Sadie Jay

It's been a while since I've posted. A combination of daily life stuff and laziness. No excuses, really! But I'm still editing Cut Shot , which is a long process for me, and not one I enjoy. But oh so necessary. I think I'm getting close to being done with this first, intense edit and then hopefully I'll find a few beta readers willing to give me some feedback. While I'm working on this, I'm trying to decide my next move. I want to finish the Headphones rewrites, but I also want to do another edit of Embers and Flame  and get it ready to publish. All while plotting my NaNo Challenge project. Time is running out! Snippet from Cut Shot (going back to an early chapter):             “Have you ever heard of personal space?” Jed asked Ian as he took yet another step back. Ian followed as if it were a dance. “Just checking.” “Checking what? To see if I have dandruff?” Jed halted his retreat and leaned forward, stalling Ian from his n...

What a week. The boss had surgery and all of our "kids" went on vacation or to camp. In twenty years, that's never happened. But it also meant us "adults" had to adjust our shifts and put in some extra hours. Needless to say, it's been a long week. Still, I've managed to get some writing time in and I'm only a little behind on my Camp NaNo goal. I have less than 3000 words to go. It'll be close, but I'm going to try!           The bad news is, it's not going to be enough to tie up this story. The good news is, the end is in sight. I'm not sure why Cut Shot is taking so long and I just hope it's coherent when it's done.  My word count at this juncture is 51k. My goal for this WIP was between 53k-55k, but I'll go over that. Hopefully, I'll keep it under 60k. I don't want it to go much longer than the first in the series.           Something to note: I made a change to the MC's name. He's been Jeb/Jebidiah...

I haven't updated for awhile. The April Camp NaNo didn't end so well--I barely made it over 10K for the month. I had hoped, even with vacation, that I could do twice that, but Cut Shot is giving me a little trouble. I see the story in my head, but it's not hitting the page very quickly. But I'll keep working on it. I think with planning vacation, being on vacation, and then simply dealing with everything when we got back cut into my time. It seems I've been working in15-minute segments for the entire month. It's definitely been a paragraph by paragraph book so far! Still, there are some things I like about it. My boys are starting to take on more personality in my head and hopefully I'll be able to get that where it needs to go. Ian, especially. Since Jeb came from another story, I knew him a little better. But I'm finally getting to know Ian! First draft exerpt from Chapter 5: Ian couldn’t decide if he was uncomfortable or amused, but ever sin...

     I've not updated for a while, but to be honest, I haven't felt overly productive lately. I finished the editing on Embers and Flame and got a good start on the second installment of Headphones , plus adding a few words here and there to Cut Shot . But there was a major upheaval in M/M Romance Twitterland last week that put me into a deep state of mourning that made me question whether or not I wanted to continue. But I've put too much of my heart, not to mention time, into my writing to throw my hands up and be done. So, this is what I'm going to do:      Over the next few weeks, I'm going to pop around from project to project. I've found that while doing the Headphones rewrites I feel like I'm losing my ability to come up with new content. Now probably that's not true. But imagining the characters, bringing them to life, is what I like to do. Originally I was going to complete the first draft of the Headphones series before moving to other thin...

               I wrote my synopsis and blurb for Embers and Flame: Charles “Cherry” Andrews is trying to prove to himself that he can have a life on his own. His ex left him the couch, the bed, and the camping equipment. Replacing the city and hospital sounds with crickets and birdsong at his favorite campground feels like the perfect vacation, but instead of finding peace, he’s simply bored. Ben Torres set out on a motorcycle tour of the country as a way to find his own peace after the death of his mother, but a bad baffle curtails his plans within hours of leaving home. Luckily for him, the guy in the next camp spot happily shares his fishing equipment as well as offering to play taxi. An unplanned kiss on their last day together leads to an afternoon of discovery that turns into a summer romance that begins to feel like a long distance relationship. Everything would be wonderful if they could spend the rest of their life in a small te...

