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Writertorium Manuscript Inventory

Here's what I'm brewing up in the Writertorium...

Two Adult Psychological Suspense novels: 

One about four friends who reunite in the woods & one goes missing because friendship is complicated...& sometimes deadly!

Status: Completed & queried (fingers crossed!)

One about the mysterious (& weird) disappearance of my neighbor (& her dog).

Status: Completed & queried (fingers crossed!)

One YA Horror novel:

A feminist retelling of the Bloody Mary urban legend on a college campus. Think Promising Young Woman meets Candyman (2021). 

Status: Completed & revising

One YA Witchy Romantic Suspense novel:

A magical mystery-sapphic romance about three teen sister witches that find themselves tangled up in a centuries-old curse.

Status: Completed & revising

 

One YA Noir Mystery novel:

A Veronica Mars meets We Were Liars YA Y2K Noir mystery set in my hometown.

Status: Drafting back to the year 2000

 

A New Chapter

 A new chapter has begun for this writer. This summer I started Seton Hill University's Writing Popular Fiction MFA program, and I've already made friends, met mentors & REAL witches! 

Yeah, this is definitely where I parked my car. It just took me a long time to find my keys. 

Now I'm off to write about witches, murder, curses & star-crossed Sapphic lovers. 

xo

B

A Day in the Life

Since I haven't posted anything in 4 months (wow, that's embarrassing!) I thought I'd treat you to a day in the life of writer Me. As oppose to works 2 day jobs then rushes home to write Me since I'm on vaca from day job this whole week! Woot woot!

6:00am: Wake up because I'm too hot. Throw covers off, try to go back to sleep, then decide to hop ship into the guest room bed so BF won't wake me when he gets up for work.

8:49am: Wake up (for real this time) and force myself to stay in bed until 9, which is my designated start-your-day-or-you're-a-worthless-slacker time when I don't have to muscle out of bed at 7:15 for day job. Didn't want to cheat myself out of those precious 11 minutes!

9:00am: Eat leftover au gratin 'taters for breakfast while reading this week's EW. Feeding the body and mind!

9:30am: Quick shower. Then back in the PJs. Before you judge me on this one, I recently discovered a direct correlation to my writing productivity and how binding my outfit is. Tight pants = creative block. So there's a method to my seemingly lazy madness. Once my water bottle is full and computer's booted, it's writing time!

11:05am: Sell my old car. Who knew?

11:35am: Back to writing!

1:30pm: Lunch break. Frozen tortellini with veggies. Cook time: 10 mins (in which I can still write). If you're confused by my mention of cook time, read this past post for explanation.

1:45pm: Back to writing!

2:45pm: Stuck on a line of dialogue, so I attempt some well overdue yard work. Get to pet the neighbor’s dog—bonus!

2:55pm: Solution to line of dialogue issue miraculously forms in my head, and I drop my shovel and run inside to get it down.

3:30pm: Stuck again. Back out to finish yard work.

4:00pm: Back to writing (again)!

5:30pm: Get dressed and go to my weekly writers crit group where I'll regale them *sarcasm applied liberally* with a new chapter from the novel  I'm working on while I wait to hear back from my agent about my soon-to-be out on submission novel. Oh, did I not mention I checked my email about 32 times throughout the day to see if she's sent me anything? Hmm, must have slipped my mind. 

9:00pm: Get home from writing crit group and finally eat dinner while I go over comments and suggestions from writing group. They tell me I have too many kissing scenes in the first 60 pages. Hm...

9:15-11:15pm: Catch up on some QT with my DVR (oh, and the BF). Last week's Awake, 16 and Pregnant (Briana's ep is no joke!) & Up All Night are up tonight!

11:15-12ish: Read in bed to BF's dismay. Torn between The Fault in Our Stars by John Green , The Catastrophic History of You and Me by Jess Rothenberg ,and Handcuffs by Bethany Griffin . Handcuffs has an edge for obvious reasons (I share a name with the author, hello!), but my agent suggested I read You and Me, so You and Me wins.

12:12am: Eyes start to hurt. To sleep with me now.


B*
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Why I Haven't Blogged (or left the house) Lately

Allow the following picture to explain why I haven't blogged (or left my house, talked to humans, seen the light of day--which is overrated in my opinion. I much prefer the glow of night) lately.

