There hasn’t been much to report with my series so far, but I have been working on it, so what’s been going on?

1. I had to change some names. Monica and Marnie, James and Jared. Too similar. I’ve never been one to care about names that much. If I like it, haven’t used it in a story before, and it feels right for the character I can see in my head, then I go for it. But sometimes I get stuck on a letter and I can’t let go. Monica has been changed to Rita, and James . . . well he was going to be an Andy, but I don’t like that as much as I did when I chose it. I need to break down and buy a baby name book already. I’m in Barnes and Noble enough. I just gotta remember to do it. Note to self: James is no longer James, but he’s not anything else right now either. Sigh.
2. I needed a new town name. I came up with a cute town name I like, so I didn’t have to steal from Aila. See previous blog post for that backstory. I came up with Rocky Point, Minnesota. I don’t know if that exists, but doesn’t matter either way. I needed a name that fit what my perception of the town is, and I came up with something, I don’t know, I think in the shower. I made a logo for it, just for the heck of it. It’s a nod to the snow because I set the story in December. Will I put that logo anywhere? Probably not. Just something I did when I should have been transcribing.
3. I have been writing, and I’m at 52,000 words. I know how the story goes from here; I just need to sit down and write it. I’m still battling a bit of a funk, especially today when I sat at the shop for 2 hours while an oil leak in my car was fixed. But the guys who work there are cute, so it wasn’t too much of a hardship. I’ve given myself until the end of the month to finish up. I usually meet my self-imposed deadlines. I’ve never had an issue with self-motivation. Especially when it’s something I enjoy doing. I have five pages to transcribe since I made good use of my time at work over the weekend. I’ll do that tomorrow, and hopefully put some new words down too.
4. Character sheets. This could be a whole blog post about character sheets, but really, I write down what I need to remember in a notebook and call it good. Canva is fun to play with if you want to make a kind of template for character sheets. Print them out, fill them in with facts. I mean, who doesn’t want an excuse to buy more office supplies? Just remember, do you need a character sheet template, or should you be writing? If you have to ask, you probably should be writing. On the other hand, if creating something like that gives your mind a rest and fills your creative well, why not? This isn’t a template, but it’s a short one I created for Jared.

   

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So that’s what I’ve been doing. I need to start making better use of my time. In a different blog post, I’ll fill you in on the progress I’ve made going wide. All the books I’ve chosen to pull out of KU have finished their 3 month time. I did leave 1700 in there and Summer Secrets, but I’ll pull them out so I don’t cause readers confusion. I don’t plan to put them anywhere else, as I don’t consider them part of my backlist, but I don’t want only some of my books to be in KU and not all.

Take care everyone! Spring will be here . . . one day!