Hi, my name's Diana (pronounced Die-Anna), I'm Canadian (whoohoo!), and I spend my time writing novels. I am working on a four book series to be called PTSD - Promise, Treason, Sacrifice, and Death. I have finished Promise (64,000 words) and Treason (51,500 words) and I am now working on drafting Sacrifice. Follow me on Twitter @DiannaK_books
That's right, you can believe your eyes; I have started to draft Sacrifice. There's not much to it, and I'm not on any kind of schedule for the present time, but I am hoping to get back into my writing groove. I tried to enter something in for NaNoWriMo but couldn't find the energy to do it. For those who don't know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. You have the entire month of November to write a 50,000 word first draft for an original story and submit it for judging. Some manuscripts are offered publishing opportunities. It might be something for developing writers to consider for next year.
What else has been going on? Well, I've been doing a lot of brainstorming for Sacrifice, which means that half my wall is covered with Post-It Notes. So far, I have used a difference strategy for every novel. Promise was written with no direction or planning whatsoever, Treason was written with my cue card system, and now Sacrifice is being written on Post-It Notes. I like the idea because it allows me to see every single idea and move around certain things so that I can change the order of my ideas without having to rewrite new cards. I might go back to cue cards once I have firmer deadlines in mind, but I'm not too sure yet. I am going to take this one nice and slow while I continue to cope with my medical problems - which are getting better, by the way.
It has now been seven months since I finished writing Promise and I didn't look at my manuscript before today. As I explained before, I wanted to put it away for at least half a year to make it easier to find mistakes and identify parts that I didn't like as much. I started to look it over this afternoon and didn't get very far - mostly because my puppy would steal my pens and highlighters when he wanted attention - but I already have a lot of pen marks and entire sections that I want to throw out completely.
As I've said before, I have certain time frames in mind for sending out query letters for my manuscripts but I want to keep those to myself until I have some news to share with you. If I don't tell you when I send off the letter, then you'll never get to know if I get rejected. It's bound to happen, but won't be as bad as if everyone knows about it. I love you all, but some things I need to do on my own before I share it with the cyber world.
Once again, I'd like to thank you all, and all of my Twitter followers for being so supportive during this hiatus. I am sorry for dropping off the map so suddenly, but I promise that I will make it up to you with a book that you'll be able to pick up in your local book store soon enough. Thank you for your loyalty; I'd never have to confidence to do any of this if it wasn't for you.
I love you all,
Diana
This week's song is Good To You by Marianas Trench simply because I love it. Enjoy!
Wow, it sure has been quite a long time since I last posted. I am really sorry to have to inform you that there has been little work done on Sacrifice and that I still haven't gotten around to reediting Promise. My deadlines for sending off query letters are still the same though. I hope that I can get back to work in the near future so that I can have more progress made and more weight on my side of the scale.
I have recently been diagnosed with a medical condition that has made working on a novel almost impossible to do, but I try my best every day to put in a little effort. Hopefully this will be under control soon and I'll be able to get back to work.
I am going to have to leave you on this note with no promise as to when I'll return to working and posting regularly. Your support through this trying time is greatly appreciated, and I will try my best not to let you down. Thank you all!
I know, I've skipped another week, but I have an even better reason! I'm done Treason! That's right, the first draft is finally complete! It took lots of work and long hours, but I have written a novel in four months. I'm so happy to have accomplished something this big. Writing a novel is one thing, writing two is a whole different story. No pun intended.
I started on May 14, 2012 and on September 2nd, I wrote my 51,545th word. I know that it's not nearly as long as Promise, but you have to remember that the first instalment of the PTSD series is in it's near final draft, and I've been working on it for four years. Once I start editing Treason, the word count will go up.
I'm looking into a new novel writing technique for Sacrifice called the snowflake method. I'm hoping that it will help me reach my word count a little faster, and hopefully it'll also be a little easier to follow than my cue cards. They were handy when it came to focusing on one idea at a time and not getting carried away, but they also made the novel seem a little choppy, without very much transition between the ideas. That's something that I need to fix in the editing process.
Anyway, I must already be off. I've been awake since four-thirty this morning, and I'm getting a little tired. I hope that everything has been going well for all of you, and I hope to be update you soon as feedback for Promise slowly trickles in.
Have a good week, and happy belated Labour day to my readers in Canada and the United States!
That's right, ladies and gentlemen; I'm almost done! For those of you who are too new to my website to understand the title, or for those of you who need a little reminder, Treason was broken down into twenty-eight different parts. Each part was worth about two thousand words, and each part had a deadline (that I sucked at following). Today, I just finished the twenty-third card, and it'll all downhill from here. Not in a bad way, though. Has anyone ever seen a plot graph?
This is a plot graph. It literally is a graph that outlines the plot of a story. In the bottom corner on the left, we have the introduction. That's basically self explanatory; it's where you introduce your characters and what the story is going to be about. After that, the story starts to climb during the rising action. During the rising action, you start to see your plot develop, all of your ideas start to come together, and you start to introduce the main conflict (the main problem or enemy that your characters will have to battle). After that comes the climax. The climax is the highest point of your story. It's when everything comes together for you and when everything falls apart for your characters. It's the pivotal point in your story. Everything that has happened so far had lead up to this. After the climax, you get the quick and rapid fall downhill during your falling action. This is what happens to your characters after the climax; it's how they deal with everything that has happened to them, and how they go back to their normal lives. And then finally, with a deep exhalation, a deep sigh of relief, you reach your resolution. The problem is solved, the war is over, and everyone is happy. For the moment.
Card number twenty-three sat right on the edge of the cliff, that tiny little ledge before the falling action. Card number twenty-eight waits for me at the very bottom of the hill. Cards number twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, and twenty-seven all line the bank of that hill. They are the cards that are going to wrap everything up.
What's going to happen after that? Well, Treason will be printed out onto paper, put into a binder and passed around between ten people who are going to pick the story apart word for word. They're going to write out exactly what needs to be changed, what needs to be longer, what needs to be shorter, what needs to be removed. That will take six months, and during that six months, I won't see a word of Treason. The file will be stored away, the hard copy kept out of my hands, and then after the six months - during which I'll be writing the third instalment of the PTSD series - I'll go back, read all of the comments that people have made in regards to my first draft, and I'll correct it. I'll change what I think needs to be changed, I'll add things were things need to be added, move some chapters around, delete entire chapters, and then some day soon, it'll be done.
