Cloud Nine

Yesterday was pretty much awesome. We had our first speech meet of the year and it was great! It was a huge meet, and we only had half our team there. My two more experienced girls both placed, twice actually. They double-entered and did a duo together, plus they placed in their own catagories. One was a tenth grader, and she won prose! (It's actually a pretty big deal.) I am very proud of both of them. I was totally on cloud nine last night.

And, to add to my fun, I was given two blogging awards by Victoria at Confessions of a Twentysomething Fiction Writer.  She has a great blog about her journey as a writer.

Now I have to share ten random facts about myself and pass these great awards on to someone else.

 1: I am the middle of five kids.
2: In kindergarten my teacher asked my mom if I had ever been exposed to paper and pencils. I had, of course, but I apparently had no interest.
3: I got married at 22, to a man I'd only known for a little over a year.
4: We'll have been married for eight years this month.
5: I started showing horses when I was ten.
6: As a kid I had huge glasses and was a major nerd.
7: I was a captain on my speech team for three years.
8: I started coaching speech the year after I graduated.
9: I love spaghetti.
10. I think it's hard to come up with ten random facts about me.

Okay, now to pass this award on to others. :) Aka, the fun part. (I tried to give these to people who didn't already have them.)

Beautiful Chaos
Live to Write...Edit When Necessary
Edited to Within an Inch of my Life
My Not so Secret Writing Life
Pink Tea and Paper
Wake up, eat, write, sleep
Priscilla Burris

Now go check them out, 'cause they're awesome. :) Also, tomorrow is the first day of the I'm Hearing Voices character blogfest.. It's going to be fun, I can't wait!

Enjoy the rest of the weekend everyone. :)

Perfect Picture Book Friday

So I decided to join Susanna Leonard Hill in perfect picture book Friday. Today she is talking about good picture books for boys, which made me think of one of my son's favorite picture books.
 Dinotrux, written and illustrated by Chris Gall
opening: Millions of years ago prehistoric trucks roamed the earth. They were huge. They were hungry. But they weren't helpful like they are today.
brief synopsis:  Prehistoric ancestors of today's trucks, such as Dozeratops and Dumploducus, roamed the earth until they rusted and became extinct.

Why I like this book: Trucks and dinosaurs? How can you go wrong? We checked this book out from the library when my son was three or four. He slept with it every night. Finally we bought our own. It's funny and really quite unique. I've recommended it to all my friends with boys, and they've had similar experiences with it.

Well, that's it. Have a fun Friday!

Big Fat Chicken

It's Insecure Writer's Support Group day, time to write about one of the current things making me crazy. If you haven't checked out the Insecure Writer's Support Group before, I highly recommend it! Everyone is so supportive, it's really quite amazing. Here's the link.

And here's my post:

I have a picture book manuscript that has been worked and reworked, a lot. Seriously, it is the best I can make it. I should be sending it out, but I haven't yet. My husband bugs me about it all the time. I have a dozen various excuses as to why I haven't done it. But the truth is I am a big, fat, chicken.

That's it. I'm a chicken. I'm scared to send it out and then somehow see all the things I should have changed before sending it out. I'm scared to send it out, wait months, get my hopes up when I see my SASE in the mail, then get crushed with a form rejection.

I know rejection is part of the game. I know I will get a lot of rejection, and I am okay with it, really I am. I just keep putting it off.

Ugh. Does anyone else feel this way? How do you get past it and get up the guts to just put the damn thing in the mail already?

The Remarkable and Very True Story of Lucy and Snowcap, Review

Description on Amazon:
Set on fictional islands off northeast America in 1787, this story features two twelve-year-old girls from different cultures who must join forces to save themselves, their people, and one special baby. It's part historical (based on convicts who were sent to the Americas and Australia) and part fantasy. Above all, it's a captivating adventure in the tradition of The Princess Bride with shipwrecks, curses, chases, murder plots, magic (of all kinds), romantic legends, thieves and politicians (sometimes both), a caring schoolteacher and a handsome horse groom, a pair of feisty (sometimes difficult) heroines, and the mysterious power of story-telling at its center!

I read this book, loved it, then passed it on to my niece. She passed it on to her friends. As soon as I got it back I read it again.

