Amie Borst

While I try to keep my personal life to a minimum here in my little corner of cyber space, there are some things you should know. My family has been through a whole bunch of crap over the last few years. And right now, it feels like it is all spiraling out of control. Though, I suppose that's a good thing, right? Because in writing, we have a step-wise process: A - Everything is hunkey dorey for our MC...until one day.... (Dun,dun,dun!) B - They make a choice, a decision, exercise their free will and agency or an event occurs and... (WHAM!) C - Conflict arises. (Ka-POW!) D - They battle that conflict, either physically, emotionally, spiritually or even a combination of these "lly's" and out of nowhere, more conflict arises. (Whap Bam!) E - Things get a little worse.... (Sob, Bawl, cry!) F - Your character must make another choice. They can either: 1. admit defeat 2. surge forward with more power, energy and determination than ever or 3. find an alternat

I'm super long overdue to announce the winner of the earrings from my post/giveaway on April 18th. SORRY! Anyway, I thought, I'd do things a little differently... So.... EVERYONE who entered wins a pair of earrings! So who entered this craziness back on April 18th- April 22nd 2011? Well... Laura Pauling Christine Danek Eliza Jen Daiker Casey Anne N Kenny Melissa Amy Yes, that's 8 people! Yes, I'm crazy, insane and out of my mind. No I didn't include Rose Cooper . Because she's my partner in this crazy etsy venture, that's why! So why am I selecting 8 people to send a pair of earrings to? Because I heart my followers and am so grateful for each of you who listen to my ramblings. That's why. :) Hurry and send me an email (before I change my mind dawgs) at Amiegr8tstuff (at) aol (dot) com with your mailing address. No. You won't get to choose the earrings I send. Like my kids elementary school teacher says, "You ge

So it's late at night and a meteor strikes, a power plant explodes, a government-created-illness gets out of control....and WHAM! Zombies begin flooding the streets. And they're hungry. For. Your. BRAINS! What do you do? Well, if it were me, I might scream, grab a baseball bat and start knocking some heads off of some corpsified-brain-eating-mongers. But I'm not super strong. Or coordinated. So I decide the only way to really protect myself is to grab my kids and RUN! I high-tail it outta sight with my kids in tow. Only problem is - I have no food, clothing or water. ATMS are broken and I ain't got no cash. Well shoot, Vern. This is a bit of a problem. Especially since my tank is only 1/4 full. Especially since there aren't no stores open on account that everyone else has fled. Especially since the nearest water source (which I wouldn't drink from if you paid me) seems to have green fumes wafting from it. I'm so screwed. Now my kids are a

I particated in National Picture Book Writing Week from May 1- May 7th and boy, what an interesting challenge! I'd never written a picture book until now (well, actually that's kind of a lie, I did write one picture book when I was in college....wish I could find that sucker, it was pretty good!). But I'm really glad I participated in the challenge. For one - it encouraged me to do something I hadn't tried before (or, well, in a long time). For two - it was an easy goal. 500 words a day (or thereabouts). For three - it got me writing again. I've been in a funk ever since I started querying my MG book and sadly haven't written anything in a long time (and by long I mean 6 months or more). I realized that I missed writing a LOT. I mean, I knew I missed it, but the querying process beat me down so bad it took the joy out of writing. Especially when I was hearing stupid reasons for agents not liking my book. The most recent one said she wanted it to be mo