Writing Wednesday: Between the Spaces

It’s been one of those weeks where I’m glad I can be flexible with my schedule. Monday morning after the kids were on the bus and my husband got home from a night of plowing we went out to get groceries. And I got a new computer mouse since mine just suddenly quit working a few days earlier. It would still scroll, but the cursor would barely move when I slid the mouse around. After getting groceries, we were going to stop at a diner here in town and get some breakfast. Turns out they’re closed on Mondays. So, we ended up stopping at McDonald’s instead. Not nearly as good as the diner’s French toast and home fries I was looking forward to.

Yesterday we decided to finally move our old bed into the girl’s room. We had to tear her old bed apart and bring it out first. Still need to move some stuff around in there, but her bed is all made up. That took a couple hours, and I ended up doing my editing and plotting after lunch instead of before. But I’m still making progress.

Not exactly one-liner Wednesday, but this works for Just Jot It Day 11. And now on to the rest of the post:

Today is Wednesday, which means it’s WiPPet time. Woohoo!! I’m getting to this early in the day, even though I should be focusing on writing. But, haha, I’m not so good with the focusing thing. And despite bouncing between my words and reading blog posts/starting this one, I’ve written 1200 words on In the Moonlight so far. I should be able to get a little more before I take the kids down to the bus then start on Defending the Heart’s words. So, for today you get a snippet from In the Moonlight. I’m finally nearing the end of this. It’s gone so far off the outline, I might as well have pantsed the whole thing. But, it’s finally coming together. For now, I have 11 paragraphs(simple math today, just today’s date) from chapter 28(I’m currently writing 29). Nola and Yasmin are reading Nola’s ancestor’s journal trying to solve the mystery of the house’s ghost. Nola’s mother just recently told her their two families have been twisted together for generations, and they’re seeing how similar these two were to them.

“I wonder if they communicated that way. Left each other secret notes, that kind of thing.”

Yasmin turned her head and smiled at me. “You are a romantic. I should have known.”

I felt heat flush through my skin and ducked my head. I hated the way blushing made me look, but it wasn’t really something I could control. I think I hated that even more.

She just laughed and kissed my cheek before returning to the journal. “Now this is interesting,” she said after a couple minutes. I hadn’t been paying attention to the words on the pages, watching her instead. I loved the way her eyes glinted as she read. This really interested her, and I thought it would even if not for the ghost.

“What?” I asked.

“They met at night. A lot of nights. Damn, I might be in love,” she said, her own face turning a little darker. “She might not have had a good grasp on spelling and grammar, but that girl was imaginative. And detailed.”

I barely held back a laugh and forced my lower lip out. “Does this mean I have to compete against a dead girl.”

She turned to look at me then laughed and nipped at my lower lip. “No pouting, Nola. I only said I might be in love. And is it any wonder, she is your ancestor.”

I couldn’t hold back the laugh at that. I’d never known anyone who could make me laugh so easily. Especially when I should be too sad to laugh. Mom wouldn’t have wanted that, though. Yasmin’s arm squeezed around me, as if she understood my thoughts.

“Let’s see what else she has to say.”

Yasmin started flipping through the diary, scanning through the pages. She’d read a few lines that caught her attention, even read out loud about one of her encounters with Josephine. And she was right. My ancestor did have a hand with detail.

I was hoping to have the first draft done by the end of this week. That might not happen, but it should be close.

And as for my progress so far this week:

• Write: Shooting for a target of 10000 words this week – 3721 words so far this week. May not quite reach the target. We’ll see. I didn’t work on any of the secondary projects on Monday but managed just over 1000 on Crash and Burn yesterday.
• Edit: Stained Blood – work through Story Toolkit & outline new scenes – slow progress on this so far this week.
• Plot: Loving the Devil – work through Story Toolkit – again, slow progress. I might set this one aside for now. It just doesn’t seem to be coming together. May switch to a different standalone project or just keep slowly picking away at this one. Not sure yet.
• Plot: Playing with Fire – work through Story Toolkit & continue exploring characters with Just Jot It prompts – slow progress on the Toolkit, but it’s going better than the others. And I have 2 more shorts with these characters
  • Power
  • Danger
• Side Projects – add 1500 words – 845/1500 words. Finished this week’s goal on Midas’ Daughter and more than halfway there on Dance with the Devil
• Listen: Midnight Sacrifice(Melinda Leigh) & Lady Midnight(Cassandra Clare) – I finished Midnight Sacrifice(enjoyed) and started Lady Midnight yesterday.
• Read: Finish Island of Glass(Nora Roberts), Harbor Lights(Sherryl Woods), Wild Irish Box set:books 2-4[I’ve already read book 1](Mari Carr), Of Fire and Stars(Audrey Coulthurst), Need Me(Tessa Bailey), Nothing Like Paris(Amy Jo Cousins), All Summer Long(Susan Mallery), & Love, Exes, and Ohs(Violet Duke) – I finished Island of Glass on Sunday(loved it) and Harbor Lights last night(liked), and started book 2 in the Wild Irish set. I’m going to finish that one then read Of Fire and Stars then go back to the box set and so on.
• Knitting: Finish Craigiecatt Hat – still making progress on this.
• Crochet: Giraffe Hat – not until I finish the other project
• A to Z challenge: Plots posts L-Z – nothing on this yet