#amnotwriting – Caroline Batten

NaNoWriMo: Day 6-7

Oh Dear.

Epic #fail on the word count front this weekend. I’m 5000 words behind par. Eeek. But I will catch up. Just need to rewrite a few hundred words on a panto script I’m directing first — more on that in another post. In the meantime, here’s another extract to prove I am actually writing.

‘Hi,’ she said, bravely smiling at the Cute Regular as she joined them. ‘You know if you asked her out, she’d say yes.’

His eyes, hidden from view, didn’t give anything away, but she couldn’t miss his frown. ‘Sorry? Do you mean Fliss?’

‘God, no. Lara. The blonde waitress at the cafe?’ Her voice wavered as the frown grew. ‘You sit in her section everyday so we, well I thought…’

Still frowning.

Steve laughed. ‘Fucking hell, this is why you go to that hellhole cafe. Mastercard moment.’

The Cute Regular gave a small shake of his head then, for the first time, he took off his sunglasses. His brown eyes twinkled as he turned to face her. ‘I’m Dominic.’

‘Now,’ Steve said, leaning towards Jasmine conspiratorially, ‘ask him why he goes to that hellhole of a cafe every morn–’

‘Hey, I work in that hellhole.’ Jasmine scowled at Steve before reality hit. Did he mean she was why… No way. Frowning, she turned back to Dominic. ‘Why do you go to that hellhole of a cafe every morning?’

He cringed, but never dropped his smile. ‘Why do you think?’

Was this some kind of joke? ‘The double espressos?’

‘They’re probably the worst in Bondi.’ He glanced down for a moment. ‘But the apple danishes and your legs more than make up for them.’

It had to be the single, nicest statement anyone sober had ever said to her and, without stopping to think, she kissed him.

More soon. Promise.

This Isn’t Procrastination

Honest.

Last week, I was messing around with WordPress templates to see if there were one where I could have links to pages on the Home Page. Surprisingly few let you do that. And as I was discovering this, I managed to activate one of the themes, messing up my live site. Yikes.

It was the kick up the butt I needed to sort out my site, so at lunchtimes and early mornings, I’ve found a theme that does let me feature pages, and I’ve also learned how to tinker with css. Get me.

And here’s the new site. Pretty?

Writing Book Three the Nano Way

As most of you know, I’m not exactly whizzing along with Book Three: Afterglow. To try and get things started, I’ve signed up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). To “win” at NaNoWriMo, I have to write 50,000 words of my novel during the month of November. That’s 1600ish words a day for 30 days — tough, but doable.
To get into the swing of things, I’ve mocked up a rough as toast cover. It’s not the final one by any means, but you should get the gist of what I’m going for.

Next up is my project plan — actually, that’s been done for years, but I could do with updating it, so that’s tonight’s job.

Then, come Sunday it’s getting up at 6am and writing for a couple of hours before the rest of the house wakes up.

If you’d like to keep updated on my progress, you can check out my NaNo page.

Now for the important bit, the bit you can do to help… KICK MY ASS.

If you see me on Facebook or other procrastination sites, please feel free to yell this at me:

Right click to save and reuse.

Love

New Hair…

Following on from my Cruella post, I can give you the following update. I have a new hairstyle!

Okay, it’s still blonde and it’s still bobish, but… I’m not sure I like it. It’s too short and too layered. Oh, I know it’ll grow and I’ll get used to it, but until then *sulky face*. In the meantime, to cheer me up let’s have a…

SWAG Giveaway — What are your hair horror stories?

We all know that misery adores company, so come head over to my Facebook page and share your haircut nightmares. I have swag to giveaway for my faves.

What’s swag? It’s “Stuff We Always Get” – basically author promo materials. I have #Forfeit & NAS bookmarks, pens, key rings, fridge magnets, wine glass charms… I can do you a whole #Forfeit set of wine glass charms if you want. Now, let’s hear those horror stories don’t be shy with the photos!!

If you’d like to get your mitts on my books, the Kindle edition is just £1.99 / $2.99 or utterly FREE if you have Kindle Unlimited / Kindle Owners Lending Library!

The Domestic Anti-Goddess

Now I’ll admit I’m not the greatest of domestic goddesses because there’s always a new book to write, but this… *hangs head in shame* The photo frame in Exhibit A has been on a 60 degree wash. I know. What level of crazy does a person have to be to do that? Everyone knows you should only wash glass at 30 degrees, right? #fail Mr B stared at me in utter disbelief, asking how? Well, our washer is in the utility room and the wall cupboards have a lot of crap on top of them (yet bugger all inside – go figure). Sometimes, when the washer gets a little vigorous, the crap falls off the units. I can’t tell you the number of times that photo frame has hit the tile floor and not broken. I guess one time, it had a soft landing in the whites basket and I didn’t notice it when I picked up the whole load and put it in the washer.

Now, how the hell do I make sure there are no glass shards in my daughters bedding? :s Absolute ‪#‎epicfail‬ #headinbooks

If you’d like to get your mitts on my books, the Kindle edition is just £1.99 / $2.99 or utterly FREE if you have Kindle Unlimited / Kindle Owners Lending Library!