Repost of My Funniest Posts 5- Not in the Christmas Spirt

I'm not in the Christmas spirit at all.

I look at all my decorations and think, "crap, I'm just going to have to take this down in a month."

I think a part of it stems from there are no Christmas lights up and down my street this year. And why is there none? Because my next door neighbor has not put up his lights.

There is a long standing, friendly feud with my next door neighbor. He LOVES his front yard and works very hard to make it nice. His first Christmas in his house, his whole front yard was lit up. He had at least 10 different types of decorations. It looked awesome.

My house had one string of rope light around the window, and you could see the rope light connect to the extension cord. It looked pitiful.

My Neighbor ended up shining one of those spotlights with the happy holiday's messages on the side of our house to make out house look all lame.

The next year we stepped it up. We bought a light up polar bear.

They bought a light up train.

The year after that we bought a light up seal, and we up it up next to the polar bear.

They bought these beautiful light up thingys I've never seen anywhere else but on his lawn.

Last year we put up the light up wreath (You know what happened to that) the polar bear and the seal. Over the year of storage though, the seal's head broke and didn't light up. So in the day time it looked fine. But at night, it looked like the polar bear decapitated it. Not really the festive mood I was hoping for.

Also last year my neighbor came up to me and said, "I'm going out of town for two weeks, do you mind turning on my lights every day so no one robs my house."
"Sure no problem."

His decorations look amazing, with a snowman, train, and those pretty colorful light up thingys.

Last year we have two wind storms. The snowman's head fell off. One of the light up thingies vanished. As it turns out they were made out of paper, saran wrap and a see through plastic. They were VERY fragile.<-- this becomes important later.

I went out and fix the snow man, (but he looked worst then my seal) I search for the light up thingy. IT was cold, and windy and I was outside for like ten minutes looking for it. The whole time thinking, "He's going to think I destroyed it on purpose."

Once it was back to a sort of normal state, two days later another WIND STORM hit.

The snowman died.

The light up thingy was under the car.

When I went to pick it up, it started to fall apart in my hands. Like someone trying to hid a dead body, I gathered the pieces and rushed to my basement. There it laid.

My neighbor came home early. "I'm sorry, there was these wind storms." The winter wonderland he created looked like an abnormally large radioactive lizard attacked it.

He smiled, "that's OK."
"I've got your light up thingy in my basement. It doesn't look good." I hung my head in shame.

I went down to get it and it split in half. Wire and plastic started to rain off of it as I carried it up the stairs. I couldn't make eye contact with him as I handed it to him.

Today is December 10, neither of us have our decorations up.

I think we're both in mourning this year.

His yard will not longer look like a magically wonderland for his children.
My yard won't look like a nature documentary gone horribly wrong.

Maybe's it for the best. I don't think an apex predator like the polar bear would have gotten along with the reindeer I wanted to buy.


Did you enter my super Awesome CONTEST?

Christmas Gifts for People You Are Indifferent To.  

I will give away three mystery gifts.   

Enter here

Contest ends on FRIDAY at NOON.

Nanowrimo- GOOD LUCK Week 5

You've done it!  You made it through the month.  Most of you  have hit your 50K words.  Congrats.  Even if it's your first book or your tenth, there's nothing like the feeling finishing a book.

Don't let writer's remorse set it right away.  Don't think about revision.  Don't think about query.  For the love of God and everything that is holy don't even THINK about QUERYING.

For your excellent acomplishment please spend a few minutes and watch this.  You'll love it.


So You Want To Write A Novel by dwkazzie




I will be blogging about this vid more this week.

Fun Friday- 15 favorite authors

The Meme: Borrowed from Kate Hart

The Rules: Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen authors (poets included) who have always influenced you and will always stick with you. List the first 15 you can recall in no more than 15 minutes, and they don’t have to be listed in order of relevance to you.

