How Star Trek improved my confidence in my writing skills

March 15, 20142 Comments

Seymour and I have been rewatching all things Star Trek since we were dating; we’ve taken care of the original series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and all the movies (although we’re not big fans of the reboot and I haven’t yet seen Into Darkness). We’re halfway through our Enterprise rewatch at the moment (which is great because it means I’m that much closer to a rewatch of my beloved Voyager), having started Season 3 the other night. Seymour’s been telling me about how awful the third season is; he’s not a big fan of the temporal cold war story arc or the Xindi story arc and frankly, I kind of agree with him on the temporal cold war thing.

Anyway, the point of this is that the season premiere of Season 3 had me laughing. And facepalming. The words, “What the hell?!” kept running through my head. Sure, it started off okay – recap of the season finale, Xindi council meeting, theme song (which sucks now – they completely ruined it by jazzing it up). But then they unveil the new command center, and that’s where it all went wrong:

What a weekend!

November 25, 201317 Comments

How was everyone’s weekend? I spent mine mostly offline, fighting a migraine and watching TV. Lots and lots of TV. But it was good, because some of it qualified as research for The Lokana Chronicles. After last week’s writing class and my two-day Reign marathon and a bunch of Wikipedia-browsing, I’ve got a bunch of ideas for revisions (which I’d just resumed and will now have to go back over, but at least it’s only a chapter or two). I decided the book needs to be split in half, so I’ve got a lot of work to do because, once I’m done revising, I’m going to have to figure out how to wrap up the first half so that it feels like a complete book and then do the same for the second half.

Oy. Vey.

icy We had some snow over the weekend that made for lovely inspiration, but I felt too miserable most of the weekend to do much about it. I finally got a chance to sit down this noon and work on a new short story, but then the phone rang, and there went half my lunch hour. Hopefully I can get some more writing done tonight – that would be awesome! I’m still feeling a bit blah, though, so I guess we’ll see what happens.

In other news…

Are they real?

November 5, 201319 Comments

c. 50 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Are you working through lunch again?” the man asked as I pulled out my notebook.

“Yeah, but this is fun work,” I replied, smiling. I plopped the MS for The Lokana Chronicles down on the table.

He bent closer to inspect the title page. “What’s this? A novel?”

“Yep. And here’s the sequel,” I said, removing the MS for Remnants from my purse. It hit the table with a thud.

He took another look. “You wrote these?”

My waitress joined us. “You’re a writer?”

“Yep.”

Her eyes widened. “Wow! I always see you writing in your little notebook…”

“This is usually what I’m working on,” I said, smiling again.

I told them a little about my work and the man asked if he was part of my story. I said no. Then he asked,

Writing, then and now

October 26, 20134 Comments

My parents in our living room. Those lovely bookshelves went from floor to ceiling. 🙂

Well, once again, I didn’t get my post up on time. I’ve been spending a lot of time writing lately, although not on The Lokana Chronicles or Remnants. I’m taking a writing class online, and in our second class, we received a prompt. My homework was to work more on what I’d come up with for the prompt in class, and it’s been a challenge.

I got called into work yesterday afternoon and since I had to drive over there and drop the boys off anyway, I left in the morning like normal and spent three lovely hours at the library working on this new story. It reminded me of when I was younger, and I would take over the living room to write, or spread things out in my room.

There wasn’t really much to take over in the living room, since my sister lived with my grandparents and my dad lived at his desk in the dining room, but it was the space I wanted. Often a friend or two would join me and we would stay up till the wee hours of the morning writing and giving each other feedback. And also dancing to Gaelic Storm.

Lotsa news!

September 12, 2013September 12, 20132 Comments

First up, The Lokana Chronicles is up on Miss Snark’s First Victim as part of this month’s Secret Agent Contest. Click here to check it out! And if you follow me on Twitter, I apologize for the pitch spam, but the After the Madness Twitter Pitch Party is today and I’ve – belatedly – been pitching my book in hopes of snagging an agent’s interest. I missed out on Pitch Madness this time around, and I haven’t been too addicted to the #pitmad thread today, either, but both things are always a lot of fun and I wish all the contestants good luck (and all the winners congratulations). 🙂

Next, I was super excited to see this in my email yesterday:

I adore the Banned Underground books and have been anxiously awaiting the release of The SatNav of Doom ever since I finished the last book in the series. My screencap cut off some of the links, so here they are again: Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, even a blog!