I think the thing I love most about this book is how truly unique it is. I have never read anything else quite like it. Which means I really didn't know what to expect when I was reading it. I didn't guess the end ahead of time, I was totally wrapped up in the story as it unfolded.

The main characters, Lucy and Snowcap, were wonderful to get to know, too. They are not typical, sweet young girls. (Far from it, actually.) But they are strong and, well, they grow on you. I don't want to say too much, but the end of this book was absolutely beautiful.

Heather Bouwman has agreed to do an interview about the book here on my blog! I'm very excited about this, I can't wait to hear what she has to say. (I am in the process of picking just the right questions to ask her. If you've read the book and have a question, let me know!) :)

Otherwise, stay tuned. Oh, and go check out her book! ;)

I'm Hearing Voices Blogfest

So I decided to enter this great character blogfest over at Cassie Mae's blog, Reading, Writing and Lovin' It! There are three assignments in February and there are some awesome prizes for each one. (Including some manuscript critiques.) Go check it out! There is still some time to join in on the fun.

Meanwhile, I've been getting some work done on my zombie novel. I've made a bunch of revisions and will soon be looking for some new eyes to check it out for me. That's another nice thing about coaching speech, I know a bunch of teens whom I could talk into reading it. Of course they like me, or at least pretend to, so they may have a hard time being honest.

I live in a small town, about 2300 people, so there is not a critique group to join here. I have searched surrounding towns, still am actually. Now I know a lot of people join online critique groups, but (I'll just admit it) I don't know how to do that.  (Yes, I know, it's embarrassing.)

Are any of you in an online group? Did it, does it, work well for you? How did you find your group? Any insight here would be appreciated. Thanks!

Any Suggestions?

We have a lot of great speeches this year. Yay. My kids brought in some great books to cut from. A few we are using are:

A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl. (a novel in verse)
I Heart You, You Haunt Me (novel in verse)
Burned (novel in verse)

Okay, so I love novels in verse for Serious Poetry, one of the thirteen catagories kids can compete in. Last year we also used Shark Girl, and One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies. (Cool title, or what?)

We also have girls doing Humorous pieces from The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club: True Tales from a Magnificent and Clumsy Life, and Seinlanguage. Both are very funny.

Another of my favorites this year is a girl doing a cutting in Prose from The Lovely Bones. Very dark, very good.

Here's where I'm hoping I can get some help from you- I have a guy in Prose this year who is very talented, but we are having a hard time finding a great piece for him. I usually love using YA because these are teens, so, well, it's fitting. But I don't know of any great, dramatic YA books from a guys point of view. I don't know if this is just because I haven't read any, being a girl myself perhaps I've just been more drawn to books about girls. Or is it because teenage boys seem to be less dramatic, emotional, whatever, there just aren't books like that for them? I really don't know. I'm hoping you do. So, any suggestions?

Awards, Yay!

So the wonderfully sweet Annalisa Crawford  gave me a Liebster Award.  Go check out her great blog Wake Up, Eat, Write, Sleep.

Now I get to pass the award on to other bloggers with less than 200 followers. This was a lot of fun! You are supposed to give five, but I'm cheating and passing out six, I just couldn't make edits. (Don't we all hate making edits?) So here they are!

Losing Sanity, where Johanna Garth is doing all sorts of fun things, including trying to live more like a kid. I love that!

Even In Australia, named after the last line of the wonderful, awesome, very good book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

A Coffee Driven and Adventure Bound Life where K.D. Storm shares her thoughts on life and being a writer.

Confessions of a Twenty-something Fiction Writer, Victoria is trying to become a writer, too, and I think she has a great voice that's evident even in her blog. :)

Rate Your Story This is a super cool blog where they, you guessed it, rate your story! You can send in a picture book manuscript and they will read it, post it, and rate it. Awesome. I will be sending mine soon. :)

PepperJack Pics Okay, so this is the only one that's not about writing. Laura is a photographer, and my sister-in-law. Her photos are amazing. This link doesn't go to her lastest post, it goes to one of my favorites of hers.

So that's it. Thanks again, Annalisa!
Remember to go check her out and all the others here. Thanks!