The First Snow

As anyone who knows me can tell you, I’m not a big fan of the winter season.  Here in upstate NY, it drags on much too long with the season beginning in mid-November and if we’re lucky, ending in mid-April though we have had snow as late as May in the past.  The area I live in gets an average of about 110 inches of snow each winter. 

Every October, I always say I’m moving south where it’s warm and has very little snow if any but I’m always still here every year.  I stay mainly because all of my family lives here and I can’t imagine not seeing them on a weekly, if not daily, basis.  It certainly isn’t because of the weather.  I hate the cold, the icy roads, the drivers who drive like speed demons despite the treacherous conditions, and of course, the snow itself.

 

Except for that very first snow of the season where it comes down in fat, fluffy flakes slowly making its way to the ground where it covers everything just enough to make the neighborhood look pristine and beautiful.  I love that first snow, watching it float lazily to the ground, going outside and hearing the silence of the snow fall.

 

I think I’d like the winter season and the snow a whole lot better if I could experience it from inside my home or on my front porch and not have to actually go out in it and risk life and limb to get to where I have to be on a daily basis.  Of course, I’d really like the winter season better if I could just convince my family members to move south with me.

Katherine

This I Know For Sure...

 I can never say thank you enough to everyone and anyone who has served or is serving in the military.

 Today, take a moment and remember our veterans and their families and all they have sacrificed. 

What I'm Reading Wednesday

For pleasure I'm reading A Beautiful Cage by Alyson Reuben.  I'm not very far into it and I'm already loving it.  It's very well written.

For writing related stuff I'm reading Twitter For Dummies because I want to set up a Twitter account and actually know how to use it.  :o)

What are you reading?

Katherine

To Revise or To Not Revise

Some authors revise their manuscripts as they go along, others write flat out and then go back and revise after the story is completely written.  Just like everything else in writing, there’s no right way or wrong way to revise your manuscript.  There’s only the best way that works for you.

For me, I seem to alternate between the two depending on the story and how well it’s flowing and how much pre-thought I put into the plot, characters, etc.

Today’s blog post came about as I sat at my dining room table with a hard copy of my current work in progress.  I’m about 50 to 75 pages from completing the manuscript and yet I can’t seem to make myself finish it.  And I don’t know why.  I’ve been at this point for about two weeks now.  Usually, when I get within 100 pages of the end of a story, I can’t tear myself away from the computer.  I’m so driven to see how everything works out.  (Yes, I’m a pantser.)  Instead, I find myself working on another story I've been thinking about.

Thinking if I went through and worked on revising some scenes, I’d get my mojo back, I worked on a few chapters, adding notes in the margins, drawing lines through entire paragraphs that seemed to serve no purpose, adding more dialogue in some places, and taking it out in others.  Pretty soon, I was suffering from “revisionitis.”  This is a term I made up to describe the feeling I sometimes get when revising a manuscript.  Sometimes, I get so wrapped up in following the “rules” we’ve all been told when we first started writing that I feel like I’ve revised the life right out of the scene.  Other times I change a sentence or word only to change it again or back to what I’d originally written.  At this point, I usually stop, knowing I’m not going to accomplish anything productive.

How about you?  Do you revise as you go along or after you’ve completed the ms?

On a separate note - Tuesday, 11/8/11 I'm being interviewed at Sizzling Hot Book Reviews.  Please come check it out.  Here's the link: http://www.sizzlinghotbooks.net

Katherine

This I Know For Sure...

It's always easier to be pessimistic when things aren't going well in our lives.  It's hard to find the good in your situation when you're struggling in certain areas of your life.

As we get closer to the Thanksgiving holiday, I'm finding more and more things to be thankful for from having a job in these tough economic times to having a loving family around me to having the opportunity to pursue my dream of being a published author. 

Do you find yourself thinking of the things you're thankful for more often at this time of year?

Katherine

National Novel Writing Month

Yesterday was the first day of National Novel Writing Month otherwise known as NaNoWriMo.  The object is try and write 50,000 words of a new novel within the 30 days of November.   The official link is http://www.nanowrimo.org

I've always wanted to try and see if I can do it.  If you break it down, it's only approximately 1,667 per day and I usually write 1,250 words 5 days a week but for some reason the thought of trying to write 50,000 words in 30 days scares me. 

I'm going to try and do it unofficially.  I'll be posting my daily page count on my Facebook page each week day. (Weekends are too hectic to try and do any writing.)  You can follow me here: My facebook page link

Are you officially or unofficially participating in NaNoWriMo this year?

Katherine