05/31/2013 Fantastic Friday!

Greetings everyone! I hope the week has been nice to all of you. May ends today, which is still just absolutely crazy to me. I'm not ready for June, and I know that it's going to blow by like everything else has. For right now though, let's get to the reason you came here.

Though there's no title on the cover image, I bring you 'Raising Dead' by Aaron Dennis. An apprentice watches his master carefully trying to learn the truth so he can unlock the secrets of necromancy. They are cut off from the society they are gathering specimens from, and the apprentice Gaulder, starts to question his master's methods.

He's been alone for a majority of his life, and Gaulder has become focused on finding the immortality ritual, and the only way to do that is through necromancy. It's frowned upon in polite society, and so he follows his master's guidance as they live on the outside. He has questions about why his master is going about things the way he is, mostly because he sees it as inefficient. He needs to know the ritual though, and he can sense his master is close, so Gaulder waits until it's time for him to do what he's longed to do since the day his parents died.

'Raising Dead' is available on Smashwords for free, and by the time you all get there I don't know if the number of words will be loading properly yet, but it actually is a short story. It was fun to read and I'm always a fan of learning how something in a world works, whether it's magic or just the law, it's always interesting and having a fun story to go along with it is always a bonus. So please go check it out, I'm sure the author would appreciate it.

Thanks everyone for stopping by today. I will be back on Monday for my normal post, so I hope in the meantime you all have a super fun weekend. I'm going to be working on preparing for my trip at the end of next week, so that should be exciting! For now have a great weekend and a great start to June!

05/29/2013 Writing Wednesday!

Hello everyone and welcome back. It's crazy that May is almost over already. I'm super not ready for it to be June yet, let me tell you. On the other hand, I'm also ready for May to be done after the craziness of the last couple weeks, and I am ready for things to just calm the crap down again.

Writing while juggling stressful times is super hard, ask anyone who's had to experience it. Let's say you have a deadline (self imposed or other) and then something comes up that takes you attention away from it. That is going to result is stress and likely some form of sleepless nights while trying to meet that deadline. It's a little bit easier when you give the deadline to yourself, but that  doesn't mean the stress will instantly go away.

Hopefully if you have an agent if you contact them and explain that the world exploded in a not good way they'll be understanding and let you take some more time. I really wouldn't know because I haven't managed to get an agent, however I'm hoping they aren't jerks when it comes to emergency situation. I only know what I've seen in TV, and that's basically in the end they work for you. Of course this is after they were a hard ass and needed to learn some lesson about love or whatever. That is also the plot for a good percentage of romantic comedies. Weird.

Anyway, my point is that dealing with stress while writing shouldn't be something that ends up causing more stress in the end. Writing is something you love, it's your passion, and you want to do it. If it ends up stressing you out then the only thing that's going to follow is resentment, either toward the act of writing, yourself, the world, or others who don't seem to have the same problem as you do. You seriously don't want that to happen, really any of that because in the end you will be miserable. Writing should be some kind of outlet that makes the stress go away, and after doing it you should feel excited and relaxed, not angry. Always remember that.

Thanks so much for stopping by today, I know this was a little short, but I got going a little late. I'll be back on Friday though, so please come take a look at everything then. A reminder about next week; I'll be here Monday and Wednesday, but not Friday. I will be boarding a plane at an hour that doesn't exist. I'll come back the following Wednesday though, so I won't be gone forever. Anyway, for now though have a great rest of your week!

05/24/2013 Fantastic Friday!

Good day everyone. I hope the week was nice to you. I for one am happy it's (finally) Friday, which means in just a few short (agonizing) hours I'll get to start my three day weekend! I also get to hear back from the vet today to see if my cat's numbers are looking any better. So...that will be fun.

For now let's just get to the reason why you're all actually here. I bring you 'Donuts' by Beth Pratt. Now as much as I wish for them to be physical ones, because frankly we all deserve to have something yummy, I don't have to power to make them manifest over the internet yet, so please enjoy the short story instead.

Lacy has a habit for running late to meetings, not that it's actually her fault. So the donuts are an attempt at putting out an fires before they start. Especially since her boss isn't known for his understanding and clam voice. However things get a little out of control when she actually makes it to the meeting and things start going in a whole new direction.

This story is a work of what's called Flash Fiction. It's when you sit down and write a story in a relatively quick amount of time, do some quick edits and then show it to the world. It's a neat format and one I keep wanting to do more with, but am always too nervous to do so. Not to mention I would get stuck on my lack of cover-design ability. Like many flash fictions though, this story is short, sweet, and fun to read.

