1. Go to the gym.
2. Write a chapter of LIAR SOCIETY 2 in the afternoon so I could spend my evening eating ice cream and dicking around on the interwebs.
Yeah, I like to dream big.
I'm proud to say I accomplished both things. I was particularly proud of my chapter because I managed to make it all about dodgeball. And really, who doesn't love dodgeball? I sent it off to Laura feeling very smug and titled the e-mail, "All yours! Happy Mother's Day BIATCH!"
You see when we've really hit our stride with a WIP the manuscript becomes a little like a hot potato. I love it when it's Laura's turn to write because it means I can watch TV and Tweet completely free of guilt.
So, imagine my surprise when I got the following e-mail sent back to me a few hours later:
"Your chapter is awesome, seriously. Dodgeball? Genius. But, you wrote it in present tense. Ha."
Yeah, for the record our manuscript is written in PAST tense. I'm an idiot. Please, please tell me you've done something this stupid when you've been swept up in your writing? I mean how does that even happen?
Onto more exciting news, cue the drumroll because we're ready to announce the winners of the signed copy of BEFORE I FALL
and the copy of PICTURE THE DEAD
....Icy Roses (aka the gorgeous XiXi) you win BEFORE I FALL
! Congratulations and send us your address! Hoorah!Stina Lindenblatt (as you already found out on Saturday...) you've won PICTURE THE DEAD
. This is probably old news for those of you who following us on Twitter or for those of you who have friended us on Facebook. As for the rest of you why aren't you following us anyways? We can be pretty entertaining in 140 characters or less. What's that you say? You don't Tweet? Well, just friend us. It's all synched up, baby. That's just how we roll.Happy Monday everyone!
*Note to my Mom, Grandma and any other non-Tweeting, non-texting anti-acronym readers: FTW stands for "for the win." See, you really do learn something new everyday. You're welcome.
63 comments:
If you write stupid stuff, my mistakes are downright brainless.
:(
Some of my worst, 'wait, I did what?' mistakes include:
1)Having objects materialize out of thin air. Like... swords suddenly appearing in a prison cell... *sigh*
2) Switching POV accidentally in at least six scenes after two major edits.
3) Switching from third to first person two pages into a book.
4) Swithching from first to third person fifty pages into a book.
5) Forgetting the female half of an entire race.
6) Having a character in two places at once.
So um... please don't feel stupid? :) Or at least, don't feel alone! Thank goodness for proof readers! (Although I caught the plothole about swords in the prison all by myself... Impressive, right? ...yuppers.) Seriously, my plotholes oughta be called plot-canyons. *sigh again*
:D
Ooh, have I been absentminded while writing??? Hmmm....eh, yeah.
I love the one where I change the physical details of a character within the same chapter. Confusing?
And where an idea seems to be flowing so vibrantly onto the keyboard, only to read it after and realize it's a practically impossible scenario.
";-)
Sheri~
I do stupid things all the time. I'm lucky to get a chapter done. Kudos to you for getting the things done you wanted to (present tense or not).
Congrats to the winners!
For the Win! That's what my daughter calls it, yay! She knows the other, darker phrase as well (she's fourteen) but I'm quite happy that she doesn't admit to it.
Oh and I don't do twitter, not because I think it's dumb, I do get it, I'm just worried that as much as I love blogging twitter will become even more of a time suck. I don't have time for that.
I catch myself writing in first person present all the time. Probably b/c for this one I switched to third person, past tense. Lots of "I"s slip in there ;-)
p.s. I posted out book club today.
I played picture linky with three blog posts and the blog this weekend, so I accomplished what I wanted. Thanks for the Monday funny, even if it wasn't intended that way.
Sounds like a successful and unsuccesful weekend! Those are my favorite... you work hard only to realize you messed something up, that happens every day!
I used the wrong tense a lot of the times while writing, I get so engrossed I forget that the chapter may be good but if it's in the wrong tense it means nothing! Grrr!!
Thank you, I really did not know what FTW meant. Guessing there is another meaning that I now must google.
Love,
The Regulator
I feel your pain with the whole past/present tense thing in you WIP. One time, I banged out a couple of chapters. I was on a roll. It was awesome. I sent them to one of my critique partners and she was like, "uh...each chapter is in a different tense, some paragraphs are in a different tense...I think it would be best if you stuck with one."
Yeah- I felt so stupid. I was on a roll and really (obviously) not thinking. Duh.
Oh boy, I am really getting behind the times now that I closed my Twitter and FB accounts. yikes! Might need to get back on the fast track with you bitches.
Whew. I've now cussed in a comment. VERY un-like my southern lady self.
This post was fab, as usual.
love y'all!
Yeah for getting stuff done! (What's that like?...)