1) John Green- everytime I read one of his books I think, "This is what I want to do. This is how a great book is written"
2) Douglas Adams- He gave me the meaning of life and was the first author that made me crack up.  I carried Restuarnt at the End of the Universe with me all through out college.
3) Shel Sliverstein- The Missing Peice meets the Big O is one of the most influenant books of my life.
4) JK Rowling- I remember where I was reading each of the Harry Potter books as much as the events in the books.
5) Scott Westerfeild- Is there anything this guy CAN'T write.
6) Brad Meltzer- a friend and an amazing writer.  I was in one of his books as character.  Yep we tight.
7) Charles Dicksen- because I'm super prentious and he created the soap opera
8) Christopher Pike- My Middle school years was filled with his books.
9) L.J Smith- After reading the Vampire Diaries in Middle School I knew exactly what I want
10) Jerry Spinelli- Star Girl, Manic Magee, Love Star Girl... amazing
11) Louis Sachar- There's a Boy in the Girls Bathroom is the first book I discovered symbolism in, and the first book to make me cry.
12) Eoin Colfer- Artmis Fowl-making faeries cool.
13) Frank Miller- Dark Knight Returns, Sin City, and everything else he's done.  Life Changing
14) Neil Gaiman- The Sandman series changed my life and I no longer fear death, not if Death is a cool goth chick who likes hotdogs and loves life.
15 Brandon Halpin - the first author I e-mailed, who emailed me back and follows me on twitter.  After reading Half Life of Planets I felt like, "Yes, I can write a book like this."
15.5) Tiffanie DeBartolo The first author I e-mailed who wrote back. 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

So while everyone is listing all the things they are thankful for, I'm going to be watching TV.  Yep. Maybe I'll write. 

Most likely I'll be watching TV.  Here's a list of TV Marathons happening TODAY
Thank you TV Squad for the links. http://www.tvsquad.com/2010/11/19/thanksgiving-tv-picks-specials-marathons/

THURSDAY, NOV. 25
'Burn Notice' Marathon – It may not be the first thing you think of when you think of the show, but Michael, Sam, Fiona, Jesse and Maddie have formed their own little family unit of sorts, as you get a chance to remember in this 15-hour marathon (6AM, USA)

'Biography' Marathon – George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Halle Berry, Leo DiCaprio and Julia Roberts are among the famous faces profiled in this 20-hour marathon (8AM, Bio Channel)

'I Dream of Jeannie' and 'Bewitched' Marathons – It's a magic-al Thanksgiving with Jeannie and Samantha (8AM, TV Land)

James Bond Movie Marathon – Bond, on Syfy? Ours is not to question why. Ours is to try to convince everyone to stop watching football for a bit so we can watch 'Goldeneye' at 3:30PM, part of this 12-movie 007 fest (8AM, Syfy)

'Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade' – 'Today' trio Matt Lauer, Meredith Viera and Al Roker host the 84th Macy's Turkey Day parade, which includes more than 800 clowns, Jimmy Fallon and The Roots, Kanye West, The Muppets and the cast of the Green Day Broadway musical 'American Idiot' (9AM, NBC)

'Man Vs. Food' Marathon – You may have your own food challenge today, trying to choke down Aunt Gladys' dry turkey, but that's nothing compared to the mammoth-sized foods Adam tackles in this 19-hour run (9AM, Travel)

'MythBusters' Marathon – 11 hours of myth-bustin' fun! (9AM, Discovery)

'Campus PD' Marathon – Every episode of the first and second seasons makes for a lot of moments that will make you realize whatever your fam is up to today, it could be worse. And a lot more drunken (12:30PM, G4)

'Holiday in the Hills: Beverly Hills 90210' Marathon – Six installments of '90210' (the original series!) holiday fun (6PM, SoapNet)

'Family Game Night' Marathon – Fams compete in life-sized versions of Hasbro board games in the name of cash and prizes. You'll so want to be the one playing with the life-sized Operation game! (7PM, The Hub)

'A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving' – Peter Brady had pork chops and applesauce, Snoopy has jelly beans and popcorn (plus buttered toast and pretzel sticks, don't forget) (8PM, ABC)

'Punkin Chunkin 2010' – It's that time-honored tradition, the annual gathering of the engineers who've concocted new ways to launch pumpkins into the air. Why? Why not (8PM, Discovery)

'Taylor Swift: Speak Now' – The country diva performs nine tunes and gives fans a behind-the-scenes peek at the release of her latest CD (8PM, NBC)

'Elf' – Will Ferrell has never been more charming than he is as Buddy in this new holiday classic (9PM, USA)

'Beyonce's World Tour' – Kanye West and her hubby, Jay-Z, pop in during this behind-the-scenes look at her world tour, including, of course, performance, and a peek at her glitzy line-up of costumes (9:30PM, ABC)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING. 

