Photo 365 #30

September 6, 2014September 8, 2014Leave a comment

I’ve been cleaning my office.

2014-09-07 22.38.58

These are two of the four tins stuffed full of notes that I saved from my high school years. I read through a few of them and couldn’t help laughing; my friends and I were big fans of writing in code, one friend in particular, and I’ve now lost the key to one of the codes we used to use. I found several notes written in said code and couldn’t read a single one. 🙂 There was, however, one note that utilized two codes, one of which I could read. Unfortunately, only one word was written in that code, so I now know who the note was about, but I’ve long since forgotten what it was about.

Good times, great oldies. Here’s to you, mis amigos! 😀

Photo 365 #21

August 28, 20144 Comments

Can you believe I’ve been at this for three whole weeks already? Neither can I.

Anyway, I was struggling to come up with a good idea for today’s photo post. But after I put the boys down for their nap, I went out to check the mail. Hidden among the various bills and other junk mail was this:

hpfan

Last (school) year, Bubbles’ class did a project where they wrote a letter to their favorite authors. At first, Bubbles wanted to write to me (cuz he’s a sweet boy), but his teacher told him that he had to choose another author, so he chose JK Rowling (big Harry Potter fans, we are). I’d actually kind of forgotten about it till today.

I suspect that when he gets home, he’ll be a mite disappointed. I mean, how cool would it have been to get a letter back from JK Rowling? Still, even this returned letter will be a nice keepsake. Someday he can look back at it and have a glimpse of the boy he used to be, a carefree, happy boy who loved football and reading.

And who knows? Perhaps someday I’ll get to go to a conference or convention of some awesome sort and I’ll bump into her and not make a fool of myself when recounting this story, and maybe he’ll get his return letter then.

What? It could happen. 🙂

Photo 365 #20

August 27, 2014January 12, 20159 Comments

Today’s photo post is accompanied by a little piece I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the humid heat of an Iowa summer combined with the indescribable heat of a hot flash. It’s more an experiment in painting with words than anything else, and I hope I’ve achieved what I set out to do (which is to attempt to convey the misery of having a hot flash in high summer). Comment away and let me know how I’ve done!

Impressive, no?

I stepped out of my perfectly climate-controlled office…

I got a review!

August 14, 2014August 13, 201411 Comments

tdproof I don’t talk much about my little poetry book, Tuesday Daydreams: A Journal in Verse. You may not have even known it existed till now, though there’s a link to it in my blog’s header. I haven’t done a lot of promotion for it, but it’s sold a few copies, which is pretty awesome for something that started out as a Christmas gift for a friend.

So when I got my very first review of it on Tuesday, I was pretty excited. Pretty darn excited, actually. So if you like poetry, maybe check it out? And if you do, leave a review! Reviews can really make someone’s day. 🙂

Well, I’ve done it…

August 10, 2014August 9, 20148 Comments

I went and uploaded a portion of The Price of Mercy on Authonomy again. I’m still revising, but it would be nice to get a little feedback on the revisions I’ve made so far. If you’re so inclined, you can check it out here. If you’re a member of the site, please feel free to leave me all the constructive criticism you’ve got – I’ve decided that when I finish this round of revisions, I’m going to query again and if I don’t get anywhere with it, then I’ll self-publish, so I need all the eyes on it I can get.

Also, I spent a fair chunk of time yesterday afternoon working on a cover because I didn’t like any of the generic ones they had. I’m not sure how well it works for this book yet – I still think it might be better-suited to the second book in the series – but what do you think? What do you like/dislike about it?

Hope you’re having a marvelous weekend!

Photo Friday: Lunch

August 8, 2014August 22, 20147 Comments

Today’s theme is lunch. I had leftover pizza from Pizza Hut, and failed to take a picture of it, but I didn’t figure anyone really wanted to see two soggy slices of pepperoni pizza, anyway.

Instead, here’s a pretty picture of what I spent the rest of my lunch break doing:

Revisions. *sigh*

I relish my lunch breaks at work because I get a whole hour to myself, uninterrupted, to write or read or sleep. Because I tend to lose myself in whatever story I find myself occupied with (whether it’s mine or someone else’s), I have an alarm set on my phone so that I’m not late getting back to the daily grind. It’s not a fool-proof system – my alarm fails on occasion – but it generally works.

Don’t forget to stop by Charnele’s blog and see what she did for lunch today! Have a great weekend, everybody! 🙂

Do you want to sneak a peek?

July 23, 2014Leave a comment

Anná
Artwork by Hazel Butler

If you follow me on Facebook, you’ll know that I was tagged in another writing game by my friends Afe Smith and Valerie Willis. The idea for this one is to share the first sentence from the first three chapters of your current WIP. I chose to share three lines from The Price of Mercy (Book One of the Lokana Chronicles) and it’s sequel, Fog of War (Book Two of the Lokana Chronicles). As always, titles – and lines, for that matter – are subject to change because, well because I’m a writer (read: perfectionist) and I’m my own worst critic.

Chapters One, Two, and Three of The Price of Mercy start out like this:

1. Dirty tears carved grooves through the layers of grime on the poor farmer’s face as he fought and lost the battle for his dignity.

2. Vegin pulled the rough brown hood lower over his eyes as he sauntered through the dusty marketplace.

3. She ambled down the steps, lost in thought.

<!–more While Chapters One, Two, and Three…While Chapters One, Two, and Three of Fog of War start off like this:

1. Anna Martoka snuggled into the embrace of her fiancé, John Briant.

2. A month passed.

3. Anna stumbled on a tree root.

I have yet to revise (for the dozenth time) FoW, as I’m currently stuck on revisions for TPoM. But I’m up to Chapter Six now, which is huge progress, given that Chapters Five and Six did not heretofore exist. I still have a lot of work ahead of me with these books, but hopefully I’ll be able to finish revisions by the end of the year and start querying again in January (I know, I know, I’ve said that the last couple of years, but this time, I’m gonna make it happen).

And who knows? Maybe this time, I’ll catch someone’s eye…

What are you working on at the moment?

Inspiration, or, What’s in a name?

July 22, 20141 Comment

spongebob One of the new blogging buddies I met during April’s Blogging U. course is hosting a Guest Blogger Week over at her place, and today it’s my turn to share! If you’re not familiar with the Avid Reader blog, you should definitely check it out. Lots of neat stuff there. And there will be guest posts all week!

My post is on the inspiration behind my humble blog’s title and tagline. To read more about my inspirations, head on over and check out my post. Then have a look at yesterday’s guest spot and some of the other booky news!

Our very own Muggles

July 18, 2014July 18, 2014Leave a comment

To the Non-writing (which is like our own brand of Muggle), the whole journey is completely alien. They really don’t know what it means to be querying agents or to have an agent or to be on submission or whatever the heck it is you’re trying to tell them.

There’s no universal translator. If we try to explain, we get blank stares. And sometimes polite nods. –Authoress

I read this this morning over at Miss Snark’s First Victim. It’s a great site, and I really enjoy all Authoress’s posts. This post was full of great things, but the reference to non-writers as Muggles really made me smile. You can find the rest of the post here.

On storytelling

July 9, 2014Leave a comment

“And I would’ve gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you meddling characters!” — every good storyteller ever, unmasked for the monster that they are. –Chuck Wendig, penmonkey extraordinaire

Seriously, go check out that post. Lots of good info.