How An 11 Year Old Sees His Sisters

Okay, I just had to share this because it was so funny. It also goes to show that a man's mind is just as complicated and unpredictable as a woman's.

Conversation while driving around town:
Son--Isn't it funny how two sisters can be so different?
Me--Yep. How do you mean?
Son--Well, I can see K riding around in a Volkswagen bug, but I see A dressed in a red dress and heels riding in a Lamborghini.
Me--Interesting

Yeah. 

Very interesting look into the mind of a young boy. 

Is this really how it works?

Proof I'm Living the Dream

I'm wandering through house after house today looking for a place to live. In the meantime, I wanted to share with you three little conversation bytes that occurred over the course of my summer. The last two came from my children, proof that I'm raising them right.




Don't judge a book by its cover, judge it by the last page. --source unremembered, but it's scribbled in my notebook.
__________
"It would have been cooler if it was a blue police box.
__________
Kid #2 "Look, it's the crack! The Silence is coming."
Kid #1 "What?"
Kid #2 "Huh, I didn't say anything."


There was a fourth, but I can't find where I wrote it down. Something along the lines of "She's not dead. She's just in the trunk."

The First Look Challenge--The Magic Wakes

The awesome Jen McConnel tagged me in The Look Challenge last week, and I'm excited to participate. This is how it works: I searched my WIP for the word “look”, and now I'll post the scene that surrounds the first occurrence of “look”.

Because I'm once more eating, sleeping, breathing The Magic Wakes, that's what I'm going to share. This is my debut novel which will be published by March 2013. I'm extra excited to share this snippet because it's from the Prologue. Yep, and I've been told a lot of people skip those. Well, shame on them! They'll miss something very important about my story if they do. Lucky for you it followed the word "look".

Before you get to read the sample, I’ve tagged a few authors for the challenge:

Huntress
Marcy
L. Blankenship
Liz
Alicia

You probably noticed these are the ladies from Unicorn Bell minus Sharon (because she recently had a baby and she's busy). These are some of the most amazing women I've met. They work hard to help other writers while living their busy lives and trying to write themselves. I think they're all brilliant!

And now for the teaser.

The stench in the air intensified when a breeze sighed its way out of the dark hole. It looked like an insubstantial swirl of black smoke writhing in the air, but Jaron new better. He took a step forward, opened his arms, and invited the demon in.

With the final words uttered, the demon coalesced and rushed toward him. It pushed its way down his throat, up his nostrils, and seeped into his ears and eye sockets as he fell to the ground. Jaron gasped for air, sucking in more of the evil substance that burned nose, throat, and lungs.

He was drowning. Drowning in evil. The demon screamed through his veins and mind as it forced its way inside. Anger and fear battled for control of his emotions. Jaron didn't know if he wanted to torture someone or throw himself into the pit for a welcomed death.

Hold on a little longer. He continued to suck in the demon. The last of the darkness rushed in when fireworks burst behind his eyelids.

His lungs filled with oxygen. Jaron's hand gripped the edge of the pit and he pushed himself away until his back rested against the cool wall.

A crawling sensation started inside his skull. His hands scratched at his scalp, but the crawling tendrils of motion were under the skin, under the bone, and deep inside his brain.

Lucky 7 Meme

Lucky 7 Meme Rules:
1. Go to page 77 of your current manuscript.
2. Go to line 7.
3. Copy the next 7 lines (sentences or paragraphs) and post them as they're written. No cheating!
4. Tag 7 other writers to pass this meme on to.--You know how bad I am at this, so if you want to share, please do and let me know so I can come read.

My manuscript Excerpt:

"He's coming back?" My heart sped up and that restless feeling returned.

My eyes darted around the room. Seventies wall-paper peeled in spots along the upper half of the wall, wood paneling lined the bottom. The carpet had worn thin and no longer resembled the plush shag of its heyday. Luckily, there was very little clutter in the room. One picture of our family at Carowinds and a photo box of postcards from our parents. Still, it wasn't the ideal place to host the wealthy.

"Yeah, he said he thought he could get the dress cleaned for us." Heather got off the couch and went to the window. "Don't worry about it, Ry."

"Right, cleaning won't--" Whatever else I wanted to say evaporated as Heather's mouth dropped open.

"You've got to see this." She waved me over.

The view from our front window had completely changed. I ran to the door and onto the porch to confirm what couldn't be true. Twenty minutes ago the front yard was nothing but clover, dirt patches, and two twigs we called bushes under the front windows. Now I didn't recognize any of it. The small army of gardeners had landscaped the entire yard and disappeared without a sound. 

 A path meandered through bushes and flowers to a willow tree in the center. One of the columns from the wedding and an urn overflowing with purple violets kept the tree company. Something about the pattern of the path looked familiar.


What do you think? And if you post your 7 lines please let me know in the comments so I can come read them.

