Meme-Time

I've been tagged in a meme by Wendy over at Fabulosity Nouveau. It seems there are a bunch of them floating around right now. This one looks fun, so, here we go :)

If you could go back in time and relive one moment, what would it be?

Huh. Good question. Does this mean re-experience or being able to change the moment? Am I thinking about this too much?

Pyramid of the Moon
Courtesy of Wiki Commons

Okay, as a straight re-experience, I would say the boat ride my husband and I took through the canals in Mexico City on our honeymoon. If I could change the moment, I would go back to the day before and wear more sunscreen at the Pyramids at Tenochtitlan so that I wouldn't look like a crazy lobster on that boat ride :)

If you could go back in time and change one thing, what would it be?

Changing my major from creative writing to political science. Then again, that little change had lots of repercussions on my life, like living abroad, that I'm not sure I want to give up.

Willow Rosenburg / Alyson Hannigan
Courtesy of Buffy Wikia

What movie/tv character do you most resemble in personality?

Willow in early seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer--passionate about her friends and loved ones, sensitive and easily heart-broken, and prone to serious geek-out moments.

If you could push one person off a cliff and get away with it, who would it be?

What a horrible question? If I have an answer for this, I'm not making it public on my blog *shifty*

Name one habit you want to change in yourself.

Laziness. I really think this is a habit. We get comfortable in routine. After my father died in 2008, I didn't do ANYTHING. I watched lots of TV. I sat on my butt. And it's been really hard to break those habits since then.

Describe yourself in one word.

Confused? :)

Describe the person who named you in this meme in one word.

Spunky!

Why do you blog? Answer in one sentence.

I love being a part of an amazing, supportive community of writers and readers who want to encourage and help each other from the goodness of their souls.

PS--Thank you :)

Who am I tagging? 

Reece Hanzon
Charity Bradford
Natasha Hanova

Whether to be Weathered by the Weather

So, my planned post will be postponed for a few days while I recover from the chaos that happened in my town last night.

A total of *five* tornado sirens went off between 5PM and midnight on Wednesday night. Hurricane-strength wind and rain ripped through our inland community. Funnel clouds were spotted in several counties. One touched down and destroyed a trailer park south of town.

Here are some pictures of what happened at our house.

This tree probably topped out around 40 feet. Last night the roots snapped and the tree collapsed. We're super lucky that it felt the exact way it did, because it could have taken out any of four houses and several cars on the street. Honestly, it could have collapsed through my bedroom ceiling.

But it did block the entire street. Traffic had to be rerouted through several different streets in our neighborhood due to all the trees and limbs that came down. At 7:30, though, the crew had already arrived to survey the situation.

Some perspective on how big the stump is.

And here's the other tree that snapped in half and fell on our roof. Luckily it didn't hurt anything (I don't think), and it landed mainly on the roof of our porch. It could have been much worse.



So, I hope the weather has been nicer to you than it has been to us recently. Have any scary weather stories to share?

Scores, Strings, and A Crazy Little Thing Called Memberships

First, remember to sign up for the What's the Score Blogfest for June 1st. List songs you'd like to be in the soundtrack to your WIP, and win prizes just for participating. Click above or on the right for more details.




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Jessica Bell is organizing the promotion for her upcoming release, STRING BRIDGE. Think you might be interested in getting an ARC and posting a review? Being involved in the Amazon Chart rush? Her Blog Tour? Hope over to Jessica's blog and sign up.

If you missed the trailer:

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For those of you new to my life and woes, there's something you need to know:

I'm a recovering linguist.

This means several things for my writing. First, when I write, I have to focus A LOT on the voice, because I'm still trying to purse the academicese from my writing. Keeping my prose clean of the dry, scientific, observational sentence structures is tough. Seriously.

Another remnant of my linguist days are my society memberships. I'm a member of LSA, SLS, and  AATSEEL. I even freelance as an editor for the publisher of the journal associated with SLS. I'm in deep, folks... at least until I have to renew again in the winter. Then I can let those memberships laps.

