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The love scene is in the bag and it only took me four days!

I decided to check my word count. 70k by the computer, and I still have heaps of plot left to unravel and subsequently tie up. My original thought was this novel would be about 85k - hmm bit offside there! (hey look did you notice I threw in a footy term there?!)

There's a definite pattern to how I write. When I start, I have this deep rooted fear there's no way I'll ever manage to find enough words to carry me through to a decent length book (say, 80k). Half way through I have a major panic attack that the whole thing stinks and I have no idea where the damn thing is meant to be going.

Then, I hit my stride as everything starts coming together and the words pour out faster onto the computer screen. Suddenly it's no longer a question of will I have enough words - but rather, omigod I am going to have way too many!

But for some reason that happens every single time, and now I'm just not going to worry about it. I know my earlier chapters need a good pruning which will lose me a few pages, and so long as I don't hit the wrong side of 100k I think I should be good to go.

And I think I need some kind of deadline to finish Lil. Maybe second week in July!

Gabby Moo

My wip is renamed - for the third time! I think it had something to do with all of us calling it Kill Lil, it was inevitable eventually I'd end up sliding Lily in the official title.

And it's weird. My last ms was written entirely from the heroine's pov, but all the witches immediately dubbed it Neo, after the hero. But the current one, despite starting off in the hero's pov and also having the villian's pov, is definitely Lily's story.

I'm now just over two thirds of the way through and am approaching the Sex Scene or, as one certain witch likes to refer to such things, the Smut Scene (not that I write smut, perish the thought, I'm sure I don't know what she means?)

So for the next few days I'm going to have endless headaches, chewed fingernails and doodles on my notepad as I attempt to get the love scene just right. It's not that I don't enjoy writing them, I just find them totally exhausting and a real challenge to make them steamy and believable (no third hand suddenly popping up from nowhere!)

Lil Update

It's trickled through to me that it's World Cup time and football dominates the telly. I'm not a great sports fan but I am not averse to leering at fit guys running around a pitch chasing a ball. What's not to love there?

Well, I'll tell you. Whenever I get sucked into it and am avidly drooling at the screen, we zoom into a close up. Nothing wrong in that except I can guarantee the buff bloke will then immediately spit.

Argh. Even writing that word makes me squirm. I Can. Not. Bear. Spit. Argh.

It's totally gross and nasty not to mention unhygenic. What's the matter with these guys, can't they swallow??

I always have to then convince myself they're just spitting out chewing gum and nothing more - er - personal. Double ugg.

Australia is playing Brazil tonight and I wouldn't mind watching it, but the thought of seeing mouth fountains really turns me off!

Bodily Fluids

The only problem with having cps scattered across the globe (apart from the obvious one which is we can't all get together on a regular basis for a bloody good booze up - umm I mean a deep and meaningful discussion on all things literary)is the different time zones we inhabit.

Whenever one of the witches gets good news from agents, editors or whatever - I am ALWAYS asleep. Without fail. It's just not cricket.

It's bad enough being out of the loop when all these various excitements take place, but there's more! Just to add insult to injury I now appear to have earned a rather unfortunate nickname.

From the creative brain that thought of dubbing my wip Kill Lil comes this gem. I am now offically known as The Snoring Witch.

The Snoring Witch!! How elegant is that?!

A Rose by any other name...

My poor hubby. A few months ago one of his teeth dropped out at the dinner table (it's not funny... really, it's not... and is no reflection whatsoever on the state of my cooking) and every time he smiled he looked like a gangster. It was sort of scary. Anyway he finally gets around to going to the dentist where they took x-rays, moulds and measured him up for a new tooth.

For the last 4 weeks he's been putting off going back to get the thing fitted, but finally, when the dentist called him again on Friday, he arranged to go in this afternoon. Phew. At last!

Yeah, right. He turns up at the dentist only to find a man with a van there, lugging out all the furniture. Apparently the dentist is 'relocating' and this bloke is carting all their stuff to the new premises. Where's that? enquires my dh. Suddenly shifty, the bloke says he doesn't know.

Doesn't know? Doesn't know? This bloody dentist has my husband's new tooth! What the hell use is a single tooth to them? Couldn't they have passed his notes (not to mention tooth) onto another dentist before deciding to do a mid-afternoon flit?

And since when do dentists do a runner in any case?? Too weird!

A Toothy Tale

There's (another) great post on Miss Snark today regarding the joys and tribulations of asking your other half to read your masterpiece. Basically, it's probably not such a hot idea unless you have the hide of a rhino.

My dear hubby is very supportive of my writing habits, but he really doesn't get what I write at all. Considering he reads boring HowTo books and I write paranormal romance I should know better than to ask for his opinion but hey. I want him to love my work! So every now and then I give in to a masochistic urge and wheedle him to read my latest effort.

Um, yeah. As the witches know, the first para I wrote was a short aimed for Arabella magazine. I'd never written (a) a short before or (b) a spicy paranormal and I was sooo excited when I finally finished it. I cornered hubby, refused to acknowledge the look of glazed terror that crawled across his face, and urged him to read my gem which was all about Death and Eternal Love set on a beach at midnight, with vampires and witches thrown in for good measure.

He read it in silence, a frown of bemusement clouding his face. Not such a great sign really.

'So, did you like it?' I couldn't help asking when he finally finished all (12!!) pages and put them to one side.

Silence. Then - 'What was it about?'

Me, slightly taken aback. 'What do you think it was about?'

Him - 'Well, she was in hospital, wasn't she?'

Me, totally shocked. 'What?'

Him - 'She was delusional, wasn't she?'

Me - 'Er, no. She was on a beach at midnight.'

Him - 'Yeah, but not really. I mean really she was in hospital because she was sick wasn't she?'

To put it mildly, I was quite upset he completely missed the point of my story. Luckily the wonderful witches understood this was a paranormal, which meant it didn't have to follow the rules of our boring old everyday world.

And that's the magic of finding crit partners who really get what you're trying to do. Not because they think everything you write is great (how helpful would that be?!) but because they understand where you're trying to go and, because they're on a similar journey, have the necessary tools to assist (yes, I LURVE Stephen King!!)

So much as I love my hubby and would be thrilled if he enjoyed my writing, I know better than to ask him to crit my work. I have three brilliant CPs for that who have no hesitation in telling me if something doesn't make sense, needs tightening up or rethinking.

Not all writers need or want a crit group, but for those who do want critical feedback our significant other isn't always the best choice!

Critique Musings