Category: The Lokana Chronicles

Taking time…and kicking guilt in the keister

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I sat down to work on this post last night after a hectic couple of hours and ended up reading the news on msnbc.com instead.  Whoops.

Anyway, I read a fantastic post the other day on Kristen Lamb’s blog about taking time to rest and how there is a season to everything under the sun.  Yes, I know Ecclesiastes says the exact same thing, but Ms. Lamb said it in regards to writing by quoting the Byrds and the song “Turn, Turn, Turn.”  By the way, I love that song.  The melody is beautiful and would be playing in my head were it not for whatever is playing on the radio and distracting me (I know the song, I just can’t think of its name – “Angel Eyes” perhaps? – and I couldn’t tell you who sings it for the life of me).  The comparisons she draws between farming and writing are obvious, yet they’d never occurred to me before (despite having grown up in America’s breadbasket, where I still currently live).  Her words struck a particular chord with me as I’ve been dealing with quite a lot of guilt lately concerning a variety of tasks that seem to go undone despite my best intentions to accomplish them. To everything there is a season (turn, turn, turn)…

Build the Enterprise!

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First things first – I read an awesome article on msnbc.com about the possibility of building a spaceship like the USS Enterprise from Star Trek with today’s technology.  Serious. Cool.  There were a number of other interesting links at the end of the article, as well as a link to BuildTheEnterprise.org, the project’s homepage.  This is so many shades of awesome that I don’t even know where to start.  Seymour shared this with me last night and we were both as giddy as could be.  The geek is strong with us. 🙂

Now that I’ve finished squeeing…

I’m versatile!

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That’s right, I’ve been nominated for the Versatile Blogger Award!  It’s actually the second time I’ve been nominated.  I kinda forgot about it the first time, though, which is weird because it was the first time in the nearly five years I’ve been blogging that I’d ever been nominated for an award like this.

Anyway, the lovely S.Z.W.ordsmith was kind enough to nominate me (thank you!) – evidently my poetry makes her smile.  That makes me smile, because I do so love to make others happy.  The rules say I have to say seven things about myself and nominate fifteen others for the award, so here goes! For deets and a list of good reads, follow me!

Out like a lamb

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Well, the old adage rang true this year – March came in like a lion and went out like a lamb.  A sheared lamb, but a lamb nevertheless.  It was supposed to be in the mid-70s yesterday, but I don’t think it even reached 60°.  Thank goodness I had the kids dressed warm when we left to run errands.  The day was mostly cloudy, but at least it wasn’t raining.

The last few days have seen quite a surge in views here, which has me pretty excited.  I don’t know what it is that’s attracting so many lovely visitors (aside from posting more regularly than I have in a long while), but whatever it is, I’ll try to keep doing it. Formatting guidelines and what one publishing house had to say are this-a-way!

This post is chock-full of books!

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Things that gave me a good laugh this morning:

All I want is a library full of books and a prince telling me to pick one*…

*Book, that is.  Not monks.

Also:

TC: Mommy, can we go outside to play?
Me: No, it’s all mucky and gross outside.
TP: Can we sit on the porch?
Me: No, you really don’t need to be out there.

Both give me their best pout.

Me: If you really want to go outside, one of you can get the diaper bag and the other can get my computer bag and you can take them out to the van for me.
TC & TP: Okay!

Oh, kids. 🙂

Speaking of kids, Cricket’s new favorite word is book.  If all we did all day long was read Clifford’s First Halloween, I think he’d be in heaven.  I, on the other hand, have grown quite tired of reading yet again about Clifford going trick-or-treating dressed as a ghost, getting a bath after eating a candy apple, and traipsing around a haunted house stuck in a glove.  But this, too, shall pass, and I know from experience that once these days are gone, I’ll miss them terribly.  Cricket’s a boy after my own heart.  I’ve got a couple of pictures from story time a few days ago that I’ve been meaning to post on Facebook, but I haven’t done it yet.  Maybe I’ll get to it over the weekend, if I’m not buried under a mountain of laundry.  *sigh*

In other book news, you can now pre-order White Mountain, Book 1 of the Darkling Chronicles by Sophie E. Tallis.  The book is set to come out in September from Safkhet Publishing.  I predict it’ll sell faster than hot chocolate in a blizzard. 🙂

Also, I think I might have fixed a major plot problem in The Lokana Chronicles.  Some more detail was needed in one place and hopefully I’ve fixed it now.  I’ve tried twice already; I hope the third time’s the charm.  But if it’s not, well, then I’ll just have to put my stubborn nature to good use and make it bend to my will.  The Great and Powerful Seymour will yet be pleased. 🙂  I say that only because I think his crit made a lot of sense and I’m determined to tackle the problem head-on.  As it says over at der Wendighaus, “Time to load the guns, brew the ink, and get to work because I am a writer and I am done fucking around.”

I think that’s about all I’ve got this gray Friday afternoon.  Have a happy weekend!

(c) 2012.  All rights reserved.

Related articles

Midnight ramblings

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Since my late-night rambling appears to be so popular, I thought I’d share a couple other random late-night scrawlings for your reading amusement.  These are a bit dated, but I happened to run across them late last night (or early this morning, however you want to look at it) during my bout of insomnia.  And now, my sleep-deprived thoughts on a couple of my writing projects:

2/20

It’s late, nearly midnight, and I have to work in the morning.  Everyone else is sleeping, warm and content in their beds, but not me.  I’m sitting here, alone in the living room, wrapped up in my favorite blanket and wishing I hadn’t had that second liter of Dr. Pepper earlier.  I’m wide awake, despite taking two muscle relaxers.  Usually they knock me out, but not tonight.  Tonight I feel compelled to write. I feel strangely adrift…

Newsy news

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So!  News!  If you’ve liked my Facebook page (or if you follow me on Twitter), then you know that I received the proof copy of my poetry anthology, Tuesday Daydreams: A Journal in Verse, the other day.  I was disappointed to find some errors in it, but I took the opportunity to make a couple of formatting changes and now I think it looks great.  Another proof copy will soon be winging its way toward me and I can’t wait to look it over.  Tuesday Daydreams should be available for purchase by the end of the month!

