Dragon’s Mark 2009 Beacon Unpub – 2nd Place Finish

Okay kiddies, Results are in as the title of this blog outs, Dragon’s Mark came in Second to Bad Girl.  Congrats to Bad Girl author for her win.  Those of you who have followed this blog know we struck up a conversation cheering each other on to the finish.  When I said I was hoping for a one two finish I was more thinking me one, you two?? **grin**  Next time babe’  lol.

One of my judges shared that if she picked up a book and found that it had a me’nage theme she would put it down.  What can I say?  This is not the book for you.  I have two heroes and one heroine.  There’s no cliff hanger on how this is going to turn out. At least she/he didn’t say she/he would throw it at the wall.

No judge bashing here.  For the most part judges work very hard to make their comments relevant and educational.  And in all fairness, just because our tastes in literature differ she/he had some important helpful things to say in her specific comments.

So Yeah, Dragon’s Mark 2nd Place.  First contest for this book.  Second contest for me.  I’ve put this piece two more contests with more up to date edited versions.  We’ll see how it goes!

Hoggetowne Medieval Faire

Dressed for the Faire

Sabra and I attended the Hoggetowne Medieval Faire.  Her birthday is early and February and this is our second year enjoying the tradition of the fair.  Last year we were simple tourists.  This year we DRESSED UP.  I borrowed a lovely gown from Killian the story teller.  Sabra, not wanting to be left out of the “Adult Dress-up Day”, ran me all around thrift stores on Saturday to find her a dress.  We ended up armed with the soft taupe lacy dress for her under dress and two drapery panels.

Scarlet O’Hare, Carol Burnette and Julie Andrews eat your heart out.  We made her tapestry overdress out of the drapes.  It was going to be pretty chilly so she layered a stretchy taupe turtleneck under the whole thing.  She looked sensational.  We had a lot of fun Saturday night laying Killian’s dress out on the drapes to use as a pattern.  We laughed as we sewed with plans to do more bigger better next year.

This morning dawned for the faire, clear and C.o.l.d.  We met Madeline and her husband at  the faire.  Aren’t their costumes fantastic?  A group of their friends made us welcome but soon we all lost each other in the packed Sunday crowds.

Sabra and I loved to see the jousting and sword fighting.  I could sit on a bench and watch other costumed fair goers walk by.  We listened to beautiful music through out the fair and interesting shopping at the merchants.

And What about those fantastic Scottish drummers and bag pipe player.  Woo Whee.  They sounded great and what a show.  You can never go wrong with men in plaid kilts and dark muscle shirts playing bag pipes and several varieties of drums.   We were on the side of the chess board where the apparent leader of the group entertained with emphatic drum beats and occasional celtic kicks that were tastefully not quite high enough to confirm what those young men wear under their kilts.

Albannach

Didn’t you just want to run your fingers through his long hair.  Be calm my inner cougar.  We had the fun of standing behind several of his inebriated fan girl groupies.  Their reaction was almost as entertaining as the music.  Strong tribal beats had the crowd clapping, dancing and kicking up their own feet.

Ah the faire.

http://www.gvlculturalaffairs.org/website/programs_events/HMF/medieval_index.html

From Organic Pantser to Etherical Plotter

I am beginning my fourth WIP while wrapping up edits on my third.  I am the rookie writer with training wheels.  The process has been a journey fraught with highs and lows like a manic depressive on steroids.  My work is brilliant, my work is crap.  I’ve just decided that, writers, we’re all neurotic as hell.

The first book I wrote was totally organic.  Of course, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.  I can write a book.  I speak English.  I can read.  Of course I can write a book.  Delusional child.

Okay, so I wrote a book.  I wrote and wrote and wrote.  This monster was an epic fantasy romance with a plot and characters so wierd it would never NEVER find a sympathetic market.  Think of the most outrageous wall banger you’ve ever read double it for ick factor and you aren’t even in the same neighborhood

Book two came along a little better.  I’m even considering letting the hero out from under my bed if he promises to be a dream weaver and let me turn his suspense contemporary into a paranormal.  I’ve shown him a few cool skills I can write for him and I think he’s down with it.

