40 WEEKS OF ME- Week 2, Writing

My birthday resolution involved a few goals. I vowed to work on squashing my reserve by being more open, which lead to me deciding to share something new about myself every week, for 40 weeks.

Little known fact about me is that I've always wanted to be a writer. I wrote my first book in fifth grade (1983), THE HOUSE. It was a tale go a demon possessed House. I don't really recall the plot. My little sister does, vividly (29 years later). She can recite the entire plot, plus character names.
Apparently it made a lasting impression on her (terrified her).

I took the story to school and my classmates passed it around, taking turns reading it. Someone took it home and I never saw it again.



SOURCE

Three years later, the movie, HOUSE came out.

Oh, I was horrified. My fourteen-year-old self thought that one of my old classmates had stolen my story.

I didn't realize then that this would happen numerous times over the years. That I would read a book or watch a movie, and then moan about the fact that someone had thought of the same idea I had.

Only they'd written it better.



BANSHEES, BOOKS, & BASEBALL- INTERVIEW WITH KATHLEEN RUSHALL

My amazing agent, Kathleen Rushall, answers L.S. Murphy's 5 questions over on Banshees, Books, & Baseball. If you're interested in querying her about your manuscript, this is a good place to start.

Personalizing a query letter is something that agents talk about, but writers may not always feel comfortable doing. I know when I was querying, I kind felt like a faker-- that I was sucking up to the agent whenever I tried to personalize it.

I found an interview with Kathleen in which she talked about the kind of books she was interested in. I thought, oh my gosh, she's perfect for me. And I told her so in my query. Luckily, she agreed.

So please, pop on over to Banshees, Books, and Baseball and say hello.

SWAMP THING #1 FAVORITE PLACE

I took these swampy photos during my bike ride on Saturday through Teichert Ponds. The sky and water are this beautiful shade due to the smoke from a forest fire in the foothills. The picture above that I used for the blog cover is my favorite. It's what I imagined when I wrote the opening scene for Juju's Child.

This picture was taken from the bike trail. If you look closely you can see the blackberries on the bush in the lower left corner. My father-in-law and I make quite a few berry halts during our ride. Delicious, yum!

I trampled through the brush to get this picture--risking snake bites and poison oak. No, that's not a snake at the bottom of the page, but I thought it was at first. Yes, I am a little melodramatic.

This picture was taken at the same spot as the cover photo. I can totally picture a dead body floating beneath the water--which is the premise of Juju's Child, no I'm not being morbid for morbidity's sake. The only problem is that the pretty pink sky ruins the atmostphere of decay and darkness that I wanted to convey with this imagery.

It really is a beautiful area...

How often do your surroundings influence your writing? Have you ever found that perfect spot? The one that you dreamt about and lovingly crafted onto the page...and now you've found it in the real world?  

MICHELLE HAUCK'S GOOD NEWS

Howdy, I wanted to give a heads up to my awesome critique partner, Michelle Hauck. She has some good news to share on her blog, Michelle4Laughs-It's in the Details. Michelle isn't new to this blog. She was also gracious enough to write a Sharing Our Voices post. So please, pop over to her blog and wish her congrats.  

I also promised to share something about myself today. Since I don't really want to take away from Michelle's big news. I will share how much I appreciate Michelle (and all my critique partners fall into this category of awesomeness).

Michelle has a unique superpower. She can find plotholes like nobody else. If Don, DMCWILD is the King of Echoes, Michelle is Princess Plothole. She found plotholes hidden within my plotholes. She's is that good. And she's blunt. No sugar coating. Not that any of my crit partners put on rose colored glasses when it comes to my work, and I wouldn't want them to. The only way to grow is to have a blunt assessment of my story. It's strengths and weaknesses.

Michelle has been there for me through my last two books. I hope she will be there for many more to come.  I want to wish Michelle much love and success with her novel, KINDAR's CURE. I loved this story, and I can't wait to own my very own copy.

I'VE SET SOME GOALS

Well, I turned 40 last Thursday. Thank you to all those who wished me a Happy Birthday, you did indeed made if full of awesome. The one thing I promised myself was that my 40s would be a healthier decade.

So I made some goals:

1. Quit smoking
2. Exercise so I don’t gain weight from quitting smoking. Also, exercise to improve my health.
3. Eat more fruits and vegetable.
4. Work on being more open.

Okay, I think that’s about enough goals for the first month. Don’t need to be all unrealistic about my abilities and set myself up for failure right?

I used to have a regular biking schedule, but I kind of let it lapse over the last year for various reasons. None which are valid…so I won’t share….oh, right, that was one of my goals. Being more open.

Crud, fine. I was lazy. Happy now?

For the last four mornings, my father-in-law and I have gone bike riding. My rear end is currently a mass of bruises. That’s the hard part about getting back on the bike after so long. Even with padded bike shorts it takes a while to build up your seat.

I got on the nicotine patch and had really vivid, lucid dreams. Totally found the plot of my next book from one of those dreams. Today is day five without smoking a cigarette and the second day without a patch. No real nicotine withdrawal symptoms so far today. I think exercise helped with that.

Went to the farmers market and Trader Joe's and stocked up on fruits and veggies. Yum!

I bought a lot of spinach. Maybe subconsciously my body is craving something, but I have frozen spinach and salad making spinach. Weird.

I stepped on the scale this morning and I’ve lost five pounds. I’m pretty happy about that.

On to the last goal.

This is a hard one for me. I’m a really private person and opening up just isn’t my style. But it is a goal, and I’m on a role. Starting on Friday, I plan to post one thing about me that most people probably don’t know for 40 weeks. We’ll see how deep I can go. Most people have things they would never in a million years share. I doubt I’ll be sharing any of those kinds of things either.

But, I’ll try.