The Best Part of Waking Up

Is soldiers in your cup!

Runny nose, gritty eyes, work in a few, how to survive? When not even the coffee can revive?

Ok, as far as rhymes go, that was pretty much terrible. Not pretty much. It just was. But I think we can all agree that I'm obviously not at my best in the morning.

And, I've made a sad, sad discovery today. The last time I stayed up until 5am with a book was when I got my hands on Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince--incidentally, at 1am (I stayed up for the midnight release, of course. Who didn't?). Unfortunately, that time in my life when I can survive such a dramatic gesture from my love of books has come and gone. Apparently I can't survive the aftermath.

I feel old. I even found a gray hair the other day. No joke.

You see, I have a problem: it's an addiction to books, which means that once I start one that's hooked me, it's nearly impossible for me to put it down. Something really terrible (such as a love triangle) has to happen for me to stop reading. In this case, it was two books. The first, Angelfall, was actually an indie book (which I usually avoid). I really enjoyed it. The problem was that afterward, I was left feeling bereft of a good story (always happens, don't know why it hit me so bad. Possibly because it was midnight). So I started Anna Dressed in Blood. A chilling ghost story if I've ever read one.

I really shouldn't read such scary stories after midnight. My poor health can't take it. It's exceedingly possible that this is where I get my gray hairs from.

On another note, fall has finally arrived, and with it, a nice bite to the air (can't resist a good metaphor, even if it's cliche). It's in the low fifties, sunny, and with a chilly wind. My favorite kind of weather! If only the trees were orange, it would be perfect.

And, as much as I love this kind of weather, it means good-bye to the corn. The spring planting didn't do so well with our lovely, wet spring (wet even for Washington, which is saying something), so the corn was stunted in its growth. It is doubtful that it will come to full fruition before the first frost. One can hope.

For now, I shall let the coffee do its trick (I have high hopes for its effectiveness). Now that I've satiated my reading craving, it's possible I'll actually be able to get some editing done. We shall see.

In Which I Write About Writing

Today, I was very productive, though not in the way I should have been. I'm taking the GRE this Saturday, and therefore should be studying (I got all questions but half of one right for the verbal reasoning section and all questions but five wrong for the quantitative [math] section in my diagnostic test...you can see where I need the work). However, I was feeling a bit of inspiration last night after writing chapter two of the sequel to The Shadowguard (a title my brother heartily made fun of), so I spent all day working on world building and character backstories.

I now have enough information that I'm not including in the stories that I could probably put together a companion! Not that I'm going to--it's unnecessary for readers, though highly necessary for me. At least, I'd hope so. My hope is that the characters and story will be able to make it clear, though I am of course not the right person to judge whether or not that is true.

So, now, I have the ancient history of the continent (which doesn't have a name, as yet...I simply call it "the island continent", though I should really fix that...), the backgrounds of each important character (and some not-important characters), the first chapter and a half of the second book, and I've created a storyboard for the whole book, so I'm not writing blind like I was with the first. Initially, I wanted to name the book Shades of Gray (or possibly the series), but that was before Fifty Shades of Gray came out. You can bet I scrapped that title in a second! It's not something I want my books associated with. So now I'm brainstorming ideas for that as well.

This time, my editing hopefully won't take quite as long, as I won't have to go back and delete characters or change the plot (since my entire story changed by the end of the book). When I ran out of ideas, I went for a walk through my garden or played with my dogs. It was genius. Don't know why I haven't done this before.

Time to type up and print out my storyboard! Writing to commence almost immediately, and I shall resume editing as soon as I get stuck (which will probably be soon).

Also, I want to say thanks to my BFR's for braving the horrid syntax and plot holes!