Archive for the ‘It's all about me’ Category

Some months ago, I challenged myself to come up with a blog. That was the easy part. Coming up with the name of the blog – that took…ok, that was pretty easy too. Finding the graphic! now that took….

ok, so technically, I drempt (not a real word, I know I know, stick with the story here) the entire thing up in less than 15 minutes and had it ready to roll, hot off the presses in about a day – tops.

Voila, instant blog.

But lately, I’ve noticed my little corner of the world is missing something. A tagline.

I’ve read other blogs and they always have something cute, or daring or….at the very least interesting.

“Escape to the past with a romantic adventure…” is Terry Blaine’s tagline.

“Real Women. Real Life.” Vicki Taylor

“Passion and adventure worth fighting for.” C.C. Wiley

So, of course, I have to have one.

So here’s a few…

I put the ass in romance.
Asses are my specialty.
Because everyone likes a little ass.
Ass ‘n Sass
Happiness is being a smart ass.
Real Romance. Real Asses.
That’s Ms. Smart Ass to you.
Romance funny side up.
Love, laughter and snark.
Romance by the Snarkmeister
Smart Asses need love too
Smart Asses Unite!
Sex, funny side up.
Love laughter and lunacy.

Those are just a few that popped into my head….hmm…might need a little more thinking here!

carrie

So, I’m trying to learn how to be a plotter.

How’s that going you might ask? (yes, go ahead and ask now)……waiting……c’mon….spit it out.

Well, since you’ve asked, I’ll tell you.

Not worth a damn.

My first ms I wrote entirely by the seat of my pants. Made it up as I went, mostly under the influence of vodka lemonade at 3am, during an online class on how to write a novel in 30 days. I ended up hungover for 30 days, wearing carpal tunnel mitts but yes, in answer to your unasked question, I did finish a manuscript.

It was pretty horrid. The plot line wavered, the arc collapsed, but the sex (the written part anyways) was amazing. Hey, I can get some things right at 3am eh?

Everyone said, don’t fly by the seat of your pants – are you crazy?

Why, yes. I am. I thought we’d established that already.

However, I purchased a plan-your-entire-book-in-advance workbook and set out to fill it out.

Disaster. Not quite of biblical proportions, but pretty close.

I don’t know where my character lives, her street address….I don’t know her mom’s name….I don’t know what’s going to happen, until it pops out of my fingers.

But I tried. I’m still trying. I pulled out my little workbook every other day or so….delete everything I wrote before, and rewrite it all in the way it occurred to me the night before.

I’m pretty sure that’s cheating.

So, I’m kicking myself in the rear, and trying to do it right this time. If it works as advertised, I’m supposed to be able to fill in the worksheet, and then just write. The story will flow, the dialog will be witty, the plot will happen just as predicted.

snort.

I’m currently looking for an online writing class for pantsers who want to be/should be plotters but lie, cheat and steal to get out of it.

Sounds like a winner eh?

carrie

I love to read authors bios. I want to know where they live, how many pets they have, any fun information I can glean from the author’s bio. And sometimes there’s fun tidbits in there, and sometimes you can tell their mother made them write it.

Point being, and yes, I do have a point….what would *I* write in my author’s bio when I become rich, famous and well-published. Oh wait, I guess I’d better FINISH an actual manuscript first, eh?

Most author’s bios contain something like “I started writing when I was five..” “Wrote my first novel a the precocious age of…” and even the infamous “dictated my story because I wasn’t old enough to write yet.”

Well crap.

That leaves me out entirely. I started writing (seriously) last April. 2009. Oh sure, I took classes in school – you have to right? But my english teachers HATED my writing. I thought I wrote brilliant, descriptive works of art, they gave me a D. Sometimes a D+. Finally I cornered my best friend and asked to see her A-rated composition.

It was tripe. Seriously. And have you ever seen tripe? Blah. It’s white and pasty and definitely organ-meat looking. Ew.

I couldn’t believe my EYES! (not just about the tripe, get the image out of your head now ok? we’ve moved on) Her essay was horrid, weenie, tripey. (ok, now we’re really moving on) It was mush, poetry without rhyming, swirly words with no meaning.

At that moment, I lost all respect for my English teacher.

But…I learned from it. And I wrote my next essay as tripey as I could make it. I can still remember it to this day (plus my mother kept a copy of it for my younger sister to steal for her homework assignments)

A dove. A bird of peace. Flying high in a blue, sunlit sky.

Oh yeah. Barf. I don’t write like that (in case you haven’t noticed) but I waited, pranced about, probably whining for TWO WHOLE DAYS waiting for my grade. I was sure I’d flunk this one. I mean seriously, 30 some years later it still gives me the heebie-jeebies.

And you know what? I got an A. Not just an A – an A PLUS. I was shocked, horrified and other adjectives. You mean people actually LIKE this stuff? They read this? THIS is all I have to do to get an A????

yup.

