Insecure Writer's Support Group

Here it is! The first Wednesday of the month, which means it's time for another Insecure Writer's Support Group!

Woo Hoo! (Also, I feel I have to mention how proud of myself I am that I've remembered to do these for like the last four months. No reminder, no nothing, just pure old Sarah memory power! BANG!)

You know me, I like to post happy things during ISWSG because I know all us writers get down in the dumps pretty frequently (and often for no reason at all! Stupid brains being all "nows the time where you feel like you suck! Take that!" And we do. And we know it's dumb, but we can't help it, because our brains rule everything...).

Today is no different! So, even if you're feeling in the dumps, you should get back to writing. Even if you just write a page. Or a paragraph. Or half a sentence. That's half a sentence more than what you had before. Every little bit counts. And you know what's an awesome cure for brain-betrayal? (also, I just coined that term. I think we should use it from here on out.) Finishing a story. It's really hard to feel crappy about your skills once you reach the The End. It just is.

So acknowledged that you feel bad. That writing is hard. Then get back to it. You can do it. We all believe in you. Yes. You.

 

In Which I Gear Up To Get An Agent

Woo hoo! Today's the first day of the spectacular Gearing Up To Get An Agent blogfest!

For those of you who don't know about it, it's this great event that lasts the WHOLE month (and a little more) with pitch contests and generally merrymaking for peeps who are at the stage of trying to get an agent (or small pub, too)

I have a widget over there (>) if you'd like more info on the whole shebang.

Today is the meet and greet, which is a bloghop for people to pop around and meet others participating in GUTGAA (that's just plain fun to say. Truth).

If you're not new to my blog, you may notice I changed my blog header. Back when I decided to get creative and make a blog header, I got a bit carried away and made like... 10. So my plan has always been to rotate them every few months. The beginning of September seemed as good a time as any.

If you're new to my blog, welcome! I'm Sarah and I blog MWF. Friday is reserved for my dog Yvie to post fun things to prepare us for the awesomeness that is the weekend, and Wednesdays are typically reserved for Wednesday Weirds, where I blog about weird stuff. Because weird is cool. Like bow ties. And fezzes. (BONUS NERD POINTS IF YOU GET THAT REFERENCE).

I write YA fantasy novels and adult horror short stories and am nerdy and love animals and games etc. That's kind of me in a nutshell.

Onto the questions!

-Where do you write?

Typically in my work office. (Pictures Here. Though they're a touch out of date) Which, since I work from home (yes, it is awesome) is also our animal room. I like writing on desktop pcs instead of laptops, when I have the choice.

-Quick. Go to your writing space, sit down and look to your left. What is the first thing you see?

My netbook. I have a netbook (named Nettypot) sitting on my desk so I can watch my gmail while I'm working. Querying makes crazy people of us alllllll.

-Favorite time to write?

In the morning, after I've showered but before lunch.

-Drink of choice while writing?

Water. I really like, and drink, a lot of water. It's delicious!

-When writing , do you listen to music or do you need complete silence?

I like to listen to music. It's extra fun if I can make a play list for whatever I'm working on, but usually it's just the radio or a CD or tevs.

-What was your inspiration for your latest manuscript and where did you find it?

The one I'm querying? Or writing? Well, "writing" means, put aside while I do some revisions on the querying one. And why did my font suddenly change? (and I'm waaaaay too lazy to fix it...) Either way, I believe both were inspired by video games. We do a lot of gaming in our house.

-What's your most valuable writing tip?

Write all the time! (font's back...) I know everyone says it and blah blah, but I can honestly say when I got in the mindset to write every day (not Saturdays for me, though) is when my writing got a lot better and I got a lot more serious about the whole thing.

Even if you only write a page a day, well, after a whole year, you'd have 365 pages! And that, dear friends, is a novel. BAM!

So there you go! Since it's a holiday today, I probably won't be in the interwebs much (discgolf and bbq are on my list today) but I'll be visiting blogs and responding to comments this evening and the rest of the week. Woo hoo!

 

Friday Fun

After almost a full month on hiatus, Yvie is back, ape-friends, to launch you into the weekend. AND!
Lucky us in the U.S., it's a holiday weekend, which means extra fun.

Party time!!

Let's get this party rolling!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Homemade Instrument:

Wednesday Weird: Green Fireballs

So I accidentally published this early a few weeks ago. My bad. So if you see that you've already commented on this. That's why.

