In Which I Have A New Obsession

"A new obsession?" you ask.

Yes. Yes I do.

What is it?

Why, it's PINTEREST!

"Pinterest is a Virtual Pinboard.
Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.
Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people. Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests."

So let's say you're on a website and you see an awesome picture of, oh I dunno, a cat. Because, you know, the interwebs is bereft of cats. So you click your little "pin it" button, select which pinboard you want to add it to, add a caption, and voila! It's pinned, while linking back to the original source.

The best part about pinterest is, you can repin - so if someone pins something to their board and you love it, you can repin it to your board. The original pinner still gets credit AND the original source link is never lost, so you can repin to your heart's content, knowing you can always get back to the original pinner, or the original source.

Or, if you find another pin that you like, but you don't really want to repin it to one of your boards, you can "like it". Your account will keep track of your likes as well.

You can also comment on people's pins, and use @mentions to draw someone's attention to a specific pin.

Better yet, if you have an etsy shop (and I know a few of you do) you can install an easy "pin it" button next to your etsy items. So then if someone sees something on your shop they love, they can pin it on their board and it's like FREE ADVERTISING.

Seriously, guys. I. Am. Obsessed.

You can request an invite to get started, and once you do, you can make as many pinboards as you want. I currently have 6. Here's a list of mine, with examples of my pins.


Books, Writing and Stuff: Anything to do with the aforementioned title

Home, Garden and Cooking: OMG, guys. I have found THE MOST AWESOME recipes on pinterest - I find anywhere from 2-6 a day. I actually had to stop looking at pins of recipes because I found too many

I'm actually making these potatoes tonight!

Tattoos: A pinboard to highlight all the awesome tattoos out there

Themes I Love: A pinboard specifically for themes I love (for no specific reason), like paths, doors and doorways, eyes etc. Similar to the next board, but with more focus







Inspiration: I use this pinboard to pin things that creatively inspire me and make me want to write a scene or a story. Seriously, sometimes I look at this board or the Themes I Love board and they just hit me in the gut





Awesome Things: Which is kind of a potpourri of "awesome things" I find on the interwebs or on other people's pinboards. Honestly, it's probably my favorite pinboard because it makes me laugh a lot.










If you decide to sign up, you can follow me by clicking on any of my boards. If you do, I'll be sure to follow you back! I'd love to have more pinning friends. You can also find my whole pinterest account by clicking on the little red Pinterest banner on the right hand side of my blog.

Hope to see you there!

In Which I Hodge-Podge

Hodge-Podge! I feel like a hodge-podge post needs a theme song or something.

Something along the lines of Grandad Robert Freeman's "Good food. Good food. Good foo-oo-oo-ood" song from the Boondocks.
Do you watch the boondocks? You totes should. Though it has a lot of language. A lot. But it's kind of the point.

This weekend we found a new game on our xbox arcade that we immediately bought because it looked awesome.
And it was.

It's called Limbo and is loosely about a boy who's sister goes missing and so he travels through Limbo to find her.

There's no music, and the whole game is black and white. It's side-scrolling and full of puzzles and scary creepy things like giant spiders, glowing slugs that attach to your head and drown you, and creepy Limbo children who set bear traps for you.

It's kinda gory, for a black and white game, but there is an option to shut off the gore. It's also pretty short, maybe just a few hours of game play.

We all agreed that we either wanted a movie like this, or a book. It totes made me want to write. AND I know I would have freaked out at its awesomeness had I been a graphic novelist/artist.

For reals, if you have an Xbox 360, get this game.

Here's a video and screenshots for those (like me) who can't always access vids:










I wrote a new short story this weekend. It came about because Hannah (Palindrome) had mentioned on her bloggy (and received agreement from Lindsey (at Dangerous with a Pen)) that sunflowers creep her the hells out. This had never occurred to me, that sunflowers could be something that frightened people.

AND THE STORY IDEA WAS BORN!

