Thursday, March 15, 2012

What to do when a plot bunny has infected your brain

From the evil laughter of a muse and spark of inspiration gives birth to a plot bunny.  

They’re cute little things, aren’t they?  So fluffy, so innocent and just one is manageable.  But where there’s one bunny, soon it multiplies through mitosis.




How do you tame these bunnies?  Wrangle them up and put them in a pen- outline a book, see if it works and if you love it enough to spend two years on it... write away.

But sometimes there’s an evil plot bunny.  This one isn’t cute and fluffy, you can easily push it aside.  A few months later it comes back, again. And again.  It’s not a bad plot bunny, maybe the story been done before, or maybe it feels like bad fanfiction.  You talk yourself out of it and pull one of the good bunnies out of the pen and write that for a while.





Evil bunny comes back.

And the more you think about it, the more you kinda want to write it.

Despite it’s flaws -- the story is too big, it will be a nightmare to edit, you’ve got more marketable projects waiting for you and well that’s that little factor of TIME and never having enough.

Those could be enough reasons to crush the bunny.

But it’s like a plot bunny Zombie... it keeps coming back again.  




What to do:
I say write it.  
Go for it.
Not every book or story has to be for an agent or publication. Nope sometimes the only person you need to write for you is.

Maybe you can save some part of it, maybe not.

You’ll probably learn something about yourself while writing it.  Go forth and make the plot bunny happy.  With nothing at stake, you’ll probably make yourself happy to and remember exactly why you like writing in the first place.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Book Review Tuesday: Anna Dress in Blood



Summary according to Goodreads.com

Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.

So did his father before him, until his gruesome murder by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father’s mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn’t expect anything outside of the ordinary: move, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he’s never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, but now stained red and dripping blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.

And she, for whatever reason, spares his life



Review:
 I'm not a HUGE fan of ghost romances, it seems to be destined to end badly,  although The Ghost and the Goth is one of my all time favorite series.   That being said, this book was awesome.  I didn't want to stop reading this book.  Cas was a completely likeable character, well developed too.  But it's the secondary characters where the book really shines. Carmel and Thomas prove to be glue that binds the whole book. 


The writing is stunning, my only complaint would be that I don't know how believable it is that a teenage boy thinks THAT beautifully. 


I already put the sequel on my goodreads list.  I can't WAIT UNTIL AUGUST 7 for Girl of Nightmares.


10 out of 10

Monday, March 12, 2012

Happy Monday: Peace before the choas

Happy Monday:
Genre: Life
Topic: Peace


First of all,  I wanted to thank everyone for my birthday wishes. My birthday was quiet, we saw  "The Lorax"and my daughter has a new orange imaginary friend who speaks for the trees and I couldn't be happier.

At the moment I'm writing this, my daughter is taking a nap, my dog is sleeping and my husband is judging a lego competition.  The house is silent.  I can hear the roars of the planes passing over head and the ticking of my DVR (and I have NO idea why it does that).

I just finished Anna Dressed in Blood (AMAZING), I have only one load of laundry left to do, and I finished revisions of a WIP. 

I am completely at peace.

In a few minutes, my daughter will wake up and demand attention, the laundry will beep and require folding, my husband will come home and will also demand and require attention and probably some food too.

Within the next few days I'll get a phone call and I'll have to attend my grandmother's funeral. My daughter will spend the night with a friend and I'll have to scramble for subplans.  My life will be thrown into chaos all out of my control (and of course isn't that what is chaos--- people tend not to complain too much about manageable chaos).  I will be faced with a highly personal death and I'll have to deal with my feelings. 

However this isn't a woe is me post or a mourning about my Grandmother. 

Because right now, in this moment, it's silent and peaceful.  Everyone I love lives, and it's basically perfect.

Right now I'm happy.

Right now I'm going to ignore the text from my cell phone and listen to my dog snore. 

Friday, March 02, 2012

Happy birthday to me!


Today is my birthday!

YAY.

I'm 33 years old and here are my goals for the next year:
1) Finish revising two books
2) Query Penny and Hank which has been renamed to Accidental Quarantine.
3) Get an agent
4) WOA 2.0
5) Figure out Google PLUS
6) FINALLY GET 200 followers.

If you want to get me a birthday present, comments are like awesome but getting a friend to follow my blog for no other reason than I'm awesome not because there's a prize involved...

prize?

Yeah sure, why not- I'll throw in 33 page manuscript critique just for giggles. 

All you have to do is leave a comment about your favorite birthday gift ever and follow my blog.  That's it!
I'll pick a winner when I get 10 new followers!  It's a tiny number it should be easy, right?