It's what I'm doing right now with Promise. I haven't seen my first novel since April. In a month, I'll be able to take my hard copy back and do some editing. If I get my way, Promise will be ready for Christmas. I'll print out the book one last time, pass it around some more, make sure that every little detail is perfect, and then I'll start looking for someone who agrees, someone with influence who agrees, that is. Query letters for Promise and for the entire PTSD novels will be sent out in the new year, once Promise is done, Treason is in it's second or third draft, Sacrifice is drafted, and Death is outlined.
It sounds like a lot of work, and, trust me, it is, but someday it'll be worth it. When you can all walk into a book store and pick up a copy of Promise, it'll be worth it. When I see my first novel bound into a hard cover with my name on the spine, it'll be worth it.
I wish you all the best, and I hope that you continue to enjoy the rest of your summer! It's almost over! Can you believe it? I know I can't.
Love you all,
Diana
This week's song is Good Time by Owl City feat. Carley Rae Jepsen. Have a listen.
I'm going to make this a short one for a few reasons. I am running out of time (my final deadline for Treason is September 1) and time is going by too fast. Can it really already be the 14th?! That's insane. I have 17 days left to write twenty-five thousand words. Well, let's make that fifteen, twenty if I'm lucky. My final goal is sixty, but this is just the first draft. It'll get longer once I go back and add some more information.
How far am I? Thirty-five thousand words into the story, and it's about to get really interesting. Right now, it's at exactly one hundred and fifty pages on Microsoft Word. I almost hope to be able to double that. I really need to get back to work, but since this post is so short, I'll leave you with an excerpt from Promise.
“I’m going to miss you,” she said, kissing my cheek. “I’ll miss you, too,” I said. “You’ll be careful, right?” “Yes, Mom.” “And you’ll make sure that you have fun?” “Yes, Mom.” “And if you come back pregnant, you know I won’t be pleased, right?” she joked. We both laughed. “You don’t have to worry about that, Mom. Who would want to get me pregnant anyway?” My voice trailed off. “Oh, honey, forget about Alex. This is your summer. Go on, and go have the time of your life.” “I will, Mom. I promise. See you in two months!” “Goodbye, sweetie,” she said, hugging me tighter.
I know, I know, I skipped a week! It's been bothering me up until today, but I swear that I have a good reason!
I got this little guy last week and he's been keeping me busy all week. His name is Timbit and he's just a little over two month old. He's a cross between a Yorkie and a Maltese, and he is just the cutest thing ever! I haven't even had time to pick up my computer to do anything, let alone to blog. I have, however, still been working on Treason; I'm just writing everything out by hand. One day I'll have to type it all up, but for the moment, it's just easier to stick with pen and paper.
I am verging on thirty-thousand words, and the story is really starting to pick up pace. I have to be honest, though, I'm still not really sticking to my schedule. Not only has the puppy put me behind, but I also realized that I left out a really important part when I was planning everything, so I needed to add a few extra days to be able to come up with ideas and write it out. Someday I'll get it done. Hopefully soon.
I haven't really been up to much besides working, eating, sleeping and writing. I don't know which I've been doing more, but I know that I haven't had a free minute in weeks. I'm so tired that I can't even begin to concentrate on what I'm doing. At work on Sunday, I set the toaster on fire. Yesterday, I broke a pile of dishes and dropped cake on my shoes. Something tells me that this is not going to be my week.
I wrote a short story last night before falling asleep because I had nothing better to do. Read it and let me know what you think?
A million thoughts race through your head, a million moments. It's been a year. An entire year has gone by since your life changed. A year filled with laughter, tears, heartbreak, and happiness. A year filled with him. When it happened, it was like a bolt of lightning striking the Earth: fast and dangerous. It was like a river leaving it's bed: overtaking. But at the same time, it was like lava: slowly becoming hard and solid.
The lightning hit first, the very first day that you saw him. All you could see were eyes and a smile, all you could hear was a gentle laugh and a teasing voice, all you could feel was your heart slamming against your chest, trying to break free. That was summer.
As fall came along, things changed. You changed. You were more daring in the fall, more comfortable and more willing to take chances. In the fall, the teasing comments and raised voices turned into deeper conversations. There was no more of the constant insulting and arguing. She was gone, and he had changed. Like the trees, you were also shedding your old leaves, leaving yourselves bare and exposed to the harsher days ahead.
Winter brought short days, cold, dark nights, and pain. She was back, but only to tease. He ran back to her, to shelter, and you were left alone to bare December's iciness.
As the days got longer, things looked brighter. You were trying to grow new leaves, to move on. You couldn't, though. Leaves need not only water, but also sunlight to grow. You were trying to run away from your sunlight. Happiness blossomed like May flowers when you returned to his side. Everything was back to normal and the wheel of the year was once again in motion. Thoughts of him flooded through you.
Now, as yet another summer comes to an end, you have become lava: not yet rock, not yet solid, but sure to transform soon. Summer has brought happiness beyond belief, comfort, and safety. Summer has brought change and yet reminded you that you are all still the same. Summer has brought growth. Summer has brought magic.
Well, I'm off. I really do need to get back to work. I hope that you have had a good week and that this one coming up will be just as good. Thank you for stopping in, and I'll try to be more on time with my postings!
XO
Diana
This week's song is Wide Awake by Katy Perry just because. Enjoy!
I'd tell you where I am right now, but I have no clue. All I know is that we're on a high way in the lovely province of Nova Scotia. We're on the move though, never spending two nights in the same city. We spent a night in Grand Falls, New Brunswick, a night in Chocolate Lake, Nova Scotia, and now, we're heading towards Moncton, New Brunswick. Tomorrow we'll be in Alma, New Brunswick. It's right in the middle of Fundy National Park. We booked a night on a ranch and we're scheduled for four hours of horse back riding tomorrow. On Friday, we'll be leaving the maritimes and spending the night in Quebec City, followed by Montreal on Saturday before heading home.
Well, as of today, I can say that I've touched the Atlantic Ocean! Another thing to cross off of my bucket list. And might I say, boy was it cold!
Monday was a pretty exciting day, too, because we got to have three meals in the same day but in three different provinces. Casselman, Ontario, Lévis, Québec, and Grand Falls, New Brunswick.
Here's a list of things that I've learned so far on this trip:
1) When forced to travel with younger siblings, giving them lots and lots of Gravol is your best hope for survival.