I finished my editing rounds of Embers and Flame , now to write the synopsis and query and send it out. I'm really divided right now about if I really want to do that, or just settle on self-publishing and skip putting myself through the querying angst. I have so many projects bubbling around in my head and I'm not sure what I want to start on next. Logically, I started the Headphones rewrite and I should dedicate myself to finishing it, but I see that taking at least four months, and I really want to start on Cut Shot , Jeb and Ian's story. I may try to work on both at the same time--at least get Cut Shot started, and then focus on it as my CampNano project. Anyway, that's where I am at the moment, so time to take a deep breath and move forward!

I had hoped to have Headphones: In From The Cold done by yesterday, and I'm close, maybe only a chapter and a half. And I might have made it, but something family related came up that cut into my hours on Friday and Saturday. And I had a bout of the stomach bug going around that kept me in bed most of yesterday. Even so, I got in 7810 words, taking the novel to 66691. So I passed my 60K goal easily enough. Fingers crossed, I should be done in a day or two. And then I'm finishing my edit of Embers And Flame so I can query it. Then back to Headphones. Going to run a quick edit on this one, and hopefully find a beta reader or two before I start on the next book in the trilogy. Hopefully, the next two will go quicker! Excerpt from Chapter 20: Scoey did his best to concentrate on his customers, but his efforts were marginal at best. Over the course of the next two hours, his attention continued to wander back to the couple in the corner. He analyzed every movement; the wa...

Gulp, I haven't updated in almost a month! But to be honest, it was December, so I was busy with work, cookies, and events every weekend. And then my daughter came home for two weeks, so I had to move all of my stuff out of the spare bedroom and move it into our bedroom, which wasn't the most conductive to writing, because my husband was in and out. Having said that, I did get 23K words written, putting Headphones over 53K at this point. My goal for the novel is 60K+, so I'm easily tracking. Unless things go sideways in the next couple of weeks, I should finish "Out of the Cold", the first volumn of the Headphones trilogy, by mid-month. Then the challenge will be finding a few beta readers to give me some feedback, because I'm really up in the air on this one. But I'm not giving up! Excerpt from Chapter 17: Jay chased Headphones around the backyard, and her squeal turned into a hysterical laugh as he wrestled her to the ground to retrieve the h...

     I survived November, but I didn't make the NaNo goal of 50K. I didn't even make my personal goal of 40K. My actual November word total was 30256. Not great, but I'm not unhappy with it. If I wasn't working full time, I would be disappointed, but considering I usually only get between one and two hours a day to write, I'm okay with it. Somehow, I thought revising Headphones would be mainly changing the tense, without making many changes to the original writing. Wrong! I'm changing the order of the daily snapshots and adding/subtracting more than I thought I would. That's not a bad thing. Headphones was the first thing I'd written since college--at least, anything of any length. There has been quite a lot that needed tightened and trimmed.      So what did I accomplish in November? Well, I got through the first half of the first novel. My goal now is to finish the second half by the end of December. From the beginning, I've wanted each book in t...

     I wasn't sure, even on the morning of November 1 if I was going to do the challenge this year. But I told myself "just start and see where it goes." I'm having a difficult time sticking with it, but even on my worst day, I did 700+ words, so even if I don't make the 50K goal, I'll have a good chunk of the book written by the end of the month. If I'm happy with the first one, hopefully, the other two will fall into place. I ended at 8110 last night, which means I'm a little short of my goal of 8333. I probably would have made it except I had a horrid headache that cut into everything I had planned for the day.      I'm happy with it, though. I have found, oddly, that I've put more of Mark in the first chapter than I did in the original. When I first started writing Headphones in high school, he was meant to be the main character partnered with Jessie, but I somehow lost that when I was writing the serial. Not sure what'll happen this...

