As you have probably guesses since it’s been over two weeks since I posted my last career plan update, things haven’t been moving along on the Cherry Challenge book.

However, I am getting Sword & Illusion polished.

This has been a growth experience for me.

A couple of months ago, my sister-in-law (Beloved’s sister) and her husband came to visit her parents who are now living about a mile and a half from us.

Sister-in-law and her husband are artists. Painting/sculpting type artists. They had a business both when they lived in New Jersey and then again after they moved to California where they live now doing murals and faux finishes for both businesses and private homes. Their work is amazing.

Sister-in-law has painted the Girl’s bedroom twice (once in PA, once here) free of charge. Someday, she might do the same for the Boy.

Anyway, after all this time, both of them (SIL and her husband) have developed some back problems and the mural business isn’t working as well for them. So, they’ve been looking for other art-y type work.

Her husband was talking to Beloved and me about the struggles SIL has been having in finding her own “voice” in art. She would do something – he’d make suggestions – she’d do it his way – she wouldn’t be happy.

As he talked to us about this, we kept exchanging glances because it sounded so similar to the process we’ve been going through in our writing. Her husband is interesting to talk to because even though he isn’t a writer, he gets the creative process and we have great talks.

Anyway, that conversation has been instrumental in my “taking ownership” (I really hate that kind of nonsense blabber speak) of my own creativity and my writing. Beloved makes comments and will write whole new paragraphs/scenes to fix a plot hole or add a new cool idea to my story.

Sometimes, a lot of the time, what he adds actually does make the story better, and I generally just change the words around to make it sound more like how I would have written it.

However, sometimes, what he writes doesn’t fit in with the vision I have for the book. That may be because I haven’t shared everything that’s in my head with him. I might have thought I did but I’m find out I didn’t.

Also, I cut this book in half for length reasons and there are loose ends that need to be tied up and he came up with some ways to do that. Some I’m okay with, but some I’m not.

It’s very hard for me to tell him I don’t like something he suggested. Mainly because he gets so excited about what he wrote and he often thinks we agreed to something that I don’t think we did, so I go in one direction and he goes another way. I finally have had to tell him that I just don’t like something he wrote or some idea he had.

It’s been a tough process because I have some insecurities and pretty much believe he’s a better writer than I am and I would rather just do it his way than fight about it. But that doesn’t make me happy, so I have had to learn to be honest and say, “Hey, I don’t like this so I’m rewriting the scene to fit my vision.” Usually we can find a compromise, but in the end this is my book, which he recognizes, and I have to be strong enough to stand up for it.

All that being said, I honestly think I see a day when I can proclaim the book totally, 100% finished.

I don’t quite know what life will be like when I don’t have this book to work on, but I’m looking forward to that day!

Tuesday didn’t go so well, or it went great, depending on how you look at it.

I got Sword & Illusion edited (or at least I worked on it for an hour), then I read my husband’s book and critiqued it for an hour. Then I took my little Netbook and went to the carpool to pick the Boy up from school.

He told me he needed a glue stick for school so I thought we’d head over to Target. I needed light bulbs anyway.

Our nearest Target is next to a Best Buy and I’ve been wanting a Wii Fit since about Christmas. I asked for one for my birthday in Feb but Beloved couldn’t find any and got me a George Foreman Grill instead.

Anyway, when I asked at the Best Buy about it, they never could tell me when they were getting them in. We got the final check from my mother’s estate, and I’d put a bunch of random checks, including that one, in the bank.

So, since we were right there, I thought, oh, let’s stop in and see if they have any. They won’t but we’re right here anyway.

Well, they had them! Not the Wii Fits, but the very helpful saleman answered my questions and told me that another store across town had Wii Fits and I could pay for it there and go to the other store and pick it up. Cool.

So, I got everything this guy recommended I needed and an extra game for the Boy and A Biggest Loser workout disc for me. It was more money than I expected but as Beloved said, I’m an heiress now and we have a bit of extra cash.

I’m also considering getting a Nook or a Kindle so if anyone has any comments on either one, I’ll take it.

We brought everything home (didn’t get to Target) and started the set up. Then the Gril and Beloved came home, we had dinner and he headed off to RCIA at church. His mom is finally feeling up to getting out of the house again, so that’s good.

The kids and I headed to the Mall where the other Best Buy is and picked up the Wii Fit and bought an Alice in Wonderland game for the Girl.

Then we came home and set THAT all up! We made Miis for all of us and the Girl and I did our body test on the Balance Board for the Wii Fit. It gave me a Wii Fit age of 60 – NINE years older than I am!!! It made the Girl about 8 years older and when Beloved did it, 13 for him. I don’t think that’s quite right since he runs 3 times a week, but he had trouble figuring out the balance stuff.

So, in the end, I only got about 2 new pages written, so I’ll have to do some catching up!

Yesterday started out a bit rough. I was a little angry at the world and my family in particular.

I woke up all excited about my new plan for my career, but then Beloved reminded me that I need to edit Sword & Illusion first, then read his book. I figured out as I drove home from dropping my son off at school that this could work. It would be fine.

I had actually tried to start the new book before the kids got up but the place I chose to start was the wrong one and I didn’t even get one sentence written. Beloved told me later I couldn’t say I’d tried because that wasn’t even trying.

I went to Weight Watchers and was up again and that actually threw me into a depression and I came home crying.

At that point I decided I couldn’t do anything I wanted to do and I planned to give up.

Good attitude right? I told you the day started rough.

Whining and complaining on IM to my spouse kinda sent me into a spiral of feeling sorry for myself and when he kept asking if I’d written my 7 pages yet, I got mad and turned off the computer.

I went into the laundry room, cleared out two boxes of stuff I had left over from HeartLA’s luncheon last year. (Sherrily Kenyon is our speaker this year – you should come!) Then I folded a load of laundry while watching the second ever Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode on Roku.

By the time that was all finished, I felt better and figured out that I could do this.

I went to pick up the Boy from school and actually started the new book. After everyone else had gone to bed I finished my seven pages!

All in all, day one went not too bad!

This weekend I was at the Jubilee Jambalaya Writers’ Conference in Houma, LA. It is a small, but very well respected conference.

Harley Jane Kozak was the keynote speaker, if that tells you anything.

Besides the funny and inspiring keynote address by Ms. Kozak, I attended two workshops given by Cherry Adair. She is a funny and very personable lady (as were the other authors I talked to) and in the last workshop she made an amazing announcement.

She said if we, the participants in that workshop, could finish a book – that is finish, polish and have ready to submit, in a year (actually, the deadline is about 11 months away), she would put the name of all finishers in a hat (bag, box, basket, something) and pull out one. For the winner, Ms. Adair would provide an all expense (hotel, airfare and registration) trip to the Emerald City Writers Conference in Seattle, where she lives, for October 2011!

How’s that for motivation?

Well, of course, I signed up for the challenge, and last night, after coming home from Houma, Beloved and I sat down and figured out my career plan (something from the other workshop I attended). I figured out that I could conceivably write two 300-page books in a year.

So, I got up today (only hitting the snooze once) and sat down to work on this new book – one I kinda plotted out doing NaNoWriMo in 2005.

Then I was sidetracked. Sword & Illusion needs to be edited, as Beloved critiqued it while I was gone and apparently “fixed” some of the “plot problems” with his own ideas that I will have to re-fix or veto. Then I have to read and critique his book Cult of the Red Tears. After all, it’s only fair for all the work he’s done on my book.

So, I’m hoping to start work on Stretched to the Limit next week. I’ll keep you posted!