The Berry Patch

I Haz a Sad

2009-11-15T09:31:00.002-06:00

So I still have a few thousand to go on Exposed and now I have major rewrites on Fallen. I knew something was off base with it and in the back of my head I probably recognized all the issues that I didn't want to rewrite all over again. But now, I'm working on restructuring the plot and as soon as I finish Exposed, I'm going to write the heck out of Fallen. That means NaNo is a no go, since you are supposed to start a new project. :( Hopefully I'll be able to schedule so I can do a project in NaNo next year. Will I write 50,000 words this month? Quite possibly and it's still a goal. So I may still use the NaNo meter to track progress, but I won't be confirming my win, if I make it to 50,000 words on three different MS.

NaNo

2009-11-10T14:55:00.002-06:00

Well, for me so far NaNo has been mostly No. As in very little progress on the NaNo book. First off I want and need to finish Exposed (not the whole title, I like to keep you guessing), see off to the side I put a shiney new ticker just for it. I'm flowing into the black moment and found that trying to write on the NaNo while this one was screaming at me to be finished just wasn't going to work out. So I will be cramming for NaNo once I finish this one. I love my Hollywood flavored books. So hoping my editor will love my next one too.

I get to watch E! and read People and claim it's research. I also get to look up things like the Oscars and fabulous clothing and shoes. My most recent was London movie premieres. The Leicester Square Odeon is the movie theatre. They even have a live webcam which is sweet and can spur a whole new array of ideas. Okay, back to my characters. Cheers!

This Year is Amazing

2009-11-04T17:13:00.002-06:00

FALLEN is a finalist in the Finally a Bride contest sponsored by Oklahoma RWA and I'm seriously bouncing for joy. I scored my first ever perfect score. Anonymous judge, I think I love you. I'm working on getting the final packet ready to go off to the final editors...that's right, editors. Two to be precise. Yay!

I am working on finishing up my next potential SSE(Silhouette Special Edition) and have started NaNo. For NaNo, I've decided to do FORSAKEN. The beginning needed a rewrite, but I'm finding it very difficult to get into the story with the SSE rattling around in my brain. So to focus I'm going to finish the SSE as quickly as possible and hopefully still manage to write the 50K needed on FORSAKEN for NaNo.

I'm going to be missing my writing partner, Kristi, for NaNo this year. I completely understand her position and should have probably skipped it this year as well. She was my main driving force the past two NaNos since she has younger children than me and a full time job. If she could do it, damn it, so could I. :) Not that there aren't others out there to motivate me and Kristi probably wasn't even aware how competitive I'd become with her :).

My agent (woohoo!), Becca Stumpf from The Prospect Agency, is looking over FALLEN and supporting me as L.A. Cinderella makes its way through the jungle of publishing. Together we'll whip FALLEN into something fabulous.

Okay, gymnastics is about over. Hey, a busy mom has to find time somewhere and thank goodness for my new Mini. Dear Mini, I think I'm in love. Happy writing and if you see me online, ping me I'm always up for a sprint or two. :)

Updates

2009-10-19T21:50:00.003-05:00

Woot. Okay, CATCH A STAR has become L.A. CINDERELLA. It will be published June 2010 by Silhouette Special Edition.

FALLEN won 2nd place in the 2009 Golden Gateway and garnered a request for the full from the final editor.

I made it through round 2 of Paranormal Authors Fight Club and will be posting for voting again on Thursday. Without your votes, I'm not a competitor.

I'm awaiting results of two contests that I entered right before I sold. Things are really quite insane at my house right now. I'm making it, but it's a slow process of getting myself untangled from all the things that suck up my time.

How has your writing been going? Getting ready for NaNoWriMo. I'm trying to finish up my WIP so I'll be ready for NaNo. Where did the year go?

Week 2 Paranormal Fight Club

2009-10-15T07:36:00.002-05:00

I'm still in Paranormal Fight Club, paranormal romance writers are going head to head to win a critique from author Angie Fox. The second part of Forbidden is up. You can vote once a day for the next 3 days. Please vote for me. :)

http://www.rom...anceinthebackseat.com/fightclub/blog/2009/10/forbidden-part-two.html

Backstory on Forbidden: When I signed up for Paranormal Fight Club, I had no idea what the prompt would be and what would develop from it. When I sat down to write it, FALLEN was on my mind, as well as FORSAKEN. FORBIDDEN takes place in the same paranormal world. Dagon is a Fallen angel who has tired of his role in creating chaos in the world. Anita is alone in the world until she finds herself attacked by creatures with wings and dragged into the ultimate battle of good versus evil.