Not much to report this week. Still editing. Having a very hard time staying focused, but I think I'm getting close to being done with Blind Ante . I've done some editing on Embers and Flame , also. I went ahead and got into that bit that was messed up in the middle. It wasn't as bad as I thought. A few paragraph revisions and I think it's back on track. Fingers crossed, I'll have them both ready for beta readers by the end of the month. Then the challenge will simply be finding them! Excerpt from Blind Ante , Chapter 8-- Jordan woke with his nose buried in a sandalwood scented pillow and he moaned in pleasure as he inhaled deeply. It was such a comfortable smell and he rubbed his face into the cotton. His alarm clock was beeping, but it was far away and he considered closing his eyes and ignoring it. He drifted in the scent and the warmth of the body by his side with an arm thrown over his back as he came more fully awake. It was too dark to see who was next...

I didn't update last week simply because I've been editing and really, there isn't much to update when editing. The plan this week is to finish the edit on Blind Ante and then find some willing Beta readers. I really had hoped to be done by Wednesday, but considering I'm only to page 13, this might be moving slower than I'd hoped. Major sigh. But it is moving, so I do have that thought to comfort me, I suppose! The plan (at this point) is to finish this, then hit Embers and Flame really hard. There's a bit in the middle that's messed up and I'll probably have to completely rewrite it. Another major sigh. I spent this morning organizing  Headphones  (pictured above). The outline is by month, so that's how I'm going to work the revision. It's going to be my NaNo challenge next month, so whatever doesn't get finished this month will get set aside for 30 days. I'm staying zen about it, though. I'm having one of my more positive...

My Headphones revision didn't get very far this week because I decided to concentrate on editing. I kind of worked on three manuscripts, but gave most of my attention to Like Cracks In The Sidewalk . It's the darkest thing I've written, considering most of my stories are lighter, slightly angsty, feel-good reads. I'm going to give it one more read-through and then start submitting it around. Here's one of the darker passages--if not the darkest. Warning: violence and NSFW I was shouting and couldn’t stop myself. “I’m not the one out all night, coming in at dawn! Where do you go after your gigs, if you aren’t pulling? Am I supposed to just wait around, be your fuckboy? That’s what Susan called me, that first day I met her!” Val didn’t reply with words; instead, he punched me in the ribs. The blow wasn’t hard. We were standing too close for him to get any power behind the punch. He wheeled back against the wall when I slapped him across the face. Val took a de...

Headphones on paper.Now to pull it all together and make something cohesive out of it!  After much consideration on where to start, this is my opening page:  Chapter 1—what the cold brought in January 2015 Reaching over the bar easily with his long arms, the lanky man helped himself to the tap, topping off his beer as he looked out at the floor. One more set and the band was calling it quits. They were two weeks away yet from the beginning of spring semester. That, combined with the colder than normal temperature, meant a quiet crowd. He chuckled to himself when he spied the local Priest and Rabbi visiting at the back table, glasses of wine in hand. Another sure sign of a slow night! A rush of cold air on his neck announced someone making a late night entrance and he turned his shaggy head towards the door. A young woman, surely not far out of her teens, made her way to the nearest table. Pulling her gloveless hands out of her pockets, she rubbed them toge...

A very quick update today, just to say "I'm done!" At least with the first draft, that is. I missed a few points that I had in my notes, so I'm going to spend this week trying to see where (or if) they fit in. And then edits. Always fun doing edits. (Not!) My plans, at least at the moment, are to edit this one and then go back to Embers and Flame . I never finished the edits on that one and there was some major damage I needed to fix in the middle, but I got distracted by the July NaNo and once I got on a roll with Blind Ante , I didn't want to stop. So, yes, I see hours spent editing in my future. After that, I'm going back through When Silverfish Dance and make some tweaks there. I have a Dan/Jones fanfiction I want to write, and then it's on to the Headphones rewrites. So, apparently, I'm going to keep busy for the rest of the year.