Intimidating my Monday

It worked for Mal.

I feel like I'm forgetting something important. Because of that, I'm keeping my goals simple this week. 

Goals for this week:

Work on Faerie Wings

Finish the short story Instinct

It's Finally Friday

It sort of sneaked up on me after the harrowing first few days of the week. I'm sorry to admit there was not a lot of writing this week. Instead I sat on the couch watching TV shows on Netflix. These are the two that I'm currently blowing through:

Roswell--3 alien teens search for the secret to where they came from in the hopes of returning to the home they can't remember. They have powers to rearrange matter. Max uses these powers to save the life of the human girl he's been secretly crushing on for a long time. And thus starts the drama. There's a good story buried under all the teenage hormones--I think. Maybe. :)

I don't know why I'm watching really because some of the characters are total creepers. Sort of like all the ridiculous eye gazing from Twilight. Whether its bad acting, poor scripting or what, I haven't decided. But its a great way to pass the day while I wait for kid #1 to get home from school so we can watch...

Doctor Who series 6 is finally on netflix. Matt Smith has really grown on me, but I still don't like the Amy Pond character. Rory I like. Amy just bugs me because its always about her.

I've heard they are getting the Doctor a new companion for series 7. The new girl will step in after 4 or 5 episodes when Amy and Rory step out. I can't wait! Oh, but since I don't get BBC America I'll have to wait at least a year. Buggers.








Yeah, so I need something to help me get back to writing. I'm supposed to be finishing this draft of Faerie Wings in March as part of the Speedbo challenge. Very little progress to report this week. The good news is the story is still stewing. Carter is always on my mind and his character is slowly changing and solidifying.

I guess I shouldn't kick myself too hard because if I wrote everything now I'd just have to change things after I know who he really is. As he changes, I'm finding new strengths in Ryanne too. She reacts to him differently now than she did before. It's more real if you know what I mean.

Monday is the A Picture Paints 1000 Words blogfest that I'm hosting over at Unicorn Bell. Please come sign up. You pick a picture and write a story for it. The good news is that it has to be 1000 words OR LESS. So, for short notice, you can make it as short as you want!

There will be prizes too!

Now, I need to go pick a picture myself...

Birth of a Novel and Lucky 7's Meme

Oy! I almost caught up with my sleep and then daylight savings hit me. Why? Why can't we leave things alone. Meddling humans.

Anyway, there still hasn't been as much writing as I wish, but there has been writing. I had a couple of days where I got 1000 or more words. So wish it had been more.

Faerie Wings--Bulk of the writing went here. I'm still working on filling in Carter's half of the story and blending scenes to move me forward again. This week will see a lot of cutting I think. Current word count: 40,065

Eleena of the Stars--no new writing.

Sendek: the Magic Wakes--Is finished. Has been, but I went through another line edit to catch some flagrant typos that survived the last edit. 

Last week Chandara and Sharon Bayliss tagged me with this Lucky 7's Meme. The rules are simple,
1. Go to page 77 of your current MS
2. Go to line 7
3. Copy down the next 7 lines - sentences or paragraphs - and post them as they're written. No cheating.

Since I don't have 77 pages of Eleena, and Faerie Wings is in flux with all the moving around I'm doing, I pulled from Sendek. This is actually part of one of my favorite scenes. 

As she visualized the video clip of the crash, Talia fought back tears and focused on the whisperings coming from Sutton’s mind. She wanted to know what he was really looking for. Closing her eyes again, she focused all her energy outward, up through his arms and into his skull. In her mind’s eye, she ran through hallways full of closed doors searching Major Sutton. As she closed in on his mental image, he turned away from her.
A momentary fear washed over her and she didn’t know if it was hers or his. He stopped running. She had turned the tables on him.

Word count: 85,125

Orek: The Search for Knowledge--no new writing. The new Scrivener file has been created and the new opening scene written. Here's the Lucky 7 using my 1st draft Nano 2010 version of Orek. It'll go into flux(my word for the day, can you tell?) as soon as I finish this first draft of FW. This one is sort of an info dump in dialogue, but some version of it will exist in the final draft because this is where a new quest really begins. They just don't know it yet.

"Orek’s history contained dragons of high intelligence. These beings communicated with one or two of the early wizards to plant scientific ideas, but when men warred over whether science or magic would govern the people, the dragons left the planet."
“That sounds like Sendek’s history.” Talia stared at the drawings of the dragons.
“Jaron thought the dragons from Orek’s history came from somewhere else. Look, this is a list of planets he believed the dragons had visited over the eons.” Landry held up the last page and pointed to one name in particular.

Draft word count: 50,050
Rewrite word count: 2,000


Anyone who wants to do the Lucky 7 meme, feel free to do it. I'm not going to tag anyone. Instead I'm going to go be a writer, not a blogger. :)