Just that plain and simple. Oh yeah, I aced that class, and the other English classes. Even a creative writing class in college.

But it wasn’t until email that I realized I could write. And write funny. Sending stories to my family when I moved out to Arizona for ten months (don’t ask) would have them calling me in tears….please write more! I should specify happy tears. Hysterical laughter tears. Soon I was writing a newsletter to half the people of my hometown filled with The Adventures of Carrie and people were begging for more. To this day people still stop and ask me if the Tarantula story was true. (It is.) If I really saved that ladies life by applying a tourniquet made from the meat butchers white shirt. (I did.)

True life, well my true life anyways, is a variety of stories just waiting to be written.

And sometimes, as in the case of the Tarantula Story, waiting for enough time to pass before I find them humorous.

So what does this mean for my author’s bio?

I’m just going to have to lie.

“I’ve been writing since I was….”

So I entered a contest. Or two. Possibly three. And I have another on the horizon that’s due Jan. 15th. Going up before the editor of my dreams. But that’s another post.

Back to where we were. Contests.

I entered I Heart Presents contest in November. It’s a contest for Harlequin writers, who ..um…heart Presents – one of the line of books Harlequin produces.

And the winners were announced last Friday. Did I haunt the announcement page? Did I hit refresh to the point I almost drug my internet service provider down into the dirty?

You bet your sweet bippy I did.

Did I win?

Not a snowballs chance babe.

However…and this is a big however…I did receive an email on Wednesday at 7:38am from a Harlequin EDITOR….I was right in the middle of receiving a phone call from an employee who was too sick to work and voila…there it was…in my inbox….

*hum the jaws theme here*

totally ignoring the poor sobbing girl on the phone, I read the email. I whispered to her no problem, get rest, we’ll be fine. (I then spent another 20 min trying to cover the shift..but again…another story, another time)

the email said ….thank you, and while you did not win, we felt your writing showed promise.

my stomach dropped. splat.

they went on to say they liked my writing style and LOVED my opening…loved…they used the word loved…..they also included some helpful hints on revising and said to please, submit again…3 chapters next time.

they LOVED my writing. LOVED. I sang and danced. I bought santa cookies and passed them out to the employees at work. I bought snickers bars. I danced more. I put out a hip doing a booty jiggle. Then I put out the other.

They like me, they honestly like me (for those of you old enough, remember the Sally Fields speech? yeah..that one) and now, it’s 36 hours later…have I calmed down yet? Physically yes….after two double shifts and a single, a visit to the chiropractor and a hangover, not necessarily in that order, yes…I have. Mentally, however…the mind is still screaming SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! lol…I’m not kidding.

And instead of working hard this evening on a new book, what am I doing? Eating Gardetto’s and addressing Christmas cards.

I’ll save the panic for this weekend when I finally realize I need to write 3 chapters, polish another chapter, make 3 bracelets, a necklace and a pair of earrings and design an entire website by next Wednesday.

But for now….SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

=)

carrie

So, one day in April, shortly after my forty-seventh fortieth birthday, I decided I was going to be a romance writer. Over the years, I’ve heard tons of people (ok, mostly family…ok, mostly my mother) say I should be a writer. So, I decided that’s what I’m going to do. So I bought books. Read agents blogs and artists blogs. And bought books. Amazon loves me, this I know.

So, I wrote a book. 250+ pages of romance novel, in about 2 months. And then I started taking online classes. This is how Columbus must have felt when he sailed to the New World. Not so much wow, look at that huge land mass I’ve discovered – but HOLY SHIT!

So, in taking classes, I found out everything I did in my ms is ..well…wrong. I did head hopping, had no viable GMC, I was a pantser without a clue. I was proudly showing off my first chapter, and getting blasted back to the dirt. “What’s your heroines long term goal?” Say what? Umm..to have sex with the hero? Bzzzztttt! Wrong answer! “What’s your black moment?” Umm…when I first look in the mirror every morning? Bzzzttt!! Not only was I mistaken in how to write a novel, but I found that very few online class instructors have a sense of humor about such things as GMC’s.

So I learned. And I polished. And I turned my 250 page ms into a 17 page chapter. Huh. I have a blurb, I have a logline, I have a query – all for a book I no longer have written. Those other 223 pages? Gone with the wind. Oh, I might be able to salvage parts, but once I got technical with the story, turns out it’s weak. Flimsy. Unconflicted.

Crap.

So, with the help of instructors, classes, books and so on, I’ve now polished my first chapter. It’s beautiful. It has conflict, sexual eye contact, flowing hair.

But now, I have to move on to chapter TWO. It’s taken me technically 6 months to have a perfect chapter one…how on earth do I start chapter two? I no longer know where my story goes, who my characters are…I have to learn them all over again, re-invent their story and move on….to chapter two!

Does anyone have a chapter two class out there!???!

hellllpppp!

