Writing

No! Don’t Go In There…It’s a TRAP!

Julie Blair Lane — Thu, 15 May 2008 17:26:00 GMT

There is just something special about reclining on the sofa, laptop at your fingertips, coffee by your side and a story running in fast forward through your mind. When this happens it’s like nothing else exists in the room. I become a fly on the wall my character leans upon. I dare not breathe or she will hear me. I dare not move or the entire image could vanish. The words tumble out of my fingers at a pace rivaled only by a transcriptionist. The scene is set! The characters take action! It’s pure poetry! Poetry, I tell you! The fly marvels at the sheer genius! She snickers at a joke made by the hero, “that’s good stuff she whispers.”

(CRASH)

Suddenly my stained and worn sofas come back into view as the world behind the cursor fades into a black and white blob on the screen. “What was that?!” I yell from my seat still straining futilely to regain the focus.

“Nothing.”

“That was definitely something!” As I close the screen, my manuscript screams, “No! Don’t go in there, it’s a trap!”

Finding nothing but an overturned chair, I return to the sofa and attempt picking up where I left off. The black and white blob refuses to resurrect and the toys on the floor refuse to disappear. “A trap indeed”, I snort in frustration. Now I am back to staring at the blinking cursor, in a world where naptime will expire in ten minutes. That moment of sheer genius may not ever be published but it will encourage me to try again tomorrow. In the meantime, I’ll enjoy being trapped in Motherhood.

i'll be returning soon...

Julie Blair Lane — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 16:34:00 GMT

I really miss writing for this blog....actually, I've missed writing in general! As I mentioned before, we moved, yet again. This time though, we are hopeful it will be permanent. We're still surrounded by boxes and hundreds of stray items looking for a home in our new home. Despite this, my plan is to resume a more “normal” routine beginning Monday morning (Oh Lord please help me with this!). I do know that when I return, my online time will be limited to email, this blog and a couple of forums.

Speaking of forums, I haven't formally introduced one of my favorite projects to date. If you are a woman struggling with body image and weightloss, you might consider checking out GAINChange. Feel free to use my contact form or email me at j.blair.lane@gmail.com express interest in joining us. We do have some restrictions on who may join so be sure to check out the site.

Well, I'd better return to the land of cardboard chaos! Looking forward to being back in the swing of things next week!

NaNoWriMo 2007 Ends

Julie Blair Lane — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 16:12:00 GMT

Ok, so I didn't hit the coveted 50K words but I did do a lot better than last year. I closed out the month at 27,672 words - although I didn't get to the site before midnight to update my count. I don't know if I have a story to build on but it's possible. Before I do anything more with this one though, I have another project that I need to finish. In the meantime, this one can marinate in my hard drive.

Behind in the count...

Julie Blair Lane — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 15:45:00 GMT

but already further along than last year lol. Yes, I'm talking about the NaNoWriMo challenge. It has been really difficult for me to “just write” and not care about mistakes or wording...etc. With some things I can do that but I can't seem to when trying to tell a story. I find myself going back and re-reading and re-writing. I have to stop and just press on though. When I “let it flow”, things start popping out about my characters that are actually interesting. I'm discovering that I don't really know them at all - how goofy is that?! One of the characters has changed so much from my original plan just in the first few pages that she has become somewhat evil - and I certainly didn't see that coming.

I was going to update my word count on the website but it doesn't appear to be loading for me at the moment. So, I'll just post it here: 2,826

That's behind where they say we should be right now to meet the 50K mark by the end of November but it's only the 3rd.

