A Few of My Favourite Things

Do you find that Valentine’s Day does silly things to you? Like thinking about your favourite novels or movies? So, I started to think about my all time favourite novels, and was surprised to find that I’m A Jane Austen nutter. Okay, I already knew that.

My Favourite Top Romance Novels

1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
2. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
3. Emma by Jane Austen
4. Gone with the Wind by Margret Mitchell
5. Emma by Jane Austen
6. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
7. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
8. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
9. The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
10. The Devil’s Bride by Stephanie Laurens

My Top Ten Romantic Movies

1. Gone With The Wind
2. Pride and Prejudice
3. The Notebook
4. PS. I Love You
5. The English Patient
6. City of Angels
7. You’ve Got Mail
8. While You Were Sleeping
9. Notting Hill
10. It Happened One Night

My Top Ten Heroes from novels, film & TV

1. Rhett Butler ~ Gone with the Wind
2. Mr. Darcy ~ Pride and Prejudice
3. Heathcliff ~ Wuthering Heights
4. Sir Gideon Trevithick ~ Captive of Sin
5. Christian ~ Night’s Cold Kiss
6. Mr. Knightly ~ Emma
7. Mr. Rochester ~ Jane Eyre
8. Gerry Kennedy ~ PS I Love You
9. Derek Shepherd ~ Grey’s Anatomy
10. Johnny Castle ~ Dirty Dancing

My Top Ten Heroines from, novels, films & TV

1. Scarlett O’Hara ~ Gone with the Wind
2. Elizabeth Bennett ~ Pride and Prejudice
3. Catherine Earnshaw ~ Wuthering Heights
4. Beth Marsh ~ Little Women
5. Lady Charis Weston ~ Captive of Sin
6. Jane Eyre ~ Jane Eyre
7. Emma Woodhouse ~ Emma
8. Antoinette Petrescu ~ Night’s Cold Kiss
9. Emma Hart ~ A Woman of Substance
10. Elinor Dashwood ~ Sense and Sensibility

Did you notice anything unusual? Yes, I have favourite Heroes and Heroines whose stories are not on my top ten list, but they are not far behind. I should really do a list of my favourite recent releases, I might save that for another day.

Honestly, did you really think I wouldn't put a photo of Mr. Darcy up? LOL.

Hope you have a wonderful Valentine’s Day with your special someone.

Sandie

January in a Nutshell

Hi I'm back - I haven't really been slacking off, except for posting a blog here. School has gone back and I'm back in writer's mode. So here is what I got up to during January as far as my writing goes:

Edited and submitted SMU for CC

Editing IT for CC and The Billionaire’s Lie (was If I Were A Rich Man)

Worked on and continue to work on My Website – It is coming along, I’m happy with it anyway.

I’ve joined up to do three reading challenges for the year –
eHarlequin 2010 Book Challenge: Not sure how many novels I’m suppose to read. Anyway at least I may get a few of my HM&B novels read.

100+ Reading Challenge: Read 100+ novels during 2010. I can do that, although I’m not off to a good start. I’m blogging about this on my Review Blog.

2010 Support Your Local Library: I’m doing the Mini Challenge with this one, I have to check out and read 25 novels/books from my local library. I’m also blogging about this on my Review Site.
Both of these are run on J. Kaye’s Blog.

RWAus

I’m working my way through the alphabet to update the RWAus Goodreads, Shelfari and Library Thing shelves with our members novels. I think I need to spend about an hour a day on these sites, doing it on weekends is just not working.

You can also find the RWAus at these places:
RWAus Blog
Twitter
Facebook
Myspace
Bebo

The lovely Paula Roe, is blogging once a week ‘A Novel in 3 Months’. This is really cool, I’m working on ‘Having Her Best Friend’s Baby’ for this exercise, if you haven’t dropped by Paula’s blog, do it is well worth reading and following.

