Fish People

 

We're fish people, not because I want to be...
This post talks all about people and pets and rejection.

Flipped

This looks awesome!  I can't wait to see it, it looks like it might actually live up to how awesome the book is...I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Query Test

This site is so cool, I just found out about it and I'm already obsessed.  You submit your query for other writers to review, it's done on a point system...so in order to submit your queries you have to read and review other queries...it's kind of fun.

I wish that the comment section were larger, because I find I want to give people more advice...but oh well, most people who have reviewed my query haven't left comments, but one was so helpful!

Check it out.

Bedtime stories... abbreviated

Around our house there have been many stalling techniques used lately, by baby pearl, in order to not go to bed...

One of the them is to yell 'Bredfast!' (or Breakfast) and run to the highchair and demand to be fed, only to throw applesauce/cereal/yogurt etc. on the floor.

another is to say 'Elmo Show!', in which I reply--No sorry.

Or the last one is...'Story!', even though we just read three. I am a sucker for books though, so I had to come up with a short cut to make the bedtime routine a little quicker.

Brain Cloud

    title="Wordle: noche">

Wordle is the best thing I've discovered all day. I'm so excited! I found out about it on this blog post in reference to finding out what words you over use...and need to get rid of when editing you MS, so I've been having fun.

It was awesome to put my manuscript in there...I didn't post that one... but I need to review my use of the words:

Back
Picture
Looked
Going/go
time
eyes
around
get
asked
like
Know

So I've got my work cut out for me! But that was an awesome suggestion, because how can you kill your 'little darlings' if you don't know what they are?

This is the word cloud for this post:

It was the best of Birthdays, it was the worst of Birthdays...

Today is my Birthday.  It has been a fabulous day, my husband cleaned the house after I went to bed last night, baby pearl slept the whole night, my friend got me cupcakes from a really good bakery, a billion people wished me happy birthday on facebook, we had a birthday dinner on Sunday with my in-laws, Hubby and baby pearl took me out to eat last night and we played at the park.  My parents/siblings are having us over for a cookout tonight.  S'mores included.  I've gotten calls and cards and presents.  And it's my special birthday...I am twenty five on the 25th.  It's been great.

But it seems even more great in comparison to how the last couple of days have been... Baby Pearl has an ear infection, so we have all been in sleep dept...she woke up at 5:40 yesterday after staying up late and wouldn't go back to bed (it didn't help that husband and I stayed up late watching Hulu).  I dropped a brand new jar of jelly on the ground...it shattered while making Husband breakfast/lunch--he was in a hurry to go to class.  Hubby is stressed with his intersession class he's taking, he's also still working like a dog at his job, he worked a double on Friday, and the night shift on Saturday and still woke up at 7:30 to go to church on Sunday.  I'm pretty sure I broke my pinky toe on Sunday, it's a nice shade of purple--good thing Husband is a Paramedic, he know's how to fix boo-boos, although I'm sure I could have buddy taped my toes myself, it's nice to have a professional do it.  The house has been a massive wreck, because with a screaming kid and a messed up foot, cleaning hasn't been a priority. 

But with all the craziness going on, today has been really awesome.  And I feel so grateful for the twenty five years I've been given...I have so much.  And even though the last few days have not been fun, nothing was ever really that bad...it's easy to get frustrated about the little things, but you look around and realize your problems aren't much to complain about when other people are going through things that are much worse.  I have an awesome husband and daughter, and great friends and family around.  I have an awesome life and can't wait to see what the next quarter of a century brings around.           

I will figure this out...

WIP update, poco a poco

83,661 words

I need to chop more, but I've ran into more plot inconsistencies... which is so frustrating, because if you change something one place you have to change all the others...duh

The real problem when you change those things, you realize it won't work anyway or something is better and you have to go back and fix things again.

And when you miss one that's why you have readers who are like 'what the heck is going on here?' because the whole work is jumbled around in your head...

 Sometimes I can't remember where a scene happened in reference to another and I'm like wait, did he already say that?-does she know that yet?-did meet those people yet?

So the next editing plan I have is to write another synopsis...an updated one so I can keep the plot straight of when things happen and where I need to add things about characters or actions.

I feel like working on this book is never going to end... but I have to remember...poco a poco it will get done.

The giving cake

This is such a cool cake!  I read this and went here to check out cakes with children's books themes... it makes me want to take a cake decorating class.  Who knew books could make cake even better?

Heist Society

Title: Heist Society
Author: Ally Carter
Rating: PG
What I like: This book is squeaky clean, super fun, and really well written. I can't wait to get my hands on the next book and see what happens with the romantic subplot. I really like the characters in this book, they are definitely three dimensional. I read on her website that the rights have been sold for a movie--and I'm totally not surprised. This book would make a fabulous movie...let's hope they get it right!