But thinking about those has got me thinking about memberships in writerly organizations, and I don't know which are the best for a budding writer on a limited budget. For example, SCBWI is $85 for the first year. I'm sure it's worth it, but that figure about makes me want to faint. Membership in LSA was only $20! I could stay a linguist for four more years and still be able to buy lunch.

Okay, I'm done complaining.  SCBWI offers lots of great services and perks to members. The question is: do I belong there?

Really, that's the problem. I don't know where I belong. I could join SCBWI, but my work straddles YA and adult. Would SCBWI be a good fit for me? What about RWA (at $110)? I don't really consider myself a romance author, though there are strong tones of romance. How about SFWA? Well, a quick look at their website indicates that I'm not eligible, anyway.


So, help me out. What societies are out there for a writer trying to make her way? If you're a member, do you feel you get your money's worth from the dues? How do you make the most of your memberships?

First Two Pages

So, yeah, I mentioned last week that I felt I had lost my mojo. My posting this doesn't necessarily negate that. In fact, it took me quite a while to work through this.

Anyway, here's my question, folks: How's the hook? Do you feel hooked? I didn't like the opening to the last version of this, and this version will keep me from having to do severally massive rewrites (though there are always TONS of rewrites, no?). That aside, if you don't like it, that's okay, too. I'm still learning/teaching myself what works.

Any comments or critiques are more than welcome. Thanks for reading.

Fighting Fate, beginning of Chap 1 (465 words)

My Anabelle Lindsky

Anabelle watched in the mirror as her reflection disappeared. Before it dissolved completely, she squared her shoulders. A shudder ran over her spine. She swallowed her fear. She could no longer see herself, only the floral wallpaper behind her.
 

The moment of truth. She turned to the door and opened it as little as possible. In the hallway, she walked on the sides of her feet, trying to keep her dress shoes quiet. Another pair of shoes slapped the ground behind her.She flattened herself against the wall and held her breath until he turned a corner. She kept her eyes on that corner. How had she become such a coward? If she planned to do this, she needed to do it right. She pushed herself away from the wall and continued down the hall.
 

She slid past another guard at the entrance to the restricted areas. The Mansion’s walls glowed a brighter yellow than the halls she’d seen on the tour earlier. The cherry wood tables and chairs, which lined the walls in the public areas, were absent here. She worried she might get lost in the restricted area with no identifiable landmarks of furniture. She tried keeping a map in her head of the turns she took, but direction had never been her skill—no matter how much magic she injected into a mental map.
 

Instead of worrying about it, she focused on the magic she knew she could control. Invisibility. Seeking. She’d used it in middle school to avoid the mean girls. She’d used it in high school to avoid the teachers she didn’t like. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d used it to find the person she sought instead of avoid. She concentrated on her limited knowledge of her target—his physique, his personality, his likes and dislikes—and hoped she could get a trace on him.
 

She’d never used her seeking abilities on someone she hadn’t met before.
 

She continued wandering the halls until she sensed him behind a door. She backtracked around a corner and spotted a surveillance camera. In order to talk to him, she would have to become visible again, but she couldn’t do that in front of a camera. She’d never tried to disrupt electronic equipment, and she hoped she could manage. She reached up until she reached the wires behind the camera. She imagined the the last thirty seconds playing on a loop, a continual visual of nothing, and said a silent prayer to her guiding spirits for help.
 

Her throat constricted and she reached to tug at her collar. She’d never felt comfortable with things around her neck—turtleneck sweaters, tight necklaces, even her fingers to check her pulse. Despite the shaking in her chest, she listened for the door to open and prepared to drop her invisibility.

Where'd the Mojo Go?

First, remember to sign up for the What's the Score Blogfest for June 1st. List songs you'd like to be in the soundtrack to your WIP, and win prizes just for participating. Click above or on the right for more details.
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Mojo Jojo, from "The Powerpuff Girls"
Courtesy of Wiki Commons

My mojo's disappeared. My muses have left the building. And the more I hunt, the more avoidy it all gets.

Maybe Mojo Jojo stole it!

No, I can't blame him. This isn't a new development. This started during April. I thought, well, I'm concentrating on my blogging for A to Z, and I had to finish my classes and some freelance work. So I let myself take a break.