Paranormal Fight Club

2009-10-09T09:33:00.001-05:00

I agreed to do this new idea Paranormal Fight Club with the Romance in the Backseat Ladies. The idea is 8 competitors write 1000 words based on a beginning paragraph. You compete each week with another writer, the one with the most votes goes onto round 2. So please vote for me. :) http://www.romanceinthebackseat.com/fightclub/blog/2009/10/forbidden.html#comments My entry is called Forbidden. Click on the survey button to vote. Thanks.

Catch A Star Sold to Silhouette Special Edition

2009-09-22T16:49:00.003-05:00

I just received edits from my editor. :) And have put my follow up Silhouette Special Edition on hold to get the edits turned around. We're in a whole new ballgame here. Before when someone critiqued my work and didn't like something that I liked I could just dismiss it, now unless I have a really great reason to not change it... It will make a better book. :)

So I'm journeying into the foreign land of deadlines and revisions. It's quite the odd land and I'm not 100% on navigating it. Yeah, I know I changed from baseball to exploring, deal. :) The poor people sitting in the restaurant of my mind are getting ansy. I've been writing like mad lately and still can't seem to get it all out. Must work faster.

As it stands I'm 22,200 out of 55,000 words on my followup. I'm sad to put them aside, but I've always had a soft spot for Chase and Natalie and will be happy to revisit them. I've also accepted representation from Becca Stumpf at the Prospect Agency. So hopefully with a little help, Fallen might see the light of day.

If this is the first you are seeing any of this, please be assured I am super excited, but the initial shock and spastic actions have worn off. Yay! I'm a writer!

The End and The Beginning

2009-08-29T15:39:00.002-05:00

I finished revisions on Fallen and am going to work on a new story. There's always a kind of energy that hits me with the beginning of a book. I usually start with an idea. One of those bursts of inspiration that happen from time to time. This particular idea came to me when someone asked about one of my yahoo messages on messenger. It sparked an idea for a hero and his dilemna. A little writing gave me his heroine. Now I've written 10 pages and I've stopped.

Now I need to know more about these characters as an immortal my hero has a very rich history and I'm loving filing in the details and trying to work out how he became who he is. My heroine has been a mystery to me. Even her name hid from me for some time. She has a name and I know what happens to her mostly, but I don't know why she is who she is. And the big thing is tying her curse somehow to his curse. Once I find these clues the story should start to unravel.

I know the situation. I know who these characters are at this moment. I need to know how they became these characters. I also don't know who the villian is. I'm not sure that the villian will tie into their backstories or not. There are a lot of ways to go with a story. Even after plotting this out, things will change. My characters will seem to take on a life of their own and their motivations might surprise me, but that's what is fun about writing. Change.

Waiting and Working

2009-08-01T12:23:00.003-05:00

With the kids home for two more weeks, I'm desperately waiting for school to start. Meanwhile, I'm attempting to write/revise between requests to play on the computer, to play on the Wii, and to fix some food. While my head is in the right place for revisions, I'm trying to get as much done as possible.

It's kind of like when you are in the right mood to go through old stuff. The wrong mood is where you sit and look through the box and think I should really keep this ticket for The Bird Cage. I don't remember who I went with or why I decided to keep it, but I should keep it anyway, because it's sentimental. Hey, my old pair of earphones that only play out of one side. Maybe I can use them again.

The right mood is you pull the box over to the trash can and start pitching. That ticket to The Bird Cage, gone. Broken earphones, gone.

I've been in the wrong mood to revise for a long time. I wrote this book and though I know it needs revising, I don't even know where to begin. Now I'm in the right mood. A friend went over the first bit and pointed out, not grammar or spelling errors, but plotting errors or places where the tension was lagging. While I love when people correct my commas and my accidental word choices, I prefer the type that my friend gave me. It made me open my eyes and really look at what I'd written as a whole and not as a sentence here and there. The scene after her corrections I just finished revising. I'd had it in the heroine's POV, but it really needed to be in the hero's to show his conflict at that time. Though I loved some lines in her POV, I took them out.

