Whoot! It's my 100 Followers #Contest!!

If you've seen any of my posts since the momentous event, you know I have 100 followers.

Me = Giddy :)

So, I'm holding a little celebration at East For Green Eyes, and I hope you'll participate.  I'll make it worth your while, I promise.

Also, I have no idea what I'm doing. But you'll enjoy it nonetheless, no?

What Can You Win?

Indecisive me.  I have a few different things to offer, but I couldn't decide what was most valuable.  Plus, I have both reader followers and writer followers, each with different priorities.  So here are the possibilities.

A signed copy of The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors by Michele Young-Stone.

A signed copy of Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick.

A chapter critique from me.  This does not have to be a first chapter as long as it is accompanied by a summary of the action thus far (which can be highly informal).

A 5-page or query critique from me.

Choice of two Vosges Chocolate Bars.  Subject to availability at my local grocer.  No promises the chocolate making it in one piece though international shipping.

The Rules

• You must be a follower. +2 pts for old followers—i.e., you clicked the happy "follow" button before I published this post.  +1 pt for new followers. 
• To participate, leave me a comment and tell me (briefly—max 20 words?) about the awesomeness that is YOU!
• In your comment, rank what you would like 1st, 2nd, etc.  The first place winner will get their top choice, and then the top-most choice for the other winners.
• This is not limited to US and Canadian residents.  You're all cool.  I can manage the postage :)
• Tweet for extra points. 1pt per Tweet, maximum 3.  Please include @rosieanabelle in your Tweet, and leave me a link below.
• Give my contest a shout-out in a blog post = +4 pts. (and leave me a link)
• Side bar announcement about the contest = +2 pts. (and leave me a link)
• Okay, folks, here's the kicker.  My blog doesn't have a very writerly title.  It doesn't include the word "write" or "edit" or my name.  It references a song lyric.  Chances are good that said song lyric has something to do with my writing (I'd say 99.99999% with a .00001% margin of error). I'm not asking you to guess, because that would take away the mystery, but for +10 extra points, you can write a short story (of no more than 500 words) that includes the phrase "east for green eyes" that is NOT from the song lyric.  Email your story to me at rlconnolly01(at)gmail(dot)com.  PLEASE include the story IN-LINE.  Attachments will NOT be read and you will not get the points for your beautiful creative efforts.

Okay, for the record, when you first enter these things, you haven't Tweeted and you haven't side-barred and you haven't blogged, and that's cool.  When/if you do, just come back and leave me another comment with your links.  If you just want to enter and not do any of the extras, that's cool, too.  Just leave me a comment.

The contest will close at midnight EST on Friday, 17 Sept.  Winners will be announced on Monday, 20 Sept.

Good luck! And thanks for following! :)

Contests and Tagging

Hey Everyone!  First, if you missed it, look over there ---------\/
(wow, that's a really horrible down arrow, isn't it?)

I have 100 followers! Come back on Monday to celebrate with me :)



CONTESTS

Here are a few contests that need to be shared with the masses:

First, Jessica, a.k.a. The Alliterative Allomorph, is holding a contest in support of The Writing Show.  If you're a writer (you know who you are!) you should definitely be involved!  Deadline is September 13!

Steph at MaybeGenius is hosting the Mash-It Up blogfest with some awesome prizes.  Entries are due by October 1.

And, really, how can you resist with a graphic like that? Haha :)

Carol at Artzicarol Ramblings is offering signed copies of her book JUNCTION 2020.  Enter by September 7.




And, just to be a tad bit embarrassed of my own excitement, Talli Roland is having a contest to celebrate her 400 followers!  Super congrats to Talli.  Be a follower of Talli's by September 30th for an automatic entry. (Sorry, but I don't have a graphic for Talli :(

Rebecca at Sonshine Thoughts and Naomi at Writing: A Soul's Way of Breathing are having their SUPER SISTER CELEBRATION. Rebecca's deadline has been extended until September 7.




Have another contest that I didn't mention?  Let me know and I'll add you :)

I'VE BEEN TAGGED...


Leigh over at That's Write has tagged me again with the handwriting game.  Please feel free to oooh and aaaah over my messy scrawl.

Write down (by hand!) on a piece of paper the following:
1. Name, Blog Name
2. Right handed, left handed, or both?
3. Favorite letters to write
4. Least favorite letters to write
5. Write out "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog"
6. Write in CAPS: BABOON, SPLENDOR, ONOMATOPOEIA, FLIP-FLOPS, HUZZAH!
7. Favorite song lyrics (My two: "Starlight" by Muse and (duh!) "Pretty Bird" by Jenny Lewis.)
8. Tag 7 people
9. Whatever else strikes your fancy (Macedonian.  Translation: "I really don't like writing with Macedonian letters." Reason: They're messing up my fine Russian handwriting!)