Okay, Okay, cut to the chase right?

I wrote that book two over the course of  eight months.  I re-wrote it with three different kinds of plots, four endings and six beginnings over the course of the next two years.  I’m getting ready for the next go round with the paranormal/suspense/romance plot.

Wouldn’t it have been easier if I had actually plotted the thing from the beginning?  Ya think!

Okay, book three.  I tried to plot.  I really wanted to plot.  By now I was extremely weary of writing myself into blind alley’s.   I used colored stickies and a way of plotting that Roxy StClaire suggested.  I felt like I was really getting a grasp on it.  Then my stickies fell off the poster and I wasn’t sure where they all went.  Ah me.

I used power point and sorta plotted after I wrote.  It gave me a chance to plan ahead a little bit, to the end of the head lights.  I could search out pictures to inspire me and put them on slides.   I found my hero’s their cars, their house.  Pretty cool.  I could research for hours.  But that’s not getting the book written.

I participated in our chapter’s “Write the D*&M Book Manuscript Challenge.”  I did finish the book.  I love the whole thing.  It needs tightened and edited.  I’ve been tightening and editing since….oh October.  Insanity.

I wrote the query and suckyoposis.  I guess I should say I am writing the query and synopsis.

I sat down this past week with my bestest buddy and CP.  She gently showed me the error of my organic ways.  The synopsis I wrote isn’t necessarily reflective of the book.  Oh, it is what I want the book to be.  However,  I have any number of threads that didn’t quite get pulled together at the end.  I had a very willful secondary character take over the last third of the book.  I have a collection of loverly scenes that do absolutely nothing to advance the plot, develop characterization or build the world.

WAAA I don’t want to cut them because they are soooo lover-ly.  Sorry, got to go.  I know. I know.

We got out a slew of colored stickies and started weaving, cutting, and listing scene need.  We moved things around.  Dug deeper.  A few scenes to write but mostly tweaking here and there and some cutting.  I am psyched.  I finally see the book I wanted to write.  I can do this.

I have stickies taped to 4 X 6 index cards and notes all through the manuscript.  Yet, this WIP is more real, my dream is more alive than ever before.  I think I can actually write a novel.

Book four?  Well I’ve made some notes.  I wrote plot points on index cards.  I think I’ll try to write the synopsis first to get the big picture figured out.  Then back to stickies and index cards.  Now if I can only get the characters to cooperate.  Book four will give Kiernan a chance to tell his story now that I’ve convinced him he can’t hi-jack book three.

Plotting for survival

Contest Final

I am so thrilled.  Word just came through that Dragon’s Mark has finaled in the Beacon Unpublished Contest hosted by First Coast Romance Writers a chapter of RWA.

It is the third book I’ve written.  This is the second contest I’ve entered.  Last year I entered the Beacon with a Contemporary Suspense manuscript.  This year I wrote Dragon’s Mark and entered it into the Beacon contest as well as the Golden Heart.

I am doing the happy dance and squeee like a fan girl.

Fingers and toes and eyes crossed for the final round to be announced in Feb, 2010.  Not to mention how much I hope it will do well in the Golden Heart.
Squeeee!!!

Being a Survivor

Being a survivor is a process.   Similar to our writing we continually edit and re edit toward a finished product.

As a Cancer survivor  I am an evolution without end.  The end would be bing bing bing, game over.  I’m not rushing toward a final destination.  Even the word survivor indicates a continuation, an endurance of all things.

So, my trek continues, thankfully.

November/December has brought the blessing of beginning reconstructive surgery to begin another phase of healing from the impact of the big C.

I prepared for the surgery over the past couple of years.  I began weight watchers to learn to eat nutritiously.  I didn’t care about losing weight or thinking about a DIET mode.  I just wanted to control food for a change.  The added benefit was I did loose about 40 pounds.

I realized the scar from the cancer surgery was a continual reminder of all the awful stuff that had happened to me during that time.  Now the scar is gone.  I am beginning to feel whole again on the outside.  Perhaps that will allow me to heal and feel whole on the inside as well.