2) New Brunswick is Canada's only bilingual province; watch what you say and who's around when you say it.
3) Halifax has many pubs that are open late, even after most other restaurants are closed. When looking for food, remember that their liquor license prohibits them from seating minors after 9PM - if you're hungry, don't bring your younger siblings.
4) The Appalachian Mountain Range is on of the most beautiful parts on New Brunswick.
5) When traveling to a busy city, make hotel reservations in advance if you have a big family. If you don't, someone might have to sleep on the floor, and that someone might be you.
6) Leaving your knee brace in the car when you know that you have a knee injury is never a good idea, especially when walking through the Halifax Harbour.
7) Also, don't wear skirts in the Harbour; it's windy.
8) It rains a lot in the Maritimes, so don't decide to go for a walk.
9) When you cross the border into New Brunswick, you enter a new time zone. Don't panic when you get into the hotel room an hour later than it was when you left your car five minutes ago.
10) Writing a book is impossible to do on a road trip.
I have made no progress at all. As much as I hate to admit it, it's true. All of my time has been spent on the road, in restaurants, or asleep. Today was the only day that I got a break from that, and I spent it touring Halifax and visiting gift shops.
Well, I must go before I start getting car sick. Just kidding, I need to go before I fall asleep and drop my iPhone. Thanks for stopping in. Remember to follow me on Twitter @DianaK_books for more frequent updates. It's back to business on Sunday for the final stretch. I'll see you all back here next Tuesday!
Hello readers!
Diana here, live from Chocolate Lake, Nova Scotia! Unfortunately, I'm too tired to blog tonight, so I'll leave you with a picture of what the weather's like here, and I'll post more tomorrow when I'm actually awake!
Goodnight lovelies!
Xoxo
Diana
Well, here it is: my weekly post. I don't even know where to start this one. So much has happened, and yet I've gotten so little done. Let's start with an easy subject. We're still in a draught. It hasn't rained since June 19, and you can't even call the river a river anymore. There's only ankle-deep water, and, to be honest, it's kind of scaring me. People go on and on about global warming, but it's like we're finally seeing the proof. The average daily temperature has stayed above 30 degrees Celsius this summer. For you Americans, that's 85 degrees Fahrenheit.
That being said, I have no energy to do anything. I am doing my best to get as much work as I can done on Treason, but it seems like my best isn't going to be good enough this time around. It's a good thing that I gave myself a one-month buffer. I wanted to have the first draft done before leaving for Nova Scotia, but I highly doubt that it is going to happen. I am working on card number fifteen out of twenty-eight (I dropped one idea), and in the next five days leading up to our departure, I am scheduled to work thirty-five hours at my waitressing job. It may not seem like much, but work starts at 7 in the morning every day, and in this heat, running around leaves me dead by the time three o'clock rolls around.
I had a little bit of reorganizing to do in terms of story chronology, which is one of the perks of having everything written out on individual cards. It was not helped, however, by my open window and ceiling fan. Ceiling fans and open windows like to make cards flutter around.
Do any of you have a Wreck This Journal? I saw something about it as I was browsing last night, and I was curious enough to go out and buy one today. It's probably one of the most hilarious things I have ever seen. The title says it all; it's a journal that is made for you to destroy. Each page has a different prompt on it to get you to do crazy things with your journal. Some of them are things like "Tie a string to this journal. Go for a walk, drag it.", "Infuse this page with a smell of your choosing.", "Find a way to wear the journal.", and "Take a shower with this journal." I don't know if I'll be able to complete it, seeing as I'm such a perfectionist and that I absolutely need to keep all of my books in the condition that I bought them in. It'll be a challenge.
As a special treat for you all this week, I'll leave you with a bit from Treason!
“Nick, if there was some other girl, would you tell me?” “What do you mean?” “I mean if you met someone else that lived closer to you, would you tell me, or stay the same?” “What the hell? What kind of question is that?” “Why are you getting so defensive?” “Are you accusing me of cheating on you?” “No, I never said that. It’s funny that you brought it up, though.” “What is that supposed to mean?” “It’s supposed to mean that maybe you’re going to lose interest in me because when we see each other, we don’t sleep together.” “You think that I just want you for sex? When did you be come so fake, Sara? I really didn’t think that you were that type of girl when I met you.” “I’m just saying that it’s a possibility.” “What’s a possibility? Me cheating on you? Sara, do you even know me at all? When the hell did this stupid idea pop into your head?” “It’s been there for a while, actually.”
I had a really great idea for this week's post, you know, after I realized that it was Wednesday. Now, I can't even think of a title, and I'm a day late.
Have any of you used StumbleUpon? I just started using it last week, and I find some of the craziest things on there. I guess that's what it's for, though, right? I came across this one site that would show you a different picture of a cat every time you wrote one hundred words. It made me laugh. There's a whole bunch of interesting sites that I saw with writing tips and ideas, so I'm pretty happy that I created an account.
How is your summer going? Enjoying the nice weather? Here in my home town in Ontario, we are in a draught, people aren't allowed to water their lawns, and there is a no-burn policy. No one can have fires, even if they have a permit and a fire pit to do it in. Someone flicked a cigarette butt out of their car window without thinking twice, and a fire started. The grass is so dry that it hurts to walk around in your bare feet. It hasn't rained since early June, and everything is dying. For those of you who still think that global warming isn't an issue: look around you. Signs of negative change are everywhere.
The countdown continues until I leave for Nova Scotia. Ten more days! I'm hoping to get all caught up in my Treason work before leaving (yes, I have fallen behind) so that I won't be too busy working while we're on the road. I really want to go out and explore the different places that we're going to be visiting along the way. It would really help if I wasn't working like a crazy person, though. This week coming up, I have over forty hours of work. That's more than a full-time employee gets to work, and the only difference is that I don't get the benefits. Sometimes, I don't like my job.
I read somewhere online that in order to make sure that your book is really what you want it to be, you need to put it away and not look at it for six months. I thought that I might have a problem doing that, but it really hasn't been that hard. A friend of mine is still looking over Promise for typos and grammar mistakes - for some reason, I have a habit of typing it instead of the or vis-versa when I'm tired- and she still hasn't given it back to me. She's a pretty slow reader when you take into consideration the fact that it has all ready been three months and the book is only three hundred pages long. Oh well, the more time she spends working on it, the less time I have to have it with me and force myself not to correct it.
