Coming Up For Air

Oh hello there, poor, neglected blog.
So nice to see you again.
Did you miss me?
Of course you did.
I missed you, too.

I've been rather busy lately, dear blog.
You'll have to excuse my extended absence.
You see...I have a little bit copious amounts of tunnel vision.
It seems that once I get sucked into a project, it's difficult for me to focus on anything else.

So, dear blog, please forgive me for my neglectful ways.
I've been working so hard on revising my story for the Five Enchanted Roses anthology.
Well, by "working" I mean a whole lot of thinking...days and days of thinking, musing, pondering...and then a very intense burst of focused writing and revising.

That's how I roll, blog.
Think about it. Think about it. Think about it.
Then...
BAM!
Do it!
Then, it's done.

I'm very excited, my little blog.
I just turned in the first revision of my story, Rosara and the Jungle King. I promised myself ice cream when I finally got it finished. It's 11:00 at night...sadly, ice cream may have to wait until tomorrow.

Here's a beautiful blog button for my story:

Isn't it pretty?  I love it!

Oooh, now do I get to say that I'm an "award winning, published author?"
Yes, I think I do.
And I think I will introduce myself that way from now on as well.
I can just picture myself now at a dinner party or social gatherings..."Hi there. So nice to meet you. I'm Dorian, an award winning, published author. Have you tried the canapé? So delish!"

Ahh, and now that I've turned in my first set of revisions, I get to go back to my current manuscripts. I have two stories I'm working on at the moment. I think I'd better pick one and get 'er done and then move on to the second. Hmmm...which one to pick?
The one that is likely to be the shortest, or the one that might have more "oomph" as far as sales and readership goes?
It's a tough decision.
I think I'll sleep on it.

Getting Past the Finish Line

I'm struggling so much tonight with pushing myself to finish a story that is getting hard for me.

This is a problem in my life. I'll start a story, and as soon as it gets hard, complicated, or I'm not sure what's coming next - BAM! - time to start a new story! That really isn't good for me, at least not as far as getting anything completely finished is concerned. 

I have a lot of fun starts on my computer. The beginning is always fun for me. I love beginnings. Endings can be fun, too. It's middles that I'm not such a big fan of. Middles take time. And planning. And a sense of direction. None of these are areas of expertise for me. 

This is where I find that I will go farther, do better, and feel more confident if I stop for a bit and do some outlining. I'm not a planner by nature. When I start a story, I have a general idea of what I want to have happen, well, major plot points at least. But, the devil's in the details, and I'm not so good at those. I'll start off doing well for awhile, and then I get stuck, because I don't have a clear idea of exactly what I want to have happen. When this occurs, I try to step back, and outline where I want to go from there, and usually, I get unstuck and can move on.

I'm trying to tell this to myself, so I can get motivated to finish this dang story that I'm stuck on. 

Ok. Cummon, now. Outline your plot so you can get a move on. 

Alright, I've gotta go plan my story, so that someday soon it will actually be finished.