Myself, Without the Shell

On The Night You Were Born

2012-03-14T13:53:00.001-04:00

Either the postpartum hormones are hitting me harder than I thought, or having a baby has instantly turned me into a much sappier person.

My husband and I went out and about this past Sunday, the first time I'd been out of the house (save for two doctor's appointments) since I had the baby. We were getting some pictures developed and while we waited, we killed some time in the shopping center.

A shopping center that just so happened to have a Babies R Us. After picking up an "abc dog" (as my husband calls it) and some more onsies, I found the book section and my chosen prey: On the Night You Were Born. When I rejoined my husband though, the conversation went like this:

Husband: A book? The kid's going to have an ereader before too long. Paper books are obsolete. We might as well buy him a VHS tape.

Me: But I want to sit in my glider and read him a book! With paper!

Husband: You just got a kindle for Christmas. Download it on there.

Me: But it won't be in color. The entire time I was in labor, I kept thinking about this book.

*husband wordlessly puts book in shopping cart*

BOOM! And that's how you play the game, people.

Seriously, I wasn't lying. Despite not having read the book, I had the title stuck in my head, because I kept thinking about how I'd look back on the pain and discomfort of labor and it would be worth it, because it would be the night that my son was born (which turned out to be totally true).

So Sunday night I sit in the glider to read him this book.

It starts:

"On the night you were born,
the moon smiled with such wonder
that the stars peeked in to see you
and the night wind whispered.
“Life will never be the same.”

Yes folks, that's how the book starts. It only gets more sentimental from there. I could hardly read the book to him, I was crying so much. I blame the hormones.

Also, the pain meds. I had a root canal yesterday and I am still somewhat loopy (ergo why I think this is amusing enough to blog about it). Yes, a root canal. My filling fell OUT of my tooth last Wednesday, so I had to have some dental work I was carefully avoiding taken care of yesterday.

Yes, between the root canal and my c section almost three weeks ago, life's just been a barrel of laughs. I say that to be sarcastic, but I am also serious. Because when you pick up the baby to burp him, and he spits up ALL OVER the front of your shirt, or when you just get finished changing him and he immediately poops in his diaper SMILING the ENTIRE time, you have to laugh.

Laugh, because if not you'd cry.

As my friend Liz says about the baby, "he has this look like he's smarter than everyone in the room...and he's waiting for them to figure it out."

Flexibility Matters

2012-03-08T10:14:00.002-05:00


I smile because I am holding my son. Also? IV pain meds.

It's impossible to say how much my life has already changed, and what more is to still come.

I was supposed to be induced for labor on Thursday, February 23rd. I was. I spent the entire day in labor, walking back and forth between a 3 foot space. I was hooked up to an IV with pictocin and minerals in one arm, and a fetal heartbeat monitor and a monitor for my contractions around my stomach. But I walked within the space I had, because it would help me dilate.

Around six that night the midwife checked me, and found I was 3 cms dilated. Hooray! So I kept walking. I would sit on occasion, but that was very uncomfortable. The contractions were getting stronger and stronger as they upped the pictocin drip. It wasn't until 2 in the morning that I realized my legs hurt too badly to walk on, that they were swollen purple. So it was time for the epidural. They broke my water and set me up on some awesome IV pain meds.

I was told to get some rest, which I would have loved to, but people were checking on me often, and I had a blood pressure cuff that went off every 30 minutes or so. I named it Eeyore because of the sad noise it made after it finished deflating. I was 5 cms by this point.

A few hours later, very early on Friday, the midwife came in to check me again. I was only 6 cms for some reason. Breaking my water should have sped up the contractions, but instead my body just plateaued out. They started talking about a c section, but said we could try taking me off the pictocin for an hour and then starting it back up again.

We tried that. It didn't work. I actually went back to 5 cms dilated. I could have waited until later on in the day to see if I would dilate further, but it was a numbers game at this point. Once they break your water, you have a high chance of infection. My body was showing no signs of dilating further, and the longer we waited, the better chance there would be that they would move me from an unscheduled c section to an emergency c section where they are worried about me and or the baby.

So I decided on the c section, and less than 10 minute later they started prepping me. They gave me this nasty tasting stuff to prevent heartburn, which I promptly threw up (I would have rather had heartburn). They put pressure garments on my legs so I wouldn't clot. They wheeled me into this large, cold OR, and upped my epidural so I couldn't feel anything from the waist down. A thin blue curtain draped across my chest separated me from the doctors. My husband sat with me, holding my hand and looking funny in the hospital gown they gave him.

I was scared and cold and nervous something would go wrong. But I was lucky. The baby came out no problem. He was perfectly healthy. And while I am still sore from the labor and operation, I am healing well.

I would have rather not be induced. And then, I would have rather not had a c section. Nothing about my son's birth went how I'd planned, except the most important part about both of us being healthy.


On our way to see the doctor. He sleeps blissfully unaware.

Writing is a lot like that. You have all these ideas and expectations. It comes with the territory. We're imaginative people. Why wouldn't we imagine what it's going to be like to get published, to get an agent, to reach any milestone we have our heart set on?

But it's important to remember that life has other plans. Being flexibile can completely change your experience of an event. I could have gotten really upset and pissed off about how the birth of my son turned out. I could have been mad that I also have to recover from major surgery after being in labor for a day and a half while taking care of a newborn.

But why? Why get all caught up on how you wanted things to be? Why not plan for every outcome and just know that things are going to change, things are going to be different, and that's okay?

If you get too upset about the curve balls life throws you, just look at this picture. I dare you not to laugh:

Sausage baby! To the rescue!

My Baby

2012-03-01T07:34:00.001-05:00

Here's the baby!

He was born at 1:31 in the afternoon on Friday, February 24th. He weighs 7.6 pounds and 20.5 cm long.

Sorry it's taken a little while to update you guys, but I had an unscheduled C-section and I am still recovering. But holy crap he was worth it.

I'll fill you guys in on the details later, but I'd thought I'd give a quick update now.

Waiting

2012-02-22T12:57:00.001-05:00

This is the post where I explain that I have no idea what my posting schedule is going to be like for the next couple of days. I go to the hospital tonight where they'll prep me to be induced, and then at an ungodly hour tomorrow morning they wake me up to start the pitocin drip.

Then it's Labor City until the baby comes out. Then I will probably pass out from exhaustion. I will update the blog when I can, just to let you guys know how things went and to show off my new bundle of joy, but I am not exactly sure when that's going to happen. We have WiFi at the hospital, and someone is bringing a laptop, but yeah. No idea.

Right now I am tired from sleeping fitfully last night, and my brain is going a mile a minute. It feels like I found out I was pregnant yesterday. It also feels like it's taken forever. I've got my bag packed, and have double checked the contents twice as though I am going to Siberia and not ten miles away from my house.

I am not so good with waiting. When it's a long ways off, I can just sort of forget about it and concentrate on the here and now. When something gets closer, however, I start to get jittery. Especially since this is the first baby and I have no idea what to expect, I just know that my life is going to change forever, the waiting is extra hard. I am finding things to occupy myself, but nothing is really getting done. It feels like I just woke up, but it's also the afternoon, and I know it's going to be time to leave before I know it.

I think it's really important to live your life, rather than sitting and wishing things would happen already. I know it sounds cheesy, but it's easy to just wish your life away. There's a part in the movie Click that frightens me. Adam Sandler's character is sick and impatient to get a promotion, so he fast forwards until he gets the promotion.

But it turns out it took him a year to get there, and in the meantime he missed the death of his dog and he and his wife are in counseling. A whole year, just gone.

So I am going to be patiently waiting, enjoying the last day of being pregnant with my son, and embracing the moment.

I hope you guys have a great couple of days while I am off giving birth. I expect you to keep it down to a dull roar and not throw too many keggers while I am gone.

No Flying Cars to be Found

2012-02-20T14:59:00.001-05:00

This post is going to be scattered, since there's lots of little things I want to say. So I am going to put it in one post. If you get confused, just pretend a squirrel on coffee wrote the post while having an epileptic fit, m'kay?

*Yes, I am still pregnant. I am scheduled to be induced on Thursday. So either the baby decides to come before, or I'll have to evict him then. I am mostly trying to ignore the contractions I am having, since wondering every few hours "AM I IN LABOR?" will drive me insane. My parents and in laws however, are not relaxing as well, and thus I have had to tell them to not ask me every time I call if I am in labor.

*You need to check out this post by my friend Joe. You need to. Then, you really need to read the Brian Brushwood/Teller correspondence he linked to. It's amazing and insightful, and yeah. If I could force words into your brain, it would be this correspondence.

*My husband found this last night: 9 Essential Skills Kids Should Learn. I teased him that he was already Googling child-rearing techniques, but his story is he found the site through another essay this guy wrote. Even if you're not gearing it towards raising kids, I think considering these skills is a good idea. Because there's a surprising corollary to 9 Essential Skills--- How "The Karate Kid" Ruined the Modern World.

*I am editing my ghost book, and beta reading another book, and I am enjoying this back and forth between the two. It's been very enjoyable. Have I mentioned I'm enjoying it?

*Back to the pregnancy thing: it really really irritates me just how poorly it's shown in movies and television. I know, I know. Elizabeth, it's not real. Even reality TV isn't real. Why expect realism? But it's something about HOW wrong they get it that bothers me. You see a woman touch her belly and say "It's time" and then they go to the hospital where she screams at her husband and then, POOF, baby. There's nothing about the broad spectrum of in between. I don't think it would kill producers to just be a little more realistic, if only so women don't suffer from these shattered illusions when they actually experience it for themselves (like, I don't know, having labor pains on and off for a WEEK). It would be like, I don't know, every movie showing flying cars. And then when you go buy a car for yourself, NONE of them fly. Not a single one. Do your research people. Not sure I am making sense anymore, but yeah. I had to get that off my chest.

In summation: pregnancy/labor as shown on TV and movies? Nothing like a flying car.

*I am pretty sure there was something else, but of course I've forgotten it. It will come to me while I am in the middle of showering or driving or doing something that prevents me from jotting it down. I can only apologize.

UPDATE: Oh yeah, I remember. I was going to complain about how the magical power of eggplant has failed me. But that's pretty obvious isn't it? And you'd probably just scoff at me for putting my faith in the magical powers of a vegetable. Because really, if eggplant induced labor for reals, they'd tell us not to eat it until the end of the pregnancy. I've also tried all of the other old wives tales, minus the castor oil. Because yeah, just look up what castor oil actually DOES. No thank you.

Updates!

2012-02-17T11:47:00.001-05:00

Oh, I've had a fun week. How about you?

At two o'clock in the morning on Tuesday I woke up with regular contractions. They lasted for over an hour, so I called the doctor. They said to wait until they get stronger and closer together. I laid down on the couch to do just that, but instead the contractions slowly went away. I dozed for a few hours and then got up for the day, zombie like. I was still having some contractions, but they were nothing like what woke me up.

One trip to the doctor's office later, and they said there was no way to know for sure if it was was false labor, or pre labor. To be clear, false labor is exactly like labor, only it never progresses to full on labor. Pre labor is like active labor, but it can calm down or take a while (several days) to progress into full labor. I still don't know what to classify it as, since I am still having contractions pretty regularly. And yet somehow, still pregnant.

Yesterday I went to the OB's office for a check up and an ultrasound. Apparently I have lots of amniotic fluid, so that's...uhh...good. They hooked me up to the fetal monitoring unit where it measures my contractions and the baby's heartbeat. But when the midwife came in, she didn't like the numbers for the baby's heartbeat.

See, here's the thing.

My baby is ACTIVE. He's a belly ninja crossed with a Jack Russell. He has distinct periods of being asleep, but other than that he's kicking my ribs, pushing against my uterus, and generally rolling around in there. Again, it's like gestating a pissed off house cat. He also doesn't like anything on his belly. He always wiggles around during ultrasounds, when they use a little fetal heartbeat monitor (a much smaller machine than the one they hooked me up to yesterday), or even if someone is just touching my stomach.

When they hooked me up to the fancy fetal heartbeat monitor it has a plastic disc they place over where the baby is. It then stays there for 20 minutes while they get a reading of his heartbeat. There's also a second plastic disc for my contractions. I think you can see where this is going. He kept moving off the monitor at first, and then even when he stayed put, he still wasn't in the best position for it. At the end, the heartbeat reading had all sorts of weird stuff going on. Stuff where the baby's heartbeat kept dropping to scary-low numbers.

They sent me over to the hospital as a result, so the hospital could monitor the baby more closely. They gave him an ultrasound and monitored both of us for what seemed like eternity, but everything came out fine. I am still having pretty regular contractions, so the nurse was hopeful that it would progress into labor over the weekend. You and me both, sister.

If not, I am scheduled to be induced next Thursday, which actually means staying overnight at the hospital on Wednesday. I would really rather not be induced, so I am praying the baby decides to come before then.

For my part, I am trying those old wives' tales to induce labor. Reflexology on my feet and Eggplant Parmesan so far. I am leery of spicy food because a) I hate it. It upsets my stomach something fierce and I am a big fat wimp. About the only "spicy" food I can really tolerate is mild curry b) when you're having contractions, you're also super nauseous. At least, I was on Tuesday. So I think nausea + spicy food is probably a bad combination.

Also, I am so not doing castor oil. The OB said it doesn't really work, and besides....ewwwwww.

So I am going to start the sure fire way to get the baby to come: start a big project. Babies have a devastating sense of irony, and if I start a huge project--and I mean, really start it--I'll go into labor. I've been editing, but not really the down and dirty making scene cards, print out the ms and tearing it apart. I didn't want to get too involved only to have to set it aside for a few weeks while I adjusted to being awake every 2-3 hours.

But forget it. It's time, I am sick of waiting, and the gloves are coming off.

How was your week?

Eggplant Plans

2012-02-13T11:28:00.002-05:00

This is me, yesterday, tired, sore, and huge.

So today I am due to have my baby.

Apparently, he's decided that he's got a good thing going because I am still pregnant. I am very thankful I don't have the gestation time of a Frilled Shark, but I'm also ready to have the baby now. But that's okay he's appears to be late. I have eggplant plans.

There's a restaurant north of Atlanta that has a reputation, you see. Local legend says that pregnant women who eat their eggplant Parmigiana going into labor within two days. As a matter of fact, they have a wall of over three hundred baby pictures who were born after their mothers ate their eggplant Parmigiana. Women send in pictures and testimonials.

You could say if you wanted to spoil my fun that the women just think the eggplant had something to do with it because of the legend. They went into labor afterwards, and figured the eggplant was the cause when nature was just taking it's course. But it's not just women who are late, and therefore expecting to go into labor any minute (or second) now. Women have gone into labor a week early. Also, if you eat there on or after your due date and haven't gone into labor within two days, they comp your meal for you.

So I figure what the heck. I like eggplant Parmigiana. Let's test out the magical properties. We're planning to go on Wednesday if the baby hasn't shown up yet. I know that he's not really late-late if he hasn't arrived yet, so I wanted to give him some time.

Thursday I have a doctor's visit scheduled where they will ultrasound me to make sure that everything is still kosher for the baby. Hopefully I will be in labor by then, but it's good to have a back up plan.

So as far as plans this week, I'm having a baby. How about you?

Hoarders: The Crazy Person Edition

2012-02-11T21:04:00.001-05:00

Guys, I think I might have a problem.

Today while searching for a lamp base, I found another baby blanket. It's adorable. Thing is, I already have a ton of baby blankets. But there can never be enough. I have two small fleece blankets, seven small cotton blankets, three receiving blankets, and six larger fleece blankets already. In my defense I did not buy most of them. Most were presents from the baby shower or my parents and In Laws buying baby stuff because they are out of their minds with excitement (first grandchild on both sides of the family. No, he's not going to be spoiled or anything).

But that still didn't stop me from buying some when I finished out my registry, or this new blanket today. I can rationalize anything. The blanket today is necessary because it's much larger than the ones I already have, and it's warm but thin so it will be a great middle ground between the super thin blankets and the warm fleece ones. I can throw it over the stroller if I need to, and still use it when the baby gets bigger.

At least, that's what I tell myself.

It's not just baby blankets though. I hoard other random things. Books are a gimme, because what writer doesn't? But I also have a gigantic stash of office supplies. I have no less that five unopened packs of white index cards, two packs of neon colored index cards, a 24 pack of fine point Sharpies, a 24 pack of highlighters, a 24 pack of markers, a metric crapton of pens, and that's just off the top of my head. Don't even ask how many legal pads and notebooks I have.

I am not sure what exactly drives me to collect these things, other than this never ending need to have them and the ability to lie to myself and justify the necessity of the item in question. I suppose it could be worse. I could be like that cockroach house on Hoarders (Caution: do not click that link if you dislike cockroaches, have a weak stomach, or want to retain the last vestiges of your sanity). I could collect less useful things like bottle caps (no offense to those of you out there who collect bottle caps. I am sure your collection is stunning).

Surely I'm not the only person out there that has a hard time letting go of things? Or an insane need to stockpile very specific stuff? Is there anything you guys collect a ton of?

Now if you'll excuse me, while I was searching for the link to my new baby blanket, I saw some other ones on sale.

Where Have All the Big Moments Gone?

2012-02-09T10:38:00.000-05:00

Okay, maybe it's just me, but lately I've noticed there's not a lot of big moments in movies and books.

At least, not in the last few published novels I've read or movies I watched on Netflix. I know this is subjective, and I can still think of a bunch of movies and books that are exempt from this observation, so they are excused from class.

Perhaps I should explain what I mean by "big moment" so the rest of you at home can decipher my meaning.

Simply put, it's a turning point. It can be a major change of direction for the plot, or when some of what character is working towards pays off, or a major set back. The most obvious example is the climax of the plot, but there should be other, smaller climaxes.

And yeah, there were turning points in the offending books and movies, but they felt really small. Little Timmy made a B on his math test. Rhonda found her lucky penny. Events that progressed the plot, but they didn't feel like much. It was "meh" instead of "Wow, I can't wait to find out what happens next!"

Think about big moments. Harry Potter discovers he's a wizard. Po finds inner peace. A coach gives an inspiring speech in innumerable sports movies. John McClane walks across broken glass shoeless. Johnny gets Baby out of a corner. Frodo is entrusted with the One Ring.

There's a cathartic effect from these turning points, whether things are better or worse for the main character. Something important has changed, and life can never be the same again.

Not every moment in the movie or book needs to feel like this of course, but turning points should make you feel something. They should stir you, throw you towards the remaining turning points until the inevitable climax occurs and you feel the biggest release of all: the resolution (or conversely, you feel the most pissed off you spend X number of hours of your life on this piece of crap and can never get them back).

I'm not saying every turning point should be POW POW EXPLOSION OMG THE KILLER BEES ARE IN MY RACCOON WOUNDS!!!!!!!!!! but unless they are more dramatic than the events around them, they don't feel like anything at all.

