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 would be the ideal holiday present for your main character (or favorite character)? Credit I'm entirely engrossed in my requested revisions for Falling to Normal, which means I'm focused on Cheyenne and the gang. Coincidentally, Christmas happens during Falling to Normal's timeline. Of course there are things Cheyenne would love to get for Christmas, as long as realism isn't an issue. The ability to reverse time For her past to remain that--the past Her first kiss. That's it. Don't forget to go to YA Highway and see what everyone else is saying.

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 : If your WIP or favorite book were music, what song(s) would it be? For my WIPs, I don't have any set songs, but more like set musical styles.When listening to music, I go for the auditory aesthetic* and less on the lyrical content. It usually takes me months (sometimes years) before I pay attention to the lyrics. For FALLING TO NORMAL, I listened to a lot of 90s rock. Even when I updated the setting to present day, the soundtrack didn't change. Candlebox and Alice in Chains will always work in Cheyenne's world, no matter what. Favorite Candlebox Song : You Favorite AIC Song** : Nutshell For PHOENIX RISING, I've been listening to a lot of atmospheric, prog rock. Don't question, because I can't explain. I've balance...

Do you know what today is, kids? The nineteenth. And while that has tons of crazy importance in a certain fictional world that involves this poem , it's also important on this plane because today's our query letter blogfest. *hands out celebratory mochas* If you've already signed up, hooray. If you haven't, there's still time. The rules: Post your query letter on your blog. Read and critique* on at least 5 other query letters. When critiquing a query, here are a few questions you should ask yourself. (Thanks to Pam & Quita for putting these up.) Tell whether or not the letter hooks you--is there a pitch line apparent somewhere through out the letter? Determine whether or not you GET what the novel is about.How is the sentence flow? Transitions?  If you were an agent--would you request pages? Why or why not? So simple, right? Let's get to it.

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: Who from real life have you written into a book? My creative writing professor in college gave us this sound advice on incorporating real life people into works of fiction: "Change their penis or breast size." Um, no Annie, that's not how it works. Like a lot of the other road trippers, I'm a trait stealer. In Falling to Normal, Cheyenne's extremely Catholic uncle is modeled in part by my dad and several conversations I've had with my former nun aunt. At least the staunch Catholic part is. And all of Cheyenne's extended family is modeled in part after my father's 18 brothers and sisters*. With this many aunts & uncles, you got an inevitable trait farm. An earlier version of Falling to Normal eve...

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 is your favorite line from your WIP? If you're in the Northeast, I hope you're surviving this blizzard safely and full of hot chocolate . I have about 50% of that down and the day job has been dogging me all day. Now onto business. Disclaimer: I always get twitchy about sharing excerpts on the blog. No one has told me why, but there you go*. So with my sharing paranoia shoved deep down, I out FALLING TO NORMAL** to find one of my favorite bits.  The corner of his mouth twitched up into a smile of sorts and had my stomach drop to my toes. I didn’t have a clear concept of what “sexy” was, but I thought Luke’s half-smile fell into that category. Because of his face, he was what some of the girls would call a “p...

We've survived the first week of 2011, Lurkdom. *throws confetti and high fives all around* I'm slightly distractable today, not to mention that work has kicked my keister. That the 9-5 job has decided to do this on a Friday is awful because I can't keep my head on those projects when it's buzzing with these writing projects: Four For Friday: Literary Irons in the Fire Edition 1. Falling to Normal Current status: out for critique. I sent my contemporary YA out for another beta read, and, quite honestly, I hope this is the last time I need to. There's things that need fixing and I trust that someone who's kick ass and loves cookies can help. 2. Phoenix Rising Current status : revising My current WIP is an urban fantasy that came from my first NaNoWriMo attempt in 2009. My goal is to have this out to beta readers by April. To do that, I should invest in more caffeine. 3. Untitled YA Project Current status: taking notes What was originally going to...