I think that the thing that I am really unexcited for is reading the whole thing out loud. To make sure that everything sounds right and that I'm not missing any words anywhere, I'm going to need to take a few days to just sit down and read the whole book out loud to myself. One thing is for sure: I'm going to need a lot of water because I'm going to get really thirsty.
How am I doing on Treason? Well, like I said, I've fallen behind. As of today, I am four cards behind, and as of tomorrow, I'll be five cards behind. I know that I really need to step it up, but I've just been so busy. I've started to work eight hour shifts, and on top of the fact that it's a lot more than what I'm used to working, the shift also starts at seven in the morning. When I get home, I'm tired. And then I have this whole debate with myself on if I want to work so that I don't fall behind, or if I want to wait until I'm not tired so that I don't end up writing garbage. I end up pushing it off to the next day, and then the whole thing starts over. I have made progress, though. I am a third of the way through in terms of the estimated number of words. In terms of cards, I've finished nine out of twenty-nine.
I should be off. I have had the last few days off, so I want to use the fact that I'm well rested to get some more work done. Just because you are all the best readers, though, I'm going to leave you with a little treat. They say that to see if a book is good or not, you should read the fifteenth page; so, here's the fifteenth page of Promise. Leave me a comment below to tell me what you think!
“I love it! It makes you look even more ready for summer. This year is going to be our best one yet. I can’t believe they let us come back as campers again.”
“I know! How did you even manage that? The age limit was fifteen.”
“I just told them about Emily and how she wouldn’t be allowed to come to Canada if she would have to pay to be a counsellor in training because she couldn’t get a job in Germany. They’re pretty understanding, but it took me almost an hour of persuasion. After they agreed, they told me that we weren’t the first ones to call and ask the same thing. Apparently a lot of people our age wanted to come back again. They told me that they were thinking of changing the age limit to seventeen and that it was great that we wanted to come back so bad because they want to use our cabin to try out a new thing they were planning for next year.
“If they bring the age limit up to seventeen, they figure that those of us who are sixteen and seventeen can take care of ourselves, and that we don’t need counsellors since most of them are our age anyway. They figure we can take care of ourselves, so they want to see how well we do this year if there’s no one with us every minute of every day. If it works out well, they might use it for next year.”
“Anna?”
“Yes?”
“How exactly is it that you can ask someone a simple question and have them telling you their entire life story within a minute? I mean, come on! You called to ask the directors if we could all come back this year and you end up getting all of the camp’s plans for next year and everything that they want to try and do. Did they happen to tell you what was going to be on the menu while they were at it?” I teased.
“Hey, you know how I am. I can sweet-talk anybody into anything. Hey, do you think I could be a spy after I graduate? I mean, I’d do a really good job of persuading people not to do bad things and give me the secret intelligence instead. Okay, moving along now, can we please change the subject?” she asked, trying to direct the attention away from herself.
“Okay, fine. Any cute guys yet?” I asked, and we both broke into a fit of laughter.
“You’re in my cabin, I’ll walk you to it and when we walk past the lodge, look on the front porch; he is gorgeous,” she said, giggling slightly.
“All right,” I agreed, sharing with her a sideways glance, which was all it took to start us laughing again.
Alright, well, I'm off. I am going to get some work done on Treason. Check back in next week because it'll be my last post before leaving for Nova Scotia! I will keep you all posted on my progress!
Love you all,
Diana!
This week's song is Long Hot Summer by Keith Urban. This summer is bringing out the country in me. Enjoy!
I was never really good at following rules, so it shouldn't surprise anyone that a week after I came up with all of the rules that I need to follow, I break one. Well, actually, it was more like two... Technically, though, one isn't even my fault. Let's start with the one that is. Rule number ten says sleep. I tried, I really did, but then one thing happened after another and I ended up going to bed at around four, four-thirty twice in a week. No one can write anything coherent when they're that tired, so I lost a bit of my lead. The one that isn't my fault though, is breaking rule number eight. I'm not supposed to lie in bed while writing, but I have a good explanation as to why I've been doing it for the past five days. Do any of you know what a meniscus is? No? Okay, well, here's a little lesson. Everyone has two menisci per knee. They're little pieces of cartilage at the top and bottom of your knee that help distribute weight evenly down your leg so that you don't crush your knee when you walk. Well, I tore one of my menisci on my left knee. What does that mean? It means that the little piece of cartilage that is ripped is getting caught in the bones that make up my knee when I walk. It hurts. A lot. It also means that I can't walk and I have to keep my leg elevated and iced. Hence why I am lying in bed.
I'm doing my best not to get too distracted, and I am staying on track. I have to admit, though, that I'm pretty sure that I'm going to fall behind schedule. I have a section that's due tomorrow, and I don't think that I gave myself enough time to complete it. I thought that I had a part of it all ready typed up that I could just alter a little bit to fit into the story, but it's too different, so I have to write the thing all over again. It's an idea that promises to be over six thousand words long, too.
How am I doing with Treason? I am on part eight out of twenty-nine, I have sixty-one pages, and 14,575 words. How's that for progress? As soon as I can get over the bump that this little part here is making, then I should be good to get back on track. How is it coming along in terms of the plot? I just finished the introduction, and I'm about to start the rising action. The climax isn't until idea number twenty, so we've still got some ways to go. It's so hard to stay focused! This weather is so nice, and there's so many things that I could be doing. I guess it helps that I can't walk, or else I'd be outside all day long.
For all of my Canadian readers: how was your Canada Day? Did you do anything interesting? I worked from 7:30AM to 7:15PM and then I was so tired and sore that I fell asleep to the sound of fireworks. On the bright side, I made 190$. For all of my American readers: happy early Independence Day! Do you have any plans for tomorrow? I hope that everyone had a safe Canada Day, and that everyone will have a safe Fourth of July tomorrow. Remember: if you drink, don't drive. And anyway, beer is cheaper than gas in today's economy, so drink, don't drive. That was my joke for you all, today. There's actually a sign in town that says that, I'm pretty sure.
Can you believe that it's already July? This year is going by so fast! Are you doing anything interesting this month? I am leaving in twenty days to roadtrip to Nova Scotia with my family. We are spending three nights in Quebec city, one night in Montreal, one night on a ranch in New Brunswick by the Bay of Fundy, and one night in Halifax. I'm sure that it will be entertaining, to say that least.
