I had a little moment of panic when I saw my last Friday post had been on March 31. “March??” I thought. “Aw hell, you mean I haven't posted since March?”
Yep, Kris, that's right, you slacker. March. i.e. last week.
Shaking Up The Muse
I've been trying to shake up the muse, who keeps wanting to write big old plots rather than honed-in-like-a-laser-beam romances.
I tried dictating. I tried through a mic, which was incredibly unsettling, to watch the words try to appear, after a huge delay, on the screen, as I was saying them.
So then I set up an entirely internal system, where I dictate to a digital recorder, download the mp3 files to a software program, that runs yet another software program, and the dictation happens software-to-software.
Dictation Results
Much better results, distraction-wise. As far as output…? Here's a sample
The line I dictated, which had some ‘administrative' type instructions for myself, ran something like, “She was standing by the window, in a wash of spring sunshine–remember to use the original typed paragraph for this intro–when Brian de Lisle walked in. He smiled at her, tray of food in hand, and kicked the door shut behind him.”
What did it transcribe for me?
–> “Next field decrease her organs store Foster handler for two Mesa County pointe shoes undercover with some bubbles it was a finders crisis.
So are shine.” He said <–
Close. So close. Should speed things right up. 💩
Short Story
I'm writing a short story, to use as bonus material for an anthology I'm going to be part of in the summer. The anthology will include three other historical authors, and we're going to use existing stories, but include little ‘extras,' as a way to reach new readers & cross-promote our work.
My bonus contribution is a short story that connects to Defiant. A paragraph of the short story is above. As is the word-vomit hallucination of a transcription.
Contemporary Romances
Dare: I've written about 110K on DARE, my sexy contemporary romance follow-up to SPIN, featuring Finn & Janey Mac, but it's all circling the romance. So I'm rejecting all this nonsense, and will keep hammering away. My goal here is another 50K super sexy story.
Out of His System: About 20K in, and we see, again, the too-much-plot problem. Curse this story.
Untitled Christmas Novella: DONE! But it's in a super rough state, right down to the fact that there are still a lot of incomplete sentences. But at least this shows me I can still actually write.
Recent Reads
I finished J.A. Huss's Anarchy Missing: Alpha Case. Super fun!! Sex and violence and love and crazy shit. So. Much. Fun.
Then I started in on a re-read of Lord of Scoundrels by Lorette Chase. Because…shaking up the muse.
Hope your week was everything you needed it to be, and your coming weekend is everything you want it to be!