Monday, February 27, 2012

Happy Monday: An Idiot Aboard 2

Happy Monday:
Genre: TV SHOWS
Topic: An Idiot Abroad

I loved An Idiot Abroad.  I refused to finish watching it on my DVD because I didn't want the series to end.  Karl is a very simple and yet semi brilliant man who is befriended/bullies by Ricky Gervis.

From http://www.rickygervais.com/


In the first show, he was sent to the 7 wonders of the world.  He wasn't impressed.  Seriously.  He tried to feed a chip to a boa constrictor because he thought the snake might like it. 

The second season is on The Science Channel and it's totally amazing.  It's a bucket list.  He could pick off of a list of 100 items anything he wanted, and then Ricky and Steve would add some things in for fun.  What really sums it up is, during the Trans Siberian railway, he got off for a day trip.  He dug his own grave and laid in it while he was buried alive.  That was the most relaxing thing he did during the whole trip.


EDITED BUT FOR OLDER VIEWER
Karl has a girlfriend and they've been together for 14 years.  After going to Bangkok he met with some Ladyboys.  It blew his mind.  He said if his girlfriend told him she had been a man but all her bits were working, he would still love her.  WOW!  What a HUGE growth from the human being from the first season.  Then he follows it up with, "but she'd have to carry more stuff.  No more of this making me carry her stuff because she's a woman. I would say, "your a bloke, carry your own sh**."

The clip is here:  It's amazing. Enjoy.




Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Book Review: The Statstical Probabilty of Love at First Sight






Have you read this book yet?  No?  Then what are you waiting for?  Turn off your computer, download it onto your ereader, read it and then come back.

Well, how freaking awesome right?  What did it take you like two hours?  Best two hours you've spent all week?  Yep. Me too!


Summary from goodreads.com
Today should be one of the worst days of seventeen-year-old Hadley Sullivan's life. She's stuck at JFK, late to her father's second wedding, which is taking place in London and involves a soon to be step-mother that Hadley's never even met. Then she meets the perfect boy in the airport's cramped waiting area. His name is Oliver, he's British, and he's in seat 18C. Hadley's in 18A.

Twists of fate and quirks of timing play out in this thoughtful novel about family connections, second chances and first loves. Set over a 24-hour-period, Hadley and Oliver's story will make you believe that true love finds you when you're least expecting it.


What I loved about this book- pacing was perfect, the conflict was realistic and yet just enough of escapism for me to enjoy.  And Oliver, bonus points for being British. 

The only draw back I felt was that the book was written in 3rd person limited, and considering how personal the story was, I felt distance from Hadley and would have perferred to be in first.  But besides that I LOVED IT. 

9 out of 10

What's the fastest you've ever read a book?  

Monday, February 20, 2012

Happy Monday: New Girl

Happy Monday

New layout--- I HATED the last one.  It hurt my eyes and quite frankly looked like a 9 year old girl wrote this blog.

Anyway Happy Monday:

Genre: TV Shows
Topic:  New Girl

At start of a new TV season brings much trimoil in my house.  Which pilots will stay, which ones will I hate and therefore stay on the air for years (Seriously,  Grey's Anatomy  is still on the air?  Really?) and which shows will I love and be canceled in three episodes. Oh so many great shows ended up in the TV graveyard.  Wonderfalls, Clerks, Committed just to name a few.

 Each year as the quaility of television decreases and my need for time increases, I find myself simply not interested in TV like I used to be.

Until this year when I discovered  New Girl.  I will say I was HOOKED by the trailer.  Within five minutes I knew "THIS WAS MY SHOW."

 New Girl is all about Jess, a wacky, kind hearted girl who was dumped by her cheating boyfriend and forced to live with three guys in a loft.  It's the supporting cast that balances out the show, because Jess herself, while cute as all get out can be too much to take on her own, it's Nick's negative view of the world that's so funny.

Also what the show shines at is the balance of subplots, some of the best episodes aren't Jess focused.   For example when Nick and Schmidt go to war over fixing things in the apartment, is non stop awesomeness. 

Nick: Unlike you Schmidt, I don't just throw my money at problems!
Schmidt: All I'm hearing is I can't use my bathroom because you're poor.

And yes there is the minor subplot of will Jess and Nick get together, but it's not a HUGE part of the show.  

In the interest of FULL disclosure, if I had not met my husband back in college, YES I would be EXACTLY like Jess, and that's one of the reasons why I love it.
Do yourself a favor and give up 22 minutes of your life and watch New Girl.  It's basically perfect.