I really believe that a movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat or a book that is physically impossible to put down has among other things, a dynamic plot. There's twists and turns and high and lows and you're always emotionally engaged.

But that's just me. My attention span is currently that of a coked up squirrel, so I am harder to entertain at the moment. It might be why I've noticed it more, but it's still something to keep in mind.

What say you? How you do feel about turning points and how they relate to your own work?

1 Week and Counting

2012-02-06T14:19:00.001-05:00

So I have exactly one week until my baby is due to grace us with his presence. I'd like to think I am staying calm and collected, but it's really hard not to wonder whenever my body does something weird whether or not I am going into labor.

"I woke up with an upset stomach."

*Googles "nausea as a sign of labor"*

"Holy crap, that's a symptom! But I'm not having any contractions or anything else. I guess I'll wait and see."

(It turns out it is in fact, not labor.)

"Wow, I am feeling really crampy and sort of like crap. I wonder if that's back labor."

(It turns out it is in fact, not back labor.)

"The baby hasn't stopped moving or kicking. My goodness, he's having a party in there. I wonder if that's a sign of labor."

(It turns out it is in fact, not a sign of labor at all.)

And don't think the crazy is just me.

My husband called me on his break. I was in the bathroom, where I seem to spend half my day, so I didn't pick up. He then calls our friend/neighbor and asks her to check on me if he doesn't reach me on his next break, in case I had fallen or something.

My mom calls me every other day. I should start answering the phone "Still not in labor."

In the mean time I am making a plan of attack for revisions and working on the novels I am critiquing.

So what's up with you guys? How are your projects going? I have to go Google more signs of labor...

The Versatile Blogger Award

2012-01-31T11:43:00.000-05:00

It seems I've won an award! Huzzah!

The gallant Nick over at Scattergun Scribblings has awarded me the Versatile Blogger award! Let's see how many exclaimation points I can use!!!
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Moving on...

Here are the rules:

1. In a post on your blog, nominate 15 fellow bloggers for the Versatile Blogger Award (or however many you choose).

2. In the same post, add the Versatile Blogger Award.

3. In the same post, thank the blogger who nominated you in a post with a link back to their blog.

4. In the same post, share 7 completely random pieces of information about yourself.

5. In the same post include this set of rules.

6. Inform each nominated blogger of their nomination by posting a comment on each of their blogs.

So seven random things about me...I think I can do random no problem.

1. I have an obsession with Milky Way Midnights. I have a stash in my desk drawer and there's never less than two in there.

2. I can't watch most horror movies. Not because I don't like them, but because when I do I have a hard time convincing myself afterwards that something isn't going to crawl out of my TV.
3. My twin brother and I had imaginary friends in the form of monsters that lived in the woods. It's okay, they were nice monsters.
4. I grew up on a ton of land in upstate New York. Some of the property was my aunt's dog breeding and boarding business. As such, I have witness many puppies being born. Somehow I suspect the birth of my son will be slightly different. For one, there's not going to be any ripped up newspaper...

5. I had pica when I was little. My mom was on first name basis with Poison Control. Most memorable thing I ate? The earrings off my cousin's earring tree. All of them. Never had to get my stomach pumped though, unlike my little brother, who drank kerosine (he thought it was water because it was kept in a blue jug, like the water jugs we brought with us when we went camping).
6. I have long hair because I am lazy. Any time I get bangs I love them for about two days and then I get sick of having to style them.
7. I love @emergencypuppy on Twitter. It's nothing but cute pictures of animals doing cute things. They don't spam your feed either.

This ice is otterly too cold.

Okay, so for the last part of this award, I shall return the love in no particular order:

Lena Hoppe

Elizabeth Davis

Charity Bradford

Joseph Selby

Rena Ford

Mia Hayson

Miranda Hardy

Freya Morris

Sarah Allen

Have a great day everyone!

Uppity Updates!

2012-01-20T10:40:00.000-05:00

Just in case you were all wondering what's going on, here's some updates on life, the universe, and everything:

*I am overwhelmed by how awesome all of you are. You guys were nice and supportive about my last post, which only proves my point that you guys are awesome. Also, let's see how many times I can use the word "awesome". It's really awesome that you guys are so awesome. :D

*I wrote this sentence to prove that I have a larger vocabulary than a teenage girl. Actually, that's an unfair statement considering when I was a teenage girl I had a large vocabulary, as did most of the girls I knew. I apologize to teenage girls everywhere.

*I have finished the first draft of Zombie Road Trip. I did not celebrate this occurrence with a blog post, mostly because this draft wins the gold medal of crappiness. I seem to really embrace that whole "crappy first draft" rule. When I say crappy, I am not being modest or hard on myself. We're talking about plot holes the size of the moon, plot threads that went nowhere, a beginning that in no way shape or form matches the middle or the end, and that's just the major stuff. Last year I wrote several first drafts, all of which suck. It seems that this year will be the year of editing these drafts into some semblance of coherence. More on that later.

*I narrowly avoided death yesterday on my way to the OB. A woman was driving and putting make up on. Just, no. No ladies. You're beautiful. You don't have to apply make up while your vehicle is in motion. Really, you don't. At least wait until you get to the parking lot of your destination. And no, waiting at a red light doesn't count.

*I am 36 1/2 weeks pregnant, and boy am I fat. I had my baby shower this past Saturday and I saw the pictures and wow. Just, wow. It looks like I am smuggling a watermelon under my shirt. Before you guys get all worried or mad at me for calling myself fat, I don't mean it in a "I must now starve myself to keep my girlish figure at 9 months pregnant" way. It's funny, especially since I've always been small. Just when I think my belly can't possibly get any bigger, it does. I am not starving myself; on the contrary, pass me another brownie. It's just that I've gained 30 pounds, and well...it's hilarious. I waddle when I walk. I have a hard time getting off the couch. I out grew my maternity pants and had to buy the next size up. You see? Hilarious.

Fun baby shower game--guess the pregnant woman's belly size! My friend Janice actually guessed it perfectly. Jennifer, the woman in the picture, obviously over shot it by a lot. Thanks Jennifer.

*Something something something, something something goes here but I forgot what it was.

*I am critiquing two novels and failing miserably. My brain is slush right now, and I can't concentrate for very long, so it's taking forever. I feel horrible, but figured giving the book back with a gigantic smiley face on it wasn't exactly what my crit partners were looking for.

*Holy crap babies make a lot of laundry! I mean, sweet Georgia Brown, he's not even out yet and I've already done two loads of laundry and have about three more to do. Blankets, burp clothes, wash clothes, bibs, clothing, socks (LOTS of teeny baby socks), you name it, I've washed it.

*No, I am not nesting yet, why do you ask?

*Editing! Yes, it's that time. Last year I wrote a bunch of really, really awful first drafts. This year will be the year I edit them. There's a lot of rewriting in my future. Grid your loins for posts about editing, that's all I've got to say.

*I've downloaded a ton of books on my Kindle. Right now I am reading James Scott Bell's Writing Fiction for All Your Worth and loving it. Reading books on writing puts me in an editing frame of mind, which is great because I am going to need it. Bell has this awesome (there's another one!) makes me want to work on WIP, right away. When I start whining about editing, you guys can remind me I was excited way back when.

So what are you all up to?

Mulling Things Over

2012-01-16T15:49:00.001-05:00

I've had this post in mind for about two months now, but I didn't quite know what to say. If I should say anything. If it was over sharing or I would regret talking about super personal life things on my blog later on in life.

The more I think about it though, the more important it feels to say. To make sure you guys know. So here it goes.

I had an amazing holiday season. I truly did. But it was also one of the hardest ones I've had to endure because a person very close to me is suddenly not anymore. He's not sick or away, it's a personal choice he's made.

A difficult choice for the rest of us. We had to change the way we celebrate Christmas and birthdays, and even then there was a gaping hole left behind. I don't fully understand his decisions and I don't think I am ever going to. Most of the time I'm fine, but some things remind me of his absence, how he's there but not there, and it's all I can do not to start bawling.

This sounds weird, but sometimes I wish I could control people around me. I know, it sounds terrible. But when your happiness is so entwined with someone else's, and they keep doing things to rip your heart out, you start fantasizing about ways to make it stop. Especially since this thing has been on and off for the last year. It was easier to ignore before the holidays cropped up.

I had to let him go.

It was the only thing I could do. I couldn't keep expecting him to be there, because when he wasn't it was like dying all over again. And these little constant deaths were somehow worse to deal with than if he was there, and then not. I don't think he knows how he's affecting the people around him. I think he believes he's just making his own choices. Being an adult and living his life. I honestly don't know if he regrets his decisions, or will someday.

But what all this has made me realize is I do have people in my life that are there for me. Some of them are family members, and others are the family I've made for myself. My friends, my husband, and even my little unborn boy. It really sucks when someone you love suddenly decides they don't want to be a big part of your life anymore, but it also forces you to realize there are other people still there.

Please, don't get me wrong. I am so very happy right now. I am 36 weeks pregnant; the baby will be making his appearance soon. I love my husband with all my heart, and I have true friends. My parents and in-laws have been awesome and supportive in general and especially through the pregnancy (seriously guys, this is the first grandchild on either side of the family, and they are LOSING THEIR MINDS with joy).

So I arrive at my point. I want those of you who read my blog to know that you make a difference too. I don't know most of you in person, but it doesn't matter. I do the same thing; I read a bunch of blogs and maybe comment on one or two. And I think it doesn't matter. I am just one follower out of so many. It doesn't matter to the author of the blog.

I want you to know that it does matter to me. Your comments, the people who follow me, and the people who simply stop by to read my ramblings once in awhile. I do notice it, and it does matter to me. There's a lot of other stuff you could be doing with your time. Your choice to spend some of that time with me is awesome.

So from me to you, I want you to give yourself a hug. Don't feel lame; just do it. If there's someone in the room with you, you can always say some crazy girl on the Internet told you to hug yourself. I can take the blame, I don't mind.

I hope all of you are having not just a great day, but a great life. Just remember when you feel like everything is pointless and it doesn't matter, that it does.

In Which I Squee Like a Fangirl

2012-01-09T10:55:00.002-05:00

My son, Connor. The weird thing next to his face is his arm.

So I am now armed with pictures of the little parasite inside my uterus. He's still got some growing to do, mostly his lungs and brain, but in two weeks (I am 35 weeks today) he will be considered completely developed. Which mean the time he spends in the womb afterwards is him just straight up free loading (seriously, I know they are putting on more weight to prepare for life outside, etc, etc). I really can't blame him since he's got a good thing going on in there. I wish I could lay around all day and get feed via a tube. I mean, I do the first part a lot, but I have to get off the couch to get food. How unfair is that?

Moving on from my laziness!

Did you know that James Scott Bell came out with a new book on writing? I know! It's like a belated Christmas present! It's called "Conflict and Suspense". I have his other three books on writing, Plot and Structure, Revision and Self Editing, and the Art of War for Writers. I highly recommend all three books. My copies have tons of little scraps of paper bookmarks in them.

Ergo my agonized debate whether or not I should buy a ebook copy or a hard copy. On one hand, the ebook is a little cheaper and I would get it RIGHT NOW. Let me stress to you the importance of RIGHT NOW. I know it's bad in the digital age we don't want to wait for things, but seriously guys. James Scott Bell. New book on writing, coinciding with me revamping my writing process and analyzing what's working and what's not.

In the end, the little scraps of paper won out and I ordered a hard copy. I now have an estimated delivery date of this Wednesday, or January 17-24th. I have Amazon Prime, which is supossed to give me free two day shipping. But for some reason Amazon says this book doesn't release until the 12th of January, even though it also appears you can buy it right now (RIGHT NOW). So it's currently in limbo and I wait anxiously to see when it will arrive. I downloaded the sample chapters on my kindle, but that just left me wanting more.

While I am waiting, why don't you guys tell me what you prefer out of your reference books, ebook or hard copy? And why? Am I the only one who saw this as a huge dilemma?

Baby Shower!

2012-01-06T11:03:00.000-05:00

It never ceases to amaze me how awesome and generous the blogging community is.

But when Charity asked if she could throw me an Internet baby shower, I was floored. I mean, I feel like I know you guys just like I know my friends in real life, but for a lot of people there's still a huge difference between "person in real life" versus "person on the Internet". Charity's offer reminded me of how lucky I am to have friends, blogging or not.

So at her suggestion, I send you to her blog for the details. I wish I could give you all cake, but I think it would get stale in the mail. ;) If an internet baby shower is just too weird for you, maybe you'd like to go to the comments section and give me some advice. Heaven knows I am going to need it. I am still amazed that in six weeks I will have a little baby to take home, and I will be expected to keep him alive.

Especially since most days I don't even change out of my pajamas.

I hope you all have an excellent weekend and make lots of progress on your books! I am going to be laying on the couch, feeling like a beached whale, and trying to convince myself to get up to get a snack.

I know, I know. ~~It's an exciting life I lead.~~

Wait, I forgot! I am doing something exciting! Tomorrow I am going for a 3D ultrasound. It's like a regular ultrasound, only there's color and stuff. I will ~~bombard you with~~ post pictures afterwards for your ogling pleasure.

Seeking All Guest Bloggers

2012-01-04T12:13:00.000-05:00

In preparation of the impending baby, I thought a smart way to keep regular posts while allowing me a bit of a blogging maternity leave would be to seek out guest bloggers.

That's where you come in!

I don't have anything to offer you if you want to guest blog, other than the fact that I have the best readers ever. You can blog about whatever you want, whether it's your cats or your current book. I don't have an exact time frame of when I will be going on maternity leave, obviously, but I am due February 13th.

I wanted to give everyone plenty of time to think about it and decide you really need to do a guest post about that weird fungus growing on your toast (which totally looks like Howard Stern), or how you got to be a mega-bestseller and yet remained humble and awesome (Neil Gaiman, the answer is yes. You can write about whatever you want and I'll let you guest blog).

Email me at writer (dot) elizabethpoole (at) gmail (dot) com if you are interested.

New Year's Resolutions (with Zombies!)

2012-01-02T10:20:00.000-05:00

I know there are a million people posting their New Years Resolutions, but you should read mine because there are zombies involved. And then you should post your goals in the comments section! It could be like a little party of resolve!

Also, there's something about stating your goals in public for everyone to see. Guilt and shame are great motivators, let me tell you.

So here are my resolutions for 2012:

1. Finish my book and query agents
The whole she-bang. Finish the first draft, edit it into awesomeness, and then ~~pester~~ query agents for representation. Last year was sort of a growing year for me. I wrote two books, but I also broke what I wrote too. But you know, that's okay. I firmly believe that trying, failing, and trying again is an important part of this process. Both books I wrote, not to mention the complete rewrite, taught me a lot.

2. Start a new book
While I am waiting on queries, crits, and other assorted writing things, I want to get another book written.

3. Stretch more
Everyone has some variation of this on list, I am sure, but I prefer to be more specific. "Exercise more" never works out for me, so I am going with stretching. I like the activities you do while stretching (Pilates and Yoga, get your mind out of the gutter), so that's what I am going with.

4. Get my website together
Before I start querying, I'd like to have some semblance of a website up. Mostly I keep forgetting about it, but this year I will make sure it gets going.

5. Fix up the blog
I don't really have any ideas yet, but it's been almost two years and it seems like it's time for a change. Anyone have any suggestions?

I was going to put something baby related on the resolution list, but I figured that would be cheating since I am already there.

Without further ado, here's your zombies!

And while you're listening to the song, pop down in the comments section and tell me what your resolutions are.

Post Holiday Haze

2011-12-29T13:11:00.001-05:00

I've seen many posts like this one, where the author is trying to get their brain together after the holiday rush. I am no different, except I am still not done with my "holidays". My brother and I's birthday is next week (for those of you confused by that statement, I have a twin brother. I call him Llama face), my best friend's the following, and my dad and sister in law are the last week of January.

Yes, there are five birthdays in the month of January for me.

*gives her belly the eye*

And we plan to KEEP it at only five birthdays.

Speaking of the baby, my husband and I got the nursery mostly set up yesterday, which is a giant load off my shoulders. Still there's lots more to do on the account that I am a pack rat. Not quite a hoarder, but it's hard for me to get rid of stuff. When I finally do it's very satisfying. We've already gone through all the closets and my writing stuff, and a few days ago I went through my clothing.

I still have to find a way to organize my desk stuff, egad. It's just bulky things I don't know what to do with until I need it. Stuff like index cards, Sharpies, colored pencils, spare paper, etc. Presently they are stashed in a drawer, but said drawer is getting rather full.

I have also made a valiant attempt on my book. There are major revisions in my future, but I am slowly figuring out the plot. Let it never be said I don't try new things, because I am basically pantsing this one.

Overall the holidays went well. There was some drama, as there always seems to be, but I had an excellent Christmas, and I am now enjoying the time to work on the house. My plan is to get everything taken care of as early as possible, so then I can just focus on my book.

So there you go. An update. How did all of your holidays go? Did you get a lot accomplished or are you still wandering around in a haze?

Happy Holidays from ELF

2011-12-23T11:05:00.001-05:00

Buddy's reaction to Santa coming? That's pretty much me. Only of course I am actually short enough to be mistaken for an elf. The best part is this year Christmas is coming early. My husband has to work on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, so we celebrated Christmas last night with his family and today with mine.

You know what that means?

The presents come early. :D

Okay! Okay. So maybe that's cheating a little. I think sitting on a throne of lies is a little harsh though. My husband has to work, and we didn't want to have to rush through Christmas. My son is still in the womb so I seriously doubt he's going to realize the difference. Stop judging me with your eyes, Buddy. I am still going to spend Christmas day with my family.

I hope all of you enjoy the holiday weekend as much as I plan to. I'll see you all on Monday, as I recover from a sugar coma.

The Hobbit: Instant Nostalgia

2011-12-21T13:35:00.002-05:00

I am sure most of you have seen this trailer already, but if you haven't, take a moment to fulfill your life and watch it.

I must admit, when I first found out they were making a Hobbit movie, I was skeptical. They had done an amazing job with the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Better than I had hoped. I remember sitting on the couch and my friend telling me they were making the entire trilogy in live action, and thinking it was going to be terrible. I had first read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings when I was in elementary school and fallen in love. Those books are part of the reason why I evolved into a fantasy writer.

By the time the trilogy came out, I was excited, but reserved. My friends and I made a thing of it, and went to see the Fellowship of the Ring opening night. Hours later my mind was blown away. Again, I felt swept away to Middle-earth and longed to go back the minute the movie ended.

For the next three years I was obsessed. I had the movie posters, the action figures (still safely tucked away in my closet unopened), the soundtracks, the movie guide, and stalked the Internet for news like a lion on the prowl. We saw each movie opening night, and regularly made long weekends of watching all three extended editions back to back.

Now that I've gotten to see the actual trailer for the Hobbit, my hopes are once again raised. The music sounds the same, as is the attention to detail on the setting, not to mention actors reprising their roles.