Okay before I type this if you've never heard it before I'm not a sadistic person, really. But there are times when you need to Kill Your Darlings. I'm not the first to say this, nor do I expect to be the last. If it doesn't fit, if it doesn't move the story forward, if it is the most brilliant piece of tripe you've ever written, but doesn't do anything for the characters, CUT IT! Move it into a file for special circumstances, just in case you can use it, but get rid of it in this story. It's like throwing away those old earphones and that movie ticket. They are taking up space and while they may work for something else, they aren't working for you.

So while I spend the rest of the day wishing my kids were in school, I'll be killing my darlings in my MS.

Off to Nationals

2009-07-13T08:35:00.002-05:00

We're leaving today. I just got my new website finished check it out at www.amanda-berry.com.

When I get back, I'll post pictures from my new camera and hopefully blog posts from my new netbook. If you see me there, say hi!

Brain, Can We Have a Talk?

2009-07-08T20:49:00.002-05:00

Okay, so we already know that I'm having difficulty staying on task. But this is getting ridiculous. Normally, the patrons of my particular brain diner are nice and patient and are willing to go into their neat little files to wait for another day. I think they've finally caught on though. I keep getting new ideas and don't get back to the ones in the file. So basically I need to write a whole lot faster. But Micah and unnamed heroine (which will drive me nuts until I figure it out) need to be quiet. It's bad enough that Kaitlin and Caleb are working through their issues and Mark/Casanova and Kate/Amy have way too many names. But they are separate genres and each need their special moment in the sun. But there is also the immortal and his key who are getting crazy in my head.

To recap, Forsaken (paranormal), Casanova (category rom), Fearless (paranormal) and WFTWTE (paranormal, yup I'm not telling you the name) are all on the surface of my brain or seated at the counter in the diner and all are demanding to be served. Meanwhile, Fallen is sitting waiting for dessert (revisions). Wait and see what else my brain serves up.

Bad Writer, Bad

2009-06-29T18:31:00.003-05:00

I would love to say that I'm currently revising Fallen or finishing Forsaken, but I've been taken a hold of by a different story and it's working it's way out of my system (4800 words into it). Next step is to form a synopsis for it so I can put it aside and work on my edits. Then when I pick it up I can slam through the first draft. Fun!

That and I'm preparing for Nationals. For those who don't know, RWA (Romance Writers' Association) holds a conference once a year for its member. This year is in Washington, DC and it's my first year going. I've spent a lot of time shopping for proper clothing and shoes for the occasion and going over my pitch for Fallen. I can't wait to go and there doesn't seem to be enough time left. 2 weeks.

I will begin my focused effort on Fallen tomorrow and tonight I'll try to wrap up Casanova.

Research is Hard

2009-06-21T23:09:00.003-05:00

Can I tell you how much I love my job? So I finished up Catch a Star this week and will be sending it in on Monday. Nerve level has skyrocketed but I'll deal. So I have an idea in the same vein...Hollywood Hottie. Nomnomnom. So far I've needed to look up information on Manolo Blahnik (I even know how to spell it now). Then I spent a while trying to figure out a Hollywood Hot Spot, decided to make one up so used the English to French dictionary for made up name. Will be using another hot spot later in the book, this one will not be made up. Now I'm looking at the 2008 Sexiest Men Alive photos on People's website to figure out what my hero should look like. Wait for it....I love my job.

Been Workin'

2009-06-17T22:40:00.002-05:00

At least on my mom's farm. With dial up connection. That and finishing up the revisions on Catch a Star so I can send it off to the editor that requested it. Once that's done, I begin revisions on Fallen and then work on synopsis for Forsaken and The Shoe Story (working title) and get elevator pitches ready for Nationals for those two when I'm asked what I'm working on. Gearing up for Nationals by spending way too much money on shoes and clothing. What else am I doing? Hmmm. Well, when revisions are done I'll be writing. I'm also working on the RWA FF&P blog which while I'm not writing a lot on it, it does take time.

What You Are Missing on Twitter?

2009-05-14T12:36:00.002-05:00

aka I waste time when I'm stressed.