It's about 2k. I did a quick tightening but now have to sit on it to see if I can come up with a theme or junk to weave throughout. For me, themes don't come until after the story is complete.

But I was pleased with it. Hannah said it was creepy so that's good.

I also have another idea for a short story, and I had a dream this last weekend about a zombie-hunting family that I MAY (but probably not) write for NaNo instead of my sea serpent plan. We'll see.

There will be a two week span in August where I will be mostly away from the interwebs. The first week I will be camping and have no Internet access.
The second week I have to go into the office for fun time Six Sigma greenbelt training and since the commute is 1-1.5 hours one way, I will have less time to visit.

This is just a heads up. There will be more reminders later. I'll probably repeat some posts and maybe have a few new ones written as well.

And that's it for this Hodge-Podge experience!

How are things for you?

In Which I (Tentatively) Set A Goal

All right blog friends. I think I am going to set a goal for myself.

I was thinking the other day about how I'm excited for nano 2010 because I'm going to take a crack at that YA Sea Serpent story I can't stop thinking about. But then it hit me that I might still be working on Foxfire then and I don't want that to fall to the wayside.



So! my (tentative) goal for Foxfire is to finish revisions before November 2010. That way I can dive into nano and the new story free of all constraints.

Will it be a difficult goal to reach? I have no idea. I think it might be unless I step up my game a bit (the summer weather has led me to slack off some).

What happens if I fail?

Well nothing really. It just means I'll have to juggle two things at once, which won't be fun.

But, if I do accomplish this goal, well then I may also be able to accomplish one of my new year's resolutions, which is to send out a query.

Exciting? Yes.
Scary? No...?
Intimidating? A bit.

Anyone else set any goals for themselves?

In Which I Have A New Idea

The other night I had a dream. Now I know I've posted on how I have troubles writing full stories based off my dreams, but this time, the story is almost complete.

To be fair I think much of the story came up while I was sort-of half awake and trying to fall back asleep. But that doesn't matter!


This story seems like it would make a good YA trilogy. I've never overly considered doing something YA before, until now that is.


I'm actually quite excited about these stories (the dream covered books 1 and 2. But I'm a trilogy person so there would have to be a third one) and may start the first one for NaNo 2010.


What's it about? That's a closely guarded secret. The only thing I will tell you is that it involves a war.


Oh, and Sea Serpents.

Anyone else have new story ideas?

In Which I Host A Contest!

100 followers! Can you believe it? I can't. It freaks me out a bit.

But you know what 100 followers means in the blogosphere? A contest!
Fun!
Suspense!
Romance?

We're going to shake things up around here and do a writing contest.

The prizes:

First Place:

• The Writers Book of Matches
• Pens
• Moleskin Journal
• Manuscript Makeover
• chocolate
• Total Oblivion More or Less by Alan DeNiro (a novel written by the husband of one of Twin's co-workers - sort of fantasy, sort of dystopian, sort of YA, sort of Adult. Mostly just a breakout book with a weird little story and a satisfying, slightly bittersweet, ending)
  
  

Second Place:

• The Writers Book of Matches
• Pens
• chocolate
• Moleskin Journal
• Total Oblivion More or Less by Alan DeNiro

Third Place:

• The Writers Book of Matches
• Pens
• Moleskin Journal
• Total Oblivion More or Less by Alan DeNiro
  
  

The guidelines:

I'm not one for writing prompts. BUT, occasionally I need to write something (maybe for a contest) and have no idea what to write.

That's when I turn to the Writer's Book of Matches.

Every page has some sort of prompt that gets my fingers itching to write.

So, for this contest, you will need to write a story under 750 words using one of the below prompts taken from the book (feel free to go hog wild, but just make sure I can tell which prompt your story started with) (also, I tried to pick a wide range of prompts to attempt to appeal to as many people that want to enter as possible).

