With the exception of a few odd jobs, yours truly has been out of work since October 2011. For someone who has been working since 16 1/2, this is horrible*. The uncertainty of where the next paycheck is coming from, whether or not health insurance is happening, the meaningless-ness of TGIF. I'm sort of used to it by now and thankfully I had a 5 month reprieve from job searching, which ended 2 weeks ago. That's right, I'm looking for work again. If you've ever looked for work, you know how aggravating it can be. You apply. You wait. You wait some more. You either get called in for an interview or you get a form response saying that they went another way. If it's the latter (and it was a job you were salivating after) you feel the rejection on a visceral level. Yet, you go back for more. Querying is exactly like that. For those who don't know, there isn't much difference between looking for work and querying an agent. All of the job search princ...

Writers today have a lot more challenges than just what is on the television. In an age where you can be connected to the internet through your computer, phone, e-reader, and probably a hundred more things I'm forgetting, it's difficult to remember a time when this wasn't the case*. With the exception of a few hours a week, all of my online time has been done by phone or NOOK while I worked on my revisions and only then to look up something or compulsively check Twitter and such**. Doing this was important because the revisions I undertook were TOUGH: scene scrutiny, additional worldbuilding, not to mention a lot of yelling at the paper. (For the record my revisions are still going on, but I'm on back end of it now.) Unplugging is good not only for a particularly hard revision, but for life. When you're not attached to the internet (or technology in general), you can do a lot more in the real world: have lunch with friends, spend more time outdoors, socialize***...

One of my favorite shows in the last decade was PRISON BREAK. If you never heard of it, here's the blurb from imdb.com : Due to a political conspiracy an innocent man is sent to death row and his only hope is his brother who makes it his mission to deliberately get himself sent to the same prison in order to break the both of them out from the inside out. Each episode ended in such a way that you had to tune in for the next episode. All characters were fleshed out, including the most deplorable character introduced. And the planning behind the prison break? It totally proves how important detail is. WARNING: THE NEXT PARAGRAPH CONTAINS SLIGHT SPOILERS In Season 1, everything rides upon the plan Michael put in place prior to his incarceration. Michael laid out the entire escape plan on his body, all the way down to how he and his brother will make it out of the country. At one point, part of Michael’s tattoo gets damaged. This jeopardizes the escape. This example illustrates ...

It’s pretty safe to say that at some point in our life, we would give our baby toes to glimpse into our future or hop into the DeLorean to change some instance in our past. Hell, Bestie Danielle and I usually play the “I should’ve” game once a season. So when I read the premise of THE FUTURE OF US by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler, it definitely made me go “hm.” Blurb from Goodreads : “It's 1996, and Josh and Emma have been neighbors their whole lives. They've been best friends almost as long - at least, up until last November, when Josh did something that changed everything. Things have been weird between them ever since, but when Josh's family gets a free AOL CD in the mail,his mom makes him bring it over so that Emma can install it on her new computer. When they sign on, they're automatically logged onto their Facebook pages. But Facebook hasn't been invented yet. And they're looking at themselves fifteen years in the future. By refreshing their pages, the...

Back in November (when I confessed how I loved the reality show Dirty Soap ), I shared with you all my love of the daytime soap, One Life to Live. OLTL has been off air for over a week, but I finally brought myself to watch the finale on Sunday night. I watched it with mixed feelings: anticipation over how they were going to tie up a show with a 43 year legacy, sadness over the loss of one of my favorite shows, and annoyance that I’ll have to now watch General Hospital*. One thing I thought I could learn from watching the OLTL finale was how to effectively create an ending. Maybe the writers would show me a few tricks to know where my final scene is. What I didn’t anticipate in the final minutes was to see someone who we all believed to be dead. And by all, I even mean the supposed killer thought the victim was dead. My shriek of “WHAT!?” may or may not have startled The Stripey One awake** While a cliffhanger is a possible way to end a story, I consider it sort of cheating. The re...