One last time it seems like we'll be able to view Middle-earth through Peter Jackson's eyes, and I personally cannot wait.

Birth of a Novel: Stalled Novel-itis

2011-12-14T12:22:00.000-05:00

So the update this week is I was stalled something fierce, but I think I am finally shaking loose. The word-scree is starting to fall. Hopefully I won't be crushed in the subsequent avalanche.

Rather than reenact my panic and dismay, I thought I would share with you what helped me break free of being stalled and make some progress.

And for definition, when I say "stalled" I mean "has absolutely no clue what happens next and no amount of brainstorming has helped". Most people say to just keep going, and this is normally the best advice. But it's hard to keep going when you literally have no idea what's supposed to come next. At least for me, a plotter.

So here are some tips:

*Remind yourself why you love your book oh so much:

-listen to songs that make you think of your characters

-read poems, excerpts, other novels that remind you why you wanted to write it in the first place

-look through your picture file related to the book

-Make a list of all the things you LOVE about your novel

-if you haven't done any of the above, go ahead and do something now. Make a playlist of songs. Collect a bunch of pictures that capture the mood or look like your characters.

*Read articles on the subject:

-Janice Hardy Four Ways to Fix a Stalled Novel

-Chuck Wendig Jumpstarting a Stalled Novel

-Jim Butcher The Great Swampy Middle *note You can apply most of these techniques anywhere your novel is stalled.

*Read over the book again.

Take notes on any new ideas you might have, as well as old ideas and plot threads you've since forgotten about. Review your brainstorming notes.

*Do the opposite.
If you've outlined it to pieces, throw the note cards out (at least hide them for a while). If you haven't outlined, then make some note cards.

*Skip to the part you DO know about.
In the end, that's what got me going again. I normally prefer to write in order, but sometimes it can't be helped. If you don't know what scene comes next, but you do know what scene is supposed to come 5 scenes from now, go ahead and skip ahead. You can write yourself a little note about what happens plot wise ( *Sandy and the vampires find the Demon of Doom) and move on. Then you can either keep going forward, or if you have ideas about the space you left, you can go back and fill it in. Whatever floats your boat.

*Work on something else.
Some caveats: If you know you are the type to get Shiny New Idea syndrome and abandon every idea you're working on for a new one, you probably shouldn't try this.

When you work on something else, it should be AFTER you work on the main book. You should always make the current book your primary project. Give yourself a specific word count or time limit that you have to work on your primary project. Then with the other project do the same, only make the word count goal or time frame smaller. Much smaller.

The idea is to take the pressure off of the primary book. Personally, when I get stalled it feels like the end of the world. I know it's not, but somehow my brain doesn't get that. I panic and worry and freak out and just feel miserable. Things Aren't Going Well. By turning my attention to something else for a small portion of the day, the pressure lightens up. Yes, my book is stalled and wonky, but it in fact, is NOT the end of the world. Also I tend to get more ideas for the primary project if I am off thinking about something else.

I guess I am just contrary that way. But again, do not try this unless you've tried everything else, and you know you can maintain the discipline to keep working on your primary book. Otherwise, you'll abandon the book for the new idea, and then when the new idea gets hard, you'll abandon that one for something new, leaving a string of broken books in your wake and never finish anything. Also, you'll probably die cold and alone, without a single book to your name (I made that last part up. Mostly.).

What about you? What gets a stalled novel going again? Besides loads of caffeine and sugar.

Just So You Know...Plot Points

2011-12-09T12:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I was being very good and working on my book. Problem is, I am stalled, big time. I don't know what happens next, and at the moment, I don't really care. It feels stupid, boring, and like hard, hard work.

I know a big part of this is because I haven't be able to work on my book for about a week and half (you know how I am always going on about writing the first draft as quickly as possible? This is totally why.). But I looked at my outline and make a startling realization.

I had very few plot points. And of those, most weren't even proper plot points.

Here's the thing. You can totally put "learns to accept herself" on your outline. You really can. You can put whatever you want on there. But the reality is this really doesn't help you with your story in a concrete way. I put notes on my outline like that, but only to remind myself of where I want the character to be at that point. It does nothing for me as a plot event.

Also? Settings do not make good plot points either. "Goes to a club and sees the evil monkey" doesn't really help you. You have the "sees the evil monkey" which is the point of the scene, but "goes to a club" really doesn't help you. I can almost guarantee that you will get to that point in your outline, and wonder what the heck the character is going to DO once they get to the club and see the monkey.

The really sad thing is I know this already. I know better than to jot down "sees largest ball of twine" as a plot point. But a lot of times while I am outlining I jot stuff down and never go back to add details.

Then I get to where I am now, where I have an idea of where I want my character to go, and what sort of emotional journey she experiences, but very little ideas in the way of the actual plot. So here's a friendly reminder for you:

A plot event is a concrete event that moves your character from point A to point b.

Obviously this is a basic definition, but I want it vague enough that it will apply to different people's writing styles. The important thing to remember is a specific event. Like "Sally fights the zombies that have broken into the secret lab". Or "Jonathan kisses Mabel, and Denise walks in the middle of it."

Something happens. It's usually action oriented, even if it's not guns exploding and kittens being saved from a burning building.

Hopefully this little reminder will help you guys in your plotting endeavors. Now if you'll excuse me, I have an outline to rip apart.

What litmus test do you use for your outline? Any hard and fast rules or do you just keep everything vague?

Still Alive

2011-12-07T13:20:00.001-05:00

...but just barely. When I said last week was busy, it was the understatement of the year. Just about every day was filled with last minute wedding errands. By the end I was so tired I thought I was going to die. So these last few days I've done a bunch of nothing and tried to get my strength back.

I am starting to feel like a human being again.

My apartment is a mess of course, so I am also slowly getting that back under control. Just in time for the holidays!

I haven't had time to work on my book, nor the energy, but now that I am feeling more human I will be getting back to work today. I have managed to do a lot of thinking about the novel, and sometimes that's better than writing.

I was sort of struggling with the pacing and the character development, and this forced time away was enough time to give me some space to think about what the problem was and how to fix it. So even though I didn't get to write the book, I still managed to work on it. :D

How are you all doing with your book? Your family plans?

Birth of a Novel: Week Four Update

2011-11-28T13:06:00.001-05:00

It's week four of NaNo, and I am winning by the skin on my teeth. My current word count is 50,080 after I managed to squeeze some words out yesterday and Thursday. Normally I am much further along in my novel by now, but this year it's just the way things are.

I had a dental appointment and a visit with the OB (which I refer by "I have to go pee in a cup") earlier in the week, and then of course Thanksgiving. Saturday was my best friend's bridal shower, and we spend the day eating and shopping. So yeah. Busy week. This week will be equally busy since the wedding is this Saturday and I am the maid of honor (I know it's technically matron, since I am married, but matron? No. No thank you.).

I also entered my third trimester this past week! I know, milestones abound.

In short, I am making progress on my novel but it's S-L-O-W. I am waffling between wanting to spend hours typing and feeling anxious to tackle my massive to do list. At least doing house work gives me time to think about the novel.

I'm not going to lie. It's been more of a struggle emotionally than anything else. I've been plagued by various fears and doubts. Feeling uninspired. Feeling like the book is never going to be as awesome on paper as it is in my head. I have my share of doubts while drafting, but for this novel in particular it's been pretty noticeable. I am sure it's a combination of being tired, stressed, and hormonal, but it's still weird for me to struggle this much emotionally.

But you know, every single book I've written had it's own unique obstacles to overcome. The more The more I think about the writing "process" the more I realize that at least for me, there is no process. Very much like the Matrix where there is no spoon.

My process changes so much from book to book I can only make generalizations. Sometimes I plan to the hilt and other times I just start with nary an idea of where I am going. Certain things remain constant, but the rest is very flexible. It's like cooking spaghetti sauce. You're going to have a few very basic ingredients to start with, but what spices you use will vary greatly depending on your mood. Sometimes I make a garden vegetable sauce and use lots of veggies. Sometimes I do a thick meat sauce. Other times I want a sauce with enough garlic to kill a vampire by smell alone.

And that's okay. I will talk more about perfect versions later on in the week, but for now just know that just because this book is coming out different than the last doesn't mean you're doing something wrong.

I think most of the people in this blog chain still have a ways to go on their novels, so I plan on continuing to blog at least once a week about my progress.

When I feel really depressed, like I can never finish this novel, I read Maureen Johnson's tumblr account. She answered one question a day during the month of November, and it's filled with good advice and hilarious pictures.

In parting this week, I give you this music video:

Now go check out the other ladies in the blog chain, and then write!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T10:46:00.001-05:00

Just a short post so we can all get back to our families.

Today I am thankful for lots of things.

*My family, including the new addition that's still cooking inside me.

*My friends, that put up with a lot of craziness from me.

*My writing. I am really happy with where I am at, and all the things I've learned.

*My followers. I know it sounds really cheesy, but I am grateful for the people who follow this blog. Without you guys I would just be a voice quacking in the void. And as much as I enjoy talking, it's a lot more fun when there's other people listening.

*Lastly, I don't have to go shopping tomorrow. Yeesh, the stores are going to be a mad house.

I will do my Birth of a Novel post tomorrow or Saturday. Sorry about the delay, these last few days have been CRAZY.

What are you thankful for?

Written? Kitten!

2011-11-18T15:10:00.001-05:00

After a truly terrible night's sleep, completed by waking up early with the mother of all charley horses, I am sluggish today.

Beyond sluggish. I resemble the zombies I am writing about. Putting together a coherent sentence feels like so much work. Lucky for my word count my friend Liz showed me this website:

Written? Kitten!

It's very simple. You write into the box. After writing the amount of words you set, you get a new kitten picture. It's that easy. You will be rewarded for writing with a picture of an adorable kitten.

I will take all the help I can get today, especially if it's in the form of adorable kittens cheering me on.

What about you? What do you do to get yourself going when you're so tired you want to prop your eyelids up with toothpicks?

Birth of a Novel: Week Three

2011-11-14T20:22:00.001-05:00

It's week three of Birth of a Novel here, and it's sort of rocky. The good news is I've mostly moved past the "this is utter crap and I should burn it before everyone laughs at me" stage, but the bad news is I seem to have pulled a muscle in my back. I am okay to sit for about 15 minutes before it starts to feel like a ghost is stabbing me in the back. Hard. With a hot poker.

I've had muscle pain before, and writing is normally a great way for me to ignore those sorts of things, but this is a rather insistent muscle spasm, to the point it's distracting. So it's throwing off my mojo a bit. I usually get up and walk around, ice it, and plead with my body to let me write my book already.

The good news is I have a temporary replacement for my computer. For those of you who don't know, my old computer is an utter piece of crap that needs to be taken out back and shot. My parents have loaned me their laptop. They bought another one after the screen stopped working. You can of course plug a moniter into the laptop (which is exactly what I've done) but it defeats the mobility part of them having a laptop.

I do plan on buying a new computer, sometime next year, but in the meantime this laptop will be an excellent compromise. It's old, but it's still much faster than my old computer.

I plan to use the next few days to catch up on my word count (and kill lots of zombies). Wish me luck!

In the meantime, check out how the other ladies are doing on their noveling endeavors:

Angela H.
Anna M.
Brooke Busse
Charity Bradford
Elizabeth Davis
Fida Islaih
Huntress
Jen McConnel
Lena Hoppe
Mia Hayson
Miranda Hardy
Nyxie Moon
Tessa C
Zoe

Non Sequiter Girl

2011-11-13T17:54:00.001-05:00

I was killing time while waiting for my mother in law to pick me up yesterday by reading this article: 5-tiny-computer-glitches-that-caused-huge-disasters

It was still early in the morning, so there weren't that many comments. Out of habit I scrolled down to skim. There were the usual comments regarding the author of the article's lack of sexual prowess, his mother, the typos he made, etc, but then I came across this beauty:

Trout_Mask:

?Once "said a inequivocal truck endorsing some (walnutt stench)bed through the congress of hidden identities" I arrived. To quench / satisfy my tumbling = aching (fall for salt( of 50 % sugar and no tea( met had the falter the faltering..and the interruption began silent into the evening & struck with @telephone line yes, i do ? desire such! Seven corpses shatter on my wake of teeth at & the sommersault of the hours raped the kitchen. The cat also woke up rather (ahhhhhhhhhhhh cats, me afraid! I despise such @caller yes, you do! / no salt please. How many hours till the rocococoo hits its grave» hello and goodbye dear friends! I missed Shirley the most perhaps beyond the ammount! To and be fed and eat! Oh Shirley! Oh World! Oh much have (the Empire called, they want their fish. Bring him wet and still unconscious of his fate. and unconscious too since the king must not wai=hello? Dou you still remain the carp? lewd, sour and scour? Blinded flods and floods and fools... I am the Trout!!!!!!!!!? #it has been delivered rough, like bolts upon the quivering.( The deed was bitten( all hail the carp.

And the trout lied faltering its mask.

To my further joy, someone commented on Trout_Mask's bit of poetry with this:

minitune:

Clear water trout makes good sashimi, much better than carp. A good chef with a SHARP knife can cut, de-bone, and slice the flesh before the fish even knows it's dead. It is best eaten with bit of sprinkled pepper and Cayenne powder and dipped in vinegared soy-sauce.

I kinda of love the Internet guys, and this is one of the many, many reasons why.

First, in case you didn't bother to read the article, this comment has NOTHING to do with the article. It's about simple mistakes made that had bigger consequences, like when a tec at a power company turned off an alarm and failed to turn it back on after fixing the problem, resulting in the upper east of the United States and parts of Canada having a blackout.

Second, I love the poetry of this comment. It's both hilarious and absurd. It's like e.e. cummings had a love child with Kurt Vonnegut (is that less creepy to think about since they are both dead? Or more?).

At first glance, Trout_Mask's comment looks like gibberish, but read it. Seriously, go ahead. Read it out loud. It's not gibberish. It actually makes a strange, melodic sort of sense. I tried to pick out a favorite passage, but I can't. A few gems:

"How many hours till the rocococoo hits its grave» hello and goodbye dear friends!"

"the Empire called, they want their fish. Bring him wet and still unconscious of his fate."

Somehow the last two lines tie the entire nonsense together, like a coup de grace to your senses:

"I am the Trout!!!!!!!!!? #it has been delivered rough, like bolts upon the quivering.( The deed was bitten( all hail the carp.

And the trout lied faltering its mask."

All hail the carp indeed. And then, to make things better, someone comes along and talks about how trout makes worse sashimi than carp. Seriously. I could not make this up, guys.

Perhaps I am the only one so delighted by Trout_Mask's accidental poetry. I do have a fond place in my heart for absurd humor, hence my deep love of Kurt Vonnegut. Perhaps I have broken my brain from writing so much.

You tell me: Am I crazy or does this seem like a little poem? Am I the only one so amused?

A Hyper Post

2011-11-10T16:10:00.001-05:00

I am posting today because I am super hyper! I just got back from my OB's office wherein I drank a super sugary orange flavored drink in about two minutes! This is a real test, and not conducted for my doctor's amusement! They took my blood an hour later to see how my body is processing sugar, to make sure I haven't developed gestational diabetes.

I will get the results in two weeks, but as far as I can tell, my body is processing sugar JUST FINE. Me and the baby are both bouncing off the walls.

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*throws glittery sparkles everywhere*

(If I had a way, I would add those glittery, seizure-inducing blinkies you see on MySpace profiles right here. But I do not, so just image the most glittery thing you can.)

Another reason behind my great joy is I am listening to the new Florence and the Machine CD Ceremonials and it's AMAZING. Her first CD Lungs was simply wonderful. I've listened to the entire CD over and over, and it's haunting and beautiful and innovative. So when she announced her newest CD I was excited but a little bit nervous. There's times where an artist puts out a CD or book and it's wonderful, and you wait for the second one only to feel a little disappointed.

But ladies and germs, Ceremonials is not disappointing in the least. She somehow managed to keep the same sounds that I loved in Lungs but also progressing forward with her music.

This may sound like a paltry reason to some for me to be happyhappyhappy, but you underestimate how much I love music and Florence and the Machine specificly. Music is a book to sound as far as I am concerned and it plays a huge role in my writing. The Ghosts Between Us, a book about a medium trying to stop the ghost of a serial killer I wrote a few months ago, would not be the same if it wasn't for Lungs. It's weird to think about, but sometimes finding the right ambient music can make or break a scene for me (I would go into a long explanation about how I think music is one of the primary ways my subconscious communicates ideas to me, but this post is rambling ENOUGH).

Speaking of my writing, Zombie Road Trip is still coming slowly, but I am pushing through the suck. You guys were great and wonderfully helpful on Tuesday, and I feel like there's hope for me after all. :D

About the writing...I *might* be using this post to procrastinate working on my book...so I guess it's time to get back to work, huh? Yeah, I think so too.

*searches the Internet for pointless timewasters*

What? I thought we agreed I was procrastinating?

Okay, you're right. I am getting back to work now.

So time to chime in! How's the day going? Have you had any happy surprises this week?

Birth of Novel: Week Two

2011-11-08T13:15:00.001-05:00

Okay folks, here's where the brutal honesty kicks in. I want you to know I write this as hopefully a help to other writers, and not as a pity party or whining session.

Honestly, week two was so much harder than week one. I rewrote the scenes I had previously from scratch which was smooth sailing. The minute I got to the new scenes though, I hit a brick wall.

Not literally (though it sort of felt like it) but figuratively and emotionally. I had no idea what happened next, and despite my desperate brainstorming sessions, I couldn't come up with anything. After much whining and complaining to my ever-suffering writer friends I realized it was more about my state emotionally than any actual lack of inspiration or ideas.

So here's sort of a taboo subject. Something we don't often talk about in detail as writers, but something I've seen every single writer I know afflicted with.

Your state of mind.

Yes, you absolutely need to learn to write in spite of your state of mind, but pretending that it doesn't factor into your writing can sometimes sabotage your work before the words are even born (like in my most recent experience).

My ideas tend to be these sprawling, complex, layered things, filled with side ideas and tangents. For example, the Harry Potter series. The main plot is straightforward, but anyone who has read those books can tell you there is so much more going on in each book. Harry might deal with issues with his best friend, the love interest, Quidditch, his classes, Snape, Dumbledore, another teacher, his parents, and many other little things.

Yet the books aren't too complex to read. Little story bits add up to the greater whole of the plot. When I get an idea, I can often see the book in it's entirety, like a movie. I see the finished product, all the twists and turns and ins and outs of the book. But writing a first draft is nothing like that.

And with every first draft I reach the place where the idea in my head and the words on the page do not match up. At all. The words on the page feel so much more shallow and weak than the idea I hold inside me. It's depressing, to be frank. I KNOW that books don't start out layered, that you build them to be that way, that no one's first draft is good, but for some reason it's a surprise when my first draft doesn't turn out as awesome as I want it to be.