In the mean time I thought I would accomplish so much writing while being off work on medical leave.  That hasn’t proved to be the case.  However, my CP and I are moving through edits on our individual finished manuscripts from last year.  My WIP with the working title of Dragon’s Mark is getting my attention for editorial overhaul and polish.  At the same time I am plotting and sketching notes for the next in the series, Dragon’s Soul.

Much like my fictional heroines I am strong, resiliant and in search of my own path, my own destiny, my own happily ever after, one day at a time.

The Beacon Contest Calls to Me.

Like the Aztec gold on “Pirates of the Carribean”.  The Beacon contest calls to me.  It is sponsored by my home chapter of Romance Writers of America, the First Coast Romance Writers.  http://www.firstcoastromancewriters.com/

I entered the contest the first time last year and had a ball.  My writing sucked big time and the judges let me know that in the kindest, most constructive way imaginable.  Don’t look at me like that, I’m serious!

The contest organizers did a great job of selecting and training judges to score fairly and say meaningful things, picking their battles and not overwhelming this rookie writer with EVERYTHING that SUCKED about my writing.  They managed to do a wonderful job of focusing on what SUCKED the most, concentrating on the GRAND SUCK of the contest piece if you will.  Their positive comments gave me hope and their realistic suggestions of how I could suck less were an inspiration that guided my self education this past year.   Truthfully, I really don’t think they said sucked even once.

A few weeks ago, I went back and looked at the piece I submitted last year, to help me think about preparing for this year.  I had to laugh.  Were the judges BLIND.  OMG  they gave me a FOUR for THAT?  Did they think it was freaking CHRISTMAS?  I wouldn’t have given that a two!

Now another year has passed.  I have a new Work in Progress that I have just finished the draft on.  I’ve polished the first 30 pages as much as I possibly can given my level of expertise, or in moments, my lack there of.

There is good and bad with that.  Every other day the WIP is utter brilliance, the likes of which rival . . . well everyone, anyone you would ever want to rival.

I am so ready to submit this new baby in the contest.

Which means, every other day from brilliance/dazzling/ wow I’m so Cool, my WIP is utter bull cookies, cracker, chips. . .  Can this woman write a grocery list?  She probably dictates her shopping needs into her phone!  well you get the idea.

I’m so not ready to submit this new baby in the contest.

Hope springs eternal. Wouldn’t it be cool to finale or. . . squeeee!!! WIN?

Despair is forever. Wouldn’t it be cool to get comments that aren’t embarrassing, even if the embarrassing ones are actually true.

Each fledgling manuscript leaves my hands a hatchling baby trying to spread its wings and become a soaring eagle instead of a dirt bag suckyopolis with lousy conflict, unbelievable plot,  flat one dimensional characters, and confusing meaningless dialog that drops a goose egg in the cosmic karma of the universe.

*big sigh*

I’m not leaving my day job anytime soon.100_1178

Free Range Children

I have realized I am probably one of the last free range children in America.

My summers lasted forever.  Rising early, I’d leave the house to momma shouting, “Don’t Slam the SCREEN DOOR!”  The idea was to escape the house before the oppressing heat of the day won over the fan valiently trying to blow air in through the front screen door and other windows throughout the house.

No Virginia, there wasn’t any air conditioning.  Hot air blowing across you skin was preferable to no breeze at all.

My mornings began with anticipation of a day of freedom and exploration ahead with the knowledge that I didn’t have to be home until the sun was setting and dusk began to settle over the land.  If I misjudged my time I could always expect my mom to stand on the porch and hollar my name in a kind of long distance yoddle.  I ranged like the timber wolf miles and miles of forest bringing me back to the den at night.

Our house was five miles outside of town and surrounded by woods and forest.  I explored the cow pastures, found skulls and bones of cattle remains and other creatures.  I discovered all manner of wild flowers.  I came across abandoned cabins in the woods with long over grown kitchen gardens of onions and herbs.

