My Blog Is Moving!!!!

Sorry for the extraordinary time lapse in time between blog posts. Life happened. God forbid. My blog will be taking on a new life in light of changes of my own personal changes. All blogging will now be moved to my website to keep things all in one place so please follow me HERE. You will still be able to sign up to follow via RSS feeds if that is your preferred method of reading blog posts. The website is being updated currently and will be more inclusive of my writing and other general information.

Edge of Darkness, The Killers, and Tidbit Tuesday

Yesterday was a good day for me. I spent the majority of the day working on edits and rewrites, achieving more than I have in a long time. I managed to slog through 62 pages of my manuscript in one sitting! That was no small feat, and I'm quite proud to have gotten that much done!

To top things off and make them just awesome yesterday, I got to spend the evening out with my dad. He came and picked me up in his 4x4 truck since I'm still snowed in and cannot get my minivan out of the driveway. It was a late birthday gift to me. We went to my favorite restaurant, O'Charley's, where I had the cedar planked salmon (delicious), then we decided to go to the movie theater and see Edge of Darkness (the new Mel Gibson movie). It was a really good movie, and I was amazed at what a spot-on Boston accent Mel Gibson had in the movie. He plays a Boston P.D. detective whose daughter is murdered right in front of his house when she comes to visit. He spends the rest of the movie on the vigilante mission of finding her killer, figuring out why she was murdered, and getting revenge. The ending is sad and not what I would have hoped for, but it was still a great movie to watch with Dad, intense and full of action sequences.

The music of the moment is The Killers from their CD, Hot Fuss. The song is "On Top". I got the CD at the library and love the songs on it. There are a couple favorites of mine on the CD, but my absolute favorite song of theirs is from the New Moon Soundtrack. I love "A White Demon Love Song". I definitely plan to look into getting more of The Killers CDs since I have found that I really enjoy their music. I'm always looking for new bands and songs that I like to listen to. I'm totally addicted to music!

Today is Tuesday so it is time for a tidbit from one of my current works in progress. Once again, I chose to give you a snippet from The Council. As I was working on editing and rewrites yesterday, I ran across this part and thought it would make for a good Tidbit Tuesday excerpt. This is introducing some new characters into the book that play key pivotal roles in the book as Elyssia and her friends are looking for allies against The Council. Elyssia finds herself making friends with unusual characters.

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“Sure,” I answered quickly as I saw the four of them entering the room with the girls walking just ahead of the two guys. I had never paid very close attention to them, but now I was keenly interested in every detail I could perceive. On immediate observation it occurred to me that they were each uniquely beautiful in the most elegant ways.

Slender, petite, and fair skinned with a smattering of freckles across her rosy cheeks, Tiana Townsend looked absolutely angelic. The stunning brunette had bright blue eyes which shone beneath the silken curls atop her head. She wore a deep blue sweater that set off her eyes delightfully.

Scarlett Peterson was strikingly statuesque with long, flowing, straight, dark blonde hair and exquisite hazel eyes with a wise, knowing look in them. She dressed with impeccable style and strode into the room with an air of intense confidence and grace.

A head and shoulders taller than the rest of them was Gavin Sanders. He was a magnificent looking guy, lean and incredibly tall with extremely short dark brown hair and deep pools of chocolate brown eyes. Gavin was also dressed as though he were straight out of some male fashion magazine, stylish yet conservative.

Finally, Marc Stevens entered the room. He was the most handsome of the group and notoriously single. Marc’s coal black hair and depths of clear blue eyes were often gossiped to be the sexiest in the school. He did not match Gavin in height, but he was still tall. Tall and muscular with chiseled facial features that seemed beyond perfection. Like Gavin, he was fashionably dressed with a trend towards the athletic.

I had never noticed the uniquely alabaster skin that Scarlett and both of the guys had. They were magnificently picturesque, without the slightest imperfection on any visible parts of their bodies. I observed Scarlett, Gavin, and Marc all dressed as if the weather were still rather warm, in short sleeves and light knits as if they delighted in the cold.

It was difficult to draw my eyes away from them as the bell rang and they took their seats. I had never paid that close attention to take in just how stunningly attractive they all were. Never before had I had reason to examine them so closely but now all I could think about was how to get to know these four unbelievably gorgeous students from my class. I had to know if they would stand with us against The Council.

