Didn’t get any writing in yesterday. As I mentioned on Instagram on Thursday (below), I wanted to make sure I met my self-imposed deadline for sending Law of the Beast to my editor yesterday. I did.
I knew I better forgo the writing in favor of finishing the final read through before sending off the book because things might come up. That’s the biggest issue with working at home. Nobody willingly will give us free time to get things done. We have to make the time. Just like we would if we weren’t working at home. It’s just that there are far more distractions because home is home. There are animals to deal with, cleaning, and far more. It’s very easy to get distracted at home, and stay distracted. No boss is sitting there demanding you back to work. If you work in say, an office – that’s it. You’re there TO work. There is no postman at the door, delivery man, dog begging to go potty, parents calling your name. Unless you work with/for them, lol.
So I always plan for those instances. I try to factor in personal and home emergencies in any timeline I give, and allow for them to creep in. That way if something comes up, I know I’m still going to meet that deadline I placed. If I’m early, as I was yesterday? Perfect! I had 30 minutes of free time to turn of and relax. In my case, it’s playing Sims 4. lol
They had an anniversary sale that I only just found out about. Believe it’s over now, but the Deluxe Edition was down from $49.99 to $7.49. Needless to say, I treated myself because I have always loved the Sims. And with Win 10, it no longer plays the same. I have the games installed and the hacks that help Win 10 people play the older versions, but the screen size isn’t the same so I’m probably going to stick with Sims 4 and even the Sims 2. Sims 2 works fine, and actually looks okay, plus it gives me more options since I only have The Sims 4 Deluxe Edition. One day I’ll probably get the Pets expansion pack for the Sims 4 and call it good. That’s the only one I ever love upgrading to because . . . dogs. lol
However, I also thought of something fun to do with The Sims 4. Holly Lisle inspired it. My favorite (only real part I like) aspect of the games are being able to build and decorate homes. I used to do that before and create characters based off some of the ones I wrote, but I never had the full intention of creating houses based on them. And I realized I could do that! lol The inspiration that Holly Lisle created in me with it was from her using Minecraft to make a spaceship to explore. Something that people with that game could download and actively check out. Well, I don’t have a spaceship, I don’t use that game, but there are a few prominent homes in my books that I love and can make in the game!
Something fun for me to do in my off time, and something that I can do to share with others. The homes in my head can actually come to 3D life. I didn’t purposely get it for that reason, that was just a bonus I thought of after. Can’t share it the way Holly does, but I can take screenshots of the homes. They take me a while to build as I don’t have much free time for games, but still. Something funny too is that Holly actually ended up having something in her creations help inspire a story idea in that universe. I think it was a short story if I remember correctly. So there’s a chance I may end up having something like that happen, no telling. I don’t have expectations of it, but one never knows. Most of my ideas come from my dreams anyway.
Speaking of ideas.
== Finishing this on Tuesday Feb 12th 2020 == Got sidetracked with other things. Including the sentence above that I left off with.
The ideas was referring to my new one. I had this dream a few months ago. Two maybe? In the dream the girl was trying to chase after a love of hers after they’d just fought. She was attempting to chase him down because I think Earth was about to go kabloomie and she knew it. Funnily enough, I’ve been having many of those dreams. I think because someone from my past has been on my mind a lot lately and for whatever reason my brain is attempting to work it out because frankly I’m too chicken to reach out to him. So there’s that. lol
But also I’m being respectful. It’s not just me being a chicken. It’s been a long time and last I knew he was married so I don’t cross those type of boundaries. Hence we hadn’t spoken in so long. It was when he got married the friendship slowly dissolved. I miss him. Still love him. I miss his friendship, but it’s just one of those life things we all deal with. Life will gravitate us back together, or not, but because of that in the background I think it’s spurring dreams up. lol
I think that and other things similar in that area are being worked out in dream land because I find myself having many dreams as of late of that nature. Relational? Relationship-ish?
Anyhoozles – so that dream was interesting to me because near the end she screamed and suddenly there was a spaceship there as if she activated it. She’d just located her male friend, and a female friend was there. Then some sort of “mate” showed up who I felt would keep prodding at that term as if it was an order on a menu. You and I are mates now. Click here. Check out. Not an, “I love you,” let’s be together sort of thing. Cold. Sterile. Mates. Let’s go.
Which I found interesting. I woke around the time the “mate,” part was mentioned, but it made my brain percolate on that idea. As though they were “scheduled” to be together. Or it was a preplan at least. Not a specific date, but schedule as in – these two are marked for being mates. Those two will be mates when it’s their time. That sort of thing. So I began to play with that idea and more. THEN I realized that in fact, it tied in perfectly with the Guardian of Life series that I already have up. (Gotta make a page for it like I have for the Dark Illusions series.)
From there the idea bloomed even further. Once I thought of it tying into the series, then started to play with it more. So the past few days I’ve been working on a cover idea for it, then the title, and tada! Cover has been finished, as well as the title figured out. I’ll post more. Getting to be 4 pm here so gotta quit. Also my eye is bugging me because I gave Cruz a bath today from being a dirty dirty lil boy and he acts like a cat in a bath. Or a cat who doesn’t LIKE baths. We had one who didn’t mind them. He wouldn’t stand still. Kept wiggling, then splashed as I was scrubbing him up and the suds plopped into my left eye. So it’s irritated. Sore feeling. Probably just dry from the cleanser.
I imagine working on the cover hasn’t helped. My eyes overwork when I do.
Tomorrow hopefully I can go into it more, and speak about nearing the end of Scorched Silence. Unless I finish writing it tomorrow, in which case I will be saying woo – hoo – ee I finished the story. : p I was going to speak on the story and what the characters are dealing with, but this is pieced together and again, 4 pm is quittin’ time for me.
Oh! I asked my editor if I could share some screen shots of the texts she sent me this morning. She gave me the okay. This is what she’s been saying about my wolves in Law of the Beast. Made me super happy to read them. I had to “expertly” crop the other texts that speak on too much of the story, lol. So that’s what’s hidden. It’s one thing to share quotes, but a full screen shot I wanted permission to share.
By the way, if you’re interested, her contact information is here – www.creechenterprises.com. Please note too that she is also my best friend so our conversations can get interesting, hence my lil snippet right before hers that you can see.
Kimberly Sue Iverson - Author 