Maybe you've been there. My friend Liz calls it the opposite of a Eureka moment. You get this crashing realization that the first draft you had such high hopes for in matter sucks. It sucks big time. It sucks so badly you're scared it's going to create a black hole and devour all of existence.

You might have guessed that I am a perfectionist. This doesn't help. I agonize over small things, like this blog post. "Am I going on too much? Am I over explaining? Does that comma really need to be there?" I look at my earlier blog posts, and just cringe. But people keep tell me they enjoy reading through my back log, so I keep them up and try not to think about all the stupid mistakes I made.

It's ten times worse with a novel. I am at the point now where I just have to push through the crushing feeling that this books sucks and it's a pointless waste of time, and just keep writing.

Because that's the cure for these feelings of general crappyness. Just keep writing. It sounds simple, but at first it's hard. It feels impossible. That's why I like NaNo. Your word count becomes important, not the quality. That's where I feel like NaNo gets a bad reputation. It's not like we're out here trying to write crap on purpose.

It's just that when you give yourself a challenging deadline, you're forced to let go and dare to suck, like Maureen Johnson says. You have to keep going, despite how sure you are this is a piece of crap.

Because there's something amazing about writing. You get to hit the do over button a trillion million billion times (that's an actual number, btw) (no, it's not). The first draft is all about laying down the ground work. Finding the characters and the story. You cannot see certain things about the story until you get that crappy first draft out.

So this week I am all about pushing forward. Past feeling like you're not writing well enough, fast enough. Just keep writing. Forget about everything else but having fun and telling yourself a story. Entertain yourself. Write what you think would be cool.

The rest will come later.

Okay, I am off to take my own advice. In the meantime, check out how these lovely ladies are faring:

Angela H.
Anna M.
Brooke Busse
Charity Bradford
Elizabeth Davis
Fida Islaih
Huntress
Lena Hoppe
Mia Hayson
Miranda Hardy
Nyxie Moon
Tessa C
Zoe

A Mean Trick in the Morning

2011-11-04T14:18:00.001-04:00

I am reporting in from the writing trenches to let you know my sanity is still mostly intact.

Writing right now is sort of a good news, bad news situation.

The good news is it's going really well. Stuff is moving along smoothly. If my word count was a dog, it would have won the blue ribbon (it's just under 30K).

"But those are so many words," You might be saying to yourself. "How can you have possibly written all those words?"

Because I had a crappy half draft to start with, that's how Hypothetical Question Asker. Even though I've rewritten them, I had already wrote a lot of those scenes once before. I just made them suck slightly less. I also had the last few days off, and some free time on my hands. So that helped.

The bad news side of this is I am about to reach the part where I haven't written these scenes previously, and quite frankly, have only a vague idea at best where they are going to go. I expect my word count rate is going to drop drastically, and the hard part will kick in.

What I've done is print off what I have so far (about fifty pages) and read through it. Not looking to edit things, mind you, but looking for places where I started threads and didn't continue them yet. Hopefully it will help me keep track of things instead of winding up with three or four dropped threads that went nowhere.

I also wanted to remind everyone to update and save their files. My external hard drive played a mean trick on me this morning. Even though it was getting power, my computer didn't read it when I turned it on. I then opened Dropbox, my online storage facility, and for some reason Dropbox had not updated itself in months. I tried to open my external hard drive on my husband's lap top, and didn't have any problems. I finally got my computer to read my hard drive, but it was a scary way to wake up in the morning.

So yes. Everyone, go now and backup all your files.

How is everyone else's novels coming? The rest of your week?

Birth of a Novel: First Update

2011-11-01T10:39:00.003-04:00

It's time for the first update of my insanity in doing NaNo and blogging about the progress. Just a quick housekeeping note, if you want to join the Birth of a Novel blog chain, the details are here. It's not too late! We can add your name to the list any time!

Now, some introduction.

My novel is called Zombie Road Trip, and the title is pretty self explanatory. It's about the main character Lilah taking a road trip to off beat tourist attractions during the zombie apocalypse, in order to learn how to control her power over the zombies.

I wrote about 34K of this novel a year or so ago and then ran out of steam. I've resurrected it, reworked some of the plot holes, and started writing from scratch. For me, NaNo isn't about making the word count at all costs. I do write fast, but 1666 words a day isn't really a stretch. I like to use NaNo to give me a kick in the pants and have some writing buddies ~~suffer~~ write along with me while I am in the midst of a first draft. I plan to keep writing into December, as long as it takes me to first the first draft.

Because I am a nerd, I stayed up until midnight last night to start my novel. I was hopped up on sugar by that point so I wasn't tired then. Today I still feel half asleep, but at least I slept well.

It's always hard for me to start writing. I feel like I've left the oven on, like I've forgotten something really important. I get all excited at the thought of starting, but once I actually do my brain panics a little and does this:

.........................................................................................

It took me a little while to get into the flow of the scene, and to be completely honest, it's not all there yet. I have some logistical things to work out in my head (You know, like when you're thinking: Character has to be here with this item by this time, but the scene before that she doesn't have those things, so how do I get her from Point A to Point B without making things too complicated?) before I think it will all gel together.

But that's okay. The beginnings are always a little bumpy for me. I am still stoked about this book and I love the character's voice.

Don't forget to check out what the other people in the blog chain are up to. You can click on the sidebar or just check out their progress here:

Angela H.

Brooke Busse http://brookerbusse.blogspot.com

Charity Bradford http://charitywrites.blogspot.com

Elizabeth Davis http://www.lizwritesbooks.com/

Elizabeth Poole http://writerelizabethpoole.blogspot.com/

Fida Islaih http://fida-islaih.blogspot.com

Huntress http://spiritcalled.blogspot.com/

Lena Hoppe http://lenalothanas.blogspot.com/

Mia Hayson http://literaryjamandtoast.blogspot.com/

Miranda Hardy http://www.mirandahardy.blogspot.com/

Nyxie Moon http://creativedawdle.blogspot.com

Tessa C http://tessasblurb.blogspot.com

Birth of a Novel Blog Chain

2011-10-29T10:25:00.001-04:00

Okay, so here's the scoop:

The lovely Charity thought the blog chain was a really cool idea. Enough that we've got some things going.

We decided that every Tuesday during the month of November, participants in the blog chain will post their updates. You can tell us about your novel, post excerpts, complain that all your characters are already dead and it's only chapter 11, whatever. Go wild.

Then you can visit other participants by clicking on the list of names at the bottom of every update post, or on the list found in the sidebar. You can use that lovely button up there that Charity made (isn't it gorgeous? *pets button*) on your update post to indicate that you're part of this blog chain.

This was designed to coincide with NaNo, but you don't have to play by NaNo's rules. I encourage everyone who is still in the middle of a rough draft or about to start one to participate. You can set your own goals and play by your own rules. The blog chain is just here for moral support.

If you are interested, simply email me at writer(dot)elizabethpoole(at)gmail(dot)com, or Charity at charity(dot)bradford(at)gmail(dot)com. We'll compile a list of names and send it to all the members to include at the end of each post. We'll also keep a list on the sidebar of the blog for easy reference.

You can update more frequently than once a week, as I may end up doing. That's partially why we have the list of names in the sidebar as well.

Overall, have fun with your novel!

The Birth of a Novel

2011-10-25T11:35:00.000-04:00

So it's almost that time of year again.

In six days thousands of would-be novelists will be sitting down at their desks, their local coffee joint, and or the library to start writing their novel for National Novel Writer's Month, or NaNo for short.

The goal is to write 50,000 words in a month. That's about 1666 words a day.

And yes, it's an arbitrary goal. Yes, 50K is way too short for almost all genres to be considered a novel. Yes, in December agents get flooded with tons of queries for half finished novels. These are all valid criticisms of NaNo. But you know, there's going to be a lot amateurs, for lack of a better word, in any profession. People who don't realize how long a novel should be, or how to write a proper query letter. Heck, I was an amateur not too many years ago myself. I wrote two books in high school, neither of them complete, and stopped around 150K. I had no idea how long a novel should be.

But you live and learn, and I enjoy the camaraderie of NaNo. It's a great community and I enjoy the forums. The first novel I ever finished I wrote for NaNo. It's a good way to kick yourself in the pants and make sure you met daily deadlines, an extremely important skill a professional writer needs to have. I also enjoy egging on my other friends who are participating. I write novels during months other than November and it's generally a very solitary process. November allows me to share the insanity.

So this year I will share the insanity with you. That's right; I am going to live blog my progress. I haven't decided whether or not I am going to blog every single day in November. On one hand, it might get boring. On the other hand, depending on how quickly my sanity unravels, you might want to bring popcorn. So we'll see how it goes. At the very least it will be an interesting social experiment.

Also, I write the novel until it's complete, so the Birth of a Novel will bleed over into December, and maybe even January. I'll post my stats, my thoughts, overall novel progress, and hot chocolate intake (caffeine is out due to being pregnant, aka having a belly ninja, so liquid chocolate shall be my substitute).

If you are in the process of writing a novel or about to start and want to join in the madness, please feel free. You can post links to your blog in the comments, or contact me via email and I can link to your blog directly in the post.

This will either be interesting or you're all going to run in fear from me when the insanity of writing a novel starts to leak out.

Odds and Ends

2011-10-20T14:22:00.000-04:00

I keep thinking I should blog, but then I don't have a subject long enough for a regular post.

So today I think this will be a general odds and ends post. :D It's the best of all worlds.

*Writing:

Planning out ZOMBIE ROAD TRIP is coming along really nicely. I am definitely doing NaNoWriMo this year and I am so excited I am quivering in my seat (My user name is Undyne, from back in the days where I was all incognito. Feel free to friend me and I shall reciprocate!). The last two years I did NaNo, the novel fell apart as I was writing it. Trust me folks, it's not a pretty sight when your novel implodes. Both for the novel, and your sanity.

I am shooting for a happy medium where I have a good feel for the conflict and characters, but I am leaving a lot of blanks on purpose, so I can hopefully come up with cool stuff as a write. That's the plan anyway. I might be blogging in a month about how I've shot myself in the foot and ruined everything and WAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!

But so far, I am feeling optimistic about it.

*Pregnancy:

The weight gain thing is going steady. I feel like I wake up every morning to a bigger tummy, but I keep forgetting to buy a scale. So I am not sure how much weight I've gained. Also, eating 60 grams of protein a day it getting...interesting. I normally have no problems with eating meat, but right now I just don't feel like it.

On the other hand, I am eating tons of dairy products. Normally I am very lactose intolerant and can't eat lots of cheese and drink lots of milk without having a very upset stomach. But my heartburn is reaching epic proportions (it doesn't matter what it is--if it's not cheese, milk, or pudding, it gives me wicked bad heartburn), so I think one is counteracting the other.

I have no appetite. I get a little hungry in the morning, and in the evening, but other than that I have to just set food in front of me and snack all day. It has something to do with the fact that my uterus is 1 1/2 inches above my belly button, which is very high for me. My stomach is squashed and I get full very quickly.

By the end of the sixth month my uterus will be 2 1/2 inches above my navel. I have very short waist. There's about an inch or so between the bottom of my rib cage and the top of my hip. As the baby gets bigger, the top of my uterus will keep moving up, and honestly, I am sort of wondering where all the rest of my internal organs are going to go. On vacation?

*Real Life Stuff

I went shopping with my mom yesterday, and my best friend Melissa joined us later on. It's that time of year, when Bath and Body Works puts out their holiday scents. I stocked up on Winter Candy Apple. My goodness, that stuff smells like heaven. You have to buy it really early too, because they sell out quickly. I also got a really cute pair of pink flannel sleep pants, so I am a happy camper. It's amazing how happy you can be from just some new lotion and sleep pants.

Of course, I might just be easy to please. (Hush, I can hear all of you snickering.)

So, what about you guys? What's going on in your lives?

Desperation Your Secret Ally

2011-10-12T13:12:00.000-04:00

A while ago I read a really interesting essay by Neil Gaiman about where he gets his ideas. He's rather candid about it, and I've thought back fondly of that essay time and again. But today what's made me think of his essay about ideas is when he talked about desperation. He was desperate to figure out a story for the Sandman comics and gradually worked his way through it.

So I come to desperation myself. I've worked on three or four different ideas, and none of them came together. The ideas were there, but the plot hadn't joined up like the big robot in Power Rangers (the original show from the 90s...we don't talk about the Power Rangers in Space Metaton IV on this blog).

Bored and frustrated, I reread some of my old things. You know those novels. They didn't quite work out the way you thought they would. You abandoned them before you finished. You wrote until you didn't know what else happened and gave up. I read over my zombie novel, still beloved in my heart despite it only being 34K and very, very rough and discovered magic.

I could make this into a full length novel. It actually wasn't that bad. Sure I wrote it before I knew what a scene was, but still. The character's voice was alive and whole and there. Like magic. From my brain.

Desperation can be an ally. Sometimes you're at your wits end. You've had enough worrying over the book and your future as a writer, and you just want to lose yourself in a story. Given the rough state of the half draft, I also think it's going to be easier to just write in the spirit of discovery. To write out an exploratory draft, and write with abandon, instead of feeling like I need to stay on the path of the plot.

I've worked out some things for the plot, but mostly I plan to wing a lot of the story. I also plan to do NaNo this year, and I am excited for it.

Sometimes you just have to throw in the towel, give up your writerly notions, and just sit down and tell yourself a story. It's so easy to forget that, but so vital to remember it.

What about you? Has anything good come out of a moment of desperation?

The Baby and the Bump

2011-10-02T12:36:00.002-04:00

Guys, I think there's something growing inside me.


If it looks like I am tired, that's because I am.

It's pretty much impossible now for random strangers to not know I am pregnant (not entirely true. There's about two dresses I have that just...compress the belly so it just looks like I am really chunky). This week was my 20th week, which is the half way point (tomorrow is the start of my 21st week). It feels weird that I've been pregnant for five months now. It definitely looks like I've shoved a beach ball down my shirt.


The baby!

Connor Nathanial is 11oz, right on target for growth. He's already sucking his thumb, and while I've felt him flutter around in there for some time, his kicks are starting to have some oomph behind them. Which is adorable when I am sitting here typing, but not so much when I am trying to fall asleep and he is literally kicking my bladder (The baby has a vendetta against my bladder for some reason. He enjoys kicking, laying, and rolling on my bladder as though it was his own personal trampoline. I wish I was exaggerating.)

This last ultrasound was to check the anatomy of the baby. They looked at his heart, kidneys, umbilical cord, spine, arms, legs, head, etc. They also check the level of amniotic fluid and the thickness of my placenta (which can indicate if I am going to carry to term). Everything was normal and fine. It's not a definitive test, but they said if there was something abnormally wrong they would see it. So yay! for piece of mind!

The only "bad" thing was I somehow lost three pounds. When I went from 111 pounds to 108, they started talking to me about making sure I each lots of protein (also, remember I am five foot nothing. I gained between 11 and 8 pounds which doesn't sound like much, but feels HUGE to me). Now, I already feel like I eat nonstop. I'm being really good about eating lots of veggies, and fruits, and grains, and even protein, but I guess it's time to amp it up a bit. So now I get to sneak cheese, eggs, and meat into my meals more often. Some of my kind friends have suggested bacon wrapped in bacon, and I have to agree: that's a lovely source of protein.

So far I feel great. I am sleeping fitfully, but I still manage to get enough most nights. The only major issue I've had is I've pulled a muscle at work (which I thought was a blood clot and went to the emergency room for chest pain), and a week later I threw my back out. That wasn't pretty. I woke up at 4 in the morning with excruciating back pain and couldn't get comfortable or sleep. Every time I tried to eat or take Tylenol, I threw it up. This last week I've been off of work, resting, so when I go back to work tomorrow I will try to take it extra easy.

The difficult thing is I am a massage therapist. We pretty much use our bodies during the massage. At school we're taught how to use our center of gravity (which is at your hips and pelvis) to provide the pressure we're giving (that's why if you sit on the couch and rub someone's shoulders for five minutes you're exhausted, but I can stand for an hour and be fine). But, the baby has completely thrown off my center of gravity and as a bonus, my ligaments are doing their werewolf impression and stretching really easy.

So yeah. This pregnancy thing is interesting. It's really weird to think that there's actually a little person inside me. Like...inside me. I don't know how to explain it. It's surreal at times. And other times, I can't wait to have the baby so I can hold him and squeeze him and dress him in cute little baby clothes. Yeah, the hormones are pretty much in full swing, can't you tell?

So there you have it: the bump and the baby causing it.

Exploratory Draft Part Two

2011-09-29T10:47:00.002-04:00

A while ago I blogged about calling my first draft an "exploratory draft". This idea came from Laini Taylor, who blogged about the same thing here.

Today I am revisiting the idea. I've wanted to write a post about this for a while, but I didn't feel like I'd come out to a place yet where I could.

The problem was letting go. I've finished a major rewrite. I've been working on developing an idea, but no matter how hard I tried the plot wouldn't come together. Suddenly I started to feel like a failure. I started to worry that the book, tradition urban fantasy, would just get lost among the hundreds of other urban fantasy books out there.

Then I thought about my other ideas, the weird ones. The ones that are like urban fantasy but set on another planet. Or even weirder than that, the ideas that approach being considered cyberpunk. The little voice worried that a market would be hard to find for those ideas because they are so strange. And what if the book does well? I'd been stuck in the genre.

Then of course the guilt set in, because I know I should not be worrying about agents and publishing at this stage; I should be focusing on the novel.

This little cycle of emotions made me realize some things. First, writers are crazy and I am no exception. Second, my doubt masquerades itself as a reasonable voice only looking out for my future. Do you see what it did there? First my idea was too normal and then it was too weird. I couldn't win either way.

So I tried to get back to that feeling, of just having fun with an idea. Allowing myself to write a really, really crappy first draft. Of writing scenes I knew would never make it. Of exploring the idea.

It's not as easy as it sounds. There's a lot invested in the idea after all. And for me, I have to have some idea of the primary conflict before I head off into writing land. Otherwise the idea fizzles after a few scenes.

I wish I could tell you that I had a magical breakthrough and the novel is now flowing off my fingertips like water from a stream, but that's not the case. I started something last night, but I don't know what the primary conflict is. I plan to spend time today figuring some basic things out, and hopefully I can start up again.

The point is to just keep trying. You're going to enter weird slumps and phases of your writing life, and sometimes you have to get really creative with the solutions.

Anyone have any horror stories to share? What about that nagging voice? How do you manage to ignore it enough to make it go away?

Brevity is the Soul of Wit

2011-09-23T13:13:00.000-04:00

Chuck Wendig has a flash fiction challenge every Friday. He frequently picks out his favorite and gives them some sort of awesome prize, like one of his ebooks.

