It's Here!!

Woo Hoo!!

My copy of Donna Hosie's The Devil's Intern came in the mail today!

Just try and tear it out of my hands!

50K: The End is in Sight!

I just reached 50,000 words on my WIP and I'm pumped!

Why? Because I've been working on this MS for over three years, from its conception during a NaNoWriMo challenge until now. Kind of ironic isn't it? Writers are supposed to write 50K in one month and here I took 3 1/2 years! But that's okay because there was a period of 4 to 6 months when my writing practically stopped and I feared that the spark wouldn't reignite when I faced this MS again.

But you know what? It did. I was still in love with my characters and the direction the story was heading. And so I continued on, working on it while I could, little by little. I hoped to finish it by the summer, but then the spring of constant motion and exhaustion hit, and I was barely writing or even reading.

Here I am in July. I'm behind in my reading, behind in my housework but I reached 50K words. Before I started this project I wrote an outline for this novel and have been using it as a road map of sorts. To be honest, I haven't looked at it that often, but I love that I have it as a safety net. Last week, I revisited that outline. I was feeling a bit nervous about the approaching climax and how I'm going to end this novel. I have a vague idea, but wasn't sure how many total words I should aim for.

First, I went back and checked my word count for each chapter. As of now, before revisions, they range from 1500 - 2500 words. Then I checked my outline and came up with a plan for how many chapters I should have left. I figure I have about 16K left. 16!! That's totally doable! These last chapters are not going to be easy but being to finally see the finish line is all the motivation I need to work hard at it each day until I'm done.

I finally have a working title which seems to reflect the general gist of this novel: REACH. It may change as I continue to work on this but it's so nice to refer to it as something other as YAGS (young adult ghost story).

Now, back to work.

How are your projects going?

Quest of the Artisan: Cover Reveal

Hybrid author and friend, Donna Hosie, is the author of the successful THE RETURN TO CAMELOT young adult series. Earlier this year she released Book One in her spin off series, THE CHILDREN OF CAMELOT called THE RING OF MORGANA. Coming soon in 2015 she will self publish Book Two in this series called QUEST OF THE ARTISAN. Here's the gorgeous cover and what it's about.


THE CHILDREN OF CAMELOT series continues in QUEST OF THE ARTISAN.

Six months ago, seventeen-year-old Rustin Hall thought he knew what he wanted. Then he travelled back in time with his best friend, Mila, to the world of Camelot, knights and magic, and everything changed.

Now Rustin is the artisan, and he knows his future because it's written in the past.

But Rustin's plan to build the first temple for the Gorian druids is cut down like the trees he talks to when the Round Table reveals the name of the newest knight of Camelot: a name that carves fear and unrest into the other knights. With Mila now in danger, Rustin, along with his friends, James and Jalaya, goes on a quest to find her before a new malevolent evil gets there first. A necromancer is building an army of the dead, and they are coming for Arthur's daughter.

Rustin will join forces with a young would-be knight called Galahad, as his quest takes him into the very heart of the Arthurian legends he grew up reading. A quest that could be the end of the artisan's life, not just in Logres, but for good.


Due for release in 2015. I can't wait!!

For more information on Donna's fabulous books: 

Amazon

Donna Hosie's blog

What Makes Me Happy

1. I am officially on summer break from work for 2 and a half months. Although it will be a summer of full days as I catch up on deep cleaning the house and driving children to work, friends, camp etc., I'll finally be able to tackle projects that have been on hold for a month and a half - my WiP being one of them.

2. I'm on Twitter! Not sure whether to say "Yay!" or "Yikes!" or how active I'll be, but thought it was time. If you'd like to follow me, and I feel weird even typing this, I'm at suzmforbes.

2. Yesterday's weather was a humid 90 degrees. After the cold, miserable, never-ending winter (seriously, we had no spring and were getting cold and snow well through April) summer is finally here and I'm ecstatic!

3. I'm beginning a bittersweet side writing project. I haven't quite figured out what exactly it will consist of but it's related to my Dad.

