Writing – Page 3 – StoryTeller2, original fiction and so much more

oh sigh

Big intentions? Check. Story ideas? Check. Backing off of game playing? Check. Sorta. Sitting down and writing? Fail. *sighs* Still playing the Sims BuildIt game, too much. If it was regular Sims I wouldn’t feel so guilty because that actually ‘tickles’ my muse quite a bit and allows her to choose directions I might not have come up with.

On the other hand, I have gotten some house work done that I had been putting off. *sighs*

I recently finished a book. A mystery. It had a lot of promise, the blurb sounded so intriguing. It did not live up to the blurb. The protagonist was totally unlikeable and I could not muster any empathy for her, at all. Took me a long time to finish that book, in fact, in my review I even stated it was a tedious read. So that even put me off of reading, for crying out loud. Grrr.

Still haven’t written anything, other than blog posts and now a review – but I did start another book that I’m liking. Maybe I’m back on the right track? We shall see… m’kay, I am so outtie….

Lethargy

You know, there is something oh-so-deliciously decadent when one disregards the poking and prodding of one’s muse. Sometimes. However, giving in to an… ahem slothful nature is not something that should be indulged too often. So I have been indulging. It came to me quite recently actually, just within the last 24-hours or so, that I never allowed myself to truly rest and play and vegetate, after I completed my schooling.

Oh no, I no longer had texts to read and papers to write so I substituted fictional readings and writing tons of reviews. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still read – a good writer does their best to keep abreast of current offerings – and write reviews for what I’ve read – for one, it’s a way to make my name known in certain circles and should also be incentive for others to review my own works, once published.

I’ve been playing Sims 2 and SimCity Buildit, addictively, both created by EA Games – my favorite game makers. Sims 2 I play exclusively on my desktop PC, while the Buildit game is played on my Kindle Fire. I don’t have to truly plot or even think, to play these games… I can create chaos or keep things moving serenely along with a click of a mouse button, simply take time out to give attention to my girls – feed and play with them, feed myself, sleep when I’m finally exhausted enough to drop off. Once I got past the guilt of not working on my book and simply played, I realized my restless muse was beginning to poke and prod at me again – only this time, I was interested in answering to her. So tomorrow, er, later today, I shall once again indulge her and actually feel refreshed enough to accomplish something.

As a side note, during my ‘off time’, I had a minor fall… thick clodhopper slippers not quite clearing a shallow step and tumble I go. Freaked the hell out of the girls! Both were hovering over me, whining and poking at me with their wet noses… I had a few tiny skin-scrapes, barely noticeable, but was left very sore in my right shoulder, hip, lower back, and even my neck. Oddly enough, sleeping on the couch in the den for the last two nights has improved the soreness, somewhat. At least I’m no longer limping or moving like a hundred-year-old person. In fact, earlier today I even managed to make note of all the kitchen cabinetry hardware – something I’ve been putting off doing for months, and I hammered a plug extension onto an inner area of my main desk and rearranged some wiring. I even dusted my den and took the trash out! In other words, I’m beginning to feel like I’m back.

With that said, I am so outtie….

Ahh, the review

Er, not my own. Well, mine, but not a review of my fiction but rather many reviews I have written. I’m beginning to do quite a few over at Amazon (Moi), so much so that I have devoted my old hosting-reseller domain, Scribes Canvas, into a review site.

I can’t recall an exact number of reviews I’ve submitted at Amazon, but I currently have three movies and eight books reviewed on my site. Just started another book earlier, barely into the first chapter but had to put it down briefly to make dinner and play with the dogs… my teenaged granddaughter is staying with me for two weeks (pssst, she’s reading on her tablet as I type this) so that means I’m doing some actual cooking. Any-hoo, I’ll get back to my own reading right after I post this.

The thing is, writer’s really should read, read, and read, in order to stay up on their craft… some of the newer author’s works that I am reading have so impressed me, I felt absolutely compelled to write a review… reading and writing reviews, unfortunately, is keeping me away from my own fiction! *chuckles* Well, there could be worse dilemmas I suppose.

As to Teen D, when here, she is very much interested in reading and writing… hence, my gift of a Kindle to her, which she can use for both reading and writing. However, her mom tells me when she is home, all she does is read Wattpad and play games, and mom is concerned that she is filling her head with the poorly written, grammar deficient, and nonexistent spelling found on Wattpad. Well, earlier, Teen D asked me to read a story she is writing and has already published on Wattpad… I told her I’d be happy to read it, but expect Grammy to make corrections! *laughs* She jumped onto my desktop and immediately began making corrections to the story, checking with me concerning proper formatting…. I walked out of the room while she made her corrections… (She closed the browser *grins*) Behold, the power of Grammy!