Bad idea.

Nine Muses dancing with Apollo, by Baldassare Peruzzi
Courtesy of Wiki Commons

I'm trying to find the mojo again. It's hard to get the ball rolling. I want to dance with the muses and find my way back into my work. And I think I'll be much happier when I can.

How do you get the muses to start dancing for you again? What do you do when the mojo eludes you?

Laughter is the Best Medicine Blogfest

 Jokes. I'm not the best joke teller.

But when I saw this on Leigh's blog, I had to join. I've been needing more reasons to laugh lately, and I hope being a part of this blogfest will give me a couple giggles.

Thanks to Leigh and Lydia for hosting today!

So, here's my attempt at telling a joke, which is neither writerly- nor work-related. It's kid-related. Maybe that's cheap. If you think so, sorry. But, then again, you don't have to read it :)

When I was a kid, I had a real problem with this joke:

What's black and white and read all over?

(It doesn't seem so hard to figure out when it's written down, does it?)

I never understood "read", but only "red". I knew the answer was a newspaper, but I had no idea how a newspaper could be red. I can't remember if anyone ever tried to explain it to me or not, either. If someone did, I was too stubborn, or else I promptly forgot again.

One day my parents were reading the paper over breakfast. My mother complained about a recent PETA incident, with people throwing red paint all over people (I was too young to understand what PETA was or why they would throw paint). But from this I realized the answer:

What's black and white and red all over?

A newspaper that pissed of PETA.

Let the collective groaning commence.

What to read more jokes that are (hopefully) much better than mine? Check out Leigh's entry for today, with the linky list at the bottom.

A happy, giggly Monday to you!

Changes, Constants, and the Big Announcement

Anyone know what happened to Blogger over the past few days? I suppose that’s what I get for delaying my announcement.

So, as some of your may know, I just finished my time in graduate school. Hurray! I’ve decided to move on to other things—like writing (plus a part-time gig)—to while away the hours. For a while it didn’t look possible, but my husband was offered a pretty nice new job with his shiny new PhD. We’ll be moving in August, though just across town. My life is full of changes right now, though they’re all for the better.

But I’ve got one consistent thing in my life… okay, yeah, I’ve got TONS of them, considering we’re not moving to South Dakota or Peru or something. But, when it comes to the relevance of this blog, I have something that’s strongly consistent.

The blog itself.

May 31st marks my one-year blogiversary!

And you know me. I HAVE to celebrate. What does that mean?

BLOGFEST :)

To celebrate, I’m hosting the What’s the Score Blogfest.

On June 1st, post any number of songs, artists, composers, posers, who/whatever that you might want to include in the soundtrack to your WIP. YOU’RE IN CHARGE! You make the soundtrack the way you want it.

Don’t have a WIP? Is your WIP’s soundtrack personal and not something you want to share? No problem! Take your favorite book, or the book your reading right now, or a book you remember well, and make a soundtrack for it.

Want to enter? The Linky List is at the bottom of the page.

Are you thinking, “Meh. Too much work?” Can I add a little incentive?

No celebration is complete without prizes, right?

Prizes:

• Every person who participates is automatically entered to win either a $20 AMAZON GIFT CARD.
• Every person who participates is automatically entered to win a BOOK OF HIS/HER CHOICE from Amazon.
• Anyone who WANTS to have their name added to win either a CHAPTER CRITIQUE or a QUERY CRITIQUE, just let me know in a comment ON THIS POST.

Odds of winning?

Honestly, I have no idea, and I’m horrible at statistics, so I can’t really answer that.

HOWEVER, would you like a better chance to win?

• +1 participating
• +2 current follower (as of 5/13/11) / +1 new follower
• +1 for Tweeting (max. 3; include @rosieanabelle in your Tweet)
• +1 for Facebook post (please provide a link)
• +3 for adding the graphic to your sidebar (please provide a link)
• +5 for posting about it (please provide a link)

That’s a total maximum of 15 points. Talk about increasing your odds!

Well, I hope the announcement was worth the wait, especially with Blogger being funny. Hope to see you on June 1!