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 went to high school with your characters, would you be friends? The short answer of "no" has nothing to do with my characters as people, but everything to do with high school Alicia. If I didn't know you, I was quiet. If you were popular, I sure as hell didn't break the social structure and talk to you unless forced into a project together. If you were lower than me on the social structure, I ignored you. High School + Alicia = Misanthropic Bitch  It wasn't until I headed to college that I broke out of that shell and talked to pretty much anyone* and developed friendships with people that I wouldn't have done as a high schooler. Now that the disclaimer portion of RTW is out of the way... In FALLING TO NORMAL, Che...

Editing is still happening and I'm in the final push towards the end. This means nothing to my late-in-life development of self-diagnosed ADD. Nor does this mean anything to all the shiny television I'm overdue to watch. This also means shit to my furry children who clamor for attention the instant there is a pen in hand. Fortunate for me, Stripey just likes to cute it up and stare. It's like a furry reminder to buckle down. The White One, as always, is a different story. He likes to march stalk across the table, bed, or whatever surface is currently acting as my desk and give a vicious headbutt. Then he likes to stretch out across my papers. With his butt directly on my workspace. For an example of this behavior, see left. For an additional roadblock, he likes to steal the pen out of my hand. (Yes, I still longhand.) No matter how focused I am though, The White One loves to stop my process. Click the play button below to see him wrestle with my notebook containing...

I'm on my third manuscript free day. This isn't because I've been such a kick-ass kid and deserve a break. Nope. It's because after slowing to freight train status, I've hit a new scene that I don't want to write. Not quite writer's block, but definitely a mental block. Which got me thinking about scene blockage. How it manifests. Why it comes about. How can it be defeated. How. When I say 'begins,' I really mean stall tactics. Facebook. Twitter. Bejeweled. Your tenth shower of the day. The things you do in your downtime. When you turn towards your WIP and are about to touch pen to paper (or finger to key), but suddenly you remember you have to walk the dog? All signs of something bigger happening. It can take a while to notice it, but you're avoiding that scene. Why. Psychological, definitely. Livia might have an actual explanation while all I can do is talk from experience. The scene could be deal with issues that you're sensitive ...

This dark sketchy picture represents the last complete draft of FALLING TO NORMAL, the young adult novel I'm shopping around. Or was until I got no hits from the queries sent in the last half of 2009, now I'm in revision-o-rama . I admit, I hate it. That is, the revision process. More specifically as it holds to this project. When I began this years (and I do mean years) ago, the first draft was done in by the seat of my pants fashion. While fun to write, it's a bitch to revise. Why's that? Because it's hard to connect all the scenes together and not sound like something the cat would create. (Assuming that The White One could write.) With each pass, my timeline shrinks and more events are left out. This is making it more difficult to create a strong story arc and really showcasing my protagonist's growth. So your revision isn't going well? It's not going as planned. The process is much slower than I anticipated, partially because I had two ...

Unofficially, my vacation started on Christmas Eve. (When you work in educational software, there isn't much to do between 12/24 and 1/2.) Officially, it starts tomorrow at noon and ends the moment I wake up on January 4. And I've got plans. What are they? Besides doing a fabulous hat exchange with two good friends, writerly stuff. Like what? Revising my YA project, FALLING TO NORMAL. This was supposed to happen on December 1, but I was hijacked by my NaNoWriMo project until mid-December. (A separate entry will happen discussing that later this week.) All Hubby heard while I sat at the kitchen table over the weekend was me huffing in five minute intervals. It was just as I feared - I have to go back a version. Isn't that counter-productive? Well, yes, but sometimes you have to go backwards before you go forwards. Think of it as a weird version of Mother May I? If you forget something crucial in the game, you're sent back to the starting line. In writing, it...

The past two months has been focused on the rewrite to FALLING TO NORMAL. I'm hoping that this is final time. I have moved entire scenes and chapters around. This was necessary, and I think it's tightened my story up a lot. This also shortened the story's time frame, which works with the new focus. I also removed the central linchpin that had been with the story since it's inception, which is a MAJOR change, but a needed one. The downside of doing this though, is that I've lost a lot of words/pages and need to add more to reach a decent count again. Parts of the linchpin can be salvaged and used in other stories. My goal is for the entire series to be picked up. (Aim high, right?) All in all, I'm thinking that I've gotten to the core of the story - finally - and will make for a solid piece of fiction to contribute to the publishing world. Now only if I could finish the ending...