Zombie Thur sdays is a weekly feature with guest blogger, Miranda. You can read more about her here . It's Thursday again, so that means it is time for zombies! I've been checking out the responses to the Pie survey, and it seems as if people want to hear about some zombie science, but also just some zombie musings in general. So today, I will briefly chat about something that came to mind for me, and please feel free to chime in on the comments section. I live in Chicago and usually by this time of the year we've gotten a bunch of snow already. Today is January 12th and Chicago is getting its first real snow of the year. January 12th. That's insane! To make matters more depressing, yesterday the temperature topped off near 50 degrees. Oh, Mother Nature. I guess I really can't complain too much because we've gotten a free pass so far. It's really only snowed once this season, and nothing actually stuck to the ground. Cars buried on Lakeshore Drive during the...

Six weeks ago, I was laid off from the day job. The same day job that should've only lasted three weeks in 2007. This fact hasn't softened the blow and I've been staving off a major bout of emo-ness for weeks. This totally explains why I still haven't cleaned the basement. Unless you've been laid off or are very close (read: married or related) to someone who has been laid off, you might not realize what a slap in the face the situation is. You've been rejected. The company that you've worked for has essentially left you for someone else. Yeah, I know there's circumstances like budget cuts or reorganizations, but it doesn't matter at this point. You feel worthless. It's very easy to fall in to the trap of doing nothing while on unemployment. At first, it's like you've taken a few days off from the day job. You sleep in, stay up late, wear a crazy amount of lounge pants. Then, a month has gone by. The dishes pile up and you're work...

Every Wednesday, YA Highway asks their readership a simple question to answer on your blog. Once you answer, you link your blog in the comments for other readers to hop on board. This is Road Trip Wednesday. Today's topic : What supporting character from a YA book would you most like to see star in their own novel? Blame it on the day job, but I couldn't get my head wrapped around it. Thank god Bestie Danielle i s chained to her desk as much as me has a desk job like me. With Danielle on board, it was a matter of figuring out what we would like to see. With the truth behind Edward's sparkle denied from my editorial department, it was back to the drawing boards. It's worth mentioning that we were still confused on whether the topic was for the character to star in a novel as a spinoff or as a retelling. Because it's both, we've decided to talk about both. This would be a fantastic time to mention that these conversations are the norm fo...

Credit If you're a book person, you already know that this week is Banned Books Week. As a writer and book lover, this is an extremely important week because yours truly believes that censorship is crap. Even High School Alicia and College Alicia didn't like the concept. It's one thing if you personally disagree/dislike/outwardly hate something, but it's totally different when you force your opinion down the throat of everyone around you. (It's not just books that have this problem. Music and film go through the censorship wringer as well, something that sets my teeth on edge.) When you look at the statistics on why books are banned, it's clear what people have a problem most with: sexual content, offensive language, and violence. The top ten reasons for challenging a book can be broken down into seven categories, which you can see on this super awesome pie chart. Information taken from ALA's Challenges By Reason 1990-2010 Chart Sex Almost ...

Every Wednesday, YA Highway asks their readership a simple question to answer on your blog. Once you answer, you link your blog in the comments for other readers to hop on board. This is Road Trip Wednesday. Today's Topic : What themes, settings, motifs, scenes, or other elements do you find recurring in your work? I'd love to say that I'm so freaking original that nothing from Story A shows up in Story B because as a writer's it's my job to make sure everything is fresh and unique and non-redundant. However, I can't. Some things just show up no matter what. One parent is always either dead or missing from the protagonist's life. And when I say missing, I do mean that in a "they've never physically been here" kind of way*. Sometimes both are gone. Project count: 4 The F-bomb shower. Found in early drafts only**, my love for this four-letter word gets showered across all dialogue and exposition. Project count: 4 Blonde girl who is e...

