Sometimes we just have to admit that we’re easily distracted flake-holes.
Or is that just me?
I am like the dog in Up who is talking to you and then shouts squirrel. I swear, these days, I can’t follow a conversation without a squirrel running across my mind. Sometimes, it’s, “Oh Shit! I forgot to put that bedding on my bathroom floor in the wash again.”
Sometimes it’s the dog food. CURSE dog food! Curse it! The drama of the dog food at my house!!!!!!!!!!!
Suffice it to say that I have to buy hippie dog food or ELSE. And I keep forgetting. Which means that I scramble my dogs eggs every night. Dudes. DUDES. DUUUUUUDE. When did I become a person who cooked fresh food for her dogs? (The answer is somewhere around the time I had to steam clean my carpets every single day for like a week and a half. That is, alas, a true story.) You should have seen the crazy in my eyes when I went into the hipster dog food store and they recommended to me the same dog food for my dogs that was making them so sick. I could have stabbed the poor hipster dog lover right in the eye socket.
It’s lucky they’re so cute. But don’t trust those sweet faces. They’re naughty little beasts.
Anyhoosen.
I told you all how I drafted a lot this last year because my stress load was out of control. My family added a baby, lost my dad, and I worked two new processes at day job. It’s been a ride my friends. A squirrelly little ride of crazy train and happiness and stress and loss.
What that all adds up to is that I have a LOT drafted out but unedited right now. Like a STUPID amount. A whole series of novellas set in New England. The result of Amanda watching too many episodes of Scooby Doo with Boyo and having a weird and vivid dream and then writing that dream into six novellas.
Yes six. Because why not?
We freaking love Scooby at my house. And the Tiki Bad-Dude is THE Bad guy of choice.
I have half of a series of rewritten fairy tales in my Witch Queen world. They encompass two countries, three separate story lines in different times/ places, several princesses and witches and wizards and curses and the Seven Sons of the Witch Queen. They encompass a mirror and snow magic and the Shadow Kin. It’s overwhelming quite frankly, and I love the shit out of it. I am putting my finishing touches on Snow White as we speak. (So to speak. Tee-Hee. If you like. If you will. If…okay Amanda, shut it and get back to the job at hand.)
Sometime I really need to stop writing and speaking (when my littles aren’t around) like a sailor. A dirty, foul-mouthed, sailor who tries to pretend she isn’t when her babies are running around. My mom is nodding right now and saying how it hurts her eyes/ ears. That might be (certainly is) the very reason I still have a problem.
Anyhoosen. We all make our own, dirty, foul-mouthed choices.
I have made myself a list of Pinky Swears. These are the stories that I’m writing before I draft new shit. The promise is that I’ll stop drafting (other than to finish the partially drafted Works-In-Progress) and publish what I have written out.
For some reason, I wrote Song of Heartbreak, the third book in the song series before Song of Loss which is the sequel to Song of Sorrow. Because: squirrel!
(Is that confusing? It is. Isn’t it?
It goes Song of Sorrow, Song of Loss, Song of Heartbreak.
They’re all about Fallow and Adin and the Shadow Kin.)
This is my Pinky Swears, I am not effing around this time! list. I’m sure it’s missing titles. It’ll give you a little glimpse into my insanity.
Compelled by Love
Snow White
Witches #1
Meddling Kids #1-6
Short Stories of the Witch Queen
Bewildered by Love
Song of Loss
Song of Heartbreak
The Carnival of Dreams
Witch Novella
This Betraying Flesh
Tessa Novella
Rose Red
Snow White Part 2
Beauty and the Beast
Tinsel Gumpdrop and the Christmas Lights of Death
Dudes. Squirrel! Squirrel!
So.. when I list out those titles. Those aren’t things that I plan to write. Those are things that have an active word count. Some–many–quite frankly have a full draft and only need to be edited.
So…dudes.
DUUUUUUUUDES.
That’s where we come to it. The pinky swear. A pinky swear is a holy thing, you know. A….
Shall we describe it as sacred?
It is a sacred (definitely-not-sacred) thing to have a pinky swear with yourself and all of your crazy. It’s where you put those titles in a list of priority, and you quit noticing all the damn squirrels, all the slutty little story ideas, even the hedgehogs. It’s where you say family, religion, job, dogs, writing.
No damn squirrels.
Not even this one:
Anyhow. Compelled by Love is going to the grammar editor this weekend. Snow White is going to like the 5th (millionth) round of beta reading as I try, yet again, to pare down the idea to manageable and tell only Snow’s story. I can honestly say that I think it’s getting better and better and as I slam my head against it again and again, and I am happier and happier with the story in and of itself.
I’ll be two titles down, Witches #1 is getting rewritten and going to its first beta reader (Scary! It’s my first co-written project. We might even give it a real title. And name the dead guy.) And Meddling Kids 1-6 are getting re-read and their very own plan and possibly a real title because who can even remember what we wrote whenever we wrote it?
I wrote it.
It was just me wasn’t it?
These guys might have helped:
It is not a joke when I tell you I can’t even remember the characters names. I can, however, remember that tall skinny kid and the female protagonist are crushing on each other, and there is some time spent near death. Oh and a possessed ghost van.
Hey, it’s all coming back. There’s a graveyard. And an scary teacher. And…a mom! And a room in the attic. And it’s in Maine. Or possibly a neighboring state. Vermont? Is that up there?
Turns out that Vermont is, in fact, very near Maine. Looking at this map, however, it is very possible that I set in in New Hampshire. I don’t know. I do remember using google maps, narrowing in, picking a real little town, and setting my fictional town near it. I guess we might all find out together.
Anyhow.
Squirrels are super cute. If I wasn’t pretty sure that they would eat my face right off, I would think about kidnapping one and keeping it my room. It could curl up on my pillow right next to me, make little chittering sounds, and inspire Jack and Sookie with the crazy dog-fury But at my house, we just say no to squirrels.
So…Compelled by Love is coming soon. Snow White will follow and I’ll feel about 1000 times better about the last year and my writing and what is to come. I hope you like my stories Imma keep writing them if you don’t. Because, as we’ve discussed before, I love the shit out of them and writing brings me joy.
~Amanda
PS– As far as the Popsugar book challenge goes, I am KILLING it. So far I’ve read:
A book more than 500 Pages: Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trollope
A book you can read in a day: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang by Ian Fleming (super good)
A book of man-cheese (aka my own addition): Casino Royale by Ian Fleming (Thoughts to come. I have serious issues.)
A book with a color in the title: Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater (fantastic!)
A book with antonyms in the title: The School of Good and Evil by guy whose name is hard to remember/ type
A classic romance: The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer
A book from the bottom of your to-read list: The Road by Cormac McCarthy
I am currently reading A Blunt Instrument by Georgette Heyer (aka A mystery, also fantastic as this is, perhaps my 4th time through)
I’ve also started The Old Testament — I’m in Exodus. I’ll figure out a place for it on the list. Up ahead is The Great Gatsby, Grapes of Wrath, Phineas Finn, The Fault in Our Stars. I’m a re-reader, so I’ve already read Gatsby and The Fault in Our Stars. I might read Looking for Alaska for a popular author’s first book. As you can see, I haven’t committed to anything yet.
~Amanda
I told you that ate faces. I mean…obviously.
Amanda A. Allen 