Mercenary Girl

This will be the public working title for my dark trilogy.  I'm superstitious about throwing the title out there with too much information.  It's simply how I am.  And while she is not strictly mercenary, it fits.

I'm averaging 3500-4500 words a day I spend working on it.  As soon as I'm done blogging, I'm back at it.  Little over 25,000 words now.  When I need a breather, I'll pop over to "Incantation", or possibly an erotic short story.  Man, I love the words. 😍   

It's hotter than the devil's hemorrhoid here in Oklahoma.  I'm sitting in my office with a ceiling fan, a floor fan, and not a lot of clothes on.  Give it a couple of hours, and I'll be sweating, no matter what effort the central heat/air is putting out.

It's funny, I'd stepped away from my laptop the other day.  Walked into the kitchen for a drink.  I'm mid-pour into my little mug, and a scene pops into my head.  And the dual  process delights the hell out of me.  What're you doing, Crystal?  Drinking milk and writing.  But you're simply standing there.

I said what I said. 😎

Down the rabbit hole I went.  Apparently your brain has a two-task limit.  If you add another task, your prefrontal cortex will discard one.  Utterly fascinating.  Love learning new things.  Off to weave worlds and words.

Always writing!

Newton's First Law of Motion

A body in motion stays in motion.  I've discovered that to be quite true.  Two weeks into retirement, and I'm restless if I'm not doing something.  

I have a chronic pain disorder, and if I am NOT in motion, and I land somewhere, it's entirely too easy to stay there.  I'm not about that life.  I would rather be sore from deep-cleaning the house, trimming trees, hauling soil in a wheelbarrow, or a host of other physical activities.  Or planted in front of my computer weaving words and worlds.  Ideally, a nice mix of the two.  

I've started calling the days of my week "indoor" or "outdoor."  With it being a balmy 108 here in Oklahoma, those outdoor days start early and finish before noon.  Then I find something inside to do.  The indoor days find me in front of my computer working on one of the two dominant stories I'm focusing on right now.  I have an Erotic Romance short story nagging on me.  Oh, hell.  And another one.  Wait.  I could make a nice quartet out of them.  Wow.  That just came to me.  Love my wee brain sometimes.  Let me jot.  Okay.  Jotted.  How exciting!  🥳

But my major focus is Book One of a dark trilogy about a young female shapeshifting assassin and her siblings.  They are trying to find all of their brethren their homicidal fairy mother discarded in favor of keeping those offspring that showed her talent for murder.  Because their dear mother wants to start and win a war over the fairies and rule by death and destruction.  The war has already begun.

My other focus is on Book Four, Incantation, of my Rivers Sisters series.  Paisley, the youngest of the Rivers, botched a love spell when she was twelve and has been paying for it since.  But she's not the only one.  Those few words ruined another life.  They're about to cross paths, and neither has any idea of the consequences.  But power is up for grabs, and new players enter the game and will stop at nothing to take what they want.    

I have a group on FB that I've let go due to, you know...life.  Going to resurrect that.  I really don't know about Twitter.  So easy to become lost in all the chatter.  I'm useless on Instagram.  Maybe TikTok.  My problem is that I click on that damn app, and I am GONE.  😂  Rather defeats the purpose.  Ah, well.  I'll ponder all of this.   But for now, I'll leave you with a picture of my latest purchases.  They make my heart happy.  

Always writing*

no...really 😁

In a mood

 My mood dictates my writing.  I was in one this morning.  Dark but not too dark.  Was going to go with "C" but decided that really was a bit too much this morning.  "Incantation" it is.  Conflict scenes.  The right amount of static to fit my mood.

Words of wisdom to myself:  Do NOT open iCloud and start playing with stories you've started in lieu of simply opening up one of the three you are seriously writing now.  You will piss yourself off that they are not finished...hate when that happens, and you will have wasted time not writing on one that you know you'll publish in a couple months.  DO NOT take you phone into the bathroom with you.  TIK TOK is the devil.  Fifteen minutes later, my legs are numb, and still no writing.  sigh...

Good news?  Working on "Incantation" and probably putting some words down on Book Five, "Transformation".  Makes me happy. 😁

Always writing*

Writing and editing

 Life would be AMAZING if all I had to do was write write write what came to me and hand off the decidedly less-fun activities to others.  I'm looking at you, synopsis.  

But honestly?  Then I wouldn't learn anything.

Editing gives me an opportunity to look at my work, with an as objective eye as I'm able, and tighten it down to make it better.  Who wouldn't jump at the opportunity?  From overuse of words (such as assholes "that" and "had") to repetition of words in the same sentence, hello Thesaurus.

I finished "Fascination", Megan's story, three days before I started "Chimera".  Seems like I've given her enough time to breathe.  Cool editing fact:  If you try to edit too soon after you finish...you will begin to resent words in general, especially your own.  😣

I believe she's a little over 68,000 words.  Glanced over her yesterday after querying.  There's a nice segue into Paisley's story, "Incantation".  That makes me happy for the simple fact I've already started that one.

I made notes for the five-book series years ago and now add to it as the details come.  Sometimes I truly adore my wee brain.

That's the plan.  Edit.  Write.  

Enjoy your day.

Always writing*