'Donuts' is available on Smashwords for free, and like I said before, is very short, so you might be able to read it over your break while partaking in, dare I say, a donut yourself. Please help this author out by taking a look at her story and letting you know you like it.

Thanks everyone for stopping by today. As I said previously, since Monday is a holiday there won't be a post that day, so I'll be seeing everyone back on Wednesday. Then it'll just be me frantically preparing for my Vegas trip on the 7th. I hope this weekend sees all of you well, so until I see you again on Wednesday I hope you all have a fun next few days!

05/22/2013 Writing Wednesday!

Welcome back everyone. I hope the week is treating you well. So far mine has been a ball of stress, but hopefully things will calm down as the end of the week approaches. Due to the holiday on Monday, I have a three-day weekend, which will be incredibly nice to experience. That also means there won't be a post on that day because I will be enjoying my day off by trying (desperately) to sleep in.

I've often talked about how writing is a giant balancing act with everything else in life. Sometimes this is more apparent than others, and I really can't stress enough just how important it is to make sure you find a good balance. The ability to multitask on some level is also very important, because while you may not be able to write at all hours of the day, sometimes you have an idea that just won't go away no matter what you do. In those cases I do what I call 'marinating', it's a silly term, I know, but that's really what happens.

Let's say I know I'll have some time later when I get off work, and feel like being productive in a way that doesn't involve my recent dive into crafting. I'll ask for a generic idea, likely involving the current game we're in, and while I'm sitting there trying not to let my brain melt at work, I expand on the idea. I don't write anything down unless it's just a couple words to remind me of something that I know I'm likely to forget, all I do is think. I work out specific interactions, I think of how conversations will go, how whatever the dramatic/climatic scene will be, and who the story will involve. I just think of all that and let it sit there while I work on that thing I get paid the real money to do.

The process helps me in a few ways in that it makes actually sitting down to write everything go relatively quickly because I know how things are going to begin and end, it helps me develop certain reactions to make sure they're appropriate to the individual characters, and it also helps me work out whatever forms of writers block appears before I'm in the middle of something and don't know what to do. If I don't know how something is going to progress I've already taken the time to figure all that out, and any of the 'how would this person react to this...' stuff that happens has already been taken care of as well.

I don't know if this will work for everyone, this is just what's help me out. Contrary to what you learned in school, writing is not an exact science. Sure sentence structure is neat, but everyone gets to their story their own way, and there isn't any right or wrong way to do it. Now if you way involves sneaking up on bums and skinning them alive, while getting yourself immersed in your genre is...interesting, let's not hurt anyone, ok? It's just like method acting; it's really cool how you can almost become another person entirely, but when it gets to the point of hurting yourself or others, let's take a step back and think about how we should think of a different way. Write however you feel is comfortable for you whether that be carefully plotting out each and every scene and piece of dialogue, or smashing the keys on the computer and hoping words are made.

Thanks everyone for stopping by again today. I hope the rest of the week treats you all nicely. Barring a disaster, I should be back on Friday and hopefully I'll bring with me a story you're all interested in. For now though I hope you all have a great and fun rest of your week!

05/20/2013 Magnificent Monday!

Hello everyone! I hope the weekend was nice to all of you. I apologize for the lack of post after Wednesday. The trip to the vet was educational, and Thursday ended up kicking me in the face with stress that boiled over to the rest of the week. Having a sick cat is really tough, and while I do have a cat with a chronic condition (my rescue is asthmatic) I had put the other one's problems in the back of my mind until this last week. Now he's on medication and all I can do is hope that it's solving the problem.

I know I sound like a crazy cat lady, and I'm sure that is going to be my destiny one day, but my cats are very important to me, and when one of them is sick like this it's very scary. It didn't help that the guy I live with also got sick, so I had to work on fixing up both of them. Again, I do apologize there wasn't a post on Friday, I always hate it when I miss a review, but I couldn't think straight and I just needed to get through the day.

With Jason sick the weekend was relatively restful. Still saw friends and family, which was nice, and also started planning a short trip to Vegas at the start of June. Just a heads up, I likely won't be posting on June 7th. I'm really nervous about going, but I think part of that is because I haven't left the state for more than a day in over 10 years. That sounds really sad, I know, but I haven't. We went to Oregon last year for a weekend, but we left on a Saturday and came back Sunday, and while this trip will only be adding one more day, I think the distance is what's throwing me into a panic because it's not like I could just come home in a few short hours. I mean, technically I could, but that would also involve going through an airport and I don't think any of those hours could be considered 'short' at that point. Hopefully the time-off possibilities that have fallen into my lap will all be working on when I go to work today.

