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A to Z Challenge, Twixt

Tagged!

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Lucky Seven MemeWhile I was struggling to figure out what I was going to write about for today (it’s T day on the Blogging from A to Z Challenge) I was saved by Kern Windwraith when she tagged me for the Lucky Seven meme. Tagged starts with T, so yay!

Unfortunately that means I have to share some uneditted first draft-y badness, which, ya know, isn’t my favourite, but it will get the job done. Actually, I’m kinda lucky because though the section of my WIP that is covered by this meme is slated for straight-up deletion it’s not terribad and it really shows the voice of my protagonist, Tannis.

So here’s how it works:
Go to page 7 or 77 of your current MS/WIP
Go to line 7
Copy down the next 7 lines, sentences or paragraphs and post them as they are written.
Tag 7 authors and let them know.

My first drafts are written by hand with lots of crossed out parts and notes to myself. Page 7 has no cross-y out-y bits, but there is a note to myself. I’m going to leave it in. Because I can. (Notes to myself are surrounded by *** which is a holdout from when I used to draft on the computer, the stars made the notes easy to find come revision time)

Also, my lines are very short because of the size of my notebook, so I’m writing until seven lines in the field I’m typing this blog post into are full.

So, without giving myself time to chicken out or list a bunch of excuses and explanation, here is a bit of the first draft of Twixt, starting on line 7 of page 7:

I can’t take this conversation much longer. It’s all blah, blah, freaking blah. Reminds me of how it used to feel when my two best friends back home, Cindy and Lauren, would start talking about World of Warcraft. They’d be all like “We’re gonna raid Mount Doom with our PVP and DPS” or whatever, and babble on for hours, completely oblivious to the fact my eyes had glazed over at the first sentence.

Thinking of theme made me sad, so I stood behind Kasey and started doing jumping jacks. Each time I jumped I could see over the top of her hair, but Richter was doing an admirable job of ignoring me. The bastard.

Finally, blessedly, Richter and Kasey wrapped up their conversation. ***Cut everything before this point. Let’s try to start this again in a way that reveals stuff slower***

Now the 7 writers I’m tagging are:
  1. Beth Cato
  2. Amber Stults
  3. KV Taylor
  4. Clare Revell
  5. Alison Stone
  6. Damien Walters Grintalis
  7. Jonathan Pinnock

I made that list largely by going down my Twitter feed and picking the writers I didn’t think would hate me for chosing them. If you didn’t want to be tagged, I’m sorry, ignore me, if you did want to be tagged and I didn’t pick you, I’m sorry.

~*~

This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by Kern Windwraith and the letter T. If you come by tomorrow I’ll be blogging about something that begins with U, but you’re guess is as good as mine what it will be LOL

Just Stuff

Random Facts

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I got tagged to do a meme similar to this not that long ago, but here I am again. There is a meme to share 25 random facts about yourself floating around Facebook and I posted this there as well, but really, I want to add some more content to this blog so I’m sharing it here too. Maybe someone will find some of it interesting 🙂

If you’ve done something similar to this on your blog please leave me a line in the comments (or via email). I’d love to pop over and see. I really do enjoy reading these ‘random facts’ blog entries.

25 Things About Me 🙂

1. I am flattered anytime someone tags me for a meme. This one or any other.

2. I used to love riding horses but I haven’t been on one in twenty years.

3. I am ridiculously competitive. Often about the silliest things. I -know- it’s crazy but somehow that doesn’t seem to make it stop. Once in a while I can harness this power for good, though not often enough.

4. The first time I got drunk I was 13 and in a graveyard.

5. I am an atheist.

6. I almost qualified #5 with ‘This does not make me a bad person or mean I don’t believe in anything.’ I am irritated at that impulse.

7. I am in my second year of my degree. I hope to finish the damn thing before I’m 40. I’m 32 now.

8. If I won any significant amount of money I would blow most of it traveling. I want to see as much of the world as I can before I die.

9. I’m unlikely to ever win any money because I don’t play the lotteries. I suppose that means I’ll just have to earn it.

10. Jo and I got married on October 31st. It was a very small ceremony and most of the people there (including ourselves and Danica) were wearing costumes. Jo and Danica were pirates, I was a wench.

11. I chew my nails.

12. Before World of Warcraft absconded with all my free time, I used to sew quilts and do cross stitch. I miss that sometimes and occasionally think I need to create a ‘Warcraft-free’ evening to get back to it. So far that hasn’t happened.

13. The only television shows I watch anymore are Doctor Who, Being Erica and Law and Order (repeats that are on while I use my stationary bike). I don’t have time for more…see #12 for details LOL

14. I like being in my thirties more than I ever liked being in my twenties.

15. I have more book and stories ideas than I will ever have time to write. This truly makes me sad, but I suspect it may be universal among writers.

16. I have a pretty big inferiority complex about my poetry.

17. Probably 80% of the time I am on my computer my cat, Absinthe, is sitting on me, purring. Sometimes she is on my lap, more often than not, however, she is on my shoulders. I love this beyond words, even if it does sometimes make typing (or playing World of Warcraft) difficult. It’s even better when she nudges me with her head 🙂

18. Once upon a time we ‘inherited’ five kittens which were tiny and had to be fed with syringes every four hours. It was worse than when Danica was a baby because there was only one of her, and she didn’t need to be stimulated to pee. I thought I was going to have a breakdown and then Jo made me lay on the floor and let the kittens out of the dog carrier we had them sleep in. They tumbled out and ran all over me. There is nothing like a ‘kitten massage’ to restore you.

