Less Love

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I woke up this morning with hubby laughing. Along my left side was a row of three cats sleeping. No wonder I couldn't move!

The big news around the house is the Toys R Us Toy book arrived in the mail. You would think it was Christmas already. The kidlets spent over an hour last night pouring through it. You could almost see the tree lights twinkling in their eyes. I reminded them it wasn't even Halloween yet. They didn't care and set to work on their letters to Santa. They had started these a couple of weeks ago.

The other big news is I'm only 5 pages behind my page count goal! (I took Monday off!) The Plan is working. Yay!

Better get writing so I can catch up!

Are you thinking about Christmas yet or is it just way too soon?

Almost!

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Only the great room and kitchen remain on my weekend cleaning quest. (I'm not counting the dining room, which was spotless until I started using the table to sort through my office and craft supplies.) I had big plans to finish up yesterday, but I had to get some pages written and work on some prelim pages (the pages at the front of the book before the title page) for the Vegas continuity. It's really bugging me the downstairs isn't all clean!

But I'm going to try to get at least half of my required pages written first. Such dedication! LOL! I wish. I'm just trying to stay ahead of my schedule.

You might remember me mentioning my good friend Elizabeth Boyle's The Plan before. Well, the truth is, I never could make it to the end of one of my plans. I'd last a couple of weeks, but that was all. I never could figure out why, because the idea behind The Plan is really sound. It makes so much sense to my engineering brain. But something in the execution of it just wasn't working.

So I modified The Plan to work for me.

Actually I simplified it. A lot. And made it completely low tech. Non-tech really. Think goodbye fancy spreadsheet, hello pencil and paper.

My plan is hand written into the little 5 1/2 in x 8 1/2 in spiral notebook I'm never without. It consists of three columns (October, November, December) with the days of the month written on each line. Next to that is my page goal in parenthesis. Before each of the days that correspond to Mondays, I have where I should be with my total word count if I meet my daily goal. Each night before I go to bed, I write down # pages written/# words written (total words in ms.)

I don't know why the Excel spreadsheet didn't work, but I'm not complaining about my hand scrawled version of The Plan at all. It's working. I'm four days ahead of where I should be in spite of my cleaning frenzy the past couple of days! Now all I have to do is keep it up. Fingers crossed!

Plans

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I've decided to stop using The Plan. I gave Elizabeth Boyle's writing schedule (aka The Plan) a really good go on more than one book, but the same thing happened each time. Life is so crazy around here and unpredictable that I just kept getting more and more freaked out when I'd stare at my plan and see how behind I'd fallen. I'm sure it works great for many writers, just not me.

What I've realized works best to me is a daily page/word count five days a week. If I fall behind, I have two other days to catch up. That's my new plan and I'm hoping it does not go awry with the new book. So far so good though. I finished the synopsis last night!

What's on your agenda this weekend? I'm going to drive into Portland to see my friend Elizabeth mentioned above. She's in town for the Celebrate Romance conference. If you're local, you can see Elizabeth, Jane Porter and lots of other romance writers at a huge booksigning at the Cedar Hills Borders at 6:30 pm on Saturday, February 28th. Me? I'll be at a talent show watching my kids Irish dance!

Update

I've had to scale back the keyboard time. Just no other choice. The hands are improving though so that's a good thing! I'm hoping I can get back to my daily page goal. According to The Plan, the complete should have been finished today. Because of my hands, it isn't. This next week should be interesting!

Don't forget if you want to win a copy of my upcoming release, SOS Marry Me!, to go to Liz Fielding's blog and post a comment. The winner will be selected on Sunday!

Dinner at Elizabeth's

On Saturday night, we loaded the kids into the car and drove north westerly from SEATAC to the lovely abode of talented historical author, Elizabeth Boyle. She's got such an awe-inspiring view of the Puget Sound. Sorry, but I haven't gotten around to downloading the pics yet! I got a tour of her house, saw the various rooms where she's had her office and got to see an original Pino, the actual full-size artwork for one of her covers!

We sat out on her deck drinking wine and chatting while the kids (her two and my three) played and our hubbies got to know each other. The two ended up comparing notes about what it was like to be married to a romance author. The consensus-they hate deadline time!

Elizabeth's hubby grilled hamburgers and hot dogs. The kids piled their plates with veggies, fruit and chips, too. I couldn't convince mine to try the potato salad, but that just left more for me!

It was a great time! We hated to leave, but bedtime was approaching and after such a busy day my three kidlets were so tired. Little Rose was about to fall asleep. She actually slept on the drive back to the hotel!

Nathalie posted this in the comment section last week:

I always wonder... it must great to have writers as friends, do you become friends when you are writers or do you usually know them from before.

It is great to have writers as friends because they understand exactly what I'm going through. Elizabeth and I met at the RWA convention in Denver so we were both already published writers then. I was pregnant with Rose at the time, not feeling that great and wishing I could be anywhere else but there. Elizabeth came up to me and said she knew exactly what I was going through since she'd been pregnant at a previous conference. She was so nice. I liked her right away.

After Rose was born, I went to the Emerald City Conference with baby in tow and saw Elizabeth again. We would bump into each other at events like the RCRW Romance Writers luncheon and RWA conference. Over the years, we realized how much we have in common, things that go beyond the writing. I always look forward to seeing her.

A couple pieces of Elizabeth Boyle info you might not know:

• You know The Plan I use to keep track of my writing and have blogged about? Elizabeth and her husband Terry are the ones who created the spreadsheet and they'll be giving a workshop on it at the RWA conference in San Francisco this summer!

• Her next book, Tempted by the Night, will be released on my birthday, August 26th!

Have you read any of Elizabeth's books? If not, you should!

Buckling down

With a huge item checked off my To Do list this past weekend, I can finally focus on the book. On Friday I got an email from my editor. The proposal was accepted with no changes. Of course, that doesn't mean I won't be changing those first three chapters. That always happens as I get deeper into a story and learn more about the characters, but it means I'm on the right track. Huge sigh of relief.

So this morning, I'll reexamine The Plan and amend where I am and where I need to be accordingly. I'll also look at my To Do list since a few things have been ignored for too long and need to get done.

I'll finally have the time even with a deadline. The year is already winding down. I only have two more Monday classes to teach, too, so that will free up a big chunk of time each week.

My Sunday class ended last week. I have to admit, it was nice not having to run to the church last night, set up the Atrium for Sunday night class then after class take it down again. I missed the kids and the actual classroom time, but not all that was involved to get us there. I already told them I'm taking next year off from teaching on Sundays. I've done it for three years and need a break.

And only a month and a half until the kidlets are finished with school. I can't wait until they are home with me! We have lots of plans for the summer. What about you?