Saturday, October 30, 2010

A Saturday of Sunshine and Starbucks

I've been trying to stick to a Monday, Wednesday, Friday blog post schedule, but alas, my internet quit working Thursday night.  I had to spend 45 minutes on the phone last night with the internet provider trying to get them to fix it.  It would appear for the moment they have.

It's been a lovely day so far.  I woke up early and went to a 5k run with my sister, and the morning was chilly and sunshiney gorgeous.  Then we went to Starbucks and I got a grande pumpkin latte, which led to an amazing caffeine high, which led to being productive with some yard work.  Now I'm ready to take a luscious afternoon nap.  So, here is your teaser for the week, from Chapter Two.  Have a great weekend!

She was abruptly aware of her senses as they came into sharp, diamond focus: images flashing into her peripheral vision, her ears picking up hundreds of distinct sounds, her skin tingling all over. Her heart quickened almost painfully and her throat went dry. All of this happened in a fraction of a second, her body reacting to some unknown threat.

Adding to her panic was the fact that she’d never experienced anything like it before. She had no idea why her body was reacting as it was, but she abruptly felt an uncontrollable urge to look behind her and see if anyone was following her. It was a completely irrational instinct since of course many people were behind her on the crowded street.

She turned her head, very slowly, to look behind her. Not knowing what she was looking for, her eyes scanned the crowd, skipping over each figure in less than a second. Her logical mind was absent as some sort of foreign intuition took over. Then her eyes rested on what she knew without a doubt was the source of her instinctual fear: about twenty feet back, a tall figure in a dark cloak strode swiftly in her direction.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Lavender Sky

Happy Wednesday! Today I've been exercising my brain trying to think of something to post. Which kind of led me to thinking about how inspiration strikes us writers. For instance, today I was inspired by the sky, which was a perfect lavender color right before nightfall. Not too pink, not too blue, just the right shade of pale, smoky purple. And earlier in the day I started wondering about history and how funny it would be if someone just made up fictional characters or fictional events, and wrote all these stories that they passed off as real happenings, just to screw with people centuries later who read about it.

I also sometimes get ideas for my books from dreams. Yes, I do realize I sound like a Stephenie Meyer copycat - but it was happening to me way before she was dreaming of sparkly, muscular immortals (I know because I read one of her interviews. Or maybe more than one.). As for characters, those are easiest for me. They just kind of pop into my head fully formed - what they look like, their personality, everything. While sometimes I realize new things about them later on, for the most part they show up ready for action.

So, how you do get inspired? And what do you do when it happens (do you carry a notepad, tape recorder, etc)? Three cheers for inspiration!!

Monday, October 25, 2010

Musings...duality...multi-colored glasses

Hello, fellow writers! Weekly update on rejections and other pertinent writing business: I’ve gotten a couple new form rejections. I’ve also sent out about five new queries. Just plugging away, trying to maintain my optimism. All of your lovely and insightful comments make me feel so much better!  Also, since I got some questions about me and my MC, I've added a couple pages to the blog which I hope you'll enjoy.

My musings of late… duality. As I was updating my blogger profile a couple weeks ago, I realized that in so many things I hold opposite opinions or preferences simultaneously. For instance, two of my very favorite movies – Under the Tuscan Sun and The Matrix. One a sappy chic flick, the other an intense action film. Music, too. On any given day on the drive to work, I might listen to Vivaldi and Green Day… Natalie Merchant and Linkin Park… Madonna and Dropkick Murphys. Even how I dress is eclectic – one day I might dress a little preppy and sophisticated, another I might wear khaki cut-offs and a hippy top. Ideas are often the same. I might feel one way about something, but at the same time have a very differing opinion.

So, is this just me, or is it a writer thing? I’ve kind of wondered if writers are more prone to seeing things through multi-colored glasses because we’re open-minded, out-of-the-box storytellers. We often put ourselves in the different perspectives of our characters, so are used to seeing things in lots of different ways all at once. Does anyone else experience this, too?

Friday, October 22, 2010

Friday Nibble

Okay, so here's the snippet of the week, from Chapter One:

Compared to the noise of the street, the dark hush of the store was almost unsettling. The faint smell of old books, leather and silver polish tickled her nose. Wandering over to a set of marble bookends, she brushed her fingers over their cool surface. This place is deserted – maybe it’s closed after all, she reflected uneasily.

As the thought lingered in her mind, she noticed to her relief a spot of bright light coming from the back of the store. She moved towards it, passing by a row of tall wooden shelves holding hundreds of leather clad volumes. Eva took a couple off the shelf and flipped through them, then stopped to admire a case of vintage costume jewelry, arrayed like exotic birds and flowers captured in a terrarium. The low light made the colors look rich and deep, swimmable depths of sapphire, topaz and ruby.

Happy Friday!!!

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Daydreaming

So, writing friends, I thought I'd periodically have a daydream topic for us to all imagine we are famous writers and have awesome literary careers.  For this first foray into dreamland, I pose the following question: describe your book release party, in full grandiose/funky/artsy detail (pretend there's no budget).

Here goes mine.  So, first, I hire the Ace of Cakes to make some kind of super amazing and stupendous cake because A) they rock and B) it would be awesome to have my book talked about on TV.  Did anyone ever see the fabulous cake they made for the Ghost Girl book?  It was ridiculous. 