Okay, I know I said I wasn’t going to start or work on any novels until I get all my editing done, BUT I’m not getting any sleep because my characters are driving me nuts chatting all night. So I’m doing 500 words a day Max, and that may shut them up.

So that’s what I’ve been up to lately.
See ya.

Sandie

Birthday, Procrastinating & Editing

It was my birthday the other week, nothing special; except for the fact; our children bought us a twilight dinner cruise for Christmas, and book it in for my birthday. (I have such sweet kids). Despite the fact that I’m not a boat person, it was a lovely evening. Motion sickness tables worked well, thank heavens. We had about ten dolphins lead us back into the dock. The food was great, as well as the entertainment. If you ever make it to Nelson Bay, NSW drop by Moonshadow Cruises for either their twilight dinner or dolphin cruise.

Decided to work on my website the other night and ended up deleting the site completely. Luckily, I had the page contents save in word, so it was just a matter of cut and pasting. I’ve added separate pages for each of my genres, as well as splitting my link pages. This process is going to take some work to add all the extra information.

As for editing, well that came to a crushing stop last week. Having migraines for two days didn’t help. Neither did procrastinating the other days. I got back into it a bit yesterday, but then I got myself caught up in the Romance Bandits invasion on the The Romance Dish. If you haven’t been over to have a look, you really do need to it is great. Anyway, today I plan to edit most of the day, which should keep CC out of my ear for a while.

Now I’m going to start work on Sunday’s Cruisin’ the Blog’ for the RWAus blog and February’s new releases for the end of the months ‘Bookshelf Saturday.

Have a great one.
Sandie

Goals for 2010!

As 2009 draws to a close, it is time to once again sit down and set goals for the months and year ahead. With that in mind, here is an expanded list of my goals for the first three months of 2010.

January:

Start my writing day by 9am each day and finish by 4pm. Aim is to edit 5 pages per day.

Finish editing SMU and ‘The Billionaire Lie’, was previously titled, ‘If I Were a Rich Man’ ready to submit in February.

- SMU submit to eHarlequin Spice Briefs or Noble Romance for CC.
- The Billion’s Lie submit to eHarlequin.

Have ‘Cruisin the Blog’ posts started by the Tuesday of each week ready to post by the Saturday evening.

Work on ‘Bookshelf Saturday’ throughout the month ready for posting by the last Saturday of the month.

Gather more information on the founding years and growth of the RWAus for Wikipedia article.

Saturday and Sundays – critiquing days as well as updates for Goodreads and Shelfair.
Blog each Tuesday and Thursday on my blogspot site.

Blog on first of the month on both my Heroine Diaries and Heroes Blogs.

Update Challenge and Novel Blogs the second Sunday of the month.

Blog on the 109ers Bootcamp Blog every three weeks.

Send updates to Kiki for RWAus website on Thursdays and Sundays.

Read at least one novel a week.

Exercise for 30 minutes each day.

Stick to my diet to lose 5kgs.

February:

Edit ‘By Her Father’s Design’ was previously titled ‘Right Where I Need to Be’ and IT, ready to submit in March.

- By Her Father’s Design ready to submit to eHarlequin.

- IT submit to Noble Romance. For CC

The third Saturday of the month is NewMait Writers’ meeting.

The rest are as January!!

March:

Edit ‘Tyler’s Return’ was previously ‘We Were in Love’.

- Tyler’s Return ready to submit to eHarlequin

The third Saturday of the month is NewMait Writers’ meeting.

The rest of my goals are the same as January, except for my weight which I hope to be at the stage I’ll just need to maintain my goal weight.

That is it for the first three months, I’ll have word counters in the side panel so you can see how I’m progressing.

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year.

Sandie

Making Plans

From where I’m sitting at the moment, I don’t think I’m going to get a lot more achieved with my writing from now until the New Year. I’m lucky if I’m editing two pages a day, and that’s on hard copy, still have to enter it into the computer. With that in mind, I’m setting my goals for next year so I can work everything I need into my week.