And last, but certainly not least…

A letter to my blog

September 10, 20133 Comments

Hello, pretty blog. How are you? Have you missed me? Been lonely without me to update you?

I’m sorry. Really, I am. It’s just that I’ve been revising. And writing. And chasing one kid after another – it’s like herding cats, I tell you.

Don’t believe me? Why not? Oh, you want pics or it didn’t happen? All right, fine. Here you go.

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There, are you happy? Proof I’ve been writing and drinking all the coffee. What more could you want?

Oh, you want something of substance? Well, I think I can help you out there. Here’s an excerpt from my new short story…

Change is falling all around me

September 3, 201317 Comments

Beautiful fall color (Photo credit: blmiers2)

Can you believe it’s September already? Overnight, it seems like fall has struck. The grass in the ditches is suddenly golden, the temperatures at night are nice and frosty, and football is now everywhere I look.

I love fall. The colors are breathtaking, the temperatures are perfect, and fresh apples abound (I’m a sucker for the smell of fresh apples – nothing beats it). Fall is a time of change, though, and I don’t always do well with change, so reconciling my love of fall with my strong dislike of change will be interesting this year.

Whether it was the beginning of a new school year or the start of a new job, fall for me means change.

We are the champions, my friends!

July 29, 201311 Comments

campnano

I did it! I crossed the 50k line tonight! Well, I probably actually crossed it sometime this noon, but I typed across the 50k line tonight and validated everything tonight and holy crap, you guys! Fifty thousand words is a lot of freaking words!

Okay, so that’s my excitement for the night then. I know I can write another 50k because I’ve done it before (The Lokana Chronicles is roughly 100k) and that it will probably take that many more before my story is all done, but I’m just trying to focus on one thing at a time right now, especially since I was hoping to have this story nearing completion by this point in time. I can’t believe I’ve been working on it for almost a year now and I’m only half done. I had hoped to be so much further along than this! But I suppose that’s just the way it goes, huh? That that’s all part of being a mother/wife/friend/office drone/writer. There are only so many hours in the day and I only get one of them, sometimes two, to write.

But I’m greedy – I want more.

Luckily, my work schedule is about to get a lot less hectic, so that should help. Naptime will once again be writing time! And with school starting back up in just a few short weeks, perhaps homework time can be writing time, too? I guess we’ll see.

In the meantime, I’m going to celebrate my Camp Nano win by going to bed early tonight. I could definitely use the sleep. How has everyone else done with their Nano goals? If you haven’t done Nano, why not try it come November?

Dazed and Confused: How a Troll Review Improved my Writing (Part 2 of the ‘Labyrinth’ Series) (droppedpebbles.wordpress.com)

Things I love

July 28, 2013July 28, 20132 Comments

Look at that sky! It just makes you feel good to be alive, doesn’t it? 🙂

The sound of laughter in the morning.
Long talks with old friends.
Cuddle time.
Sunshine streaming through my window.
Bright blue skies dotted with fluffy clouds.
Crisp fall air.
Lazy weekends.
The smiles elicited by a bedtime story.
Impending visits with distant friends. 😀

Speaking of impending visits, I am beyond excited for August 8! One of my oldest friends will be flying out from sunny Californ-I-A to visit dear old Mom and Dad and guess who’s couch she’ll be crashing on? That’s right, mine! 🙂

All sorts of fun things are in the works for that weekend. Of course, fun for me would be staying up all night with a boatload of pop and watching movies till dawn. But I’m sure other things will be involved, too. Some major catching up is in order.

But for now…to the writing cave! My boys (all of them) are down for naps and I’ve got a word count to hit. Enjoy your Sunday, my lovelies! How will you be spending it?

Sneak peek Thursday

July 18, 2013July 18, 20136 Comments

I’ve been hard at work on Remnants again lately for Camp Nano. I have a small word count goal – just 5,000 words, give or take – and I have no idea how close I am to hitting it. But I inadvertantly skipped over a major portion of the story during a writing spree a few months ago, and now I have to go back and fix it, so if I can at least get that accomplished, then I’ll consider camp a success.

Meanwhile, here’s a little taste of what all that fixing has wrought…