And now, without further ado, a review!

January 23, 2013January 24, 201317 Comments

That’s right, a real, live book review! It’s been so long since I’ve reviewed a book that I feel like I’m back in high school. Okay, maybe college. Actually, that might very well be the last time I gave a proper book review like I’m fixing to give right here.

Yeah, I said “fixing to.” It happens.

Anyway, my book club met Saturday night and I was unable to make it to the meeting – again – so I decided that, since I couldn’t share my thoughts on the wonderful book we read with my book club ladies, I’d share them all with you! The book we read for January was Defending Jacob by William Landay and, while it was not a book I’d have normally read, I really enjoyed it.

The book follows Assistant District Attorney Andrew Barber as he investigates the murder of a local teenager, one of his son Jacob’s classmates. When Jacob is later arrested and charged with the crime, Andy’s life falls apart. As the investigation proceeds, he struggles to hold together his marriage and realizes how little he actually knows his son. It’s part crime novel, part lit fic, and entirely enjoyable. To find out more, just click here!

2013 Book List

January 22, 2013January 8, 201410 Comments

My book list, to be updated regularly (I hope):

Books I’m currently reading:

Stolen Child by Jennifer Sweet
How to Land (and Keep) a Literary Agent by Noah Lukeman

Books I’ve finished:

I’m inspiring – Part II

January 20, 2013January 27, 201310 Comments

Hi there, folks! How’s it going? I hope you’re all keeping warm. Iowa is currently back in the deep freeze after a lovely thaw. I have to admit, that week of 40-degree days was lovely. I really do live in the wrong state when it comes to winter.

But that’s not what I meant to write about tonight. In the space of a couple hours earlier today, I was nominated for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award twice! I was nominated for this award back in August and if you’d like to see what I had to say then, you can find the post here. I’ve spent the last hour or so trying to decide if I should do it again, but since two people were nice enough to nominate me, I decided, what the heck? Why not?

So, without further ado, many thanks to the lovely Tricia Drammeh and Maegan Provan, who were kind enough to nominate me. Tricia is a wonderful writer and it is a privilege to know her – if you’re not already following her, you should be! And Maegan is a new follower here, one I’m sure I will enjoy getting to know. Thank you for the love, ladies!

And now, without further ado,

Just a quick note

January 15, 2013January 16, 20136 Comments

Hiya! It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I’ve been keeping plenty busy the last week or so and, for the next few days at least, it looks to remain the same. Big things going at the day job have been keeping me tied up from nine to five-ish and my book club’s selection of the month has been keeping me spellbound after hours, in addition to the usual craziness.

So, to sum up: I’m sorry for being so absent! But I plan to share many book thoughts soon (I’ve been collecting them as I read – God, it feels good to be reading age-appropriate material again!). But until then, sweet dreams!

Greetings from somewhere in Chapter 15!

January 8, 2013January 8, 2013Leave a comment

Well, since it’s been a while since I’ve posted an update, here’s what’s new with my WIP:

I’m working on Chapter 15. The holidays killed my writing schedule.
I’m mostly writing during my lunch breaks. This means I’m not getting much writing done outside of that one hour a day, and I feel like I should be doing more. It’s causing some angst.
This is how I look when I’m editing, when I’m thinking about editing, and occasionally when I’m writing.

The urge to edit is rearing its ugly head again. I’m fighting it, but wondering if my fight is in vain.
I’m also revising The Lokana Chronicles again with help from the wonderful Ryan Holmes, and have caught a couple bad habits popping up as I write. It’s so much easier to just stop myself from writing them in the first place than it is to go back and fix them later.
I seem to have hit that point where writing becomes work. The new has worn off; my story and I have left the honeymoon period where everything is all butterflies and rainbows and unicorns and love. Now we’ve hit the teen years, where I find it annoying and it hates me and is all, “God! Parents just don’t understand!” and I’m all, “Teenagers! So irresponsible!” in my best Sebastian voice (you know, from The Little Mermaid), even though I really suck at voices. But we’ll get through it, I know we will, and then the really hard work will begin. *sigh*

And now, the snippet!

Prophecy

December 26, 2012December 26, 20125 Comments

I went out for lunch today and ate at the local Chinese place. This was my fortune. I've had one fortune cookie come true already; why not two?Photo by Kay Kauffman

Photo by Kay Kauffman

I went out for lunch today and ate at the local Chinese place. This was my fortune. I’ve had one fortune cookie come true already; why not two? I think I’ll post this up at my desk so I can see it every time I sit down to work on something. It will be my mantra.

The mummy, she lives!

December 19, 2012Leave a comment

I started this nice little post about this article I read this morning after following a link someone posted on Facebook and it was really very touching, so it made me want to write my very own little post on the same subject but then I got busy at work and didn’t have a chance to get back to it and now I have the time to work on it, but since I have neither the inclination nor the capacity to do so (although I suppose it could be argued that the coherence of this incredibly long run-on sentence means that I very well could write the dang post – I’m just too lazy to make my brain cells actually work), you’ll just have to wait till tomorrow to read it when hopefully the kids ~~will~~ won’t have a snow day and I can get some rest and kick the crap out of this stupid bug that has me in a choke-hold.

Time flies

December 17, 2012December 17, 20122 Comments

My little Tomcat at the tender age of four
Photo by Kay Kauffman

My, how time flies! Without my even realizing it, this little blog o’ mine has turned five years old. That happened somewhere around the tail end of last month and I forgot all about writing my planned retrospective about my time in the blogging world.

Five years. My, how the years have flown! I started blogging about six months after my divorce was finalized. I wanted to write passionate political spiels of great depth and insight; I wanted to pen fantastic short fiction that was sure to catch the eye of someone important, that elusive one right person who could make all my lifelong literary dreams come true; I wanted to create a wildly successful blog that would spawn book deals and syndicated columns and who knows what else.

In short, I had high hopes. I was young, bright-eyed yet jaded. Possibly I had delusions of grandeur.

D-Day for Pitch Wars

December 12, 201213 Comments

Well, today was announcement day for the Pitch Wars competition. Sadly, I was not selected by any of the awesome mentors. But! I did get some fantastic feedback from two of the three mentors I submitted to, which I was totally not expecting. That kinda made my day, actually. Of course, like any author who has sent out a query and had it rejected, I wish the feedback could have been a little more specific and/or had some suggestions for ways to improve, but I know they were all very busy and swamped and I am super grateful for what I got. However, back to the drawing board go I.

I hadn’t really expected to be chosen. And I’ve spent the last week or so kicking myself for submitting so early because I took some advice I received during GUTGAA and used it to hopefully fix up my first page. Whether it would have made a difference or not, I’ll never know, of course, but I really regretted my itchy typing fingers.

If you’d like to find out what I’ll be up to next, or if you’re interested in witnessing a small mental collapse of sorts, then click on through. There might even be chocolate.