The Secret Year, Ryan Chin, and Hooverphonic

My full week of doctor's appointments last week went as well as could be expected. I am now scheduled to have knee surgery on March 12th. Scarlett's ankle surgery went smoothly, and she went back to school today like normal.

This week is promising to be snow filled. We already have a thick coating of ice and snow on the ground here to the point that I'm stuck here. I can't get my van out of our very long and uphill sloping driveway. I had to cancel appointments for today and tomorrow since I can't get anywhere, and they are calling for more snow tonight, tomorrow, and Wednesday. I'm going to take a wild guess that the kids will have snow days at least tomorrow and Wednesday, possibly even on Thursday. I could be stuck for a week or longer! Well, I suppose I'll have to use that time to hunker down and work more on The Council. Maybe I'll even finish reading Dear John so I can go see the movie soon.

Speaking of reading books, today's topic of blogging is the newly released book The Secret Year by Jennifer R. Hubbard. I read this book last week and was thrilled with it. Scarlett is reading it now and is loving it too. It is a short book, only 192 pages, but worth the few hours it takes to read it.

The premise of the book is that two teenagers, one poor boy (Colt) and one rich girl (Julia), have this secret relationship for a year up until her sudden death in a car accident. After her death, he is distraught at his loss and looking for answers to his questions about what happened. Shortly after her death, her brother brings Colt a notebook she had kept with letters written to Colt that she never gave him, like a journal of their time together. The notebook gives him a deeper insight into how she felt about him and why she never broke up with her rich boyfriend the whole time that she and Colt were secretly together.

This book is engrossing and compelling, hooking you into Colt's world of pain and loss right from the beginning. I added it to my "I'm Reading" app on Facebook and gave it five stars. This book's author is represented by the awesome agent Nathan Bransford, whose blog is where I first heard of it. I have to say that he has excellent taste as this is a terrific book.

One other blog I'd like to mention today belongs to the amazingly talented Ryan Chin. He is a multimedia genius who brings life to his words and the short videos he does. Check it out here. Ryan is one of the great people I've met online who love to write, and I wanted to make a mention of him on my blog to help attract others to the work he does that I love.

The music of the moment today is on my iTunes library. The band is Hooverphonic, a New Age electronica group, and the CD is Blue Wonder Power Milk. The current song is "Magenta". I got the CD from the library just to see if I would like it and have found that their music is very soothing and interesting. I ripped it to iTunes so I could continue to listen to it.

Tomorrow will be Tidbit Tuesday, and I hope to find something of interest to share with you! See you then.

Technical Difficulties & Too Many Appointments

I apologize for not blogging yesterday. Things have been crazy around here, and my computer has been acting up. It keeps freezing on me and refusing to behave.

I will not be blogging the rest of this week since I have too many doctor's appointments, and Scarlett's surgery is Friday. I will be back to blogging come Monday since next week is less full of appointments. Right now I probably need to go defrag my computer.

When I come back next week I will let you know the outcome of the writing contest decision.

Sorry there's no music of the moment, as I said, things are locking up on my computer.

Writer's Digest Annual Writing Competition

TOMORROW IS MY BIRTHDAY!!! YAY ME!

I'm thinking about entering another writing contest with my novel, Awakening of a Guardian, but am not sure about it. I mean, I had no problem entering the 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest, but this one is different. For one, there is an entry fee to the contest. It is only $20, and that's not a problem really. What I'm not sure about is that you don't win a publishing contract if you do win. What you do win is a trip to New York City to meet with editors and agents and present your work for them to evaluate and decide if they might like to offer you a contract or representation. There is no guarantee for your $20 that you would even get a contract if you win.

So, my question is, should I go ahead and spend the $20 to enter or not? I would love some comments and feedback on this question. I'm a little torn on what to do. Whatever I decide to do, you can bet I'll let you all know the outcome.

Today's music of the moment is on my iTunes "Writing" playlist. The song is "Alive" by Superchick. This is a Christian song, but it's not preachy and you can totally rock out to it. I love to crank it up to listen to it. I think I've possibly posted about listening to this song before. It is really hard to keep track of all the music of the moment segments I've had and which songs I've talked about already. The point of the music of the moment is just to give you a glimpse into my life as a person and also as a writer. This song will likely play a part towards the very end of the book Train Wrecks.

I'll blog more on Monday! Have a great weekend!