So, back to my latest read – it’s part of a series so I’d like to see what happens as well as keep the reviews up to date, then hopefully return to Robert & Allison’s story sometime tomorrow. Until then, I am so outtie….

Memorial Day vs Veteran’s Day

I just left Facebook in disgust, overwhelmed by the high percentage of posters that simply do not understand the difference in these two Federal holidays. Memorial Day is a day to honor and remember those that gave (lost) their life, in the service of this country. It is a somber day, we honor our fallen warriors…. Some send out a blanket “Happy Memorial Day” to friends and family. Are you serious? Will you go to a loved ones funeral and say, “Have a wonderful, happy day today”? It’s basically the same, it is not an excuse to drink and party and light fireworks for kids to squeal at… it is, as I said, a somber day to remember and honor all those brave service men and women whose lives were lost in and for the service of their country.

Then we have Veteran’s Day – in November, folks – a day set aside to honor and give thanks to every single service men and women that honorably serve(d) this country; this holiday pays respect to living and dead soldiers.

Of course, I believe honor and respect should be given to all living beings every day; however, could we at least attempt to understand the meanings behind these two different days that honor service people? Lisa Respers France wrote an article, published in 2015, that explains the difference… Get it Straight: The difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day. Please, educate yourselves, people. Stop wishing me a Happy Memorial Day. I’m fortunate to only have lost one single friend while he was serving; this is my day to honor him and remember him and wonder what wonderful things he might have accomplished – had he not died in the final days of the Vietnam War.

I am so outtie….

Reviews

Okay, I haven’t added anything to my own work but have been reading quite a bit and writing reviews – posted on both Amazon (My reviewer profile) and on the newly renovated Scribes Canvas. So far, I’ve read two YA books – one I adored, the other was kind of eh; three paranormal romance/erotica books by a – new to me – writer, Sennah Tate and I truly love her writer’s voice; and, a few movies I watched via my Amazon Prime membership. ** I just popped over to the author’s website and see there is another book; I’ve purchased four books in the Palm Haven series and apparently a fifth is being released at the end of the month. Yay! **

You know, Lynette and Lachlan’s story is a sweet paranormal romance… i.e. no sex scenes. Allison and Robert’s story is also sweet, but at times it feels like some, hmm… heavy petting?… should be included. A part of me wants to keep the books I’m writing at a point where parents wouldn’t mind if their children read them – so no sex, etc. Another part of me wonders if I’m short changing the stories by keeping them at roughly a PG-type rating; at the same time, I’ve never really written the erotica… well, that’s not totally true, I have under another name and those were sent to very specific audiences. But honestly, I guess a part of me is not entirely comfortable writing what I love to read, if that makes sense…. I’m not a prude, yet I wonder if my fantasies might be too tame for many of the readers of these type of books…? A bit of a conundrum, I guess. *shrugs*

A part of me feels like I’m falling into a rut. *sighs* I watch mysteries, horror (on Amazon & sometimes Netflix), Animal Planet and Justice Central; reading is specifically paranormal romances (mainly erotica), mysteries and YA lately, although it kind of depends on my mood. Mysteries… I’d dearly love to write one at some point, they just kind of intrigue me. But, I don’t feel I’m good at the whole planting red herrings part; hence, my sort of obsession with them. Sheesh, I’m even watching the old Murder She Wrote (1984-1996) series, Hart to Hart (1979-1984) series, and Matlock (1986-1995) series on the Hallmark Mystery Channel! I have a ton of notes and bookmarks on various methods to kill people; I’ve researched many, many, many serial killers and even have my need-to-be-updated fictional serial killer blog…. Man, if I was ever investigated *grins sheepishly* I’d be in a world of hurt!

M’kay, I guess I should get my butt in gear… back to reading, or writing, or… *sighs* I am so outtie….

Nothing new

I did a tiny bit of writing on chapter six, described Allison’s family members that she’d just met – but she doesn’t know they’re her family yet. She’s showing a rapport with youngest brother Henri, and when I get back to the story, mother Marie will show signs of a deja vue type recognition of Allison….

