Yes. I know I'm terribly late. It's Saturday and no new pages. But It's my birthday and I'm celebrating and there are a tonne of people here and and I've been cooking for days and the chapter just hasn't happened, but I will be back tomorrow I promise with chapter 40. In the mean time it's Saturday, go have some fun and I'll see you tomorrow.

I am truly truly awful at writing sex scenes. I just can't do it. I wouldn't call myself a prude but I find it extremely difficult to talk about or describe sex. Arousal, pleasure, ecstasy, just writing these words makes me incredibly uncomfortable. The three paragraphs in this chapter were the hardest for me to write in the entire book.  And it probably shows. I had to go back and re-read love scenes from some of my favorite books, not raunchy graphic, face full of pie stuff but the sweet, innocent, falling in love kinda stuff, and then try and get my own first kiss scene out of the way. For better or worse, it's done now. If it's not the best I can live with that.

So, I downloaded a couple books onto my phone from Google Play and discovered a whole new meaning to the term 'worst book ever.'

I don't want to name any names but they were from two different writers and they were very similar in their awfulness.
I hate criticizing other people's writing, I really do. It's such a personal thing and everyone does it different and that doesn't make it bad or wrong per se, but let me say that I hated it. They were both the same whereas the sentences were all short, robotic, and there was too much explaining. I can't write out a few sentences from the books here, but I will imitate the writing so you can get my point.

'The hands on the clock pointed to the 3 and the twelve. 3 O'clock. It was time to make supper. David liked to eat the second he got home. I always did my best to have supper ready right at 4 O'clock. He said it was one of the things he loved about me. I'm happy when he is happy so I always start cooking early. I planned to make stuffed chicken breasts. I take the chicken out of the fridge. I get a knife from the drawer and open the plastic wrap. I take out the chicken and place it on the cutting board. Next I take out the cheese and herbs from the fridge. I always use fresh herbs, never dry. It takes me fifteen minutes to make the chicken then forty five minutes to cook, so I will be right on time. While the chicken is cooking I open some wine, and check my phone. I wonder briefly why my mother hasn't called me back yet. Usually she calls me back right away and it has been nearly two hours since I called her and left a voicemail.......'

I think you get the point. It was painful to read. I only bought the first ten chapters of each book and ten chapters ended up being more than enough for me; I have no interest whatsoever of buying the rest of either book. I thought I was detached from my characters because I never write long emotional monologues but these books were a hundred times more distant. It was like having a person's every move dictated to me by Data. No that's not true, because even Data had more personality than these books.  Uuuuuggh.

Anyway, I'm just glad they were both cheap. Although at free, I think I still would have paid too much.

New chapter of AMARANTHINE on Friday, as per usual. See you then.

I am trying to do last minute edits as quickly as possible right now so I can finally, at last, get this book on the market. I had found a small continuity issue a while back but now I can't find it again to fix it and it's very frustrating. I would like to have it done in the next week and send it off to the publisher. Winter is coming and I'm feeling the writing twitch more than I did through the summer. That's how it works for me. I can never just sit and write because I need to but have to wait until the urge strikes and then roll with it. The cold tends to bring the urge. And then 9 months later I'll birth out a brand new baby book.... ugh what a gross image. #birthing a book


Chapter 38 has been published, 10 chapters to go I think, if anyone was wondering. Have a great weekend. And if you've been reading along and noticed a glitch in my timeline or plot please please please let me know before I push the send button and the error gets immortalized in print.