I Should Write Something. . .

I haven't been writing as much as I should be this summer. As much as I would like to be. Not on my WIPs, or on my blog. Things have been crazy busy, as they pretty much always are, and my inspiration has been low.


Perhaps I should go here for some inspiration. Pretty, yes?


(These were taken at my dad's farm, by my dad.)

Soon, I will start writing again. No, really. It's not the first time I've hit a slump, and I'm sure it won't be the last. How about you? Do you ever hit a writing slump, or does brilliance drip from your pen every day? ;) If you do, how do you pull yourself out of it?

TMP is Taking Pitches Today!

Turquoise Morning Press is taking pitches today over at Romance Divas. So polish up your pitches and go check it out!
                          
                                     

Fires and Bats (My Weekend)

We had a couple exciting (I guess) things happen this weekend. Sunday evening my husband and I were standing in our kids' room when I looked out the window and saw dark brown smoke pouring out of our garage.

My husband, who's on the fire department, ran outside. The rat rod he had been welding earlier was on fire. Fortunately he was able to put it out himself with the garden hose. If one of our neighbor's had called the fire department he'd have never lived it down! All I could picture was his pager going off, announcing that a fire had been spotted-at our address!

The following morning, at about a quarter to five, I was woken up by a bat in our room! It was circling above our bed, swooping down at us. I woke up my husband, we jumped out of bed, turned on the light and shut the door (so it couldn't get into the baby's room.) Then we waited for it to land.

We waited for it to land while we crouched on the floor next to the bed, my husband holding a towel, me holding a pillow. Our two-year-old was asleep in our room and every time it swooped down by her and me I would hold up said pillow to fend it off, (and maybe make some slightly loud, scared noises. You know, just to frighten it off.)

Eventually it landed in my closet. My husband grabbed at it with the towel, it started squealing, he chucked the towel, three hangers and one of my shirts out the window.

Except it turned out he didn't have the bat.

It started swooping around the room again. I was swinging a towel this time, trying to get it to fly out the window. Eventually I hit it with the towel and it fell. I threw the towel over it, again it started squealing. I scooped it up and threw towel and bat out the window. (I then went outside and shook out the towel to make sure it had gotten loose, and brought everything back in the house.)

During all of this, my two-year-old never even moved. (Or, as my sister said, "she never batted an eye." Ha ha.)

Friday Follow

I've learned that Friday follow is a twitter thing (I'm learning stuff) but I decided to do one for a blogger today. :) If you don't already follow Jaybird, you should! She's a fellow writer, and tons of fun. Usually on Fridays she does a fact or fiction post and they are hilarious!

Today, however, she has a special guest blogger. (Her eleven-year-old daughter.) So click the link above and check her out, you won't regret it!

New Followers

I got some new followers from the blog hop this week. (Yay.) But I'm afraid I haven't followed all of them back. (Boo.)

If you follow me and I don't follow you, it's because I screwed up somewhere. I want to follow you. So help me out. :) Comment and let me know and I will fix it. Some times the problem is that I can't find your blog. This week I also had a problem with my computer, the button to click to become a follower wouldn't show up no matter how many times I refreshed the page. Frustrating! So I gave up and planned to go back later. . . Except now I'm not sure if I got to everyone again.

So. . .please let me know. Thank you!

Hangers

It's day two of Falling for Fiction's Hookers and Hangers bloghop. Today we are posting our hangers, the lines of our manuscript that end chapters and (hopefully) leave you hanging, making it impossible to not read just a bit more! (Click the link above to check out the others.)

A big, BIG thank you to the girls at Falling for Fiction! You rock! This bloghop has been so much fun, and very helpful. It's great to focus in on these sorts of things. So thank you so much!

I'm sharing lines from my MG novel, GRETEL. You can check out some of my 'hookers' here.

I panicked that day, and Hansel would pay for it every day after.

“Well," the old woman said, gripping Hansel's arm, "since you ate something of mine, perhaps I’ll eat something of yours.”

"Yes," I lied.

She spoke quietly, spinning her tale into my ear.

“Either way, I’ll be happy.” She smiled, showing her yellow, twisted teeth.

The witch was waiting for us.

I knew what I had to do.

The witch stopped laughing.

Hookers

Not those kind of hookers.

