Excerpt: TRANSFERENCE, book 2 of the Two Worlds series

Hi peeps! Here's a little gift from me to you for your patience...an excerpt from the upcoming new installment of the Two Worlds series, TRANSFERENCE. Enjoy! :) 

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A small blue fairy flew up to us, notepad in hand. “What can I get for you?” she trilled.

“We’ll have the Narzel sampler and three glasses of ale please,” I ordered, not bothering to look at the menu. Since coming to Turgor, Molly's Tavern had been the staple and main supplier of my diet. Blue Fairy nodded and zoomed off, leaving behind a trail of fairy dust in the air.

Rena sneezed, causing her skin to grow bright orange. “I’ll tell you”—Rena sniffled—“working in the archives is ramping up my allergies.”

“Could be a lot worse, right?” I offered, sipping the cold glass of ale that had suddenly appeared on the table.

“Yeah,” Nia grumbled, “we could have to clean the Harpie nests on the top floors in Caldbeck.” We all shuddered in agreement.

The table began to sparkle and before I could blink, a large, piping-hot pizza surrounded by a few plates appeared. I grabbed a plate and dug in and the girls followed suit. The sounds of our chewing blended into the noisy ambiance of the small little hut. Rena and I locked eyes and she smiled briefly before her smile slid off her face. I tracked her gaze to a lanky figure advancing quickly over to our table. I swallowed my chunk of pizza and braced myself.

Erika Williams sneered as she approached, bumping into our table. I steadied the glasses of ale and matched her sneer.

“What do you want, Ericka?” Nia sighed, pushing her plate away. “I’m not up to arguing today.”

“Oh, I’m not here to argue,” Ericka replied sweetly. “I’m here to tell you that I know about your little dirty secret.”

My heartbeat began to speed up. Erika pushed her way in to our booth next to me, forcing me to slide over and give her room. She grabbed a slice of pizza and began chomping away.

“Do you mind?” Nia growled.

Erika gave her a smirk. “Not at all.”

“What dirty little secret do you think you know, Erika?” I demanded.

“Oh, you know. The one where you lie about Awakening Larius.”

I let out a shaky breath. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I’m sure you don’t.” She laughed and grabbed another slice. “But I can be very persuasive. Larius didn’t mind telling me all about your little lie.”

“Is that before or after you destroyed his tombs in Giza Graveyard?” Rena asked.

Erika rolled her eyes. “All in the name of justice, I’m afraid. Besides, no one really cares about those dusty old tombstones. The Brozek Ledger is just looking for a story.”

“I’m sure.” I bit into my own slice of pizza that was now cold. “You better be careful whom you go around admitting that to.”

“My father will take care of the police.” Erika laughed. “Have you forgotten who I am?”

“A spoiled, bratty kid of a politician with too much money and far too much time on his hands?” Nia replied sweetly.

Erika snarled. “Watch what you say, Nia. You’ll need all the allies you can get.”

“Thanks, but we have plenty of allies,” I snapped. My patience was wearing thin. Ericka gave off another laugh and this laugh was so chilly, I was surprised my ale didn’t freeze.

She slipped out of the booth, grabbed another slice of our pizza, and gave a small salute before sauntering off.

I let out a sigh of relief and turned back to my girls. “So what do you think?”

Nia scoffed. “I think she’s full of—”

“She might know something, Nia,” Rena said, interrupting. “Her father does have high connections in the Council.”

“Yeah, yeah. But so what? No one will believe her if she told. It’s her word against ours.”

“Still, we might want to be careful provoking her. She could cause more trouble than we can handle right now." Nia chomped on her pizza, silently conceding that Rena was right.  

Procrastination and the Fear of Failure

I'm a huge procrastinator. As in, I'll sit down dutifully to write and then become distracted by a minuscule piece of dust....on the ceiling...that must be cleaned at that very moment! Heck, I'm struggling right now to write this post and I keep stopping to fix spelling errors instead of just getting the words out!

Over the past years, I've come to realize that my procrastination is directly tied to fear. And I have a lot of it. I'm a perfectionist and a researcher which is a deadly combination. If you give me a task without a very specific set of instructions, I'll research every way possible to get that task completed. For something like writing a book (the topic has tons of advice out there on how to do it), this research can take years. Because of that, it took me seven years to write 35,000 words and be ok with the outcome.

Atychiphobia (or fear of failure) is common among most newbie writers. You don't know what to expect and you feel as though the whole world is watching you with a smirk on its face as if to say, 'See? I told you you'd fail.' Everyone but yourself becomes an expert and you must follow all of their advice. When those little voices of doubt pop up in my head, everything comes to a screeching halt and I suddenly find myself tackling those household chores I'd been ignoring or surfing Facebook and getting wrapped up in kitty memes. 

So how do you get over it? 

I wish I could tell you a 100% guaranteed method. The final push for The Two Worlds was knowing that I was holding myself up from other projects and knowing that it didn't have to be perfect. My family was still proud of me when I self-published it, I still felt a sense of accomplishment and the world didn't stop spinning when I didn't make any sales. The work was out there, it was completed and I had learned a heck of a lot along the way. What more could I ask for? 

