Tag: Literature

Exciting things are heading this way!

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Don’t forget to stop back next week to have some fun with the Banned Underground and their fabulous author, Will Macmillan Jones.  Pizza and cake will be provided, and punch if I can find my recipe (alas, no beer, as I’ve let my liquor license lapse).  But with Fungus and the gang, there’s bound to be some fun ahead, so drop on by and let the good times roll! 🙂

(c) 2013.  All rights reserved.

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The madness continues. . .

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. . .but not for me.  The emails are out, and I didn’t get one, which means I’m not moving on to the second round of Pitch Madness.  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed, but I’d also be lying if I said I’d been holding my breath.  My pitch needs work.  Maybe I should have gone with my gut and used the short pitch I’ve got up on authonomy.  But the competition was pretty stiff; 300 or so people were culled from the competition, so I’m hardly alone in my disappointment.  Besides – I’ve made a bunch of new friends, and that is quite obviously the best part of these competitions. 🙂

So for me, it’s back to querying the old-fashioned way – research and submit, research and submit.  Oh, and pray.  Cuz, you know, you gotta pray.  A lot.  The competition out there is stiff, and marketing is not my strong suit (I’m working on that).  Meanwhile, there’s always the #PitMad contest on Twitter next week… 😀

Congratulations to all those moving on, and good luck in the upcoming rounds.  I’ll be cheering you on from the sidelines and doing my best to keep thinking positive while I hunt for agents to add to my query list.

(c) 2013.  All rights reserved.

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Pitch madness!

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LipeiArtwork by Hazel Butler

Lipei
Artwork by Hazel Butler

That’s right, folks, I’ve got pitch madness!  What, pray tell, is pitch madness?  Why, it’s a lovely competition run by the lovely Brenda Drake and it’s happening right now! 🙂  Well, kind of.  The submission window was yesterday and the task for those who chose to accept it was to submit a 35-word logline (a pitch) and the first 250 words of their completed novels.  The slush zombies are currently wading through all the submissions and choosing who will advance to the next round.

Unlike during GUTGAA when I was on the edge of my seat, I was slightly more relaxed this time around because there was no entrant cap – everyone who entered during the window got in.  But!  That hasn’t stopped me from second-guessing every bit of my submission ever since I hit send yesterday morning.

I’ve been working over my pitch and my MS quite a bit over the course of the last six months, but that hasn’t stopped me from feeling insecure about the whole big mess, especially since I have a variety of short pitches in the works now.  Do I use one of the ones I created for the #PitMad pitchfest last fall?  Do I use the one I currently have up on authonomy?   Do I use the one-sentence synopsis I spent a whole day trying to draft?

Why I read

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So, what has prompted me to write about my reading motivations?  Well, I’ll tell you!

In addition to being lousy at blogging so far this year, I haven’t been so great at keeping up with Facebook and Twitter, either.  This means I spend a lot of time playing catch-up.  During one of my crazy bursts of catch-up reading, I found the following tweets in my stream:

And I got to thinking: Why do I read?

Transcendental pinning

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Walt Whitman's use of free verse became apprec...

Walt Whitman’s use of free verse became appreciated by composers seeking a more fluid approach to setting text. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

So, a couple of hours ago, I was happily scrolling through my Pinterest feed when I came across a quote by Walt Whitman.  I thought up some clever quip to use in the description field, hit the Repin button, and then decided to double-check something before I posted it for all the world to see.  It’s a good thing I did, because as it turns out, I had my nineteenth-century American authors mixed up.  (I always get Whitman, Emerson, and Thoreau confused.)

 

Of course now, after having spent the last couple of hours reading about Walt Whitman, the Washingtonians, “O Captain! My Captain!“, the Wilmot Proviso, and a few other random things on Wikipedia, I have absolutely no idea what that clever quip I thought up was anymore.  Heck, I couldn’t even remember why I was reading about Walt Whitman in the first place till I clicked over to my Pinterest tab and saw that I was in the middle of pinning something.