This week he's done something interesting: the limit is three sentences. Yes, he means for you to tell a story in three sentences. You can post your entry on his blog in the comments section, and or on your own blog.

You can read the entries in the comments section now, and it's really interesting to see what people do with just three sentences.

It's made me analyze what goes into a story. What absolutely has to be there. Books are thousands of words long. At first I think, "Madness. You can't tell a real story in three sentences." But as I read though the comments section, where you post your entries, I realized you can tell a good story in just three sentences. It's amazing to look at a story at the barest bones.

You'd think you need to load each sentence with words, description, action. But as I read through the entries, most of those stories don't work for me. It's too much detail. I can't hold it all in my head, and the story becomes muddled.

Then you have the really simple sentences. "A boy was hungry. So hungry. He ate the world." It's a story, sure. Problem presented, problem solved. But there's nothing else to it. It doesn't leap alive in your head. It doesn't have movement and weight.

Read through some of those entries, and you'll get an entire story. It flows towards a conclusion, even in just three sentences. There's a quickening, the words paint a tale of more than just what's there. There's subtext, and most importantly to me, it feels complete. It's not just a quick character sketch. It feels like it's as long as it needs to be.

For someone who is long winded, this is an interesting revelation for me. What if after writing a rough draft, I told myself I had to cut X number of words from this chapter? This scene? This paragraph? How would I tell the story differently? How could I make my point without bogging the story down with needless words?

It's something I want to try in the future. Not cutting away the important pieces of the story, but challenging myself and really making sure that every single word needs to be there, is pulling it's own weight.

What about you? What works and what doesn't for those very short stories?

Plot Your Way to a Bestseller!!!!

2011-09-22T11:39:00.000-04:00

Guys, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we've been doing this writing thing ALL WRONG.

You know how we all keep toiling for years at our craft? Trying to shape an amazing idea into a well executed story that will win us both literary and commercial acclaim? Also, land us on the bestseller's list for three thousands years and earn a boatload of cash so we can retire to the tropical island we just bought?

But that "toiling away for years" thing sounds like a lot of work, am I right?

Lucky for me, I've found the solution. And since I am nice, I will share it with you.

Feast your eyes on the Genre-Fiction Generator 2000. *dramatic crash*

Go to that website, and pick out your plot. Write the book, and then the rest is in the bag! Easy!

I haven't decided on anything else yet, but I know my next novel is going to feature "the help of a female who inexplicably becomes attracted to the damaged protagonist for unstated reasons" and her "cleavage", "culminating in convoluted nonsense that squanders the reader's good will".

Feel free to share your future masterpieces in the comments section.

When Life Gives You Lemons

2011-09-20T12:55:00.002-04:00

You often hear that writers should borrow from their personal lives (and sometimes the lives of others) to fuel their writing with a sense of reality. After all, truth is stranger than fiction. I've heard a lot of stories from people over the years, partially because I ask the right questions, and partially because most of the time people find me easy to talk to, so they are confessing things to me they say they've never told anyone before.

I know this shared knowledge of pain, joy, anxiety, hunger, and ecstasy helps my writing. It helps me shape characters with realistic emotions and believable problems. But for me, the best occasions that I mine for emotional dept are my own experiences.

Saturday night I went to bed having some chest pain. I figured I was just sore from work, and went to sleep. When I woke up, the chest pain was still there. Worse, even. It started underneath my left breast and cut diagonally up to my left shoulder. It felt like someone was stabbing me with a knife, and I couldn't inhale deeply, cough, sneeze, or laugh without making the stabbing pain infinitely worse.

Since I am a writer, I went immediately to the worst case scenario. "I am having a heart attack. Pain in my left arm, classic heart attack. Or it's an ectopic pregnancy." (you're thinking, how can you have a normal pregnancy (where the egg is fertilized in the uterus) AND and ectopic pregnancy five months later? But my panicked brain was convinced I'd had twins and one got stuck in my fallopian tubes. It had now ruptured, and I was bleeding internally. This makes no sense, I realize that. But when you're having weird pain, your mind wanders. And in my case, sometimes knowledge just fuels the fire.).

But on the other side of the panic, was me thinking it was nothing. Pregnancy does really, really weird things to your body, and I know that. I didn't want to be one of those woman who freaks out when she has a slight twinge in her stomach. My body is doing it's werewolf impression: ligaments and muscles are stretching. I've gained weight, and I am a tiny person to begin with. So I also thought it was nothing.

After talking to a friend of mine, I called my midwife's office. The midwife says to take some Pepsid AC and tums. Sometimes heartburn can manifest as chest pain. Heavens knows I've had some wicked heartburn lately; sometimes it feels like I've swallowed a volcano. She says wait two hours. If the chest pain hasn't gone away, then I need to go to the ER to get checked out.

See folks, chest pain is sort of a big deal in the medical community. There are plenty of normal reasons why someone might have chest pain, but there are also lots of immediately life threatening causes behind chest pain, a blood clot being at the top of the list. Especially in pregnant women, blood clots can be an issue because you literally have more blood in your system. You can increase your blood volume up to 50% of what you had prior to becoming a baby incubator.

Two hours later, it still feels like a knife has magically found it's way into my ribs. My best friend (who also happens to be a nurse, lucky me) takes me to the ER to get poked and prodded. The only upside to going to the ER is "pregnant" and "chest pain" gets you back pretty quickly. They take a bunch of blood, do a chest X ray, and then I get to sit and wait for the results.

While we're waiting, the ER doctor comes back to tell me this blood test they've done to check the likelihood of a blood clot is almost always high in a pregnant woman, blood clot or not (it's back to that increased blood volume). In the event this test comes back positive, they will recommend a CAT scan. She then says that plenty of pregnant women who have had CAT scans give birth to healthy babies.

My brain completely stops at this point. I felt like I needed to press pause or something. Wait, what? She explains there's minimal risk to the baby, and even says she's pregnant herself. The risk of having a blood clot that will rupture and kill me is bigger than the risk of all that radiation and the dye they inject into my blood stream to see the blood vessels to the baby.

The doctor leaves and I proceed to cry. I was terrified. I was between a bottomless pit opening up to swallow me, and going numb. Suddenly I had this major decision to make. I hate making quick decisions like this, especially based on fear. How much of a risk is "minimal"? The same risk caffeine poses? Or the same risk, as say, crack cocaine? Crack addicts also give birth to perfectly healthy babies, as people like to tell me when I worry about something affecting the baby. But people, I am shooting a little higher than "baby born not addicted to crack".

I left a message with my midwife so I could find out more information, but the meantime was hell. I didn't want to hurt my baby. I also didn't want to be stupid and refuse some test that might find a blood clot. I also wondered what the chances that I actually had a blood clot versus the risk to the baby was. I would feel awful if it turned out I didn't have a blood clot, and I put the baby at risk for nothing.

It was awful to realize absolutely everything that happens to me happens to my little boy. I knew that already. It's why I am taking prenatal vitamins every though the fish oil makes my burbs taste way nasty. It's why I am avoiding tuna fish, sushi, and sweet tea.

But those were all things I could personally control. I couldn't control these chest pains, they were just there.

Added to the confusion was my prior ER experiences. I've had great ER doctors. I also have TMJD and a few years ago when I yawned, my jaw dislocated itself (yes, that can happen. Fun thought!). I went to the ER where the doctor was CONVINCED it was a muscle spasm. No amount of me telling him I literally cannot close my jaw, and I know what a muscle spams feels like, made him believe me. He said wait three days and then see an Ears, Nose, and Throat doctor. He gave me some muscle relaxers (which did NOTHING) and some heavy narcotics for the pain (which made me hallucinate) in the meantime. So for three days, my jaw stays locked open. I go see the ENT guy who wants to know why the hell the doctor didn't send me right away, or to better yet, an oral surgeon who's job is to deal with TMJ.

So I also have this scenario playing out in my head as I weigh the risks and benefits of having a CAT scan while 5 months pregnant (for those of you wondering, the ENT doctor manually put my jaw back into place, which hurt like nothing I've ever felt before. I imagine labor will be worse, but until then...).

The happy ending to this story is the blood test came back normal, despite my current state of baby incubating. So I didn't have to have a CAT scan. They figured I must have pulled something at work and told me to take it easy for a few days.

It was awful to experience that sort of indecision, fear, and worry, but let me tell you, it makes great writing. You take experiences like I just had, and you give them to your character. She doesn't have to pregnant with a possible blood clot for it to work. I've never felt that mixture of protectiveness over my baby, anxiety, indecision, and fear before, but that doesn't mean a character wouldn't feel the same way when faced with a tough decision regarding her child, sister, mother, or best friend.

Likewise, you can go through your life. Did you ever make a really big, dumb mistake? How did you feel? How did you try to fix or cover that mistake? Have you gotten married? What did it feel like the exact moment you stood at the altar? Have you ever feel deeply in love with someone who didn't even like you? How did you deal with the joy of love and pain of loneliness at the same time? These are experiences that we've all felt in one way or another. You don't have to copy the exact event in your life to apply it to your character, because emotions are universal. Maybe your mistake played out okay in your life, but in the character's life it's just made everything worse.

Red Smith once said, "Writing is easy. You just sit down at the typewriter, open up a vein, and bleed it out drop by drop."

I feel like that's what he meant. You take your life, your happiest moments, your deepest sorrow, your greatest pain, and you put that in words on the page. If you do it well enough, your reader bleeds along with you.

Link Salad

2011-09-16T10:40:00.001-04:00

So for today I had this really awesome post planned about Spike, a character from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and how cool he is, yet how badly they mess with his character.

But then Blogger ate it.

I am still bitter, so I don't feel like retyping it. So instead, I noticed today there are some cool blog posts that really resonated with me as on the nose, or helpful, or just amusing. So, here are the links, but also my commentary.

1. Do You Limit Yourself?

I have two people I thought of when I saw this post. I have a friend who likes to read, but is always complaining about the book she's reading. For some reason, she refuses to stop reading in the middle of the book if it still sucks. She will finish that book no matter what.

I used to do that. I used to just have to find out what happened, even if the book was slow, boring, and poorly written. Now, I just don't have the time. I have too much other stuff demanding my attention, stuff I actually want to do. Also, she's the sort of person who won't watch a show because of the actor playing a minor character, and doesn't like to eat certain foods for various reasons that have nothing to do with how they taste.

You know, that's her life. She is the only person who can live it, but sometimes I see how she allows her feelings and prior experience to taint possible new experiences. She reads a bad book in a certain genre, and suddenly she can't read that genre.

What I try to do is allow myself to experience something new. Even if I've had a bad experience with it in the past. Because you never know.

Someday, I may even come to enjoy coffee.

2. Twisting in the Wind: Plotting Red Herrings

I love Janice's blog, but this post is especially helpful. Have you ever wondered how books and movies set up a twist ending that leaves you feeling excited and amazed? Well here, Janice talks about how you can achieve just that in your writing by using specific examples.

3. Shouting from My Social Media Soapbox

Tawna Fenske is always funny on her blog, but today the post is funny and very helpful. If you feel like you're lost when it comes to social media, if you're trying to make it work for you but it's just not working, I would suggest checking out her post. Even for those of you who are bending Twitter and Facebook to your will might want to check it out. The advice is very simple, but extremely insightful. It really helped me gain perspective on the whole Twitter/Facebook/Blogging thing.

And that's all I have for you today. Feel free to comment on the posts, or post your own links in the comments section. And have a happy Friday! I will be back complaining about Spike on Monday.

Plotting

2011-09-14T09:32:00.000-04:00

So for the last few weeks I have been working on my next novel. I definitely need a break after that extensive rewrite, so it was time to work on a new project.

The idea came easily. The characters too. It's just this darned plot that I seem to be having troubles with. At first I was shocked, and then I thought something was wrong with me.

And then I realized it's just part of writing. We tend to forget how hard certain parts of the process are after we've moved on. Or we approach a new project with a "this time it will be magical" frame of mind. I know I do. I get so excited about my idea and the characters that when I stall out, it baffles me.

"What a second? Wait...this is starting to feel like...yes, yes that's it...WORK."

But it is. As fun as writing can be, there's still a process. Even if you're a panster you still have to come up with the idea. You have to think about the characters, and then figure out how to start the book. Even if you sail through this, you're bound to get to a part in the middle where things start to feel like work.

But that's as normal as feeling like your writing is blessed by the Book Fairies (they do so exist, and you can't tell me otherwise). If everyone who could make coherent sentences could write a book, there would be tons of them.

Funny slightly off topic observation: there are a lot of people out there who don't know how to write well.

I am not talking about perfect grammar and complex sentences. I am talking about writing a short paragraph that puts their ideas together in a coherent fashion that reads better than something a third grader could write.

I noticed this when I started getting emails from people (not my writer friends, so no one out there feel guilty). These people from my everyday life know how to speak proper English. They are relatively intelligent, educated people. Yet when I received an email from them, it sounded like something a third grader might write.

Some of the mistakes are just my pet peeves. Over use of text-speak (lots of LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!! for example). Not capitalizing the first word in a sentence. Cramming the sentences together without rhyme or reason.

But most of it was the way those sentences read. I don't know how else to describe it, other than it looked like something you'd write in third grade. At first I thought these people were just being lazy, but then it dawned on me: they didn't write a lot in their daily life. These are people who didn't have to write something longer than a grocery list in years, and now suddenly there's this magical email thing.

And just because you can talk well, doesn't mean you're going to automatically be able to write well.

All of this is to remind us that writing is a skill. It truly is. It's a skill we hone every time we write blog posts about Book Fairies, every time we think about our character's conflict, every time we, you know, write.

P.S. I have valiantly checked, and rechecked, this post for typos. I always do, but since I was talking about writing skill it seemed extra important to make sure I didn't do something silly. Yet, it is early and I am so very tired. So I apologize for any typos in this post, and shall submit myself to the Grammar Police if there are any typos that escaped the purge.

My Weekend...

2011-09-12T12:49:00.000-04:00

....in musical form. Make of it what you will.

Besides, everyone needs a little extra epic in their Monday.

That Day

2011-09-11T11:54:00.000-04:00

I was in tenth grade. I walked into History class early, because my previous class was right next door. The teacher had the TV on, and after see the smoke and the buildings I thought it was part of the days lesson.

Until the teacher told me, no, this is happening right now. This is New York City. We sat and watched the entire period as the two towers fell. As we tried to make sense of what was happening. People with family in New York City left to call their parents; I felt guilty and relieved that my extended family lived two hours away. They were safe.

A lot of other people were not.

We went to our next class. The TV was on, even though the principal officially said the TVs were supposed to be off, he didn't want to scare the children. We thought it was stupid; we were already scared, more scared than we had been in our lives.

People talked in clumps in the hallway. It was hard to really finish a thought or sentence. As the day wore on, we tried to think of other things. But it always came back to those two towers crumbling before our eyes.

I went to work after school, even though I didn't want to be there. I didn't know where I wanted to be; I felt numb, but I didn't want to be waiting on people. We were slow that night. I guess most people didn't want to leave their families.

The entire day was like someone close and personal to every single one of us had died. It wasn't just the borrowed grief of the families who lost someone in the attack.

That day, we all had a loved one who died.

Our sense of security. Our innocence. Americans get a lot of grief for it, but there's no denying that we're raised to think we're the best. We're America; we kick ass and take names. We're invincible. We're going to live forever.

We found out otherwise on that day.

Thank you for listening to my thoughts. I was luckier than some; I lost no one close to me. But that day I grieved with everyone as a sister. The people who lost someone, who gave up their lives so others could live, they are forever in my heart and mind.

Why Your Main Character's Age is Important

2011-09-07T13:06:00.001-04:00

I was talking with my friend Liz the other day about genres among other things like her cats, my baby, and our books.

She mentioned the reasons why she enjoyed writing about YA. She included things like the main character having to deal with parents, and feeling like an adult and having responsibilities, but also being stuck as a kid in many situations.

Which got me thinking about why I like to write about main characters who are in their early twenties. I like writing about character who vividly remembers being in high school (or the fantasy equivalent thereof) but now they are considered adults. They are suddenly in charge of their own lives, but often feel really unprepared. In my experience, most teenagers don't spend a lot of time learning how to budget, how to balance their bank accounts, and don't actually realize how much stuff costs.

They are in college or just starting their new job. As a senior in high school, you're at the top of the heap.

As a young twenty something, you're right back at the bottom.

Their love life can be tumultuous. Maybe they had some significant others in high school; maybe not. Maybe they are trying to reinvent themselves, as they realize no one no longer cares if you were the class geek or the captain of the football team. Maybe they still don't know what they want their career to be, and they're feeling a lot of pressure to figure it out soon.

And their family. As a new adult, they are suddenly no longer bound by what their parents say (if they obeyed as teenagers), but there's a long history of obligation to do so. Some people still fall in lock step with what their parents want, while others go in the opposite route and rebel now (this seems even more likely if the new adult didn't rebel as a teenager, and is attending college).

To me, writing about "new adults" has every bit as many interesting challenges and obstacles as writing about teenagers. It's just a different set of problems and expectations.

And I don't think it stops there. Writing about a character who is thirty carries it's own host of expectations. It says as much about a thirty year old if he's still living in his parent's basement as it does if he is instead is married with 2.5 kids, one dog, and has a house with a white picket fence.

Same goes for any character at any age. You can mine the age of the character for minor conflicts (or entire book ideas, a la Literary fiction) at any point. What's more, I feel like it makes the book a richer experience. I've read tons of urban fantasy where the main character is a woman in her late twenties, early thirties, but it feels forgettable. She has her own place, has a job, and might be dating, but there are no other markers of her age. It's forgettable.

Sometimes this is the desired result, but perhaps consider your character's age the next time you're writing. After all, why should the Young Adult authors have all the fun with the challenges that come with a certain age?

Happy Labor Day!

2011-09-05T11:56:00.000-04:00

Happy also Not-in-Labor for me as well. I keep whispering "labor day" in case my unborn son gets any ideas.

I should return to normal posting schedule this week. It's been crazy and hectic and my brain felt like a pile of mush. Rather than subject you to said brain-mush, I instead laid on the couch and vegged out.

Enjoy your probable day off (I have a half schedule today) and see you later!

The gender of my baby is......

2011-09-01T19:21:00.002-04:00

a boy!

I now return you to your regularly scheduled Thursday evening. :D

The Great Sleep Deprivation Experiment

2011-08-24T11:53:00.003-04:00

I am so tired right now I feel like a zombie. I also suspect I will be coming up with more creative metaphors for feeling tired, especially after I have my baby, or as I like to call it The Great Sleep Deprivation Experiment.

Here's the thing: I don't do well on lack of sleep. I just don't. I've always been like that. I usually get between 8-9 hours of sleep. How you might ask? I make sure to go to bed early or sleep in. Sleep is a priority to me, because I know how I am when I don't get enough. When you have a physically tiring job like massage therapy, it's hell if you haven't gotten enough sleep.