Well, I'm off. I really need to get this little bit done. Thank you all for stopping by, and welcome once again to my new followers on Twitter, and my new blog readers! It's great to know that I have your support! I'll have more for you next week!
xox,
Diana
This week's song is something that I found while I was browsing YouTube to pass the time. Have a listen to Our Song Comes On by Kristina Maria!
I feel the need to make this post extra special because I've gained over forty new readers this week, so here it goes! For my new readers, here's what you need to know: I'm an aspiring author. I have finished my first novel titled Promise, and it's part of a four book series. I am looking for a publisher who would be willing to publish my work, and I hope that by getting enough readers on my blog and enough Twitter followers will help prove that people actually want to read my work. That being said, please feel free to tweet my blog and share it with your friends. You can also follow me on Twitter @DianaK_books. I try to make my weekly blog posts as interesting as possible, although that's not always easy.
So, what have I been up to this week? A lot, to sum it up. One of our servers at work got hurt and she'll be off for 4-6 weeks and so I've got her shifts to work, which leaves me with one day off every week. Other than that, I have been working a lot on trying to get my second novel done. Treason is, as of today, 13.33% done. I have a whole system in place now to get the first draft done by Labour Day weekend! I have broken down the novel in 29 major parts, and I wrote each of these parts down on cue cards.
The front has the number of the idea (I am currently at number 6) and a short summary of what it is (sorry, no spoilers here!)
The back of the card has the deadline for the completed idea (Treason is due by September first) along with the date I started working on whatever is on the front of the card, the date I finished it, along with an estimated word count. Treason has an estimated 60,000 words, but I think that it might be higher. Each card has a minimum 2,000 words, and someone them can go up to eight or even nine thousand words. You can do the math.
I have also put together a list of fourteen rules that I will need to follow in order to have everything done on time, although I think I should add a fifteenth, being "Get blog updated on time". Here's the new regime that I'll have to follow over the next three months.
1. Keep room clean - This is simply so that I won't end up spinning on my office chair looking for anything cool that I haven't seen in a few years to use as an excuse for procrastinating. I'm bad for that.
2. Leave all electronics in basket - I have a basket on a table right by my door to drop in any form of electronics, mostly my cell phone and iPod, so that I won't be tempted to use them while working.
3. Disable Internet connection while working - I found that I was often going on Facebook or updating my Twitter account while writing, and that was costing me valuable time. For that reason, I am forcing myself to disable my Internet connection every time that I want to write.
4. No text messages - This goes along with rule number two, but I wanted to be specific about it. Sometimes I'll come up with what I think is a great idea, and I want to text someone about it right away to get their input, and it ends up turning into an hour-long conversation. Now, I'll have to text them only when I'll have finished putting the idea into words.
5. No food in room - I like food. Food distracts me from writing because I don't want to touch my MacBook while I'm eating in case I get it dirty.
6. No drinks other than water on desk - This is for the simple reason that anything other than water will make me thirsty, and I don't want to be wasting writing time by running back and forth between my office and my kitchen to get more to drink.
7. Take 30-minute breaks every hour - Have you ever just said something and realized that it made absolutely no sense the minute that it left your mouth? Well, that happens to me when I write, except that I don't notice it right away, and I have to suffer the embarrassment of someone else finding my mistake. By forcing myself to take breaks, that doesn't happen. I have also found that it helps keep me motivated to write for a full hour at a time.
8. No lying in bed while writing - this is a big one. I often find myself unconsciously ending up in my bed when I want to write because it's comfortable. This is bad because it makes me feel lazy and makes me want to do something other than write. For that reason, it is forbidden.
9. Try to do two hours of work per day - try being the key word, because sometimes I don't have a lot of inspiration. Some days I'll write more, some days less.
10. Sleep - Writing a novel while sleep deprived is never a good idea. I would know. That's how I tried to finish Promise.
11. Eat three meals - A well fed author is a happy author.
12. Listen only to music from iTunes while working - I need music to concentrate. This is just to discourage me from enabling my Internet connection to go on YouTube.
13. Stick to deadlines - This one pretty much explains itself.
14. Have fun!
Well, I must be off because I haven't done my two hours of work today. Thank you for stopping by and a warm welcome to my new readers! Check back in next week for more!
Love,
Di
This week's song is Give Your Heart a Break by Demi Lovato. I came on when I turned on the radio the other day while driving to work and I found it really catchy. Take a listen!
I recently had to do an activity where I was given a very simple sentence and my task was to turn it into the longest sentence possible, ensuring that it was grammatically correct. I thought that I'd share what I came up with. It's pretty long, but I'm sure that if I had really put my mind to it, I could have made it a lot longer.
The original sentence was The child kicked the cat.
Here's my embellished sentence: While running wildly around the small city apartment, the child, who was still very young in both age and mind, decided that it would be an excellent idea to kick his mother's tabby, which she had found in a back alley and brought home to nurture back to health, and, in doing so, sent the poor, gentle cat sailing across the room and through an open window, falling down into the crowded street, filled with rush-hour traffic, below before his mother, who came running quickly around the corner, sliding across the recently polished hardwood floor in her sock feet, could do anything to stop him; the child, who was now crying abundantly with tears steadily flowing down his cheeks, was promptly punished by his angry mother who was now leaning over the edge of the balcony to verify the fate of her poor feline friend.
And not one part of that is a run-on or a comma splice error.
I hope you have had a good two weeks and I want to apologize again for not posting last week; things weren't going very well for me and I didn't have it in me to sit at the computer an blog. The effects of that might have been devestating.
So, what have I done in terms of Treason? A lot, actually, although no one would be able to know because I haven't actually put it down on paper or saved it to my laptop's hard drive. Nevertheless, the work that I do in my head - that isn't obvious to many - is perhaps the most important work that I could do. It's one thing to put words on paper mindlessly, but it takes real care and dedication and imagination to make those words mean something to a crowd of people.