Synopsis: (I pulled this off Ally's Website) When Katarina Bishop was three, her parents took her on a trip to the Louvre…to case it. For her seventh birthday, Katarina and her Uncle Eddie traveled to Austria…to steal the crown jewels. When Kat turned fifteen, she planned a con of her own—scamming her way into the best boarding school in the country, determined to leave the family business behind. Unfortunately, leaving “the life” for a normal life proves harder than she’d expected.

Soon, Kat's friend and former co-conspirator, Hale, appears out of nowhere to bring Kat back into the world she tried so hard to escape. But he has a good reason: a powerful mobster has been robbed of his priceless art collection and wants to retrieve it. Only a master thief could have pulled this job, and Kat's father isn't just on the suspect list, he is the list. Caught between Interpol and a far more deadly enemy, Kat’s dad needs her help.

For Kat, there is only one solution: track down the paintings and steal them back. So what if it's a spectacularly impossible job? She's got two weeks, a teenage crew, and hopefully just enough talent to pull off the biggest heist in her family's history--and, with any luck, steal her life back along the way.

True Confessions of...

Here's a nod to a sixth grade Freudian slip from Pig-Tail-Peg's Reading/Writing Workshop...

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle was one of my favorite books in the sixth grade...I hope the student didn't put the 'Susan Boyle' comment down on a quiz!

Lady Gaga

So I'm not a big fan of Lady Gaga, but this is one of Pig-Tail-Peg's students...and I love his version of Paparazzi:



The internet is an amazing thing... This kid put his video up on youtube and today he was featured in the Ellen show. Craziness.

My WIP

I have edited my manuscript multiple times:

1 wrote it last may-august
2 re-wrote it in the middle of writing it, finished it and gave it to someone else
3 re-wrote it, gave it to someone else
4 rewrote it,
5 then rewrote it again, because I had a break from it, gave it to someone else
6 and rewrote it
7 Now I'm working on tightening it.

After this I have to give it back to one of my editors, and then to my original reader... After I go through those edits, my plan is to send it out to the world... I only hope it's ready, but there is a point when you have to move on, for better or worse and that time is rapidly approaching.

My MS was 87,685 (I still have a few edits that need to be made that will probably add to this word count, but hopefully a few will take away from it) Needless to say my MS feels a little heavy...

I found this really helpful for tightening my MS...

I've searched for:
Just (got rid of 458 words)
Guess (got rid of 253 words)
So (I'm still searching this but I'm up to thirty four words)

Not all words deleted were 'just' 'guess' or 'so' but it helped me tighten lengthy phrases around those words...I feel lighter already...

86942 words, my goal is to get it down to at least 80,000 because that's still a long book--that comes out to about 320 pages... oy! If I can get the story to work in less, that would be great, but I've also heard of people over editing their manuscripts--cutting, tweaking, chopping their words into oblivion...and I love this story too much to let that happen.

So fun

Ah, Sunchips

So my little brother, No Beard, made these commercials for a contest, I'm kind of glad he didn't win, because I can post them on the blog now! Baby Pearl and I are in the first one with No Beard, and then Flying Dutch Pig, Grandpa Pearl and Sasa are in the second one...I love it, too fun.

POW (Pearl of Wisdom)

I was just having trouble coming up with the subject of an email I just sent, so I clicked on the subject "button/generator" in my yahoo account, it came up with:


for a fish and finger pie

the honey that burns

Hazards of storing plutonium in Tupperware

I'm going through a shrinking spurt

My motivational speaking tour

I like eggs

Do Not Read

re: please don't call me a chinchilla

This is the first email of your new life

None of which seemed very appropriate, so I settled for 'hey'. Original, right? But at least my message probably wont get sent to the spam filter.

I'm kind of sad I didn't put: Hey, panini head! But that didn't quite fit either, because I'm not exactly Gordon Ramsay on my favorite episode of Kitchen Nightmares.

Sammy Keyes and The Hotel Thief by Wendelin Van Draanen

Author: Wendelin Van Draanen
Title: Sammy Keyes and The Hotel Thief
Genre: Middle Grade, Mystery
Rating: G

What I like: Sammy is such an awesome protagonist, who is kind of a hot head, but you are totally on her side when anything isn't going her way. I like the characters and also the fact that this is a mystery (even though I thought I would totally figure it out, because hey it's a middle grade book, it did have really good clues, and I didn't know who the hotel thief was up until the last moment).

Synopsis: Sammy Keyes gets bored in her Gram's apartment, well that the excuse she gives for pulling out the binoculars. When Sammy is surveying the neighborhood, she sees something that makes her that makes her focus in on the Hotel across the street. There's a man in the window, holding a purse, wearing gloves and pulling out a wad a cash. He's a thief, and stranger still, Sammy's pretty sure she's seen him before. When the man looks out the window, his eyes zero in on Sammy, and she does the first thing that comes to her mind, she waves. Now Sammy must find the Hotel Thief before he finds her.

