What's Up Wednesday- October 15th

Fall Writing Bootcamp, Halloween Madness Continues & my Water Lilies are blooming again

What's Up Wednesday is a weekly blog hop geared toward readers and writers, allowing us to touch base with blog friends and let them know what's up.  Should you wish to join, check out Jaime's or Erin's lovely blogs and sign up with the link widget at the bottom of the post.

WHAT I'M READING

I downloaded BEAUTIFUL CREATURES as a bit of a reward for getting A LOT of work done this week.(Seemed fitting for October) We're also listening to the audiobook of DAUGHTER OF SMOKE & BONE to relax before bed. I have ulterior motives for this as well related to Boy Chris' Halloween Costume quandary. (More on that below.)

WHAT I'M WRITING

I actually got some words down this week. I hosted a couple of Word Sprints/Writing Parties as part of the YA Buccaneers Fall Writing Bootcamp. It forced me to take a break from the madness and actually get my butt in the chair...er hammock. But it resulted in new words! Hooray! And it was so fun to write with such an awesome group of writers. We're doing it again tomorrow, Thurs. at 2pm EST. Join us on Twitter under the hashtag #FallWritingBootcamp 

WHAT ELSE I'VE BEEN UP TO 

The Halloween madness continues. Had a bottling party for our custom Halloween Bad Wolf Brown Ale. So in case anyone's counting, that's now 3 parties prior to our actual Halloween party. *facepalm* At least it's forcing me to keep the house clean.

However, I'm spending so much time making other people's costumes that I will be lucky to finish my own. Plus, trying to get Boy Chris to nail down his costume idea is like pulling teeth. He wanted to go as Pseudoscience! 
Him: "What?, Pseudoscience is SCARY. It pretends to be SCIENCE!" 
Me: "No one is going to get your costume." (again)

However, cunning little me miiiight just have decided to listen to DAUGHTER OF SMOKE & BONE with him in the hopes that he will decide he really wants to be a Chimera. I really want to make him a Chimera costume. *crossing my fingers for Ziri* 


WHAT WORKS FOR ME

This is kind of a simple trick, but it's been really useful for me so I thought I'd share. I found that I spend a lot of time reading what I've already written to figure out where I left off and what I need to write next. I also jump around a lot and write sections out of order. So I've come up with a system of searchable symbols. I have a symbol for where I left off writing, as well as symbols for things that need more research, etc. I put them in bold so they are easier to remove afterwards. And I put any notes I might have between the symbols. That way with a simple "find and/or find and replace", I can find all the spots in my MS that still need work, all the spots that need research, etc. & so forth. Simple, but it saves me a ton of time rereading and scrolling through pages.