I'm slowly getting things crossed off my to do list.  I finished the final edits for "A Bride for Tom", so if you want to read this 19,000 word ebook, here's the link.  Okay.  I can't get to my website right now.  My website is www.ruthannnordin.com, and it is right there on the first page.

Anyway, I still have to edit The Vampire's Kiss.  I am slowly making progress on Restoring Hope (which is becoming more of a romance than I thought it would when I started it) and "The Vanishing" (the sci-fi story I'm working on).

You can read the daily 500 - 700 worded posts here:   http://ruthannnordin.wordpress.com/.  It's going to be a full-length novel, so I still have a good 30,000 or so words to go before it's done.  This is not at the halfway point yet, but the halfway point is coming up soon.

As for "The Vanishing", it's going along pretty well.  I haven't written anything on it for the past two days, so it's still hovering around 7300 words.  I have made up a playlist for it, and I'll share some of the songs.  Music is a great source of inspiration.  I found this group called Muse.  I didn't even realize they were connected with the Twilight movie soundtrack.  I still can't bring myself to check out Twilight because of the hype surrounding it.  I know.  That soundn't be a reason to not read a book that so many people claim is "wonderful", but each time I think I'll check it out, that "Ugg.  I don't think I can stomach this ultra-popular book" sensation comes up and I can't bring myself to do it.  Yes, I realize it's not logical.  I guess it's just I keep hearing so much about it that I'm sick of it. 

Anyway, I have forced myself to look beyond Muse's affiliation with Twilight so I can mold it into my own sci-fi story/series.  Actually, this story is turning into a series.  It wasn't intentional but it's happening despite all efforts to suppress it.

Here are some of the songs by Muse I'm listening to as I write the sci-fi story:
Uprising (yes, I know it's also used for "V")
Invincible
Undisclosed Desires
Time is Running Out
Ruled by Secrecy
Apocalypse Please
Sing for Absolution


Okay.  So as I read through the book Pieces by Julia Dudek, which I did enjoy, I got that all-too-familiar urge to finish that thriller novel I started a year ago.  I stopped writing it because it was getting too dark and I couldn't decide how to resolve it.  I don't mind dark issues but when they start getting too far down the hole, I'd rather not go there.  Plus, it was getting too complex, and I wasn't sure how to loosen all the tangles.  But I think if I follow in the steps of Ted Dekker and Frank Peretti (sorry if I'm butchering these names) and make this a Christian thriller, it could very well work for what I originally wrote.  I was going to combine my knowledge of Sigmund Freud's superego, ego, and id and compare them to the "angel vs. devil" (aka good vs. bad) we all have in us.  When one gets out of balance, it can mean trouble.

I lost half the 29,000 words I had written because my husband took my computer and got rid of Word Perfect.  So now all I have is 13,000 in Microsoft Word.  But I can work with it, and it may even be better.  I want there to be a twist at the end.  I just am not sure what the twist will be.  As much as I try to suppress this story, it keep creeping back.  So I'm just going to give in and go with it.  I don't plan to start it right now.  I'm going to let the ideas perculate while I continue with my other projects this month.

I'm sick...again.  This has to be the worst cold and flu season I've had to deal with since...  I can't remember when I've been sick this much.  Oh wait.  Yes, I can.  It was when I worked at a daycare in 2001.  I was sick all the time, and now I'm sick all the time again.  I don't know why.  The hard part is trying to do things while I feel dizzy or ready to fall asleep.  I do feel like I'm ready to fall asleep right now.  But I have kids to watch so I can't.  Coffee helps a little but not enough.  I don't take cold medicine until I am ready to sleep at night, unless I'm doing really bad.  But I'm not so I won't.  Cold medicine just makes me more tired.  *I'm recalling the days pre-kids when having a cold meant I could sleep all day.*  Okay.  Enough of that.

What to talk about?  Well, I am still amazingly busy.  I did finally finish the first non-fiction book on my TBR this month list.  I have one more non-fiction book to read and a fiction title (which I'm aiming for 50 pages a day in that one to read).  But I have "A Bride for Tom" here to review again, so that is my first priority for today.  When I'm done with that, I'll work on the other stuff.

I found more errors in Loving Eliza, so I need to read that through again.  I expect the next proof copy to be in next week. 

