So ready for 2014!

The end is almost here for 2013! I for one am glad to see it go. Wasn't  my best year in many ways.

I don't like to share my personal life much. I know emotions come, stay awhile, then change into something better and I always feel really stupid if I share sad then get happy and think, I felt THAT? I shared it publically??

 I SO admire those of my friends who can and do, on their blogs, fb, etc. Not Twitter, tho. Those folks who whine on Twitter are just goofy. If ANYPLACE is for putting on the good-face, for nuts sake, it would be Twitter! Network there. Share your GOOD news there about your writing. Attract new readers with your posts. Share your writer friends' accomplishments. Twitter needs to be all business. (New Year's resolution...practice what I preach about that. :)

I am an eternal optimist. Always the believer that this, whatever 'this' may be, is simply God rearranging things, and sometimes it's very painful. We have to just close our eyes and hang on through the storm. Believe me when I say, I have read every quote there is to read (and am officially sick of them) and the bottom line? Hang on, it will get better.

Another, important thing. When an idea for a novel comes (and, for anything for that matter) get on it. Don't wait. Your idea will find another mind, another heart, other hands to make it happen if you don't. Example? Off the writing for one sec. I had a great idea come to me years ago for a cleaning business. Had the name and everything. It would come to me so often, tapping my shoulder and me just shrugging it off, thinking I had forever, didn't really want to do it, etc. This past year, I looked up the name with thoughts of actually doing it. Guess what? This weird name was now attached to a newly formed cleaning company. Two friends standing there smiling, just as I had imagined it would be with me and MY friend. That great name and idea swept away from me, like that feather in Forrest Gump, and found more willing hands to hold it. I believe God used it as a lesson to me. When the idea comes, believe in it and at least TRY.

So...2014, I am ready to welcome you with an open heart! This year, it will start out as devotion to God, family, friends, home and writing. That order. So in talking about books...

I have had irons in the fire on about four books. I'm feeling led to YA, young adult novels. I have always had the desire to write for boys, because novels like The Outsiders, Old Yeller, Lord of the Flies...those books and more have stayed classics (yes, for girls, too) but the boys could be boys in those books. An eleven year old boy may not understand love for a girl yet, but he will understand love for a dog and excitement for adventures and most of all, loyalty for his friends, especially the misunderstood ones.

So after all this sharing, I'm going to write. This time, my idea and my title and my story will be mine, for better or worse. This is my official New Year's Resolution. WELCOME, 2014, you already look Totes- Mcgoats awesome.

Er...

:D

Back to writing. And, a really cute dog commercial...

My novel, the young adult one, needs a major overhaul. My heart is with kids being bullied and I know I'm incorporating that into the novel more. Paper Tigers has been in my heart for too many years, loved by those who have been GRACIOUS enough to read it and give me feedback. But...it's lacking something. I think it's the heart gripping anti-bully message I need to mold the story around.

Normally I don't share what I'm going to write about, I just don't. But I know it's time to make a stand on this terrible thing that infects schools and kid' hearts and destroys lives of young amazing beautiful kids. Books are a powerful medium in which to get a message across. If my fellow young adult authors and I can churn out novels that make this message clear, lives could be changed if only that one child would know they are not alone, and they will make it.

That's my goal for this novel now anyway and I pray God will guide every word to reach at least one great kid.

The dog commercial? It reminds me of sweet Bo (except, Bo is a Fox Hound, otherwise, they're exactly alike. er...), my son's dog, who has the gentlest spirit of any dog I've ever met. Bo should be in this commercial. But since he's not, this dog is awesome too. :)

LOVE does rox.

Fashion Friday!

In the spirit of not being too authorly all the time...er...I wanted to incorporate some of my other loves into my blog. So I will do a Fashion Friday and put my latest finds and favorites here. 

I love clothes and finding bargains, like little places that no one else knows of (except the million or so others who have found it way before me - but hey jack, have they blogged about it on their writing web site? I think not).

So for my debut Fashion Friday post, I have found...drum roll please...

ModCloth

 http://www.modcloth.com/

They have awesome  clothes and, my weakness, shoes, they sell by color which I find endearing, and it's priced for all with some things $24 and some things like $124. It's an eclectic mix of old fashion meets new and bright designers and it's simply fun. And the shoes have great names like: 

This is Strawberry Heels Forever (gotta love it!) and:

BeWEAVE what you see. HA! 

Okay, so this is my find of the day. I'll get better with the presentation, meanwhile go check this out. I'll keep finding great new places so your stuff isn't like her stuff. 

Oh, and I will keep up the writing too. :) 

Starting fresh, and teen writing

First, I'm noticing that I haven't written on this blog since last year. March of last year to be exact. (cough).

I took a hiatus of sorts. My heart wasn't in it. Not the writing, not the blogging, not even reading. (cough cough).

That's all changing. Again. Bear with me. I'm inspired again, this time about teen writing. Not that I'm sure I WANT to write young adult fiction. And yet, my heart seems pulled to it. Writing is about being consistent and doing this even when you don't have inspiration (what have we learned from Stephen King if not that you have to show up at the desk and the inspiration will absolutely come, but it has to know where to find you). But also, for me anyway, I have to have that feeling about a story that makes me crazy, like I can't wait to write the next chapter to see what happens because seriously, I DON'T KNOW. I have never planned a story out. I have never had those story boards, even in my head, nor have it wrote out a storyline that simply gives me an idea of what I'm writing about. I don't even write out a little paragraph about who my characters are. They truly just show up and they show me who they are as I write.

Maybe that's not the best way. Maybe that's why I've had so much trouble and by chapter five I am lost. But what drives me with a story is the same feeling that makes me want to finish a novel:  I want to know what happens because I have grown to care about these people I've just met on pages of a book.

So, about the Teen Writing thing? An article from The Huffington Post this morning, which I'm including the link to, made me think about my own writing. I think we're either gifted to do it or we're not. And I think if we even THINK we are, we owe it to readers to at least try. These teens who write are simply doing what they love. I can bet that their first thought when they sit down to write is not how much money they could possibly make (I mean, Stephanie Meyers did it, right?) or how many writing awards they could achieve. I think they sit in the middle of their bed with Cheetos and their laptop and just start writing something they'd love to read. They write their story without too much fear of rejection, that's not on their mind yet.

This is a good plan.

Here's the HP article. Get inspired.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/23/beth-reeks-and-other-teen_n_2935560.html