My book is about a witch, so I would have a very dark theme going on.  Black tablecloths and centerpieces with dark or dark purplish flowers.  Maybe a raven and moon motif... something sparkly to represent magic.  Of course wine and martinis.  And I'd tie the whole thing together as a charity fundraiser, maybe supporting the environment or troubled teen girls.  Live music, classical, as a nod to my MC.  But then after lots of wine something more upbeat.  I had the brilliant idea of having shirtless men passing hors d'oeuvres and cocktails, to represent the sexy shapeshifters in my book, but my husband just rolled his eyes. 

So, do tell - what's your ultimate book release party fantasy?  I can't wait to hear all the juicy details!

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Halloween, pumpkins, football - oh, and rejection


So, this weekend I got the quickest rejection thus far... this chic had some super powered form rejection skills.  I submitted a query late Friday night and when I got up Saturday morning, already turned down.  Now, granted, this agency only asked for a query letter and no sample pages, so she didn't have a lot to read.  But impressive for a Friday night.  Maybe they've created a robot that can automatically respond to queries... AI for agents.  He he he...

On a more happy note, Halloween is coming up. Don't you just love Halloween? I never end up getting a cool costume, but if I did, I'd be Hit Girl from the movie Kick Ass - eleven-year-old assassin with a foul mouth.

On other Halloween related topics, we bought our first pumpkin the other day... my son picked out a cool orange and white speckled one.  Also, yesterday I took him to his first football game and here's a secret - it was actually my first, too.  Living in a big university town it's kind of weird I've never been, but I could just never get at all interested in football.  After seeing the game, I'm still not interested in it, but I did have fun just being in the stadium surrounded by such excitement.   Phrases like 'line of scrimmage' flying about the crisp October air. 

Here are a couple pics I just took.  Enjoy!

Maximus

Friday, October 15, 2010

Teaser of the week

So, on FaceBook I started posting a little snippet of my novel once a week, just two or three sentences.  I figured I'd do the same here, but longer.  This is from my prologue.

She wore a pale blue skirt that just touched the back of her knees. His eyes traced the moon pale curve of her bare calves, down to her black stilettos, then back up to the raven hair cascading halfway down her back in loose curls. And although she was turned away from him, he knew her face – the full lips, thin nose and most of all the deep green eyes. Green like a highland meadow or a piece of lustrous sea glass.

Only twenty feet separated them now. He moved forward with calm assuredness, closing the distance. Ten feet. He could smell her now, her soft fragrance of blossoming jasmine tingeing the air. Five feet. Reaching out a thin hand, his fingertips touched one perfect obsidian curl. Taking a deep, focused breath, he called on the dark magic that would end her existence, not only her body but her soul as well. His only regret was she had no idea what was about to hit her.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Begin the Begin

For any of you R.E.M. fans out there, you'll recognize my title as the name of one of their songs.  I was listening to it yesterday, and I really felt like it was meaningful for where I am right now.  I'm at the beginning of the beginning.  No matter what path I go down with my first book, I'm at the beginning.  The plan is for that beginning to be getting an agent and getting published and starting a kick butt career.  Of course, there are a multitude of other options, too, which I won't get too bogged down about now.  Maybe later - ha!

I got another rejection today, but I'm still feeling pretty good.  I suppose I might start to panic a bit if I get through the remaining 15 or so on my list, but for the moment I'm cool.  It only takes one person to like my work.  I don't need all of the New York agents to get in a hot cat fight over my novel, though of course I've fantasized about it.  Snicker.

Anywho, on a personal note my son rode his bike for the first time yesterday without training wheels, and it was a very exciting day.  He'd fallen down quite a bit in the few times we'd practiced before and seemed no closer to discovering his balance than he was when he started, then all of the sudden he had it.  Super neat.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Random Thursday

Not much new to share, other than I sent out a couple more queries last night. And I got lots of compliments on my not-quite-black Purple Rain nail polish at work today, especially since I rarely paint my nails.

I've added some links to my website and the blog... as I distract myself from waiting to hear back from agents I'll undoubtedly scour some more writing sites and keep adding to it.

Last but not least, I thought I'd upload a few pics that I've taken recently, because my blog seems to lack nice pictures. Sometime soon I'll have to start playing around with creating a book trailer for Eternal Memory and can post some of the pics I'm considering using. Fun!



The first hydrangeas I've grown (my favorite flower)


Literary Kitty, the purring prima donna known as Aislinn



Live Oak tree - being from the South, I'm obsessed with them

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Query Crazy

So, this weekend I fired off four new queries, and did some rather exhausting research on Writer's Market to come up with a list of another fifteen agents to begin querying next. Oh, the fun. I've already gotten one rejection... but, the good thing about that is it doesn't feel quite so devastating as the first few. I can handle it calmly without feeling really personally put out.

So, today I promised to do nothing pertaining to my book other than write this post. I took my time doing normal stuff like make dinner, read the mail, help my son with his book report. Now I'm about to take a bubble bath and read Alice in Wonderland (which I picked up the other day; never read the whole book), maybe drink some wine, and then paint my toenails. Good night!