4. Last Saturday I ran and finished my first 5K race! It was a gray, drizzly morning when I woke -- perfect for a race :) I purposely positioned myself  toward the back of the pack. What an incredible joy it was to run past cheering family, friends and strangers. The first song on my Running playlist was "It's Time" by Imagine Dragons -- very fitting and the perfect motivation. I felt good the entire time and crossing the finish line was awesome! My time was 40:55 and I came in 192 out of 225 so yeah, I was definitely running at a tortoise pace. But I ran the whole way and and achieved my goal by finishing.

5. Last Saturday night was girls night out at the movies. We all saw The Fault in our Stars together. I brought tissues just in case, but didn't cry. Not unusual for me. My biggest fear was that the actor portraying Augustus wouldn't be able to pull off Green's book Augustus, but Ansel did. No wonder why millions of teenage girls find him swoonworthy. I enjoyed the movie very much.

What's making you happy today?

A Different Kind of Debut

As an unpublished writer, I dream of the day when I can announce my literary debut. Until then I'll keep working on my WiP little by little until I'm finished.

But that doesn't mean I can't have a different kind of debut.

All of my kids are runners of varying degree. My girls are involved with track and/or cross country. My son ran in high school and continues to do so for the love and fitness. While on break from college last summer, I witnessed his dedication to training, often in 90 degree weather after working 7 hours. This past fall, he flew home on his semester break, ran a local marathon (coming in first for his age group) with a time of 2:56:52 qualifying him to run the 2015 Boston Marathon if he so chooses. /bragging mom

I was so impressed with my daughters' dedication and my son's accomplishment that I secretly decided that I would start running myself in 2014. There was no way I was going to start out in the fall with winter ahead of me, so I announced that "maybe I would start running" after the winter when it got a little warmer. I got a lot of snickers and "that's nice" pats on the head. Nobody really believed I would start. But I did. You know what my first realization was after I bought new sneakers, charged up my iPod, and started jogging around the track?

Running is hard!

And the thing was, it wasn't the breathing that was hard, it was how my calves felt like lead balloons as I ran. In the beginning, I started at the track and decided I would run/walk for 1 mile (4 times around times = 1 mile). The first day, I ran around once and nearly collapsed, walking the rest of the mile. Once I built up to running a continuous (no walking in between) mile I was ready to tackle road running. My route is three miles of which I jog and walk when I have to. I've found that running on the street has been harder on my calves and knees because of the inclines, the harder surface, and uneven sidewalks. Not to mention avoiding puddles and trash cans! And so my recent strategy has been to alternate between running at the track (which can get monotonous) and on the street.

After about 2 months, I am able to run 2 miles straight now. I love that I'm making progress and more importantly that I'm strengthening my heart. Nobody is making fun of me now.

I have no marathon aspirations. My short term goal was to be able to run a mile and I reached it. My next goal, run in a 5K race. Long term? If I stick with this and my legs can handle it, maybe a half marathon in the future. We'll see. As much as I love writing, the progress I've made has been slow. I really needed something else in my life that I could feel successful at short term. Something to get me away from my computer, from the busyness of everyday life, something just for me.

Any runners out there? What advice would you give a running newbie?

Lookee!

Look what I got my hot little hands on last week! I feel like I've been waiting forever!

Doesn't it make a nice addition to the family?

This time of year is notoriously busy for me. Spring sports means late afternoon/early evening practices and pick ups in different towns, 7:00 pm dinners, catching up on chores at night and weekend special events. My reading time is practically nonexistent during the months of April and May, mainly because by the time I open a book before bed, my eyes can't stay open. And so I'm only on p. 96 out of 613 (I peeked with squinty eyes to see how many glorious Dreams pages I had to look forward to).

However, I'm officially on vacation for a week. And although we have a lot to do (getting ready for Easter, visiting colleges) you better believe I'll be finding the time to immerse myself in Laini Taylor's world. Speaking of which, Laini will be visiting Boston next week to promote her book and there's a slim chance I'll get to meet her again. I was fortunate enough to meet her during her Daughter of Smoke and Bone tour and hope to see her again.  

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a book to read.

Sad Days in Boston

Grieving hearts are heavy as we remember two of Boston's finest, Lieutenant Edward Walsh and firefighter Michael Kennedy, who sacrificed their lives to keep others safe. We mourn the loss of these two fine men and are truly grateful for their service. May they rest in peace.