In the immortal words of Nike (the shoe conglomerate not the Goddess): JUST DO IT (as long as IT is what you love)

I have a confession to make. I have people in my head. Not in the mentally unstable sort of way...although I guess if you don't write you may not understand what that means. Simply, it means I have characters bumping around in my head asking to get out. For years, I've been preoccupied with other things: school, work, husband, house, kids, pets. I put aside writing anything other than school papers for a long, long time. But it really is my love. I am a voracious reader - and, after seeing the advent of indie writers, I've decided to try my hand. I write when I can - usually lunchbreak at work and at night after kiddos are asleep. I'm averaging about 500 words a day which is actually not bad considering I work full-time, have 3 kids with activities, a husband who works nights (I affectionally call myself a Third-Shift-Widow) and therefore isn't around a lot, and a house to try to keep in order (that is a failing battle, but they'll be more on that later, I'm sure).


So this blog is going to start as a chronicle of the writing process of my first novel. It may evolve into something else but, for now, I'll be pouring the blood, sweat, and tears of my writing into this blog.

Ok, now that the mundane pleasantries are out of the way....

I'm a huge fan of the YA genre, specifically the New Adult or Mature YA. So that's where my focus is. I'm creating my own contemporary paranormal world - I realize this market is saturated so I'm trying to do a few things a little differently.

My main character is a 19-year-old boy. I have not found it difficult slipping into the head of a teenage boy so I'm not sure exactly what that says about me. 

What IS difficult is finding the right balance between introducing the world without doing more telling than showing. I struggled, very much so, with trying to introduce my main character's name and appearance...how do you get someone to talk about themself and make it believeable? I think I hammered it out but I'll definitely need a beta reader to make sure it all makes sense.    

I've got cursing (lots of it) and I'm hoping it's not gratuitous. It doesn't FEEL that way...it feels very organic to me - it feels very much like the voice of my hero. I plan on there being some steamy action, but I think the graphic-ness is yet to be decided. I'm a big fan of either "Fade to Blacks" or WRITING the scene - wishy washy, awkward love scenes do nothing for me as a reader and if I don't want to read it myself, I sure as hell don't want to write it and subject others to it. 

I plan for this to be Book 1 in a series - right now I'm thinking trilogy.

I have discovered I'm awful at storyboarding. 

I have also discovered that I don't actually want anyone to know I'm writing. Which is awkward since I'm writing a blog on it and all...

I'm already thinking about the cover and I've Googled some indie book cover designers. I think this is a good example of spending money to make money, not that any writer decides to self-publish in the hopes they make money. My goal is to stay under $500 for a decent cover and I'm hoping that this first time out I'll be able to find free beta-ing. I have to yet to discover how realistic that is...

It's an exhausting process and I'm sort of overwhelmed just thinking about it. BUT as Judy Collins says: Do what you love, and you will find a way to get it out to the world.

So this is me....doing what I love.