19. Absinthe was one of those kittens and one of the reasons I chose to keep her is because she liked me as much as (or maybe even more than) she liked Jo. All our other cats had worshiped Jo, so this was a pretty big thing. It may also relate back to #3.

20. I don’t have a favorite color.

21. I love sushi.

22. I wish I could think of more interesting or clever things to put here. Alas, I cannot.

23. If I didn’t have a daughter in school and a husband with a day job I would totally be nocturnal — or at least a lot more than I am now. In bed at three or four and up at noon sounds blissful to me.

24. Insomnia and I are well-acquainted. I suspect this may in part be related to #23.

25. I love Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. I listen to the soundtrack when work is being particularly monotonous and threatening my sanity. It helps 🙂

I’m supposed to tag people now…but I’m not going to LOL

Just Stuff

I’ve Been Tagged

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I’ve been tagged by Tabitha Shay to participate in a blog meme. Now, usually I ignore these sorts of things, but to be honest, I really needed a virtual kick in the pants to make myself update this blog, and I figured what the heck, this could be a fun way to do that.

My instructions were to write six interesting things about myself or my work and then recommend six other blogs for visiting. I got the impression, though the rules never said outright, that choosing writers’ or writing-related blogs would be better than not.

Okay, so six interesting things about myself or my work. That’s quite tricky really…*thinks*

1. I met my husband online on a silly photo-rating website. He traveled to come meet me in order to model for some pictures I wanted taken, and despite my best intentions I fell in love with him almost immediately. We were engaged within four months of meeting and married on October 31st a few years ago. We wore costumes — he and our daughter dressed up as pirates and I was a wench. 🙂

2. I am ridiculously addicted to World of Warcraft. Thankfully, for family peace, my husband and daughter both play as well. Danica is far less addicted than Jo or I, which I think is definitely a good thing, but it’s nice to have the game as something we can all do together. It’s not a traditional family activity, I grant you, but we make sure to do lots of things with actual face-time as well, so I think it’s all good 🙂

3. My Aphanasian novels, Swamp Story* and Shadows are about to be joined by another. I plan to write a third story set in Aphanasia this November for NaNoWriMo. “See The Sky Again” will tell the tragic story of the mountain elf A’nuntu. What makes this extra cool to me is that A’nuntu makes a small but pivotal appearance in Shadows, continuing my trend of having all the Aphanasian novels connected in some way.

4. I’m currently in the second year of a four year degree; a B.A. with a double major — Psychology and English. I am incredibly busy so I tend to take one or two courses at a time with long stretches in between. My goal is to finish it before I’m 40, and sadly it may take that long. That’s okay though, because I really enjoy the courses…mostly. Statistics sucked, but in the end I got an A 🙂

5. The only television I watch are re-runs of Law and Order while I’m working out every afternoon, and Doctor Who which we tape on our VCR (no TiVo here) and watch later as a family.

6. I enjoy cooking and baking (though I’m not very fond of cleaning up afterward) when I’m making something special, but day-to-day standard meals bore the crap out of me.

Bonus: I’m attending the World Fantasy convention in Calgary this year. It will be my first convention and I’m equally nervous and excited. Okay, perhaps a bit more excited than nervous…a bit 🙂

Now for the fun part…picking six of my favorite writing-related blogs. For the record these are in no particular order.

1. BD Wilson: BD is one of my best friends and a phenomenal writer. Best of all, she’s promised that when she becomes a world famous author she won’t forget me. Yay!

2. Carrie Jones: Carrie rocks. She’s hilarious, has an awesome dog, is running for office and is an amazing writer. Her novel, Tips on Having a Gay (ex)Boyfriend is incredible. I’ve not read Love (and Other Uses for Duct Tape) yet, but it’s totally on my list, and I intend to buy Need as soon as it hits the shelves.

3. Jim C. Hines: Have you read Jim’s Goblin series? If you haven’t you totally should. You should also be anxiously awaiting his Princess series as I am. Jim’s a great writer and his blog is not to be missed — where else can you find gay fire-spiders and LoL book covers?

4. Amber Stults: Amber is a friend, writer, book reviewer and book blogger. Her website always has loads of interesting links and information and I drop by at least once a week just to look around. You should too.

5. Greg Schwartz: Greg is a wonderful poet who I had the pleasure of meeting through Niteblade. I love his work and I find his informative posts about what markets are looking for what and such very helpful. If you like dark poetry or market information, this is a blog worth visiting.

6. NaNoLJers: It’s probably against the rules for me to link to this blog because I know damn well they aren’t going to do this meme no matter how many times I tag them. I know that, because I run it LOL NaNoLJers is a friendly NaNo-centric writing group that was formed to cheer its members toward victory during NaNoWriMo. It has since grown and now has writing exercises posted twice a week, a word of the week every Wednesday and we host our own NaNo-like writing challenge in May called Writo de Mayo.

Voila! I’m done. I hope you enjoyed getting to know a bit more about me, and that you visit these very awesome links.

*formerly known as Blood and Stone