vickeymalonekennedy.com Blog

In December I got a really nice winner’s certificate for an honorable mention in the 75th annual Writers Digest Contest.  I was really excited.  After all, an honorable mention in a Writer’s Digest Contest is a big deal. There were literally thousands of entries.

I didn’t realize until today, how big a deal it really was.  My name is actually listed, as number 68, in the winner’s list, on the writer’s Digest website. www.writersdigest.com/contests/writing_genre06.asp

Way cool man!   

So tell me why it is that on my days off all I seem to do is sleep, but when I have to get up and go to work I can’t seem to sleep at all?

I have a job so I can afford to work on my writing. No one ever tells you how expensive it is to be a writer. There’s a lot of overhead; paper, computers, printers, ink, postage, classes, conferences, travel, hotels, meals when traveling. The list goes on.

It’s easy to spend more than you make as a writer if you aren’t raking in the big bucks like King and Rowlings.

So I have a “real job” as they say. Not a day job. A night job. Twelve hours from 7 pm to 7am. Since I’m lazy by nature, I only work two days in a row. On two, off two, on two, off three, so it’s actually three days a week, just not in a row.

For some unexplainable reason I can’t sleep on the days that I have to work. For months I’ve been sleeping day and night on my days off. But suddenly I’m not sleeping then either. I was off, and up all night, last night. Went to bed around nine, this morning, back up at eleven and can’t go back to sleep.

Maybe it’s because I’m dreaming my story lines while I’m sleeping. Some of my best stories come from dreams. At the moment I’m working on ‘Blood Cloth’, an erotic vampire story. Erotica always keeps me awake. It’s also a murder mystery. I’m about 70,000 words into the story and suddenly I’ve changed my mind who the killer is. That happens from time to time. Sometimes the bad guys take on a life of their own. Sometimes all the characters take on a life of their own.

Once I had a character I could not kill off. No matter how many times I tried to kill him he refused to die. Another time I fell in love with the bad guy. He was the best character in the story. I liked him better than the hero. They take on a life of their own.

Any way, gotta run. Need to at least attempt to get a nap.

Peace be with you,

vck

If you type 60 words per minute, that’s 3600 words per hour. One hour a day that’s; 109,500 words a month,
one million three hundred fourteen thousand words a year!
Only type 30 words a minute it’s; 1800 words an hour, 54,750 words a month, 657,000 words a year!