More! Bigger! Awesomest!

Are we excited yet? We've got two. Count em! Two! Really huge blog fests coming up. One in the next week hosted by Unicorn Bell. Sign up! Check it out! Competition man. It's the stuff of life. This one is fairly up front and simplistic. There are pictures offered as prompts. Write 1000 words using those pictures as prompts. Post your story on your blog during the dates of the Blog Hop, then people will vote on UB. The winner will receive Fabulous Prizes!

  And then we have the Hugely Ginormous Can't even put into WORDS how Big this one is...The A-Z Blogging Challenge.

I'm #781!

I am very excited and nervous about this one. The challenge of this fest is you write a blog post about the letter of the alphabet (A-Z) Once a day through the Month of April, excluding Sundays I believe. (Except were starting on April 1st...Note to self!) Ack! So! That's a Lot of Posting! Lots and Lots! So, while yes, I have been doing what I set out to do with this blog, which was write Every Day. (YAY ME...*dance*).  Quite a bit of the time it's on my WIP, or on Character Interviews, or working on plot development. I only post maybe twice a week. I tried to get 'ahead' and write some blogs in advance. (Being all smart and stuff.) I got to E. Oh well.  I still have a week left...yipes. *cracks wip* ...get it...ha!

I feel like I'm back in college and it's the week before my Senior Project was due for my Creative Writing Minor. This project was supposed to have been worked on all semester long and have consisted of 800 to 1000 pages of our writing. Not necessarily a full manuscript, could be chapters. Could be poetry. Could be Anything. I had been working a HUGE amount for the past month for the catering department (as that was my first love and really what I would rather have been doing at that point in my life!) Came down to the last week. And I had about 600 pages. Crap. It is not fun banging out 200 pages of Something when you are Not inspired. Mostly poetry. Truly awful poetry.

My teacher told me I should not write poetry.  Ha!

Smack me I'm Irish!

 

Wow! I almost missed it! How did that happen? Oh, life you sneaky bitch.

I absolutely LOVE Corned Beef! Does anyone know the origin of this tasty treat being the meal of choice for Irish families (and not so Irish families) on this most Green of Holiday's?  Yah. Me either. Google it on your own time. Pay attention to ME!

The Traditional Boiled Dinner was always one of 'Those' meals in Culinary School that could be counted on to Immediately spark a full on debate as to what the Traditional Meal actually included. Personally, I think it all had to do with what part of the country, and therefore what part of Ireland you (or your ancestors) had hailed from. But maybe I'm thinking way too hard about it.

A collection of Shillelagh 

For me, this most wonderful of comfort foods was simply a slab of corned beef, carrots, onions, potatoes, and cabbage. That's it. Simple. Wonderful and tasty. For the crazy Irish that needed a little somethin' somethin' in their Boiled dinner, their ancestors threw in a turnip or rutabaga. What! Blasphemers! Personally, I think it was these crazies that St. Patrick chased out of Ireland, not the snakes.

Turnip.

Not that there's anything wrong with turnip. On a normal day. With, you know, normal food. But it has no business with a boiled dinner.

Don't make me get my Shillelagh...

Tease Me Tuesday

OOO! I love these things! Not that I read books that are especially mind blowing in their noteworthiness. But I personally feel that they should be shared and passed on.

So the rules are as follows:

1) Grab your current read. Hmm. Well, already we have a problem as I am reading 3 different books. Ok. We will put the names of them in a hat and draw one at random! Ok. Done! The book I am apparently currently reading is Under the Jolly Roger: Being an Account of the Further Nautical Adventures of Jacky Faber. (Phew. Say that ten times fast) Written by L. A. Meyer.

Ok.  2) Open to a Random Page. Yah. See. I read on a Nook. I know. GASP. Blaspheme! But I will say this, with the Maine Library online..saved me a Buttload of Money! It was costing me $2 PER book through inter-library loan. This? Free. AND! B&N has Free Friday Books! Awesome. I think I have actually bought one book for this thing. Anyway...I digress...my Point was...a downside.  Opening to a random page, not so easy on a nook.  Though it does have a nifty feature of a slider bar...'go to page...' I'll just slide that with my eyes closed. Ok....annnnnd....

"Yes I know it hurts. But it will hurt less than a sword point run through your neck."

~pg 148 Under the Jolly Roger by L.A. Meyer

3) Share the title and author. Which, since I'm bad at following directions, I already did. Oops.

I really enjoy this series. It's just plain Fun. YA fiction. Adventure. The girl on the cover looks NOTHING like how I picture the heroine looking...which is generally how it goes. I think these books would have done better with a Pippi Longstocking type drawing on the front, rather then the psudo-Bodice Ripper they have going on. Oh well.

Ok...now back to editing my 1000 words for the blog-fest coming up next week!  (See side bar!)

I'll get you

One of the Blogs that I follow..I may have mentioned it a few times...Unicorn Bell, put up a prompt the other day for Evil Villains. (I'm paraphrasing...but that's ok.)

Now, when I saw this prompt my immediate thought was "Crap, got nothin'." Cause, well. Got nothin'. I've never been great at writing the 'Evil' into my stories. I've been good at writing the horror, which is not the same. I'm great at gore, and guts and dismemberment! WOO! But evil? That takes a subtlety and planning and a twisted psychosis that one has to have gone to an all girls private school out in the boonies to have acquired. But I thought I'd give it a go...which leads me to another dilemma. I'm writing this book in bits and snippets! Hmm! I wonder if there's an editor out there that will take a whole bunch of shorts and just go, HEY! Look! What a great book you have...just move this here, and that there...Voila! BAM! A book! Right...  Anyway..  This is what I came up with. It's a scene that I knew would happen. The characters do exist. Let me know your thoughts!  The prompt is...


