Living a Life I Don't Know How to Live

But no concerts in caves, alas. That would be fun.

Life has kind of blown up this summer, writing and work and social activities. I keep meaning to write up longer posts about everything, but that is not going to happen, at first because I've had no time, and this evening because I had a pretty dangerous mood drop over the weekend and am sliding into depression. The mania lasted quite a few weeks this time. I hope I can keep making writing progress through this shift.

Alice in Chains and Guns N' Roses

Reconnected with one of my high school BFFs this year, and we road tripped up to the Guns N' Roses concert in Kansas City. I swore I would go if they ever got Slash back, and they did, and I did, and it was amazing. Alice in Chains opened, and put on a fantastic show, and Guns N' Roses absolutely killed it. I can't believe they are still putting on such energetic shows, and playing so damn hard. I continue to love Slash beyond the telling of it, and everything was absolutely wonderful.

(Well, no, early on a visual element triggered my vertigo, so I had to deal with that all night, but it was still worth it.)

horror movies

High School BFF: Do you like scary movies?
Me: OH HELL NO WOMAN, I SAW SCREAM, I AM OUT OF HERE

High school BFF and I both love horror movies, so we've been going to the movies together lately. It's nice to go with someone else who loves them, since J merely puts up with my movie choices most of the time.

So far, we've watched The Conjuring 2 and Light's Out. Both were fun enough, though neither stuck the ending, and I thought both relied too hard on similar jump scares throughout (not similar to each other, necessarily, but repetitive ones within the movie itself).

St Louis Science Center

One of my law school BFFs came down for the Fourth of July, and joined me on an adventure that was part work and part fun, visiting a new exhibit at the St Louis Science Center that was focused on local growing and farm to table. It was raining the day we went up, so I had to rush through most of the outdoor exhibits, but it was pretty fun. Mostly targeted toward little children, which I did not expect. J and his mom went with us, and I grabbed Niece H (still youngest niece, though I do have a great-niece who is younger) to come with us. She's maybe a year or two too young for most of the Science Center, but we had a good couple of hours running from one display to the next before she lost interest, and then we all went out for delicious bbq. (Her birthday just happened, and while there we went through Build a Bear for her gift. I'd never done it before, but it was really fun, if pretty cheesy. She adored it, though, and had a great time whispering her secret creative dream as a part of the one she picked out.) Niece H is just delightful, and I'm so glad we got to spend time together.

After we dropped her off, we took J's mom home, and on the way stopped to play with little chicks and a young pig who were on display at her local farm store. TOO CUTE.

Meramec Caverns

This past weekend, we spent the day at Meramec Caverns with J's family; Meramec Caverns is a large cave system here in Missouri on the Meramec River that does guided tours. I've been through it only once before, one summer of law school. It is still beautiful, and the tour slightly different this time than the last time. There are plenty of places that are open and closed at different times, so it changes a little depending on when you go. Every June, they do a lantern tour, and I think next year we'll give that a try. After, we took a quiet, slow boat tour of part of the river, which was very short but super relaxing.

Pottery

I am not quite back to pottery classes regularly just yet, but the other night, J and I went to a pottery show my teacher was in, and there were some gorgeous, inspiring pieces. There were also things that were completely over-priced, but such is art.

I've trimmed one piece and thrown a second, but am not back to regular lessons until September. Probably. Failures still really mess with my mental health, so we'll see.

Writing

Mostly, I have been writing. I finished a novel-length project (more or less twice; the first draft had no ending, so I had to start over to figure out where I went wrong, and then finally got an ending on draft two, though it's still not right), and I'll start editing it soon to prep it for early readers. I'm already well into my next novel length project.

I've written 340k so far this year. My goal is 500k. When I set it, I didn't actually expect to make it, because when I used to set 350k, I would get close, but never actually get there. This year is apparently a good writing year, and it's been a great lesson that I really do write more and better when (a) I write every day or almost every day and (b) I track my daily word count.

It's the middle of the month, time for a project update.

Current active projects:

UK Horror Project
(cowritten with Sarah)

1. Talking Dead
Young adult supernatural adventure. Ghosts, monsters, and killers, oh my. Status: Fourth draft in progress. Fourth draft combines Talking Dead and Monsters & Magic into one book. We generally write one chapter a writing session, and try to have at least one session a week though we've each had to cancel a few sessions, so while this seems like slow going compared to 2014, it's actually moving along quite well.

(Monsters & Magic used to be #2. Young adult supernatural adventure. Flirtatious werewolves and incorporeal monsters.)

2. Supernatural Slumber Party
Young adult supernatural adventure. It's a slumber party of supernaturals, see? Status: First draft complete. Second draft on hold until Talking Dead draft four complete.

3. Wicked Witches
Young adult supernatural adventure. Witches, dude, always with the witches. And the world goes BOOM. Status: First draft complete. Second draft on hold until Talking Dead draft four complete. Second draft combines Wicked Witches and Monster Mash into one book.

(The Monster Mash used to be #5. Young adult supernatural adventure. The world goes BOOM.)

Stand Alone Books

1. Monsters in the Trees
Young adult horror. Friends, makeouts, and monsters in an isolated cabin. Status: Draft one in progress. Slow progress. I need to do some more outlining on paper, I think, before I sit down at the computer again. We'll see if that helps.

2. Winter Cabin
New adult or adult paranormal romance. Flirtations and sexy times while snowed in interrupted by monsters and mayhem. Status: Draft one nearly complete. Though not as nearly as it should be. I hit the end of the outline around the end of March as planned, and then realized there's probably another 15k of story to write. Good times. (This will go under the pseud if it is published.)

3. Monsters and Music
Young adult horror. Ghosts and werewolves, oh my. (witches and dead people and haunted things, too.) Status: Draft two in progress. Had an epiphany about the main romantic relationship, which I think will help structure the story.

Current active projects:

UK Horror Project
(cowritten with Sarah)

1. Talking Dead
Young adult supernatural adventure. Ghosts, monsters, and killers, oh my. Status: Fourth draft in progress. Fourth draft combines Talking Dead and Monsters & Magic into one book. We generally write one chapter a writing session, and try to have at least one session a week though we've each had to cancel a few sessions, so while this seems like slow going compared to 2014, it's actually moving along quite well.

(Monsters & Magic used to be #2. Young adult supernatural adventure. Flirtatious werewolves and incorporeal monsters.)

2. Supernatural Slumber Party
Young adult supernatural adventure. It's a slumber party of supernaturals, see? Status: First draft complete. Second draft on hold until Talking Dead draft four complete.

3. Wicked Witches
Young adult supernatural adventure. Witches, dude, always with the witches. And the world goes BOOM. Status: First draft complete. Second draft on hold until Talking Dead draft four complete. Second draft combines Wicked Witches and Monster Mash into one book.

(The Monster Mash used to be #5. Young adult supernatural adventure. The world goes BOOM.)

Stand Alone Books

1. Monsters in the Trees
Young adult horror. Young adult horror. Friends, makeouts, and monsters in an isolated cabin. Status: Draft one in progress. Slow progress. I need to do some more outlining on paper, I think, before I sit down at the computer again. We'll see if that helps.

Haven't set specific goals, yet, but I have decided to give getyourwordsout a try again. I used it really successfully for a few years, back during law school, but ended up dropping it once I was working so many hours at the firm.

Of course, I decided to pledge the ridiculous 500k pledge, because if you're going to fail, fail like a giant fireball? Or something like that.

500k words in 2016. Let's see how close I can get.