What a Royally Fabulous Blitz it was....

I'm not sure what to say. People were everywhere in the Kingdom yesterday!!!! Like....all over the place! Wow.

 I've been participating in D.L. Hammons Blog Blitz this summer. It is quite possibly one of the coolest things I've ever done. So far I have added to my blog roll some of the coolest blogs and I'm itching to visit the remaining ones. I also had the supreme pleasure of adding his wife Kim as a friend on Facebook when we blitzed her on her last day of treatments. 

Yesterday I had the unbelievable treat of being Blitzed. So far 132 comments are on my last post - a post where I was promoting another of D.L.'s great ideas (Write Club). I cried when I saw them start coming in - my email began truly understanding what Blitzkrieg is all about.

Yes we make a note on another bloggers site; saying hello and happy blitz. However what I had failed to understand by being just a participant is the emotion of seeing all these people who I respect so much saying those hellos and sweet messages as the recipient. It surged through me like a new breath and I found myself crying, smiling and laughing. I guess I thought as a participant it would just be a quick "oh how nice" when it happened to me, boy was I wrong. I have 132 replies to make and goodness almost that many blogs to add to my roll AND I WILL VISIT THEM! Lol

I do need to return to blogging. It is a creative outlet that allows me to keep my juices flowing and it never ceased to make me smile. I am pleased to let all of you know that I have been writing. My novel is coming along well. My CPs are itching for the next chapters and it brings a smile to my face to have so many people to share my love of words with. Please don't be strangers, my little Kingdom welcomes everyone, my Royal Family is quite inviting and loves to entertain....

I again am honored to have you all come into my Kingdom, to meet you all, to share with you all and to D.L. who may never realize how amazing, inspiring and uplifting this little experiment truly is...

WRiTE CLUB 2013

soooo...yeah...D.L. Hammons is hosting WRiTE CLUB again... have you heard about it?

No?

Well lets just say its a battle...not of fists,  not of martial arts crazy kicks, not of ninja stars, greased watermelons or even spitballs....it's a BATTLE OF WORDS!!!! Yeah, baby!

What? You still aren't sure about it...well let me tell you a few details then you can scoot over there and  check everything out:

• The modest writing competition whose inspiration was derived from the movie FIGHT CLUB is ready to go another round, and this year it’s leaner and meaner than ever!
• the winners are determined by fellow WRiTE CLUB members alone!
• This year the submissions will be cut-off on June 30th. A panel of ten judges will read all of the entries we receive during that time and pre-select 32 of the best writing samples to climb into the ring. Those 32 participants will then be randomly matched to compete over the next eight weeks, each of them hoping to make it into the play-off rounds and moving towards the ultimate goal – WRiTE CLUB Champion. 
• Again this year, the most exciting part is the winner of the final round will be chosen by a panel of publishing industry professionals! Agents, Editors, Publishers, Marketers, and published authors

So yeah....go check it out...maybe submit...maybe just follow along...either way - this is one title bout you don't want to miss!

So, Sally Slick...You are looking GOOD GIRL!

The amazing, talented, hilarious and well outstandingly sweet Carrie Harris has ONE EXCITING treat for me to share....

SALLY SLICK COVER REVEAL...

TA DA!!!

OMG! GUYS IT LOOKS AWESOME!!!

Here is some info (just in case you have a second after staring....I know its hard not to conjure up all kinds of adventurous images...DECEMBER IS TOO FAR AWAY!!)

Title: SALLY SLICK AND THE STEEL SYNDICATE

Release date: December 3, 2013

Publisher: Evil Hat Productions

Ages: 12 and up

Jacket description:

Every hero has a story. This one starts with a girl and a racing tractor.

Sally Slick knows she’s meant to be more than a Midwestern farm girl. What she wants more than anything is to be an inventor when she grows up—and she has the custom-built racing tractor to prove it. But good girls in 1914 don’t go off to the city in search of adventure. Everything changes when Sally’s big brother comes back from Chicago with a robot in hand and mobsters on his heels. With the help of her friend, wannabe hero Jet Black, Sally will risk everything to protect the people she loves.

Those bad guys are about to get a giant wrench thrown right into their plans.

So if you have never visited Carrie's site or if you have yet to grab one of her books, well, then what are you waiting for?! It's 6 months until this drops - you have time, catch up on Carrie's talent by grabbing Bad Taste in Boys, Bad Hair Day or Bad Yeti ....nevermind...get them ALL!!! I mean Bad Yeti? If that doesn't suck you in then, well, you need a new hobby!

Now go, spread the news, talk about the cover, ponder the adventure of Sally & Jet...or you know for goodness sake READ HER OTHER BOOKS!! ;) It's a Royal Decree...now get outta here!

You don't read a book because you like it...

Headphones? Check.

Favorite Writerly Playlist? Check.

Fingers Flexed? Check.

Beverage? Check.

