Late ROW80 Check-In

Wow.  I actually went all weekend and didn’t post.  That’s so unlike me.  Part of it was that I was busy with other stuff and part was that our internet kept going out for no apparent reason.  It rained a lot, which our yard DESPERATELY needed.  Now my fruit trees won’t kick the bucket.  I came in to the office to knock out a project for work that no one bothered to tell me the deadline was Friday for (and I was out Friday with a migraine).  And we had date night, which turned into a double feature after our dinner out (Independence Day and Hitch–we were on a Will Smith kick), which led to me being up until 2 in the morning.

ZZZZZZZ.

I spent a lot of time playing with my plot bunny last week, enough that I think it’s finally satisfied and will let me be so I can go back to DOTH.  I didn’t do a lot of actual writing done.  In fact I didn’t write at all until yesterday when I knocked out 1376 words on my short story.  Not what I had intended to start working on, but I finally got critique back from one of my beta readers that I’d been waiting on, and she had some really great points.  And then while I was in the midst of all that, I figured out something that made the antagonists make SO MUCH MORE SENSE, which required going back and making some OTHER tweaks.  It needs one more revision pass, then it’ll be OFF MY PLATE.

I’m still plowing my way through the research books I’m reading for DOTH.

I’ve also been on a contemporary romance kick.  Or at least LOOKING for some.  I had the epiphany last week that while it’s usually not my bag, I really really reach for it when real life is super stressful and I can’t take the suspense level that’s common in what I usually read.  Of course, what that usually means for me is that I’m reaching for La Nora.  Either new or beloved faves.  Because I love her characters.  They literally jump off the page for me with in the first few paragraphs.  I never seem to find anyone else because every time I try to expand my horizons, I’m left disappointed.  I tried two other contemporary romance authors I picked up from the library over the weekend and couldn’t get past the first dozen pages in either.  The characters felt flat, the prose amateurish and telling rather than showing.  And yet these were crazy popular, multi-published authors who have a major following.  I conclude this is one of the downsides of being a writer.  I’ve become a total prose snob.  Anyway, I’m still working my way through some author recs and I expect to find SOMEONE I like to read other than Nora.  I think I’m going to be hitting up my massive physical TBR pile of books I haven’t gotten around to in the last several years.  I know I’ve got some contemporary romance in there that I picked up the last time I was on a jag, before our used bookstore went out of business.  There’s one by Susan Elizabeth Phillips that’s been recommended several times that I haven’t been able to bring myself to try yet because it’s set in Mississippi and I’m always…iffy about books set here since 9 times out of 10 whoever wrote it hasn’t ever even BEEN here and is relying on the stereotypes about us that just PISS ME OFF.  But it’s come up about half a dozen times, so maybe if I can find it in the pile, I’ll give it a go.

7 thoughts on “Late ROW80 Check-In

  1. Oh, you’ve always been a prose snob. Hee hee. I’m not, but I hate finding bunches of typos…that’s my biggest beef. Actually, I tried a Nora story not long ago, after you had talked about her a bit. I really didn’t like it that much. It was ok, but it didn’t do anything for me. It was the one about the fire jumpers. But I remember reading other books by her that I liked, so I’ll probably give it another go one of these days.

    Contemporaries are hit and miss. If the plot is JUST romance, I can get bored. I like there to be something else going on, like some sort of mystery. But then it becomes a “mystery romance”. LOL

    It sounds like you needed that date night. And you usually can’t go wrong with a Will Smith movie. I bet I’ve seen Independence Day 6 or 8 times.

    Good luck with writing this week!

  2. I just reviewed a good one on my blog, Kait. Oh, and there’s always Talli Roland’s chick lit, I like her stuff.
    Does it have to be contemporary? Joanna Bourne writes some awesome wish-I-could-write-as-well Regencies…

    1. I just don’t like historicals. I don’t really know WHY, but they don’t work for me. I think it’s that I can’t at all relate to the roles historical women had to take and it…bores me. I was definitely born in the right century!

      1. I guess I can see that. For all that I love writing romance, I just don’t read a lot of it. How many different characters’ love stories can a reader be excited by? I’m always afraid that an author will disappoint – nothing worse than a half-hearted love affair!

  3. I’m not usually a romance girl myself, but I discovered that I really enjoy romantic comedy from reading Tawna Fenske’s books. Apparently, I don’t buy the whole kissy-smoochy stuff until you add awkwardness and frothing-at-the-mouth laughter. Then, I’m in.

    Glad you took care of that plot bunny. I thought of you today when I plot bunnied (can I make it a verb?) an idea with 1k words when I should have been editing. But I’m leaving that story there and returning to it later. Much later, I hope. Have a great week, Kait!

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