Crystal Jordan :: Blog

I finished my first business trip and it was only kinda fun/interesting. Very sad. It turned into one of those experiences where everyone knows each other and is best of friends and I had no idea what was going on. At all. Ever.

Sometimes it really stinks being the new kid on the block. There’s only so long I can blow sunshine out of my butt before I just want to go home to my evil demon hellcat, Horatio.

In writing news, I have new pages on my “Silver Bullet” manuscript. Very productive hotel time. I might be taking a slightly different direction with the world-building — must do more research. Hey, I’m a librarian — we research everything. Deal with it.

To semi-colon or not to semi-colon? That is the question.

In romance writing, I have one of two options. I can use the “;” or the “–”. Unfortunately, more options in this area is not a good thing. As the Maaaarvelous Mad Madam M (or is she a young Judith Dench-type M in 007? Could go either way based on weather pattern and hair cooperation) will attest, I have “issues” with semi-colons. She was present during my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day of being mowed down by the firing squad of reviewers for my senior thesis in college. They single-handedly gave me a complex I will never be free of regarding my use of semi-colons. The shameful memories of that day are still enough to make me suck my thumb and cry for my Grams. M’s review was just as bad; so, in numb shock, we comforted ourselves with a big helping of Coldstone Creamery. We needed LOTS of chocolate ice cream. And toppings.

Thus far, I’ve used the “–” when my characters are talking and the “;” in the narrative. Am I limiting myself too much by being uniform? I don’t know. We’re lucky I’m using semi-colons at all. I have a complex, remember?

For the next two days, I will be out of town at a training workshop. I will have absolutely no internet access on this little jaunt. As a special treat for my loyal readers (though these readers are mostly hypothetical) I will post ahead for Thursday and Friday. I wouldn’t want people to miss their daily dose of me. I’m very excited about this outing; it’s my first ever “official” business trip. Rememeber, I only just finished grad school.

I’m hoping to get a wee bit of writing done in my hotel room during my off-time. I’m not even going to attempt to lug my laptop with me. Instead, I’ll take along my trusty yellow legal pad and try to get some new scenes for “Silver Bullet” done. If that doesn’t work, I’ll see if anything comes to me on “Supersize Girl” or “Siren’s Song.” Wish me luck!

I finished the revisions on my roughest of drafts! Yeay!

I still have much to do, I realize. But, Step 2 out of 700 is complete. How exciting!

Last night I tried to write more of “Silver Bullet” and instead I started thinking about my characters. The main problem I can see is that I have too many secondary characters. They all serve a purpose, yes, but not enough of a purpose to keep them. What I decided to do is consolidate some characters. I took all the most important features, purposes, and endearing qualities of two secondary players and made one mega-character that does it all. Too bad I can’t make this work in real life.

Also, I have to give a big shout out to my best-est cousin Emily, who promised not to get offended that the character I based on her was consolidated almost out of existence.

I also made some major changes to my heroine. She needs a bit more conflict — a bigger character arc so she can have a better “realization moment” at the end. I seem to be leaning further and further away from my chick lit comedy the more I write, so now I’m just embracing this as a sometimes-humorous action-adventure contemporary paranormal romance. Say that ten times fast.

The writing goes as well as I can hope. I’ve made excellent in-roads on my action chapter and my discussion of terrorist motives in an earlier chapter. Woo-hoo! I’m still adding the corrections I made on the hard copy over the weekend. Booooooorrrring!!! But, all in all, I can’t complain on the WIP (work in progress) front.

However, something else has been troubling me…

I put a web hit counter on my blog about 10 days ago and I’m now at about 240 hits. Okay, so the people I know read my blog: M — loverliest of best friends — who has a blog over at “The Zed Word,” my library grad-school friend Thom at “Audio Artifacts,” possibly my friend Elia, and maybe my cousin Emily, who’s suffering through her undergrad up at Ohio State. But that’s, what, 4 people? That’s only 40 hits, if they check everyday. Add the once a day I check my blog to make sure all is looking as it should and that makes 50. Who are these mysterious 150+ others who’ve read my blog?

M and I discussed this very subject the other day after I talked her into getting a hit counter for her blog. Who are these readers? Why don’t they comment? Receiving comments is one of the most fun parts of blogging! Do they actually read the blog or did they end up on our pages by accident? Or are we just not fascinating enough to encourage comments? How DID they find us anyway? M had a comment from middle-aged Malaysian man a few weeks ago. Her blog is about the ramblings of a 20-something grad student. Huh. Go figure.

So, the question of the day is a bit Goldilocks-esque:

Who’s been reading my blog?

I’ve discovered a fantastic new tool! It monitors the progress of your Work in Progress. Since the fabulous Jill Monroe inspired the addition of this tool and hopped on to my blog to say howdy, she’ll be added shortly to the author’s blog links. (Even though she posts evil pictures of Brad Pitt over on Gena Showalter’s blog. Bad Jill! Bad!)

Here’s my progress with editing the rough draft:

27,215 / 100,000 (27.0%)

I’ll add this to my side bar and update it as I go.

I finished going over my rough draft this weekend and realized that, once again, I have major issues with staying in the same tense. So, I have to go back and correct all the verbs that are just wrong. Darn!

Bonus: Even after a week of marination, I don’t hate it. Always a good sign.

I also did some light weekend reading on the social, psychological, and cultural aspects of terrorism. I have a terrorist cell of werewolves in my manuscript and part of my hang up with the action chapter was the motivation/reasoning of these characters. The action chapter is now going so well.

Welcome PC Cast to my author’s blog links. In my effort to research other mermaid romances, I picked up her book, Goddess of the Sea. Very nice. I may have to purchase the rest of her “Goddess Summoning” series.

Okay, since I did promise last week to post a picture of me with straight hair and a good color job, I will. The picture is muy, muy bad though! I look like I have a major triple chin. Ick. I do look a bit better than this is real life, I swear!

I kinda like the black and white version better, but not much!

I think it may say something bad about me that I’m also tied as the bad guy. I could be Zoe, too. She kicks butt! Here are my results for the “Which Serenity Character are you?” quiz. Take it– it’s fun!

Earlier this week I talked about how all superheroines are super-skinny. I have further proof. I’m having my step-mom sketch a fat supergirl for me, since all fat people in comic books tend to be stupid and/or villainous. (blech!) I like to have something to go on when I write; that way I don’t forget who looks like what. Inconsistent descriptions drive me nutty when I’m reading, so I try not to make this particular mistake when I write. Unfortunately, my other mistakes are just as bad or worse, I’m sure.

On to the proof!

**stage whisper** I see skinny people.

Exhibit B: (See earlier postings for Exhibit A)

Exhibit C:

Exhibit D: