my local RWA chapter. After some changes (our president elect decided to resign for personal reasons), we found ourselves without a president. Yours truly has taken the bait and will now be running for president instead. The way our bylaws are set up, the vice president automatically assumes the presidency after a year serving as VP, so this would have hit me eventually anyway, it’s just happening a lot sooner than I expected. Nothing’s set in stone yet – elections are this coming Tuesday – but unless a sleeper candidate emerges from the shadows (Ha!), it looks as though I’m going to be in charge. (Now that’s a scary thought).

I’m excited about the upcoming office, but also nervous and worried people have more faith in me than they should. I’ve served as secretary of our chapter for the past few years so I sorta know what’s going on, but mostly I’ll be flying blind. Luckily, I have a great group of upcoming officers and there’s a lot of energy and excitement in the chapter right now. Hopefully we’ll be able to harness that and get some great things done this year. And when all else fails, I have my friend and CP – Joan – to commiserate with as she recently started her own RWA chapter and is a president herself now. (Joan, how the heck did this happen to both of us???)

Wish me luck.

Just got home from my RWA chapter meeting. The meeting was great – we had a fab presentation on PR from Lisa Pulliam - but now my head hurts. Gosh, you know, there’s just so much stuff that goes into this whole writing career outside writing the damn book. I’ve played ostrich much of the time, sticking my head in the sand and focusing on writing. But I know I won’t be able to do that forever.

*sigh*

On to more controllable things (at least for me):

100-Day Challenge Update.

The Book From Hades is officially gone and is now sitting on my agent’s desk. Talked to her briefly on Monday. She hadn’t started reading it yet, but is excited about it, so that’s something. In the meantime, I’ve jumped back into my paranormal proposal and have been working steady after taking most of last week off to polish up The Book From Hades. Word count totals since then are as follow:

Saturday: 2278/10 pgs
Sunday: 1464 words/7 pgs
Monday: 2483 words/11 pgs
Tuesday: 1897 words/8 pgs (Synopsis only)

I’m finished with the three chapters and am now focusing on the suckopsis. Gah. I hate those.

Oh! And in other news…I have a theme song! Okay, well, I have two that fit really well so I’m listening to them over and over as I work through this suckopsis. I think (hope) it’s working.

How are you doing with the challenge? Or if you aren’t challenge(d), how are things going for you in general?

Not gone. Just editing. I’m working hard to try to get this thing out the door by Friday. Because of that, I’ve taken a mini-break on the 1000 words per day thing, only because I’m writing/editing that much and more and really, sending this puppy away is more important.

How’s everyone else doing on their challenge? And what’s new with you?

It’s done! It’s done! The WIP from Hades is finally done!!!!

2309 words today including the two most important words: THE END. Man, that feels good.

Of course, now I have to go back and read it a few times to clean up any left over threads, so it’s not totally done. But that I can handle. Especially since the edits should be pretty easy as I’ve been editing as I go.

My goal is to get it polished up and out the door to my agent by the end of next week. And as I’m doing that, I’m going to work on the new book (AKA the one I’m so excited about I can barely sit still) so I stick with my 1000-words per day.

God, it feels good to be done. I’m off to take a nap and celebrate.

Climax = done.

Word count for the day = 3542 words/18 pgs.

I’m wiped. Going to bed to think about the resolution. (This is the fun, totally sappy, my-hero-is-a p*ssy-whipped-Nancy part, and I love it.)

Fun, fun, fun.

How’d you fare today?

I’m so close I can taste the sweetness of The End.

Word Count Update – been hitting my 1000 words consistently, though not going over by much. Can’t quite remember when I updated last. Monday? Assuming that, let’s see, my totals for this week so far are:

Tuesday: 1419 words/8 pgs
Wednesday: 1058 words/5 pgs

Four scenes left. Four frickin‘ scenes. I had the whole thing worked out in my head. The two climax scenes, the two resolutions scenes. Done. Finished. Stick a fork in me. And then…

Lying in bed last night I realized there is a small thread of similarity between this climax and the climax in my last book. Small. Tiny. Really inconsequential except for the fact these two books are loosely connected and if anyone read both, they would undoubtedly say, “Hm, that’s familiar.” I’m not sure how to get around it yet as it’s a trust issue/point that the heroine has to concede upon. Or maybe she doesn’t. Gah. Not going to be able to keep going until I work through this one minuscule point.

