My Own Love Song

O.M.G! I can't believe it!

Ob Tampons wrote a song just for me! You have to check it out!

http://www.obtampons.ca/apology

200 Follower Contest

Slow and steady wins the race, folks.

Right.

And urping in your mouth is tasty.

I've been lingering at 199 followers for, oh, I don't know, FOREVER.

It's all good. Cause I'm super patient. We writers have to be.

* Checks email for the hundredth time today *

* Paces *

* Checks email again *

I excell at patience. It's part of the book business.

* Wonders when I'll be published *

* Stalks agents and editors *

* Remembers not to announce that *

Anyway, in the spirit of patience my blog, I'm going to have a 200 follower contest. I don't know what it is yet. It's so epic, it's a sekret.

So yeah...if you want to be part of that epicness, you should spread the word. Yup. That's what you're gonna wanna do. Cause you're kewl like that. And you like me. You really, really like me.

* Ignores awkward silence *

Forsaken Harbor - Summer Chronicles

So I'm a total boob. This post was supposed to go up on Tuesday, March 6th but...it didn't. Instead I was sitting in the hospital at my mother's bedside as she recovered from major surgery. It was quite the hurried eight hour drive there last week. I took my eldest daughter with me who happened to be a great companion and we spent many hours at the hospital helping my mom in her recovery. But, that's a story for another day.

Today, I have Forsaken Harbor - Summer Chronicles, Book Two by Laura Kreitzer to share with you. It's a very rare thing for me to do a book review, so this is a real treat!

Blurb:
The Secret Clock Society has infiltrated every aspect of the government. You can’t hide from them, you can’t out run them—the only choice is to surrender or die fighting. Well, Summer’s found her voice and her confidence. She’ll fight if necessary, but for now she’s on the run. And the only place that can offer her refuge is the one city that’s been devastated with disease and death. Full of savages, Forsaken Harbor holds her life on the edge of a knife. Is there still hope to be found here after all? Or will survival mean savagery?

I hadn't read the first book before reading book two (I know, DUH!)but one of the things I admired most about Laura's storytelling is that she was able to guide the reader into Summer's life in this story with elaborate detail. Even though these details helped catch me up with everything that's happened in Summer's life, they didn't draw me out of the story, either. It was just enough to make me feel as though I'd been there with Summer all along!

Even though Summer starts the story as a mute from the abuse she'd suffered, she finds her voice. With that voice, I found her to be a strong heroine, one to root for! Supporting characters and love interests (need I say, Gage?! or Jullian?!)had me melting... :) Suspense and action made this a fast-paced story that held my attention the whole time!

I don't like to give too much away....but I'll leave you with a few choice words:
murder
romance
secret societies

Need I say more??!!

So what are you waiting for? Go read Forsaken Harbor. Now!

Laura is the owner of Revolution Publishing, a small house dedicated to books for young adults. Her company is definately one of the up-and-coming publishers and I encourage everyone to check out all their titles!

Wrong Genre

A few days ago I was prompted to read over some WIP's, most of which I'd shelved for a bit. And after reading a few pages of each of them, I realized a few things:

I LOVE reading YA.
I suck at writing a good YA voice.
I enjoy reading MG...but not quite as much as I enjoy reading YA.
I EXCELL at a really believable MG voice.

So what the heck does that say about me? Do I need more practice writing YA? Should I read more MG?

Honestly? I dunno.

Then there's the fact that YA is an easier sell than MG (even though there are so many reports of agents and editors searching for MG, I hear of MG deals a lot less than YA).

So there's the age-old question - do you write for the market?

Well, you could. I could. We all could. But why?

Because the market demands it? Sure. But you also know the answer to that - by the time you've written to the trend, it's usually long over.

Should you write what you know? Write what you love?

I'd wager those are the better options.

So I'm going to keep writing MG because I'm good at it. I enjoy it and look forward to opening those documents. The best part is hearing other people laugh when they read my MG stories. I really like making people laugh. I think that's the best part of MG. It's acceptable to laugh, still. Maybe that's why I'm good at it...I need to laugh after all the stress I've had this last year.

Have you ever discovered that you were writing the wrong genre? What did you do to remedy it?

Aging Gracefully

I thought I was aging gracefully....little to no wrinkles, no need to color my hair (yeah, that blonde you see on the sidebar, yup that's au natural), and I think I'm pretty hip. Uh, cool. I mean kewl. Or epic. Yeah, that's me. I'm epic.

So, as any epic twenty-something (yes, I'm twenty something for the tenth time or so, what's it to you?) would do, I watched the Grammys. And it was all good. Loving Paul McCartney, Taylor Swift and Katy Perry and everything inbetween.

Until.....enter Nicki Minaj. And I was all WTFreak?! And WTHEck? And Say wha?? I honestly thought my ears might bleed at one point. I mean, what was that?



If you understood it, please do elaborate. Cause I'm stumped.

I'm The Alpha and Omega

At least according to my dog. She's a bichon. You know, one of those fluffy, little white poofballs.

They're so cute and adorable you just want to "...hug 'em and pet 'em and squeeze 'em....and name them George."




Except ours isn't so little. She's what most would call fat.

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Mostly because she eats too much. But also because she's lazy.

We prefer fluffy. It's nicer and doesn't hurt her feelings.

And we do have to be careful with her feelings since she's what we affectionately call an emotional black hole.

But, at least she's smart enough to recognize the Alpha around here.

Good dog.

I Made a Chocolate Torte. Like a Boss.

I like pie.

I like cake.

I like chocolate.

This is why dieting never works for me.

And this is why you should never try making Ghirardelli's Mocha Torte when you're PMSing.

Theirs:

(photo courtesy of http://ghirardelli.com/bake/recipe.aspx?id=1075)


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Mine:

Yeah, dude! It's a mother-spitting-image of the real deal, dawg!

I rawked it!

Then I ate it. Like a boss.