Tag: The Easy Part

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

I’m at that point in The Easy Part when I have to break the central couple up and seriously, I hate doing this. Someday I’m going to write a book where the central couple don’t get together until the very end just so that I can avoid writing painful scenes like the one I’m about to attempt.

For NaNoWriMo, I’m at 33,554 words, with 56,906 total in the manuscript. Let the bridge burning begin!

(Also, it isn’t on their blog but I think I can write about it: Brave in Heart finaled in the 2012 Novellas Need Love Too contest, sponsored by the Celtic Hearts Romance Writers. Yay!)

3M

I’m at 16,689 words for NaNoWriMo. I’m about 5,000 words behind, though I haven’t done any writing today. With some consistency and luck, I might be able to win. At the very least, I’m making good progress on The Easy Part, which now has 40,035 words and should be done by the end of the year.

Really, though, this post mostly serves as a reminder to check your characters’ names against those not just of the other characters in the book you’re writing but those in your other WIPs. The heroine in the recently finished Brave in Heart? Margaret. The heroine in The Easy Part? Millie (short for Amelia). The heroine in Brave in Heart’s sequel, which I’m plotting in my head? Matilda.

Why am I so fixated on the letter M?

I can’t change any of these names. I’m far enough along in the characterization that it would be weird. Margaret is Margaret. Millie is Millie. Matilda is Matilda. But I think it’s safe to say that I’m done with M-named heroines for a while.

NaNoWriMo-ing

Are you participating in NaNoWriMo? I am!

I’m bending the rules a bit, trying to write the last 50,000 words to finish a manuscript that is already begun — The Easy Part, a contemporary single title romance set between political operatives in Washington, DC. Here’s to hoping I can “win” this year!

Happy Happy Joy Joy

The first draft of Brave in Heart is complete. Here is a teensy-weensy teaser of the conclusion. Aren’t “the end” the most beautiful words in the English language?

Brave in Heart has been entered in the Novellas Need Love Too contests. Because, yes, I have a a contest entering problem. But also, I crave feedback deep in my soul.

I’d like to finish The Easy Part during NaNoWriMo — and yes, I know it’s not technically within the rules to to finish something you’ve already started, but oh well — and then start the second book in the Dauntless Love series in December.

Writing life is good.

50-Word Pitch

The Easy Part: Millie Frank becomes an unwitting celebrity after a DC hostage crisis. Loosing her status as an anonymous cog at a labor right’s organization is such a shock that she uncharacteristically propositions Parker Beckett, an arrogant, charming media specialist, and her opponent her in budget negotiations. Compared to love, politics is the easy part. (Contemporary Single Title)

Title, Part Deux

The contemporary work-in-progress also has a title, The Easy Part. The phrase comes from an essay from Marjorie Williams’ collection The Woman at the Washington Zoo, which is one of my favorite books about DC.

But some day, when she’s old enough, you must also tell her that compared to the complexity of doing right by those you love, being a brain surgeon is the easy part.

I haven’t been doing a lot of writing lately, but I have been doing planning. Thoughts on my “boom and bust” writing process will be forthcoming.