Coming Soon To a Blog Near You

The Second Annual No Kiss Blogfest. Yours truly will be participating, because this is a fantastic idea and I already know what I'm going to creat for it. Let's just hope I can remember in a month, ne?

I also hear a rumor that the wonderful Dawn Embers will be participating, along with Tessa Conte, Mia Hanson, and an entire host of writers. If you're not, you should. It'll be a lot of fun ^_^

So...go sign up, what are you waiting for?

And...

TLIF! WOOT!
(Thank Loki It's Friday for those of you who missed that day)

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Twitter Trends & Two-Ton Toes

I actually have nothing to say about toes, but I amused myself with the alliteration anyway. A couple of days ago, I had the amazing and fantastic opportunity to start following God on Twitter. I have to admit a small level of disappointment. Apparently this is a Judeo-Christian god and not actually Loki. Still, wise(ass) guy, check him out. Last night, Lucifer started following me on Twitter. Once again, a small amount of disappointment, because I expect this isn't actually Lucifer, but really Satan or maybe Hades.

This digital representation of one devil or another claims the privilege was bestowed up on me because I mentioned the concept of writing being wicked to Vampyr14 (Kate Larkindale, for those of you who prefer complete thoughts and sentences and would rather follow her blog (totally worth it, btw). I told him he followed before I said that to her, he told me he knew I would say it because he was omniscient, I resisted the urge to get into a pissing match with some vague representation of the devil, and walked away without reminding him that in his pantheon, God is omniscient, the devil is just really observant. After all that, I'm starting to suspect he's actually Hades and is mostly good just for a laugh.

And why did this amuse me on such a great level as to stream my thoughts to you about the entire thing? Because I was paying attention the day God started tweeting. I know that this is part of a marketing plan for a new book that's supposed to be a memior of God. Watching it unfold is fascinating for me on two levels. There's my bizzare obsession with all things viral (speaking of, did you see? Natalie Whipple totally unintentionally pulled off viral yesterday in a way most writers can only dream of with a touching and emotional blog post). And then there's, well, 75% of my writing portfolio. Apathy's Hero and Uriel's Fall are only two of what I decided last night/this morning would be a lot of fun to do.

My brilliant idea? Okay, maybe not so brilliant, but I'm amused by it. Stories about each of the characters I've mutated for the purpose of that universe. I figure there's got to be books in there somewhere about Loki, Kali, Herecles, Prometheus, Janus, maybe Hades, possibly even Michael and Lucifer. Though maybe not because the entire rest of the series involves them indirectly, just like I wouldn't need a separate one for Metatron.

I don't have any idea what the rest of these stories would be about. But at least now if I ever need a novel idea, I've just created five or six of them to pick from. Or maybe some would just be short stories. Oh, I could totally do an Apollo short story. And Artemis/Orion.

Okay, stopping now. I just realized a portion of this reads like a wiki article, what with all the link backs and such. I do apologize, but it's totally worth your time to visit each and every link and follow these people. Online stalking is a socially acceptable hobby, especially when there's virii involved.

What kind of gimmicks have you come across lately (or ever) that have gotten your creative juices flowing?

Are you getting tired of the questions?

Is this getting to personal?

I should stop now, shouldn't I?

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Life Lessons Learned

The car salesman I'm currently working with - nice, helpful guy, btw. Probably the only car salesman I've ever met that I like - can't remember how to pronounce my name. I've corrected him many times in the last three days. "No, it's not Lo-ra-lie (despite it being spelled that way), it's pronounced Lo-ra-lee". Doesn't matter. Even two minutes after he hears me say it, he still forgets.

I don't care. Not enough for it to matter. I care that he found us the car we were looking for in our price range. I care that he's gone above and beyond during the sales process, despite the fact that we're getting the car for 30% less than sticker, and he's probably making diddly-squat for commission.

I've been pondering this because I've been thinking about perspective this morning. Things kind of sucked in November. That's what I keep telling myself and moping about. The whole "Poor me" self-pity game.

Except they're not all bad. It's all a matter of perspective. I had four short story acceptances. One on a submission I'd given up on. I got a great new boss at work (the old one was good too, but it's always nice not to transition down). I had two stories printed and will be able to pick the books up next time I'm at the post office. Two more coming this month.

And I finished one and a half novels. And I'm relearning how to spit out the words and not care about self editing in the first draft. I'm relearning the joy of actually telling a story instead of fretting over sentence structure and description and pacing all before I even have the entire thing on paper once.

And that's not such a bad thing.

What were the high points of your November?