The girls at Falling for Fiction are hosting a Hookers and Hangers blog hop. Today we are posting some of the 'hookers' from our WIP. (Hookers as in first lines from chapters, meant to 'hook' you.)

I am using lines from my MG fairy tale re-telling GRETEL.

Before I show you my lines, here's what I've learned from going through my WIP for this blog hop. My hookers are kinda' weak. I will definitely be going through again and trying to find ways to strengthen them. A big THANK YOU to the girls at Falling for Fiction for doing this! It's not only a super fun hop, it's a very helpful one as well! (But you knew that already.) ;)

So here are some of my hookers:

We sat at the dinner table with little to eat and nothing to say. 

If my step-mother was ice, the old woman was fire.

I was frosting a rich chocolate cake when I first saw it.

“I will tell you again, child, I am no fool.”

The night was filled with nightmares.

She glared at me, her lovely eyes narrowing down to tiny blue slits.

Come back for my 'hangers' on the 18th and go check out the other by clicking the link above. I'm excited to see what other people have done!

Magic Eight Ball

Jaybird from the Bird's Nest tagged me in the Magic Eight Ball Meme. The idea is to post an excerpt you're struggling with, ask a question, flip you guys upside down and see how you answer it. :)

Seriously, this could not have come at a better time. I need some input! I recently had a light bulb moment. I read someone else's opening on a blog, and loved it. I commented as much. But when reading other people's comments I saw a lot of them said that they were drawn in- until the info dump.

Info dump? I've seen info dumps and this was not one. Except, wait, okay, yeah, maybe it was. And okay, yeah, maybe I didn't realize it because maybe I have something similar at the beginning of my YA. Yeah. Whoops.

So I went to revise, thinking I could probably share that info somewhere else. Spread it out some. I highlighted it and hit delete.

And ya' know what? I didn't miss it. Not one little bit.

So, it's gone now but I would still love some input on my opening. I also have a bit of a prologue, it's just a couple of paragraphs opening the book. Should I cut it? is question number one. What do you think of the rest of it? is question number two.

It's a bit of a long excerpt (about 400 words), so if you don't finish it that's fine. If you could even just comment telling me when you lost interest that would be incredibly helpful. Thank you for any input you have!!

Oh! And I get to tag eight others. :)

Ashley Nixon
Cassie Mae
Tracey Joseph
Rena at Doctor Faerie Godmother
Angeline Trevena
Suzi at The Literary Engineer
and two others. . .
I tell you what, if you haven't already been tagged and you want to be, then you're it!

            Erwin tossed and turned on the rough carpet of the school library, but the reason he couldn’t sleep had nothing to do with the uncomfortable floor. He didn’t need to look around to know that no one was sleeping. There were all just lying there in silence, the fear and tension in the air so thick it reminded Erwin of movie scenes where the ceiling is slowly coming down to crush everyone. The only difference was that in the movies they always escape just in time.

            He couldn’t believe only a few hours ago he had been working out in the school gym. He remembered thinking, this day couldn’t possibly get any worse. He laughed at the thought now. He cringed listening to the banging coming from outside as whatever those things were tried to claw and crash their way into the locked school.

❖❖❖

            Erwin had been on his way to lunch when he first saw them. Justin had Natalie pushed up against her faded orange locker, his tongue down her beautiful throat. Erwin’s own throat had tightened and his stomach churned. So much for lunch.

            It had only been a week since Natalie had broken his heart, after dating for ten months. Now she had her fingers wrapped around the fat neck of that dick, Justin.

            Erwin tried to push the image out of his mind and focus on the weights he was lifting. He hoped the pain in his arms would block out thoughts of Natalie. Problem was he could hear the cheerleaders finishing up their practice in the empty lunchroom across the hall from the gym doors.

It was 4:15; there were only a few other guys in the weight room. Basketball practice didn’t start for another forty five minutes. Then he’d have to face Justin. With any luck he’d get a chance to elbow him in the face when Coach Spears wasn’t looking.

            He was enjoying the thought of Justin’s nose bleeding when he heard someone shout to call 911. Erwin jumped up and ran across the gym, slamming open the doors. At the end of the hall, Rob Grey stood in the school doorway with his seven-year-old sister, Amy. Rob was on the basketball team with Erwin, and lived across the street from the school. He was shaking, and the little girl was white as a ghost.

