Sadie Jay

As a little "side job", I bake cookies. This isn't important as far as this blog goes, but it is one of the reasons I'm not getting much writing done this month. I signed up for a vendor show on December 1st and I've spent the month baking and icing cookies. One more week and that huge undertaking will be done. Then maybe I'll attempt my own "NaNo" in December!            The second reason Smoke and Sparks bogged down is because Daryl showed me a side that I hadn't realized was there so I'm making a few changes to my original story. It's a good thing; I'm starting to get a better feel for my characters.            In the meantime, I'm going back to Cut Shot for this week's snippet. This takes place early in Jed and Ian's relationship when they're still feeling each other out: Excerpt from chapter 4: Within a half-an-hour, they were back in the truck and then parking in front of the Shortstop and he didn’t reca...

I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year, but I've set my own goal. I'm not going to stress myself with 50K, instead aiming for 30K. The first year I did NaNo, I made the 50K and I would love to do it again, but I simply have too many other commitments this time. Ideally, I'll surpass my minimum goal and get Fire and Smoke 2/3s written in November and finish it in December. Of course, things never work out as I plan! Today's snippet is from this NaNo project. It's snipped from Daryl's opening chapter. He's with a group of his friends at a campground and the conversation is between him and his older cousin, Mike: “Hey, Turkey, come help me with this,” Mike yelled at me. He’s called me Turkey my whole life. When I asked why he said it was because I looked like a plucked turkey when I was born. Yellow-pale skin with a round belly, legs drawn up, and pointed elbows that flapped like wings. I’d asked him to stop more than once. It made it worse. “This” was lower...

I didn't do much on the writing front this week. I get this lethargy between manuscripts , like I'm a bit lost and don't know which way I'm supposed to be walking. I did a couple of edits on my NaNo project first page (which you can read in a previous post ) and worked on a couple of pages in the second Headphones book. But what I need to be doing is outlining and prepping. Since the beginning of Fire and Smoke runs concurrently with the end of Embers and Flame , I really need to reread and take notes so everything lines up. I always feel so unprepared when I start a new story, but somehow it always falls together. Hopefully, it will this time, also. Today's snippet comes from Embers and Flame . Daryl and Vaughn meet through Ben and Cherry, who are in a long distance relationship. Ben is from Southern Indiana, Cherry is from St. Louis. Ben, with his son Eric and his cousins Mike and Daryl, join Cherry and his sister and her friend Vaughn for a weekend of food ...

For my NaNo project (National Novel Writing Month), I've decided to work on the Embers and Flame sequel, tentatively titled Fire and Smoke . It's going to be Vaughn and Daryl's story. My goal is to make it into a light-hearted romance without a great deal of angst. Probably not going to happen. When I write, the angst just always finds its way in. So anyway, I like to have the first few pages set before I start the serious writing. I know I'll edit it 10 times in the next week, but here's the first draft. Opinions? (just for reference, the incident that Vaughn and Lindsey are talking about happened in the first book and entailed Vaughn following her brother into the bathroom, where he proceeded to get a bit too handsy.) Chapter One “I thought you said your brother was working tonight,” I hissed to my green-haired companion. “Relax, Vaughn. I must’ve got my days mixed up. Maybe he works tomorrow? Er, no. Oh, it’s Wednesday!” She smiled as if she was waiting...