NaNoWriMo 2007

Julie Blair Lane — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 14:45:00 GMT

I can't believe it's almost that time of the year again. While many are thinking of costume parties, tricks and treats, turkeys, fall leaves, thankfulness and the like...thousands are thinking of one number 50,000. That's the number of words writers from all over the globe will attempt to write from November 1-30 this year. I have attempted this in the past (although admittedly with only a marginal effort) and have fallen quite short. This year, I'm going to try again with the hopes that “life” will remain calm enough....long enough...for me to get more on the screen than a few paragraphs. I've chosen to begin from scratch with a fresh new idea (rather than work on other novel projects that have been “ongoing”). I just want to write. No planning. No over analyzing. Just tell a story...period. Also, I'm one of the suspicious people who refuses to upload my manuscript to anywhere but a legitimate publisher and so, you will just have to trust that I am actually pecking out the word numbers that I post that I am.

If you'd like to jump into the game this year - check out the site at www.nanowrimo.org - the starter pistol will sound in a couple of weeks so get ready!!

Carnival of Christian Writers

Julie Blair Lane — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 10:00:00 GMT

I was a tad busy on Christmas Day so I didn't get around to posting about the Carnival of Christian Writers over at Writer...Interrupted. This is the third carnival in this genre and if you have any interest in writing at all, you should check it out!

Carnival of Christian Writers #3

While you're over there, you might want to take a peek at this week's Mid-Week Motivation by Chanda Canup. I've really enjoyed Chanda's posts this month.

Goals: November 19th – November 25th

Julie Blair Lane — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 09:03:00 GMT

Alrighty, for those who know I’ve weighed all year on Friday, things have changed slightly. At this point in time I don’t know what I weigh. I was becoming obsessive over the number so my husband and God have banned me from seeing the scale number. I did weigh this morning but did it with my eyes closed and my wonderful hubby took down the number for me (and will post it later) so I can still participate at OWOA (did the same thing the week before). I did soooo well last week with my food, water and exercise that part of me really, really wants to know what the number is….at the same time, the lovely monthly is here and I am bloated like there is no tomorrow…so, part of me is rather glad I can’t see the number. I’m convinced it probably isn’t very good because of the way I feel. So, I’m trying to focus on the fact that I worked my tail off last week and knowing that should be enough right now.

Not much planned for the week since we’re headed home to Texas for Thanksgiving. I really need to make some headway with my novel – maybe in the car on the 9 hour drive (now that I have a new battery – thank you, Erik). I did feel like I had a brainstorming break through last night with one of my character. This character has really had me stumped because she is complicated and pivotal to the story. She touches all the other characters so while she does have one single ultimate goal – the way she goes about it affects the other characters in different ways depending on their role in her plot. The pieces just weren’t gelling. I’d change something in her storyline and that would alter three other characters and make the motivating point there void…..grrrrrr. Finally after many, many revisions, I think I’ve got something that is working.

Well, here’s this week’s list :o)

Current week

o Exercise 3 times

o Drink a min. ave. of 64 oz of water/day

o Stay on track with eating plan

o Work on NaNoWriMo project

Last week

o Exercise 3 times – [yes+]

o Drink a min. ave. of 64 oz of water/day – [yes, ave 117.7 oz/ day]

o Stay on track with eating plan – [yes]

o My FlyLady Lists – [yes]

o Continue Lessons – [yes]

o Ship last auction package – [yes]

o Work on NaNoWriMo project – [yes]

Annual Goals

Exercise –minimum average of 3 days a week (156 days total);	165 / 156
Water - Aim for between one half gallon and a gallon each day (between 23,360 and 46,720 ounces total)	25,498
Weightloss – lose an average of 1lb per week. Since I actually have more to lose than last year, I think it’s safe to say I need to and can lose at least 52 lbs.	?? / 54.2
Geocaching – shoot for 350 finds again this year. That’s an average of 1.92 per week.	51 / 100
Writing – enter one contest and complete YA ms.
Writing – Sub at least one pb ms	Done (2)
Quilting – Complete wall hanging quilt in front room. (9 squares to finish quilting)	Done
Scrapbooking – Get Christmas Greetings Album caught up.	Done
Scrapbooking – Complete Family Christmas Album through 2002.	On Hold
Scrapbooking – Complete Family Album through 2005. Scrap 2006 as the year progresses so it is completely scrapped by the end of January 2007. Complete all Kids’ albums through 2002.	On Hold
Reading – Average one book per month (12 total titles).	24 / 12
Home Improvement – ~~complete kids’ room makeovers (more details to come)~~	Moved
New Skills – learn how to knit :o)	The basics
New Skills – Programming in C#: Beginner’s Book	Chapter 4
Journal – Average 3 personal journal entries a week for 2006 (156 entries total). At least find old written journals lol.	143 / 156