A couple of weeks ago, Alison Miller tagged me in this meme-type thing. Since it's Monday and the majority of us are enjoying hot dogs, parades, and fireworks it's perfect timing. Right? Right? Right. For once I'm blogging ahead of schedule and catching up on TV to boot, so I might as well warn you: sarcasm will be aplenty. 1) Do you think you're hot? Such an odd question, but it has such an easy answer. Nope. 2) Upload a pic or wallpaper you're using. Since I'm on the home machine I get to share the cuteness the graphic designer at work made for me. It's of The Stripey One. Isn't this awesome? 3) When was the last time you ate chicken? Thursday night at b Good in Boston. It was a grilled chicken breast because I've grown tired of burgers. 4) What were you thinking while doing this? Three things: Since I'm watching the season finale of The Vampire Diaries, I'm wondering if this is the kiss of death for Damon.  Also since...

Welcome to a new week, Lurkdom! Unfortunately, I don't have a thought-out blog post in mind for today*. What this means for you is that I might just ramble stream-of-consciousness style**. I've been thinking a lot about the different forms of writing space. Not just where I can park my butt, but the space in my brain and also on the page. Space may be the most important tool in the writing arsenal. On the Page Remember reading that dreadfully boring history text so jammed with paragraphs, you could barely jot a note in the margin? Weren't you always exhausted afterward? It's because there was no white space. Large areas of blank page trick our eyes into thinking we're reading less***. Within a Project Seasoned writers will agree: taking a step back from a recent WIP is a good thing. It gives you perspective on what you've done. Time apart also can help figure out that niggling plot point you couldn't quite nail. Wall Space, Desk Space I'm a f...

Every Wednesday, YA Highway asks their readership a simple question to answer on your blog. Once you answer, you link your blog in the comments for other readers to hop on board. This is Road Trip Wednesday.  Today's question: If you were made supreme ruler of the publishing world, what would be your first ruling? I already have plans for when I'm overlord and this would include the publishing world by default. That said, I can totally get on board with rules for each, but there isn't any need. Rule One: You don't talk about Fight Club. Sorry! I was referencing the wrong rule book. *a hem* Rule One: All chocolate is calorie free. Oh, what? That's not a legitimate publishing rule? *points finger* I'm the overlord, not you. My word is law. Oh. It isn't? I'm just figurehead there? Doh. Hmmm... Let's try this again. Rule One: All agencies accepting queries will send some kind of response. Because, let's face it. It's bett...

Confession: I own close to 100 band tees*. Credit The majority of these are in some shade of black. Besides being the color choice of Hot Topic clones everywhere, black is also the T-shirt color of choice for metal bands. The question is why black? In my so-not-professional opinion, it's because WHATEVER BAND NAME thinks they're badass**. They showcase their badassedry by wearing black shirts of their own to complement an influx of (sometimes badly drawn) Technicolor tats. Fans in turn, show their unwavering faith in WHATEVER BAND NAME with a band shirt. Generally in black. Cred Black is versatile and goes great with jeans--the other standard piece to any metal uniform. If you doubt me, walk into a Black Label Society*** show where the colors are black, white (for silkscreen purposes ONLY), and denim. Clubs and other music venues are dark. Wearing a black tee aids in the average concert goer to blend with the night, like a ninja. This is also why if you just go...

Yesterday Hubby and I went to King Richard's Faire with a few friends. KRF is the renaissance faire that happens every weekend in September and October in Massachusetts. There are only two reasons I go. Historically inaccurate costumes, and The big cat show (To be honest, if we didn't have half off tickets courtesy of Groupon, I probably wouldn't have gone. It's overpriced, cheesy, and you have to pay for tons of stuff once you get inside anyway.) That out of the way, I have something to say to those in the Lurkdom who go to Ren faires and decide to dress up: please dress per the time. In recent years, I've seen Sith lords, Obi Wan, and medieval vikings to name a few. People, it's a renaissance faire . That means if you decide to dress, you dress in things like this: Image taken from here . Well, maybe not that extreme, but definitely you don't get tarted up in barely there clothing or go as a modern day ninja. Commit yourself, people. Pleas...

