And the next ghost story is...

The Haunted Hotel. Based partly on the Goldfield Hotel I've written about at my ghost blog: Wee Ghosties: A Beginner's Guide to Ghost Hunting - but for kids. A no babies down a well. yeeesh.

Vyolette has chosen Adam to be featured in the story. To quote, "ADAM! I said Adam, Mommy, he's my boyfriend." Adam, we'll expect you for Christmas dinner, bring the wine for your new mother-in-law.

New goals post-Nano - who wants to be famous?

While I'm waiting for the NaNo buzz to die down and give myself space from the zombies (I started editing yesterday and discovered I'm bloody brilliant - a sure sign I need to step away), I'm headed back to short stories. My back up plan was to roll out short ghost stories to fill in the rest of the 50k if/when zombies fell short. Well, the little buggers over-performed and I'm left with some awesome ideas itching to claw their way out of my brain.

Hmmm, what should I start on first? The one with the most comments gets chosen and Vyolette will choose one of those people to be in the story. Who's in?

• Haunted barn
  
• Plane crash
• Hotel - kid's story
• Sleepwalking
• Lighthouse
• Haunted objects
• Seance
• Tarot
• Mad Anthony Wayne (colonial ghost)
• Shipwreck off S. Carolina coast

*Deadline - December 8th*

Big finish aaaaaaaaaaand Jazz Hands!

Well that sort of snuck up on me. I have no idea how I pounded out around 4000 words today to finish the Zombie Dating Guide a day early -- must've been the wine. Now I'll have a bunch of drunk undead singing show tunes in the last chapters of the book but who cares! I'm done!

Not once did I use Dr. Wicked's Write or Die though I am still a huge fan of his evil ways. And I can quite recommend wine to help ease along those squicky chapters writing about zombie love scenes. Okay, I didn't go very far into that -- some things are just better left to the imagination. Ew.

So what is left? I have a nasty 1700 word a day habit to keep up; I'm heading straight into Pocket Full of Posies which is flopping along around 5k right now and getting back to mundane tasks like paying bills and showering. I'll start editing soon since I have lovely beta readers backed up to show their undying support. Get it - zombies - undy...forget it. And my family may want to see more of me than the back of my head and the Cone of Silence.

Did I miss a holiday?

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimm...

It's odd when you get your inspiration from a memory challenged fish but facing the last two day of NaNo it makes sense. Then again, at this point, taking advice from Walt the maniacal monkey makes perfect sense too and I've turned the Zombie Dating Guide into a 50k word love machine. Some of it is good -- some not so good but that's the point of hitting 50k, I can now edit like an undead freak. Wait. That would make a good chapter... *goes back to add notes*

So, what do I have to look forward to in the next month or so? Aside from copious amounts of money flowing out my door and into Santa's fat pocket, I get to rip apart the zombies and make them sing. Muhahahah, I can't wait. Those bastards put me through hell. ;)

What's up for your Decemeber?

The ones we leave behind

NaNo is almost over and I'm over 41k words! YAY me! Come Tuesday, however, I'm going to owe my family BIG for the neglect they went through for the past 30 days. Days of frozen dinners, questionable laundry and hairballs the size of Montana due to spotty vacuuming.

Big sloppy writing kisses for my girls and husband while I pull through to the final stretch, I can't believe y'all have never once questioned my sanity even when I faked you out with my Cone of Silence headphones and pretended not to hear your repeated requests for apple juice and... dinner.

FIVE more days, people!

Updating your author's website

I needed a wee break from zombies so after reading this great article from WOW Women on Writing, on what every author's website needs, I hopped right on it to give my site an update.

I wrote about this very subject nearly two years ago on this blog and the advice is still the same:





- Name (duh)
- Contact information: don't make this hard to find, people have very little patience for cute buttons or tiny fonts.
- Samples: up to each author whether or not they'd like to post but it can be very helpful when an editor pops by to see if you're a good fit for their project
- Graphics: keep these to a minimum. Absolutely nothing animated nor flash pages to slow down your load time.
- Keep it clean: use lots of white space to ease the eye. Nothing screams amateur more than a page glutted with excess distractions that take away from your message.
- Links are great but don't lead people away from your site unnecessarily. Keep your personal blog or that of your dog off your professional site. Linking to your work, however, is a great way to show off your talent.
- Domain name. Keep it short, such as yourname.com or yourname.net if possible.

What do you find valuable on your site? Any recommendations to add to our list?

NaNo updates

Oy. This weekend kicked my ass like Chuck Norris on a bender. Saturday, my ML, Susan and I drove to Harrisonburg, VA, to meet with other wrimos in a love fest/write-in. Awesome people, though we're all wondering why Panera has outlets on the ceiling instead of where it's convenient for people to steal their power supply. WTH? Much laughing and bonding -- but no writing. So today hubby took all five girls bowling so I could beat the crap out of zombies by about 4000 words. Hours and hours and an Atkins Peanut Butter cup later, I'm done and ahead by ~400 words.

Me go sleepy now.

Now my plans are to figure out how to lose the new ass NaNo has created for me as I type.