Now that I've gotten pregnant the hours of sleep have increased, but also sort of not. I wake up in the middle of the night more (but not as much as I will in the coming months). I wake up early in the morning and can't fall back to sleep despite laying there for an hour. Today I just decided I couldn't lay there anymore and got up early. I was going to be tired anyway, I might as well get up.

The kicker is I know this is nothing compared to having a newborn, but I guess I'll learn how to take a nap, right?

Last night I toured the maternity ward at the hospital. It was great. I got a lot of my questions answered, questions I am having a hard time finding answers to (like, how long am I going to be in the hospital after the delivery? Two days, if I don't need a C section. Will I get to keep the baby in the room with me or not? Yes, but there's also a nursery I can check the baby in if I need to sleep or take a shower. It's like a baby library.). I know I can Google stuff, but it all depends on the hospital and polices and then you find this website where people are sharing their horrible labor stories and it makes me want to pull all my hair out. So I have been wary of the Internets and their awesome power of information.

But still, there are all these nagging questions I somehow must find answers to. Did you ever just not study for a big test? You were lazy and didn't bother. You forgot. Whatever the reason, you're sitting with a huge test in front of you and you are totally unprepared.

That's sort of how I feel right now. A lot of these baby questions have no clear answers to them. Like the pacifier thing. I don't want to shove a pacifier in my kid's mouth every time s/he gets fussy. I don't want a crutch. But on the other hand, I've read in books they reduce the risk of SIDS. How, I don't know. They are just supposed to.

There's also the drugs during labor thing. I have a very high pain threshold. Very high. My jaw was locked open for three days and I didn't take any of the Percocet they gave me because I took one at the hospital and started hallucinating. I got a second hole pierced in my ears, and one side got infected badly enough to engulf the earring stud. That was a fun conversation. I come home from school and Mom says I've lost an earring. I say no, touching the two earring backs, I haven't. We check my earlobe more closely, and presto! The magic disappearing earring! The doctor had to cut it out of my head, and didn't give me an anesthetic beforehand (he was a swell guy).

But I so don't want to test this pain threshold thing with natural childbirth. Just...no. I want something to take the edge off labor pains. I am not on board with a completely natural childbirth. Nothing against those brave souls who have done natural childbirth, but yeah I'd rather not test that pain endurance.

However, I would really rather not have an epidural. I don't like the idea of being numb from the waist down, and the midwife has to tell me when to push. I don't like the possibility of low back pain for the rest of my life. An epidural can also make the baby really sluggish. I want to experience the birth at least a little bit.

See, these are sort of important questions. And they aren't half of the decisions you never realize you have to make. Let the baby sleep in the room in a bassinet with you or not? Circumcision or not? Should I take a breastfeeding class or will the support from the Lactation consultants at the hospital be enough? Also, my best friend's mom was a Lactation consultant for year, so I can get extra help from her.

And our living space! We thought about trying to get a house, but might wait until my husband gets further into training. We have a two bedroom apartment, but the second bedroom is full. My desk, my husband's desk, we have a daybed, two bookshelves and a filing cabinet. We can either put things in storage/consolidate, or check and see how much more a three bedroom apartment would be.

I actually felt sort of like this when I really got into writing. There were so many agents! Genres! Publishing considerations! Suddenly the entire publishing world opened up it's yawning maw and I was swallowed whole. I am trying to avoid this with the baby. Because this stuff might feel like a big deal, but I know it's not. I'm not going to know what I want to do until I get to that situation most of the time.

It's very much like writing that first rough draft. There's a lot of trial and error, a lot of doing what seems like a good idea and what feels right.

I just hope the baby turns out better than my first rough draft.

I also hope this post makes sense, because I think I have fallen asleep.

What events have you experienced that you didn't feel completely prepared for?

Because It's Monday

2011-08-22T12:03:00.000-04:00

How to Make Cliches Work for You

2011-08-18T12:33:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I have a mild panic attack. I blame the pregnancy hormones. While drafting my query letter for The Heart's Remains, I had this horrible suspicion that the book sounded like one big clichefest. Exorcists. Demon summonings. Summoners. Family secrets. Not exactly untrodden ground here, especially in fantasy.

This of course was not true. I know that. I'm not saying I completely reinvented the wheel (that would be impossible, since the book is a loose retelling of Snow White), but I know my book isn't one big cliche. Sometimes when you boil an idea down to it's smallest parts it can feel like that, but as we know, a lot of what makes something fresh and new is the execution.

I've talked about that before, so today I thought instead I would show you how to make a cliche in your genre work for you. I personally don't think there's anything wrong with a trope, so long as they are used sparingly, or you do something cool with them. After all, most ideas become a trope because there's something enduring about them. I think once you've thought through the cliche and used it to your advantage, it become a trope. You still need to use tropes sparingly, but not you're thinking about the elements of your idea, not just piling on a bunch of ideas that have all been done to death.

See this article here about tropes: Tropes Are Tools

And here is a good livejournal post about Trope vs. Cliche.

Let me also say that I don't usually get story ideas this way. Normally I have a vague idea for a story and where I want it to go before I start taking each piece apart. It gives me a better sense of the direction I want to take the reversal. But there's nothing saying you can't say, "Man. I love the 'Love at first sight' trope. Let's see what sort of story I can make of that!"

This requires a tiny bit of research. But it's the fun, don't let it suck you in, sort of research.

So here we go. I am going to use the trope "Chosen One" since a) It's a pretty common trope. It's considered a cliche in most stories nowadays, and b) I am developing a novel with a chosen one in it, so I've already done a lot of thinking on it.

1. Scouting

Your first defense against a cliche is research. I like to use TV Tropes.org as a good starting place. They have a vast collection of tropes and things are cross referenced.

We simply type "Chosen One" into the search box and pull up a long entry. The entry itself is also riddle with links, so you might want to check a few of them out if you're confused. There's also a long list of examples from books, movies, TV, and even webcomics. I like to skim through the examples to give myself an idea of how the trope has been done before.

Here is another trick. Scroll down the entry and you see where the "Chosen One" trope is on the trope axis. You get a lot of similar tropes to look at. "Fate and Prophecy types", "Magical Girl Tropes", "Heroes", "Archetypal Characters", "Empowerment", and "Discredited Tropes" (which means it's been done to death, didn't age well, or people have come to hate this trope).

Since my story deals more with fate versus free will, I will look at the "Fate and Prophecy types" branch. But let's say you're trying to pay homage to a traditional fantasy story. You've got an idea that you're going to use classic archetypes and then parody the heck out of all of them. "Archetypal Characters" would probably be a better branch for you in that case.

My search gives me all sorts of plays on the Chosen One trope:
*The Chosen Zero
*It Sucks to be the Chosen One
*The Unchosen One

Next, you attempt to list all the movies and books you've seen/read that used the Chosen One as a trope. Depending on the trope you're researching, you might even want to re-watch some of these to see how they did it.

In this example, Chosen One has been done so often it would be a great idea for you to brush up on how other works have used this trope. You're going to really want to shoot for something different here, especially if the Chosen One is your main character.

2. Processing

That's enough information for now, don't you think? You don't want to get too crazy with this.

Now we sit down and use our brains. Think about why this element is popular enough to be a trope or cliche if done badly. How it is used? Why has it endured for so long?

For the Chosen One, I already know why it's popular. (Mythologists speculate) it comes from ancient legends, when people were still telling tales around the campfire. Cultures needed a way to designate the hero from everyone else, so they said that destiny chose this person, or this chosen one is the son of a god.

This is also why it's almost a cliche. Because it's been done before we even invented books. Also, it's no longer a cultural necessity for us to use destiny/the gods to tell people who the hero is. We have other ways of designating the hero, and sometimes we'd rather the hero to be a guy just like us (hence the Everyman trope).

Take your list and ask yourself the following:

*What do we expect from this trope?
*What is ordinary about how I want to use this trope?
*What is extraordinary about how I want to use this trope?

You don't have to get this all in one go. I often have one place in my brainstorming document for this, and I often add to it as I think about the idea. I also place my notes underneath the trope in question, so it looks little thought trees. :D

Here's an example:

*What do we expect from this trope?

*We’d expect the Chosen one to fulfill their prophecy right away andalways be on the side of the good guys.

But in Star Wars, Darth Vader did both. He subverted theprophecy because he helped kill the Jedi, and then later on with the help ofLuke, he kills the Emperor and fulfills the original prophecy of getting rid ofthe Sith Lords.

*We’d expect the ChosenOne to not have a Chooser, for it just to be a nebulous “fate” thing. Aprophecy, something they can’t confront.

What if instead there was a chooser? Or the Chosen One themselves was the Chooser of the fate. Valkyries, Fates, the Morrigan, Norns.

So underneath I often put what I am going to do, if anything, to address the audiences expectations of the trope. You don't have to address every single expectation. Some of those expectations are going to be fulfilled, and that's okay.

The really cool thing is thinking about each expectation often gives me neat ideas. I think the Darth Vader both fulfilling and subverting the prophecy is AWESOME. That makes me happy. I also now have cool ideas for norns and fates and valkyries. Also good stuff.

The important thing to remember is to not drive yourself crazy with thinking you're writing a terrible book riddled with cliches. Some tropes you use are just going to be there, no matter what. If the good guys win, congratulations, that's a trope. If the guy gets the girl, also a trope.

Tropes are simply what we expect from a story with a certain set up. You can have your fun though, if you think about which elements you want to subvert and twist by trying to figure how you can do things differently.

It's also important to note that context is king. If you're writing a medieval fantasy novel set in pseudo-Europe and there's an ancient prophecy where a farm boy turns out to be the Chosen one and picks up a sword to defeat the Dark Lord, then your Chosen One trope is going to feel A LOT like a cliche.

But, if you do like J.K. Rowling did, and instead set her Chosen One to a magical wizard school (also a trope) where he had to learn the ropes and had to stop Voldemort from taking over the muggle and magical world, it feels less like a cliche. Rowling did enough interesting worldbuilding and had enough clever new twists that her Chosen One didn't feel like the same old same old. Especially when she introduced the concept that Voldemort MADE Harry the Chosen One by killing his parents. How it could have been Neville instead.

So. Does anyone have any other thoughts to add? Anyone want to see me pick apart another trope?

ARC Giveaway: Daughter of Smoke and Bone

2011-08-16T20:17:00.001-04:00

I have been in love with "Daughter of Smoke and Bone" by Lani Taylor ever since she vaguely mentioned it on her blog. YES, it's been that long.

I am slowly counting the days when it's released, but for now, allow me to direct your attention to this ARC giveaway of....yes, you guessed it, "Daughter of Smoke and Bone" (I just never get tired of saying that title.)

Claire Legrand, a magnanimous human being, is holding a super-easy contest. So go now. Check it out. You'll thank me.

Post Rewrite

2011-08-12T10:54:00.000-04:00

My brain is made of tapioca pudding.

Not really, but that's what it feels like.

It's funny because DURING the rewrite (or the first draft) after a while all you want is to be done. You dream about typing "The End" and celebrating with a book buying spree.

But when that day actually arrives, suddenly your brain is like, "Wait? What? Huh?" You've trained yourself for months to sit diligently in the chair and pump out words. And now you're done.

Directionless. Purposeless. Aimless.

Of course, there's always something else to do. There's other book ideas to work on. I have another book, The Ghosts Between Us, to revise and edit (it's probably going to need a rewrite too). I am going to research agents and draft a query letter for The Heart's Remains, even though I still have to edit the book. I figure the more time I spend on both the better off I am going to be. But it's also a question of when to start another project. I need a little bit of a recharge in between major projects.

Also, my apartment is a mess. I should probably put "spring cleaning" on my list of things to do.

Also, I have lots of books on the "To Read" list. Some books I can read while revising, but other books that are really long and involved, I try to wait until I am not currently hip-deep in revision.

But it still feels weird that for so long I have one driving purpose and goal, and for now, that's been lifted. The next few days I am going to consider my options and figure out what my next project is going to be.

In the meantime, I get to goof off and call it "recharging." Isn't the writer's life grand?

So what do you guys do after finishing revision/drafting?

DONE!

2011-08-10T16:05:00.000-04:00

Ladies and gentleman, I am done with my rewrite.

Yes. You read that correctly. I am done. Finished.

This is how I currently feel:

My brain is mush. I also feel really proud of myself. Because there were times I didn't think I would finish. I know you read that a lot, usually in a celebratory post like this one, where the writer says, "I thought I might never finish!" or "I almost gave up, like, a million times!"

And then the writer sips champagne (and pronounces it that really pretentious way, "shamp-PAN-ya") because she's just sold the book for a million dollars.

Except I still have to do a major edit on this book, so I won't be querying anytime soon. And also, I really did consider giving up lots of time. Sometimes just because I was frustated, and other times because it was just so HARD. It's difficult to decribe to people who have never written a book before how it can be hard. It seems like the easiest thing in the world, to just jot a bunch of words down on the page.

But I bled for this book, and it's not over yet. But for now, I am letting it rest, and I have you guys in part to thank. Having this blog is a great way to stay accountable. I knew if I quit that my friends would give me a hard time. Ditto for the blog. And even though you guys would be understanding, there would still be the guilt. The guilt that I quit.

So I kept going.

And now I am finished.

Thank you, everyone, for your support.

Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to figure out how to occupy my time now that the rewrite's over.

Second Trimester: A Wonderful Thing

2011-08-08T11:56:00.000-04:00

Today I am officially in my second trimester! This means I am 13 weeks pregnant.

It feels like this pregnancy is going very slowly when I stop to think about it, but on the other hand, I can't believe it's already been 13 weeks. 4 months. That's a long time.

By all accounts this is the "fun" trimester. You don't have the morning sickness and fatigue in the first trimester, but you're not as huge as a alien mothership yet. Everyone assured me that when I hit my second trimester the morning sickness would go away, but I was sort of worried they were just lying so I didn't throw up on them.

Apparently this is actually true, since I am feeling better. I also have less anxiety because the chance of miscarriage decreases drastically. The first trimester feels like the valley of the shadow of death in some ways. Maybe it was just because we found out so soon we were pregnant. We started trying to have a baby, and bamn, next month I miss my period. So I have plenty of time to try and not worry about all the things that could happen.

I didn't want to start planning things too soon. I haven't researched the different birth method (like what sort of drugs I want present at the birth of my baby :D), I haven't registered yet, I haven't bought maternity clothes yet. Now I feel like I can start thinking about these things.

But that's when I realized that this vague anxiety I feel for my baby will never actually go away. There's never going to be an "all clear" guarantee that say everything is going to be okay. I'll still worry when the baby is a toddler, a child, and heaven help me, a teenager. When I say worry, I don't mean I am staying up at night losing sleep. But it's humbling in a way, to know that my life has been so changed already and the baby isn't even here yet to keep me up at night.

Another cause for my excellent mood is I am very, very close to the end of my rewrite. I started outlining the climax yesterday using this article of Jim Butcher's. I know it sounds weird to outline the climax, but sometimes they intimidate me. There's so many moving parts, so many loose threads being wrapped up that my mind just draws a blank. I use the article to figure out what character is where, and doing what, before I plunge into the scene.

Soon I will be able to write the post proclaiming that I am done, but in the meantime I will say that I am making excellent progress.

So how is everyone doing? How are your works in progress?

Pet Peeve: Words Have Weight

2011-08-05T13:55:00.000-04:00

"Word have weight."

---Holly Lisle

Today I am going to talk about a pet peeve of mine. Since most of my readers are also writers, I am going to be preaching to the choir on this one, but I figure some of you might not have thought about things this way. If you have, well then join me in the comments section and we can complain about it. :D

Today I read a funny article on Cracked.com about subjects people love to talk about, but most people don't want to hear about. Number one on the list was your book/script/screenplay. I rather enjoyed the article, especially since Daniel O'Brian made the caveat that most writers like to talk to other writers about their ideas. And most of the time, if you have a book or something to show for your efforts, "normal" "non-writer" people usually like to hear about your book because you have something to show for it.

I am going to add to that statement and say in my experience, even IF you have a book to show for your efforts, most people don't want to listen to you breathlessly talking about your space adventure cowboy romance between a sentient tree and a hamster. Short, interesting pitch sentences, yes. When my co-workers ask about what I am writing, I use that as an opportunity to practice my pitching skills.

"It's a retelling of Snow White on a tundra, about an exorcist who promises her mother on her deathbed that she'll stop a demon summoning before the winter solstice, but she winds up discovering her mother's secret life in the cult." (that's the basic plot of my book, The Heart's Remains, in case I haven't mentioned it before).

See, that was short and sweet. I can gauge how interesting the story is (to some people) by their reaction. I can also choose to include different details to see what people seem to respond best to. When they ask for more information, I expound, but I usually don't go on at length about my book.

I think a lot of people like the idea that you're a writer more than actually hearing about your book in detail. We're interested because it's our book, but most people really couldn't care.

I used to ramble on and on and on. It wasn't pretty. I would deluge the hapless sap who asked me about my book with details. "It's about this girl who's mother is sick from an unknown illness, and right before she dies she tells Sera, the main character, about a demon summoning that a secret cult is doing, and Sera promises to stop them, but then she finds out it's hard to find proof of the cult, and she gets sick herself, and she has a twin sister, and her friend gets possessed, and...."

To most people it's just a bunch of details. It doesn't make sense to them.

But that's not my pet peeve. I have made my peace that 99% of the population is not rabidly excited about my book ideas.

In the comments section a lot of people disagreed with the author's statement that you need to have tangible results, like half a book, in order for most people to be interested in your book/film. Lots of people said that ideas were just as good, if not better, because you can see where the book is going.

I've also seen this basic sentiment prevalent on forums everywhere and in real life. How many people have you met that say they had a book idea? And it's going to be the best thing since Twilight/The Da Vinci Code/The Bible. Yet they have nothing to show for the idea.

I am not saying these people are lazy posers and need to write that idea down. Not everyone is a writer, after all. It's a lot of work. It's just really annoying to me when people act like having an idea is the same exact thing as actually writing a book.

I know I should be more understanding. They don't know, because they haven't written the book yet. They don't actually know how hard it is to get from the beginning to the end, and then to edit the sucker within an inch of it's life, and then...

The other thing these people don't seem to understand is words have weight. Having an idea is great. It's the first step. But anyone who's ever had an idea and then wrote that out into a book knows that no idea remains completely intact from when you first had it. The words you're writing have weight. Even if you have an idea come to you and everything is laid out perfectly, and you write the book and barely a thing changes, the book still feels different than your idea. There's layers to it. Nuances and subtleties that you didn't conceive of intially.

That's okay. Normal. What's supposed to happen. But that's why I get annoyed when people try to compare having an idea to writing a book. It's not as easy as simply jotting the idea on paper and selling it for millions of dollars.

If it was, everyone would have a book out there.

So there. That's my rant. I'll stop foaming at the mouth.