Did you enter my contest yet? 

Road Trip Wednesday- Best Book of November

Road Trip Wednesday Best Book of November

I only read ONE book this month, which I think is forgivable when you look at how many books I've read in the past few months.
My brain has been sort of fried. 
Between work, illness and life I've been slacking a lot. 

But I did read October Sky.

October Sky isn't a book I would read willingly.  I need to teach it, in Decemeber.  So I went to Borders and bought my copy and nearly had a heartaccked.  It was a 425 page book.  WHAT!  I need to teach 425 pages to 8th graders. 
My kids were going to go all Lord of The Flies on me.  Dear God, I was going to be Piggy.
Then I started reading it.

It was good.

That's weird.  Books I teach are almost never good.  They're normally way to hard or way to easy or the characters leave you sort of feeling meh. 

But this was really good.

I found myself changing from Teacher Reading Mode, underlining vocab and confusing terms to Enjoying Reading Mode.

The story is about a boy named Sonny (or Homer depending on who's talking to him) living in a WV coal town during the Space Race.  His father runs the coal mine and his mother is convinced the mine and resulting town is dying.  Sonny builds a rocket after being inspired by sputnik.  His mother encourages Sonny's interest in rockets and often runs interference between Sonny and his dad. 

The book is about Sonny's friends, life in high school, fitting in, crushes on girls and making rockets.

It was AWESOME.  I cried at the end.  

It's going to fun to teach and interesting to see the kids reactions. 

Go out and read this book, you'll enjoy page, all 425 pages of them. 

Wanna win a MYSTERY PRIZE?  Enter my contest, please. 

Repost of My Funniest Posts 4

Posted December 2009

My Neighbors


I’m pretty certain my neighbors stole the batteries out of our LED light up wreath last year.

Background knowledge:
I think wreaths are stupid. Well, no, I really like them, in the daytime. But at night the look stupid, because everything else is all lit up and the door is not.

I know what you’re thinking, use a spot light:
I live in a townhouse, I use my front door to get out of my house, and I don’t want to put a spot light on my front door. Mostly because I don’t want to get blinded every time I walk my dog.

Anyway, I discovered in Target all my Christmas problems could be solved with this wreath.

It was battery operated = no extension cords.
It had a 12-hour timer= I never had to turn it on
It was pretty= good in the day and at night.
It was awesome= I loved it.

Then something occurred.

My neighbor across the street had the same wreath.
I will be completely honest; I don’t know who got it first. It might have been him, maybe not.

Things that make you go HMMMM

Days leading up to Christmas

My Neighbor’s wreath is looking a little dim.

One night my dog goes bunkers barking and scratching at the door. I heard rattling and scratching outside the door but thought it was animal. Not out of the norm in my neighborhood where apparently the leash law is optional.

A few days later
My wreath is on at 3 pm when I’m coming home from work. The timer was set for 7pm-7am.

Two days before Christmas I find two tiny screws on my step outside my door. I don’t know what they could possibly be used for.
I notice the neighbor’s wreath is looking good.

Christmas morning
Zoey gets a gift that requires C batteries. Hubby says, “I just put C batteries in wreath, I’ll go get them.”

He gets his tiny screwdriver and opens the door. “WHAT THE HELL?” The cover of the battery pack slides off and he said, “These aren’t the batteries I put in.”

He took the batteries out and placed then in Zoë’s toy. The toy last 30 seconds before it dies completely.

Conclusion.
My neighbors stole my batteries.

I ask you, what sort of person does that? Why would they do that? What possible thrill or benefit could they get from that?

How much do C batteries go for on the black market?

Under what scenario did they think it was OKAY to enter on my property, with a tiny screwdriver and STEAL the batteries out of my wreath?

I think my act of niceness will be to place two C batteries on their step and say, “This is for you, and your wreath, next time, just ask, you ass hats.”


Don't forget to enter

Christmas Gifts for People You Are Indifferent To.  

I will give away three mystery gifts.   

You can click here

Nanowrimo- GOOD LUCK Week 4

You're heading towards the home stretch.  What's your word count 35K-40K?  Have you moved into that "Good part" of your plot.  Your characters are intersting and cool stuff is about to happen.  You just KNOW IT.

You got past that page 150 hump. 

