Sadie Jay

I was completely unmotivated last week. Yes, I continued working on my edits; no, I didn't get very far. I find them almost impossible to stick with. I need to find a different system. Maybe write for 3/4 of my allotted time, edits for the other fourth. We'll see.   So what I did was read. Naturally. I read Santino Hassell's Third Rail that is a leadup to Citywide , his collection of Five Boroughs shorts coming out November 13. If I've never mentioned that I love the 5B books, I'm mentioning it now. Never read them? Do it! I also read Sleigh Ride by Heidi Cullinan. She offered it free a few days ago, and I tend to grab free offerings. It's the second in the Minnesota Christmas series and now I really want to read the other three!  And, I read Briefs by Anyta Sunday. It's a collection of happy-ending shorts. I read the first two, and maybe it was just my mood, but I found them a bit lack-luster. But I continued reading and really enjoyed ...

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...

              I have a question about flashbacks. Some time back I read a thread on Twitter that discussed the topic and up until then, I hadn't really thought about it. Some had no problem with it, some weren't fans. I read Spark by Posy Roberts last year and thought the use of flashbacks was quite effective.              When I originally wrote Headphones I used flashbacks rather liberally since each day of the story was meant to represent that day and it felt like a way to stay within that format and yet give the readers enough background to understand the characters. Now that I'm doing the rewrite (finally!) I'm wondering how to fit them in. I'm inclined to leave them; otherwise, I'm afraid there will be too much narrative and quite often, the information is for the reader, not for the other characters.                For example, when Headphones asks Mick if he a...

I spent the week doing a rough edit, finding misspelled words and deleting extra commas. My word count is 48862, which is a little short of my goal of 50K, if we ignore the fact that my original goal was 40K! I still want to go back and do the edits on Embers and Flame but I got it in my head that I need to write a synopsis and query for Like Cracks In The Sidewalk . So that is my goal this week. Then next week I am most definitely giving Ben and Cherry some attention. Poor boys; I bet they're feeling ignored! Instead of an excerpt this week, how about a mood board?