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The Tick Tock of the Clock is Painful

I'm getting a new car today *fingers crossed*. The bank still has to approve the vehicle I picked out, but I'm thinking my chances are good. A few years after we moved back to Utah, we went through a strange streak of car buying. We had a new one every year. Well, new to us. Three years in a row we traded up.

Even at the time, it seemed like an odd thing to be doing, especially since I'm not a huge car freak. So on trade #3, we actually kept it until the end of the lease. The first and last time we leased a vehicle. But it made sure we stopped trading upsidedown on cars. And when the lease was up, we ditched the car (because at under 36,000 miles it had needed more maintence than all of the other cars I'd ever owned put together - never buy a Chrysler Pacifica). And paid cash for the next cheap vehicle.

Which has seen its final days about a year and a half later. At least for us. It's not that I'm a fan of buying cars, like I said. I actually really despise car dealerships and outside of the first car I ever owned, have yet to feel like I didn't get screwed by a car purchase. Last car would have been the saving grace, if it hadn't fallen apart for the reasons it did.

So I'm really nervous about this one. Because it's all worked out so perfectly so far. They had the car I wanted, the financing (so far) has gone smoothly, and the timing was spot on. So yes, I'm nervous because it's all going well. It's the pessimist realist in me.

I'm just going to have to wait it out, though. Worrying about it won't get me there any faster. Kind of like sending out submissions. I have two different short stories. I sent one to a place that used to have a very fast turn around time. Very fast as in, the first time I submitted to them I got an answer in five hours. The second time...a month passed. And then two. And right as it was creeping up on three...acceptance!

The other is at a place where they actually say on their website that they're more than a year out on some responses. It's a story that I love that hasn't had any luck anywhere else, and it's a publication I love and would celebrate to see the two in the same place. So I submitted knowing I maybe waiting twelve months or more. So now when I look at the number of days it's been out, it doesn't seem like it's been that long. Submit and forget.

It's been a hard lesson to learn, but after two years of submitting and fretting, and checking my mail every day, I'm almost getting the hang of it. Or at least, getting better at pretending I don't care ^_^

How do you handle the anxiety of waiting? Distraction? Fretting? Something else?

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10k In A Day Blogfest - NaNoWriMo...Success

So if you haven't seen yet, there's a new pretty little picture on the right side of my blog. On Friday I crossed the 50,000 word mark on my second November WIP. It's not done, nor is the first, but after Sunday it's pretty close. So I made it in 7 days. I have no idea how, and would not ever recommend starting on a brand new novel in the middle of November if winning NaNoWriMo is your goal. But the rush sure was fun.

So yesterday, Anastasia V. Pergakis hosted a 10k in a day blogfest. The goal was...well...to write 10k words. I watched the twitter festivities around it, but didn't participate. It crashed my web browser :-P And while I didn't get 10k written, I did add another 5k or so, bringing my current total up to right around 60k. (plus 28k on the original, temporarily abandoned story).

So if you have a moment, make sure you click back to the original and comment on everyone elses snippets when they're posted. And I know I promised no more snippets of my WIP's, but this is part of the rules, so I'm obligated ^_^ (blogfest and all that ;-).

I have no idea how Zander became an ass, but the character leaped onto the page this way and I adore him for it.

Contagion

Kenzie moved to stand off to the side of him. Not enough to block the view of the TV, but enough to make her presence known. She held out her hand. “Hey. Sorry you had to track me down at home. You should have texted me or something. We could have met up later.”

Zander finally focused his attention on her. Well...she didn't know if focused was the right word. His gaze kept drifting back to the TV. He stood and shook her hand. “Yeah, I don't really do that. I'm fond of things like punctuation and complete sentences and verbal communication.”

She didn't miss the snide in his tone, and something inside reacted. She suppressed it though. That asshole thought he was better than her. He had no idea that not only was this the first class she'd ever failed, she was only at school thanks to a generous academic scholarship. She bit back the urge to let her intellectual side take control of the conversation. “I hear that works for some people. Should we figure out how this is going to work?”

He finally turned his attention to her, eyes never leaving her face. “I have finals right now, too. I'm doing this as a favor to your professor. We'll study on my schedule, and you'll make time because you're the one who screwed up. You've already eaten into half an hour of the first session with verbally jacking someone off or whatever you were doing in your bedroom. So we should probably get started.”

Anger and embarrassment screamed through her veins and she felt her cheeks grow hot. “You arrogant-”

He held up a hand, pressing a finger to her lips. “You need me to pass. I don't need you for anything but brownie points.”

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