From here is just gets easier.  Promise.


You might be planning to write on Turkey Day ... I'm here to tell you- it's not going to happen.   There's family, food and a marathon of Man Verses Food on.  Then the turkey chemicals kick in and the next thing you know you're in a coma.

Oh yeah and there's football.

I hear some people are into that.

It's not my thing, but I get why other people love it.

Any cratch Thursday as a day where you're going to get any work done.

Friday you might be able to get something done while everyone else is shopping.  That's cool though, you do all you shopping on line anyway.

This weekend might be productive.

Good luck you're almost there!!!

Don't forget to enter my contest:

Christmas Gifts for People You Are Indifferent To.  

I will give away three mystery gifts.   

I don't know if you remember but my mystery gifts are pretty awesome.

you can enter here.

CONTEST- Gifts for people you're sort of Meh about

It's holiday time.  Next week everyone will be stuffing their faces with turkey, potatoes and other yummies.  Holidays mean good times with family, hallmark and fireplaces... um yeah if you lived in the 1950's.

To me the holidays means $$$$$

Buying the turkey dinner, buying new decorations (my current decorations include a light up polar bear and a seal who's head doesn't light up, which means at night my front yard looks like a show on Animal Planet about the natural cycle of life) and of course GIFTS.

There's gifts for my hubby, my daughter, my parents, then there's hubby's parents, hubby's sister, our niece, grandparents (three sets) cousins and their children, oh yeah and friends.

So you know those people in your life, they aren't family, they aren't life long friends.   Your relationship with them falls somewhere between, wouldn't want them to get hit by a bus but you're not about to give them your kidney either?

Friendly co-workers who you haven't crossed over to the friendship line.  You like chatting with them at work, but you don't want to hang out with them after hours.

Your brother's girlfriend who you know he's going to dump after New Years, but the poor girl doesn't see it coming.

These are people you are sort of indifferent to.  You like them alright, but they aren't your favorite human beings on the planet, that's reserved for significant others, children and celebrity crushes.  

Here's the thing, how many times have these people given you a gift?  Desperately trying to cross the line from bystander to BFF.

They look up at you, doe eyed and adorable, and you have to go and say, "um, yeah, er thanks." Then you rush off to Bath and Body Work and buy some smelly bath stuff.   Nothing says, 'I'm sort of indifferent to you' than smelly bath stuff.

Times are tough, budgets are tight, and this is will lead to social awkwardness.

I will buy the gifts for you. 

Christmas Gifts for People You Are Indifferent To.  

I will give away three mystery gifts.  

Mystery gifts may include: a cool book, smell bath stuff and any other stuff that says "I like you, kinda."

You can keep it or give it to someone you sort of care about.  Whatever. 

How to enter:

• Leave a comment about socially awkward gift giving.  
• Extra entries for:
• Being a current follower + 2
• New follower +1
• Referring someone +3 (new person must credit you)
• Tweeting about the contest +1 PER TWEET!!!!

Contests Closes December 3.

But... You're famous!!

Ok so I had written a super lame post about how I epicly failed at writing this week.  Seriously I wrote a paragraph.  But between the plague living in my nose and now my lungs, a 425 page book I need to teach (it's a pretty awesome book and I've never taught a book that I WANTED to read before), and Plants Verses Zombies, I've been busy. 
Frankly next week doesn't look like it's going to be any better.

But then I saw this:

SHANNON MESSANGER COMMENTED ON MY BLOG!!!   AND SHE'S FOLLOWING IT!  WHAT?!?  HUH?!? SERIOUSLY.... DOES SHE KNOW HOW AWESOME SHE IS?   WHAT IS SHE DOING READING MY BADLY EDITED RANTS AND RAVES?...

Her blog is amazing!  It's sweet and honest and funny AND she personally writes back to every comment... how does she have time to do that?  My working theory, she has a time machine and she's not sharing it. 

And I"m not just saying all that because she runs a give away for MG books every month.

oh my god, what if she just read that I wrote that I think she's awesome.   Now she knows!  Now she must think I'm a totally fan girl stalker.  Crap.

It's not like I'm going to sniff her hair or anything.   You can't sniff hair via internet, it's doesn't have a smell... it's just smells like my desk, wood and forgotten  lemonade and that weird metallic smell from my mac.

Crap what if she read that too.   