As for the science fiction story I'm working on, I am about 7300 words into it.  I'm at the point where something has to happen.  The main character needs to start acting on her feelings that have been building up.  So we'll see where it goes. 

I better finish this off.  I started it around 10am.  It is now almost 2pm.  Time is not moving...it's flying. 

Now that I'm done with NaNo, I can pick up on other things I need to do.  I'm going to break it down into a list because things are easier to manage that way.

1.  Finish up the edits on "A Bride for Tom" and Loving Eliza and make them available by December 15. 

2.  Finish edits on The Vampire's Kiss so it's ready by the end of December.

I have a ton of stuff to catch up on.  The edits will take priority.  Next, this is what I'm going to aim for:

3.  Keep writing 500 words a day for Restoring Hope on my WordPress blog.

4.  Aim for 500 words a day for my science ficiton 15,000 word story.  I am approaching 7000 words right now.  I am actually researching the topic I'm doing.  I've also noticed that I've just hit the tip of the iceberg (sorry if that's not spelled right) on this subject.  From the research I've done, this thing goes deeper.  I'll be writing it as fiction, but there are elements of truth in it, depending on your perspective in life.  At any rate, it should make  for entertaining fiction.

Then I need to catch up on some reading.

5.  continue my reading and research for the science fiction story and possible series that is looking to increase from one story into more  (that was not expected); this involves online research and a couple of nonfiction books I bought earlier this month

6.  read Pieces (a fiction title which I'll review when I'm done)

7.  read JR Reardon's book if available

8.  read the Bible again  (naturally, this will span more than one month since it's a long book)

So I'm going to be keeping busy.  My plate is full and I'm just letting people know ahead of time that I can't handle anything else.  Please do not ask me for anything right now.    Remember, I also have Christmas cards to work on and the season to get ready for.  I'm not trying to be rude but I keep getting requests for things and I'm at my limit.

Now to tweak on my December Newsletter. 

 So I was working on the science fiction story which apparently has some spooky elements in it...or at least spooky elements that emerge when it hovering around midnight and everyone in the house is asleep.

It's about aliens, so guess what I imagined lurking in the shadows?  Aliens.  Naturally.  Just as if I were to write about a male serial killer, it would have been that.  Okay.  So then I did the "Remember, Ruth.  It's only your imagination" speech and quickly finished up my scene.  Then I proceeded to close out of my Word document, turn off the kitchen light and run up the steps to my bedroom like a cat with its tail on fire.

The imagination is the spookiest thing we have in our possession.  I remember when I watched The Lost World with my sister and then drove home by myself.  She lived in Florida at the time and was in a secluded spot in the middle of a bunch of trees.  As I drove home on the dark dirt road, I kept imagining all these dinosaurs leaping out of the trees, ready to eat me. 

So there you have it.  I cannot engage in any type of "this might freak you out" activities when it's after 10pm.  For some reason, monsters and aliens and dinosaurs don't look so menacing in the day.  Just what started all this nonsense in the human family?  Where did we get the idea that scary stuff existed anyway?

Okay.  So my goal today is to do the sci-fi story first and then work on the romance.  Better to get the creepy stuff out of the way and then settling down with the passionate kiss of a hero and heroine.  Then I can go to bed with a sense of dignity instead of acting like a little kid running from the boogeyman. 

Sometimes the writing bug bites you, and when it does, the ideas just flow out.  I really didn't think I was going to reach 50,000 words for NaNo.  But then I stopped worrying about writing for The Wrong Husband (like I originally intended) and focused on my other writing projects.  This helped me knock the infamous writer's block out of the way. 

Who would have thought I could be writing a science fiction story and enjoy it?  I have a tentative title for it.  "The Vanishing."  That gives you an idea of half the plot right there.  I don't even have a romantic sub-plot, though if this becomes a series, then one will emerge.  We'll see where it goes.  This particular story is based more on the suspense factor.  Currently, I am 4600 words into it.  My goal is 15,000 words.  