 

But I guess that’s just the way it goes.  This has been one of the longest weeks in recent memory and I don’t suppose it will get much better in the next day or so.  But!  Come Friday, I’ll be entering Pitch Madness, so that’s gotta count for something, right?

 

Okay, that whole last paragraph doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.  I’m tired. I’ll blame the time change.  And then I’ll go to bed. 😀

 

(c) 2013.  All rights reserved.

 

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The Perks of Being a Wallflower

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The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So way back in November, my book club had its very first meeting.  The book we were supposed to read was The Perks of Being a Wallflower and I completely forgot to check it out until about a week before the meeting.  Naturally, my local library didn’t have it.  Neither did the one the next town over.  Fortunately, the library where I work had it.  Unfortunately, it was already out.  So, with a week to spare, I asked them to put it on reserve for me and prayed it would come in with enough time for me to read it before my meeting.  Then I headed to Barnes & Noble to see what ridiculous price they wanted to charge for it.  I left the store empty-handed, my hopes of reading the book before the movie crushed even further.

A couple of weeks ago, the library called.  The Perks of Being a Wallflower was in – did I still want it?  Despite the fact that the meeting I’d wanted it for was three months passed, I figured, why not?  I’ve heard great things about it and I’d really like to see the movie, so let’s see what it’s all about. . . behind the cut!

The stories we tell ourselves

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From the moment we are conceived, we are part of a story.  And once we are born, we begin to tell our own stories.  New plotlines are added every day; new characters and plot twists pop up like dandelions in new spring grass.  These stories shape our personalities and color our interactions with the world around us; the stories we tell ourselves affect every aspect of who we are and who we will become.

icy

Photo by Kay Kauffman

Stories shape, and sometimes even become, our worldview.  But when that worldview is challenged, how do you respond?  Such challenges are often met with outrage, sometimes even hostility.  People throughout history have paid the price for their inability to rewrite their own sagas, sometimes losing sanity and life.  As ink jockeys, we know that all writing is rewriting, but what about the ordinary storytellers of the world?

Star Trek and books: A Valentine’s Blog Hop

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blog-hop-tag-3001Well, it’s that time of year again: the stores are full of chocolates, red and pink decorations abound, and if you’re not careful, Cupid might get you with his trusty bow and arrow.  That’s right, Valentine’s Day approacheth!  Joleene Naylor, one of the wonderful members of the Ink Slingers League, is hosting a little blog hop celebrating the loveliest of holidays and the loveliest of pastimes, reading!  Here, then, be my entry for the I ♥ Books Blog Hop! 🙂

Valentine’s Day is not the only special February day in the Kauffman house.  February 10 is a pretty special day, too.  February 10 is the anniversary of my first date with Seymour an unbelievable five years ago.  And February 16 is his birthday, so that’s another special day.  I can hear you all now: What the heck does your first date have to do with Star Trek and Valentine’s Day, let alone books?  Well, if you know us, or if you’ve been reading my rambling scribblings here for long enough, you’ll know that it was Star Trek that brought Seymour and me together (among other things, like small-town curiosity (okay, fine, small-town nosiness)).

On our first date at the local pizza joint, we ran into my kindergarten teacher, who stopped to chat.

The Rose and other tidbits

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rose

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. (Photo credit: alice_ling)

The rose she has gone back to Nature
Her petals on the grass by her mother tree lay
But memories of her blooming in the sunshine
With me till my own end will stay.

“The Rose,” by Francis Duggan

I hopped on the Alliance thread this morning and found the above waiting for me with a belated birthday wish from the Dreamcatcher.  It’s a lovely little poem; you can follow the link to read the rest of it.  A quick Google search revealed that Mr. Duggan is quite prolific and that a lot of his work is available online.  The site I linked to above had nearly 500 pages of his work alone, possibly more.

So what’s new?  I’ve been rubbish at posting since the new year struck.  I’ve been struggling to get into a routine – any routine – this year and I’ve had some other things weighing me down as well.  Hopefully I’ll have all that unpleasantness resolved soon and I can start making progress on the rest of my goals for the year.

Speaking of goals for the year, I’ve passed 40k on my sequel.