Ready, Set, Write! Week 3

 
Ready. Set. WRITE! is a summer writing intensive that encourages goal-setting and accountability, and provides an opportunity for us to cheer each other on wherever we’re at with our writing projects—planning, drafting, revising, or polishing. This year, your RSW hosts are Alison Miller, Jaime Morrow, Erin Funk, Elodie Nowodazkij, and Katy Upperman. We check in every Monday and conclude on August 31.

1. How I did on last week’s goals

Apply the edits from ACP to the rest of Beauty Bound so I can continue querying: I have spent the majority of my time on this piece and am happy that I am very closed to finished!

Add 2,000 words to Arrow Nocked or Survivors: 538 to AN, 470 to Survivors, so only about half

Reach 190 active minutes: 281, nailed it!

Finish vacation planning: yeah, no

2. My goal(s) for this week

Finish the BB edits.

Add 2,000 words to Arrow Nocked or Survivors.

Reach 210 active minutes.

Finish vacation planning!

Finish reading Graceling.

3. A favorite line from my story OR one word/phrase that sums up what I wrote/revised

I’m forced to be with this stranger in my room. A stranger who talked about how he saved me. My black white knight.

4. The biggest challenge I faced this week (ex. finding time to write, the siren song of SNIs)

I really wanted to get to the writing, but exciting news made me hit the BB edits harder than I had anticipated.

5. Something I love about my WiP

I love my comical scenes. They're so much fun to read and write.



Write lots!

Ready, Set, Write! Week 2

 
Ready. Set. WRITE! is a summer writing intensive that encourages goal-setting and accountability, and provides an opportunity for us to cheer each other on wherever we’re at with our writing projects—planning, drafting, revising, or polishing.  This year, your RSW hosts are Alison Miller, Jaime Morrow, Erin Funk, Elodie Nowodazkij, and Katy Upperman. We check in every Monday and conclude on August 31.


1. How I did on last week’s goals

Eek... I didn't really set goals for last week since I was late to set my summer goals, but I didn't get as much done as I'd hoped.

Some additional edits to Beauty Bound (which I am unfortunately already shopping out), due to the wonderful critique from Amy Christine Parker. I have had so many people look over the MS, but her comments really hit home and made it so much better.

A new 538 words to Arrow Nocked since Thursday.

I completed my entry for the Manny Contest at the Midwest Writer's Workshop.

131 active minutes according to my Fitbit.

2. My goal(s) for this week

Apply the edits from ACP to the rest of Beauty Bound so I can continue querying.

Add 2,000 words to Arrow Nocked or Survivors.

Reach 190 active minutes.

Finish vacation planning!

3. A favorite line from my story OR one word/phrase that sums up what I wrote/revised

Bianca writhed in his arms. “I can walk on my own.”

“As evidenced by you nearly tumbling to the ground.”

“I slipped.” Bianca giggled.

4. The biggest challenge I faced this week (ex. finding time to write, the siren song of SNIs)

Charleston hit me hard. Survivors deals with a lot of racial issues and I felt compelled to read everything I could. Down the rabbit hole is a scary place to be. Even reading about the hate is too much to dwell on for long. So I've had to pull myself out of it, and focus on making the positive changes I can.

5. Something I love about my WiP

 

That it can so clearly take me out of reality. Sometimes, that's where I need to be.

 

Write lots!

 

 

Ready, Set, Write! Goals 2015

Yea! It's that time of year again. Ready, Set, Write! hosted by  Alison Miller, Katy Upperman, Erin Funk, and Jamie Morrow. I, of course, missed goal setting and the first week check-in, but I'm catching up now!

1. Write at least 30,000 words in either WIP.

2. Finish my agent search for Beauty Bound.

3. Complete the list of fairy tales, fables, and legends for each country in my Twisted series. (If anyone knows a good, obscure tale, let me know!)

4. Read a book a week.

5. Write at least one blog post per week.

6. Make some great contacts at Midwest Writer's Workshop.

7. Finish the Magic School Bus science experiments with the kids.

8. Fit into my bathing suit before vacation without looking pregnant. (Seriously, I get the question a lot. My body is holding onto the baby weight in my abdomen, and only my abdomen, like it's an umbilical cord.)

So I'll be on next Monday with my update. Hopefully I won't forget this time!

What's in a Series?

So as I look through the #PitchWars twitter feed, one of the @LH_Writes said about 65 of the 75 queries have series potential and the rest are PB. That being said, what the heck is up with all these series?

Of course, what am I writing? A series... of a sort...

I love and hate series all at the same time. Most series are kind enough to provide us an update every year, except for that one guy who no one is allowed to mention because then he might kill off Tyrion.

Yes, I love you Peter Dinklage

But when I start a new series I almost want to wait until I know the last book is almost ready to come out because I'm not a patient person. I started reading Harry Potter three months before the seventh book came out. I read them in two months and thought I was going to die waiting for the Deathly Hallows.

This was me when it finally hit my mailbox

Because I invest in the characters, I want to know everything about them. I fall in love with them and I want to be with them, they are a part of my soul. Over the past week I fell in love with a new cast of characters. Tamlin and Feyre from A Court of Roses and Thorns. And this was only the first book. So now I wait and wait to see what comes next for them.



No seriously, go pick it up NOW

And yet, I have set out to write a series. To torture other readers.