Obviously I've taken up serial killery as a hobby, right? No, no no! I swear my propensity to dead girl books has not led me down a sinister path...yet. That wall of (let's hope temporary and organized) insanity is me revising. I'm so close to completing this novel that I can almost taste the dinners I'll actually have time to consume when I'm done. Now, do not get me wrong, I condone in no way the skipping of meals. Food and me are BFFs, but if it takes more than 10 minutes to prepare, it's not getting chowed while I'm in a funky writing groove. And I've been bustin' it!

So there's my explanation. I would go into more detail, but I have approximately 8 minutes left in this "human time" block of my day to consume a packet of Tinkerbell fruit snacks and a cheese quesadilla (2 mins prep/cook time). Some people count calories, I count prep time. To each her crazy own. With any luck, I'll have a publishable stack of pages to show for mine soon!

Beth*

My Hair is Bluuuue!

So...my hair is bluuuue! And like all good things it happened sometime around midnight at the response of 3 days spent locked in the Writertorium on the floor (don't ask me why I edit best on all fours) with a box of animal crackers, bottle of ice water, a fan on low to drown out "distractions," and a first, er, rough draft.

Was the dye job reward for working my authorly magic on the draft and molding it into a tastey second draft treat in under a week? ...No. But writing is hard, and sometimes a little encouragement is needed to forge ahead. This particular brand of encouragement can be credited to The Mockingbirds author extraordinaire, Daisy Whitney when she tweeted a pic of her pink hair. I've been talking about dying my hair blue (according to my mom) since I was 4-years-old, and seeing Daisy take the follicle plunge I thought to myself, self, it's about time you stop stalling by saying you'll go blue when you get published and realize going blue might be the edge you need to get published! (Okay, I realized that is twisty, midnight logic, but it was convincing.) Plus now that my crazy's on the outside, people can stop giving me that look when I start talking.

So, what do you think? Has anyone else made a decision so bad it turned out good?

B*

Killin' My Darlings

Drum roll please...I am finally moved in to my new house and new Writertorium! I have to say that I miss the wood floors in Writertorium Uno and Number Two is significantly smaller, but it exists with functioning internet and a desk with all it's legs screwed on and everything. (Although there was a tragic loss of keyboard tray that I don't feel comfortable talking about.) This, of course, means I'm back to escaping reality on a daily basis i.e. writing.

 

(Loveseat not included in joy jumping. Disclaimer: New Writertorium is too small for my "thinking couch". It now sadly resides in the basement.)

Evidently stifling my creative flow for three odd weeks with signing and resigning a bagillion documents three different times for two different companies (how does that make sense?) and having to pack and unpack and paint and budget for a new furnace (gah!) has brought upon some revelations. 1) Reality sucks. But we already knew this. 2) I'm a shell of a human (and a ton more cranky) when I'm not writing. 3) Taking a couple weeks to gel after one finishes a first draft is equal parts painful and helpful.

I've read it a hundred times in countless writing craft books that you should "Let it cool" and "Do something else" after you complete your first draft. I've never been able to do this. I have this freakish interior motivator that tells me if I'm not writing daily I'm wasting time and thus any potential success I may have in the future. Real rational, huh?

Now that I've been forced into letting my first draft cool, I'm sing a lively chorus of "Killin' my darlings, killin' my darlings, killin' my darlings all the time..." (which is in reference to a William Faulkner quote if you got confused by my sing-a-long lyrics.) I am typing away (sans keyboard tray), changing my male lead, onioning out minor characters (my totally professional way of saying character development) and basically starting from crumbs for the second draft of my new project that you will have to be patient to hear about in lieu of previously mentioned massive rewrites. All this wreckage and reconstruction is making me a little...giddy, actually. I missed writing so much that I must get back to it. Now!

B*

Some Loss of Glitter May Occur

This warning label (see picture) on my kick-errific new Converse is pretty much my daily nightmare. I'm standing in the middle of a room with hundreds of expectant eyes staring at me with a blaring white sign draped around my neck: Due to the Unique Characteristics of Material, Some Loss of Glitter May Occur During Wear. You will loose your ability to write quip-y dialogue and glitter no longer!

Nooooo! I need all my glitter to concoct YA fabulousness! Ahhh!!!!

Just let me dry the cold sweat from my brow. Okay, I'm back. I was so happy when I got this glittery  purple pair of shoes from my lovely mom (who still takes me on sporadic shopping trips ☺), but now I feel like they're glaring at me from my closet, implanting irrational tones of self-doubt in my head as I write.
*I have since instated a closet shut rule in the Writertorium.

