A soccer break

I usually write my posts at night, but I got beat up pretty badly in my soccer game tonight. Ball to the face, my already bruised toe stepped on again, and tripped by the goalie, which resulted in me doing a flip and landing on my head and back.

So since I'm pretty sore and my head hurts, I'm going to take a couple of days to recoup. Be back on Thursday.

Throwing stuff away

Today my daughter got mad at me for throwing away an art project she did at school a year ago. It was a picture she drew on tin foil and she wanted to do it again, but couldn't remember exactly how to do it.

This begs the question. How much of your old writing do you keep. Sometimes I think I keep too much. Every time I change a chapter, a query letter, a synopsis – I change the date and keep the old one, even though I might have only changed one sentence. I keep thinking that maybe I'll change my mind and decide that the paragraph on page 10 was better in version 15 than version 18 and if I throw it away I'll never remember what the exact words were.

How about you? Do you let go of your old words, or do you hang onto them like clothes from the 1980's.

To my American friends

Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Here's hoping you are able to visit with family, have a great dinner, and get some great deals at the mall.

I'll probably be having cereal, working, and juggling basketball and soccer practices.

Just for fun here's a few things I'm thankful for.

1. That we have a garage to park our cars in.
2. That I only have to drive to work 3 days a week on icy roads.
3. Friday - because it will be a balmy -1C, instead of -38C

Stay warm.

What comes first?

What comes first for you – the book or the movie?

Do you like to read the book before you see the movie, or do you like to see the movie before you read the book?

In need of a pick me up

As of Tuesday it has snowed nonstop and I'm quite tired of it. I'm in need of a pick me up from the lack of sun. I'm thinking a good movie might be in order.

Except I hate crowds, so I'll probably just rent a video.

But there are some good movies coming out.

1. Harry Potter - you know the one with the wizard boy.
2. Voyage of the Dawn Treader - the obvious cast
3. Love & other Drugs - with Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal
4. Restless - with the girl from Alice in Wonderland. Apparently she meets a boy who likes to go to funerals and talks to a dead Japanese fighter pilot. (She's also the new Jane Eyre - not sure when that one is coming out)

How about you do movies give you an escape from everyday life and if so what movie are you most looking forward to?

What I did...

Thanks so much for all the great advice on Monday. So this is what I did.

I got home from work, and I went for a walk to clear my head and because a blizzard was coming, and I wanted to enjoy some sunshine. I took a bath. I did some laundry. I watched TV.

The next day I worked on finishing the chapter and I think I was making it more difficult that it needed it to be. I was over thinking it. So I made my changes, and my husband read it and understood what was going on. Yeah! Now I can mark that off of my things to do.

Later on Tuesday I tried again to work on my synopsis, but with not much luck. I went to my soccer game, which started at 9pm. Scored a goal, got an assist and we won 5-0 (sorry I just had to brag, since I don't get to do it very often). Woke up Wednesday with a horrible headache and slept for four hours. Got up and actually made progress on the synopsis. Slowly I'm inching my way toward finishing this thing.

With my current WIP I've alredy written they query and it was way easier to do it while writing my draft. I'm thinking I should do the same for the synopsis.

Which bodes the question. Do you think it's easier to write the synopsis before you write your book, during, or after?

When things click

I think we've all had those moments when things click. Plots come together, chapters have well formed arcs, and our character development is right where we want it.

Last week as I was working on my synopsis, I had a moment of "yes, this is what my plot needs" then I spent the whole week trying to implement it, and I hate to say that nothing clicked. I tried massaging the chapter. I tried rewriting the chapter. I even tried to move things around. Nothing worked. I think that I need to leave it alone, let it sit for a week, but I've never been good at doing that.

What do you do when you're stuck and nothing is clicking?