Every Wednesday, YA Highway asks their readership a simple question to answer on your blog. Once you answer, you your link in the comments for other readers to hop on board. This is Road Trip Wednesday. Today's Question : How would you impress (or not impress) the Hunger Games judges? Confession: I haven't read The Hunger Games. This being said, I do know something about killing people off on reality TV. No, really. Image courtesy of Pyritz Design. Back when I thought I had a passion for working in theatre*, I worked on a show called REAL DEAD. It was a premiere by a guy named Marty Barrett. The premise was simple: a group of strangers live in a house - very similar to The Real World or Big Brother. The twist was while these people thought they would just be living life like all reality TV stars, they would actually get offed one by one until Mary was the only person left. The fictional TV audience loved the show and the producers clamored for a second season wher...

Every Wednesday, YA Highway asks their readership a simple question to answer on your blog. Once you answer, you your link in the comments for other readers to hop on board. This is Road Trip Wednesday. Today's question : What book ending would you rewrite and why? Argh... We've all had the experience of reading something that keeps us up for hours only to have the big letdown, aka the world's shittiest ending. Twice since I've been with Hubby I've hurled a hefty hardcover against a wall/door combo. I've been known to curse out the book endings too. Here are my top novel beefs. [WARNING: Slight spoilers ahead.] For a Few Demons More - Kim Harrison . I fully support offing characters, but when you knock off the most interesting one in the series, we've got a problem. There's been a few books since twice-killing Rachel's love interest and I haven't read any of them. My solution: kill off the roommate instead. The Anita Blake Series - Laur...

So a couple of days ago on Twitter, everyone was talking about who they write like. You go to a website, paste in some text, and poof! Magic. it gave me a much needed 3 second RFP hell break, so even better, right? I plugged in the first scene of FALLING TO NORMAL, which if you're just tuning in, should know it's contemporary young adult fiction. Imagine my surprise when I got this result: I write like Stephen King I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software . Analyze your writing! Pretty awesome, even if confusing. But Miranda asked a good question: am I Eye of the Dragon SK or Pet Semetary? I said Eye of the Dragon, since I don't wrote horror. But the answer should've really been The Gunslinger for project commitment alone. But who cares - I WRITE LIKE STEPHEN KING! (Minus the tediously long narrative paragraphs that everyone loves to skim through, of course.) What I'd like to know then is why when analyzing Bloggy Blog here, I get this: I write li...

Saturday I went shopping with a friend. I ordered lobster mac and cheese because it just sounded awesome. A while later, we split an ice cream injected cupcake. At the time, I just went with it because in true Fat Kid Logic fashion, lunch with a bestie reduces your calorie count and the shared dessert had no calories at all. Later, I thought "I'm trying to fit in a dress. I should've eaten better. What the hell was I thinking?" Writer's have a different version of food remorse called this-is-utter-shit-why-the-hell-did-I-write- THAT . This happens to me whenever I complete a draft. While I'm in the frenzy of creation, every idea is brilliant and each turn of phrase is Pulitzer material. I am the best thing in the unpublished world and all should bow to my awesomeness. That's before. After. After, I go through all stages of grief and understand why so many writers need AA. My brilliant idea isn't as original as I hoped, my turn of phrase I st...

I went through a brief phase studying Shakespeare. This also tied in with my 'I can act' phase. (Hey, college is about experimentation.) Most of the time, I faked my way through. The stories in Shakespeare are great, but the language is a terrible barrier to that world. In college, the director always 'updated' whatever Shakespeare play we were doing to make it more 'timely,' but stuck with iambic pentameter and archaic terminology. Sometimes, I just want it told plainly. Whenever someone dumbs down Shakespeare, I get excited. I like to understand what I'm reading and not work to translate it into Alicia-speak. Shouldn't the time come when the Bard's writings get updated for a new generation? It's been done with Hamlet. Hamlet as Told on the Street by Shel Silverstein. Hamlet (Facebook News Feed Edition) by Sarah Schmelling I'm not talking about movies or books that take the plot and twist it into something else. I mean taking ...