Some days took me to the long ago mined out limerock pits.  The caverns and hills became my play ground.  I discovered artesian springs in the bottom of the mines.  Hollow rocks, sticks and white clay were my play things.  I could run and jump the rain eroded gullies.   I can still remember the sounds of rattle snakes startled from their sun basking when I galloped through pretending to be a mustang jumping the ravine to escape a predator or cowboy bent on rounding up my herd.

Old trash piles became archological digs finding cool bottles and trapplings of civilization left behind long ago.  Ok for a 8 year old long ago was last fall.

Wildfires raged through our woods just about ever summer.  After the fire was a great time to explore.  I had very mixed feelings after a fire.  The sadness of a favorite tree burnt.  The bigger older trees that were my real friends usually survived.  I guess I had seen the fires come and go season by season enough that I recognized the cycle of life and knew from witnessing the evidence of it that following the fire would come interesting and sometimes unexpected new growth to discover.

I loved feeling the powered ash under my bare feet and how black my hands could get from playing with the burnt wood.  The amazing patterns the ash and chared wood made, facinated me.   The firebreaks the forest rangers cut through the woods with the heavy equipment became my new roads to travel.

I found gopher land turtles, birds, critters of all shapes and sizes.  Streams, lakes and rivers.  I could travel all day and never see another human being.  Birds, insects, wildlife, plants and thoughts were my companions.

When I got tired I would lay in the grass and watch the clouds.  I learned to listen to the silence and hear the world around me, birds singing, insects and the rustle of wildlife scurrying in the underbrush.

Now we contrive to plan activities for children to gain the experiences that I came so freely to me.  Inquisitiveness, problem solving, cause and effect, attentiveness, critical thinking, appreciation for the world of nature, time mangement, planning, discovery were all generous gifts of growing up as a free range child.

One Happily Ever After At A Time

Phone pics 036My Son in Law and Daughter came for a visit this weekend.  He is a marine stationed in North Carolina.  He will be shipping out this fall for Afganistan.  We worry about him and pray for his safety.  This was his opportunity to come home and say good bye to his family and friends before his remote deployment.

My daughter will come home and stay with the family while he is over seas.  They have only been married a few months.  It is sad for her to think that he will miss their first married, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Anniversary.

We hosted a BBQ at our house in the country.  I met more of his family members than I could imagine.  Everyone managed to set aside their differences and get along.  We had a great time all and all.

I really enjoyed seeing my daughter happy and in love.  There is peace in seeing that she found her HEA.

Picture 067

Blessings Come in the Most Unexpected Ways

I had a farm accident.   That is a good way to describe something I did that on closer examination reveals I am, in fact, TSTL:  too stupid to live.

I had a really busy week.  My farm help (daughter) was gone being a volunteer staff member at a camp.  I had trapped the horses on a corral section of grass with pole panels.  (If you’re not into livestock just imagine a gypsy rigged temporary pasture and you’ll have a close enough visual.)

I had to be free to do a day long canoe trip down a 12 mile stretch of the river with teens and wanted to weezel out of mucking stalls at five a.m.  Great plan, great river run, great week.

Saturday arrived.  Things were looking up farm help was home.  We celebrated by sleeping in a little bit.  I had plans in the big city for later in the day.  Birds were singing.  Iife was good —-which just goes to show things really can go from joy to crap in the space of seconds.

I let farm help sleep in a little longer and took her dog out.  We live WAY out in the country so I’m still in my night shirt.  Ok don’t go there shirt is a relative term it did in fact cover all the essentials when wearer is in an upright verticle position.  More on this later.

I got outside with the dog in time to see the horses stepping over and through a section of jerry rigged pseudo gate fense panel that they had some how pushed down.

No problem right?  Famous last words, yes.  I shoved the dog back in the house, being smart enough to know dog chasing loose horses would be a problem.  I ran to get grain to catch said beasties, two horses and a pony.  The ring leader was my daughters yellow line back dun who looks like the Disney Spirit horse and hummm thinks like him too.

We were making progress rather smoothly until Satan himself must have jumped out of the ground and went “hooga booga” at the horses because they took off at a gallop around the house out the front yard and down the dirt road toward the main highway.