I doubt that anyone would want to read about Sara and Nick if all they ever did was sit around and play go fish as the world slowly continued on normaly around them. No one would ever want to waste twenty dollars on something like that. So, it takes careful planning and plenty of mental work to make something interesting. On top of that, I've also been doing research, both with books and with my amazing anthropology skills. You know, so many people would be hesitant to agree that anthropology is one of the key points in writing. For me, I found it necessary to focus on anthro before I even started putting my thoughts into words. In order to create a story that is compelling and interesting, an author has to be able to study the lives of those around him or her, to register and carefully sort through a wide range of emotions, to experience a multitude - I like that word - of situations and record how every person involved responds. I once read something that said "Drama is life without the boring parts." Admittedly, it was about writing screenplays and not novels, but what's the difference? In both cases, the author had to come up with characters that are believable and that readers can associate with. If not one person is able to relate to the character that you have come up with, then no one will be able to feel empathy towards that character's situation. Without empathy, you have lost your audience.
The entire lovely speech was all to explain why I need to associate Nick with a certain smell. The sense of smell is the strongest sense that your body possesses and your brain is able to retain a certain smell years after the last time that you've encountered it. With this in mind, I find that the characters that I get attached to the most are always associated with a smell. Patch in Hush, Hush is said to smell like mint soap, Edward in Twilight is said to smell like sunshine - or am I getting that mixed up with another book? -, and I'm pretty sure that Sam in Shiver smells like laundry detergent - although I may be getting that one wrong, too. I've read too many books to keep track of! So after deliberating for days, I've decided that I'm going to associate Nick with cinnamon. Why cinnamon? Well, because I'm the author of these novels so I get to make executive decisions sometimes, and I like cinnamon. I haven't decided yet if it's going to be the artificial smell form say cinnahearts or cinnamon favoured gum, or the smell of real cinnamon found in grandma's spice cupboard. I feel weird saying that because I have my own spice cupboard that I worship and couldn't live without and I am nowhere near being a grandmother.
Well, since I didn't start off this posting by going on about my personal life, I'll give you a tip: wear sunblock. Whatever you do, wear sunblock. You will regret it if you don't. I was out in the sun over the course of the weeken and had the brilliant idea to wear a tank top to try and even out my farmer's tan. Not a good idea. Aside from the fact that I was wearing a ball cap and one arm is more burnt than the other, the arm that really got the sun is burnt to the second degree. That's right, it's blistering. And boy does it ever hurt. There are so many old wive's tales about how to make a sun burn feel better that I didn't know where to start so I did them all at once. Something I tried had to have worked because one arm is significantly better and the other doesn't hurt as much.
You're sunburnt and want to know what helps? Start with Advil, apply aloe to the burn as soon as you get inside, after that, I took a bath in cold water and eucalyptus oil to try and draw the heat out - hence the cold water - and heal a bit of the burn - hence the eucalyptus. After that, I coated the burn with zinc cream - more commonly known as diaper rash cream - and fell asleep. Somewhere between doing that and right now, the burn healed a bit.
The moral of this story? Enjoy the summer sunshine as much as you can but be safe while doing it. For the gingers like me, one word: SPF 110. I will post the song as soon as I get home. I am on my iPhone at the moment as I sit in a coffee shop feeling more like an author than I ever have before.
Have a good night, and remember: you need not be published to be a happy author, you need only to have written a book and enjoyed it.
Love,
Di
Song of the week! Tattoos On This Town by Jason Aldean. It reminds me of the time Sara spends with her friends in Brooksdell.
Mondays are just waaaay too busy for me! I have done some work on Treason that I am really, really, really excited to share with you guys but I just have so much to do! I have new shifts at work and that means that I'll be having to work every Monday. The bright side? Tuesdays are my days off. So, Tuesday will be my new date to post updates. Check back in tomorrow to see what's going on in Sara's life!
Hey! Looks like I was on time this week! I've managed to get most of my stuff organized and mostly finished, so I finally have time to do some of my own work! Woo! Can you believe that it's already June? This is crazy! The year is already half over! Hmm... I seem to be using a lot of exclamation marks tonight; I didn't realize that I was in such a good mood...
~
Well, I'm not in a great mood anymore. I am extremely busy tonight, so I had written today's post last night and I saved it in my drafts so that I could actually post on time this week, but when I returned to my drafts today, only the above paragraph had been saved, even though I hit save about five times before turning off my MacBook last night. Sigh. Oh well, I'll start it again.
I'm sure that most of you are going to be reading this tomorrow since after two weeks, you're going to have gotten used to me posting a day late, and when you see this post, two thoughts are going to pop in to your head. The first will be "Woah! She actually posted on time!" and the second will be "What the heck is up with this week's title?" Well, I'm about to tell you! Surprising, isn't it! On a side note, I'm feeling kind of sarcastic at the moment; can you tell?
In earlier drafts of Promise, I had introduced Sara by saying that she was from Kingston, Ontario, but I changed my mind a little while back because of Treason. A lot of the second instalment of the PTSD series takes place in Sara's home town and I think that it would have been hard to place the story in a town that I knew nothing about. Hence, Brooksdell.
I stayed up late on Saturday trying to put together a name for a town that sounded realistic but didn't already exist in Canada, and preferably not at all. Around midnight, I came up with Brooksdell and after checking Google Maps, I found that it didn't exist anywhere - other than a street named Brookdell Drive somewhere in New York - and so Sara's home town was born. I fell asleep shortly after that, but the next morning I set to work drawing a map of the town so that I could have everything in order. The picture you just saw is a rough sketch of the town including some of the major key points that will be found in the novel including Sara's house, her school, the police station, and the diner where she works.
I have also found a name for the camp, and I drew a map for that, too. I decided that Camp Windon Lake seemed like an appropriate name for a summer camp. I placed it geographically west of Algonquin Park where there are many other lakes and summer camps. I'm sure that Windon Lake and its camp will fit right in.
I was browsing through some pictures on the Internet the other day while procrastinating and I found this picture:
It seems like even the Avengers want me to get my lazy butt to work and finish writing my second novel. I don't know if I want to set myself a goal, such as having the first draft done by the end of the summer, or if that would just be setting myself up for disappointment. Thoughts? Leave them in the comment section.
Well, I am off! See you all next week!
Love you,
Di
This week's song was sent to me by a friend and I couldn't help but think of Sara and Nick's first night alone on the island. I think that this may be my song of the summer this year. Take a listen to Summer Paradise by Simple Plan featuring Sean Paul!
I'm sorry, I know that I'm a day late again, but I just have so much stuff to do! And because of that, this is going to have to be a fairly short post. One thing keeps coming up after the other. Hopefully things will calm down a little this summer. Hopefully. So, how has everyone been? Good, I hope. I know I have, I am totally enjoying this amazing weather. I'm a summer girl.
