Contest Deadline Today! Hurry and enter!

Here's another quick and easy contest, but hurry, the deadline is today!

http://www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog/CategoryView,category,Contests.aspx

I can eat cookies for breakfast, if I want to!

Interestingly enough, as an adult, I can choose to eat cookies (homemade chocolate chip cookies) for breakfast, if I want to!  Now, granted, eating cookies for breakfast might not necessarily be the healthiest choice, but none-the-less, it's a choice I can make.

Another choice I can make as an adult, is not to explain myself. I remember many many years ago, little neighborhood kids were playing with my kids inside our house, the commotion was grinding on my nerves (I'm so NOT a patient mother), and I wanted the neighbor kids to GO HOME! But, I let the commotion continue thinking, what excuse can I give the kids for sending them home? Then it occurred to me. I'm the adult. It's my house. I can send them home if I want to, with no excuses. So, I went to the kids and told them it was time for them to go home. Of course, they whined and asked why. I said, "Because I said so."  Ha. I remembered as I kid, I hated that answer from an adult. Ha. But, now I know it's absolutely okay to say - to anyone. Don't want to go to the movies with the annoying person who chatters all the way through it? Just say no thank you. When they whine and ask why? Just say, "Because I don't want to." We don't have to give excuses. And guess what? If the friend is offended and never asks you to the movies again... what's lost?

Anyhow. I need to be a writer. That way, when things get on my nerves, I can rewrite the scene. When a character annoys me, I can eliminate them from the script. When I make an unpopular choice, I can say the characters in the story did it (ha). When I'm craving a certain food, I can describe it and have my characters eat it all they want.

What I did over the weekend

This is just one 15"x15" block of a nine block quilt. A crazy amount of embroidery and piecing make up this quilt. But, when I saw it - I instantly fell in love with it. I bought the instructions and supplies and was promised by the seller that the packet contained complete instructions. Right. Well, I had to google applique techniques and then I had to google instructions for a blanket stitch. Not to mention, the fabric in the kit does not match the fabric pictured in the instructions! Sheesh.

Talk about buying a book because of its cover and then being disappointed with the contents!  Never-the-less, I've come up with a strategy and I'm back to enjoying the quilting process.

But it makes me think... when we write a query letter for our manuscripts, what are we promising? When an agent then reads are manuscript, are they thinking "What the heck?" Or are we delivering exactly what we advertised in our query letter? The two need to match up. No bait and switch. 

I've promised myself, I must finish my first draft of my current WIP before I go back and rework the query for my first ms. It's been motivating to write more and write faster on my WIP.  But I still keep thinking about my first ms... I'm determined to get it published... but I need to re-work a few things first!

New contest - Go VOTE!

Great contest on Melissa Marr's website. Check it out and vote for my short story, "Fire Opals!"

 Click here to view and vote for short stories!

"The human brain moves faster...

"The human brain moves faster than any author's fingers can type" (Donald Maass).

Ha. I was reading The Fire in Fiction by Maass this morning while walking on the treadmill and I loved this quote. It makes me laugh now as I type - why? Because apparently it is a challenge for me to use a highligher while walking on the treadmill. HA ha. You should see the yellow squiggle line across the page from trying to highlight this sentence.

Anyhoo... The point of the quote is to cut the unnecessary words from your manuscript. Cut the stuff people don't want to read (an "important" person said that one, but I can't remember who it was).

Sometimes as writers we think all of our words are important, but they're not. The trick is to keep our voice and say the important things with the least amount of words possible.

So, with that, I'll stop typing.

Day at the spa...

Mmm, Hmm. We all need one. If I could figure out how to get pictures off my new cell phone - I'd show you my pretty toes. Oh well... use your imagination (but imagine my feet skinnier than they actually are).

[Sidenote: did you know you can find pictures of anything via google? Crazy. These are not my toes. But totally how I picture my toes in my head. In fact, my toes are fatter.]

While at the spa getting a pedicure, I sat and thought about characters. The more I write the more I think about writing. I meet people, watch people, talk to people, and think to myself: you need to be a character in my book.

I've even stopped and typed notes into my cell phone (uh, oh! that reminds me... I need to get those notes off my old cell phone! I'd better write another note...). I write reminders of what these larger than life characters said and did. For example, one day I was driving down the road and a guy in an old beat up pickup truck swerved a bit. I thought, what the heck is he doing? And then, he spat out the window. Ew. He must be chewing tabacco and spitting. Ick. Mental note, stay out of his spit-zone. But then, we stopped at the stop light. He was next to me. I had to look. He was brushing his teeth! REALLY! He had a toothbrush in one hand and picked up a water bottle with the other. Rinsed and spat out the window again. Huh. Light turned green. He drove on, still brushing his teeth.

I could tell you about the red-neck dad in Cabella's (camping & hunting store) with two little toddlers in tow and a baby in the shopping cart and what he explained to them about his truck. (Lots of trucks in Idaho)

I could tell you about the optometrist who spoke so fast I could hardly keep up. He kept waving his hands and asking, "Do you know what I mean? Do you know what I mean?" I'm pretty sure he meant he had to much coffee to drink that day. HA.

Anyhow... I enjoyed my day at the spa... but I had trouble focusing. I had a physical need to write.