• After 3 weeks, a lost dog returns home to its master carrying an unidentifiable bone in its mouth
  
  
• After waking from a coma, a woman discovers she can smell fear
  
  
• When a crackpot inventor is killed by one of his contraptions his brother - also an inventor - finds himself compelled to finish the work
  
  
• A man discovers a large sum of money in his wallet and can't remember where it came from
  
  
• Use the quote "I pray every day that it will stop, but it keeps getting worse."
  
  
• After a violent thunderstorm a man discovers a rain-soaked diary among the debris in his yard

The Rules:

• You must be a blog follower
• The story must be under 750 words
• The story must be written off one of the prompts
• The story must be submitted no later than 5pm (CST) Friday, March 26th
• The entry must be emailed to: sarah.ahiers@gmail.com

I will conduct a blind reading - which is to say, I will be printing off any stories received and reading them without knowing who wrote what. It's easier to stay objective that way. So please try and keep your names off the piece itself (but not your email...I'll need to find you if you win)

I will be looking for the stories that, first and foremost, I find the most entertaining.

The winners will be announced on Monday, March 29th. I will post each of the stories on my blog so everyone can enjoy them.

Good luck! And feel free to spread the word.

In Which I Listen To Music

I did NaNoWriMo this year. It was the first time I've ever participated (after a few years of thinking about it and just not being in the right state of mind). I "won" and it got me refocused, back on track after quite a long time of feeling dissatisfied with my prior WIP.

It had been a long time since I sat myself down and forced myself to write every day. I used to have a desktop computer that is now, no more, and though I had a laptop, I had spent all my formative years as a writer using a desktop and the laptop just wasn't calling to me. But for NaNo I had no choice. Use the laptop, or fail miserably and face the shame that all my pre-NaNo bragging would bring down upom me.

ahh shame, humanity's strongest motivator

Shame was not an option so I set up my laptop in the living room, grabbed a notebook, pen and writing CDs and got to work.

Normally I'm a hard rock girl. I love me some System of a Down, Linkin Park, Disturbed and anything else in that category. I'll occasionally listen to rock when I'm writing, but my music of choice for typing is new age. It's nice, 50% of the time there's no singing and since I generally write fantasy, it's fitting.

So I went to my favorite CD, Fairy of the Woods. It's just piano playing these great, meditative pieces. I love it - great for writing.
But after the first week of NaNo I felt it just wasn't cutting it for me or the story. It didn't make sense, I LOVE that CD. The first song, "Sometimes", is one of my favs. But I kept thinking of another CD.

So I grabbed Tone Poems and stuck it in. Tone Poems is a hammered Dulcimer CD Twin and I bought years ago. I don't remember where, (perhaps the now defunct Media Play?) and maybe Twin will, but it's a great CD. I love the hammered dulcimer. I wish I could play one.

Anyway, it had been a long time since I had used Tone Poems while writing. And as soon as I put it in I was instantly sent back to high school when I used to listen to it while i wrote fanfiction. The feeling was so strong and so associative that I told Twin about it the next day, which got us talking about the fun fanfiction times and would lead us to reread the stories (that will be another post later this week)

So I was momentarily distracted by the (memory) of the good old fanfiction days, but the CD was successful and I got back to writing for NaNo.

I remember a few months ago I read an article (or perhaps a blog post) discussing people who use soundtracks for their stories. (I'd give credit if could remember where I read it. Perhaps Murderati?)

Now, I almost always listen to music when writing. I can write and watch TV or video games at the same time, but I'll be more prolific if I turn of the TV and listen to music. I don't really hear the music, but my head takes it in subconsciously and the music drowns out other noises.

Anyway, in this article they discussed someone who made soundtracks for his projects, pieces of music that represented the feel of the story and that he would then listen to when writing.
At one point he had to go back for some edits on a piece he had put aside and when he just wasn't felling the story, he stuck in the piece's soundtrack and it immediately brought him back to the mindset he had when he had first written the novel. Therefore he was able to finish up the edits.