So what do you guys think? Am I nuts? Or does that burn your biscuits too?

Gee Gee Gee Baby Baby Baby

2011-08-02T11:57:00.000-04:00

Guess what! I am sick!
It's the summer. I protest. There should be some sort of law against getting a bad head cold in the summer. Also, there should be an addendum to said law that the punishment is worse if the victim is still in her first trimester.

Morning sickness + coughing * (lack of sleep^2) body aches - Robitussin Dm + three boxes of tissues and counting = Elizabeth high on cold medicine and unable to string more than two coherent sentences together.

If I could remember the order of operations I might be able to tell you why my toes are tingling.

Rewriting is going fabulously because I haven't done any in a few days. Too scared to see what my addled brain will cook up. Mostly I've spend my days laying on the couch with my husband, who is also sick (he's the one that shared the virus--he really shouldn't have), watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Netflix.

Shocking confession time: I've never seen Buffy or Angel before! I know! I am fixing that right now. It's rather addictive. I feel like I am arriving to a fandom about ten years late. Maybe that's because I am. When I told my husband I'd never seen either series he wanted to know what I did with my time as a teenager.

I read books. Also, I wrote some. I didn't watch a lot of TV, and still don't.

I tried to post yesterday and tell you guys why you weren't getting a coherent post from me, but about halfway through this post I got distracted and I forgot about it.

Here's a song:

P. S. I like this song prior to the aide of over the counter cough medicine. True story! I think it's cute. I like J-pop (Japanese Pop, even though technically these girls are Korean so it would be considered K-pop) a lot.

P. P. S. I was going to say something, but I forgot while I was typing the first P.S.

P. P. P. S. I remember now. I was going to make a joke by adding a tag that didn't belong to this post, but then I figured only I would notice/find it funny. First I was going to use the tag "zombie apocalypse" but then I thought it might actually apply since my cold could be the first wave of the virus that will create the zombie apocalypse. (Also, I don't know why I have some of the tags I do. Seriously, why does "Bigos" get it's own tag? It's just a dish I make.)

Okay, so I looked through my tags, and it's no go. Even the ones that don't fit would just seem like I hit the wrong button. I mean, if I tag this post "lolcats" even though there aren't any cats in this post (just Korean girls and a confusing math equation) it won't be funny. Not in the ironic way I was hoping for. So the tag thing is a bust. Sorry.

P. P. P. P. S. I didn't want to end the post on such a downer. So I added another PS. Although I wonder, adding more "Ps" to the P.S., that's not a real thing right? It's just something people do so you get the point that it's another added message but separate from the first.

Have a great day!

A Brilliant Post As Written By Others

2011-07-29T11:40:00.002-04:00

Today I was going to write a post about the journey of the writer never getting easier, but why that's a good thing. I was going to talk about the ups and downs.

But it seems Beth Revis and Elizabeth Davis have already beaten me to the punch.

Liz has a visual representation of what it's like to write a book that had me cracking up.

Beth Revis has an amazing post, complete with a graph, of why you're never going to feel like it's "good enough" and why that's okay.

So away! Feast your eyes on their wisdom!

Ideas Like Weeds

2011-07-27T12:12:00.001-04:00

Are you struggling with coming up with ideas to write about?

Good, me either.

But, if you are, I have just the thing for you. All you have to do is work on another book. It's true! It seems like some sort of sick paradox, but the longer you work on one book project, the more ideas you will get for other books.

My muse has the attention span of a five year old hopped up on sugar and a day of non-stop TV. I seriously have been getting a new idea for a character, a scenario, or vague plot just about every single day. I am closing in on the end of the rewrite, and I think my muse is getting desperate. The rewrite is coming along nicely, but I keep getting ideas for other stuff.

Of course, I am staying the course. I will finish this rewrite if it kills me (it just might, too. You never know). I just think it's funny how when you're working diligently on another project, you get all sorts of ideas for something else.

Maybe it's just me though. Do you guys get ideas for other books while working on something else? One or two, or have you had stretches where you've had several new ones, one right after the other?

Maybe it's just me. I would blame caffeine, but I haven't had more than a few sips of tea since I got pregnant. Sugar, I could blame the sugar. Yes, it has to be the sugar.

Book Lust

2011-07-26T13:15:00.001-04:00

This post is inspired by The Rejectionist's post yesterday.

Today we're going to talk about lust. Book lust. Because we're not just writers, we're also readers. A lot of my friends, while not being writers, are voracious readers. Obsessive readers form their own little crazy subgroup. We have our own quirks. Some people call us obsessed, I think we just really like books.

Warning signs of being a compulsive readers are as follows:

*People always remark on your vast quantity of books.

*You carry a book with you everywhere you go.

*You will never have enough books.

*People who help you move complain about your massive boxes of books.

*You check the book section wherever you go. Goodwill, the grocery store, the pet store.

If any of these warning signs apply to you, don't worry. You're already hooked on books. There's no backing out now. The advent of Ereaders is only enabling your book buying habits. Less space, easier ways to hide them. Click the button, boom. Another book in your hoard.

I had to order a rain CD from Amazon so I could sleep at night, so of course I thought it would be a great time to order some more books. Since the CD almost put me at getting free shipping. Then I heard about Borders's amazing going out of business sale. So I bought a bunch of books from there.

Mind you, I have a huge stack of books I already need to read. It's like a sickness. A wonderful sickness. The Rejectionist was right. We're all going to be on Hoarders some day, unable to move because our mountain of books will be so large.

At least being a writer gives me an excuse. I have to stay current in the market. I have to be well read. I have my husband convinced of this, although he still objects to my incessant need to fill my bookshelves up with books. He jokingly told me that when I have the baby, we're going to have to buy diapers instead of books.

I told him I'd rather starve, thank you very much.

I don't know what it is about books. But I love them. I love owning them. I like looking at them on my bookshelves. It fills me with great joy.

What are your crazy book stories? I know you have them.

Book Review: Making Waves

2011-07-22T12:32:00.001-04:00

The logical conclusion to my last post would be for me to review Making Waves. So here it is:

I loved it.

I don't read a lot of romantic comedy, mostly because a vast majority of those books feel like they are just about the guy and the girl hooking up. Which, of course, that IS what a romance novel is about. But usually for me I need a little more going on in the book, or I just feel like I am reading a soap opera.

Happily, Tawna Fenske's book delivers a really cute romance, but also an interesting plot and hilarious characters. The core of the plot is disgruntled employees who are recently laid off, trying to steal their corrupt boss's illegal goods so they can use that to replace their pensions.

There's also lots of suspense and conflict, but what really made the book for me was the characters. The main female character, Juli Flynn, is...different. She's quirky, but not so quirky she turns into a stereotype of herself. The supporting characters are just as interesting, which make for interesting reading with all of them stuck on a boat together. I really enjoyed the chemistry all of the character had together. Making Waves is about a romance, but it's also about Juli trying desperately to find people she can fit in with.

In short, I thought this book was awesome, even if I did get strange looks at the OB's office for laughing out loud.

Pre-order a Book---Get a Free Bookmark!

2011-07-20T13:26:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone!

It's time for some promotion. Not for myself, but for fellow author Tawna Fenske. I've followed her blog for months now. If you're not following her, let me tell you--she's a riot. Every single post has some sort of funny innuendo. She's a really great example of how to blog so other people want to read your posts (needless to say, I take copious notes).

Her first book, Making Waves, is due to come out August 2nd, and in celebration of that illustrious event, she's ~~bribing~~ rewarding people who pre-order her book with mailing of bookmarks, entering them to win in a drawing, and other fun stuff.

The best part? If you order from Amazon your book ships early! That's right, I am holding my copy in my hot little hands right now. Making Waves is a romantic comedy, so a perfect "beach read" or something to read if your children have sapped your brains from staying home all summer.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a book to read. It arrived just in time, because I am about to go see my OB and we all know how long and boring waiting at the doctor's office is.

Werewolves vs. Vampires: A Conversation

2011-07-18T11:44:00.002-04:00

*Contains spoilers from Gail Carriger's Heartless*

Late at night as we were laying in bed trying to fall asleep, I told my husband that my mom had just finished Gail Carriger's Heartless. I'd bought the book the second it came out and passed it along to her to read. Mom emailed me, jokingly lamenting that when I have my baby, it's not going to turn into a little wolf cub or vampire depending on what sort of supernatural creature is currently holding it, like Alexia's baby does at the end of Heartless.

I told my husband, "Honestly, I am a little disappointed too. Although the set up would be reversed in our case. You would much rather be a vampire, and I'd rather be a werewolf."

Husband: "Really? You'd want to turn into an animal?"

Me: "Yeah, it would be really cool. I could turn into a wolf, and run around, and smell stuff, and get in people's way--"

Husband: "And eat people."

Me: "No, I'd eat deer or something. At least I wouldn't be dead."

Husband: "People die all the time."

Me: "You'd be drinking blood all the time, gross."

Husband: "I wouldn't be allergic to silver bullets--"

Me: "--holy water, crosses, garlic, stakes..."

Husband mutters darkly: "If I was a vampire, they'd never find me."

Me: *laughs* "That's right honey. They would never find you."

Then we went on to talk about how humans should never actually be able to beat vampires if they are as powerful as they were back in Dracula's day, since they are practically demigods. Also how vampires would control overpopulation if the vampires in question were really strong and immortal, and don't die easily.

Just a normal late night conversation in the Poole household.

Harry Potter: the End of an Era

2011-07-15T12:14:00.001-04:00

*sniff* He's all grown up.

The second part of the last Harry Potter movie releases today.

It feels like the end of an era.

I know, I know, it really ended when the seventh book came out, but even then it didn't feel like it was over. We all knew there would be more movies coming out.

But today that is no longer true. This is the last Harry Potter movie, and it makes me a little sad and very nostalgic. Sometimes a book (or book series) transcends it's medium and becomes part of our culture.

For me, the Harry Potter books were like that. Yes, they are well written amazing books. But their popularity, the controversy they caused, and the excitement I felt with my friends when a new book would be released made them more than just a bunch of books.

I wasn't into the books at first. I didn't understand what the hype was about. It was like a loud party going on in the next room. Even though I wasn't reading the books myself, I was impressed with the series all the same.

My little brother, who "hates" to read, was reading them. He was in middle school at the time, and he was so excited about the books he went to the midnight release parties. That was very impressive. For a kid who thought books were boring, here was a series he was avidly reading.

Then my best friend, who'd read the books, recommended them to me. She said I would enjoy them. So that was another seed. One night, while bored, my brothers and I sat down to watch the first Harry Potter movie.

And I enjoyed it. I thought it was really well done. It was summer, and I didn't have anything to read. So I borrowed my little brother's books and I cracked open the first one.

I finished it later on that night. I tore through my little brother's collection until I was caught up (Order of the Phoenix had just been released). Suddenly I understood what everyone else was talking about. These were awesome books. I could see why they were so popular.

From then on, I took part in the fandom. I went to see the movies with my friends and later on, husband, because we were all fans. I got to tell my husband what was different about the movie from the book. Even though my little brother never became a voracious reader, he still went on to read other books. He read the Dark Tower series by Stephan King when the rest of us were passing that series around like crack, and was able to get the references from those books we kept making. Without Harry Potter, I don't think he would have bothered to read them, or the other books he picked up.

And tonight, the last Harry Potter movie releases.

It's the end of an era, but it doesn't mean that Harry Potter has to go away. I am pregnant. Someday I will get to pass my copies along to my kids, and maybe even start another generation of Potter fans.

My Book and My Baby

2011-07-13T16:59:00.000-04:00

I promise I am not going to make every post about being pregnant, guys. I swear. But I've always thought of this blog as about more than just the nuts and bolts of writing, but also life that comes with it.

And right now, life is going through some pretty big changes. Being a writer, I compare a lot of what I am going through with writing and getting a book deal. The feeling of disbelief. The shocking realization that this is happening, and within a set period of time.

And my favorite, the feeling that I have no clue what I am doing.

The interesting thing is that even though pregnancy is something you hear everyone talk about, there's a whole lot of stuff I am experiencing that never gets mentioned. Then something happens, like for example, my hips have been killing me lately, and I think there's something wrong with me. Until I check with my books, and it turns out it's completely normal.

It's a good lesson for doing your research I think. There's a lot of general information about things that "everyone" knows, but when you get to the daily life of a doctor, a mental patient, and a pregnant woman (those last two may be connected) there's a slew of stuff that no one ever talks about.

So here are some funny observations:

*Morning sickness is a misnomer. Lately I am sick to my stomach all day. For a few days last week I was having dry heaves the very second I woke up. I couldn't even eat a cracker without gagging. It was water, water, water until about 3 or 4 in the afternoon. Luckily that's getting better.

*Which brings me to the next point. You assume your level of queasiness is going to stay the same for the rest of the first trimester. How how naive I was. Last week I was sick to my stomach all day and couldn't eat a thing until the evening. This week it's getting a little better.

*Food aversions. The weirdest things will make you sick to your stomach. Usually it's not until I put the food in my mouth too, will I know if I want to eat it or not. This makes ordering in a restaurant adventurous at best.

*Body aches. Because of the hormones coursing through your veins, your body will ache. Just...everywhere. I can't sleep on one side for very long before it starts to hurt my hip and shoulder. Also I'll get hot and cold and hot again and then cold.

*People over sharing. You would be very surprised how many people have told me their miscarriage horror stories. Most people are trying to help reassure me that it's "totally normal" but seriously, folks. I don't need to hear about that right now. I am still in the first trimester. That's like, Valley of the Shadow of Death for miscarriage. I am taking my prenatal vitamins, eating healthy, not drinking caffeine, and generally doing everything I can to be healthy. But there's still only so much control I have over things. And since I don't want to be a crazy person, I am just not thinking about the Bad Things that could happen. There's no sense in becoming neurotic.

*Have I mentioned that we're also looking at houses? Yeah, we're going to move sometime this year, depending on how quickly the house hunting goes.

*Have I also mentioned that my best friend Melissa is getting married December 3rd? I am the Matron of Honor (that sounds so old, but I am married, so no longer a "maid"). I will be in my third trimester then, and probably huge. Finding a nice dress is going to be...interesting. It's also funny how people act like I will totally be incapacitated and unable to help her with the wedding. I'm pregnant, not dead.

*Fatigue. This one's a killer, especially for my writing. Imagine that you're moving and you have to pack everything in one day. The next day, you have to move all your stuff and unpack it. Let's also say that you didn't get any sleep at all for a few nights in a row, and your day job is as a construction worker. This scenario barely scratches how tired I am. I still have a day job, so some days it's all I can do to just go to work (which is physically demanding). I've spend a lot of nights on the couch trying to perfect my Jedi mind tricks so I can will the fruit over to me. So while it's been a challenge, I've still managed to make progress on my book.

Because I want to try to be completely done and querying before I go into labor. I am nine weeks right now, so that gives me 7 months to finish rewriting, pass it off to the beta readers, implement beta reader feedback and then start querying. That should be plenty of time, but we all know how life likes to creep up on us. Did I mention moving and a wedding, for starters?

The really great news is that despite all of these funny things, I am still making very steady progress on the book. I rewrite at least a scene a day, and two days ago I managed to write 7k. The tiredness and malaise kicked in, and I didn't feel like doing anything.

So I just wrote, since it's my first escape.

So there you have it. An update on my book and my baby.

How are all of you dealing with your projects? How do you deal with life's curve balls?

A New Reality TV Show: Writing a Novel

2011-07-11T12:54:00.000-04:00

Reality TV show given to people who just had lots of kids. My show is in the bag.

Guys, I just had the greatest idea.

Reality TV is here to stay. We all know that. They will give anyone a reality TV show if they do something halfway interesting. Sometimes not even then.

But I've thought about an untapped market in the reality TV realm.

Writers. Writing books.

Imagine how gripping it would be to watch a writer furiously typing away at the keyboard. Imagine the tension as the writer pounds his head against his (or her) desk trying to remember the name of those boxes built into the wall that hold firewood indoors.

You'll watch day by day as the writer gets the brilliant idea for their next book. You'll see the sweat pour from their veins as they try to figure out how to make a romance/space western/historical fiction with a hamster as a main character and a velociraptor sidekick work.

This show would follow the writer as they go through rough draft blues. When they want to throw away their book because the edits are eating them alive. The show will document the query process.

Face it folks. Writers are a bunch of crazy people. We're nutty than a bunch of squirrels eating peanut butter on a bed of macadamia nuts. You know it. I know it. Following a writer through their daily routine of typing the words out on the computer? That is high quality drama right there.

There could be guest agents, sort of like Celebrity Apprentice. The agents could judge the query/book and say things like "This guy has real talent. He's someone to watch." Or they could get an agent like Simon Powell on American Idol who could be all tough love: "I'm not loving it. The words are there, but there's no heart."

One of the guest agents should have fabulous hair, like Donald Trump's.

And then towards the end of every episode, the writer could be all, "I can't do it! I'm a fraud! I DON'T WHERE THE WORDS COME FROM!" And then the writer pulls out his hair like a modern day Van Gogh.

They could get several different writers and follow their career. They could have write offs, contests, specials on pantsers versus plotters.

I will await an email from the major TV networks in order to bring this plan into fruition.

Writing With Soul

2011-07-08T10:27:00.001-04:00

Sometimes writing is hard.

I don't know how else to describe it. It's just hard. You know what you want the words to say, you know how you want the story to be. You have so very many hopes and desires for your novel. But there's this disconnect between your subconscious and conscious idea of your novel, and the actual product.

Holly Lisle once said words have weight. And it's true. An idea feels completely different than that idea fleshed out into a complete novel. The words add up to give you a sense of gravity, like a sculptor slowly chiseling away stone until a man emerges.

Sometimes this is disheartening, scary. Sometimes I feel like I bit off more than I can chew with this novel. It's steampunk, and Gothic horror, but set in a fantasy setting. There's a lot of stuff going on in the book. I've always been an ambitious person, and my writing is a place I tend to challenge myself. I am usually far outside my comfort zone in terms of the book I am writing. I am trying a new sort of character, a new type of setting, a new style of plot, and frequently, more than one of these examples at once.

It can feel daunting. Depressing. Like I'll never be able to tell the story with justice.

But yesterday on Twitter, James Scott Bell posted this video:

It helped. I like the idea of using the frustration to fuel you through your writing. That the frustration is a sign you're growing. Hopefully improving.

Trying new and scary things with your book is a good thing. It helps you grow. You spread your wings when you try. For me, I think it grows my writer's soul and maintains my interest in a book.

What about you? How do you approach your writing?

Villainous Villains

2011-07-06T14:37:00.000-04:00

Okay! So today we're going to talk about villains, or antagonists for the politically correct, and since there's already been a ton said on them, I am going to keep this short and sweet.

I read on someone's blog somewhere (I wish I knew where, or I would totally link it) that you should think of your antagonist as the protagonist who failed.