But wait did you see the second comment?  Elena Johnson!  This chick has like a billion and a half followers and has a new book coming out and is pretty much made out of awesome instead of water and goo on the inside.   

Shannon and Elena created a little thing called writeoncon, the highlight of my summer!!!  

AND THEN KRISTEN HUBBARD,--- SHE'S THE ONE WHO WROTE THE BOOK WHO INSPIRED THE ROAD TRIP.   OH MY BLARG... I CAN'T EVEN SPEAK IN REAL WORDS.

Here's the thing, these women did it.  They wrote books, they found an agent, their books will be on the shelves very soon.   They gave me hope.

Today I was talking to my media specialist during the Book Fair (Yay it's Book Fair Time!)  She pointed out to all the books that surrounded us and said, "Aren't you grateful for all the people who took the time to write the book for us to read."

Yes. Yes I am.

THANK YOU!

I just died. 

Road Trip Wednesday- crazy pants

YA Highway Road Trip 

LIKE MANDARIN's 1st line is "The winds in Washokey make people go crazy." Tell us something crazy you've done!


Ok so you would think from my wacky crazy personality that I do crazy things.  Nope. I mean sure I've done some crazy things but nothing I would post on the internet, after all my mom reads this blog and I think some students lurk as well.  

Mostly I do lots of socially awkward things.  


I shown up to the wrong funeral home for a wake for a friend's father.  I figured it out before walking into the building but I did stop and ask a group of people if this was for my friend's dad and they blink at me and said no, "it's for a mom." yikes!   It was a long walk a shame back to my car and then I was late for the wake. 


I did flash my entire wedding because I wore a strapless dress and foolishly forgot to eat the week before the wedding, losing weight.  My dress fell below my bra line.  


I've walked into park cars before.  


One time I was friends with a girl for two years (called her on the phone, hung out with her,  shared a seat with her on the bus and had a class with her) and I didn't know her name.   I was caught when I wrote her name on a paper, I wrote A and a whole bunch of scribbles.   When she said, "Erinn, you didn't spell  my name right." 
I said, "That's ok, I don't know what your name is anyway." 




A few years later I had three grad classes with a girl and when I went to write her name down... see I LEARNED from my last mistake.   She looked at me and said. "J. E. N." 

Sigh. 


Sometimes being socially awkward is WAY worse then being crazy.  Crazy can be a one time event or be trigger by some external force, but socially awkward is forever. 

FRIDAY STARTS MY NEWEST CONTEST!!! 

Christmas Gifts for People You Are Indifferent To.  

YAY. 

Swing by on Friday and enter the contest. 

My bestest X-mas gift for me would be 100 followers. 

Repost of My Funniest Posts 3

Posted originally 3-17

what it means to be a woman

I watch this you tuber called Charlie is So Cool Like. He's awesome. He's 19 and doesn't understand teenage girls.
Really? I think we're pretty straight forward, women in general- We want you to be smart, caring and able to read our minds. The End.

Anyway he asked a bunch of girls to fill out a survey, the results were funny- but at minute 3 second 7, I cracked up.

I, too have looked at my dryer and wondered if I could get in it. I thought I was the only one who ever had thoughts like that. I'll look at a box or a space and wonder, "can I fit in that?"

I told my 8th grades about the question. I watched the faces of the girls, they smiled, they blushed and they avoided eye contact. It hit me, "YOU TOO! You've thought that too!"
Every girl laughed and nodded.

We talked about looking at a "problem" trying to figure out how you would contort your body in a way to help you fit into the object.

Then I asked, "Did you ever get in it?"
Every girl answered with, "No. Never. That's stupid."

I looked over at the boys.

Half the group said, "The thought has never once crossed my mind."
The other half said, "I got stuck."

There you go. That's the difference between men and women. Women will problem solve and determine if it's a logical thing to do. Men will either not think it's a problem or they will FUBR it up.

Check out the clip below

http://www.youtube.com/user/charlieissocoollike?blend=1&ob=4#p/u/7/5kMWAwCJS_s

minute 3:07.

Nanowrimo- GOOD LUCK Week 3

Week 3 of Nanowrimo

How's it going?  Has reality sunk in yet?  How far are you? 25K or 150 pages?  Yep, this is the point in EVERY first draft I've ever written when I start to doubt.

