I've been plagued by toothache/headache the past couple of days, which makes concentrating difficult. I soldiered on, though -- re-wrote a couple of scenes, sent out a query or two, read a chapter a friend sent to me for beta-thoughts. I didn't write anything new, but it's still work, so I'm not too annoyed with myself.
Tonight I'll either be a) editing my three-page synopsis down to two pages, as per a particular publisher's submission guidelines; b) finishing the editing for Deeper Than Bone; c) adding some more words to the first draft of Love in a Cubicle; or d) starting the outline for the new idea I had while trying to sleep last night. Either way, I have a busy evening ahead of me once Little Man's asleep. It's always a challenge finding time to work at the weekends with my son off school, but I have to scrape a spare hour together from somewhere or I get too lazy!
Not long until release day now... *bites nails*
Today I've been editing. Actually, I've mostly been undertaking the tedious task of re-writing my past-tense novella into present-tense. It's boring work, but necessary for this story. You know when you get the feeling something's not quite right with the story, no matter how many different angles you look at it from? Yeah. This is definitely a present-tense story -- which mostly means spending hours changing "had" to "has" and "was" to "is" (although, as we all know, the word "was" should hardly be in there at all -- hello, passive voice). I got about halfway through before a couple of scenes jumped out at me, demanding the total re-write treatment, and now my 20k novella is sitting at 30k. Bah.
It's a far more serious story than my previous "romantic comedy", and I'm not too sure if I've pulled it off. I won't know until the editing's complete and I can look at the bigger picture -- and even then, it'll only be my personal opinion. *bites nails*
I recently finished another long novella/short novel (45k), and again, it has a serious tone as opposed to the light-hearted banter I usually favour. It's very graphic, too. I don't shy away from graphic sex scenes -- I've been writing them for years -- but it's definitely not one I can show the family! (Not that my family knows I write erotica anyway -- Jehovah's Witnesses, you know.) I hadn't realised quite how graphic my sex scenes were until I read some other recent M/M erotic romance on the market. Hm. Although the novella coming out at the end of this month is slightly tamer than my most recent works.
Speaking of, my lovely editor sent me the final version of the manuscript last week, complete with dedications and author bio. It's so pretty, all laid out in such a professional manner. Makes me all a-glowy!
And lastly, I've started working on another story. I'm back to romantic comedy, after the time I just spent on the serious/angsty novellas, and it feels good. It has a working title: Love in a Cubicle. Yep, you guessed it... office romance! With a twist. I can't wait to get into the meat of this story. It's a fun tale to write!
And... that's all I've got tonight. G'night!
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