Mentally Ready to Attack all Plotlines/Characters? Err…yeah, that ‘character’ hollered at me last night…she’s mean.

Are you prepared for today’s mind blowing truth: Writing is work.

There is definitely nothing like putting words to page, whether for your personal, private enjoyment or for a story you hope to share with the world. But don’t let one single writer fool you. It takes work.

I sometimes wander the aisles of book stores and get completely suckered in by how many books one author has penned. I find myself pausing, reading titles, looking over covers and exploring the plot lines of each trilogy, stand alone, or series that he/she has birthed. I wonder about the hours, the pulled hair, and the scared dog under the couch, the husband/wife begrudgingly asleep while the glow from the computer urges them to wake up, and of course I wonder about the state of mind the author is in NOW. Are they content with these works? Did they want to share so much of themselves or did the domino keep pushing?

I wonder at their brilliance. Yes, I know people can easily say that every single book is not award winning, life changing prose, but for someone, somewhere the words in each book published struck a chord. Isn’t that why we write?

I watched a movie just this week while being stuck at home sick, drugged and definitely not ready to fight that mean girl character I mentioned above. In the movie a main character hates a certain teenage set of books, he thinks they’re dribble. He even questions the girl he has feelings for because she found pleasure in the book. He proceeds to say “You don’t read a book because you like it.” I burst into laughter during this serious onscreen argument. He is a literature snob and well she calls him on it.

After calling him a snob she defines her reason, but not in detail. She, his love interest, does not defend the book on its prose, plot, or structure instead she simply explains “It was fun to read, an escape. It was enjoyable.”  He is baffled by this. She tells him “You think it’s cool to hate things but it’s not. It’s boring. Talk about what you love and keep quiet about what you don’t.” This, this line, this singularly brilliant line brings me back to my topic of writing is work.

Yes, it is, it is hard, it is time consuming, mind boggling, and honestly there is nothing else that will press your mental limits like words on a page. BUT it discovers, it explores, it grows, it denies, it proves, it inspires, it creates, it destroys, it saves, it reminds each and every person who turns the page that life is about change, about seeing things, about believing and about our individuality.

If you read it because you must then you end up liking it, is it a bad book? No.

If you read it because the populous love it and you don’t like it, is it a bad book? No.

Someone loved it and wrote it. Someone read it and shared it.

Someone worked until their eyes were red and dry, they toiled, and they spent grueling hours on characters that you may never know, who died before finding the first page.

They worked. They worked until they were spent.

The girl in the movie is right, ‘talk about what you love, keep quiet about what you don’t.’There is so much cynicism and negativity in this world, we often let it filter into our craft, to spread like a virus and perpetuate stereotypes of hateful, rude, arrogant writers. We are all working to create something we love and can be proud of, why waste words complaining? Every part of the process should be enjoyed, even if you have to enjoy it ironically, because someone out there is aching for your story, yep, they want to read your words; so yeah the work is hard but man is it worth it.

 

WIP it GOOD!!!

The fabulous DL from Cruising Altitude is co-hosting a DEVO inspired blogfest with Elise Fallson. Yep, you read that right...we are all "whipping" our WIP into shape!
There are some fabulous WIPs being created out in the writing universe, DL's is awesome btw, and I am honored to be a part of this amazing collection of bloggers!

So here is mine...

WIP Title: The Story of the Stars (definitely a WIP title)
Word Count (projected/actual so far): 30,400
Genre: YA (toss up between YA supernatural and YA fantasy)
How long have you been working on it? 4 months

Brief Synopsis (300 words or less): In this town no one new ever stays and the locals are here for life. People talk of leaving, but rarely do. Those who leave never come back and never contact anyone left behind. It is a simple town, with simple people. 

Andrea Callum wants nothing more than to graduate and get out of Barbours. She's made all the right choices: perfect grades, good friends, plans for her future. 

The last week of school was supposed to be easy, no surprises; then one afternoon Andrea meets a guy with silver eyes and a voice that has plagued her dreams. He says he just needs a ride - nothing more.

One ride in a town she thought she knew by heart and her whole world collapses. Visions of grotesque murders, confusing ancient symbols and prophecies surround her. Andrea discovers that she is more than a good student - she is a talisman and her family has secrets that go beyond the limits of Barbours - secrets that go beyond the limits of the universe. For the first time in her eighteen years she is faced with the opportunity of leaving Barbours. 

Leaving is the one thing she wants - to do so she has to choose who will be left behind facing darkness and who will travel toward the light.

Are you looking for a Beta Reader? Once this round of revisions is complete - then for sure!

Be sure to check out all the other WIP-its!!!!

Do you Write as an Outlaw or to Survive?

