My Three Favorite Words

DONE DONE DONE! (said with all appropriate amounts of drama... in fact, usually I sing them)

Finished off my WIP yesterday. Skating in just under the maximum word-count at 8,987 words (for a 5,000 - 10,000 word short story... honestly, 10k words doesn't seem "short" to me, that's 20 pages, but I guess it doesn't really fall into novella lengths either.)

I've said it before, I'll say it again; I get my best work done at the laundromat. How weird is that?

Well, it does have some things going for it - there's no wifi there unless I want to cross the street and work over at the Burger King. Without the web and email to distract me, I can get a lot more accomplished. (I've thought about trying to set up some sort of timer on the wireless in the house... push a button and the wifi comes down for an hour? Eh.... because you know, I don't want to set up some sort of from 10am - 3pm, no internet... what if I'm taking the day off and want to play Warcraft?)

There's something soothing about the sound of so many washers and dryers running, unless someone's load gets unbalanced, in which case it reminds me greatly of some upstairs neighbors I used to have. For them, I was so tempted to blare music with a good, steady backbeat, just because I felt sorry for them and their complete lack of rhythm.

And mostly no one bothers me anymore. I can get in a good solid 25 minutes, get up, stretch, switch the loads from washer to dryer and get in another good, solid 30 minutes. You might think I wouldn't get much done in less than an hour, but solid work seems to flow out of the laundromat. It's either work or watch daytime TV, and frankly, I'd rather spork myself to death than watch Wheel of Fortune, or any of the Judge Judy sorts of things that they have running in there.

Yesterday while I was there, I ran into a woman with some absolutely lovely tattoo work. So, after I bundled up my wash and got it into the car, I stopped to talk with her. Turns out she's a romance reader, so I left her my card. If she ends up here - Hi Courtney! - that's cool. I wish I'd thought to take pictures, her breastbone work was particularly amazing. That's the other thing about the laundromat... her dryer had broken down, so she's not a regular... I meet some fascinating people there. (sometimes less than fascinating... the skinhead guy who didn't want to take "no, I won't date you" for an answer comes to mind)

So... now I'm done with Shadow of Kenfig. I sent it out to my betas yesterday and already got one back.

Schedule:

edit Shadow of Kenfig, (Aug 1)

submit Shadow of Kenfig (Aug 10)

2,500 - 4,500 word short story, A is for Absinthe, Steampunk Romance (Sep 15)

edit Marked Man, Cha 1 - 10 (Sept 30)

1,500 - 3,000 word short story, Ripped, about succubi (Oct 1)

2,500 - 4,500 word short story, P.B.E.M., Duty & Desire (Oct 15)

Sex is Hard

I have a little routine before, during, and after I write.

Usually.

First thing I do is organize my desk. I just can't seem to write if there are too many shiny things on my desk, and since my desk is the Flat Surface of the house right next to the front door (yes, I know, poor planning on my part, but my apartment is tiny, and three people live in it, so I'm doing the best I can), it is the repository for any number of shiny objects. I take all my jewelry back to my bedroom; bead necklaces, mismatched earrings, my squid ring; then any books that I'm not currently reading, move my keys out of reach (because yes, I will fiddle).

And then I open up my WIP and jot the current number of words down on a post-it note. Can I just mention I would die without post-it notes? They are essential to my life.

And then I work.

Theoretically.

Sometimes work is opening my email and spluttering out some half-assed "entertain me" note to a friend. I'll play a few games of Bejeweled Blitz. Check my dragons in another stupid Facebook game. In between, I'll write a few sentences, and if I'm lucky, I'll get sucked in and before I know it, I'm an hour later, with a few pages written. And I go about my day. (Cleaning, being mom, wife, cook, errand-runner, and all those mundane things that if I don't do, no one does.)

Other days... not so much. Like yesterday.

I've finally got my protagonists up to having sex. I write erotica and romantica, so the sex is often the payout for whatever terrible things I've had happen to the characters along the way... the end goal, so to speak.

So I open my WIP, re-read the last few pages to make sure I know where I am... and... wrote an email. And wrote another one. Got a sentence in. Cleaned the living room. Wrote a sentence. Watched some videos on YouPorn (hey, it's research... really. I promise.) Dicked around on Facebook. Wrote two or three sentences and some dialogue. Reminded myself that not everyone talks as much during sex as I do and took some of it back out.

I had my WIP open from 10am until 4:30.

And wrote about six hundred words.

Ug.

And I'm not even to the orgasm.

Good lord.

Sometimes my job is hard.