How much backstory do I really need?

I'm only THIS far in the plot?

I've got HOW much more to write?

I'm no where NEAR my climax,  just a WHOLE lot of rising action.

Are your characters driving you NUTS?

Is finding enough time to live, eat, sleep and write getting to be too much for you? 

Do you feel like your climbing a mountain and you're no where near the summit?

It's ok.  EVERY writer has been there and anyone who says they haven't are filthy liars and should be punched in the throat!

You can do this.  Remember why you love this.  Because you do love it.  You're a god.  You're a world builder.  You are a better writer today then you were yesterday.

Push through the crappy middle.

You can do it.

If I can have a baby, you can write a few words.  Although I did have A WHOLE LOT OF AMAZING MEDS & FEEL A THING.  I napped through most of my labor, blogged a little and read a book.

So yeah.

Um, maybe Nanowrimo is a LOT harder.

Fun Friday- Dear Nicolas Cage,

Dear Nicolas Cage,

I used to like you as an actor.  I mean I wouldn't go see a movie  simply because you were staring in it, but you weren't box office poison for me either.
Yes you have a VERY strange obsession with Elvis.  And you have a problem with spending WAY too much money on stupid sh*t.

But I'm going to ask you nicely to stop making then same damn movie over and over again.

In 2000 you made a move called Gone in Sixty Seconds.
"A retired master car thief must come back to the industry and steal 50 cars with his crew in one night to save his brother's life."

Then you  made a little movie called Ghost Rider (a Marvel comic book and the sequel is being filmed right now.)
 Based on the Marvel character, stunt motorcyclist Johnny Blaze gives up his soul to become a hellblazing vigilante, to fight against power hungry Blackheart, the son of the devil himself.

Now in 2011 you'll be releasing  Drive Angry "A vengeful father chases after the men who killed his daughter."  what the tag line isn't telling you, is that he escaped from hell and is being chased by the devil's right hand man.  Um yeah, so that's the plot to Ghost Rider.




Michael Cera might be making the same damn movie over and over again but at least he's young cute and deliciously nerdy.  You're just getting old.  PLEASE STOP!  Thank you. 




And last but not least,  time to reveal what the craft project was:

Crayola Presto Dots Frog, Grasshopper & Turtle Pack

Rewrite update 2

While everyone is doing Nanowrimo, I'm rewriting my novel.


Draft 13
328 pages 73K words
My plan was to start rewriting and working on draft 14 with  268 pages and 64K words.

Last week my page number and word count was:
280 pages and 68K --- . 


This week it's
270 pages and 65K--- what? huh?  how did that happen?  My word count went down?  Yep.  I cut another 20 pages out of my novel.  Cutting a grand total of 60 pages from draft 13.  I also wrote a whole bunch of new stuff too. 
I wrote about 20 pages of new plot, fleshed out my characters, made my conflict clear. 

I have to rewrite a MAJOR plot point. 

Here's the thing, at this moment, I'm pretty content with it.

I went to my first Nanowrimo Write In.  I really needed the time to focus on my writing. 

My goal is for the book to be no more than 300 pages, which currently gives me 30 pages to play around it. 
As always I'm hoping that my daughter will be taking VERY long naps this weekend. 




For the 4th installment of guess the art project:

Any ideas?  I think this one is pretty easy.

Road Trip Wednesday- best cliche

Road Trip Wednesday
YA Highway asks what's your favor literary cliche.

Language wise one of my favorites although Stephen King said you weren't allow to do it, adverbs next to the word said because it is an easy way to get your point across.

But story cliche.  My favorite by FAR is the Bad Boy with heart of gold.  The guy who hates everyone expect for the main female character.  YES YES YES.

When Edward saves Bella from the car in the parklot-  YES YES YES--- then he get's all lame and pusses out at the end of the book.  Urgh.

Damon from The Vampire Diaries--- YES YES YES YES... long before Ms Myers was writing a bad boy, L J Smith was KICKING ASS with it back in the early 90's.  

The one bad boy cliche that didn't work at ALL for me was Patch form Hush Hush.  Yep, not a fan at all.

Most hated Cliche--- stupid females protags.  ARUGH!   