Last night Alice said, “Have fun with the ending.” Going to try to remember that as I try to fix this scene.

How are you doing on the writing, and where are you in the wip?

School starts back up tomorrow. Woohooo! (Can you tell I’m excited???) Actually, school for the 3rd grader starts tomorrow, my Kindergartner won’t start until next Monday (what’s up with that????? I swear schools in OR start later than everyone else in the frickin’ universe.) But what has me really excited is the fact Gremlin #2 got afternoon K, which means….since Gremlin #3 takes an afternoon nap, I’ll have 2.5 WHOLE hours of peace in my house where I can write and edit without constant interruptions. Man, I won’t know what to do with myself!

Speaking of writing, those of you who are taking the 100-day challenge are starting up today. Paty, Lisa, Alice, Lexi…I’m going to be hounding each of you. Whatever you set for your daily goal…you can do it. (Joan’s already been cooking on her daily word counts, so I don’t have to hound her as much…esp. since this was her idea to begin with.) Trust me when I say, it’s easier than it sounds. In fact, now that I’m making writing a habit again, I can’t believe how the words are flowing. Last night I wrote 2756 words, stayed up until midnight and didn’t even notice the time. I’m keeping a running spreadsheet total because, yes, I am a bit neurotic in some areas, and since I’ve now been at this a week, I can report that in 7 days I have written 17,379 NEW words in 81 pages. Now, I know for those of you who consistently write 10 pgs a day, that’s no biggie, but it is for me. I can’t remember the last time I was so productive (and that doesn’t take into account what I edited and rewrote during the day either, that’s just all new stuff). It feels AWESOME!!! Alice told me the other day that it was an interesting concept – she was writing and just decided to check her total. When she saw she was at 600 words, she figured heck, she could force herself to get to 1000…and she did. I bet she went over. Every time I’ve been stuck and forced myself to write a little more, I’ve gone over with less effort than I expected.

So girls…today is the start of the 100 day challenge. Go forth and write! (And report back on how you did. I’ll be checking your blogs.)

One -

Writing when the words are not flowing is pure torture. Complete Hell. Like peeling the skin off your bones one agonizing millimeter at a time.

Two -

Forcing yourself to write when the words are not flowing and meeting your 1000-word goal even though you had to open a vein to do so is the best feeling in the world. Almost as good as typing T-h-e E-n-d.

Okay, I lied. More than two…

Three -

I’ve discovered the bathtub is where my muse lives. After the bloodletting I took a hot bath, locked the door and thought. And discovered the reason the scene I’d been working on was like pulling teeth was because I was writing it out of order. Two other scenes I’d earmarked for later have to come first. The scene will stay the same with a few minor changes, but its impact will be much greater with what has to come before. So all in all, not a lost day even though I felt like it while I was writing.

Oh, yeah. Word Counts.

Let’s see…yesterday I got 1795 and stayed up until 1AM to do so. (Also researched a bit on the other book which I said I wouldn’t do, but what-evah. I felt like doing it.). Today, barely scraped by at 1052 BUT I figured out what was wrong, so that’s success in my book.

Did you meet your goal for the day?

The game last night was a blast. I love football in the fall – esp. September games (or late Aug) when the weather is superb. And it didn’t hurt the Beavs won. The newest phase of the Reser Stadium renovation is awesome. And the new scoreboard was phenomenal. DH got me a new vest too at the fan shop, and I wish I could post a pic. It’s so cool! Reversible – black on one side, orange on the other, puffy, absolutely perfect for the fall with a long-sleeved shirt underneath. I love it!

Okay, on to the word count. Because we went to the game yesterday and out with friends for dinner beforehand, I didn’t blow out the word count like I did on Wed. Only 1338 words total. But I met my goal of 1000 words, it was all in the WIP (LOL…not the new proposal) and I finished the scene I wanted to finish. Woohoo!

Next up is a very emotional revelation/love scene that’ll probably zap me. Hoping to get through it slowly but steadily this weekend as I get my 1000-words in.

How did you do yesterday?