Now, I’m not an early riser so this may take some doing, but I’ll give it a try. Here’s what my day will (hopefully) look like:

6.00AM – Put washing on, and then have breakfast

6.30AM – Check emails and respond to any that need attention.

7.30AM – Do Housework (Now that just sent a shiver down my spine, ewww). Hang out washing.

8.30AM – Have coffee and work on ‘Cruisin’ the Blog and Members News.

9.00AM – Start writing/editing day

10.30AM – Have a coffee break.

11.00AM – Back to writing/editing

12.00PM – Lunch

12.30PM – Back to writing/editing

2.00PM – Have coffee break.

2.30PM – Back to writing/editing or work on RWAus stuff.

4.00PM – Finish up for day.

There, see I’m all organised. All I need to do now is pull it off. Maybe I better start getting up early now so by the New Year my body is use to the early rises.

My goals for 2010 will be posted on the Bootcampers 109 blog on Wednesday.

Happy writing
Sandie

The Editing Merry-go-round

Okay editing is not one of my strong points. I am too easily distracted. When I’m writing my first draft, I’m focused, nothing can drag me away from the computer when the words are flowing. So why, when I have all the words before and I know that they need work, a lot of work, can’t I sit still long enough to get the thing done?

I am also fighting the urge to start something new, yes; a new story has started to develop in my head. I should be making notes, but I know the minute I do that, I’ll start writing, I won’t be able to stop myself. I have no will power in that area. Maybe I need to join a ‘New Story Anonymous’ group or something. Arrrrrh, I hate this!

I’ve edited the same pages three times, Margie (see previous post) is doing my head in. I’m dreaming of power words. I don’t think my opening is strong enough even after the re-writes. I’m doing it all on hard copy hoping I will connect with the characters, that they will once again lead me in the right path. Something is missing and for the life of me, I can’t put my finger on it.

Okay, I’ve had a nice long bath and took some time to think. Here’s my decision. It I read each scene and make notes, like you would if you were plotting the novel from scratch, then I might work out what’s missing. It should also tell me if the conflict is strong enough for each character. You see, I think the conflictis there for the hero but maybe not so much the heroine, she needs work. Yes, that’s what I’ll do, it can’t hurt, and anything is better than going around on the merry-go-round I’m on at the moment.

Shall let you know how I go next week. Now I’m going to bed.

Happy Writing
Sandie

Editing: Do Not Disturb

For the next seven months I’m editing. I’ve put a ‘DO NOT DISTURB’ sign up at my Head Motel, so far all is quiet. CC is happy because at least two of her novels will be the first to be edited, that should keep her at bay for a month. So why seven months of editing? Easy, I have at least seven or eight novels finished sitting there waiting and I sure as hell won’t get published if I don’t edit what I’ve written. I also need seven months so I can work my way through Margie Lawson’s lecture packs.

I’m starting with ‘Empowering Characters’ Emotions’ and ‘Deep Editing: The EDITS System, Rhetorical Devices, and More’ you can also do these and others as one of ‘Margie’s Online classes’. I’m already feeling better about this editing thing and my even learn to like the process.

Since Tuesday, I’ve edited seven pages of ‘SMU’, now this is a novella, so I’m hoping to have this finished by the weekend. Then I’ll do some more work on ‘Rich Man’ and aim to have that finished by Christmas. I’m working very hard at being good and only working on one project at a time. None of this jumping from one story to the other. I have a plan and I’m going to stick to it even if it kills me. Yes, I have my calendar all filled in with which novels I work on and when, not jumping ahead. I wrote them in with a pen so I can’t rub them out if I change my mind.

Okay, this is not getting my editing done today. I’ve been updating our Horse Stud Site with the latest news. But now it’s my time, I’ll let you know how I’m going in a day or two.

Happy Writing
Sandie