Cover Reveal!

 This is the cover for the Foreign Affairs anthology which is coming out this August. My short story, Dimples and Roses, is one of the six stories in the book. (I'm Georgia St. Mane.) ;)

The other five stories are amazing and I'm excited to have mine included. The six of us will be giving away some ARCs, interviewing our heroes and possibly even posting some recipes from their homelands.

My guy, Logan, is from England. My grandparents came to America from England with five kids, my dad was the first in the family to be born in the US. I think I will be sharing her lemon cheese recipe, which is pretty darn delicious! So stay tuned! :)

Awards and Thanks!

Jaybird at the Bird's Nest gave me a Liebster award. Big thanks to Jaybird!
I also received the Fabulous Blog Award from Aldrea Alien at Thardrandian Thoughts. Big thanks to Aldrea!

There are questions that go along with both of these, so I picked and chose among them so that there aren't too many. :)


If you could go back in time and erase one day, what day would it be and why?
Every time travel thing I've ever seen has shown that it is always a bad idea to mess with the past. That said, if I had to pick, I'd say the day Hitler's parents conceived him.


What is the funniest thing you have ever done/seen?
I'm embarrassed to say nothing comes to mind right now. . .I will say I love watching comedies with my husband because he laughs so hard I sometimes need to pause the show and wait for him to calm down so we can hear the next line. I love that. ;)

What is your favorite holiday and why?
Christmas. It may be a lame answer, but I love Christmas. I love buying presents, I love baking stuff and I love hanging out with my family.

Where is your favorite place to be?
This is a boring answer too, but probably home with my family.

What was the worst vacation you've ever had?
I haven't gone on a lot of vacations. (We didn't even go on a honeymoon.) So I will pick the worst part of a vacation I've ever had. When we took our two older kids to Disney World, (they were four and six at the time) we had the first big snow of the season and ended up with a four hour delay for our flight. After we were already on the plane. So yeah, we sat on the plane with two little kids for a total of seven hours. Fortunately they were really, really good! The rest of the trip was a ton of fun, but we basically lost a whole day and that sucked.

Morning or night person?
Um, as a mom I no longer have a choice in this. At least one of my daughters is up by six every morning.


Do you think blondes have more fun?
No. I think fun people have more fun. ;)

Name five of your most fabulous moments, either in real life or in the blogosphere.
1. My husband and I had only been dating for a month and a half when he was recalled. He told me he wished we'd known each other longer so that he could just ask me to marry him right then. That was pretty great.

2. Finding out I was pregnant with my first child was really amazing, and kind of unbelievable.

3. The births of all four of my kids were, of course, incredible. It's such an amazing overflow of emotions.

4. My first National Championship. (I show Arabian horses.)

5. The first time I had a full request for something I wrote. It made me feel like I wasn't totally crazy to think I could do this.

So, again, a big thanks to Jaybird and Aldrea! I'm not going to tag any one, because I think everyone I know has already gotten these.

In other news, I will be posting the cover for Foreign Affairs on Monday. My short story, Dimples and Roses, is in. It's my first published anything and I'm very excited.

I am using the pen name Georgia St. Mane for it. Since it's romance I wanted to keep the name separate from my MG and YA projects. Plus St. Mane is my mother's maiden name and it is far more romantic than Schieffelbein!

Insecure Writer's Support Group

It's the first Wednesday of the month, which is the Insecure Writer's Support Group's day to post about our insecurities and encourage each other.

I had a realization today. Please stay with me as I take you along on the train of thought that lead to it.

Someone I know posted something stupid on Facebook. Big shock. But it made me think of a twitter post I saw once that said, "FB is where you lie to your friends, twitter is where you're honest with complete strangers."

There is definitely some truth to that. It got me thinking about how I rarely, if ever, post anything on FB about what I'm writing, revising, submitting, etc. But I have tweeted about such things.

I would not have the guts to introduce myself as a writer. I'm not even close to there yet. But my Twitter profile says "mother of four, trying to find time to write during the chaos."

So yeah, I basically do introduce myself as a writer there.

Maybe that means I'm closer than I thought to being able to introduce myself as a writer, maybe not. But I did find it interesting, it was something I hadn't thought about before.

So, how about you? Do you introduce yourself as a writer? If not, when do you think you will? If so, at what point were you able to do so confidently?