Crystal Jordan :: Blog

I contemplated the possibility of changing my WIP’s title today. I don’t like “Silver Bullet” as a romance title. It just won’t fly. It makes sense if you read the book, but that’s not a good enough reason to keep it. And I can just picture it being changed to something truly tragic, like “Sex and the Silver Bullet.” This is very bad — let me tell you why. I went to one of those “naughty lady” parties once and I do believe they had a vibrator named The Bullet or Silver Bullet. So, ‘no thank you’ is my response to that title.

I thought of a few alternatives and I’m not sure which I like better:

Blue Moon Rising
Once in a Blue Moon
Once upon a Blue Moon
Blue Moon Magic
Formerly Wicked
Something Wicked
Perfectly Wicked
A Little Bit Wicked

Then I thought of some funny ones:

Blue Moon Wishes and Caviar Dreams
Blue Moon Me, Baby
It’s All About a Full Moon
Bullets and Boobies
The Liar, the Witch, and the Werewolf
Magically Moony

I got all the revisions typed in on my 2nd rough draft! I must now print it out and begin on rough draft #3. Hopefully, I won’t have to deal with anymore tense issues. Really hate those.

On to getting rid of as many passive verbs as possible.

I found some really great information about werewolves, vampires, and pagan religious beliefs. (Not all in the same place) I think this stuff will help with “Silver Bullet’s” fantasy world-building. Or at least help me explain what’s in my head for the world-building.

I got a book today that talks about different mermaid tales from around the world. This should prove very useful when I write a bit more of “Siren’s Song.” See? You thought I forgot about my other WIPs, huh? Nope; still working away.

Also, I bought some Supergirl comics to see if I can’t use something for “Supersize Girl.” The research never ends, people! Never!

Hope your weekend is lovely!

I’m out of town again this weekend, so you get my weekend posts now. (Lucky you!) On to the main event!

The problem with boosting my word count is that every time it goes up, I have more to correct in the next draft! M says I need to quit complaining about this because I want my word count to go up. But, think about it! The more work I do, the more work I create for myself. There’s no escaping the vicious cycle! And the truly sick and twisted thing is, I don’t want to.

This is how sado-masochists must feel.

On an entirely different note, I’m taking a page out of Robin D. Owens’ book (or manuscript) and trying my hand at character interviews. It’s actually helping flesh out my people. My leading man told me a secret I hadn’t known yet. I think it will play a part somewhere in the WIP.

Note: I think I’m going crazy. A fictional character that I made up is withholding vital information from me. I don’t even have healthy relationships with my fantasy guys!

Not!

So, I have a problem. My breaker is constantly tripping and I lose all power to my overhead lights and fans. That means I have to trudge all the way around to the back of the building to flip the breaker back on. Until last night, this had been nothing more than a mild inconvenience. I’ve mentioned it to my landlord; he said he’d take care of it. So, no biggie.

I guess he forgot.

At exactly 3:34am my ceiling fan made a loud pop and the lights (which had not been on) flashed for a moment. This, of course, woke me from a sound sleep. Normally around this time of year, a fan going out would not pose a problem. Normally, this issue could wait until morning. Unfortunately, my part of Tennessee is having some weird weather. Two days of frigid temperatures and driving rain followed by three days of a warmer, more humid climate.

I had two options. Stay in bed and swelter in slimy sweated-on sheets. Or I can wander about with a camping lamp and try to flip the breaker to its full-upright and locked position. In wet sticky weeds. With the bugs and snakes. (And don’t mock the snake reference; we had a copper head in the library last week. Eek!) I like camping as much as the next person. It’s fun. But I don’t like outdoor camping-like escapades while I’m at home.

I pick option number one. For about 15 muggy minutes. Then I go with door number two. I got the lights back on and was back in bed in a short while — wetter, soggier, and grouchier, but back in bed.

And then I couldn’t sleep. I gave up after a while and got some good writing done, but I am not, repeat not, a happy camper. Yours truly is truly exhausted today, though properly climate controlled.

I think my landlord and I need to have a chat.

I had a severe ADD moment and got bored with the look of my blog. Don’t worry. Same Bat-time, same Bat-station. I just changed the look a little. Knowing me, I might do this again every coupla months.

I finished revisions on my second rough draft. The hard copy, anyway. Now I have to put them into the computer. Then we’ll start with round three. Yeay!

I still have a lot of “**expand here” areas in the manuscript, but I actually take that as a good sign. Right now, if I had a single spaced manuscript, it would only be 77 pages. If I had already told my story and had nothing to expand on I would really be pushing it trying to make 180-200 pages, right? Right!

My story still has much much more to say and that’s a good thing. Well, that’s my story today and I’m stickin’ to it. This may change later when I want to chuck my WIP across the room.

I’m editing the second rough draft of my manuscript (I’ll probably go through about 20 before I’m done. If I ever get done) I made a decision halfway through to change the tense to present instead of past. So, I had to go through again and correct all the tense corrections from my last draft. So, basically I’m going back to what I started with before. More work I created for myself. Dad-nabbit! Son-of-a-biscuit! **stomps foot** Ah, well. Back to work!

I thought I’d share some daily motivation with you today, mmm-hmm:

I’m about to have a major shortage of time. My university wants me to teach a new General Education class on information literacy. This means extra money, a promotion to adjunct faculty, and a fantastic boost to my resume. But, this is all on top of my full-time work as a librarian. How will I have time to write? I don’t have a whole lot of spare time now and it’s all about to go out the window.

I love to write, but I freely admit to being ambitious in my chosen career. Why not? I’ve invested years of my life and tens of thousands of dollars into the education it took just to become a librarian. So, I should be the best librarian I can be, right? Right!

You can see my conundrum at this point. Rock (my work) and Hard Place (my writing). That’s me you see stuck in the middle. Crapola. Talk about too much of a good thing!

In better news: my word count and revision count are both up! Yeah, buddy!

My dear family has heard more about my characters and book ideas than they have about me in the past month. They have been tolerant, thus far; but, how long can I possibly expect that to last?

The family has also given me some truly hideous ideas when I mistakenly asked for suggestions. Oh, dear. I hope they don’t expect to read about them when I send my rough drafts out for corrections.

I recently moved to a town so teeny tiny, with very little in the way of writers, that I have decided to use select members of my family/friends as my critique group. They like romance and have read broadly in the genre. Most importantly, I trust their opinions — so, for now, I think that’s the best I can do. I have no clue whether or not this is a good idea, but I’m stickin’ to it until I have proof it’s a bad one.

My friend Elia has recently added herself to the list who will receive the RD. I love to torture her and she hates romance. Mwah-ha-ha! I figure she’ll be good for a brutal outside opinion.

At least that’s my motto today. I’m typing my new pages into the computer. My word count is up again. I got really depressed when my leading lady’s new character arc made me cut, cut, cut. I had a stagnant word count for a few days and I got a little maudlin about ever finishing the book. But, I’m through that - for the moment. Yeay!

My hellcat, Horatio, is just getting out of the kitten stage. When I came home I found out just how destructive a kitten who’s teething can be. I thought I kitten-proofed the house. Yeah, right.