The Green Fireballs refer to a series of, naturally, green fireballs witnessed in the New Mexico skies between December 1948 and April 1955. And not just seen by a few peeps. Nope. They were seen by pretty much everyone.

Military scientists, astronomers and enlisted personnel, along with the general public, reported the huge amount of crazy and weird above them.

Now, most people would think "meteor." Or maybe comet. It's streaking across the sky, it's on fire. That's what the government thought, too, so they hired Dr. Lincoln LaPaz, a meteor expert.

LaPaz spent years on the subject and, with the rate the fireballs were sighted, combined with the slow speeds and lack of rock bits trailing the objects, decided they weren't behaving like meteors... or any natural phenomena.

The Air Force's investigation into the fireballs was named Project Twinkle (HAH!!). A lot of the sightings were over the Los Alamos National Laboratory, aka where we were working on giant bombs (many of the sightings were from staff). The government decided whether it was aliens or the Russians, they wanted to get to the bottom of it.

After a couple of years, however, they knew nothing more than when they started: There were balls, they were green, and on fire.
The Air Force shut down the investigation and wrote off the phenomena as sunspots or some new kind of meteor or something. LaPaz insisted that none of that made sense, and would continue to do so for years. The balls were spotted over and over again even after the investigation shut down, and each time someone would go interview Dr. LaPaz who would repeat his long list of reasons why they're not meteors.

LaPaz thought they were some kind of new Soviet aircraft, or something else that didn't occur in nature. Another theory was that they were some effect caused by nuclear fallout but "glowing green balls of fallout" isn't a known phenomenon, either.

So there you go, the green fireballs. Thoughts?

In Which I Return And Reveal A Cover

Woo hoo! I'm back! And just in time for a cover reveal for E.J. Wesley! Read on!

Blood Fugue, Moonsongs Book 1 by E.J. Wesley Cover Reveal Party

Author E.J. Wesley is throwing a blog party to celebrate the release of his new book cover and wants you to join in the fun. Jump over to his blog to learn about how you can win some awesome prizes, including $50 toward a cover of your own and advance reader copies of Blood Fugue.

 

Cover work by Sketcher Girl, LLC - http://sketchergirlstudios.com/

What's the Story About? 

“Some folks treated the past like an old friend. The memories warmed them with fondness for what was, and hope for what was to come. Not me. When I thought of long ago, my insides curdled, and I was left feeling sour and wasted.”

Jenny Schmidt is a young woman with old heartaches. A small town Texas girl with big city attitude, she just doesn’t fit in. Not that she has ever tried. She wears loneliness like a comfy sweatshirt. By the age of twenty-one, she was the last living member of her immediate family. Or so she thought…

“We found my ‘grandfather’ sitting at his dining room table. An entire scorched pot of coffee dangled from his shaky hand. His skin was the ashen gray shade of thunderclouds, not the rich mocha from the photo I’d seen. There were dark blue circles under each swollen red eye. A halo of white hair skirted his bald head, a crown of tangles and mats. Corpses had more life in them.”

Suddenly, instead of burying her history with the dead, Jenny is forced to confront the past. Armed only with an ancient family journal, her rifle, and an Apache tomahawk, she must save her grandfather’s life and embrace her dangerous heritage. Or be devoured by it.

 

BLOOD FUGUE by E.J. Wesley, is the first of the MOONSONGS books, a series of paranormal-action novelettes. At fewer than 13k words, BLOOD FUGUE is the perfect snack for adventurous readers who aren’t afraid of stories with bite. Available wherever fine eBooks are sold September 2012. 

Join the Party!

The Open Vein, E.J.'s blog - http://the-open-vein-ejwesley.blogspot.com/

E.J. Wesley on the Twitter - https://twitter.com/EJWesley

Insecure Writer's Support Group

I know I'm on a hiatus (and no, still not sure when I'll be back) but I didn't want to miss the Insecure Writer's Support Group for this month.

So just a quick post to keep you feeling good.

In the words of Shinedown:

Don't be delicate... be vast and brilliant

In Which I ...Hiate? ...Hiatus?... What?

So even though I had a post scheduled for today, I've moved it out a few weeks. I think I'm going to take a shortish bog hiatus. The day job is seriously destroying me right now. And then throw in writerly things as well as tons of stuff coming up in my non Internet world, the truth is I just don't have time to visit blogs right now. And I hate it when I post posts and I don't visit other blogs. It just rubs me the wrong way, for me, anyway.

So. For now, I'm stepping back. I don't know for how long but at least a week. Possibly all the way through August, though I hope not.

Hope to see you again soon!