Going for 50K in 30 Days

Julie Blair Lane — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 11:20:00 GMT

Leann mentioned last year that she was participating in NaNoWriMo. I don't know if I stumbled on it too late last year or what but I didn't participate. Well, today I popped on over to her blog to check out the Carnival of Beauty and she mentioned that she's not doing NaNoWriMo this year....instead, she's doing NaCoBoWriMo (National Cookbook Writing Month).

Well, if you've read here any time at all, it's probably a safe bet that I won't be writing any cookbooks. Sorry Leann, I'll leave that up to the folks who know what they are doing (she's a chef ya'll). ACK - did I just say "ya'll"? I thought it would be cute, it doesn't work for me though...striking it from my vocabulary again. Since I'm not writing any cookbooks, I've decided to give NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) a go this year. Over the weekend an idea popped into my head so I believe I'll run with that. I do wish I'd remembered this campaign earlier and done some preliminary work on the novel idea. I'll be a bit behind the eight ball but hopefully I can catch up. The goal? 50K words.

I hope to keep track of how I'm doing throughout the month.

247 double spaced pages and 72K words

Julie Blair Lane — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 15:40:00 GMT

I opened my YA ms today after not even thinking much about it in months. I think I grew tired of the story because I knew I was so close to the end and part of me isn't sure I want it to end. Not only that, I have an idea for two prequel books that I think would round out a trilogy nicely. With that in mind I almost feel like I need to have a really great ending since it could be the finale in a series. Anyway (note rabbit finding original trail), I opened it and I think I'll have to re-read several of the last chapters to refresh my memory about where I was going when I stopped working on it. It's already rather long in my opinion and this is only the first draft.

In other "writing" news, I got an email from my mom yesterday telling me she'd found a children's story I wrote in high school. I wrote it for an assignment in my creative writing class. My mother asked me to get it back from my teacher at the end of the year because she really liked it. Well, my teacher wouldn't give it back...something about keeping things on file so people couldn't cheat in later years. Sometimes I wonder if she actually sold our work. Since she wouldn't give it to me, I wrote the story over and gave it to my mom (to which she replied, "this is better than the first one".) Anyway, I called my mom to talk to her about her email. She was so excited about finding the story. She's sending it in a package for my daughter's birthday. And then she paid me a huge compliment. She said, "when you read it, you'll see that you are a writer and quite good." She knows I've been discouraged by rejection but I still appreciated the words. She's always said my story should be published. I do remember the premise behind it but for the life of me can't remember what was so great about it. So, I'll probably start re-working it some once I get the copy and then try subbing it out.

In addition to these writing projects, I need to get my GAINWeigh book finished soon so I can self-publish it....find another publisher to send my “Big Sister” pb ms to....decide on a contest to enter so I can meet that goal....and....I don't know, but I know there's more.

Mailed PB MS #1 & #2 Today!!

Julie Blair Lane — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 13:40:00 GMT

I finally placed my two completed picture book manuscripts in the mail today. Now we wait. (cue Jeopardy music)

As some of you know, #1 is going back out after being my first “rejection”. The second one has been on my hard drive waiting for me to get the nerve to send it lol.

Well, it's done. I'm back in the slush pile hoping and praying just the right person gets their hands on them. Now, time to put a bit of work into PB MS #3 and YA MS #1 (more on this later). I've got a couple of shorts going also in case I come across a writing contest.