Theace and butterflies..

So in Takka City I have a character (I love you Theace!) who is deathly afraid of butterflies (long story). I saw this on Hank Greens blog and instantly I heard Theace in my head, screaming out in sheer terror and basically dying on the spot of a heart attack. Yep.

Character drop..

I made a decision recently regarding Keepers. One of my fav characters has to be sidelined. I love her, I love her story, I love every tragic thing about her.. but.. honestly she is taking up space. The story can 100% proceed without her (so far). Because of that I am going to stream her scenes and remove her (for now). This is totally subject to change if she ends up serving a real purpose. It breaks my heart to make it sound like she is useless, because I don't believe her to be.. but for now it is not her time. So, Kariya, I hope you will forgive me. Your time will come, I believe that.. but for now you need to leave the pages until you can return with a shining purpose.

Michael Palmer has a new book coming! (And there is a CONTEST people!!!!)

Some of you who have known me a long time know I love this man. Some of you new to my life will take pause and wonder, because I don't talk about him much lately. See, I had a passionate love for his novels for a long time and have read almost all of them.. until ... ... one book came along that I despised. I tried. I tried SO HARD to love it. But I didn't. I wanted to. I couldn't. So I gave up about 1/3 of the way in and walked away from it, broken hearted. And for some reason I let it get to me far more than it should have. I was not being a very good fan. Sometimes we get disappointed, but if we are always, otherwise, thrilled with the author, why would we turn our backs? I have no excuse. And now I feel so bad for it. But he has a new book coming and I AM EXCITED!!! I mean, like super excited!!! It's almost like falling in love again. I haven't even read the book yet and I am bouncing off the walls!

Confession: One of his characters stays with me so hard that every single time I write a new character of my own, I recall something about Jessie. Jessie, a neurosurgeon, always kept a gameboy in her labcoat pocket. She would get stressed, go hide somewhere, whip it out, and play. I remember thinking that A) made her super cool, B) it was a great quirk while really helped bring her to life. And I always think of her when I see someone playing Tetris. I (almost) always think of her when I am writing.

But really almost everything by him is really good. Don't let my first paragraph deter you. HE IS AWESOME!

In related news, the awesome book blogger Ems is having a contest to give away a SIGNED COPY of the new novel! OH EMM GEE! If you want to enter, you totally should. This is huge. And amazing. And it's MICHAEL FREAKING PALMER!

2012 is going to be amazing. I can feel it in my bones!

2011 was a year of transition for a lot of people I know. Professionally, emotionally, relationshipy. 2012 is the year things will happen. We (as a collective whole) will live up to the dreams we talk about. We will reach out for those goals. We will find peace in ourselves that nobody else can give us. We will connect as people and build each other up instead of tearing each other down. This is gonna happen in my world. I hope you'll be a part of it.

Lions and Turtles and kids books, oh my!

When I became a dedicated author I realized my love of sci-fi was not a blessing in my gift of writing. I let me fingers flow and discovered I was a Young Adult Lit writer. So I embraced it and my writing life has been so happy.

I really do adore turtles and lions. SO much so that I have an abundance of plushies, jewelry, etc (Turtle tattoo coming soon to an ankle near you!) Some of these have taken on “personalities”. My plushie High5 even has a facebook page because my friends like to see him “in action”. Seeing his personality unfold and the stories some friends and I make up for him, I thought “childrens book!” … well…. I have a whole new appreciation for authors of kid’s books. I thought to myself “I can write 250-300 page young adult novels. A 20 page children’s book should be a snap!” How very wrong I was. It seems much harder to convey a story in so few pages and such simple words. I admire those people in a way I never did before.

My turtle and lion love will live on in my fantasy YA novels as supporting characters, but Yoda knows making them a star in a kids book is one task I was not created for. It seems our genre’s truly do pick us. 

Passions vs Paychecks

I have come to enjoy the luxuries in life such as food, electricity, running water, the interwebz.. and of course I need a roof over my head to have these things. In order to have the roof over my head I need a paycheck. That means a job.

I love my job. Let’s be honest here – I have worked many many jobs in my life and this is really the only one where I didn’t dread dragging out of bed at 6:05 in the morning. I sometimes even look forward to going back to work after the weekend is over. I truly and honestly adore my job. It pays the bills so I try not to whine about salary. I come home happy at night and we have plenty to eat – a lot of people are not as lucky as I am.

Still, there is something else in me that itches to get out. My passion for writing. I AM a writer. I am constantly writing – even if it’s just in my head. See me staring out the window looking like Homer Simpson? I’m working on the novel right up there in the ole noggin. My mind is NEVER quiet. Well, it was quiet for about 20ish minutes on that cruise I took last week but that’s a teeny teeny part of a 4 day “relaxing” cruise. My mind is too loud for relaxing.

When I do have time to let my brain free onto paper I will find myself in any number of lands with any number of people. Basically, it’s write or die.

Being a full time student again (gotta get that Masters degree!) and a full time employee has really put a damper in my writing time. I still have some, but not nearly as much as I wish I did. I enjoy learning in these classes, and let’s be honest about me.. I just love learning. I would be a full time student if I could get paid for it. But it’s really cutting into my writing time. Most people whine about their social life suffering. Lucky for me my social life doesn’t exist. But my starving novelist life does.

Some people risk it all and run off to Hollywood with $28 and the clothes in their backpack hoping to make it. Some people do. Most of them don’t. I can’t run off to Scholastic Press and camp out hoping some agent will hear my thoughts and sign me up to write a novel.

So I plug along in the freetime I find. Write today, edit tomorrow, do nothing for 3 weeks because papers are due and an event is coming at work and whatever else life thing is happening – then I write again and don’t write again.. it’s a never ending cycle.

Some day I know I will finish an editing.. and then.. then I begin camping out and pimping my books all over town.