Link Love and a New Routine

There are lots of thought provoking articles and posts floating around the internet today.  I was going to comment on them, but then somebody wedged the Flaming Icepick of Death behind my left eye.  So in lieu of scintillating commentary, I’ll just link you.

The New Yorker had a really interesting (if rather long) article on whether the iPad will topple the Kindle and save the book business.

Stacia Kane wrote a brilliant post against bullying.

And I, I am finally moving forward with Revelation. Sunday I was whining to Zoe that I’d started the damn thing FOUR TIMES.  She cautiously suggested that it might be time to work on something else.  Which I had been thinking too until I talked to Pot and hammered out a few details and how they would affect the opening Act.  Out of sheer curiosity, I went back to my project tracker to see exactly how many words I had thrown away on this book before I finally nailed what I wanted to do in the opening.

3844.

That’s it.

Four false starts–wait, no, three false starts and one right start–and that’s all I threw away.   That makes me feel both better and worse.  I didn’t throw all that much away but it’s a clear sign of exactly HOW SLOW I have been producing lately!

But today I revised my opening act, hammered out some details on my heroine’s part, and figured out how the rest of this scene is going to go.  I hopped over to the Chat and Challenge at Romance Divas and got 464 written over lunch.  I feel like that’s just going to go up and up as I get further into the story.   My goal is to try to get most of my words for the day finished at lunchtime so that I can spend the evenings divided between hubby, working on classes, and planning the next project.

That’s something Pot and I were talking about the other day.  We were trying to hash out WHY I’ve been having such a tough time with Revelation than I did with Forsaken By Shadow. We finally figured out that it was because I had literally months to think about FBS after I first envisioned it before I finished up HiS.  Plenty of time for the characters to come alive and start speaking.  I didn’t do that with Revelation. I didn’t get it all planned while finishing up FBS.  And I think I’ve definitely suffered for it in terms of getting into the groove.   So the answer to that is to get back into multitasking in terms of writing.

With hubs finally back at work and quiet time to be had over lunch time, if I can use that as my prime writing time, really buckle down and get my words in when I’m most productive, then I can shift gears in the evenings.  And next up on the docket is the Sooper Seekrit YA project.  I’m learning my characters, particularly my heroine right now.  And I’ve got to do some major work figuring out the primary conflict in this story.   But I’m okay with that.  I’m starting to hit the excited phase with Revelation, so I’m hoping to make considerable strides with it during MayNoWriMo.  And after that, depending on work schedule, hubby’s mobility, etc., to take a few days off work and write my tushy off to get closer to finished with a first draft of it.  I’m very keen to make up lost time.