I'm not sure who to tag with this.  Seems like so many people have already been tagged.  SO, if you haven't been tagged or would like to be tagged again, consider yourself tagged.  Otherwise, continue to oooh and aaaah :)


Happy Friday, Everyone!

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Weekend....

ACK! It almost snuck (er, sneaked) up on me.  Guess what, folks!

I HAVE 100 FOLLOWERS!!!

The ideas for how to celebrate have been germinating in the back of my mind, but I haven't completely settled on anything.  I promise to have the situation settled by Monday.

So be sure to drop back in on Monday and find out how you can play and what you can win :)

HURRAH!

Writing Prompts Gone Bad

What do you do when your writing prompt goes wrong? I mean, rebels, takes a gun, and robs a bank, bad.  Or Charles Manson bad.  Or passive-aggressive, why didn't my mother ever love me bad.

(Warning: Info Dump!)

As you know, I'm taking a writing class right now.  We have two pretty nice books: The Making of a Story by Alice LaPlante and Making Shapely Fiction by Jerome Stern.  They each have many good qualities, though I've read fewer than 100 pages total.

Okay, back to the point.

In Stern's book, there's an interlude entitled "Don't Do This: A Short Guide to What Not to Do" (65-76).  They're all obvious things (e.g., don't end you story with "And then the alarm woke me up."), but some of them stuck with me, and I want to force fun stories from them.  I have no intention of writing the typical story that the author is warning against, but twist it into something entertaining.

For example:

Hobos in Space.  This prompt has a lot of potential for a bad MST2K kind of story.  Stern wasn't literally suggesting take a hobo and put him/her in space, but instead discussed the abhorrent mimicking of Samuel Beckett.  That's not my plan.  (And I can't stop hearing the muppets yelling "Pigs In Spaaaaaaace" in my head.)

Bachelor party takes groom-to-be to brothel to find bride hard at work.  Yes, I intentionally used the word "hard".  The point Stern was making here was that many times this is the end of a story.  I really want to write this one from first-discovery on.  Do they still get married?  Does she get mad at him for invading her "office space"?

The Zero-to-Zero story. The MC who never learns anything. Yes, this is horrible and cliché and a disservice to the reader.  But what about the Zero-to-Two story, where the MC kind of gets it, but not really, and inevitably gets it wrong but sort of tried?



Try any good writing prompts lately?  Or any ideas on how to expand upon the prompts above?

I Love Knowing Smart People

Okay, folks.  Remember how I've been trying to find balance and order between all of the many haphazard parts of my life?  Well, I found part of the answer yesterday on the blog of a very smart woman.

Jemi (Just Jemi) described how she's ordered her blog reading with folders in Google Reader.  Totally copying from Jemi, I not only set up folders for each day of the week, but I added a Daily folder (mainly for agents' blogs), and a "Whenever" folder (e.g., for the gluten-free food blogs I follow).  I know this is going to make my life so much more manageable.

Thanks, Jemi!

So, for those of you who I've missed recently, fear not.  I shall return.  I just might not return every day.  But at least this way I get to see you sometimes! :)

******

In writing-related occurrences, if you didn't see yesterday's post, I'm excited about my new photo acquisition for a character in my WiP.  I'm still working toward finishing my latest draft of WiP#1 by the end of September.  My current word count holds at about 36K.  I didn't get any time to work on it on Monday, but hopefully I'll find some time on Tuesday.

******

Here's a school update after day 1, for those of you who might be interested.  I've gone to my first fiction writing class already, and it was awesome.  The instructor's cool, excited, and adorable.  The other students are a wide mix from campus: seniors and freshman; creative writing majors, grad-me, and psychology majors; an even balance of men and women.

It looks like it's going to be a good class.  For the first few weeks, we'll be focusing on characterization one week, story arcs another, dialogue another, etc.  And at the end of each class she'll give us 5-10 minutes and a writing prompt to get the ol' brain cells activated.  We'll see what comes out of yesterday's prompt over the weekend...

