Skipping Steps

Have you ever been in a rush to get somewhere and started skipping the steps to get up them faster?

I've done it. Steps are annoying, the faster up them, the fast I'm done with them.

But there are some things were you can't skip steps. Not successfully. Like the steps towards getting published. 

Write the manuscript.

Edit it.

Edit it some more.

And some more.

Find some agents.

Write some queries.

Now it gets a little fork in the road. Either you get an agent and get published or you go back and edit some more or you give up on that story. For now.

This is what I've done:

Write the manuscript

Start editing it

Find some agents

Write some query letters

Write the next manuscript

Go back to editing.

Wait--what? How the heck did I do that? Rather, why?

Heh, I know why. I get bored and jump around. I'm not going to send it out though! That would be very, very stupid. 

Anyone else ever skip steps?

Laters!

Don't Turn On The Lights

So, this didn't turn out exactly as I planned. Or even close, really. 300 word limit is sucky, but doable. Hopefully the story came out all right.

This is for the third campaigner event. It's called Don't Turn On The Lights. 

Here are the parameters of the story:

Write a blog post in 300 words or less, excluding the title. The post can be in any format, whether flash fiction, non-fiction, humorous blog musings, poem, etc. The blog post shouldshow:

• that it’s morning, 

• that a man or a woman (or both) is at the beach

• that the MC (main character) is bored

• that something stinks behind where he/she is sitting

• that something surprising happens.

Just for fun, see if you can involve all five senses AND include these random words: "synbatec," "wastopaneer," and "tacise."   (NB. these words are completely made up and are not intended to have any meaning other than the one you give them).

I got tacise and wastopaneer in there, but not the synbatec and I got exactly 300 words, according to my Word document

Vacations were for sleeping in. That was some kind of rule of thumb, wasn’t it? Obviously, someone didn’t tell Veronica that. The sun hadn’t even come over the horizon and she was already walking out of the front doors of her hotel, the Hotel Tacise. She’d picked it because it sounded French. But what did she know? She failed language in high school. 

The sky turned a faint shade of pink over the water as the sand crunched under her feet. She spread her towel out and plopped down, wiggling to make a comfortable hole for her butt. 

The shades of pink and orange kept her entertained for a few minutes. And then the treasure hunters, or wastopaneers as she called them, began to break up the horizon and the silence. 

She blew air through her lips. What the hell was she going to do now? She looked like a moron sitting there at six in the morning in her bikini. Oh well. After this week, no one would see her again. 

As the sun rose higher and got hotter, something new tickled her nose. It reminded her of the day the freezers at the supermarket stopped working and all the meat went bad. 

Her schedule was just open enough that she could search for the offender and move it away from her. The sand burned her soles as she stepped off the safety of her towel. 

She walked aimlessly for a few minutes before a collection of buzzing caught her ear. She changed her path, doubling back the way she had come hours before. 

Then she saw it. 

The scream left her throat before she even registered the empty eyes and melting skin. 

Maybe next time she’d go to the Alps. Maybe next time she’d remember to sleep in. 

I'm not too happy with it, but it will do.

Enjoy?

Laters!

Holy Sheez!

Look at this. It's something I'm sure quite a few of you have seen already, But holy sheez! That low? Already??

11 days?? I am so not ready! It doesn't feel like it's almost NaNo yet! I--I don't know what to say! I don't know what to do!

I was just looking at the NaNo page and happened to see that and it took me by surprise. It was shocking. I mean, I have a story somewhat ready to be told and I have my homework planned out so that I'll be done with it all before November even starts so I don't have to worry about it. But... 11 days? 

I'm kind of... fearful of this.

I failed last years NaNo, made it to like 8,000 words or something like that. Maybe a little more, but no where NEAR where it should have been. But this year I think I can do it.

But 11 days? I need more time!

Is anyone else ready for NaNo? How many of you are doing NaNo?

Laters!

A Second Post

But I HAD to post this

Source 

Today is my Birthday

My party, while I didn't mean it to, had a theme. The theme was pirates. I had pirates on my cake, pirate cupcake paper things (you know, the paper cup things), pirate flags in the cupcakes, the party favors were hand made pirate themed necklaces, and I was wearing a red and white tie with skull and crossbones on it.

But I did not mean for this to happen. I decided last night to buy some pirate figurines to put on my cake and the cupcake liner things I had seen at work for weeks and just wanted them. I decided on the tie this morning when I found it tucked amongst my stuffed animals on my bed. The necklaces were decided on a week ago. I just picked the different things and threw them together for my birthday. My friends were all like "Why didn't you say there was a theme to the party? We would have worn something piratey!" And I was like "There is no theme..." And they were like "There's pirate themed stuff everywhere. It's a pirate themed party!"

I do the exact same thing with my stories. (You thought this was going to be a post about my birthday, didn't you?) I never mean to have a theme or a message or symbolism. I take some characters, I put them in a situation, I make them do certain things. Normal things. And I normally come up with these things at different times. Like I'll think of a situation that would be interesting to explore (like my delicious cheese cake). Then some time later, I'll think of characters (pirate figures FTW!) for that situation. And sometimes, I'll have a basic plot in mind already (cupcake thingies) and just need to use it. Then I put it all together in a story and BAM! Awesomeness (sometimes, lol).

Then I send it along to my betas and they come back and they're like, "Jesi, you have a theme here! You  have a message!" And I'm just like "Huh?"

I didn't put that there. I didn't even think of that!

Sometimes, I'll even get to a scene and be like "Wait! That links with with something that happened/is going to happen!' And I didn't even think of it that way til I wrote it. Then me and my characters are just like 

Like, my latest manuscript, I had originally thought it was about peer pressure. At least when I first thought it up (it changed so drastically since then). I scraped that thought quickly and just typed away. I sent it to my dad and he comes back and tells me I've got a theme going on here. I don't recall what he said it was (he told me on the phone rather than writing it into my critique or something, so I can't recall what he said in my somewhat tired and burnt out state. But I'll edit later when I have the chance to ask him) but I totally didn't do it on purpose! It just... happened. (Sadly, the theme in my story was not pirate themed).

Does this ever happen to you? How do you react to it? 

Here are some pics from my bday!

The party favors sitting in the cupcake thingies

Cupcakes!

Pirate cake. That's a dead guy laying down right there

Me and the cake

Me and my best friend trying to get all the candles lit(there's only 23 but it looks like a bonfire!)

Blowin' out all that hard work

That guy that's blurry, his face caught on fire. Looks like his face got shot off by that cannon

Laters!

Don't you just love?

(There's going to be no Friday Fave today. I don't have anything for it )

Don't you just love when you get an idea for a post (or anything, actually) and it's so awesome and you know everything you want to write, but you don't write the idea down and when you go to write/do it, you can't remember it.

I had this awesome idea last night for a blog post. It was so awesome, and I know it was. But I was in bed, trying to fall asleep, and I was like 'I'll remember this, it's too obvious to forget.' So I didn't write it down.

And now I don't remember.

But it was such a great idea! I'm so sad!

Anyways, I wanted to say something so I didn't seem completely dead. Been really busy with work. Working at a fabric and crafts store during Halloween season is INSANE. But I love my job.

I'll get something real posted soon.

Laters!