“Writing is a form of personal freedom. It frees us from the mass identity we see in the making all around us. In the end, writers will not write to be outlaw heroes of some underculture, but mainly to save themselves, to survive as individuals.”
-Don Delillo
I never thought of myself as an outlaw. But then again I often find myself trying to skirt boundaries, so it may not be a stretch at times. No, really, the truth is in the freedom.
I write because I cannot help it. It is a being trapped inside me that is eager to share its ideas, stories, nightmares… I dream vividly. I always have. I don’t think there is a part of my brain that would let me not dream in story form; so many of my characters began/begin in dreams. I see faces in my dreams – and no they are not family members or people I know. There have been times that my scientific friends tell me it is people I see on the street, yes it’s very possible, but I often like to think that they are truly organic -that my imagination is mine alone to share.
That is where I am the outlaw. My characters definitely don’t play by the rules. They are often obstinate, difficult, exasperating, hilarious and terrifying. They surprise me as well. Just today I was thinking of one of my female “friends”, she is in a state of shock and turmoil; a state where she should be falling apart yet resolution came to me swift. She will make it through this; I won’t have to tell her goodbye. That is wonderful. There are others though who skirt the rules and I have to watch them go. They are the outlaws, pushing their limits, losing their minds but they have a purpose, they have a reason and freedom is often the lead cause.
I write to survive. I write to see if the outlaws survive. I write because their stories, no matter if they are big or small within the context, are important and to ignore their stories is to create my own personal prison, where lockdown is madness and there is no recreational time. So yes freedom from mass identity, from personal prisons, from madness…it is all avoided so that survival is first and foremost in my mind each morning.
I write because I must.

SPRING???? WHERE!?

Springtime is the land awakening. The March winds are the morning yawn.

-Lewis Grizzard

***

That is one powerful yawn this year…

Spring began last week. Yep, you read that right. I know, I know you don’t believe me, well I was pretty sure it was still January too until I realized Easter was this coming up weekend. Peter Cottontail better be careful, those Reese’s commercials where the bunny ears and booty of the chocolate rabbit ‘disappear’ might be attributed to frostbite rather than small, excessively excited hungry egg hunters.

Don’t get me wrong the sky outside my window is lovely; a beautiful, bright blue with cotton candy clouds and the soft glow of sunshine filtering through. Yet when the door opens and the air rushes into the room the perception alters…biting cold breeze, chilling air thrusting around your face, you imagine dead trees, gray clouds and dull monochromatic color schemes. My cheeks sting with the pinch of wintry fingers and I am afraid that sighing will give way to frostbitten tonsils.

Yeah, that yawn might need to just hurry up and close its trap before a frozen bumblebee slips in to sting it all the way into summer.

Cold weather or not, the season really is upon us. I have open toed sandals dying to be loved. Flirty dresses that want to sway in the breeze and lungs that dream to breathe air in one swift movement rather cough every half second.

So today I am just popping in, begrudging the weather a bit and sending happy Spring vibes out to the world. It will be lovely again soon…I know it. IT MUST!

Happy Tuesday! Have some fun blog hopping today:

Check out fun Movie Picks here!

Google and Your Blog!

The QQQE gears up for A to Z

The Writers Alley & Sherrinda discuss writing about places you've never been!

Sara definitely knows How Writing Feels...

Focus - do you struggle as well?

“It’s not what’s happening to you now or what has happened in your past that determines who you become. Rather, it’s your decisions about what to focus on, what things mean to you, and what you’re going to do about them that will determine your ultimate destiny.”

-Anthony Robbins

***

Yes. Focus.

We hear this from the get go. We must focus on the task at hand. What we don’t often hear or process is which task truly deserves my focus?What we choose to do with our time. The selection of the task is such an important thing, that the moment that we discover perhaps another task would be better or that we should shift our focus we find it easy to get a little lost. When a task is complete, yes that feeling of accomplishment is phenomenal but then we are met with that beginning question all over again. Each time the question leads us into the direction that determines who we are.

I often focus on the wrong thing, then have to turn re-evaluate what means the most to me. I over analyze and question myself too often. My decision of focusing on things that are mundane can be devastating. I feel like I’ve lost time, I’ve wasted opportunities, and that I’ve let myself down. I see those signs that say to “make each moment count” and for a fleeting moment I feel like I messed up & my moments become worthless.

As a Type A/Creative person this is beyond annoying. I cannot explain the frustration with wanting to focus, complete the task all the while this huge part of me that relishes creative freedom tells me to just relax and let it all go. What a war my own mind wages daily…comical if you relish the highly confused, over organized, lackadaisical writer.

However, just recently I took one of those moments to focus on “focusing”. I pondered how I often get sidetracked, how I allow self-doubt to slip in and how I know that I have every bit within me to accomplish my dreams and I found something…You see making each moment count is great, but really, my newest epiphany is that for me it’s the fact that I must accept that each moment of my life is inherently valuable. I don’t need to focus on making each moment count, they already matter. I just need to remember that focus as a verb is one exceptional word: (of a person or their eyes) Adapt to the prevailing level of light and become able to see clearly.

So long as I adapt to see clearly, then my focus is spot on.