Cover Reveal, Part Deux

Here's the second piece of the cover of my next book!!!! I hit 10,055 words this morning. :)

Cover Reveal ... Kinda ;)

If you're Facebook friend of mine, or a fan (I hate that word), or you just follow my public updates there, you may have seen something a little out of the ordinary.

I'm currently writing my next novel, Hidden. I did something I haven't done in three years - I actually sat down and plotted the book using the techniques of The Plot Whisperer. I have a notebook filled with notes, background story, character sketches, etc. I've got this one DOWN, baby. All I have to do is write (easy and fun) and edit (not easy, but still fun). It's like all cake from here.

I've already got a cover. I've had it for about a month. The incredible Steven Novak made it for me. I've been dying to share it, but it seems silly to share it when the novel isn't even fully written yet!

So I had this idea...this evil idea...to share my cover in pieces. lol. Cruel, I know. Only 5 friends have seen it in full and here's what they have to say:

"Oooooooohhhhhhhhhh! I LOVE it."

and

"I LOVE it!!! Very mysterious and dark and enticing."

and (my favorite)

"holy <bleeping> <bleep>

you're going to sell a <BLEEP>LOAD of books"

Here's how the cover reveal is going to work. Every time I hit a new word count goal, you get to see another part of the cover. I showed the upper left corner yesterday, just to kick the whole thing off. When I hit 10,000, you'll get the lower right corner, 20,000 is the upper right corner, 30,000 is the lower left corner, 40,000 is the right and left sides, 50,000 is the entire cover. Sounds like fun, right?

If you want to keep track, and help encourage me to keep writing, there's a word count meter on the top of the right sidebar of my blog. You'll know exactly where I'm at because I update it several times a day.

Here's the first reveal:

 

XoXo, Megg

 

Failure & Falling with Style

Do you remember that scene in Toy Story when Buzz Lightyear swears he can fly and he demonstrates it for the other toys. Woody gets angry and says, "That wasn't flying! That was falling with style."

Falling with style is something I aspire to do. Look, I fail. All. The. Time. I'm sure I fail at something every day whether it's hitting my word count, cleaning, or being a good mother and/or wife.

Yesterday was a particularly difficult day for me. There's some stuff going on in real life (boring, you don't even want to know), but I find my heart and my mind pulling me in two different directions. I know my mind has the facts right, but heart just won't listen.

The same thing happened to me with writing recently. Two completely different books. Two directions. But I can only move forward with writing one at a time. (I could probably work on both, but I'm sure that would impede my creative mind since I'm tend to immerse myself in writing projects.) I made a decision. Then second-guessed it. Then made it again. Then second-guessed it. Then, yesterday, made it again. Each time I made the same exact decision, too!

I guess this is why people have affairs. Why people switch jobs for no real reason. Why people do all the crazy things they do. Their heads know the truth; their hearts see the dream. Somehow we have to find a way to reconcile all of these things and move forward.

So while I know I'll continue to trip and fall, I also have to remind myself that getting up is the best thing I can do. Because if we can't fall with style, then we just become pathetic heaps on the ground.

I don't want that. Do you? So, I'm only going to allow myself one viewing of one of my favorite depressing songs (I'm a redhead, so this one is close to my heart).

XoXo,

Megg