Tag: Contract Claimed

Week Three (Day One)

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

A couple of posts have been made private. They involved a co-worker I am having trouble with. Made private because someone showed her how to find my personal facebook and then showed her locked information which only stated I had cried, and apparently when my experience is dismissed and I’m talked over, I cry.

From how she spoke, I felt she believed I had threatened her, like I had come right out and made a physical threat in that one little post. I’m confident and comfortable sharing that post with everyone, but it was under a friends only lock.

The one who showed her my personal information has been removed, but I had to privatize the posts for fear of what she might read between lines that aren’t even there.

As many of you read, there was nothing threatening in the posts. There was nothing threatening because I only threaten people sarcastically and I need to know they know I’m joking before I do so.

I suppose that’s not quite true. I have threatened to hit a man three times my size if he didn’t leave right away. I also threatened to have someone arrested if they laid hands on me again.

And then did so.

The issue, of course, blew up in my face like it always does. Coming from a specific background, I have certain reactions that happen but I’ve worked very hard on them. I no longer black out during ‘discussions,’ but when I realize they aren’t listening, when they are only interested in beating me down, I start crying.

I can’t win and I want to rage or scream or swear, but instead I cry.

Mental health isn’t just one day strapping on your big-girl panties and being better. I try to show that with my characters, so yeah, I suppose I draw on real life because some moments of struggle the characters have are things I’ve had to work through. To me, it makes them more real. I hope readers feel the same way.

The result of yesterday?

I cried like I haven’t cried since I found an ex laying in his own blood, since he screamed at me everything was my fault and then stormed out of our apartment, still bleeding everywhere. I haven’t cried like that since I was on my hands and knees, cleaning up his blood, trying to figure out where I could go, how I could escape.

Oh yeah, there’s a bit of a fucked up past up in here.

I get asked a lot, “why would you put your characters through that?”

“Through what?”

“That, it’s godawful.”

“That’s a Tuesday. Just… give me the book back.”

“Why?”

“That’s not even the problem or the climax or the bad guy, just… just give it back. You’ll have nightmares.”

I’m not saying my life has been godawful, but it’s been… colourful. Character building. In the words of a good friend of mine: Enough has happened that I have fodder for a  million books.

So, when I get like that, I bawl my eyes out. My heart galloped in my chest, it’s rhythm completely out of place. I almost thought I was having a heart attack of some sort.

I’ve made changes to my life to protect myself and help myself that I have been practically normal for a few years. So normal that I forgot there’s a level of crying where your diaphragm starts trying to jump into your throat. That your stomach can heave, and you make that godawful wailing sound even when you’re trying to calm yourself down and your mind is calm but your body is just like, “FUCK IT EVERYTHING NEEDS TO END.”

Not like, end as in dead, just end as if the day. Straight to bed is what needs to happen.

I cried on and off for about four hours. In front of customers, because I’d be helping them and it’d just start again.

The why now seems distant. The why doesn’t matter as much. My reaction bothers me. I want to be able to put my foot down and say, “No. It’s not because I’m tired or stretched thin. It’s because I take issue with your actions.”

After that day, I still went bowling. Now I ache, in a good way. Every time I stand up, I think of Mr. Wrightworth. I started reading Contract Claimed yesterday morning. About halfway through.

I really wish this was longer. If not a trilogy, a duo. Almost inhaled a mouthful of coffee over the brunch scene.

I almost missed an assignment due date because I was so stressed out. Yes, I’m using that word even though the assignment is for Interpersonal Communication and we just learned the word is used too much.

I also clued out on a freaking Computer Test.

Go me.

I know what they are, I just sometimes lapse on their actual names and uses.

 

Awakened Week Two

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I’ve written about ten thousand words in the last week and I hate the struggle. I came up with the loose plot four days ago and then forgot it all. It’s like hitting a wall.

My sleep patterns have changed because the noisy neighbour moved out. Today I realized it’s been a year since I slept properly. No wonder I’m now struggling.

This morning I sat down and wrote out a rough geustimate of the plot. I started at the end and worked my way back because there was this little gap I was struggling with and working backward was definitely the way to go.