You had me at "dicking around."
Side note: I think I'm back girls. Like, back back. The funny, the good humor, the overall jovialness creeping back in. Just thought you should know.
I was shocked when my current WIP started coming out in present tense. What the ...? But then I'm fully, completely, swooningly in love with this WIP. Maybe we only write things we love in the present tense? Hmmm... :)
Switching over to writing in the present tense is the sign of a great writer. It means you are so into your character that you think in the present, which really is more natural than thinking in the past. It's a good sign. Really.
You don't want to know the mistakes I make while writing. Lol. Frightening!!
Yeah, I've totally done that. I recently discovered that, for about 10 pages, one of my male characters had been referred to exclusively with female pronouns. Yep. Apparently I gave him an unexpected sex change operation right in the middle of all the action.
Doh!
At one delusional moment, I decided that my completed manuscript needed to be changed to the present tense. (I got through about 30 pages before I realized that the past tense was better.)
But even worse, I was working on another manuscript at the same time, which I started to write in present tense too (even though it was supposed to be in the past tense).
I think I fixed them both, but I'm sure I'll still find some remnants of errors when I do revisions.
Oh, been there.
My recent favorite example of personal writing idiocy was flipping between first and third person throughout an entire chapter.
Uh, yeah. CUTE.
Why not take your use of present tense as evidence of how in the moment you are? Yeah.
And thanks for explaining FTW--I never knew what it meant, and I was too embarrassed to even google it.
That's funny. I once started a book in first person, but by page four I went back to third.
Hey a chapter is a chapter, lol! Hope you enjoyed moms day everyone!
Yay for your chapter! I write in close third person, and have been known on occasion to slip into first person without realizing it. >.<
I have to tell you it thrills me to no end that your MS is written in past tense. I heart you even more for that. Why? Because I hate rules. Glad you had the day you wanted!!!
Okay, I friended you guys!
And I slip into first person all the time by mistake, so don't feel bad!
lol - yeah. Been there - well you've seen a portion of mine.
My problem is telling not showing.
It is my challenge.
I face it with guns ready and fingers itching to type.
It laughs.
I cringe.
It laughs.
*I-stand-wondering-what-to-do-next*
;o)
Congrats to the winners!
Visit My Kingdom Anytime
No one makes mistakes like that...just you.
Ok, I am a liar. How about editing so much that you delete a key piece of info that makes the next five chapters of your ms make absolutely no sense at all.
Not that I have ever done that...
I wrote my whole novel in past tense... except for one scene, smack in the middle, in present tense.
And then in a different scene, I attributed dialogue to the wrong characters at the end. Like, it's a convo between Ricky, June, and Carly... and at the end I'm like blah blah blah Paul and Maddy. Really? Where did that come from?
Here's to first drafts! - and anyone brave enough to read them!
Wish I had a sis I could entrust my first draft crap to.
know I seriously need to get into Twitter. I'm just afraid because facebook was too time-consuming for a while there until I adjusted... Twitter will seriously hack into my writing time. But I will follow your pages on facebook!
Oh, we all do stupid things sometimes. That's why we don't send in rough drafts and why we have critique groups and beta readers.
Congrats to the winners!
Talk about ambitious, my three goals this weekend were:
1) Write a chapter
2) Clean my room
3) Give my wife a sweet backrub
I sort of accomplished them. I didn't write my chapter, but I brainstormed on it and figured out a few very important things that could have made me rewrite the whole chapter later. I DID clean my room (woo hoo!). I gave my wife a backrub, but it was probably less than sweet. I tried, though. Stupid arthritis hands at the age of 30.
I've jumped across the Gulf of Tenses more than once and then had to swim back.
Happy Monday and belated Mother's Day! Hope it wasn't too hard to edit the chapter back into past tense. ;)
So funny, I had to look up what FTW was last night (before this post) looks like I could have waited... LOL
Yeah, I've totally done the present/past tense thing. Tenses are a b*tch!
I agree your tweets are excellent ;o)
Suddenly it hit me that I'm the reader who's like your mom and your grandma. I've avoided Twitter, but yeah, FTW - you don't wanna know what I imagined that stood for. :)
Congrats on a very productive Mother's Day weekend! :)
Writing the whole thing in present tense is not so bad. It sucks when you start off in one tense and then suddenly, inexplicably switch to another at some random place in a scene, and when you catch it some time later, you're like WHY did I do that? How did that happen???
I know what you mean, I find myself speaking about my day in 3rd person.
shelli wrote a chapter today. Shelli hid i the closet - for 3 hours - it was a great nap.
I get first person and third person mixed up all the time
doh!
lol. I totally slip when I'm on a roll. I feel like I just wrote the golden chapter and then I reread it the next day and I find something like, "she was really sad."
