Sunday, July 31, 2011

Six Sentence Sunday 7 31

Thank you to http://www.sixsunday.com/ twitter #sixsunday and the brilliant idea to get our book blurbs, no matter how small, out there.  Here is my first contribution from my current YA Work in Progress

Cindy made the third lap around the block in nowhere Nebraska with the crappy foreign car we picked up in Missouri.  Again, past the Johnsons store and the row of fast food restaurants she drove before taking a sharp right on main street.  We saw no zombies and that meant this time we stop for gas.  Avoiding the slow ass zombies is easy, hard part is getting the damn gas out of the pumps.  What all movies failed to put in reality is that you must pay to pump.  Without that darn credit card swipe, you may as well lie down with bottles of ketchup and mustard as the zombies approach.

Want to comment, leave a comment; want a comment back, leave a comment.  I'm like the penny jars at the register but you must take to receive.  Happy Sunday!

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Fantasy Paranormal Thesaurus

Yes, 5 am and I'm awake and #amwriting.  I was trying to think of new words to describe the ‘undead’ and became stuck.  Turning to the good old thesaurus, I get

undead
 - no thesaurus results

Really?  Throw me a freaking bone here.  I’m the boss….need the info.  My fantabulous BFF @JynnipherOlbert http://jynnipher.wordpress.com/ said I need a fantasy paranormal thesaurus and per Google'ing

 No results found for "fantasy paranormal thesaurus".

Ok, Jynnipher – let’s start one.  Game on!

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Twitter

Recently I jumped into the Twitter universe as @laurathejane and I have enjoyed it.  Yes the more people I follow the more tweets scroll across the screen but I like following and being followed.  Plus there are fantastic real people on Twitter with sense of humors and bad days.  The # hashtags are fun for me too.  For reference in my search as I wrote this, I found two interesting websites from Twitter’s help on hashtags and the 3rd was a Google result:  http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/susanorlean/2010/06/hash.html  New Yorker Hash story that seems to explain it well (love the Freudian twist – that’s soo me)
http://hashtags.org/  Yeah type in any hashtag and it gives you the usage, though not the meaning.  Search #FF and you will see the Friday spike
http://tagdef.com/ you got it – Hashtag Definitions. 


#amwriting #amediting:  Common ones that I use - fun to do a search and see what ppl say around those hashtags.

#askagent:  I've been witness twice to agents I follow that have opened up to #askagent and I have jumped for joy.  Question I asked if it would hurt me if I publish a YA book, and then try to publish an Erotic Romance.  Was great to follow the #askagent chat that night and found another writer with the exact question.  The response for those that wonder, was that no, it should not hurt, just that some agents don't support both genres.  Before you wonder, I'll have a different pen name if I am that lucky to be published in (any) two different genres ;)

#writer:  I will do a search off this occasionally.  It can offer some creative ideas or general funny nonsense. 

#agent:  See the #writer description, and take the tweets with a grain of salt since there are real estate agents, sports agents, etc.

#WW:  I’ve seen this one primarily on Wednesdays and the descriptions I find could mean ‘Writer Wednesdays’ ‘Writers Worth’.  Both seem to mean the same thing by listing a few names of writer types to follow. 

#FF:  Follow Friday.  It is like the #WW, but think of it more as just people you would suggest are worthy to follow (aka non-bots)

#writingtips #writetip:  Yeah it is self-explanatory on these two.  Take this with everything else on the internet – grain of salt and half-full glass.  Most tend to be links to honest blogs or it could be a site to promote their mad editing skills for only $1,000 your manuscript is ‘almost guaranteed’ to get an agent.  I do see more good than bad from it so far.

#sixsunday:  Honestly, this is a big reason why I wanted to blog.  Sure everyone wants their books read, but not very ready to just send my book or post it for anyone to read that shows interest.  I want to be cautious, though there are times I read what came out of my twisted mind and I want to share.  Here goes… http://www.sixsunday.com and you can see a list of participants with a link to their 6.  Go to the FAQ section for more details.  Also linked on their About section is a great explanation at http://sfrcontests.blogspot.com/2011/01/what-is-six-sentence-sunday.html

#queries:  Sometimes you can see helpful tips, other times it’s a comfort to know you are not alone in your quest for ink and paper.  Sometimes you get information on database queries so don’t freak if it does not make sense.


As I run across in my tweeting any additional writer type hashtags, I’ll update the post here.  I think the most important thing is show respect since at any point people can block you.  All the same, you can block anyone you want as well.  Feel free to leave a comment with any other # you feel worthy or if I missed the definition of the above.  #iamonlyhuman

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Oh no, not another blogger!

Yes, another blogger!  So what is my goal here?  Do I want to amaze you with my cookie baking skill, my prime parenting, or dog walking abilities?  Maybe if I had those skills yes, but I don't.  What I do have is a love of books.

Back in 2009, I read 219 books.  I read all of Charlaine Harris, Laurell K Hamilton, Christine Feehan, and I can keep this list going forever.  Taking 4-6 books at a time from the library each week confirms that I can I read fast, yes, do I retain every bit of information?  Not exactly, but I enjoy reading and getting involved in the stories.  Then it hit me in January 2010 - my little notebook of authors I had finished each of the series I was into and now was waiting for the new books to be released.  Talking to my BFF Jynnipher (love her - decades of friendship here and she's a must follow http://jynnipher.wordpress.com/ ), I admitted that I had a story idea that was running in my head for the past few years.  I like vampires but not happy how everyone portrays them.  Honestly, do they all have secret lairs and fight the bad vampires?  So I started my first book, then I was almost completed at 70k+ words later and as I thought about the next book in the series, I decided to rewrite book one.  So I did, I rewrote book one and hauled arse to get it complete before the 2010 National Novel Writing Month http://www.nanowrimo.org/ challenge.  November 2nd I finished the reworked first book and Nov 3rd I began the second book. 
Since this time, I have completed the second book, edited the first book, edited the second book, and started a *few* other projects.  I’m sure Jynn and LA, my ever faithful writing sounding boards, are laughing at few.  You see I have 11 other story ideas with word counts that range from a 28 word ‘She’s this and he’s that’ blurb to two 33,498 words of a different idea.  Since January 2010 I have written (drumroll) 287,867 words into documents, subtract the 4 books I’ve been working on for the vampire storyline and you have 124,204 words that are not fang related.  All the books so far have been romance genre well except one, my YA apocalyptic novel that has some romance elements but nothing like the others.  I am sending out queries on the first book while working on whichever character is knocking the loudest on my brain to get out onto the paper.  April 2011 I took my notebook of authors and series and I made a page with my own books and listed the word count as I shed a tear over the joy.

In this time, I have found a collection of helpful writing links, from word counts suggestions for genres, tips for making your character’s voice sing through the pages, and some flaws.  I’m positive there are thousands of other links I am missing, but I will try and give you a list of what I refer to and why, You have my solemn blogging vow that I will try and help you with the sites that have helped me.  I will also attempt to get in on this #sixsentence Sunday theme for writers and I look forward to feedback!  And yes for reference, the dog with her tongue sticking out is the family dog Lori.