Visions of “Horse Whisperer” flashed through my head as I ran, feed bucket still in hand, through my bedroom back door, grabbing pants off the floor pulling them on as I ran screaming through the house that the horses were loose, out the front door and down the road.  The pants part of this senario turned out to  be the only smart thing I did all morning.  That and perhaps shutting the dog back in the house.  For get the prostetic bra, I’m one boob flapping in the wind and it’s not a pretty sight.

I head down the dirt road hoping that by some miracle they’ll come back realizing I have yummy food or at least dear God let them stop before reaching the highway.

Prayers are answered and they did stop at the nursery, a stone throw from highway with roaring semi trucks crusing at 80 mph.  One of my “families” I work with in the community saw loose horses and pulled over to help.  We easily managed to catch the big horse and the pony which left Shiloh the yellow line back dun loose.

He had slipped his halter and was as free as the aforementioned Disney Spirit horse.  I bribbed him with grain and sent farm help back to the house for a halter.  This is where she fulfilled the unwritten items on her farm help job description, i.e. can never find what you need when you need it and hense is never where they need to be when you need them to be there.

Shiloh is finishing the piddly amount of grain I brought as a bribe and I thought. . . I use that term loosly. . . that well, “I’ll just hold him across his face and mane (hair running down his neck).  He’ll think he is caught and stand here.”  Wrong O Sherlock.  The devil is no longer after him.  Satan has full out possessed him and taken over.

I knew this horse wasn’t particularly heard bound and wouldn’t stay with the others just because they were caught.  Beside Satan told him playing in traffic would be fun for kicks and giggles.  He took off again.  This time with the girl who is making every effort to prove she is too stupid to live running along side him.  Oh shucks this must be an out of body experience because oops that is me!

What was I thinking?  Horse Wrestling a new olympic sport?  I’m going to stop 1300 pounds of muscle?  Even funnier for those of you who know me.  I’m going to KEEP UP running next to a four legged creature possessed by Satan?   NOT.

The gentleman helping me is hollaring “Let him go.  Let him go.”  Which is what I would have been yelling if I had been him.  That would have been the sensible thing to do.  Certainly it was destined to happen as he ran faster and I didn’t.

The result of my left foot hitting a soft patch of sand semi hole clenched the deal and I went literally flying ass over kiester.  Yes, I was rolling so fast and hard it seemed like I had two butts.  I ended up with mud and dirt in places I don’t want to describe.  Thankfully I had pulled on pants so the gentleman helping me couldn’t graphically see where all the mud ended up infiltrating.

Said Satan possessed horse ran on toward the highway, turning at the last hair curling instant to circle around one more time.  Farm help had still not arrived with the extra halter she had been sent for.  Why amd I not surprised?

At this point,unfortunately, the folks helping me won’t give me the gun in their truck and provided a piece of tow strap instead.  Now that I am hoping on one foot, dirty and cursing the Demon inspired horse stops and lets me catch him again.  Does he really think I’m stupid enought to go round two with him?  Scratch that, I’ve alread proved that I am probably just that dense.

With the tow strap wrapped around his head he becomes the placid gentle giant his owner, my farm help, loves so much just in time for her to drive up with the equipment I sent her for, where the hell have you been, so long ago.

She saw a picture of peace and calm with her lovey dumpling standing there quietly with a tow strap wrapped around his head, and me at this juncture aparently, I’m the one possessed by evil.  I don’t know what the give away was, probably the comment about “If I only had a  gun.”

Now, I have three whole days off to do nothing but keep my tendon and ligament stressed/strained/torn foot up on a stool, on ice and eating motrin like M & M’s.   Three days of unexpected, un interrupted writing time.  Oxycodone.  I don’t need that.  I laugh in the face of pain.  I have world building awaiting me,  heroes to torture, heroines to torment.

Muhahahaha.

Note:  I’m recovering well from the accident.  I’ve been off crutches for a couple days now and only hobbling as I walk

Shadow and Fang

Found a cool blog by Kait Nolan.

I think I’m on the pathway from pantser to plotter. OH MY

Shadow and Fang

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