940 chirps of randomness.

"Hey, I just met you. And this is crazy. But you've got cookies. I mean come on. You've got COOKIES."

My characters are about to start daring each other to eat sashimi. This could get ugly.  They sound like they are dying.

Listening to my Deceptive Soundtrack while writing Ocean. Talk about two different moods. xD Ominous VS Poetic.

This is the only picture I could find that was worth uploading.

Everyone is writing romantic plots into their stories today, and for once I am not.

#YouKnowYouUseTwitterTooMuch when you start responding to emails in two sentences.

My Mother dubbed me the Sun Tea Steeper of the household. I love sun tea. <3

The Mighty Macs. Seriously good. What's up with all of the awesome 1970's true story movies suddenly? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mighty_Macs (I apparently watched the short version on Netflix. Figures. It was still an awesome movie.)

Why you should research before writing: a group of unihabited islands I was going to use in a novel was recently inhabited as a gay-only kingdom. o.0

Still trying to figure out how not one but THREE Nick Jonas songs got on my NaNoWriMo playlist... o.0  No, I have not gone mad. I deleted them off of the playlist shortly upon finding this information.

Watched Vanishing of the Bees. If you're skeptical about the negative effects of GMO and pesticides, watch that movie. Icing on the cake so to speak. Food Inc & Fresh are good movies, too.

I don't like it when a TV show leaves a season with an engagement cliffhanger. *grrrrr* Example One (I really like the music in this one):

Wondering if I should strand my character on a cay for a chapter. Thoughts? ...No takers? Okay, no sand bar character abandonment, then.

Chocolate covered cashews. Om Nom Nom.


I'm not going to say who's ahead, but the indie authors are kicking butt in ALL categories of the VerveLitAwards. 


"Are you sure you want to log out?" No, I was just kidding.

So apparently no one knows how to spell Lady Antebellum or Downton Abbey. 



Not only do I need Heartland intervention, I need twitter intervention (twittervention). I use that thing WAY more than necessary, and it keeps me from updating my blog!
 Do you like the new layout on my blog? I like it.
 Sorry for recycling my tweets, but that's what's been going on with me lately. I think it might be a healthy decision to stop going on there for a day or two. Just a thought.

titles are little buggers

 I have not been very exciting lately, have I? The truth, my dears, is that often writers are nothing more than short glasses-clad research freaks with lots of ink stains on their long fingers. It could very possibly be a crime that pulp fiction writers get published before the slave laborers.

 There has been a whole exciting pile of nothing going on lately; I'm afraid I got sidetracked working on a novel that no one will probably want to read so I'm writing for myself.

 My predicament is often that I work on too many stories at once. When I really get excited about a scene that I wrote, I often beg my friends to read them. While I'm expecting some feedback along the lines of...

       "I think Mairy is a little quiet in this chapter, you should make her chatter as her father cuts the wood. And I don't like how slow it is in this spot, if you'd cut it out or add a different adjective it would lend a nicer transition. The tree description was my favorite part!"

...it is often a hollow and dull remark of "Oh, I liked that a lot." or a complete scrutiny of grammar rather than real help, and so then I feel like a completely useless writer and don't want to work on a story again until I can make it so that when one reads it they fall out of their chair, sobbing and blubbering around that that story changed their life forever and they love it so. But I don't want to completely give up on the story because I love it, so it goes to the back of my head.

 At the moment I'm detailing Deceptive, battling against opinions with other writers about the world building elements of my Christian Sci-Fi novel (writing messages boards are privately thought of as psychological battle grounds), doodling around with my own private novel, and writing a line or two on my typewriter.

 This is the quandaries of life some times. Not to mention that it's very hard to work on a near-death scene when your dad is singing a very, very dated Spanish disco song at the top of his lungs while he makes coffee. Eh. Don't tell him I brought that up.



 Camp National Novel Writing Month June starts on Friday. Hope to see you there!

10 Excuses

Source: school.failblog.org via Jeanine on Pinterest

 Before I get into Part 2 of How to Become a Better Writer, I'd like to tell you that there are now 10 things you don't have an excuse to procrastinate on while you should be writing.

1) Spider Solitaire.

I'm here to tell you it's okay if you don't play another game.
It's okay that it's the only fun game that comes with every computer, you don't need to play it obsessively. At least when you should be writing.

2) Twitter.

 I know that this one of the most amusing websites since NaNoWriMo.

After all, you're only trying to challenge yourself to write an extremely effective sentence that makes you look smart because you smushed such a deeper meaning into such a small sentence and also makes you look like a complete idiot because you had to use 'R' instead of 'are' . But no, this does not count towards your writing time.

2.5) MySpace. If you have one, you are too old to be this easily lazy. Get off your tush and get a real job, you probably shouldn't be a writer. People who have a MySpace still are at least 27.

 The whole reason I got a Facebook and Twitter is because I was trying to promote Verve Lit Awards, but why bore people to a coma with ONLY drivel about your latest book review? Why not start a personal social media set as well and tell everyone about pink slime and the horrifying fact that Kashi has GMOs?! Why not tell them that you just got your tonsils out on Monday and there is a really gross ooze coming out of the scrape on your brother's knee? Come on, everyone needs to see that five trillionth self-portrait from Instagram!

If you agreed with that last statement, at least read THIS blog post to return some sanity to your mushy brain.

3) "I don't have a plot!"

Of course you do.

If you stick someone in a castle mote that is closely guarded by man-eating squirrels, you have a plot. Okay, someone swimming in a mote is not a plot. But it's a darn good start to a plot. If you can write at least one or two scenes, you can have enough inspiration to build into a full idea. You can build on that small idea by asking questions. Why is the guy in the mote? What century is he in, if this isn't an alternate-historical comedy? Is he coming out of the castle or leaving it? Why couldn't he have just taken the drawbridge? Did he fall off?

4) "But I just went to the library and I need to read! I thought you were a proponent of reading excessively?"

 Don't even ask me that question.

5) And another thing. If any of your other excuses are internet-related, just stop right there.

I said stop.

Do I really need to find a picture of a Stop sign?

Do I?!

6) "I need to eat. When am I supposed to do that?!"

. . .

 When your Mommy tells you to, that's when.

7) oink. No, this isn't related to #6, I was trying to clean my keyboard and typed oi, then decided to add the full nk.

8) Doubt.

Don't doubt, just write. Have a conversation with God about this if yah have it.

9) Insert one of your biggest distractions here.

It could be a sibling.

Or a dog that howls like Yoda. (I am not saying that 4th quote. Not ever.)

You may need to go on a fly kill with your beloved animals, because that fly buzzing around your desk is super obnoxious. And your dog has been known to take out a lot of bees and flies. (After I typed this a fly came to attack my head. Two or three full dive-bombs.)

It could by all of those pretty fonts and format options at the top of Microsoft Word. (You can colapes that bar, y'know.)

Whatever it is, think about it long and hard. If it's a necessity, like going hunting for flies, then just do it. Just please stop . . .

. . . 10) Procrastinating.