Music to My Ears...

Music To My Ears...

Music to My Ears...

I love Imagine Dragons. 

Probably more than any other band I've obsessed over in the last 6 months. 

This song even helped me sort out a super difficult break up scene between my shapeshifters. 

:-)

New Blog Design!

I was bored, my novel needed a rewrite on the ending, and I was doing literally everything but that. Including, but not limited to:

• Watching my 9 month old sway back and forth in her swing
• Calculating the calories in homemade pizza with crust made from greek yogurt (210 calories a slice, by the way)
• Looking up Reese Witherspoon's mug shot
• Sticking and unsticking post-it notes around my computer screen like a wreath
• Throwing a tennis ball for my dog
• Tickle fights with a 4 year old
• Refreshing my email a thousand times (I wasn't even expecting anything)
• Measuring my wrist size (5 3/4 inches)
• Practicing my signature, you know, for when I'm famous?

And apparently scrapping my whole blog design and starting from scratch!

What do you think? I've been on a real grey/yellow or grey/orange kick lately. We live in base housing so you have to get paint colors approved, and I was even thinking about taking some orange down to the housing office and seeing what they say because a grey and orange basement would be pretty cool.

I'm more prone to run-on sentences when I'm procrastinating.

Anyhoo, how do you like the new look?

Toodles,

Megan.

Just Stop...

("The Picnic" by Thomas Cole)

Lately I find myself staring at my computer screen counting how many times that stupid little text line blinks at me rather than writing anything down. It's not so much writer's block, as writer stubbornness.


It's a good kind of stubborn. I'm not going to rewrite the end of my book just to turn around and do it all over again the next time I edit. If I can't get it right this time (or at least close) then I'm not going to write it.

So, last night I'm sitting there counting the line and I shut my computer off. I'd written maybe 6 words in a whole hour and I was done. I watched some TV, cuddled with my beagle on the couch, and went to bed early. And wouldn't you know, first thing this morning I sat down and the words started flowing.

You can't force it. Sometimes you just need to step away, and let your brain relax. It's why I get my best ideas in the shower or while I'm driving. My brain got to take a breath for a second.

After all, it's hard work stringing all those words together.

The next time I find myself counting the line I'm going to do the same thing. And when this book is on submission this summer I'm going to give my brain a well deserved vacation, where all it has to worry about is feeding the kiddos and not burning in the sun.


Does your brain ever need a break?

Music to My Ears...

Still my favorite band of all time. They continue to amaze me, even with their covers...

Getting Past The Major Cuts

Ok, so I'm relatively new at this editing thing. It's taken me a really long time to find a story I loved enough to finish, never mind edit.

You could call this a call to anyone who's got some editing experience. I need advice and I'll take it from just about anyone at this point.

My question is this: How do you get past that point where you feel like deleting thousands of words- or whole chapters- is necessary? At some point the big stuff has to end right? At some point I should move past this and start tweaking the little stuff, but I can't shake that feeling that I have to re-write the ending (which I've done twice) or the beginning (seven times) or reverse the order of chapter 3 and 4, etc. I can't seem to move past the big stuff.

Any tips? I know it can't be as screwed up as I think it is, especially since I've been working on it for two years and I'm in my second round of editing.

Do I just keep going until I realize the big "issues" are all gone?

Do I take a break from the chapter re-arranging and move on to little things for a while to get perspective?"

Am I completely losing my mind?

I'll answer that, I totally am.

Help??