So, why the heck am I throwing you off by not posting on our usual Wednesday date? Those darn holidays snuck up on me and there was travel and work and all the other things that made me confused. But despite the confusion, it was a good holiday—how about yours?
Did you get everything you wanted? Did you get anything you wanted? Did you get hammered off the eggnog and not remember a thing? 😊
Batman told me a few weeks ago that he was winning Christmas. Naturally, I cried folly and said there would be no way he could beat me. I’ve won the past many years because I’m an awesome gift-giver and frankly, I love my title and WILL defend it. There was no way Batman was going to beat me.
No. Way.
Y’all seeing this? Are you seeing my LETTER TO HOWARTS.
And:
There was also the small matter of my NEW Kindle Fire which he set up because I’m stupid with technology and he’s a gamer (so he knows tech stuff. Right? I don’t know. Also, I was lazy).
This, of course, was among other awesome gifts I received most of which I cannot mention because of reasons. Also, I don’t feel like typing them all out…but I am currently squeezing my golden snitch stress ball…
I have to hand it to Batman. He did pretty well this year. If I didn’t love the fact that he addressed the envelope to “the office in the back of the house” so much, he might not have won. Yeah, he got some good things too, and it was really close—if not a tie. But I’m going to give him this year. I mean, hey, it’s a win-win for me 😊 He set his own bar super high, and next year, he’ll need to defend his title. I can handle that.
Now, if I was playing with my mom? I would have ALSO LOST:
I got it. Everyone stepped up their game this year. Didn’t realize we were all playing in the major leagues at this point, but okay. Let’s do this 😊
Well, I guess this will be my last post in 2018. If I’m to keep on our current Wednesday/day after Wednesday date, we’ll be chatting in the new year. Please be safe and not stupid and if your family and friends want to be stupid, remind them we need to start 2019 with the good kind of bang 🙂
From Batman & I: Have a happy (and SAFE) New years! Talk to you in 2019!
P.S. How about your holiday? Did you win Christmas? Any plans for the New Year?
I’m first chapter into writing RTD and DO NOT WANT TO STOP
There should probably be a number three, but I think number two sums it up. I’ve got the energy going and I’m pantsing this baby like a mofo. What’d I say last week? Good vibes 😊 Alright 😊 For your pleasure/entertainment/whatever, here’s a current picture of me and Batman at his work holiday party:
Happy holidays to you—whatever you choose to do! Whether it’s lighting eight candles (which I believe has passed…sorry…happy belated Hanukkah!), opening presents with friends and family, or laying on the couch doing nothing, I hope you enjoy it.
Alright, back to writing RTD. (Woop!)
See ya on the flip side of Christmas. Fingers crossed you get everything you didn’t realize you wanted.
On my commute home, there’s this short light that keeps our street backed up for two to three light cycles. It’s where I usually check my email and texts because I’m going to be sitting for a while. I know this. We all know this. We all know that in order to cross over this one busy highway, we have to do our penance and sit and wait for the light to change, and when it does, it feels three seconds long. WE ALL KNOW THIS. IT DOES NOT CHANGE.
But this motherfucker:
Gets in the left-only turning lane, bypassing everyone, and then jets back over into our lane. I could understand if this was an “oops! Got in the wrong lane!” Or “Didn’t realize this was turn-only!” Whatever. I’m super forgiving for things like that because I do things like that. Because I’m terrible with directions and can totally get how you end up going the wrong way down a one-way street (twice) because it’s dark and you might need glasses. I get it.
But this motherfucker does this nearly *EVERY SINGLE DAY. We’re apparently on the same route home, and every day she whips past me, right to the front of the line. Then she slows down, puts on her blinker, and waits for the light to change. And I’m looking around like, am I the only person who’s seeing this? Can we all agree that this SAME CAR is doing this SAME JACKASS THING every day? Why haven’t we rioted against her? We need to unite and riot against her! Then the light turns green and someone lets her in.
*Every. Single. Day.
In other news, I started writing Return to Dellapalania. (YAY!!!) I haven’t touched Arizal Wars for a long time because I’ve been preoccupied with BTT. Mind you, I’ve been writing AW since 2011, so when a sexy side-series sashayed my way, it was hard to decline the temptation. 😊 Anyways, I’m three pages in and excited! To be honest, BTT was just the break I needed because now I feel refreshed and revamped and ready to go. I’d like to say this one will be ready next year, but I don’t want to say that. Not yet. I will when I’m more than three pages in and have an idea. Still. Good vibes, guys. Good gives 😊
Except for that bitch who cuts in line in traffic. She can eat a donkey dick.
*I’d be lying if I said it was every day. It happens more like 2-3 times a week, which is plenty often to be considered a jackass if you ask me.
There’s not a lot of blog-worthy stuff I can share here since most of it is in-the-moment-awesomeness and…things better suited off the interwebs 😊 So with that all said, let’s jump on into the optional question:
What are FIVE objects we’d find in your writing space?
Oh, geez. Um. Let me look around…
I should probably lie and clean a lot first, but I’m going to be honest. Brutally honest. Willing to put-pictures-up-honest, all for my lovely loyal audience (both of you 🙂 ). So….here we go:
Water bottles. There are a lot of them. I mean a lot. Don’t believe me?
Yeah, I’m that girl from Signs. So, what? I’ll be ready when the aliens invade. I don’t know why I keep half-drunken water bottles around, but I do. And now you know. (Please still like me).
Writery/Inspirationy things.
When the going gets tough, I like to read not-terrible things. It helps silence that sucky feeling most artists know all too well. Plus, most of them have pretty script and cool designs 😊
Plain ass weird shit.
I don’t know…I liked the frog…and the hands….I don’t know. It seemed like a double high-five, and who could say no to that?
