January 7th Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina –

Good Lord it’s COLD out! -19° wind chill! I don’t ever remember it being this cold in New Jersey. The coldest temperature ever recorded in New Jersey was -34 in 1904, needless to say, a bit before my time; so I guess we have a ways to go before we hit a record, but dang – it sure is cold!!

I’m not sure if it was because of the cold or because of frozen road conditions, but the kids have a delayed opening today. I know I’m going to have a battle on my hands later this morning insisting Dani wear a coat to school. She says she can’t because she cannot make it back to her locker at the end of the day and still catch her bus on time; but today I am going to put my foot down. I have her tell her bus driver this morning that she’ll be a minute late getting to the bus this afternoon. I’m sure the driver will understand.

I took on another editing assignment. So far the story is interesting and I am looking forward to seeing where it goes, and other than one recurring correction, it is going rather smoothly. The one thing that will be a challenge is, once I formatted the manuscript correctly, it brought it to over six hundred pages, so finishing it in the six weeks I quoted is going to be tough. Formatting and editing the first chapter took me four hours already. At that rate it would be more like eight to ten weeks of me working every day. Let’s hope things go a little quicker today.

Until I find a job, my plan is to split the allotted hours between editing and my own writing. I still have to finish Simply by Chance and Faerie Tale Queen, as well as do one more thorough edit on Corporate Blues before I send it off to my editor. It has been a few months since I looked at Corporate Blues, so I should be able to treat it as if it is a piece which was submitted for me to edit as opposed to being a piece I have written. Hopefully, my editor will be getting a fairly clean copy and will have an easy time with it.

Okay, off to the salt mines. I wish you all a warm day & happy writing!

Your Last Challenge was:

It was nice while it lasted…

I can’t complain. I was afforded an opportunity very few people will get to experience; a time to remove myself from the “real world” and focus on something I love to do. During these past two years I have published two books, brought three more to various stages of completion, suffered bumps and bruises of the publishing world, learned a lot about my characters’ worlds and my own, met some amazing people, started a blog, and grew as a writer. I have made public appearances, had several book signings, sat on an author’s panel at a school, and even won a fairly prestigious award for my writing.

All of this was made possible because someone I loved believed in me, and left me the resources to be able to pursue my dream. It was an amazing gift, a gift for which I am truly grateful.  It gave me the confidence to know I can eventually make a living doing something I love, even though it is going to take a little longer than I had hoped. So in the meantime, I need to reenter the real world and figure out how to meld my two worlds into one. It was nice while it lasted…

Your Next Challenge is:

There’s nothing better on a cold day than…

You have 10 minutes (be honest). There is no right or wrong, just write. Spelling and punctuation don’t count and NO ONE is allowed to criticize what someone else has written. Go.