Greatness, right? Can't you feel the emotion? The strong verb and adjective make it course throughout your being, right? I love show don't tell.
When I'm extra-enthusiastic, I like to add additional consonants to my 'net acronyms. FTFW is my current favorite. Would you like me to translate for the benefit of your anti-acronym readers...?
Oh, and yes I've written in the wrong tense before. I blame that on CP-ing for people writing first person present. It bled into my first-person past MS and made me cranky when I found it after five pages or so. *facepalm*
Ha ha ha! Yep! It's embarrassingly easy to screw up tense. LOL!
Congrats to Icy Roses and Stina! :-)
Tense is a constant nemesis of mine, especially on internal thoughts. Damn you, arbitrary applications of time!
And the tense thing? I do it all the time. Present tense while writing and seeing the action unfold then I have to change it during editing.
P.S. This post roxzors. :)
Um, that's hilarious. But at least tense is a pretty easy fix!
I've started a little co-writing project and I have all kinds of new respect for you girls. Writing with other people is HARD!
I've messed up tenses when I'm working on more than one book at a time. Easy mistake. Luckily, it's also an easy fix :)
Congratulations, Stina! You're just cleaning up around the blogosphere!
Congrats to Stina! Sounds like you both had a great Mother's Day, despite the present tense episode!
A dodgeball chapter? That's serious awesome.
And I just learned what FTW means. :)
Um, can't say I've ever switched tenses, but i have screwed up character names. In my head I knew exactly who I meant. I just used the wrong name, and didn't realize until someone else reads it and asks, um, since when is he in this scene. *blushes*
Oh, and BTW--Dodgeball is ALWAYS made of win. Sounds like an awesome chapter. :)
Happy belated Mother's Day, ladies!
And why wasn't I following you on Twitter? Thanks for throwing the link in there. I thought I was already!
But if you were perfect all the time, you wouldn't have awesomely funny stories to tell us.
I added a character to my wip. His name is DANE. About halfway through the second chapter, I started typing DEAN. Every. Frickin. Time.
*sigh*
Dicking around on the interweb...that's funny. Dumb stuff, well seriously, it's called being human. We call can't be as perfect as we want to be all of the time. Mistakes are what make life interesting, right?
I've been known to interchange character names when I'm really in the flow of a piece. Yeah, embarrassing, and more frequent than I care to admit.
Congratulations to the winners! :o)
Congrats to the winners :)
I do all kinds of weird and wonderful things in my writing. I mentioned an item in the first or 2nd sentence of the ms that was going to have a huge impact on the story ... then promptly forgot it and never mentioned it again. *sigh*
My favorite is at the beginning of a book when I haven't figured out what tense the story is in and I go back and forth, before finally deciding on whatever I originally wrote the story in. Ha!
Oops... Let's not be too smug. :P
THAT is funny! But, isn't it Laura's job to edit your chapter?!?!
ha ha, that's too funny. I think we've all made some major mistakes in our writing. But hey, that's what revisions/editing is for right?? The really embarrassing thing is when the mistakes make it to the copy that gets printed and put on the shelves. I've certainly caught quite a few in some pretty big books. It's amazing how so many people can all miss the same mistakes, isn't it? Have fun with your hot potato. ;-)
Silly girls. I'm sure I've never made a mistake like that ;)
oh, except when I wrote how the character had the smell of juicyfruit gum lifting from every "poor" instead of "pore".
lame-o
I'm just glad my beta caught it before I sent it in!
Oh, I love the dodgeball (but I'm not good at it.) It's sad. =)
It's awesome that you got a whole chapter written. =)
thanks for your comment on my blog.
I had to laugh (in a friendly way) about you getting caught up in the writing. I frequently burn dinners in the name of writing. Does that count? :)
Crack me up! That is something I would do--"book is yours" and then find out I wrote it in the wrong tense or with some other elemental flaw. You're so not alone!
CONGRATS to the winners!
Okay, so I've never switched to present tense (hard to do when writing about something from 4,500 years ago), but I've totally had objects materialize from out of no where. That's always awesome.
Glad you accomplished your Mother's Day Goals!
I actually read your blog this morning, but didn't have time to comment. I'll have you know I found three opportunities to use "dicking around" in a sentence during the course of the day.
Thank you, LiLa. Your dicking around is my inspiration.
Congrats to the winners!
And ha ha ha! Of course I've done this. Any self-respecting author has. I mean, srsly.
And I so wish my WiP was a hot potato right now. In fact, I'd settle for oh, IDK, a lump of coal. At least that has the potential to burn, right?
Right.
Happy belated Mother's Day, you two!
I do stupid things all the time
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