I’m terribly excited, in case you couldn’t tell. 🙂

In other news, my friend Lisa just finished up a promotion for her novel, Cheyenne, in honor of a new cover design.  Even though it’s no longer free, please click through and check it out.  At $2.99, it’s still a world-class bargain and a great book to boot.  Go on, check it out!  You know you want to.

And that’s about all the news that’s fit to print today, I think.  Conferences tonight will cap off a crazy week for me; hopefully tomorrow (TGIF, y’all!) will be a nice, peaceful day with no major hassles.  I plan to spend this weekend recovering from my week and maybe working on my synopsis for The Lokana Chronicles if I can find a few spare minutes.  I’m still collecting submission possibilities; I’d like to start submitting before summer.  I’m still keeping my fingers crossed about the Dundee International Book Prize, but I’m trying not to think about it too much lest I go crazy with the hoping.

(c) 2012.  All rights reserved.

Well, I’ve done it…

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I entered The Lokana Chronicles in the Dundee International Book Prize last night.  Hitting ‘send’ on that email was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but I did it in the end and now all I have to do is sit back and wait.  And not hold my breath.

Thus begins my (presumably) soul-sucking journey toward publication because, let’s face it, I’m not sure I really want to go to all the effort it will take to do the self-publishing thing.  I know several people who have done it and are doing so successfully, but I’m not sure that I’m cut out for it.  I’d love to sell my book to a Big 6 publisher, but I’m not holding my breath on it.  I hope I’m prepared for all the rejections I know will come, but I’m also hoping that the stars will miraculously align in my favor and my journey will be a relatively quick and painless one.

No, I’m not on drugs.  Unless sleep deprivation counts as a drug and if that’s the case, then I’ve been stoned out of my gourd for the last two years.  But I’m pretty sure that’s not the case, no matter how much it feels like it is some days.

In other news, after much time spent beating my head against a cyber-wall while trying to format with a nasty cold, my poetry anthology is coming along quite nicely.  Now I just need to get the proof copy ordered and make sure it looks okay.  Here’s hoping!

Also?  Tax season – and Monday – totally kicked my butt today.  Way to go, Monday.

And now, I think it’s time for bed.  Assuming, that is, that I can sleep.  I’ve been having trouble with that lately.  Maybe I’ll just stay up a little while longer and look up people to query…

(c) 2012.  All rights reserved.

Friends don’t let friends eat literary puffer butt

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Yes, you read that right: Friends don’t let friends eat literary puffer butt.  I’ve been reading Kristen Lamb’s lovely blog the last couple of days and have found quite a few useful tidbits there, not to mention a couple of laughs that nearly caused me to snort my milk.  I had planned this awesome, thought-provoking post about things from her blog that I agreed with, as well as things I disagreed with, but this stupid cold I have is kicking the crap out of me.  I feel like I’m stuck in a never-ending cage match with…um…well, anyone who’s in better shape than me, to be honest.  The Rock.  Yeah, he’ll do.  He could probably beat the crap out of me with his pinky.  I mean, naturally I hope he doesn’t hit women, but my brain isn’t functioning so well right now, so just take whatever I say with a grain of salt.  Except for that first sentence.  And the second one.  And the next paragraph.  It should be funny.  Seriously, just keep reading, okay?  Okay.

I also enjoy reading Chuck “Writing is when I make the words.  Editing is when I make them not shitty.” Wendig’s blog, especially his “25 Things…” series and his “Transmissions from Baby-Town” series.  The latest transmission from Baby-Town was seriously funny.  Parts of it reminded me of my own kids.  Go.  Check it out.  Unless you are vehemently opposed to creative combinations of profane words, you will probably find it laugh-out-loud funny (yes, I’m old-school like that).

Okay, I should probably get back to editing now.  I’ve been throwing myself upon the Word altar and begging the gods of Microsoft to save my work with obsessive abandon over the last couple of weeks as I try to finish my massive revision project by the end of the month.  I’d love to be done by the end of the week, but I’m not holding my breath.  Anyway, why the rush when I’ve been trying to edit the beast for the last year?  (God, I can’t believe I’ve been editing (or rather, not editing but procrastinating) for a year already.)  Because entries for the Dundee International Book Prize close March 1 and I’ve decided to enter.  Apparently it was just the thing I needed to get my lazy butt motivated because I’ve gotten 24 of my 30 chapters edited since the first of the month.  Now if only I can get the last few chapters done by the weekend, I think I’ll be all set.  I’m not holding my breath on winning, but I’ll never know if I don’t try, and I’m determined to prove the hubby wrong (he who believes I can make a career of writing but probably won’t because I fear failure).  I’m a stubborn one, after all.

So, to recap: Must find more caffeine.  Must edit.  Y’all must read.  Go.  Read.  Report back here.  Or don’t.  Actually, don’t.  Then I won’t be tempted to further procrastinate my editing.  Or do.  Yes, do report back here.  Be my enablers.  Who needs sleep, anyway?  I can edit after the kids are asleep, right?  Right?  Zzzzz…

(c) 2012.  All rights reserved.