Wendy Lawton discussed the Kisses of Death to authors.

Renee Hagar discusses branding at Rachelle Gardner's blog. Something even the beginning novelist should look at

Amie Stuart entertains Aphrodisia readers with her take on the Power of Love

Want to understand why HarperCollins twitters? The New York Observer discusses.

Yen discusses in a 3 part series the idea of sending review copies to bloggers

Dear Author is trying to determine if people love the love triangle or hate it

And finally, looking for a good ebook. Check out CoolerBooks. I'm not sure it encompasses everything, but it has a good number of ebooks available.

What now? Well, you could follow the discussions going on currently on twitter including ... well, lets just say some people can't get songs out of their heads, while others are busy making themselves into romulans and vulcans, still others are avoiding working, and others are discussing the merits of Amazon publishing.

Envisioning Nationals

2009-05-11T17:19:00.003-05:00

I'm a member of Romance Writers of America. In July they have their National Conference. As a PRO member (having completed a MS and submitted for consideration of publication), I joined in the mass onslaught of the RWA website to sign up for one editor and one agent pitch session. It opened at 8 cst this morning. I wasn't able to get in until 12. I did get my first choice for agent, but there weren't that many editors taking appointments.

I'm very excited about going to the conference. I'm also working on getting my submission ready for my contest win. I've gotten some really great ideas from my crit partners and going through them in my head. I also have plans for revising Fallen and want to finish Forsaken. There's the idea that I'd like to finish developing. But I need to work on getting everything clean.

And there's the part time job that keeps rearing it's head. It's good because it stimulates a different section of my brain, but having recently contracted the plague (just a little sick and being melodramatic) the time I have to work is limited. So this is where we need to coordinate our schedules and make goals and stick to them. Time to sit with a piece of paper and crunch the numbers.

The Disappearing Cat

2009-04-20T13:24:00.003-05:00

Until I read through the entire MS, I hadn't noticed that I mentioned a cat in one scene and only one scene. We are in her apartment multiple times and no cat. It's silly the consistency things you see only when you read the entire MS. I mention the cat twice once by his name and that he was the only thing she had to go home to and then again as her hair looked like something her cat had coughed up. That's it. No purring cuddly cat at home during movie time. So unfortunately poor kitty will have to make his debut in a different book.

I'm still contemplating a scene I never completed. I don't know if it adds to the book enough to keep it in. Or if it's more of the same.

OMG!!! BIAM put on Hold

2009-04-18T15:33:00.003-05:00

http://www.wrwdc.com/ee/index.php/marlene_awards/

I got first place and apparently a request for my Catch a Star novel!!!! I'm psyched and am dropping Forsaken (in the middle of a very intense scene) to work on revisions of Catch a Star. Woohoo!

Day 17 of BIAM

2009-04-17T13:39:00.003-05:00

It's been slow going with a few set backs, but I can still make it. I have 12,000 of the 50,000 required to finish. Seems big, but it's 3000 words a day. I'm not done for the day and hope to write through the weekend as well. It's definitely easier to write 50K with a more defined plot. I have key points I'm heading to, but how I get there is up to the book giving it a more organic flow. It also makes it slightly frustrating to turn off and come back to since the thoughts of where I was going may not be there anymore. The beginning was a lot less epic battles like Fallen. Not that Fallen has "epic" battles, but it definitely has more fight scenes. We'll see how it turns out.

Day 8 of My Book In A Month

2009-04-08T22:02:00.002-05:00

I challenged myself to write 50K this month to finish off Forsaken. I've written 8,452 words so far this month. By daily goals I'm behind 4,884 words, but I can pull off some 3000-5000 word days to recover. The story is going well. I need to start redirecting it to the next turning point. It's nice to concentrate on one thing and get it done. Unfortunately I allow myself to become distracted by bright shiny things like researching netbooks, which became a more intensified search when I realized my current battery on my laptop only holds about a half hour of charge now.