This week I'm posting pictures of an art project I did with my two year old.  Try to guess what it was.  Friday it will be revealed. 
Next Wednesday--- I"ll introduce a super awesome contest too.  YAY
Art project clue:

Repost of My Funniest Posts 2

When it's NOT ok to use your cell phone: 

Posted originally on January 29 2009

I get it. I really do. We live in a society where we HAVE to be in CONSTANT communication with everyone.

However I think we've crossed a line.

Today I was going to use the public restroom. I walk in an mentally groan because someone else was in the other stall. I HATE having to go to the bathroom when someone else is there. In fact in my own house I will walk upstairs to pee if my family is downstairs.

So I go into the stall and start to, you know, do my thing. When I hear the woman next to me say "Oh great" followed by universal sound of urination.

So I assumed that whoever is next to me needed some encouragement to pee.

Then I hear her talking about moving money around and the hushed sound of another voice.

SHE WAS ON THE PHONE.

WHILE I WAS PEEING!

I don't like it when my husband hears me pee, now a stranger on the phone can hear me!

Then it dawns on me that whoever is next to me is talking on the phone while SHE'S PEEING.
So clearly she doesn't have my issues but still...

Now here's my other problem. I'm done. I finish up... now do I flush or wait her out?

Screw it--- I flush, I don't have my time where I can pee, and I've got stuff to do.

Then she flushes too.

I wash my hands.

Turn around and SHE GIVE ME A DIRTY LOOK.

Like I was the one who exposed the fact that SHE was peeing and talking on the phone by my flush.

People there is a line that should NEVER be crossed.

Today that line was crossed and I don't know how or if we can ever go back.

You may file that under TMI.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Time for  the second installment of guess the craft:

Nanowrimo- GOOD LUCK Week 2

Ok Have you lost any steam?  Did real life filter in to your creative zone?  Did you have great plans to sit down and 10k this weekend vanish the instant  your best friend called you with a much cooler option then sitting alone in a quite room playing with imaginary friends?
It's ok if you didn't hit your writing goal this weekend, you still have PLENTY of time to write.  At this point in the game you can still afford to be social.

Go check out your local chapter of Nanowrimo and see if there's a Write In going on.

Writing doesn't have to be a lonely adventure.  Nope you can be sort of social while still getting your work done.  YAY.

You may be that lonely antisocial person talking to themselves, but if you do it at a Panera with other writers, you don't look nearly as creepy.

Also you can have fun little writing games,  how many words can you write in 10 minute blocks?  Compete against other writers.  The winner gets the prize of know you're better than everyone else.   Isn't arrogance the best prize of all? 

The following people are doing Nanowrimo, and you can read about it  here:
Go MO!   Click for her blog here 
Alicia doing it too.


By the way this week is featured theme is guess the art project.  My daughter (2) and myself (31)  did an art project, all week I'll be posting pictures of it.  Try to guess what it is. 

Fun Friday

Last weekend it was the Rally to Restore Sanity.  It was the first rally I ever WISHED I had been at.  Now that I saw all the signs,  I'm really bummed I wasn't there.
You can see LOTS more here:

Here are some of my favorites:

You know what the very BEST part about being American is, we have a sense of humor.  It's our 6th sense, since most of us can't tell the future... yet.  Get on that science.  And I'm still waiting for my Puppy Sized Elephant. 
Happy Friday everyone

Rewrite Update

So I had Tuesday off for Election Day.  Thank you home town for using the elementary schools as polling places.

Draft 13
328 pages 73K words
My plan was to start rewriting and working on draft 14

I have outlined what I need to do and cut a whole bunch.

I have two new idea's--- I sort of love them, but I'm not sure if they are going to make it into the latest draft.

I started at 268 pages and 64K words.

After writing my new word count is: 

280 pages and 68K --- . 

4k is a respectable amount.

I rewrote the first 30 pages and have really ampped up the characters.  At this moment I'm pretty pleased with it.  But we'll see how the week goes.  I wrote for a good 4 hours.

My goal is finish the rewrites by December.

Road Trip Wednesday- If I ruled the world.

If you were made supreme ruler of the publishing world, what would be your first ruling?

hmmm, supreme power, huh?  Yeah I don't handle that well.  

 First order of business-  get rid of stupid girls as your protags.  Characters who have no inkling about the sort of danger they are in or even value their own lives enough to aviod the situation.   Bella and main character from Hush Hush, (she was so forgettable and unlikeable I can't even remember her name). 


