Terescia’s thoughts and such on writing romantic fiction for publication.

Looking for software to stop spyware and adware? Think you’ll finally be safe if you switch from Internet Explorer to Mozilla Firebird?

Here’s an interesting tidbit I discovered quite by accident this morning.

Mozilla Firebird isn’t necessarily safer than Internet Explorer… In fact, until today, while using Firefox, I’d never had a piece of software take over my computer or insert itself into my browser without my permission. (I use AdAware and SpyBot on a regular basis, so I know.)

Anyway, did a google search this morning and followed a link to a perfectly reputable looking site, and as I was watching (now that’s bold!) my google search icon was replaced by some freaky little CC in a circle and suddenly my search shows up at some search engine I’ve never heard of before.

Well, suffice to say, I took care of that little problem ASAP, but it made me realize something couldn’t be set up in my browser correctly for such a thing to happen.

Lesson learned: No browser is safe if you don’t have those download properties set up correctly.

Owwie.

Writing seems to hold more slow days than fast for me. I don’t write in “flow” and I don’t write sequentially either, most of the time. For me, those “getting lost in the moment” moments happen few and far between. Yet, somehow, most days I do write something, and on some days I’ve been known to write ten to twelve pages of manuscript. Most often, it’s early in the process, when the book is still new and I haven’t figured it all out yet.

In fact, once I figure it all out, I’m sure to slow down, and by the time I’m within scenes of the end, I’m at a crawl. That’s where I’m at right now. The book is done as far as my mind is concerned, so why spend all this time getting out on paper what I already know happens?

Of course, when writing a book with the goal of publishing that book, getting it down on paper is the most important part of the process. :-)

I have high expectations for today, but I’m having a tough time getting started. So, I thought I’d put up my goals for the world to see (or my mom, if that’s the only person I can finagle into reading this thing! :). Considering the humilation I’ll suffer if my hubby sees this, maybe I’ll be more apt to reach them.

10 pages.

Since I compose reading material about as fast as I can calculate pI, this is a hefty goal. It’s 8:17 am by my clock. I’ll check back in when I’ve reached my goal–or 7pm, whichever comes sooner.

Maybe by then I’ll have something enlightening to say.

:-)

Okay, I just read my last post, and thank goodness I didn’t say anything too embarrassing. ;-)

Today, I had the commute, and instead of letting myself drive comatose, I plotted. It’s interesting the kinds of things a person can come up with in an hour, but I am trying to remember Elmore Leonard’s words, paraphrasing here: I try to leave out the parts people skip.

Leave out the boring parts, in other words. It makes for a much tighter story. :-)

Something I read in Lawrence Block’s Telling Lies for Fun & Profit has stuck with me this last week. “Submit relentlessly” he says. It kinda makes me feel guilty that I only submitted my last book to about 4 people before I set it aside. It was necessary though, because I discovered a major problem with the beginning that I must fix before I send it out again–and yes, I will send it out again!

But there’s the whole wanting to finish my current project before I go back to the previous. Unfortunately, the current project is taking much longer than I’d planned!

I’ve recently made some resolutions and I feel good about them. Change is difficult, much more difficult in real life than in fiction, I believe. But I intend to take this seriously, and we’ll see how I’m doing in a few weeks.