Word Slinging and Optimism

Deep Thoughts and Shallow Reality

17

Jan

I’m going back to a super cliché that every person knows – not just us writer-folks.  “Write what you know.”  I’m sure your English teacher at one point in your life said this to you, same as many of mine did to me.  I don’t know how other writers feel about this advice, but I use it ALL the time. Especially in my Characters. When a character first inserts itself into my brain, it’s always someone.  A celebrity, an athlete, or even people in my own life.  Some people I know deserve a book,

2017

09

Jan

Writing is NOT easy – despite what a lot of people say.  Anyone can write, that is true.  But not anyone can write well.  Writing is really nothing more than throwing words down on paper (or more often these days, on a Microsoft Word page).  That’s it.  That’s all there is, really, to writing.  Putting a list of groceries onto a sticky note is writing.  Those little, ornately folded notes we used to pass in middle school is writing.  All the notes I scribble on my desk calendar is writing. This

2017

02

Jan

So, let’s start by welcoming 2017.  Hello friend, we’re happy to have you.  We’ve got high expectations, so don’t f*** it up.  Okay?  Okay! Next, let’s move on to the genius idea I had while I was avoiding the most tedious task I have at work… The First Five Hundred on the First - as in the first Monday Musing of the month, not the first day of the month.  It’s something I want to try throughout 2017 (if my Dory memory permits me to actually remember I said this…) where I throw out the first

2017

27

Dec

It’s over.  It’s really over.  2016 is so close to being gone and done, and what a year it has been.  Ups and downs and inside-outs, but luckily for me no one I know is at Celebrity status.  But as the year closes, I can't help but take a moment to look back on this year, both as Writer-Me and Me-Me.  It's been a year, for sure, but it's not been all bad... Works in Progress: Chaos Unleashed 1st Draft COMPLETE, 1 BETA, 2nd round of editing Chaos Endures 1st Draft in Progress, 18,000 out of

2016

19

Dec

Everyone has their celebrity story, right?  Whether it be a local celeb or a movie star or a musician, I feel like most everyone has their story.  That one time when… Well, buckle in, take a deep breath and prepare, because here is mine. As we established last week, RL Stine is pretty much the crème de la crème for me.  I’ve idolized him for most of my life really.  Even in my crazy, obsessive teenage years when my walls were plastered from floor to ceiling with boy band posters, I still had a

2016

12

Dec

I am not a normal person. Obviously. But I mean, really, I have never really liked what other people liked – except horses.  I did go through a ‘horse-phase’ as almost all little girls do.  Other than that though, I’ve always kind of wandered off the beaten path and gotten lost.  And I enjoy the lost that I am. When little girls liked playing house and dressing up, I was researching dinosaurs (ankylosaur was always my favorite) and making mud pies.  When older little girls liked painting

2016

05

Dec

Curse you NaNo… curse you hard.  The first time I did NaNoWriMo, I wrote all of FUBAR without any trouble at all.  Just word dumped it into a 90,000 word YA novel.  It was terrible, and even five rounds of edits hasn’t made it publishable yet – but I did it.  I wrote an entire novel.  This year… well, this year didn’t go as well. I did get a fair chunk of “Chaos Endures” written, which was all I’d wanted with that story.  Get it started so I could push through when I had time.  No one’s rushing

2016

28

Nov

What was I thinking?  I obviously was not looking at a calendar when I made my Weekly Goals.  I made it all fancy and nice in Excel with word counts that would keep adding when I input my word count each day, and then that would tell me how many more words I had to go to meet my goal.  It was all formatted real nice, and it looks super cool… but I really should have consulted a calendar. The first week I’d scheduled time to work on “What’s in a Name?” was fine – just poor timing that I ended up

2016

21

Nov

I started with Chaos Unleashed, and am now working on Chaos Endures – perchance Chaos Cooperates is the final book in the trilogy?  Hahahaha, no.  That’s tentatively titled Chaos Settles, though I’m not completely in love with that title as of yet, nor am I totally sure what would be going on there, because I’m not totally sure what’s going on in Endures. Okay, okay, okay – man, I can get off track better than a drunk hobo.  Chaos Cooperates is the title of this week, because she stopped being

2016

14

Nov

Hey!  This time I can say that is what I was writing about.  In a couple ways, too!  Chaos is my main character in the new YA trilogy I’m working on (The Gates of Humanity).  And she is living through quite a lot of chaos in the mad world she inhabits. My goal for this last week was 6,000 words, and I hit 5663… only 337 words short!  Nooooooo!  I was so close!  If all the words that I wrote in my head last night counted, then I’m well over that.  But the words that were actually dumped into

2016

07

Nov

I wish I could say that was what I was writing about.  Zombies and survivors and raiders and immunities, that would have been super sweet! But alas, no.  “The Plague” was not what I was writing about, but what I was dealing with. Okay, maybe I exaggerate a little bit.  It was not the plague that knocked me out of commission – it was a nasty viral infection holding hands with Laryngitis, skipping down the road on their way to a nasal infection.  Thank the stars that they did not make it to that

2016

31

Oct

Can you freaking believe that it is already basically?!  We’re into the season of pumpkin everything, eating, Thanksgiving, eating, Black Friday, eating, and more eating!  Tis also the season of NaNoWriMo. No, not nanny-nanny-boo-boo.  NaNoWriMo.  National Novel Writing Month.  The name is a little deceptive though, as it is actually an international initiative that encourages people to write 50,000 words in one month – which is hardly ever a full novel, but it’s a huge chunk of it!  And

2016

24

Oct

Those that see a white and gold dress, and those that see a blue and black dress. Those that like pineapple on their pizza, and those who don’t. Those who roll toilet paper under, and those that roll it over. The Star-Belly Sneetches, and Plain-Belly Sneetches. Morning people, and people who want to shoot morning people. There are hundreds of meme’s over the “two kinds of people” that our world has.  You’ve all seen them, you’ve all laughed at them, maybe you’ve even made some of your own.

2016