Right now I'm just eyeballing them and waiting for the next innovation on them. I typically go for Thinkpad noteboods, but Lenovo's offering has a strangely placed right shift key. That leaves Dell, HP, ASUS and MSI Wind. Some of the ASUS also have the shift key in the weird spot, but they've got a newer version with a 9.2 hour battery. I tend to be a power consumer, meaning I like having the screen super bright and run iTunes and a few internet windows open while working in Word and having my Excel spreadsheet to flip back to to update my word count. So a netbook might not be for me, but I love the idea of having something that will fit in my purse that I can pop out while the kids do gymnastics or while waiting at the doctor's office. Until I can go and feel a keyboard I'm not keen on dropping a couple of hundred dollars to get a secondary laptop, especially since I just bought this one in Dec 2007. I did compromise on this one. I was completely in love with the 12.1" tablet PC offered by Lenovo and almost bought it, but I ended up getting the 15" T61 instead with more processing power and better graphics for less money. *Sigh* Maybe I should skip the netbook and get my tablet, but then it won't fit in my purse. Arguing myself in a circle. Not very effective for a blog post.

If you've been eyeballing netbooks, tell me which one you think is the best and why. Note I'm a heavy keyboard user. If the keyboard is crap, I don't want it. :-)

Words Are Creeping Up

2009-03-30T16:48:00.002-05:00

Yes, I'm adding scenes to Fallen and making it a longer book. Finally! So I'm plugging away at getting the important bits down and then will go through and make a pass through to make sure I'm not repeating myself later and there are a few scenes at the end that I know could use a little more beef. Then back to Beta Readers.

I also want to complete Forsaken this month. Meaning 50K in a month. I do it in November all the time. Except in Nov I have a bunch of folks plugging away beside me. So if anyone is left following this blog (Hi!) and wants to play too, let me know. We'll commisserate.

Forgive Me

2009-03-27T21:25:00.002-05:00

Hmmm. Maybe that will be Fallen's new title if I need one. I got Fallen back from a Beta reader (someone who reads your book like a reader not a critiquer) and she made some suggestions I'm going to try. It means revamping the beginning, but it's adding the word count I need and adding depth to the characters. I wrote 2000 words on it today, so I'm slowly but surely raising the word count. I received my scores from the Enchanted Words contest from the final judge and her words were encouraging. So I'll keep pushing forward. Knight Agency is having a contest to pitch your story in 3 sentences so I'll need to work on that at some point as well. Keep writing.

Sleeping Beauty

2009-03-11T15:00:00.002-05:00

My daughter has been home all day today since she woke me at 1:00am because she was completely clogged up. She's been fairly good and I got some writing in. Not as much as Monday, but 600 words isn't a bad day given the number of days with big fat zeros in them lately. I've found a new distraction. Twitter. While I enjoy it, it is a time suck with all the people I follow, but I enjoy it.

I was able to sprint with people on Monday and today which makes the writing so much easier for me. Major Procrastinator. Which brings us back to twitter. While I've been writing this blog post, twirl (twitter application) has been adding more tweets. Hey, look big distracty thing. I'm going to have to shut off twitter to get anything done.

Unfortunately, some really interesting things pop up on twitter, such as the call for submissions that I sent my MS in on. So I'm learning to scan twitter for tidbits and when I have time, I read through the posts. The allure is they are short, but the fact is that when you have 5 to read it's almost as long as this blog post. (estimated please don't check :))

Been a While

2009-03-07T10:16:00.002-06:00

Wow, I've been negligent about posting. So I've finaled in a contest and I sent a full out as a submission. I've been busy on the business side, but not so much on the writing side. I took on a part time job that's sucking away my writing time, but I have Monday free to go crazy. Which means Forsaken is getting some attention. I left Kaitlin fighting off a daemon in her room and Caleb racing in to save her. I'm not sure where Eli is. Poor characters. To be stuck in a scene must really suck. I must give them my undivided attention on Monday which means *gasp* turning off the internet. I know, I know, my soul will slowly wither and surely die without constantly checking Romance Divas or twitter, but my characters won't get very far if I don't. We'll see how it goes. Smile, the day is just beginning.

Internet Went Down

2009-02-17T09:02:00.002-06:00

Last night while I was playing with this blog format. So if you happened to see pictures appearing and disappearing on my header, that's why. I forgot to change it last night after the internet came back on. Oh, well. I'm having fun playing with formatting. A little too much fun, as in it's new and shiny and I want to play with it all the time. I need to get into revising like that, but unfortunately, it is not new and shiny. It's old and gone over a million times. :) But I will prevail. After I finish work.