I’m hoping I can get a move on again. It’s about nine more chapters or about another 35k words. I’ll get about 23k this weekend but I do believe Awakened will be my longest project to date. I think even Contract Claimed was shorter.

I found and joined a high word count group and they think I’m burnt out.

I mean… Full-time job and the move and the life changes and trying to meet a project, okay. I guess they’re right but that’s not a great thing. I’ve been doing so good! I’m halfway there. May is supposed to be when I struggle.

When I’m going to Mexico the first week, and flying out for a wedding the the third week. Second week? Something like that.

I will have to just take it as it comes. This isn’t like the struggle with His Wings, I want to finish Awakened and I’m enjoying writing it.

All told so far, between writing and editing the books I’ve wrtten, I’ve clocked about 80k words a month.

Or about 320k from November until the beginning of Marcg. That’s still pretty darn good.

Oh, in other news. I’m about to finish the read edit for His Wings. The final draft will be up sometime this weekend. That’s another project down to bed.

If I can finish Awakened, I’m going to edit Contract Gifted again and hopefully get that up. Maybe get it up the first week of April. That’d be fantastic.

Claimed Week Two

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I finished Contract Claimed on November 11th at about noon. It wasn’t until I headed out for my passport photo that I realized the actual date, and that I missed a ceremony happening near me that I was supposed to go to. I can’t keep the days of the week straight, numbers are apparently beyond me. For some reason I thought Sunday was the 11th.

I’m disappointed in myself for forgetting.

After finishing, I took two full days off writing. If I finish early in the morning it’s technically two and a half because the days off start in the morning. But I think I need to shift the days off to my next weekend off. Monday, what with the day job, was a real struggle for me to get through.

I’ve made an amendment to the plan. It’s now write a book, read a book. The read a book isn’t strictly enforced because I may not always have time. These are indie books and likely always free.

I’m a broke author on the verge of starving artist, but all books will be downloaded legally so that the author gets that little nudge.

So, Sunday I read a book. And I hated it. That’s all I’ll say at this point. If I encounter a book I love I will, of course, go on about it and such. I’m all about spreading the good news.

Yesterday I went back to work. It’s all editing at the moment, as Fragments and Seed are both completed and are up next for publication.

Technically speaking, after that I can laze about for the next eleven months or so. I never promised publishing all the books I write in that twelve month period.

I doubt I’d make it more than a week before I started editing again, however.

I had planned on publishing Fragments in about two weeks, but life got in the way.

If this constant exhaustion could go away faster, that’d be fantastic. It’s my own fault for forgetting my iron supplement. About four more weeks before I see results. Ugh.

Besides editing, I’m going to be taking some time to help Beth out. She wants to rebrand, I think the word is. Come December I’ll be writing again.

Given the fact that it’s Christmas, and the busiest and most exhausting month of the year for the day job, I am planning at this point to write Contract Sealed, or more of finish it. I think there are four to six chapters left to write. It is not a full book by far and is within my rules for the year long run.

But four to six chapters in a month that last year reduced me to tears and a catatonic state once I left work isn’t asking too much of myself. I still have about sixteen days to change my mind but short of my workplace burning down, and my no longer having a job, that is my plan.

I can officially say:

Goal: 12 books written in 12 months

Current: 1 book written in 1 month.

Word count: (I’ll add this in once I have access to a computer)

Woo!

… But I know I’ll be cursing myself when I start editing.

Claimed Week One

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I swear, work knew I was going to update Wednesdays and changed my schedule to mess with me.

Also, because someone is doing it right now: who the hell puts their feet on a bus seat? What are you, an animal?

Of course not, because animals have more sense than that.

I even commented and the feet stayed. He just gave me this smug, lazy look. If the bus gets in an accident, I’m going to sue him for kicking me in the head.

Sleep deprivation makes me crazy… I know this, but I’m still upset with this guy. It’s happening more and more and they’re so rude about it, like I’m trying to encroach on their rights.

So, I haven’t really slept right since the beginning of October and it’s seriously messing with my head. Four noise complaints and nothing is happening so I’ve taken to blasting my music during the day. Partly to keep me awake and partly because I know the upstairs neighbour can hear it because it wakes him up and he starts whining about it.

Don’t mess with my sleep and I won’t mess with yours.

Or, you know, get a job.