Sunless tanning lotion. You know that stuff that you put on and then, after a few days, it makes you look like you've actually put effort into tanning? Yeah, don't use it. The label lies. The bottle I bought said to apply it once a day as a body lotion for best results and that I should start to see subtle results within several days. I used it once, used it sparingly, and the next day, I was orange. And not just slightly orange, either. I mean, I was really orange. You could see my hand prints where I hadn't rounded out the edges enough. It was bad. Also, that hair removal cream? Don't waste your money on that either. All it does is burn you and then laugh at you by not removing half of your hair.
Okay, Treason, well, I have been working... a little... but mostly procrastinating. In my defence, I have been getting a lot of other things done, though! I'm pretty proud of all that I've managed to accomplish, actually. I have come up with a few new characters that are making their first appearances in the second instalment of the PTSD series, and I am working on developing the existing characters that are returning in Treason. Fret not, though, dear readers, because if your favorite character from Promise isn't featured in Treason, they will most likely make an appearance in Sacrifice!
Alas, I must already be one my way. Promise awaits corrections!
Goodnight and check back in next week! I love you all!
xoxox
Di
This week's song is a song that I chose to describe Sara and Nick's relationship in Treason at times. Please enjoy Luke Bryan's Do I?
When you read the title, you were supposed to sing it with the same rhythm as Rebecca Black's Friday. I'M SO SORRY THAT I DIDN'T POST YESTERDAY!
For all of my beloved American readers, yesterday was Victoria Day here in Canada, making it a long weekend, and what a beautiful long weekend it was! I had to spend every night at work, though, but I didn't mind it too much (getting paid time and a half was a great bonus for Monday). I found the time to get all over my notes organized - I'm starting to spend a large part of my pay check on ink, paper and binders- and I got some work done on Treason!
From left to right: Promise by Diana Knight, Promise by Diana Knight, Forever On A Silver Chain by Diana Knight, and PTSD by Diana Knight - Drafts and Ideas
I have almost thirty pages now. Twenty-two of those are written out by hand and are going to be a pain to type up - my handwriting is almost impossible to read - but it will sure be worth it. I can already see myself reaching sixty thousand words, something I couldn't have imagined doing with Promise. Managing to write 63, 989 words for Promise was a huge surprise even to me.
When I first started working on Promise during August 2008 - wow! Almost four years already! - I never intended it to be what it is now. I never thought I'd consider sending out the manuscript, and I certainly never thought that it would be complete enough to even be considered a manuscript. It wasn't even called Promise back then, because I hadn't planned on the other three books that now follow it. There was no need for the first book to start with a P in order to fit in with the series title PTSD. Back then, when I found it absolutely necessary that my first draft have a title, I called it Summer Love, because, that's what it was in essence. Summer Love told a very naive story about a teenage girl named Sara who somehow falls in love with a boy named Nick. The end. I only wrote it as a past time to get whatever idea wouldn't leave me alone back then off my mind. I thought it would be over when I wrote The End on the sixteenth page, but it wasn't. By December 2008, Summer Love had twenty-eight pages, seventeen chapters, and just a little over thirteen thousand words. Sara and Nick found a way to stay with me, even though I thought that I was finished with their story.
It was almost like they had a mind of their own and they did not want to be forgotten. Before I knew it, they were constantly popping into my head in all of these different scenarios that just had to be written down. In early 2009, Summer Love had grown even more. It now contained fourteen chapters, a prologue, and an epilogue, adding up to fifty-six pages and almost fourteen thousand words. I printed out the very first copy of Summer Love that I lent out for review on April 3rd, 2009. By that time, it had twenty chapters, a prologue, and an epilogue, spanning over fifty-four pages and containing twenty-two thousand five hundred words. May 2009 brought on some editing and the story was cut down to twenty-one thousand words, forty-eight pages, and an unlisted number of chapters.
The original - because of course I bought it! - is now in a time capsule, but I still wear a replica around my neck every day. It's my good luck charm.
In July, Forever On A Silver Chain was complete at almost one hundred pages. The plot was slowly starting to change into something more interesting. The idea of Sara getting hurt was introduced, and more chapters were added. This draft held twenty-seven chapters and was fifty words short of thirty thousand. It took thirteen months for the plot to become what it is today. In September of 2009, still under the title Forever On A Silver Chain, the plot of Promise was created. It took almost two and a half years after that for it to be developed completely into the manuscript that it is today. It was worth it. The series took on the title PTSD, giving the first book the title Promise, only a few months ago. It seemed that this change in title is what gave me the motivation and will to finish the book.
Instead of an excerpt, I'l leave you instead with the table of contents of my very first draft. The pages are few, and the chapters numerous - there was about three-quarters of a page of writing per chapter.
Now, doesn't that sound like a best-seller to you? (That was sarcasm, by the way)
Thanks for stopping in today, even if it is Tuesday, and thank you to those who stopped in yesterday. I'm sorry that I couldn't have something up sooner.
Enjoy the weather, and stay gold!
xx
Di
P.S. This week's song is hard to pick, there's just so many that I've liked over the past week. I'll leave you with two. There's A Place For Us by Carrie Underwood, and You Make Me Feel... by Cobra Starship Ft. Sabi
Here it is, the very first thing that I have worked on that has to do with Treason. Admittedly, it isn't very much, but it's a start. I really want to work hard on this an plan it before I actually get it started. More work has been done since then; I've created a whole thought web, complete with colour- and shape-coding. I have also completed and fully labeled a plot graph (yes, I do already have the beginning, middle, and end) and a completed outline. Today, I started writing the very first pages of the novel and it already seems like it's going to be a pretty interesting piece. I'm aiming for an approximate sixty thousand words again, give or take a few thousand. Hopefully give rather than take, however.
In case you missed it before, Promise is the story of sixteen-year-old Sara Leslie, a Canadian girl, who wants to remember the summer she turned sixteen. After going through a breakup, Sara leaves her quiet home in a still unnamed town to attend a summer camp in a small, forgotten town in southern Ontario. Everything seems promising until she meets a mysterious boy named Nick. Soon after, Sara starts to feel herself being watched and she finds anonymous notes bearing warnings pinned to her door. When she follows the instructions on one of these notes, she becomes the victim of a kidnapping. Sara needs to either hope that she'll be set free after the ransom is paid, or fight to leave with her life.