I finally updated, i.e. read that as totally changed, Scribes Canvas. New index page (and graphics), new core pages (from a pre-made template) being added – reviews mainly, possibly some fiction will be moved over there, too – but same old serial killer blog – Ramblings from a Scrambled Mind. Haven’t updated that blog in ages, been too busy with romances to let that coffee nut back inside my head… although, I am drinking a lot more coffee. *insert evil laughter*

I also joined a book review group, Book Reviews 22, and will get the first listing of books needing reviews on Saturday, May 21, 2016. Kinda looking forward to it. Although I have a ton of books to read on my Kindle, already. I really need to create some folders and sort what I have into groups, like YA, romance, etc. But honestly, it’d take forever to go through all of my old Bookbub and Sweetfreebooks listing emails to find the descriptions for my books. I actually debated buying a new Kindle while they were on sale, to set it up correctly! *laughs*

So, completed a few reviews, did a tiny bit of writing (but more research), graphics work and refurbished the other domain, grocery shopped, played with the dogs, wasted time on FaceBook, visited with Springy… and that’s about it, I think. Hmm, sounds kinda boring when I read it. But, it’s not. No, really. It’s not.

M’kay, I am so outtie….

**CORRECTION!!!** I said I did a tiny bit of writing on chapter six… my bad! I finished chapter six and have almost completed the first scene in chapter seven. Ooopsie! *grins* Back to writing, I am so outtie, again….

Plugging away

Chapter five, done. Chapter six, scene one done. Kara’s a right bitch, too. *grins* But then, I knew that back in Lynette and Lachlan’s story. But she has more play, visibility, ummm… importance, in Allison and Robert’s story.

So, as a writer, one must continually read, right? I’d been reading loads of mysteries, but figured I should start reading some romances again as well, since I’m currently writing romance. And I do enjoy tossing some erotic romances into the mix, especially the paranormal ones. *grins* So I grabbed a book after reading the blurb – i.e. it was described on an email list I receive daily, inexpensive books for Kindle. Either way, the blurb made it sound interesting, like something right up my alley: paranormal, romance, magic, various shifter’s, and erotica.

Welp, I found it to be a god-awful read, to put it mildly. It was book two in a trilogy, but not written as a stand alone. Which the writer never mentioned. If the reader wanted to follow the continuing storyline, they needed to begin with the first book to see the setup, cause no recap offered in book two. Nope, no way, no how. The spelling errors made me grind my teeth, especially the continual confusing “your” with “you’re” because it was used often. A lot. *sighs* Jumping from one POV to another, quite often and with no transitional setup, made it a highly confusing read – to put it mildly. Sentences not related to those set before them (found in many paragraphs) gave the appearance of random thoughts just occurring to the writer – not the narrator, the writer. Not sticking to a tense, many sentences written with past and present tense wordage. Character descriptions so unbelievable, no way this reader could stay within the world created. C’mon, a six foot seven inch, six hundred pound man?!? Sorry, all that brought to mind was tall and rotund, not sexy. A wereleopard in human form with four breasts, being ravished by a seventy-six year old man? M’kay, total lack of any type of research tossed me wayyyyy out of the story. I couldn’t force myself to finish it. But, I did force myself to read to the halfway point before reviewing it.

Apparently, a fan of the writer didn’t like my review. So several comments followed – her name-calling and trying to belittle me, me responding as an adult that actually understands and knows how to correctly use the words she tossed around, with my final comment directly to her stating I would no longer respond to her childish bullying attempts and her reply a typical, “Na-na-na, I win” type thing. *sighs* My daughter so wanted to reply and tear her a new one! *laughs*

So, that kept me a wee bit busy – but, it didn’t really slow my own progress down because as I mentioned above, chapter five is completed and a good start to chapter six, as well. So, y’all are updated, which means ’tis time for me to get my booty in gear! So, I am so outtie….

Moving ahead

Okay, progress! Since my last post I’ve completed two scenes in chapter five and started the final scene of the chapter. Robert has shown interest in Allison and treated her to a taste of his culinary skills. Allison is fairly clueless to Robert’s interest and is unsure why Kara holds hostility towards her. Kara is the final scene I’m working on, and her jealousy over Robert’s interest in Allison…? Uh, wow! *chuckles* Now mind you, Allison’s being unaware is not from stupidity, she’s just lived on her own for so long, she’s not understanding the clues very well. Yet.