"Give me someone I just want to love to hate. The right culmination of action, description, dialogue, exposition, or narration will help you to accomplish this task. You don’t have to use all of these fiction-writing tricks, though these bonus kudos are yours if you do. Just remember that I really want to hate (in a good way) the characters you come up with!"


My response to this was...


“Just breathe. The pain will cease presently I assure you.” Livinia turned away from the small girl strapped to the stainless steel table and picked up a long glass tube, capped with a needle. Keeping her back to the girl she spoke in soothing tones.
“Now Cretha. We’ve been through this before. It’s all about the blood, darling. We’ve tried everything we can to get the machines to run on just a modicum of your cells. But it’s the blood sweetness...”  She turned back to the shivering girl whose eyes widened at the sight of the implement. Livinia bared her teeth in a mockery of a smile.”Oh, Please. You didn’t honestly believe I would give a shit about keeping you alive though this do you?” Cretha started crying silently behind the thick woolen cloth that was clamping her tongue to the floor of her mouth. Tears streaming from her wide brown eyes.
Working quickly, Livinia drew a bleached cloth from a pocket of her scrubs tying it tightly around Cretha’s biceps. After a few seconds she slapped the inside of her elbow and nodded to herself. Then, in one quick movement she jabbed the entire needle directly into the throbbing jugular in her neck. Leaning in close, she whispered to the quickly weakening girl. “Sweet Cretha. Darling Cretha. Know that your blood, your special blood is being used to power the world, sweet child. To power those machines that you so hated! That your father, and brother gave their lives fighting against! You stupid, stupid dead child.” With one final laugh, she removed the overflowing syringe, threw it in the garbage and left the cold, sterile room.  




Thoughts? Comments? Concerns? Lock me up and throw away the key?

Right on the tip of my...umm...

Words. They are a bitch. Especially when they don't behave and they just float about out there in the..um..damn it. I just had that word. It was such a good word. Space? No. Not good enough. (Now half of you are yelling at your screens, horror movie style "The word is ____!" "No! Don't go into the shed Candy! ooooooo!") But it's gone.

 Now I sit and stare at my blinking cursor for the next twenty minutes in forced writers block trying to get by this damn word. Because even though there are great resources out there for Just this situation, NOW I can't even describe the word. Can't even come up with a definition. Other then Space. Which leads my brain to "Space! The Final Frontier...These are the Voyages..." Oooo. Star Trek. Wonder what Will Shatner has been up to lately, other then those silly commercials. I really miss Boston Legal.

So, generally when this happens, I get up and move about for about ten minutes. I try not to think about it at all. Try to get my sub-conscious mind working on it. You know. The mind that wakes you up at 3:27am with answers to questions that have been plaguing you all day? "Oh my God! Darth is Luke's Father!" So I do other things, walk the dogs, read something, anything...then come back to sit and stare at the vile, evil blinky thingy...maybe there are aliens in space that have lasers and they beam them to your brain and Take words out one by one. Or Maybe there's only so much room for Brilliance in my brain! I'll go with the second option.  It sounds less crazy...

And then, as I'm staring at the tv, watching a show. Probably Dexter. Or maybe Boardwalk Empire. And contemplating the existence of Aliens and why they've decided to park their massive electricity guzzling spaceship in the aether above...my...AETHER!  That's the word!  QUICK! Back to the book...

Now...
What the hell was I talking about?
Cursor!

Tag! You're it!

I've been Tagged!  Whap! By Marcy over at Mainewords! Very exciting!  It's like taking a test you know all the answers to... I hope.  I never was very good at tests...   damn...


Ok...Here we go..stuff you never knew you wanted to know about Moi!


1. What was the first adult book you read and how old were you when you read it?  Pride and Prejudice. I was either in the third or fourth grade. I didn't 'get' a lot of it. But I remember laughing at the Mother.


2.  What is your favorite cartoon? Invader Zim. Hysterical.

3. If you could trade places with a fictional character for one scene who would it be and what scene? Daisy from The Great Gatsby. Any party scene. Really I just want to live in the Roaring '20's.

4. What is your regular job? Massage Therapist

5. If you had the power to shape-shift what animal would you choose? A Timberland Wolf 

6. Do you believe in aliens? That's like asking if I believe in Gravity...Sheesh...

7. Do you play any computer games and if so what? (no, spider solitaire does NOT count) Right now I play a fb game called Hidden Chronicles.  But I am quickly becoming bored with it...so soon, probably not.

8. Name a television show you won't miss. Dexter

9. What's your favorite sandwich? When I worked at UMaine, many moons ago, we used to make a wrap that was roast beef, lettuce, caramelized onions and a horseradish sour cream spread. It was the caramelized onions that were killer. I've not had it since. I crave this sandwich.

10. Who is your favorite relative? Why? My sisters. Because I can always go to them when something is troubling me or I need help with something or just because. Because that's what sisters do damn it!

11. Summer or Winter? Winter in the summer, and summer in the winter. Thought you'd get me with a trick question there at the end huh?  I'm WAY too smart for that!


Did I pass??  Did I?  Crap.  Who grades these things....