Second order of business- NO MORE TEACHERS BEING THE PORTRAYED AS THE BAD GUYS. 


I posted about this a while ago and it's one of my biggest pet peeve.  Teachers, principals, guidance councilers, we're all there to help students not to make them feel bad.  It's LAZY writing on the part of the writer if the best anotagist they can come up with is a mean teacher.  


I'm not saying that there aren't bad teachers but for every one bad teacher you had, you had seven good ones.  


Third order of business:
Writers CAN NOT submit their sh*tty first drafts for publications.   All the crazy queries written in crayon, and or in the POV of the main character or whatever, it makes the people who work EXTREMELY hard look bad.  So do the blogs that make fun of them.

Forth order of business:
EVERY AGENT and EVERY Literary agancey MUST HAVE A WEBSITE--- the internet is NOT going anywhere people, time to jump on that bandwagon.

Fifth order of business:
NO ONE is allowed to query more than 30 agents for a single project.  Let's stop flooding their inboxes with crappy queries.  Let's not give them a reason to make fun of us.

Sixth order of business:
Let's have a bigger variety on the book shelves.  Borders should not have three shelves FULL of Paranormal romance.  More male protags, more original plots,  let's take some risks out there. 

Seventh order of business:
Let's not forget to be awesome.  Remember Do the Write thing for Nashville?  The writing community raised nearly $50k in 10 days.  Awesome.  Remember Writeoncon?  A totally FREE online writers conference?  Awesome.  Let's do more. 

It's time to get off my power trip, I tend to lose my luggage every time I travel.

Repost of My Funniest Posts

I decided to repost some of my personally favorite blogs of the past year.  Yep, I'm that lazy for this month. 
This one was written on 11-12-09 

Resume's and Big Breaks 

Ok I get it, you're a struggling actor, you've been on a thousand auditions, you live in LA and you're constantly on the search for your "big break". So you see an ad, or your agent sends you out on a audition for a musical. That's great. You can sing. You can dance, all be it, neither can you do very well. But that won't matter.

Congrats! You get the gig. YAY you. Here's the catch, it's on Nick Jr. The name of the show is call The Fresh Beat Band. It's about 4 people in a band and they sing to small children.

Click on the link to see a clip

Ok. So you're not one of the leads. Nope, you're a background dancer, more then an extra, but not quite worthy of being in the credits.

So here is my question to you, do you write this on your resume? Do you tell your friends? Yes, it's a paying gig. And it's not as shameful as doing porn. But is this the moment when you give up on your dreams of winning an Oscar? Do you ponder if your life took a wrong turn somewhere? Or are you grateful for the chance to do what you love and get a paycheck for it?

We've all had crap jobs, jobs that make you question everything you thought you knew about the world.

I spent two years working in a comic book store, where I met a Zombie, someone I think might have been Kevin Smith and an assassin. And that wasn't even the worst job I've ever had.

The worst was what I called "death camp". I was the camp director for 3-5 years old. I taught them about nature and took them on hikes during the highest summer on record. It sucked ass. That's one of many reasons why I waited until I was in my late twenties to have a kid. That job scared me sterile.

So my friends, tell me, what was your worst job? How much of your dignity did you sacrifice for a dollar?

Nanowrimo- GOOD LUCK

For the month of November Monday's will be CHEER ON NANOWRIMOS

My life isn't really Nanowrimo  friendly.  For me, November means, end of the first marking period, grading hell, parent teacher conferences, Thanksgiving, and the fight with my husband about how I will NOT wake up at 4 am to go shopping on Black Friday. 

No, for me it's National Rewrite A Book for an Agent who May Be Interested In It.

So yeah.  My goal is to get the rewrites done in November. 

But for most of the rest of the writing community they are starting a first draft of novel. 

To all my nanowrimo friends:

Week 1-  you're excited, you've got an idea, you know your characters, you might know what your plot is going to be.  You've opened that blank Word document and it's filled with untapped potentional. 
Could this be your single greatest work of all time?  Maybe.   Will it need a year of rewrites? Most likely.   Should you query it on December 1?  HELL NO. 

But that's too far away in the future.  Right now you've got writing to do.  Those 50K won't write themselves. 
I"m sure it's going to be a very very very very very very very very very smooth and seamless process.  See what I did to up my word count.  I'm a genius.