What's Up Wednesday

It's time for What's Up Wednesday!

What I'm Reading

   We were on vacation last week and lots of driving was involved (or in my case, riding with bare feet while drinking coffee and having my nose buried in a book) so I got a fair amount of reading done. I read Riding Lessons by Sarah Gruen and loved how it transported me back to the days when I read nothing but horse books. The plot was predictable but I loved the horse aspect enough to overlook it for the most part. I also read The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen. Both of these books helped me get closer to my summer reading challenge over on YA Buccaneers. I'll be writing a post about that soon. Now I am reading Legend by Marie Lu and The Best of It by Kay Ryan.

    Moving on to audio books, I finished All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill. I wish I had loved it but I didn't. I'm now listening to Someday, Someday Maybe by Lauren Graham and it has me laughing out loud while I wash the dishes. Gilmore Girls is one of my all time favorite shows so I had to give it a try. I'm not sure if I'd like it in book format nearly as much because Lauren Graham is also the narrator and her voice and inflections make the dialogue that much wittier. 

What I'm Writing

    I'm participating in JuNoWriMo again this year and I started out with two goals. One was to be a "winner" by writing 50k in a month, the other was to finish the fairytale novel I have been working on since November. I'm a bit behind but have made it to 38k so I think I can pull off my first goal and the finishing the novel one? Done!!! All fifty chapters of it... Yeah... I'll worry about the editing next month. For now I'm just happy that my MC is fully human again, well mostly. She might have a few odd side effects from being a mirror for five years but that's to be expected.

  I'm left with one problem though. I still have a ton of words to write and I have no novel to work on. I almost started a new one but my head is still reeling from the last one so I'm writing random short stories. It was a good choice. I was starting to feel burnt out and now I'm not.

What Inspires Me Right Now

    Reading poetry, writing stories in different genres, my freshly mopped floors.

What Else I've Been Up To

   Besides writing and vacation and vacation recovery? Um, did I mention my freshly mopped floors? I think that pretty much covers my life right now. 

Word Wars

It's day one of Word Wars! I will be "live" blogging throughout the day, keeping you up to date on my word count and crazy writing infused life. I can't wait to see how many words we get written during the next three days!

If you missed the linky sign up and you want to join us just leave the link for your blog in the comments. We'd love to have you!

Day one 

7:09- My three children are settled down with giant bowls of cheerios. No words yet...

7:35- My WIP is open and ready to go and I've thought of a word goal for today. I want to write 5k.

8:59- 512 words and I'm running late for Vacation Bible School... be back later :)

1:40 -lived through vbs ( I'm one of the leaders) only to succumb to a migraine. Guess I'll be napping with my kids instead of writing :(

4:25 - All my children are sleeping. That NEVER happens (well, occasionally at bedtime). My headache is under control and I'm ready to write, although I'll probably only go for ten minutes at a time so the screen doesn't cause another headache.

5:38 - 241 words. My character smells magic on the breeze, and it isn't the friendly sort. Now to see if she can save her friend, who apparently doesn't know the scent of magic, or that it's the dark, evil sort and that it's after her. If she did, she wouldn't be walking straight towards it.

My WIP just hit the 50k mark! It probably has another 5k to tell the story and will likely get longer in revisions. I better figure out what I'm writing next...

9:12 - My word count is at 753 but the kids are in bed so I'm about to add to that, hopefully a lot! I'm just waiting for my coffee to be ready. I'm depending on it to keep my head from smacking into the keyboard mid word.

11:17 - still writing. Slowly, but its still writing. The last few thousand words of a novel always hang me up. I'm almost set up for an epic fairytale style showdown.  Total count is 1,334. Not bad for a migraine day and I have a few words left in me.

12:18 - I don't think my brain can think any more tonight. I'm off to bed!
My final word count for day one: 2,266

Day Two

6:51 - Word Count: six

I'm up but yawning. I've been awake for awhile thanks to my early bird three year old. He comes in early in the morning and climbs in bed for snuggles. Its the only part of the day that he holds still! 

Speaking of not holding still, my seven year old just went flying by with a jet pack on his back.

7:59 - Word Count: 371
The children are eating breakfast, the washing machine is going and I have some words written. I'm happy! I'm even mostly awake. That's always good. Did I mention I was correcting sentence structure and punctuation in my dreams last night? I woke up feeling like I'd never left the computer... Oh well.

2:21 - No new words to report. I spent the morning teaching VBS again and then had errands to run. I grabbed a giant iced latte on my way home and the kids are resting so I should be able to squeeze in a few minutes of writing. Most of nap time will be spent cleaning so I have free time to write tonight though.

Rest of the day - total word count 643.
I got the needed cleaning done and then... I went limp and didn't move the rest of the day. My husband was shocked. "You're not going to write still 8 a.m. or something crazy?" (I've never written until 8 a.m. What was he thinking? The latest I've stayed up is 4). I'm not sure if I answered, I was so tired. I've been writing first thing in the mornings and until midnight or later every day this month. It finally caught up with me.

Day Three

8:25 - I'm still moving much slower than normal but I do feel much more energetic today. The morning will be spent teaching VBS, grocery shopping and taking care of the kids. I can't wait for nap time when I can hide with my computer and write.

4:28- I survived the final day of VBS and ran my errands. I think I'm even still sane. So watch out Word War participants! It's game on!!!

9:45 - I'm writing from now till midnight. I'll be leading word sprints on twitter under @JuNoWriMo using #JuNoWriMo from 10 - 12 central time if anyone wants to join in.

12:11 - Word Count : 1,611
I know the day is officially over but I'm finally getting the words to flow like I want them too so I'm still writing...

2:05 - Word count: 3,586 and I'm going to bed.

Don't forget to visit the other participants and encourage them as we WRITE!

An InLinkz Link-up

IWSG, Word Wars and What's Up Wednesday

I'm going to limit my Insecure Writer's Support Group post to encouragement today.

“Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.”  -Earl Nightingale

"Decide that you want it more than you're afraid of it." - Bill Cosby

Both of these quotes spoke to my heart and I hope that they will encourage you too.

Now for What's Up Wednesday!

What I'm Reading

  I didn't read anything this week... Terrible, I know. I am listening to "All Our Yesterdays" on Audible. I am not sure what I think of it yet.

What I'm Writing

  I'm participating in JuNoWriMo this month so I've been writing, a lot. For the first part of June I'm drafting Mirra (my fairytale WIP). My MC is back to her human form! I'm so excited! It's challenging to write when your MC is literally stuck on a wall. I was at 28k when I started JuNoWriMo so I'm going to have to switch to another project soon. Mirra is almost complete!!!

  I had to set aside my revisions on Slumber but they will still be waiting for me when the month is over.

What Inspires me right now

Other writers :)

What Else I've Been Up To

Summer!!!!! I bought a massive watermelon and I'm planning on sticking my kids out on the front lawn to eat it and have watermelon seed battles.

Besides hanging out with my kids and writing I've been thinking of things to cut out so I can write even more... Yup. It's summer :)
 
Oh, I did do one crazy thing... I dyed my hair blue. Not all of it but I have some very blue peek-a-boo highlights going on. It was my way of celebrating living through another year of homeschooling. 

One thing I have been working on is the Word War blog hop I'm co-hosting with Katie Doyle from Writing, Reading and Life.

For more information or to sign up click here.

Please check it out! It should be a great way to connect with other writers and get some words written.