As I start my second book, I feel that fear gripping me again ('You don't know what you're doing!', 'You'll have all this work to do and you won't have a life!', 'It'll be a horrible experience just like the last!') and procrastination rearing its ugly head despite my first accomplishment. But this time I'm a bit wiser. I know how long it should take me to write a book. I know how fast I can type. I know how to edit my work and how to create a book cover. I know how to begin marketing myself. And I have a new way of thinking.  

What's the worst that could happen? 

In the book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, Dale Carnegie tells us that when fear grips our consciousness and we start to worry, ask ourselves a simple question: What's the worst that could happen?

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon—instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today. Why are we such fools—such tragic fools?

“How strange it is, our little procession of life!” wrote Stephen Leacock. “The child says, ‘When I am a big boy.’ But what is that? The big boy says, ‘When I grow up.’ And then, grown up, he says, ‘When I get married.’ But to be married, what is that after all? The thought changes to ‘When I’m able to retire.’ And then, when retirement comes, he looks back over the landscape traversed; a cold wind seems to sweep over it; somehow he has missed it all, and it is gone. Life, we learn too late, is in the living, in the tissue of every day and hour.” 

When I ask myself that question, the only thing that comes to mind is that people will not like my work and not take me seriously as a writer. If that happens, my feelings would be hurt, but my income is not tied to writing fiction so I wouldn't go homeless and perhaps that criticism would force me to be a better writer. If folks aren't receptive of my work, that's ok! 

Keeping that in mind has helped me tremendously. Even though I still procrastinate, the instances where I let it derail me are becoming less frequent. 

After all, this post has been written hasn't it? :)

Your turn: Do you find yourself procrastinating on big projects, even if it's your dream work? How do you overcome it? 

Check In- 10/26/12

Brrrrrr! It's been a bit chilly out, which is great because I love fall weather! It's the perfect temp for snuggling up with a warm cat in my lap and tapping out a few hundred words or so! :)

I received Beta Reader #2's feedback and was super happy with it. She gave some really good advice, and pointed out the few spelling errors I couldn't find on my own. She gave me good pointers adding to the depth of my book and she's an avid YA Fantasy reader, so I trust her. I have a feeling that her feedback is going to bump my manuscript's word count up by 10,000. Which means I may not be able to "legally" participate in NaNoWriMo. Hmmm....


In other news, my model is not coming through with photos for the book cover, so I think I might have to create something on my own. I'm drawing inspiration from the lovely people at AbsoluteWrite.com and I'm excited to try my hand with Gimp (too poor for Photoshop). 

Wish me luck!

My First Beta Reader Experience

This morning I awoke to an email in my inbox that I had been waiting for. It was my first beta reader giving feedback on The Two Worlds. Excited, I opened the email and read quickly through what she had to say.

It wasn't all good.

She liked the way the story flowed, but she felt that it read almost like a screenplay (stupid film-making degree!). She also felt like I was putting all of my cards on the table and not leaving enough mystery for the reader.

Crud.

I had a flicker of disappointment, but then a thought dawned on me.

She read my story!
Wooo-hoooo!

I jumped out of bed with a grin on my face. Someone had actually taken time out of their busy day to read my book!

It felt great.

Of course, I have to wait for my other beta reader to finish reading before I can start editing. But Beta 1's feedback was just what I needed to hear. I'm off to research the advice she gave me and of course, I'll get back to you on what I've learned.

Have you had a beta reader experience yet? What was your reaction?

Finding a Writing Schedule That Works For You

I'm a stickler--I find advice and try to stick to it, even if it's not working for me. When I decided to get serious about writing, I was told that a writing schedule was the way to go. "You'll develop discipline," experts said. "You'll form habits!"

Uh-huh.

After creating mutiple schedules and not sticking to them, I finally got to the final stages of The Two Worlds and am ready to self-publish it. How?

I stopped trying to fit myself into a neat little box. Shit happens. Things go awry in life. And feeling as though you should jump off a bridge because you failed to meet a couple of self-imposed deadline is for the birds.

So, I tossed my daily word counts and weekly to-do lists and stuck to basics. Here's my plan for the next few months:

November 2012:

-Publish The Two Worlds (currently in beta land)

The Two Worlds: Jarem's Revenge 

 -Write in November

 -Edit in December

 -Publish in January (Jan. 31)

The Waking Moon (romance novel)

 -Write in December

 -Edit in January

 -Publish in February (Feb. 28)

Here's 3 things that I've learned:

1) Having one broad goal with one target date is the only way I won't have a panic attack every time I open Google Tasks. Panic attacks = procrastination = not getting shit done.  Before, I would make SMART goals and then break them down into steps. From there, I would have multiple task lists. It was insane! I would spend hours crafting these lists that were supposed to make me more efficient when all it was really doing was taking away from my writing. Never again.

2) I know my writing capabilities now. I've been writing actively for about a year now and I know that I can crank out 2,000 words an hour...without really trying. I can also crank out 50,000 words in 30 days (thanks NaNoWriMo!).

3) I know my editing strengths and weaknesses. It took me awhile to figure out how to edit and how long it takes. I tried different methods at different times. Thanks to Tamera Kraft's advice, I finished up The Two Worlds and put it in beta readers' inboxes. This is the method I will be sticking to from now on.

The above schedule probably won't work for many folks. That's ok. Writing is an individual sport, so you can tweak your schedule anyway you like.

What about you? Do you have a writing schedule that works for you?