1178 words today. Jenna's discovered she has fangs. It's rather disconcerting. She's in a hospital room and her neighbor is getting blood drawn. She can't see past the curtain surrounding her bed but here's what she smells and hears:

Jenna’s mouth watered and all her senses focused on what was happening on the other side of the curtain. She heard the rustling of cloth, the faint squeak of rubber as a strip was tied about the woman’s arm, and the faint click of plastic on plastic as the nurse uncapped a syringe.


The odor undid her. Rich and thick and sweet, it called to Jenna. She felt an odd sensation in her mouth. Running her tongue along her teeth, she came in contact with fangs where none had been before and her eyes widened. The strangeness in her mouth distracted her from the activity beyond the curtain and she sat back, carefully exploring the fangs with her tongue.

Imagine her surprise, huh?

Work late tonight. Probably won't make the last bus so I'm already preparing to stay at the hotel, just in case. S'okay. It'll give me a chance to wander downtown tomorrow morning before work. I can get my writing done at Coffee People and pick up that Fibromyalgia book I've been eyeballing.

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Total for today. Jenna's awake in the hospital, weak and hungry, and Margaurethe is on her way. Tomorrow I set Jenna off with her hospital roommate getting blood drawn. (Gods, I love torturing my characters.)

The cats have all been dosed with flea stuff. Not at all happy about it, either. Ah, well. As soon as I figure how to upload pictures to this thing, I'll show you my kitty, Amber.

Off to work and an overzealous boss who wouldn't give me any peace these last two days off. I left Wednesday morning to play hooky, citing arthritis flare up, and he called me three furkin' times to make sure I was okay. He even had HIS boss call to check on me! ARGH! But I really needed to get the hel off my feet after last week's split days off and then this week's one day off. It wasn't so much the arthritis as the fibromyalgia that was the problem.

Write on!

That's me. Spent the last two days doing NUTHIN' as far as writing is concerned.

Today whipped out 1041 words and finished chapter 19 of Born of Silence. My total for the first week of May is about 1700 short of where it should be because I'm a slacker. Ah, well. I'll catch up before the end of the month.

Tired, uninspired. I had plans to write this morning, then go down to Coffee People for a Velvet Hammer and some pumpkin bread to write some more. But it's yicky outside – dark and gray. You'd think I lived in the Pacific NorthWET or something. I'm thinking it's just another lazy day. Was going to go to Borders to pick up a book on Fibromyalgia but the thought of ordering it at Books-a-Million is looking better than ever.

I was looking over the Dares at Forward Motion in preparation of the next one . . . July / August. I really have to get On Azrael’s Wings edited for publication and it is on my list of 2003 goals. But I’m really enjoying all the productivity of the word count Dare

So, I think I'm going to skip the word count Dare next time but sign up for the New Material / Short Story – Master Level and the Novel / Rewrite Material – Master Level. The first will push me to get 8 short stories written (and I really need to complete the Slow Movin' arc) and the second will get OAW edited, and a cover letter and synopsis written. And the material has to be submitted by the end of the Dare.

That should give me the needed kick in the pants to keep working.

Then in October / November, I'll go back to the word count Dare – probably Journeyman level at 1500 words a day. That way when I do NaNoWriMo in November, it'll count toward the Dare's total tally.

Feath! Ya brat! I'm even deciding which story to work on in November! Good thing you're in England! ARGH!

1068 today and I stopped at a point that I can easly get back into. Dialogue is sooooo easy. I love it.

The complications come from realizing that I was missing a scene. Originally, I had planned for Castillo to spill the beans about Jenna's true nature and she would collapse not long after. The goal was for Margaurethe to find her at a hospital as Jenna fled from the desire to take someone or other's blood. But then it dawned on me that if Jenna were to collapse anywhere near Castillo, he'd haul her off to the church instead.

Hmmm…

So I had Jenna escape and then had to add another scene whereby she goes over what the priest told her. But that wouldn't cause her to collapse. I added another flash of past life memory to induce her fainting spell. Whew!

THEN I had to rearrange a couple of scenes. It would be more logical for the reader to see Margaurethe searching first before finding Jenna in the hospital.

And I was thinking of a friend, jrosestar, and her problem with Kelly messing up the previous chapter. (Cuz Castillo almost messed up my last scene by being too understanding and giving Jenna more information than she needed.) As the author, you know what you want to happen. While it's good to have characters with minds of their own, you have to know them well. When a character decides to do something you're not prepared for, messing up the outline and plot, you have to know them well enough to divert them back to the path you had planned.

(i.e. Warlord Metal – Sonny and Torrin kissing all hot and heavy for the first time. But they weren't supposed to hop into bed for another YEAR. Stalled on that scene for three days trying to figure out how to stop it since neither character would. Duh! Like I would given the same situation! I finally found a reason, an external interruption of someone knocking on the door to break them apart – like throwing water on dogs – so they could think long enough to stop their progress. Had I left it up to their devices, the story would have been remarkably different.)

When the characters are too real you have to remember that you are their God in this universe. You can always throw curveballs to force them along the path you need them to follow.

Just finished the Novel / New Material – Master level Dare at Forward Motion. YAY! That’s 8 chapters in just over a month! I usually write TWO chapters in a month! MAJOR increase!!

So, since I know I’ve only got a handful of chapters left on Born of Silence, I signed up for the Novel / New Material – Apprentice level Four more chapters by the end of May. At this rate, no problema!

I've been considering next Dare (July / August) and what to do there. It's kind of up in the air. I really need to get the monster edits done for On Azrael's Wings and had originally planned to do them then. But finding myself able to keep up with 1k / day writing makes me wonder if I can go for 1500 a day. I think it's not too much of a stretch. Unfortunately, editing doesn't necessarily mean writing and I don't know if I can work on two different fronts. My world building Dares have given me the opportunity to take breaks from the novel I'm concentrating on. I don't know if I can edit a novel at the same time as I write a completely different one.

Hmmm…wonder if I should go the Short Story route. I haven't written any in a while.

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Odd dreams, violent thoughts. Wonder if they were stirred up by my desire to kill my boss yesterday. It's too damned early to be up! yawn

Good gore / horror flick scene. Too bad I don't write the shit. Ax murderers, baby killers and cannibals, oh, my! Then it all flashed to a gallows scene and a child tricking a man to come forward only to discover he was one of those condemned to die. Some woman arrived and attempted to save him, hold him up while the others suffocated. The executioner stepped in and slit the man's throat. Saw that one from the woman's POV as his blood splashed all over the place.

Is it any wonder I scored 'very high' on Dante's violent Seventh Level of Hell? LOL!

Put me off just enough when I woke that I had to check the house. Then, just as I started to go back to bed I had a vision of being a victim of an ax murderer. Nothing scary. Just an idle thought of how it would be. Someone standing there where no one had been moments before. A sudden pulse of adrenalin and fear and then WHOOSH that'd be it.

So much for sleep.

I'll take a nap in a little bit.

I was able to pick up the slack from the family crisis period where I had three days of no writing. Month's total is 31+k! WOO HOO! Finished Chapter 17 of Born of Silence yesterday. One more chapter and the Novel / New Material / Master Level is complete. That will be my second Dare completed at Forward Motion.

Work tonight (blech) and I'll see what my schedule for next week is. It's been a rough couple of weeks and next week will be busy, as well. Ah, well. Better busy and having some hours than slow and not being able to make twenty hours a week. More money to be made.