I think the idea of this kind of associative writing with music is genius. Besides the fanfiction CD I also have another song (Linkin Park's Papercut) that I've completely matched with a story idea in my head. I love Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory and listen to it quite frequently and compulsively. When I wrote out this story in my head, I also happened to be listening to Papercut and the rest of Hybrid Theory (this was back in the day when I had a 3 hour commute a day and listened to a lot of CDs in my car and did a lot of story work through in my head at the same time)



I both LOVE and am creeped out by this video

Now, whenever I listen to that CD, and Papercut specifically, I immediately start to think, and get excited, for that specific story. So much so, that I've forbidden myself to listen to Hybrid Theory when I'm working on another project because it will force me to stop thinking about what I'm working on and direct all my creative energies to this story I haven't written yet.

I'm really looking forward to when I can start that project and stick in the Linkin Park to get me excited and ready to go.

I think, in the future, I will try to create a soundtrack for each piece that I listen to when working on it. That way I can hopefully build up some associative memories for it, so if I ever need to go back, or feel myself stalling out on it, I can just stick in the CD and get back in the mindset of the piece.

Have any of you created a specific soundtrack while writing a piece? Did it bring about any associative memories that assisted in your writing?

In Which I Dream Of Dreams

The other night I had two awesome dreams. This isn't unusual for me, I have frequent, vivid dreams and always have. They become even more frequent and vivid, and occasionally lucid the more I write. I like to think it's my muse, getting off her drunken ass to do some work for a change.

(On a complete side note, I was looking for a picture of a drunken muse on google images when I found the above picture - what's shocking about this picture is that this is Twig, a reoccurring character at our local Renfest (of which I am a season ticket holder and a wearer of wenchy fashion) - what are the chances?!)

I usually dream in full-fledged plots, but occasionally just have dreams that jump around and make no sense. I also don't have nightmares too often, and when I do they're always just dreams full of anxiety as opposed to monsters or scary things. I LIKE the monsters and scary things dreams, they're always full of action and suspense.

I also have a reoccurring character in my dreams, one that's a representative of me that can fly and do other cool stuff. She makes an appearance typically in the aforementioned plot dreams.

Anyway, as I was saying, the other night I had two great dreams. The first one had to do with a man who's son had betrayed him in some sort of mafia related way. He assassinated his son by having him shot (think Sonny Corleone from the Godfather shot...)

What I really liked about this dream was the subsequent necromancy, where some other faction raised the son from the dead. In my dream I had become the son and the necromancy involved stitching the man back together (closing up the bullet holes, so to speak) and the stitching was very painful. I could feel every little stitch. In hindsight it seemed like on of those dreams where you're half awake and your arm hurts in your dream because it's twisted under you in real life. But I couldn't figure out why all these different specific areas on my body wold be hurting while I slept (for some reason he needed stitching on the tips of his big toe - wtf?).

The second dream was much different and involved a prince meeting a foreign princess, some cute romance followed by some regicide (hmm, there was a lot of murder in my dreams that night...)

Anyway, the point I'm making with all of this is often I'll have some fantastic dream and I'll think to myself - surely this will make a GREAT story... and then I write it down and typically promptly forget about it.

In the past (high school) I used to try to write stories based off of my dreams. Of course most the stuff I wrote back then was elaborate fan-fiction - where myself and all my friends made up our own characters and stuck them into our favorite show where said characters had adventures and romances. You know, the typical Mary-Sue teen junk.

Those dream-based stories never turned out well. After years of trying I came to the conclusion that writing a story based off a dream is folly (not counting Stephanie Meyer or Aprilynne Pike (dammit)).

I think, (for me anyway) that occasionally I can base a scene in an existing story, off a dream. But a whole story? There's just not enough substance.

But! - surely if I combine TWO dreams (say, the ones I had the other night that included filicide, necromancy and regicide...) that will overcome the lack of substance and give me a base to build off of, right? Right?!

Yes! I can see it working now!
I'm off to write down my new story idea in my notebook!