Let's take Star Wars as an example. Luke Skywalker is a Jedi Knight. He is learning how to use the Force for good and stop the evil empire. Darth Vader is also a Jedi Knight. He is also wildly talented, but instead, uses the Force for evil. They are mirror opposites, and when we find out *SPOILER ALERT FOR THOSE OF YOU WAKING UP FROM COMAS* that Darth Vader is Luke's father, it makes their connection all the stronger. Luke's father failed to resist the temptation of the Dark Side. Will Luke be able to do the same thing?

This idea always reminds of a level in video games they sometimes make you play. You're stuck in a mirror world, and you have to fight your mirror self, often called "Shadow Link" or "Dark Mario."

A screen shot of Nintendo's Zelda: Ocarina of Time Link vs. Shadow Link. You do not want to know how many yaoi Link/Shadow Link pictures I turned up when Googling this screenshot. It's just...wrong, Internet. Wrong. If you do not know what "yaoi" is, you don't want to know. Ignorance is bliss.

That scene in The Empire Strikes Back? Where Luke is fighting Darth Vader in the cave, and then he realizes he's really fighting himself? That's how a really effective antagonist works. He doesn't have to be an evil cyborg Jedi Knight bent on destruction. Your antagonist can be a good person. He just has to show the protagonist how he's going to turn out if he fails. He sets up the consequences of failure.

In this manner, your antagonist has the most in common with your protagonist, even more so than the protagonist's friends. A cop chases after a serial killer. A cop upholds the law, the serial killer breaks the law. A doctor is fighting to save a patient from an unknown disease. A soldier is fighting enemy soldiers in a war. Each protagonist and antagonist are locked in a give and take struggle. It's what makes fiction so engaging.

Not all antagonists are a mirror of your character's darker self. Godzilla comes to mind. Some of them are just the pure evil, gonna crush you all sorts. But if if you're going for something deeper, consider how alike the protagonist and antagonist are. Consider having the protagonist seriously tempted with "the dark side".

And then show him the consequences of failure with the antagonist. This has a surprising effect of not only developing your protagonist better, but your antagonist as well.

An Important Annoucement

2011-07-05T11:39:00.000-04:00

I wondered how long I should wait to announce this on my blog, but it's getting far enough along that I think it's time.

I am two months pregnant. :D

I've known since I was five weeks pregnant, but I wanted to wait until I was further along to announce the good news. My family and friend have known since I was about six weeks, but that's mostly because I think there's a neon sign on my forehead saying, "I'm pregnant". Everyone said they knew I was even before I told them.

My husband and I were trying to get pregnant by simply not preventing it. We weren't bothering with timing and measuring and all of the hoops people jump through to try to get pregnant. We just thought now was a good time because of our respective jobs. I started taking prenatal vitamins, and a month later I missed my period. I figured I was just overreacting since we'd just started trying to have a baby. I gave it a few days, and took a pregnancy test to rule it out.

Except the test was positive. I took two more, and all three were positive. In a panic, I called my best friend who's a nurse and asked her just how accurate those home pregnancy tests are. She said they were really accurate and I needed to make an appointment with an Ob-gyn. Turns out, they want you to be at least six weeks from your last period to confirm a pregnancy, so I had to wait two weeks.

It was really surreal. I kept thinking there was a mistake, that I was just overreacting. Despite the morning sickness, headaches, fatigue, and dizzy spells. It's just hard to believe at first. I don't know if you've ever received some really amazing news before, like being accepted at a really amazing school, or perhaps getting an agent, or getting married, but it's just hard to believe it's true at first. It's this huge paradigm shift.

And it's scary. A lot of people tell you that miscarriage is common, and you should wait to tell people until you're out of your first trimester. Unfortunately, a few weeks ago I felt so dizzy and lightheaded at work I almost passed out, so I told my coworkers I was pregnant, just in case I DID pass out and they called the paramedics or something. I didn't pass out, but the cat was out of the bag. So I told my family and friends, and that's when they were all, "Oh yeah, you had to be pregnant, I knew it." I wish they were all as good at predicting lottery numbers, because boy would we be set.

I have the What to Expect When You're Expecting book, and it's awesome. There's a week by week break down of all of the wonderful changes my body is going through. So far the morning sickness has been bad, but not as bad as I've heard other people suffering. I don't seem to be able to eat anything at all from the morning into the late afternoon except mashed potatoes and crackers (the mashed potato thing must come from my side of the family, since growing up we had potatoes almost every single day).

Ginger ale and crackers are my constant companions now. I do most of my eating in the evening as a result of the morning sickness. The crappy thing is no matter how much I don't feel like eating, I still need to make sure I am getting enough of proteins, fruits, vegetables, and grains. Ahhh, the joys of pregnancy.

I am due February 13th, so we're having a Valentine's Day baby. It's too soon to tell if it's a boy or a girl, but I will keep you guys posted.

Of course, I've also thought about my writing in regards to the pregnancy. The first week or so it was really hard to concentrate, but I've adjusted and gotten back into the swing of things. Or as much as possible. I don't think writing a book is exactly like having a baby, but I am seeing the similarities.

So there you have it! Not only am I working on a complete rewrite, but I am currently growing a baby as well!

Happy Fourth of July!

2011-07-04T12:40:00.000-04:00

Today in the United States we celebrate the Fourth of July, which is our independence day. Celebrations include fireworks, outdoor picnics, getting eaten by mosquitoes while partaking in said picnics, and at least in my family, eating lots of watermelon.

Since today is Monday, and I normally work today, I actually had a cook out with my parents yesterday. But, I do have the day off after all. Not sure what I am going to do today. As part of my new resolve to treat writing like a job, holidays and all, I officially have the day off, but I still plan to work on my writing anyway. Hello, overtime. :D

Other than that, I think some general loafing around it in order. So nothing too strenuous is on the agenda. I hear the leftovers from yesterday calling me.

How do you plan on celebrating today? Family fun? Locking yourself away and complaining about the fireworks?

Kung Fu Panda 2: Sequel Goodness

2011-06-30T11:01:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I went to see Kung Fu Panda 2 and was surprised at how good it was.

Normally sequels are a dicey proposition. Sometimes the writers don't understand exactly why the first movie did so well, so when they create a sequel they try to just redo the first movie, only slightly different. They replay the same gags, and the characters never seem to know what they are doing.

Happily, this did not happen in Kung Fu Panda 2. They took the characters you saw in the last movie, and expanded on them. Po is now the Dragon Warrior, and fighting together with the Furious Five to protect the Valley of Peace from bandits.

The villain comes in the form of a peacock, Lord Shen, who is not playing with a full deck. He plans to rule China not with Kung Fu, but with a powerful new weapon using gunpowder. If that sounds awesome, that's because it is.

In addition to an interesting new villain, we get an amazing origin story for Po. I can't really say more than that without giving away part of the movie, but Po and Lord Shen have some history together that instead of revealing right away, the writers instead chose to drag it out for a satisfying conclusion, since we the viewer know the answers that Po is seeking from Lord Shen.

The writing is good, they develop Po in a satisfying character arc, and once again, the music is simply beautiful. Somehow they balance all of that with Po screwing things up and laughing while he's doing it. Instead of making him seem like an idiot, to me it just makes him more human. Or more panda if you prefer.

There were several scenes in the later part of the movie, where Po is working through his personal demons to reach inner peace that had me tearing up. I can't remember the last time I saw such a poignant scene where the character searches inside themselves, through a haze of misery and pain, to find what they are truly made of.

In short, if you want to write a great sequel, be it book or a movie, you have to maintain the character you developed in the first part, but continue to develop him in new and interesting ways. You want to bring the viewer/reader back to the world they loved in the first part, without acting like nothing has changed and you're just going to repeat what happened previously. This cheapens the first part, because then it feels like the first movie or book was for nothing and now you're sitting through more events that have no impact on the character. Instead, find new ways that you can test your character.

You're all creative. I am sure you can come up with something.

What about you? What makes a great sequel for you?

Writing As a Job

2011-06-27T11:46:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I was talking to Liz, and congratulating myself. I'd made a lot of progress on my rewrite on Saturday, enough to hit the 20K milestone. Of course, yesterday I was tapped out and having shiny new ideas distracting me.

I made like a good writer, jotted the new ideas down, and went back to work on my rewrite. But during the conversation Liz had an excellent suggestion that I've pondered ever since.

Treat your writing like a job.

Not just in the "butt in chair every day" way, but with the benefits as well. Give yourself holidays off. Keep track of your hours worked and let that accrue into sick days and vacation. Keep a set schedule of hours and work on your main project during those hours, every work day you set, just like you go to your day job.

I think this is a fabulous idea. Not just how it keeps you accountable, but how it also keeps you sane. I have issues with guilt. I have a day job, but aside from that I have a fair bit of free time. Since writing is my joy, it's what I do during most of my time off.

Normally this works out fine. But sometimes, having "work on book" scheduled in every single hour of your free time sucks. Because if I am tired when I come home and opt to veg in front of the TV instead, I feel guilty. If I am sick, more guilt. If I just don't feel like it, because I've been working on the book for hours every single day with no end in sight, I feel guilty for not working on my book.

If instead I give myself a set schedule to follow, complete with sick days and vacation time, suddenly there's structure. I spend less time flailing around for an hour, and just get right to work. I know when I need to start and when I can stop without feeling like I am slacking off.

Of course, there will probably be days where I exceed my set number of hours, but Liz has a back up for that too. When you go into overtime, you keep track of the amount of over time you spend. This accrues into time you can spend however you want. You can give yourself the day off, or use it to work on a shiny new idea.

I think writing is so hard sometimes because you can't see the end. Writing a book seems like it takes forever, and you know when you're finished you're not really done. Rewriting is hard for the same reason. There's an obvious end to the book, but the road just seems to go on and on without an end in sight. It gets hard to measure your success and progress.

If like me, you work much better when you have a set structure in place, consider doing what I will be doing today and making yourself a writing schedule.

Sometimes it's the rules that set us free.

What about you? How to you manage your writing time? How do you find the balance between your real life and your writing?

The Ouroboros of a Blog Post

2011-06-24T13:17:00.000-04:00

He's just having a snack. On himself.

Yesterday I was in a minor car accident. I am fine and so is my car, but most of the day was spend in the ER.

I had a cool post planned for today, but I just don't have the energy to type it up. I am really sore and having trouble focusing on one thing for a long period of time. So if somewhere in this post I start talking about kittens, well, you'll know why.

But! I really want to stick to my blog schedule. Really really. I want to grow my audience and give my regular readers posts they can expect on a regular basis. So just not posting today wasn't an option.

So I decided to post today, telling you all why there wasn't going to be a real post. I know. Don't think about it too hard, or your head will explode.

Even though life has conspired against me sticking to my self imposed schedule, I've still found a way to make a compromise. It's a good trait to have, especially in writing. Because life will always get in the way. There will always be something that pops up, demanding your attention. Sometimes you will have to abandon your previous goals, but sometimes you can find a way to make sure you get something done.

Do Book Reviews Help or Hurt?

2011-06-22T10:33:00.000-04:00

This is something I've wondered for a long time. I've heard lots of compelling arguments from both points of view. The question is, does book reviews help or hurt a book?

I'm not saying that we should stop reviewing books, of course. I've reviewed books on this blog before, I just wonder how effective they are. If you were planning on reading a book, and you found a bunch of bad reviews on Amazon, does that stop you from reading the book?

Obviously there are factors to be considered. If the reviewer is someone you trust, or someone who presents clear, logical reasons why they disliked the book, then the review seems more reliable. I am sure, however, that even the misspelled, poorly thought out reviews keep some people from reading a book they might have otherwise enjoyed.

On the other hand, even if a ton of people dislike the book, you still might enjoy it. I've loved books that the rest of my friends weren't impressed with. Many people only use reviews as a gauge for the book and make the final decision for themselves. And reviews can help introduce people to a book that they might not have noticed in the store.

I think ultimately book reviews help inform people about book, despite the plethora of poorly written reviews in places like Amazon. So what do you think? It's obviously an aspect of writing with a lot of different variables.

Not Enough of a Good Thing

2011-06-20T11:59:00.000-04:00

Yesterday my husband and I celebrated our one year anniversary. They weren't kidding when they said time would fly, because it feels like yesterday we were planning the wedding.

We decided to watch a movie, and I picked out The Brothers Grimm. I'd bought it used a long time ago, but hadn't gotten around to watching it yet. The movie was called things like a "gothic fantasy" and a "Monty Python-esque dark comedy".

This sounded very promising. I LOVE fairy tales, gothic fantasy, and dark comedies. I figured this movie was right up my alley, but I was sorely mistaken.

All of the right elements were there. It was very visually stunning, great actors (Health Ledger (RIP) and Matt Damon), and decent script. But halfway through the movie, I couldn't take it anymore, and shut it off. I've only shut off a few movies in my life, mostly because I need to know what happens. When I realized I could just look up the synopsis on Wikipedia, I shut off the movie. There was literally nothing that made me want to finish the movie.

So here then is a list, of how avoid some of the problem I saw in The Brothers Grimm and other movies like it.

1. You must bring balance to the force.

Your book, just like a movie, is comprised of many different elements. The characters, the plot, your actual prose. But more than that you have the elements that make up your genre. Even if you're writing regular fantasy, you still have various elements to juggle. Elves or not? Low magic or high? Medieval setting, or something more progressive? Even within the broad expanse of your genre there is plenty of room for error. The trick is to balance all of these elements so they complement each other.

With the Brothers Grimm, there was too much of slapstick silliness. There was a French torture scene that bordered on ridiculous, and not in a good way. You can't just throw in a bunch of humor and not support it in the characters and the design. The end result just made the characters look really stupid. There was too many elements out of balance in the movie to make it enjoyable.

2. You must represent accurately what the book is about.

Some of this is out of your control (cover art being an example). But most marketing departments are right on par with how to properly market your book. A summer beach read's cover looks completely different than a dark fantasy cover. We can look at the book, read the blurb, and know what to expect. Is the book going to be funny, or serious? Witty or plain? Action packed or a slow methodical journey?

You signal this to potential agents and later on, reader, through your word choice. "The Fantastic Tale of Mr. Gregory Hatchshell" as a title reads totally different than "Dark Moors". Both of them conjure different images in your mind. Match sure the image you are projecting with your book matches the actual content.

3. All the parts must fight together.

Not only do you need to ensure that you've balanced each element of your genre, you need to make sure they fit together. They must compliment each other, like an outfit.

This is tricky. Because there are such things as "dark comedy" that still work. You would think "funny" and "dark" wouldn't fit well together, but there are some instances where it works. Gallows humor comes to mind. It's not just a simple question of "do yetis fit with my alien spacecrafts?". You have to look at the entire book as a whole.

Using The Brothers Grimm as an example, most of the action and characterization was comedic. The characters acted like a bunch of buffoons. They were constantly tripping and stumbling over branches. The French general and guard were similarly acting in a comedic fashion. But most of the other characters acted more serious, which led to a disconnect with the characters.

Likewise with the setting. The setting was beautiful, and the costumes and props all complemented each other, but not the cast and plot. The setting was "gothic fantasy" and the characters and plot was "slapstick comedy". It was as though they existed as two separate parts.

The key is blending them together. If you really want your yetis in space, there should be reasons outside of the alien spacecraft that the yetis belong there. It's like a stew of elements, all mixed together.

Obviously my opinion on the movie is just that: an opinion. But I think it's a good idea to analyze what exactly about a movie we didn't like, so we might avoid it in our own work.

What do you guys think? Did you love the movie? Think it was stupid?

My Top Ten Guilty Pleasures

2011-06-17T10:50:00.000-04:00

In no particular order:

1. Pop music. I may or may not have gone through a "boy band" phase in high school.

2. Music from the 80's. I have a deep love of "hair bands". Especially those 80's power ballads like Reo Speedwagon, Poison, Foreigner, Journey, and Whitesnake.

3. Licking the batter from the bowl. Yes, I know I am an adult now. I don't care.

4. Trashy romance novels. The ones that are really badly written. Feeling sad? Read one of those, and you're guaranteed to start laughing (for the record, I love well written romance novels, but for different reasons (wow, that sounds wrong. I meant that I like the stories in them, not the...urm...sexy parts. Although that's nice too. Okay, I am just digging myself a bigger hole here, I am going to shut up now.))

5. Anything sweet. Chocolate cake. Cookies. Chocolate. I have a huge sweet tooth. It's a good thing I am as fond of fruit and veggies as I am sugar, or I would be huge. I also don't have a huge appetite, so I usually eat a few bites and I am full, so that's also a waist saver.

6. Scratching a mosquito bite. I know, I am weird. I can't explain it, I just love scratching the red circles until they get big. Don't judge me.

7. Laying in bed while watching TV and eating sweet potato chips. I know. The bed is for sleeping, but if I want to stretch out I have to do it on the bed, because of the position of the couch.

8. Having a chocolate milkshake for dinner. I don't make a habit of this, but here in Georgia it gets pretty hot. Sometimes you just don't feel like eating a meal. That's where ice cream comes in.

9. Sleeping in. I try to get up at a decent hour, so I can get some writing in before I have to go to work in the afternoon, but sometimes the lure of rolling over and going back to sleep is too strong to be resisted.

10. Working on another project while editing/writing another book. Sometimes I need a mental break away from my current work in progress. Sometimes I take a little time to indulge in whatever ideas on the back burner before getting back to work on the main project.

Okay guys. Time to spill. Go forth and write your own guilty pleasures and then link to your posts here. It's true confession time.

My Blogging Schedule (Also, Plans for World Domination)

2011-06-15T11:13:00.000-04:00

From this day forth, I will be blogging three times a week. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

I've noticed that I have been irregular with my updates lately, which is a Cardinal Sin of blogging, right after posting all of your vacation pictures of the Grand Canyon. So I have decreed on this here blog that posts will be tri-weekly. I may blog on Tuesday or Thursday about shorter, more random things.

Since I am on my soapbox, and feel like decreeing more things (it just has a nice ring to it) I also decree the following:

1. Chocolate shall be moved to the bottom of the food pyramid.

2. Every Friday will be casual Friday. Pants are optional.

3. You shall read in class.

4. People driving ten miles UNDER the speed limit must stay in the right hand lane.

5. There will be a mandatory nap/rest time starting from 3 in the afternoon and ending at 4:30.

6. You shall get off of work at 4:30 every day to spend more time writing and seeing your family/spouse/kids/dog/pet hamstar.

7. Likewise, you shall sleep in and get to work at 11:00.

8. Lunch time is from 11:00 until 12:00.

9. There shall be a relaxation area for my blog followers. Area shall include pool, sauna, hot tub, refreshments stand, and a napping couch. Also a few computers with internet access for your writing. Here on "Myself without the Shell" we take care of our followers.

10. Followers shall rise up and overthrow the world governments. We shall remake the world under our image, "Booknation".

That is all for now.