=)

carrie

I have been MIA. Has anyone noticed? anyone? Bueller?

Anyways, as they like to say, life gets in the way. For me, it isn’t so much life, as I don’t much have one, but work has gotten in the way. And that’s not all bad right? At least I have a job – or three or four as the case may be on any given day.

I’ve started making myself to-do lists. I find this is the only way I can remember to do everything I need to do. Old age isn’t all it’s cracked up to be eh? My current list looks like this:

Matt mat (remember to get Matt his new barmat)
Shawn ws (fix shawns website for launch next week)
Teri ws (done!)
pump (order a new well pump)
computer (buy a new computer)
purple jewelry (make a purple necklace and earrings)
Linda jewelry (fix a bracelet and make 2 more)
Lynda jewelry (fix a bracelet)
Cindy jewelry (put new clasps on old jewelry)
GMC (turn in homework for online class)
big mailbox (buy a bigger mailbox)

and so on and so forth. Now if i had a real life what would my list look like?

Cut down Christmas tree and set up in living room with sparkling lights and handmade ornaments
Make and decorate sugar cookies
Visit elderly in the hospital spreading good cheer
Do laundry (yes, EVERYONE has to do laundry)
Frolic with the cats
Watch White Christmas while wearing a Snuggly

so maybe I’m not all that unhappy at not having a real life after all. =)

see ya soon!

carrie

Happy Thanksgiving! And special thanks to my sister for cooking turkey dinner, my mom just for being my mom, my cats for helping me type this while standing directly in front of the monitor begging for treats, and all the numerous people who make my life full of thanks every day. You know who you are!

carrie

I am an emotional reader. There, I’ve said it. Yes, I am one of those people who cry at the endings of books, who laugh hysterically (usually J. Evanovich) at the funny parts, and fold over the pages of the good parts. Y’know what I mean by good parts right? Right.

So, in general, I drive my husband crazy. =)

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being an emotional reader however. There aren’t any twelve step programs for us out there, no meetings in church basements, nothing to be ashamed of. Unless I was reading on a Kindle while riding the subway with gang members (pretty slim chance of that in Iowa) and laughed at an inappropriate moment when Grandma Mazur wore one of her ridiculous outfits.

Oh, and no, I don’t actually have a Kindle either.

Writers love people like me. I should be able to hire myself out to any writer wondering if they’ve put enough emotion in their book, and let them watch me read it. If I’m reaching for the kleenex by the end, they know they’ve got a winner. If I set the book down and go do crossword puzzles when they think they’ve written the World’s Greatest Novel, well…then they’d just have to try harder on the rewrite eh?

I also loan a lot of my books to other people. I drive them nuts too. Quit turning over the page corners! Whatever, I say. Quit flattening them out! That’s the good part!

=)

There’s nothing wrong with being an emotional reader. If you’re one too, be proud of your skills. I bet it will make you a better writer too.

carrie

So I’ve decided to enter the world of contests. Writing contests, of course. Although I’ve always wanted to enter one of those flair bartending contests, but with my lack of depth perception the chance of beaning one of the judges is pretty good. A lawsuit even better.

Last month I entered my first ever REAL contest. Not that there are fake ones out there..the silicone boobies of the writing world…but some are just judged by normal people….your peers if you will. Friends even. And they’re FREE.

Not this hummer. This baby cost me $50 total. I entered both of my stories. Talk about a glutton for punishment. Even the lady who took my submissions said I really had a pair. (if you don’t know what that means, email me ok? we’ll talk) The contest was called love and laughter. Hellooooo!! Can we say heaven sent? That’s me! Laughter! How on earth could I not enter this contest? So I girded my loins (I’ve always liked that saying, almost as much as hoist by his own petard) gathered my $50 – hey, I’m a waitress, do you know how many $1 tips it takes to make fifty bucks? It takes….well…now that was a silly question.

=)

Back to contest land. Immediately after sending off my carefully prepared, spell checked, beloved chapters, I discovered a spelling mistake. Ack!! You can’t retrieve email. Once it’s gone, baby, that sucker’s gone. Ah well. Luckily I am by nature a calm and mature, reasonable adult human being, and with a few long island ice teas and a package of oreos I was soon able to forget about my blunder.

At least until January 31, 2010 when they announce the winners. Ok, go back and read that line again. TWO THOUSAND AND TEN. That’s like ages! I’ll have to have my hair colored at least three times between now and then!

So, I decided to enter another contest. Yeah, you see the theme that’s happening here. This one is due next week, and the winner finds out at the end of November. TWO THOUSAND AND NINE. Whew. Only one hair coloring there.

It’s time I tossed my entries out there to the wolves, time to find out if where I’m going is where I should be. I’d have to say, that by most responses I get back from friends and family, I am.

Responses from professional agents and writers? Well, as my mama always says, if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.

carrie