The end of ABNA

It's 12:10am marking the end of the amazon breakthrough novel awards. I sit silently and remember to breath every so often as I let out a long sigh. I would love to say it is a sigh of relief that my last valiant effort made it so but to no avail.
I had uploaded my pitch and even my excerpt all I needed was to end the manuscript. I had gone back an edited it so that it would be good to go in the last seconds. I knew however that even at my best I could not make the word count that I needed to make up.
I thought for a moment to just end the novel and upload it as is without the minimum word count being there just at least to see if I could make it through the couple of rounds before hand. But I still have so much more story to tell and I had to say no. So as the clock ticked down the seconds I sigh.
The submission period is over the tab says and I except it.
I could say all the excuses that caused me to not be ready but in the end my story wanted it's time and so now it gets it.

When you wish upon a star

When you wish upon a star you have to know that the star may not be taking requests at the moment. There's the possibility of a busy signal or just a star that hates their job and has no time for you.
Wishes are amazing when they come true but they are few and far between and therefore you have to rely on yourself.
Today was the opening deadline for my major compitition and with all my wishing and bribing my Muse I did not make the minumum word count to enter today.
So do I wish upon a star once again that I can upload by thursday and make the 5,000 entrents allowed?
I will try and that is all I can do. Either way I will always believe in the magic....

The first failed attempt of 2010

So it's sunday January 24th and I'm laying in bed after hitting the snooze button on my phone for probably the 5th time this morning.
Work is from 10:30-7 today with only about a 30min break. Not enough time to write.
Tonight when it hit's 12:01am singling monday morning abna starts.
It was a time that I had been aiming for as my deadline. Only the first 5,000 novels in each of the two catagories will be excepted into the compitition.
Most authors will be entering their novels that were already done. Just waiting for the deadline. I wrote a whole new novel and now I'm not ready to upload at all.
My muse took a well deserved vacation and didn't return to earlier this week and now I do not have enough words to upload yet.
I had quite a good stride for awhile going from only 7,000 to 26,000 in just two days but then the walls came up and I started to question big parts about the book.
I can't say I didn't try and that I'm not still trying to get the book done. I called in friends to help with the editing tonight while I still write but it looks like only one can make it and I can't take them away from their lives.
All I can do now is pray that I can take till thursday and still make the submission time. I have off tue-wed and I know that I'll only need that time I just hope that fate is on my side this year.
They are only looking at the pitch for the first round even though you have to upload everything. This terrifies me. I've been in sales all my life and I'm good at it yet when I sell any of my stuff it just goes bad. I'm hoping this will not be one of those times.
The submission period ends on Feb 7th but I know I have to do it b4 then.
Wish me luck

Learning about deadlines the hard way

So I am trying to enter the amazon breakthrough novel awards this year. The entry is Jan 25th-feb 7th but only the first 5,000 entries in both catagories will be taken so of course I would have to be ready to go on the 25th. I've decided to write a completly new book to enter which shouldn't have been an issue but suddenly it is. Life has gotten in the way once again and my mind has completly blanked. The minimum word count is 50,000 words and I'm not even @ 4,000. It is still doable but it is definatly teaching me about deadlines and the stresses of them. I hope one day to have to truely deal with them from an editor. Coincedently the prize for this comp is a publishing contract with penguin publishers and a $15,000 advance. It is what I want to do with my life and being an uneducated writer it is a difficult task to accomplish but so worth the try.
I'm not normally one to do a complete outline for a novel but I've tried with this one but it just won't flow.
So now I sit here on a bench outside the movie theater blogging to all instead of writing my novel but I guess it is good that I'm at least writing.
Goodbye for now..........

Just another day in paradise

Well the new year started off ok minus the fact that I had no heat in the house. All was suppose to be well today when the heat was turned back on. There were some minor mishaps but it still worked out. The heat guy told me to shut the water valve off b4 I go to work in case the pipes burst. Of course I didn't have long before I heard the water flowing and the downstairs is flooded and I had to tell my mom that my gas was off that whole time. All this is killing my inspiration during a crutial time. I have to upload my novel on jan 25th and I'm nowhere near done. I am losing my mind

Oh my little furry, four pawed children....

Oh my little furry four pawed children how mommy tries to play with you and you do not want to. I pick you up and you try to run. So I say forget it and try to go about my day. I will try to write or read or even play video games. But then suddenly I get the why are you ignoring us mommy? And suddenly we must lay on top of your laptop or knaw at the powercord. We'll stop you from reading your book anyway we can and don't even try to play video games.
Even now as I write this my little Dagonet is trying to get on top of the computer.
But I have to laugh because I know the minute I put this away and try to play off they will run.

My little writing machine

As you can tell it's been awhile since I've been able to write in this blog. I've finished Nanowrimo but not the story yet. It has taken on a life of it's own and gone a direction that I could not dream and I do love it. I'm sorry to have to shelf it for a bit but I have alot of competitions coming up the first being amazon's breakthrough novel award in which my insaneness has decided to write a whole new story for and so from now till January 9th I have to knock out 50,000-150,000 novel then January 10th-24th edit it and get it ready to upload @ 12:01am along with a pitch and an excerpt.
Then Jan 26-Feb 28th I shall finish my nanowrimo book (Homo-Sapiens the hidden threat) edits and all so I can upload it to create space for my free proof copy.
March 1-31st I will be writing for the Writer's Digest 79th annual writing competition which I am not sure what I am writing about but hopefully something will come to me. It will be put aside at the end of March so I can start to do script frenzy in the month of April then to be picked back up again and finished before uploading it on May 14th(the day after my birthday).
I also have a couple side projects to finish just for fun and hopefully I can update this blog periodically.
I should hear about the results of the writer's digest short story competition at the end of February I believe. If at that time I'm able to post my story here I will.
Also I really want to start a few stories for just this blog and I will do so maybe in May when things settle down a bit.
But out of all this insanity I'm happy about one thing, I'm writing constantly for the first time in years. I hope that you all enjoy it.
I'm on twitter now under dracara and that soon will go the writer's route and I'm looking into creating a website for all of my writing's and going on's.
I will keep writing and hopefully you guys will keep reading!!!