Between my day job, workshops and writing, I feel like I never stop. And that’s not about to end any time soon.

I’ve just completed a platform building workshop offered by Ann Charles and Jacquie Rodgers over at 1st Turning Point. I should now be an expert at marketing myself and my books. Keep in mind should be are the operative words. Actually, I learned a lot, so much that my mind is still wrapping around the information.

In June I will be participating in another workshop on website design. Yea! I hope to expand this site into something a little more exciting.

On the writing front, I pitched my superheroes to an editor on the spur of the moment. The object was to receive feedback on the pitch in preparation for Nationals. Low and behold, she requested the full! Another yea! Followed quickly by a, ooo- must get book finished.

For the next few weeks my nose will be permanently pointed at a monitor as I polish up my wip. This is a good thing. A test. Do I have the metal to pull off a pressing deadline? Oh yeah.

Welcome back to day two of the Write at Sea workshop on board Carnival Cruises Fun Ship Paradise.

After a night of revelry followed by endless tossing and turning as I ruminated on the new beginning of my story, I arrive at the Break into Fiction workshop ready for the next step- What happens after the first twist point.

My new start is rife with conflict. My subplot and secondary plot that I was flirting with weeks ago will fold in beautifully. But now I’m stuck on the details, or rather the tests. I need obstacles, things for my couple to do, and more importantly, create events that will lead them up to the next twist point.

Dianna’s favorite suggestions is “kill somebody.” Great, but I can’t kill off

Encenada

everybody. So I’m staring at the wall again. The ticking time bomb that is my brain has been activated

Think, think, think, think, think- BOOM!

I’ve fractured off again.

This is when a second person comes in really handy. As I start to rattle off where I’ve got the story going, Mary is plucking the threads out of my jumbled sentences and narrowing my focus. Now the secondary storyline has more importance than earlier. Fantastic! Thank you subconscious. Have I ever mentioned how much I love my subconscious?

At the end of the day I am mentally drained, but I now have a strong, fully plotted story that is fit for my shape shifter and his mate. The process was painful, but you know the saying, “If it was easy, everyone could do it.”

My next step now? Take the templates and go through the first story in the series. Do I see more internal bloodshed and frustrated tears? Yes. So why do it?

Because I don’t want to be a writer. I want to be a published author. And that requires more that just putting words on paper.

Ahoy matey! Welcome to my adventures on the Carnival Fun Ship Paradise.

I’ve just returned from a weekend at sea attending the Break into Fiction workshop taught by the fantastic team of Mary Buckham and Dianna Love, or as we lovingly referred to them as, The Punisher and the Evil Queen.

My voyage began with a few hours of me time relaxing by the pool with a book in one hand and the drink special of the day in the other. If I had only know about the arduous metamorphosis that awaited me the next day, I would have relished that time a lot more.

My roommate was the lovely Susan from Canada. Although she wrote YA and I paranormal, and we came from different backgrounds and were born in different decades, we had similar life experiences which gave us plenty to talk about.

There were sixteen of us on this maiden excursion of Write at Sea. Most of us wrote romance and there were several of my GSRWA mates in attendance. We had a few thriller and suspense writers as well. The class was geared towards commercial fiction, so there was plenty of opportunity for everyone to learn.

The project I brought to the workshop was the second installment in my superhero series, or as it’s called in my world, The Shape shifter and the Nurse. The reason I chose this novel over the first in the series was because I’m pretty much married to Max and Crystal’s storyline. In the second I knew who the H/H were, the first chapter, and a vague idea of the villain, or villains. After that I was opened to all ideas. I had the first chapter written. It had danger in it, angst, sexual tension and snappy dialogue. I thought I was off to a fantastic start.

Then I talked to Mary and the torture began.

She pointed out that while the concept and characters were good, there wasn’t enough conflict in the beginning to sustain throughout the book. They needed to collide sooner. I needed more.

Ah! Well crap. Now, I needed something new. Something spectacular. What followed next was thirty minutes of me staring at the wall, swaying to the rhythm of the rocking ship. My pre-cruise fear of not being able to come up with ideas quickly came to fruition as I sat and sat. Then I discovered that my brain is a ticking time bomb.

Think, think, think, think, think- BOOM!

Two ideas pop into my head, and each had three or four possible outcomes that splintered into several directions. My desk is now covered in creativity carnage.

Being suddenly smacked with multiple ideas is both a blessing and a curse. I have something to work with. Yay! But where do I place the focus? More staring at the wall. Unless I find a direction, I cannot go forward in the process.

So I do what anyone else does when they hit a wall whilst on a cruise ship. I went to the pool.

Laying out under the sunny rays off the coast of Mexico I let my mind wander. Tropical drink near by, I close my eyes as the pool band launches into a reggae version of Hugh Lewis’s The Heart of Rock N’ Roll.

She needs to witness something. Something bad. Of course. A murder? No. Drug runners? Been done to death. Human trafficking? Hard sell. Terrorism? Even harder sell.

My front starts to burn, so I flip over, mind still working.

Ooo, that could work. It’s different and definitely plausible. I can work with this.

I pop up in my lounge chair. “Susan, I’ve got a plan.”

She blinks at me in surprise over the top of her book. “Wow. You were brainstorming. I thought you were asleep. Good for you.”

“Thanks.”

Even through dinner, a comedy show and an Indian kid howling his way through Bohemian Rhapsody, my concept is percolating, growing, solidifying. My brain is working so much, I’m up at 5:30 in the morning writing on the Lido deck.

I feel like a fighter knocked down in the first round, struggling to their feet. I’m hurt, disorientated, but the will to fight flows through me. This will be a stronger story. A better story, A story that will sell.