Apparently…stuffed animals?
So, I’m ten. Get over it.
Toys!
Again, I’m a woman-child. And so is Batman. I mean, I call him Batman. Need I say more?
There. Now you have it. Now you know all the weird things surrounding my desk when I’m writing those stories you (hopefully love to) read. What’d you expect? A clean desk with a cup of pretty pens and journls? Psshh. You don’t know me at all.
What about you? What’s your desk look like?
Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) is a monthly blog hop for writers at all levels to share their fears and insecurities in a safe and encouraging place. Please drop by and say hi to Alex Cavanaugh who started this nifty concept in bringing us all together.
I’ve been been tagged by the superbly awesome Joleene Naylor to participate in the Rising Author Tag. The rules are simple:
Thank the person who tagged you (thank you, Joleene!!)
Answer the questions they came up with.
Nominate four people to do the tag (no tagging the person who tagged you originally).
Come up with 10 new questions for the people you nominated.
What’s the last book/story you worked on?
I completed Better Than You, the last book in my Better Than This Series, last month. It’ a 65K word Contemporary Romance that reunites high school sweethearts, one of whom is a famous Rockstar. The previous book ended eight years earlier on a cliffhanger, so it was fun (but a bit of a challenge!) to bring everything back together almost a decade later.
2. Do you self edit?
This is my process: I write until I have no idea what’s going to happen next, or until something sounds off. When that happens, I backtrack until I find where I went wrong, and I start over from there. Diction and syntax really aren’t a concern until the last few drafts, so I let language things fly (they’re going to be edited later anyway – what’s the point?) Until that last draft, I’m primarily focused on the story. Does the story make sense? I’ll self-edit along the way so that it does.
3. What’s your favorite story/book you’ve ever written?
Sophie’s choice, anyone? Uh…I really don’t know because I love all my book-babies the same. 😊 I guess though, if I had to pick, I’d go with my first non-published full-length novel: Library Rules. It’s about a high school girl who locks a boy in a janitorial closet, and as punishment, is forced to work/volunteer at a library where she discovers some shady stuff going down. It’s probably my favorite because it’s the first full book I wrote, which proved that I could do it. I definitely struggled with Library Rules, but the journey to the end gave me the stepping stone I needed to start a new adventure series: Arizal Wars.
4. What was the first story you remember writing and how old were you?
If we’re going way back in the day, I’d say the first story I wrote was in elementary school; I must’ve been around seven or eight. I remember having this cheap beige paper to draw on, and I used it to portray my hero, Beefy (I kid you not!), the princess he was saving, and the evil villain who’s definitely reminiscent of Darth Vadar (my dad had me watch Star Wars early). I drew the story out more than wrote it, but it was the first one my little brain pushed out from beginning to end.
5. Do you get a lot of writing done around the holidays?
Yes, I tend to get a lot of writing done around the holidays! More time off from work means more time at home, doing this 😊 Of course, there is travel and gift-buying and other holiday-related tasks that need time and attention, but, eh. I get to it when I get to it. Time is the most valuable currency, and I spend it with either my friends, family, at work or writing. Other than that, very little else gets done.
6. What book or story (written by someone else) do you wish you’d written?
Uh, can I say all of Rainbow Rowell’s stuff? I mean, the obvious answer is Harry Potter, but even I couldn’t take credit for that. I love good romance stories and Mrs. Rowell does it RIGHT. If I could’ve written Eleanor & Park, that would’ve been amazing because I would’ve seen all the behind the scene things that only she gets to see (like all authors do for their stories). If not Eleanor & Park, then either the Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay or Evanescent by Gabriella Lepore.
7. If your last book/story was made into a movie, who would star in it?
Let’s see…if Better Than You was made into a movie, who would star? Well, since technology assists in the aging process, I guess I’d use the same actors I selected for my Wattpad casting for the previous two books, Better Than This and Better Than You: for my heroine, Autumn, I’d have Chloe Martiniez and for my hero, Alex, I’d have Dylan O’Brien. Yes, I’ve given it some thought, but what author doesn’t?
8. Do you have a WIP? If so what is it?
Here’s the sad thing: I don’t have a WIP right now. I need to start writing the fifth book in the Arizal Wars series, but I just finished reading Crusade Across Worlds for a brush up of where it left off (I wrote this over two years ago) and I need to figure out where to go next. Yes, I’m a panster, so that means I can sit down and write, but need to have a vague idea of what happens, and in order to get that, I need to play through the scenes in my head. That’s how pansting works for me, anyway. I may not have an outline to go off of, but I’m using the movies in my head instead. Plus, Return to Dellapalania (fifth book of AW) is the final book of the series, so everything needs to come together. I’ve set all the pieces for the final match and now I have to let it happen. I just need to visualize it first.
9. Do you like to bounce ideas off of someone out loud, or do you do it all in your head?
Everything happens in my head. Writing is very intimate to me, and maybe that’s why it takes me longer—because I’m asking myself a bunch of questions instead of someone else. I usually work through everything myself, but if I’m having trouble, or feel like there is an obvious solution that I’m not getting, I’ll casually ask a friend or Batman (my boyfriend). Normally the friend will answer/help without a second thought. Batman, however, likes to ask what story it’s for and when he can read it. It’s both sweet and encouraging 😊
10. Who is your favorite character you’ve ever written?
Again—what’s with the tough questions? I honestly have no idea who my favorite character is that I’ve written because I love them all so much. That sounds like a cop out answer, but it’s true. I don’t have a favorite. I don’t even have a top five. I probably have a top 15-20 but that’s probably not accurate either. I will say that Sampson and Clarence do hold a special place in my heart. But then again, so does Ginny Larson, the hero of Library Rules. A momma can’t choose between her babies.