Treason is the second instalment in the series and continues to follow Sara as she navigates high school and work, trying to find balance between her education, her job, her social life, and her ever-complicated romantic life. The story promises to be funny, witty, and enjoyable... hopefully. You need to have a little faith in me.
It's getting a little late, so I think I'm going to call it a day. I hope to hear from you all soon, and just because I'm in a good mood, I'll leave you with a short excerpt from Promise.
“Well,” I started, “I don’t really know him. I hadn’t talked to him since I met him a month ago. We didn’t really talk much, though because he was kind of mean to me at first,” I explained.
“So if he was mean, and you didn’t really talk, can you please tell us how the two of you ended up alone together in the middle of the night a few days ago?”
“Well, something had happened earlier that day that was really disturbing – ”
“Something disturbing?” the man asked, looking up from his notes.
Let me start off by reminding you how much we all take the smallest things for granted. I think that my bed is the one that suffers most from that sort of abuse. Never will I forget how much my bed means to me. I left early Wednesday morning to drive to Toronto and I just got back. The thing that I missed the most was my bed. The food that I ate was amazing - a lot better than what I can make - but the sleeping arrangements cannot compare to the comfort of my own home.
However, I wanted rest and recovery, and I got it. I am sore all over from exercising so much, and I'm so tired that I can barely keep my eyes open long enough to write this, but mentally, I am so much healthier than I was a week ago. I was able to stop worrying about everything for a full week and find myself. Along the way, I also found some new friends that have forever marked me and changed me in a profound way.
Each person has left their mark on me and has helped me grow as a person or learn something about myself. They all allowed me to change and step out of my comfort zone, do things that I normally wouldn't do, and discover all of the potential that I have within myself to be a different, better, person. Leaving these new friends - who had to return to all corners of the province after the retreat - was probably the thing that hurt me the most to do. It only took a few days, but I made bonds with people that I doubt will ever break, and I only hope that we can all keep in touch.
I haven't started writing down anything for the second book yet because I have been so busy, but I have a couple of good ideas, starring two of your favorite Promise characters. I can't tell you who, but I will assure you that two familiar faces will once again be present in Treason.
On that note, I am going to leave you, as I'm simply too tired to keep going. Check in again soon, and I might have posted some new stuff. As always, you can follow me on Twitter at @DianaK_books for more recent and frequent updates on the progress of Promise and now Treason.
I leave you with a picture of where I got to stay for a week in Toronto, in the hopes that maybe it will inspire you to go outside a little and enjoy the beautiful May sunshine.
Good night,
Di
Oh, and this week's song is We Are Young by Fun featuring Janelle Monàe
Sorry! I know that it's not Monday, but I had a two-hour long meeting at work and then I had to stay and work a shift. By the time that all of that was over, I just had too much left to do and too little time to do it. Wouldn't it be great if there was 27 hours in a day instead of 24? Maybe then I wouldn't have so many anxiety problems.
It's amazing to finally be done what I hope is one of the final drafts of my book. Working on it for four years has been a great experience for me and it has allowed me to grow in so many ways - more than just professionally. My feelings about finishing are still all over the place, though. I didn't think I'd be able to finish before the end of the summer, and to have devoted myself so fully that I was able to write more in two months than I ever have in a year is an amazing tribute to my devotion to my work and to my hard-headedness. People tried to make me stop writing day after day. They tell me that it's a waste of time, that it's no way to start a career, that I'll never make enough money to survive and that I should focus more on my other studies than on my writing. To be honest, I'm glad that I didn't. I don't think that I've ever been more proud of myself.
The withdrawl is pretty hard to cope with though. People tell me that I work way too much and that sometimes, I just need to take a break and focus in myself. I decided that since I didn't listen to them about the first things they said about writing as a career, I should probably listen to them about this. "Taking a break," however, is not a very common term for me. I need something to focus on, something that I can do, something to keep myself busy. Now, when I'm bored and there's nothing else to do, I always want to pull out a notebook and a pen and start writing. Then, I have to remind myself that at some point, I need to stop. I've reached that point. The story is long enough, the plot is well developped, and all of the secondary details are there. There's nothing else for me to add.
Recovery. Recovery is also something I'm not very good at. One time, I hyperextended my leg and basically "popped" something - I'm not all that great with medical terminology Admittedly, I probably should have paid more attention when they were telling me what was wrong - in the back of my knee while I was playing basketball. At the hospital, I was told that I needed to be in a full, thigh-to-ankle, leg brace and on crutches for two weeks. Can you believe it!? Two weeks! Well, I ended up losing the crutches after two days, the brace was annoying so I stopped wearing it after a few days, and a week after the injury, I ran a half-marathon. That was three years ago. My knee still hurts, to this day. Note to self: when doctors tell you something, listen. Anyway, all of this to say that I think recovery is a good choice at this point because writing this book has made me miss out on so much. And so, I have set my own parameters for this recovery. First things first: getting my sleep schedule back to normal. No more trying-but-failing-to-fall-asleep-at-eleven-but-staying-up-till-three nights. No, now I try to be in bed and asleep before 10:30. So far so good. I've only been late once. Secondly, no more working until all of my assignments are up to date. I actually started to read The Catcher in the Rye as part of one of my assignments. It's actually a decent book once you get past all of the ever-present swear words. And finally, my eating habits. My vegetarian diet has really taken a blow over the last two months. I haven't started eating meat again - goodness, no. Two years and still going - I have just pretty much stopped eating vegetables, too. My diet now consists of Chinese take-out, snack foods and sugar. It's fast, I don't have to make it, and it keeps me awake longer - I'm too cheap to go out and buy coffee.
Finally, let's be honest, I need a good break. I need to relax and and be away from people and not worry about anything. That's why I'm leaving for Toronto tomorrow morning and I won't be back until Sunday afternoon... Just in time for another blog post on Monday.
So, I hope you are all doing good and continue to prosper in your own work and lives. If you're in the mood to take a break, take my advice and take one. You deserve it. And if you want a new excerpt next week, you're going to have to leave me some comments down below. No comments, no excerpt!
And instead of a song, I thought I'd leave you with a quote to reflect on this week.
If love was a choice, who would ever choose such exquisite pain? -Anna and the King
Thanks for stopping in,
Diana
P.S. I just want to give a big shout out to my friend Brooke who has always been there for me and has been one of my biggest fans over the years. I love you!