It was a good week. Monday kicked off a little slow, but I stayed pretty steady for the rest of the week. My word count was 8298, bringing this manuscript to 44324 words. Which means I've passed my goal of 40K, taking my WIP from a novella into novel territory. I had hoped to finish today, but I think I'm down to the final chapters. If not tomorrow then hopefully Tuesday. After that, I need to draft a 5-page synopsis and a query letter. I have until the weekend to do that. Ah, self-made goals! I still have to decide on a title--Now. Added to that, I had the brilliant (?) idea to possibly, in the future, continue Jeb's story. So now I'm trying to think of a title that I can "add" to if it becomes a series. No pressure. Short excerpt, featuring Jeb, because I really rather liked him there at the end: Jordan studied the bubbles rising up in his beer mug. The frost on the sides was beginning to melt and drip down the side and he traced the paths with one fi...

I actually accomplished 6304 words this week, putting me at 36K. Considering my plan to make this a 40K novella, I think I'll probably go over. I wanted to be done by the end of this week, and maybe it'll still happen, but I really don't feel I can tie this up in 4000 or 5000 words. I'm actually excited to see where it goes. I think, in a way, I've enjoyed writing this one more than I have any of the others. Saturday I got to a scene I've seen in my head almost since the beginning and at first I wasn't getting anywhere and I was a bit nervous about it. It had to be right. I basically stared at the screen, typed a sentence or two, and then stared some more. But it hit that afternoon and got more intense than I'd realized it was going to be. Which makes me incredibly happy! This weeks excerpt:             Reese followed Jordan in and watched him take off his jacket. It was a bit odd, the way he eased it off as if his muscles were stiff, and ...

First order of business. I was never overly happy with the title Sleep Dream Silently Scream , at least not for this particular story. It was just a title I was playing with at the opening of the July CampNaNo and I used it, not really meaning to make it permanent. So I'm playing with some different ideas: Parking is Limited , Permit Parking Only, Blind Ante, Bluff Induce . If you have any ideas, put them in the comments. I'm looking for something having to do with parking (because Jordan lived out of his car for so long and doesn't want to go back to that) or something to do with Poker/Blackjack. Some titles are obvious and already used multiple times, titles like Ante Up,  and  Cashing Out . Hopefully, we'll discover something original. And now for the regular update: So, I had planned on doing word sprints over the weekend and getting my word count over 30K. The plan is still to hit around 40K and my hope is to finish the first draft in the next couple of weeks. U...

     The last week went well at 5931 words, bringing the current draft to 24660.  My word count goal for this MS is 40K, and I plan to have it done by the end of the month, which is very doable if I meet my 5K word goal each week. The problem with that? There are some submission calls going on right now that I'd like to enter, but I'm not ready. So now the question becomes, do I stick to my original plans: finish this MS, hit the edits for this and Embers and Flame , do some suggested edits to  When Silverfish Dance , and start the rewrites for Headphones ? Then start querying the collection at the first of the year? Or do I shuck all that, at least for the next few weeks, and jump in feet first? Argh! I'm so very confused on what to do next. this week's excerpt:             Reese froze in the bathroom doorway when he heard a moan. He waited, almost afraid of what would follow as he pictured Jeb coupled with Jordan on that small...

The week started strong but then I lost some momentum as I switched computers. I figure I have another week or two before I get everything set up the way I want it. On the word-count front, I ended up with 3833 words- a little lower than I wanted but I'll get there. Ideally, I would like to get in a minimum of 5K a week. After I hit my CampNaNo goal, I set a new one for the month of July, working towards 20K. Of course, I then looked at the calendar wrong and thought I had until tomorrow! I may not meet it today, but I'll be close. Goal for August? Another 20K to finish on my current WIP. And then the edits begin! This week's excerpt: He sat with his head down, staring into what was left of his beer, when an arm was thrown over his shoulders and a voice he hadn’t heard in over a year was whispering into his ear. “Hey, baby boy, fancy meeting you here.”  He tensed, refusing to turn his head. “What are you doing here?” “You don’t call, you don’t text. Why...