Ugh, now I’m focused around that. Which is probably why my word count has dropped over the last two days. I’m so frustrated that I circle around one little event and can’t get the other words out.

So. Contract Claimed. Where am I at? Well, I don’t know the exact number but it’s about 47,000 words. About the halfway point too, possibly past that.

I’ve had some early morning shifts and empty buses. On those trips, I pulled out my tablet and wrote 3-4k words on the way to work.

For comparison sake, when writing a Coffee and Blood book, I can write between 3 and 5 thousand words in a day. The 5 is really pushing it now, so I tend to get between 1000 and 1500 per trip.

The issue with doing it this way is that my early shifts end next Monday, and I can’t use the tablet if I have my bag in my lap. Meaning that I can’t use the tablet if someone is sitting beside me.

Or has their dirty feet on the seat.

I’ve been making some pretty good headway with Contract Claimed given the fact that I have had one day off the day job in the last seven. That day I wrote about 19k words.

I watch something on the television and have taken to putting Sims on my computer with a vagrant who just drifts about. That way I can’t wander the internet because the tablet is slow in doing that and having Word loaded. Keeps me a little more focused.

I’ve also been playing music in the mornings as I have coffee, rather than sit in silence. I have to, though, otherwise I have to listen to the apartment above me having sex for thirty seconds and then fighting for an hour.

The music does help me focus, though, so there’s that.

However.

I’m having trouble distinguishing words. I keep mixing up the theres, my vocabulary has dropped and there’s a lot of wincing when reading Contract Claimed over word choice and repetition. The scary part is that I know it’s wrong, but I can’t remember enough words to know how to change it.

Sleep is really important.

Which is why I filed three noise complaints in the last week and started beating on my ceiling. Got called a fucking cunt. Because I want to sleep.

It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this godawful, because I removed all those people from my life. Now it’s turning me into a ragefilled, petty person.

Six more months and I can move. My next ‘roommates,’ however temporary they may be, are just about the quietest people I have ever met. I will sleep for a week straight.

In the meantime, all I can (apparently) do is hope my upstairs neighbour overdoses or forgets to pay his rent again, so he gets evicted.

Or breaks up with his girlfriend.

Something, anything. I just want to be able to sleep and then think again.

I am projected to finish Contract Claimed in the next seven days, of which I have three days off. But due to the neighbours it is definitely a rough draft and will need a major overhaul before being published.

Which is fine, because it’s not being re-published until after the second trilogy is completed.

That leads me to December’s (likely) book.

December is the busiest month of the year for my day job. I’m worried about setting myself up for failure by working on His Wings as I will be mentally and emotionally exhausted (not to mention the trouble sleeping). I’ve been bouncing around the idea of completing Contract Sealed instead. It’s almost done. I might be able to finish it in a week, allowing me to do a good job at the day job while maintaining my goal.

Basically the jist of this all is: I’m ahead on my word count and well on the way to finishing book 1/12.

Contract Claimed

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Is my November, NaNoWriMo novel. The cat was kind of out of the bag at the beginning of November for this one. It is (currently) on Smashwords for reader sets price.

Will has already gone off script. Now I’m eager to get to a part where Mr. Wrightworth beats him because I don’t like when characters do that from the get go.

Until April at least, I work every Wednesday afternoon/night. I’m hoping I can use this to my advantage for my weekly updates. Now I just have to get in that habit.

So, what’s going on with Contract Claimed?

Well, when I was sick back at the beginning of October, I had a fever dream that started about chapter two. Will dangling from the ceiling. That was my introduction to him and I’m trying to…

Oh, I think I might know how to work that into the first line. Hopefully. It’s a better hook that “it was a normal night being a pickpocket prostitute high on drugs.”

Excellent.

I have my tablet with me and my usb. I will likely work on it on breaks at work. It’s not pornographic in the beginning, just disturbing. Could be a horror. Suspense, maybe?

Anyhow. Besides that I haven’t got much of an update. It just started and I was late moving because I may have a throat infection thanks to this weekend.

Super tired, but 1400 words in an hour is still pretty good for being tired.

I need something like 2500 words a day to make my goal for the next year. Which is significantly lower than my typical goal of 3000. I am definitely still on track for making that.