Pearl of Wisdom

I decided what I want to be when I grow up, pretty much...Wendelin Van Draanen. That lady is amazing.

So I don't really want to be her, because hey, I like me. (Shout out to Flying Dutch Pig)

But I want to do what she does, because it's about the funnest thing I could ever imagine. Wendelin is an author--so she writes, she goes around the country visiting schools and giving presentations/rock concerts, she inspires kids to read, write, exercise...and you get paid for it! Isn't that craziness...that people will pay you to have fun.

I got to see one of her presentations this last week, and I am inspired. She told amazing stories (voices included) about her road to getting published, how much fun it is to create characters and write out things you never get to do in real life (like punching the bully at school in the face, or sneaking into places) and then she got up with some of the seventh graders and sang a rock song she plays in her family band...called thing two. How cool is that? (p.s. that's the guitar I'd have to get if I were in a band)

I am truly impressed and inspired. It took Wendelin ten years to get published, but that's why she is such an amazing writer, she really has crafted her talent...and although I really hope it doesn't take ten years, the biggest part of her message was don't give up and it will happen. Be persistent. So that's what I plan on doing.

So about being persistent, it doesn't matter who you are or what you write, people will always criticize... this is hilarious:

The fifty best author vs. author put downs of all time:

Mark Twain, according to William Faulkner (1922)
A hack writer who would not have been considered fourth rate in Europe, who tricked out a few of the old proven sure fire literary skeletons with sufficient local color to intrigue the superficial and the lazy.

But, of course, there must be SOME writers we can all agree on as truly great, right? Like Jane Austen. Or not:
Every time I read 'Pride and Prejudice,' I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone. --Mark Twain

AND

This made me laugh so hard...probably because I do some of these things Alot :)

Peal of Wisdom

I just read the best thing ever...

Well, in an ideal world this is what I would do anyway... It's hard to keep everything balanced in life. I try to do everything, and I worry about it so much that I do nothing. So thank you Wendelin Van Draanen, I think I'm going to try to make myself do the dishes, even though I really don't want to.

So I keep wanting to really delve into my next project, but I just got a whole set of edits for my novel--and even though I really want to wait for the other set of edits to come in, so I can compare notes before I start re-writing, it's just so dang hard. I love my story, and my characters and it's hard to put them in a little box and build a different world. I finally get why people write series. Writing is so addictive. But it a good way.

I'm going to go do the dishes, come back and start writing...because that new project is looking pretty bare-boned, and it's time to start fleshing it out.

Pearl of Wisdom

"Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Escribir, por ejemplo: "La noche está estrellada,
y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos."
El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta."
Poema XX Pablo Neruda

This is one of my favorite poems. We had to recite it for my Spanish Phonetics class, it's amazing how it flows. I love it.

Poetry is often sad, and about various aspects of love which reminded me of another quote:

"To my mother Candy, who taught me that love is the best part of any story"

Stephanie Meyer

This is in the dedication of The Host.

So I'm brain storming, because I'm trying to wrap things up with my first novel-I'm still revising, but it's time to move on to my next project.

Which to be a good story, has to has to have a love story. I totally agree with Stephanie Meyer's mom. I'm trying to think of a book I've read that hasn't at least had a sub plot with a love story... Even To Kill a Mockingbird, which doesn't have an obvious romantic subplot, is essentially a love story(love for mankind).

I have at least three different novels that I'm considering to write, but it's almost like I have to nail out who the love interest is and what my romantic plot/subplot will be before I ultimately decide which story has to be told. Which is slightly daunting but amazingly fun because I get to delve back into high school-without actually attending, and get the low-down on what it's like to be a teenager from my fifteen year old informant/sister.

So here's to love and to brainstorming...

And I just read this, which cracked me up.

Pearl of Wisdom

"For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
the saddest are these: It might have been."
John Greenleaf Whittier, Maud Muller

I just heard this quote recently, and took a moment to read the poem--and it just amazes me what people can do with words. So I've been thinking to avoid these words(it might have been)what am I going to put on my bucket list:

*go to Spain
*publish my novel
*go skinny dipping (jk mom)
*Be on an episode of Sesame Street

Which brings me to the next question--How do you make it happen?
I realize I need to go finish "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch, but other than that I also want to be realistic, I just read this stat off of an agent's blog (one who is on the top of my list to submit my MS to):

"In the first three months of 2010, we received 1,297 queries....I didn’t sign any new clients in the first three months of 2010. Still, just to get a full request? We’re looking at only .2% of all queries received."

Yaouch .2% let me type that again .02%!@#$*

So I guess I need to get my nose back to the grindstone, rework my query, and probably get two new readers--And then book a flight to Spain.

RBP