Chapter five is giving more insight into these three main characters as well as moving the plot forward on Allison’s search for the mystery letter writer. I haven’t quite figured out the eventual meeting between Jake and Allison, yet, or how I’ll finish the build and reveal of their unknown (to them) connection. I haven’t introduced Marie, at all, and am not sure if she’ll just remain in the background or come forward… although a huge part of me feels she needs to come forward. And Robert’s best friend and beta, Marcus, with his seriously growing crush on Kara; he was introduced and his interest in Kara revealed, but no moves made yet. But honestly, it’s still early! *grins*

Lynette and Lachlan’s story finished around 43,000 words. I haven’t counted the chapter/words of Robert and Allison’s story so far, but I know it feels like we’re still definitely in the very beginning of their story. Time will tell!

K, back to writing so I am so outtie….

Procrastination abounds

Sorta. So I didn’t get any writing done since I last popped in here, more or less… I have a start on chapter five, Allison met Kara and they clashed – more later. On my last update I mentioned a planned writing spree. That turned into major computer maintenance, actually… hours of updates (both laptops) and then routine work like defragging and stuff on the laptop I’ve started using for writing (the silver one). So I thought I’d use my desktop, but found it needed some updates, too. *sighs* So I played PlayStation 2, Harry Potter the Prisoner of Azkaban. And some Skyrim on my xBox 360.

But, I also read three books and wrote reviews on them at Amazon, and am in the beginning of a short story anthology – loved the first story, btw, so am sure I’ll be giving a glowing review! One of the books I reviewed was actually my first truly negative review. I found the writing awful, full of spelling errors (especially misuse of “your” and “you’re”) and tense issues, mixing past and present tense, often within the same sentence, and ever changing POV making it impossible to follow the story, let alone develop any interest of feelings towards the various characters. It’s a shame, too, cause I’ve been scouting around for new-to-me writers of paranormal romances. The writer gave highly improbable character descriptions as well, which might have been adequate for the animal form, but not the human form. Like the weretiger, described as 6’7″ tall (that part is okay) weighing in at 600 pounds. Uh, what? All I could picture was a tall rotund male, just a blob of a man; the same for the Alpha, a six foot tall 300 pound werelion… oh! And a female wereleopard described as having four breasts! I mean, c’mon… if it was listed as an alien (i.e. from outer space, an unknown species) it would have been more acceptable, palatable….

As far as the spelling errors… I read another book that I made a few negative/correctional comments concerning spelling errors, but was no where near as harsh because it was obvious the book was written by someone that English was not their first language. In fact, I gave her kudos for trying to tackle the language to tell her story. Besides, she at least had an obvious plot. The other book however, like I mentioned in my review – I literally forced myself to read the first ten chapters, the halfway point of the book, and I still have no idea what the story was suppose to be about! The writer filled page after page with mundane, boring dialogue describing a meal, that did nothing to move the story forward or give this reader a chance to learn more about the various characters speaking. They all sounded exactly the same. *sighs*

Any-hoo, that’s how I spent the last two weeks, basically. Oh, and I also watched a few movies, too. M’kay, enough of an update, I am so outtie….

Starts and Stops

I am so very bad about updating. *sighs* Not just here, my Blog, but my entire domains. I really need to get busy on some graphics and do the updates and stop spending so much time at Herding Dog Farms. Er, see the theme here? Yeah, too much procrastination on my plate.

However, I do have Chapter 4 of the Allison/Robert story almost completed, and if readers will recall from my last update, I had been sorta-kinda stuck on Chapter 2. So obviously I got past that, right? Allison is seeing Robert’s village and ready to enter… now, I have a few different ways to play this. Allison can meet Robert; Allison can meet Kara; or, Allison can meet Jake. I’m actually leaning towards Kara at the moment, I think all sorts of unknown-to-them sibling rivalry can come into play and be quite fun… but meeting Jake first could also bring about some unknown-to-them daddy issues, as well. Hmmm.

Almost two months has passed, since I last visited Lynette/Lachlan’s story. I suppose enough time has passed that I could actually go back with pretty fresh eyes and read their story, do any revisions that pop up. Then, I really need to get busy on either finding an agent/publisher, or self publish the story.

I’ve also been putting my Kindle to excellent use, reading loads of new-to-me authors. With age – can we say, Ackkkk?!? – and with years of practicing the slower form of reading, AKA critical reading, I haven’t read as many books as I would have… completed three books and in the beginning third of a fourth book. After all, writers need to read to stay up on their craft as well as improve it. But, I’ve been reading mysteries more than anything, actually; and, I’m writing paranormal romances. Yet, I am reading so that counts.

M’kay, enough update for now, time to get back to writing, right? So I am so outtie….