It didn't start out this way, really. I wrote what I wrote. One single fairy tale. Of all the things I'd ever written, I never thought fantasy would be one of them. As a child I read mysteries, poured through every Nancy Drew book I could find. The first book I wrote (in third grade) was a mystery. Then, I grew up. I fell in love with historical fiction. The second book I started writing (seventh grade) was set in the civil war because I loved Gone with the Wind so much. Of every book idea I've ever had, fantasy was never one of them.

Until I sat down to write my first, real, grown-up book.

And at the end there is closure, not 100%, but closure. And yet, I saw one character, a small minor character and thought, what if I give her a story? Then another character spoke to me, a story that I'd had brewing in my mind for some time as a historical. What if I tweaked it just a bit. Yes, he deserves his own story too.




In case you're wondering where I'm headed next...

Thus my series is born. I even sat down to draw a map. Just a crude version to see what my land would look like. I ended up with a continent of thirteen kingdoms. And my intention is to give each a story. A story as different and varied as the spanning of our continents. Does that make it the same as a real series? I have no idea. But I'll keep writing my fairy tales as long as the ideas keep popping out of my brain.

Will the real homo sapiens please stand up?

alternatively: How to stop hate

So when I was in high school I was in the marching band...

Ok, you can stop laughing now.

Anyway, when I meet someone now, if I find out they were in marching band, we play a little game. What instrument did you play?

Not to brag, but I'm pretty good at this game. Because if you look at most of the groups within the band, you notice certain trends, certain groups get a reputation.

If you played trumpet, you were a hot shot and a little full of yourself.

If you played percussion, you were a squirrely spaz, or I dated you.

If you were a flute player, you were a stuck-up girl, or a girl in general.

If you were a clarinet player, you remind me of Amy Farrah-Fowler.

If you were a tuba player, you were a party animal, and generally an all-around awesome person to be around.

Of course, these are exaggerations, but you see what I'm saying. We had our cliques, and it said something about you without even realizing it. And it's always a funny joke for me because people usually guess I played the flute. Which I did, until I became awesome.

What does this have to do with real-life people hate? In case you've been living under a rock, get on your google and search Indiana and gay. It will tell you everything you need to know and more. Then there's the feminist issues popping up all over the internet and rape shaming, which is beyond my comprehension. And I would be remiss if I didn't include the Baltimore riots and before that the Ferguson riots. Can't exclude pretty much everything going on in the Middle East.

But what do all the issues have in common? Hate.

And it makes me sick. Because everyone is so busy trying to decide who is right and who is wrong that we're really missing the big picture. We're all humans. And somewhere, a long time ago, we stopped seeing that. We started segregating into white or black, gay or straight, woman or man. Not just people.

So yes, the marching band is a ridiculously small model of a human ecosystem, but if I'm judging one person based on what I think about a group of people that I knew *cough* fifteen years ago, then how is it really any different.

Will I stop playing my guessing game in the future? Probably not. Because it's a fun way to get to know people. But I will stop judging all percussionists because of that one jerk that broke up with me in high school.

Moral of the story, next time one of these hot button issues comes up, stop. Take the situation and put it in the context of a human being. Things look a lot different from that perspective.



Thank you to http://www.reactiongifs.com/ for the gifs.

Yikes, has it been 7 months...

I'm a little surprised they haven't shut down my account yet. But I'm back now! And eventually I will post all those half finished blog posts that I started over the past *cough* seven months.

So what was I doing over my little blogging hiatus?

In case you're wondering if I love my dog more than my kids, not exactly. But I don't have to worry about her picture being on the internet!

 

 

 

So maybe this will cover me until I get a new post up. Because I'm going to be back, I swear!



My very first risotto

So one thing I do besides write is cook. I'm not sure which I've been doing longer, writing or cooking, but both started when I was about 7. Mostly I loved making desserts, especially cake. Which is funny because no one in my family besides my mother liked cake. My mother used to say the oven timer would ring and no one would know what was coming out.
 
So fast forward a few years and a dietetics degree later, I'm still cooking and making crazy things. This weekend I made a cornbread salad and lemon chiffon cupcakes with lemon zest on top for a draft party. Then for my dad's birthday my sisters and I made five kinds of kebabs and ten tons of food topped off by my famous cherry pie. It is made with real cherries that I picked and pitted myself. It's one of my very favorite dishes.
 
And today I made something that I've been wanting to make for some time now: risotto. I looked for some recipes, but couldn't find one I liked. And I wanted to use my rice maker as I so infrequently get to use it. So I made one up. And luckily it worked, and I was so proud of it.
 

My first risotto, I'm so proud!

It doesn't look as pretty as it tasted, but my picky six year-old ate it, so you know it had to be good! Now, if you would like to steal my recipe, here it is:
 
1 cup onions, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tbsp. butter
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 cup Arborio rice
2 cup chicken broth
3 cup milk
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
3 tbsp. sun dried tomatoes, diced
2 tbsp. fresh basil, cut into ribbons
1 cup corn (I used frozen)
5 pieces bacon, cooked and crumbled
 
Sauté the onions  in the butter and olive oil for 3 minutes. Then add garlic and sauté for another 2 minutes. Add in the rice and stir until coated. Add in the chicken broth and milk and stir. I had my rice maker do the work, but you cook until the liquid is absorbed and it makes a creamy texture. Then I added in the cheese, tomatoes, basil, and corn. I let them melt in with the risotto and seasoned with salt and pepper. Garnish with bacon and some extra basil if you have it.