Restoring Hope is turning into more fun than I originally thought it was going to be too.  I figured I would enjoy it, but I didn't expect to get wrapped up in it.  There are serious elements in this one that I have not written into my other books.  So when I put rated R, it's for sex and violence.  It was hard to write the whipping scene yesterday, but I had to because it added another layer of depth to the story.  Also, it ties into why the heroine ran away and what she'll end up facing when she returns to her tribe.  So let's sum it up to say there are some dark issues that I don't usually write about...though Loving Eliza has some dark moments as well.  But while Loving Eliza was on a personal level, Restoring Hope is at the tribal level.  That's probably confusing with the way I described all of that.  I just don't want to say too much because I know my readers do like to be surprised.  Let's sum it up to say that it's hard for the author to watch her characters suffer, even if there's a happy ending.

I still don't know where to go next with The Wrong Husband.  But I have until April when it's expected to be available.  Maybe I should think about making it a novella instead of a full length novel though.  We'll see.

I am in the final stretch on NaNo.  8,000 words and I'll get my goal.  I really can't believe I was able to come by like that.  I think I was at 12,000 when I got back from the writer's conference around Nov 14.  If anyone wants to know what I've learned from the writer's conference, I am making posts about it at this link:  http://ruthannerussell.blogspot.com/  This will eventually all be put into a book and posted for free on my website.

The thing about writing is that once you finish one book and think, "Okay.  Now I'm done and can take a break," another idea pops into your head.  I have noticed that I've been getting emails from women asking me if I'll write more contemporary romances.  I do mostly historical, esp. western romances.  I figure that when I'm done with Restoring Hope and The Wrong Husband, I'll have to do a contemporary romance.  What's been keeping me in the historical world is that I write one story and like a couple of the secondary characters and want to do their stories too.

Writing is like knocking over a domino.  You hit the next one in line and before you know it, you look up and realize you have a floor's worth of dominos being knocked over.  The dominos branch out because each new story idea can go off in different areas.  Already for this science fiction/fantasy (I'm not sure which until all is said and done) story is setting up other 15,000 word story ideas.  In some ways, this is good but in others it can be frustrating.  I mean, will I be able to write all the stories I want while I'm alive?  It's almost sad to think that some of my ideas may never get to be written down.  I really hope that in the next life, I can keep on writing.  And no technical boring stuff.  My heart is mostly geared for fiction.  Do they allow fiction in Heaven?  I guess some day I'll find out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms9D3uG8HF8

My second video. I learned I like this better during the day. I discuss my new cover for An Unlikely Place for Love, connecting an image with your author name (if you're an author), and my plans for my first audio book. Also, An Unlikely Place for Love, The Cold Wife, and An Inconvenient Marriage are up for free on my website!

That video I did really cut down on my time in getting things done.  What I said in six minutes would usually take about 20 - 30 minutes to write down.  So I'm thinking I'll be doing more of those videos in the future.  I'm going to aim for keeping it under 5 minutes.  The quality wasn't as great as it could be, but if I learn to not show something so fast, it could work.

This is insane. I have four writing projects I'm currently working on because I can't decide which one I want to work on and they all strike my interest at some point on any given day.  I usually focus on one story and ignore the others, but in this case, I think I'll be running all of these at the same time.

Here they are:
1.  Restoring Hope: I have to keep writing at least 500 words a day because this is my daily blog posting for WordPress.  (Right now I'm at 17,000 words.)

2.  The Wrong Husband: I've been slacking on this, but since I have the book cover and book trailer done and the available date set for April, I have to keep chugging away at it.  If I can write 500 - 1000 words a day in it, it should be manageable.  (I'm about 17,000 words on this one too.)

3.  The Vanishing (tentative title for the 15,000 word sci-fi story I'm working on): This idea won't leave me alone so I'm going with it.  (This one is at 2,000 words.)

4.  I'm writing up what I learned from the writer's conference for my non-fiction book on writing, publishing, and book promotion.  I'm not sure what to call it yet.  (Considering all my past writing, publishing, and promotion posts which I'll put into the book too, I probably have almost 30,000 words total; remember, this is a culumnation of a year's worth of posting).  I'll probably go ahead and publish the whole thing next spring or summer.


We'll see how this works out.  I haven't touched the two stories I'm supposed to edit in over a week. 

So it's looking like December won't be a month for a break and I'll push back the date when I intended to start an audio book. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WErQelrWrvM

At the writer's conference, one of the speakers recommended mixing in video in blogs where I can explain something. I decided to show some of my book covers and explain the cost involved with self-publishing. (Yes, my youngest is in the background--but not in the video.)