I am still editing 'Rending the Seal' it is a slow process, but it has to be since it's the first draft edit. I need to carefully read each sentence and determine whether or not I like how it flows or if it's even necessary. Let me tell you each and every page has a lot of pink on it. That's good though, even if it means I'm really not looking forward to edit part 2, 3 and beyond. I will get this story completed finished this year though, and is the plan/goal. Once that's completed 'Daughter of the Shackled King' will be thrown into the computer the rest of the way and I can get back to completing 'Through the Broken Mirror', though I may just use that one for NaNoWriMo again, that seems to work out fairly well. If I get to do it this year...I discovered on Wednesday there is a game coming out on November 1st, but because it's not as wrist-intensive as Persona 4, I might be ok...maybe...

Thanks everyone for stopping by today. I'll be back on Wednesday barring any further craziness in my life. I hope the week is nice to you all though in the meantime and I hope to see you all back here. Have a great week!

05/13/2013 Magnificent Monday!

Hi everyone! I hope your weekend was lots of fun. Mine was entertaining, but right now all my thoughts are on Wednesday. Not just because I have that day off, but more because it's my Star Trek day! I managed to get tickets for the sneak preview and I am stupidly excited for it! Also, as a heads up, Wednesday there won't be a post up, because as much as I'd like to celebrate hitting that milestone here, I also have to take one of the cats to the vet that day early in the morning, and I have no idea how long that will take.

Instead I'll just preemptively celebrate now! I'm really excited that it's gotten so far here. At first I had thought the blog would be something I'd do until I was tired of it, which usually gives me a good few months before something distracts me or what have you. However, that hasn't happened here, and I am really thankful for all the support I've gotten, and the acceptance during times where there's no posts (like last December). Thanks so much and I'm interested to see when we'll get to that next 1000 marker.

Yesterday was also Mother's Day, so for all of the mothers who stop by here I just want to thank them and tell them how awesome they are. They've managed to do something that I haven't, and frankly am terrified to ever do, not to mention my own mother still puts up with me and all my various elements of crazy. You're all awesome, never forget that.

Also, as an update, I'm still working on scanning all of those cards in. It's just a process, and one I need to make time to do. I will be getting it done soon though, mostly because I got the 'you're trial period is running out soon' message from Adobe. I'll keep posting them as I get them done, and if there are any I have missed, just go check out my Deviant Art Page and see what's there.

For now though I hope everyone has a great start to their week. I am sleepy, but will hopefully be able to push through. Working the longer day since I work this Saturday is always a killer because while I wake up at the same time, being at work for that extra hour is apparently a little but more than I can take. Thanks again for all your constant support as well! I'll see you later on this week!

05/10/2013 Fantastic Friday!

Good day everyone! It's Friday, which means we actually made it through the week! I know it was a little rough at points, but everyone should be satisfied right now. I'm mostly awake, which is a decent sign all things considering, so before that changes let's actually get to the reason you're all here.

Today I look at 'Supertech' by Greta van der Rol. As you may have guessed, it's a science fiction short story about a woman named Morgan, who is also what's known as a Supertech. She has implants that enhance her cognitive skills and also allow to her to interface directly with a network system. From what I can tell she's somewhere being considered property and a person to the military.

It's been six weeks since she was put on her most recent assignment, though she was also convinced it had been months before the time had actually been pointed out to her. The jobs she'd been given were menial and boring, however while the new one is fascinating and exciting, the more she works on it, the more Morgan starts to worry about what she's seeing. Her commanding officer doesn't seem to agree with her concerns, however it's up to her to either change his mind or get to the bottom of it herself, the only problem that could end up being a risk for more than just her.

I picked this story because frankly who doesn't like a conspiracy plot now and then. Morgan is interesting too, so that means the reader can be engaged the whole time rather than just skim through until the end. You become attached to her, and you hope that either she finds a way to fix the problem, or is listened to so that someone else can take the worry away. This is always important for your protagonist to have.

'Supertech' is available for free on Smashwords, and the subtitle says 'A Morgan Selwood Story' so I don't know if that was put there was stylistic reasons or if there are more to come. Also, the author was also the cover designer, which that is more than I could ever do with a computer, so good job to that as well.

Thanks everyone for stopping by today. I think if we do as well as we did this week next week that we should get to that new milestone for visits. I really do appreciate all the support that this blog has gotten, and I hope that it continues for as long as I'm able to keep it up. For now I hope you all have a really fun weekend though, have a great day!