Alison Kent

The cause is children’s literacy! :P

Dedicated to Larissa Ione for reasons only she needs know . . . :)

I’m done! 16 pages today!

I’m done! I’m done! I’m done! I’m done! I’M DONE! :hehe:

THE MCKENZIE ARTIFACT is finished! OMG, you have NO idea how good this feels!!!!!

And I did it amidst my birthday celebration! (My birthday isn’t until the 31st, but today was the only day I could corral ALL the kids at one time - minus the stepson who had to leave for work at noon. More on the birthday tomorrow.) For now, I’m celebrating the finale of the first five installments of THE SMITHSON GROUP. Yahoo!!

Now, this doesn’t mean I’m finished. :)

I still have to read it through for continiuity and stupidity. I know I called someone Garza in one scene and Garcia in another. I also know I have time problems and setting problems as I would make changes the further into the story I went. (Typical for those who write by flying into the mist - I ususally don’t!)

I’m going to sleep for awhile THEN get up and do the read through. At least a nap. I need at least a nap!

Oh, and this good news today on THE BANE AFFAIR: “Fast-paced from beginning to end, The Bane Affair is packed with pulse-pounding intrigue. The chemistry between Christian and Natasha is electrifying. Readers won’t want to put this one down and are sure to look forward to meeting the rest of the SG-5 operatives.” - RT Bookclub 4 1/2 Stars

I am now down to my last ARC of THE BANE AFFAIR and my last two of THE SHAUGHNESSEY ACCORD. Congratulations to Sylvia for winning the most recent copy - on my message board! Yes, I’m sneaky like that, giving away goodies there, too! And who knows where my next giveaway will strike, bwahahahahaha!

I’m in the home stretch of THE MCKENZIE ARTIFACT and it’s feeling wonderful! Of course, I haven’t gone back yet to read a WORD of this novella, so who knows how much editing it’s going to take to get shipped off Monday or Tuesday. I’m praying for NOT MUCH, LOL! No time to play online today so I’ll just leave you with this. And in case that doesn’t do it for you, try this. Of course, there’s always this.

:P

I’d heard of this movie because I’m such a Clive groupie *G*, but the dh just showed me the trailer and WHOA!

Must. See. Now. :)

I love it. Author Karen Gillespie talks about a novelist’s life and how not everyone is cut out for it! Amen to that! (I often wonder if *I* am!)

Danni, Sally, & Stephanie, I’m just today getting your ARCs of THE BANE AFFAIR into the mail! Sorry for the delay, but I’m swamped! Sasha and Maili, it will probably be Monday when yours go out as I’ve got to send the dh to the post office to do the international thing! (The others I can just stick into the box at the curb and my female mailman, LOL, drives by and picks them up!!) I apologize for being behind on getting things done!!! Not only do I have this novella to complete this weekend (first things first, ya know!), I have web updates for almost ALL of my clients, LOL - not to mention copious updates to do to my own site! Yikes!

I love it! Author Karen Gillespie talks about the life of a novelist - and how it’s not for everyone!! Amen to that!

I spent most of today writing at the park, wishing Larissa was with me so she could tell me whether or not the clouds meant rain! See, I had the dh drop me off around 10:00, which meant I was stuck like chuck without wheels. I did have a covered gazebo and a covered pavilion and the park’s community center, but I’d moved fairly deep off the main path and if rain came was going to have to run like hell, LOL! Fortunately, the wind was great and I had a picnic table in the shade. Unfortunately, it was ninety-something - and I didn’t think at ALL about the sun reflecting off the water! Even though I was in the shade the entire time, I’m burnt to a crisp!

Now, there’s nothing wrong with men coming to the park in corporate casual wear and sitting on the benches pondering the state of the universe *g*, but you remember the movie Falling Down with Michael Douglas where he left the house every day and his family (mother?) thought he was at work? Yeah. That. Hmmm. Suspicious minds at work. :)

One thing the park has in abundance that I could do without? Red wasps. Ugh.

One thing the park does NOT have in abundance that I could use? Restrooms. Ugh.

I’ve been writing the same sex scene now for five days. I’ve written around it and have gone forward with the story, coming back to it repeatedly so that I fear it will be the most disjointed scene ever written. But in this one scene - because this is an action adventure novella - I have to take my characters from the physical to the emotional here. Right here. Later will be too late. Sooner would’ve been too soon.

This has been the hardest “romance” I think I’ve done. I mean, novellas are hard, period. Especially when writing characters who don’t know one another well - or at all - before the story opens. But to write plot driven novellas where there is less time for introspection and emotional development/connection, is REALLY hard. I have two novellas scheduled to write later this year and into next, and I am SO glad they’re both character-driven! And I have two full-length books to write soon as well, one Blaze, one Brava, so I won’t be getting into a writing rut anytime soon! I like it! I like it a lot!

You know what else I like? Getting to the end of a book and instead of counting how many pages are written, counting how many are left to write! Watching that number decrease is pure heaven!

Now, I haven’t cropped up the duck pics yet, but if you click through to the following thumbnails, you can at least see where I’ve been going. (For some reason, I can’t get the stupid table to move up, so you have to deal with the dead space!)

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