I know I'm not the only person who suffers from self-doubt, but mine seems to come at the most unexpected times. Like when everything is (seemingly) going to plan, which makes the self-doubt also irrational and baffling. Does anyone else feel unjustly confident up until the moment when justification finally comes along?  Sorry that was a bit Seussical; it must be all the glitter tongue tying me up. Simple version: When does self-doubt wear off your glitter and how do you deal?

B*

Leaning Tower of Pisa Syndrome

Ok, so I admit staying up until 3:30am last night was probably not the wisest decision since now the back of my head is doing this dull ache thing and I go all Leaning Tower of Pisa every time my eyes close for more than 10 seconds. But I didn't have to go in to Day Job today (AWESOME!), and I really wanted to respond to the "I'm getting ready to send out the manuscript, but" email I got from my agent yesterday.

I needed to do a read through to catch embarrassing typos like "I walked threw the open door" before officially sending off my little bundle of pages to the world. It'd been almost two months since I'd looked at my bundle because I've been keeping myself sane during the publishing waiting game by working on a new novel--which I am totally excited about, finally. Of course, now the process will be waylaid by Leaning Tower of Pisa Syndrome, but that usually only lasts a day...two tops.

I have to say, though, the read through was a little like biting into a candy from one of those unlabeled boxes of chocolates without a chart of flavors. (I'll spare you the rant I have stored up for the lazy confectioners that manufacture said boxes.) I kept getting all these little surprises along the way that I'd forgotten I'd added or changed along the revision road. And even though I knew the ending--which even the lucky few who got to read previous drafts don't know!--it was a little like not reading my own book. I kinda dug that.

Anyone else recently re-read something they'd written or just a fav book and gotten a coconut surprise with the familiar chocolate coating? If not, take a bite. I promise no praline crap moose filling. Really, unlabeled box of chocolates, praline?

B*

Welcome to The Writertorium!

First off, HI! Welcome to The Writertorium which is, of course, a virtual snidbit of my real Writertorium where I spend entirely too much time (according to "other" people) writing and happily pretending my reality is the real one.

Secondly, I feel, right off the bat, I have some explaining to do. It involves that silly little photo up there. Yup, take a quick glance, attempt to figure out why I chose to post a very poor quality photo of the dazzling Edward Cullen a.k.a Robert Pattinson in all his cardboard cutout glory on my very first blog post. Then come back down here, and I'll explain.

There are two reasons: One, he has a word bubble that says: "I promise to love you every moment of forever. Just don't forget to return your library books." Which is what I hope to hear from every sultry mythological creature after my heart. Two, I owe a great writerly debt to this vampire.

I'm not like the writers I've had the privilege to meet or hear speak. I was not a reader my whole life. In fact, I used to find all sorts of creative ways not to read that I'm sure will make my old English teachers' heads implode. (My favorite is making up authors and stories and writing entire Book-It! reports on said fictitious fiction so I could get my holographic purple button and free personal pizza.) I know that sounds terrible coming from an author, but if you think about it, I was doing exactly what an author should. I was writing new stories. Right? That's what we do, so it makes it okay, right? I realize that's a bit of a stretch, but I'm giving myself that one 'cause it's my blog, and I have a tendency to choose the truth. It's fun. You should try it.

So, anyways, the point here is, when I read Stephenie Meyer's Twilight--and this is beyond unforgivable because I did see the movie first--I genuinely enjoyed reading for the first time in my life. Thankfully, there were three more mondo sized novels in the saga to quench my new thirst for literature, but when I finished page 754 of Breaking Dawn I was completely dazzled and consumed by a world that I'd accepted as reality and obsessed with getting more of. So I made up for lost time and got to reading my skinny butt off. But I just couldn't get over the blissful feeling of losing myself in fiction. So, I did what I always do, started making my own fiction.

I wrote for months and turned out two very...novice novels before anyone even knew I was writing. (And, no, it was not about vampires or werewolves or any other para-sexy-normal creatures.) But, as they say, third time's a charm. That charmer landed me an agent and a legitimate reason to lock myself in my Writertorium for days on end.

Which brings us back to the point of my ramblings, my brand spanking new blog! I will be writing regularly about (hopefully) getting my debut novel published and the crazy process that entails as well as all the other fabulous things that stumble across my path in The Writertorium.

B*

P.S. I am a comment junkie and I respond to every one, so bring 'em on!