The 4AM Munchies...

Yes, you read that title right.  Thanks to my newfound love of all things Photoshop, my brain decided it wanted to do some graphic decorating.  So, instead of dreaming about my characters in various plot scenarios, I laid awake for more time than was necessary, thinking of ways to bring a fresh new look to Cressen Books website and ways to create the book cover for Dangerous Moves.  And thanks to all that brain power going towards decorating instead of sleeping, I think I may have figured out what to do with both the website and the book cover.

And that brought me to the realization that I was laying in bed at 3:30 in the freakin' morning, my stomach growling from all of those calories I'd burned while thinking about Photoshop projects.  At the same time, a crazy storm was blowing through, lightening flashing, thunder rolling, and rain gushing down, which made it next to impossible for me to go back to sleep.  So, my Muse being the most amazing man alive, happened to be up at the same time as me but for different reasons (he's usually up this early).  And, bless him, he offered to make me breakfast.

So, I found myself eating a delicious meal of biscuits and spicy sausage-gravy at 4AM.  Not a norm for me, who usually doesn't rise before 8AM, but my tummy didn't care about the time; it just cared about the food.  Now it's happily digesting the scrumptious breakfast and I will probably begin work in Photoshop in the next few minutes.

Has anyone else ever had this happen to them?  It happens to me occasionally, but usually I'm able to sleep straight through.  I'm a pretty sound sleeper (i.e., WW3 could be happening outside my house and I probably wouldn't notice), but sometimes my brain has other things in mind.  Oh well, at least now I have some new ideas to try out!

Can My Brain Get A Reboot?

So, long time, no post but that doesn't mean I wasn't busy.  After my root canal, I had more complications and it's taken this long just to get over the initial procedure, which was over 2 weeks ago.  And during that time, my brain seemed to shut down where writing was concerned.  Instead of pushing the envelope, so to speak, I said 'okay, what can I do that doesn't require creative thinking?' and the answer was....Editing.

On that note, I spent about a week and a half going over my Muse's novel, The Drill Sergeant's Women, and making much needed technical tweaks to it.  I will readily admit that I am embarrassed that we published it in such a state of grammar errors, but I have remedied that and am now waiting for him to approve all the tweaks.  Then, I can upload the clean and polished version to Kindle, Nook, and CreateSpace and have it ready for readers everywhere.  And that is when the Teaser Campaign will commence.  So, if you want to get sneak peeks at what's inside The Drill Sergeant's Women, head on over to Cressen Books LLC's facebook page and like us to receive your dose of Sparky!

Okay, so now you all know what I've been up to these past few weeks.  And as the title of this post states, I believe I'm in serious need of a brain reboot.  If any of you have any suggestions on how I can go about rebooting my brain to get the creative writing flow going again, I am all ears!  I believe the desire is there, I just need to get the actual words flowing again.  Of course, it also helps when I don't have other distractions going on, which I think I may have resolved by getting the editing done and (finally) getting over the root canal drama.

On that note, wish me luck as I begin a new week and hopefully, the magic will return to my fingertips once more!

Interns, Root Canals, and Work

Good morning, all!  It's been a little while since I've updated this, so here goes.  A lot has been happening over the last few weeks.  Cressen Books LLC has an intern working for us this semester from Shepherdstown University.  And she's already proving invaluable, giving feedback into the edits of the Muses novel and showing us what she's capable of when writing her own novel.  We're excited to be working with Rachel this semester and hope that she comes away with a great experience (and maybe even a published novel) by the end of the semester.

As for root canals...they are evil!  I had to have one done last week and was so excited to finally be pain free.  I was envisioning gnawing on big juicy steaks again without it hurting.  But, as is my typical luck, I began feeling pain again in the same area yesterday and was up for several hours last night with it.  I think what's happened is the nerve is inflamed and hasn't had a chance to recover yet and I keep eating on that side and putting pressure there.  So, it's a motrin regiment on top of already taking antibiotics for me and hopefully I won't have to have the dentist poke around some more in that area.  I actually love my dentist and her staff is fantastic...but I'm ready to move on and not have to see her again until my next routine cleaning (six months from now).  Oh well.  We'll see how cooperative the tooth/nerve will be over the next day or two.

And work...it's been quite chaotic over the last couple of weeks and I have yet to settle back into my normal routine (whatever that was).  I know I originally posted that I would be keeping track of my word count on the sidebar of this blog for the 2-3 stories I was working on.  Well, the 2-3 stories grew to 5 stories.  So, to clean things up a bit, I've moved the word count bars for each story to it's own page here on this blog.  So, if you're interested, definitely flip over to that page from time to time to see how the books are coming along.  And maybe, if I'm lucky, I might actually be able to come up with titles and synopses for these books so you have a better idea of what I'm actually working on!  Or at least I'll have a better idea of what I'm working on.  Whatevs.

Speaking of work, I guess I should really get back to it.  I hope everyone has a great week and I'll pop back on again when I have the chance!