I also had my German for reading class.  It was more or less what I expected.  The instructor said from the get-go that this would be a boring class—monotonous and tedious—but I so sincerely appreciated his honesty about it.  A few years ago I took the equivalent French class, and it was torture for many, many, many, MANY reasons (are you getting how torturous it was??), but the fact that the instructor RESENTED our boredom was ridiculous.  You translate sentences, go around in a circle to talk about your translation, you get a little bit of grammar instruction, go home, prepare, and do it again the next day.  What's exciting about that?  So, kuddos for the German guy for his honesty and bluntness.  And he doesn't care that I bought the e-book, which is good since it was 1/2 the price!

For said German class, I was dreading my hike to the library in the hopes that one more German-English dictionary could be acquired from the shelves, but I didn't have to go :)  My adviser loaned me his German-English dictionary from when he took the class XX years ago.  I'm smiling at it right now.  I love when things are easier than they should be.

In that vein, I get to pick up my books tomorrow, prepackaged and waiting for me at a pick up window in the Union.  How cool is that?

Oh, and finally, after German I went for wine with my awesome friend from the Spanish department—who, coincidentally, suffered with me through the French class.  This woman is so funny that, by the end of my third glass of wine, I was laughing so loudly I was probably irritating the wait staff (who were trying to go home... we were the last folks there...).  It was a great way to end the long first day.

And, today, the gym.  Duh duh dunnnnnnnn....


So, I stink and have no good question for you, my lovely readers, today.  My excuse: I'm writing this Monday night and am an alcoholic lightweight.  Sorry!  I promise for my interesting and writing-related insights throughout the rest of the week.

Happy Tuesday, y'all :)

The Google Goddess

Many of you already know the wonderful and esteemed Cruella Collett over at The Giraffability of Digressions.  If you don't, she is definitely a woman worth knowing, and for a vast number of reasons beyond the one below.

In response to my post yesterday, Cruella went online and found an electronic version of my sought-after model who exemplifies one of my characters.  She found it on the Everything Fabulous blog (direct link).  I can't imagine how long it took her, and I'm not going to ask, but the fact that she took even five minutes to look for this (after my hour—I think I'm Google-impaired) means the world to me.  Thank you, Cruella!

Anyway, here you go folks.  She's not my MC, and you don't even meet her until WiP#2, but I can't tell you how excited I am to have found her :)

Happy Monday, everyone! :)

The Weekend Calls

This is officially my last weekend of summer before classes begin on Monday.  Many of our friends have returned, and so people are excited to get together before the grind starts in earnest.

In other news, I still have no good formula for balance.  I'm working on it.  Google Reader is helping, but it feels so impersonal without the cool layouts.

What else?  Oh!  My totally awesomely amazing friend Rory, who you may remember from the wedding we were in a few weeks ago, sent me a page from her Vanity Fair.  While we were waiting to have our hair and makeup done, she and I flipped through a couple of magazines, chatting about this and that.  She was in mid-sentence, but my enthusiasm got the better of me, and I twisted the magazine around to show her an ad and said, "This looks exactly like one of my characters."  Then, distracted by, oh, the WEDDING, I forgot about it until I got home.  When I tried to find a picture of the same woman online, it was obviously impossible since I didn't know her name or even the ad she was in, only that it was in the Vanity Fair with Lady Gaga on the cover.  In a moment of desperation, I emailed Rory and asked her to mail me the picture.  And she did!!  Thank you, Rory! Rawr! :)

PS—Having the ad in hand doesn't make it any easier to find it online to share with you.  If you care, it's from the Lady Gaga issue.  It's a Banana Republic ad on the left-hand page.  The woman in the ad is holding a black umbrella and is wearing a gray sweater and pink blouse.  She's a beautiful redhead with freckles and blue eyes. If you find an electronic copy of the ad, PLEASE let me know.  I keep my pictures together in a file on my computer for when I'm not at home, and I don't know when I'll be able to use a scanner next.

In other writing-related happenings, I recently joined an online critique group and it's awesome.  I've not only gotten some fabulous feedback, but I've had a chance to review other people's work and learn from their positives and negatives.  The folks are great, balancing the critiques with the good and the needs-improving.  Luck is what I can attribute to it.

One of the "events" from the group is finishing our word-count goals by the end of September.  This should prove interesting.  I have the original MS, which is close to 150K, but I'm changing a few things in the plot and rearranging certain events, and hoping to end up around 90-100K before more editing and cutting.  I'm currently at 34K, but since I'm reusing some of the old MS, I do have less than 66K to go in a month.  I'm thinking about adding a ticker to the sidebar, but I'm not sure where to get one.  Any suggestions?

How about you?  Any great writing news to share?