It's that time of the year again...

Can you feel it? Excitement is making the blogosphere crackle. The A-to-Z April Blogging Challenge list opened last week. Are you in? Oh, I hope so. Because this year I'm a

minion!

with #TeamDamyanti!

Yes. I'm excited. I'm also very, very tired (not A2Z-related). But please come back in a few hours: a Great & Powerful secret will be revealed. No, seriously.

Who said the writer community doesn't TOTALLY rock?

The best gift EVER: an unsolicited review of my story in the January volume of Pure Slush's 2014 Project (read it for free on the Amazon preview here) by friend and fellow writer (and fellow IWW member) Silvia Villalobos. Read the review here.

How sweet is that?

She didn't even tell me she wrote it. I found it two days after the fact, and then only because I follow her blog. Which you totally should if you don't already. She has that incisiveness I so admire in writers, that way of cutting through the surface to get at the source of what makes us human, what makes us better... Or, sometimes, worse.

Silvia, thank you. You're a wonderful, wonderful friend.

And... My heart stopped.

I'm not a fan of technology. Sure I love my laptop, and my (relatively easy, given I live in an island) access to internet. I love electricity, and downloading whole TV series otherwise unaccessible (I live in an island). I love downloading books, too, although e-readers, like a pragmatic lover, still leave me somewhat unsatisfied. I love my phone, and how easy it is to stay in touch with people: Whatsapp, Twitter, Facebook, G+.

But I hate how phones have come to rule our lives. I hate how people jump to them whenever a random piece of trivia comes up: "Who was President in 1964?" "What's the name of that singer that died in...?" "Oh, man, that movie with the guy with the big nose--no, not the French one."

Given the above, it feels contradictory--hypocritical--to admit the first thing I do as I wake up is check my phone. Email. Blogs. Facebook. As I brush my teeth, get into halfway decent clothes (i.e., no pajamas, but close) to go check on the dogs and make my tea. And as I'm doing this, as I'm scrolling through whatever email came in as I slept, whatever notifications Facebook sent me, I'm thinking about hypocrisy, about how it's become so urgent, this needing to know, and why I can't wait the ten minutes it would take to go boot up my computer and do this in a screen that doesn't require so much damn scrolling.

And then there's days like today. Actually, no. There's never been a day like today, but--

I've been reblogged!

(Image taken from this website)

In June 2011, when I began my blogger equivalent of an eight-month baby attempting to spoon beet purée into its mouth--unsupervised--I had no clue what I was in for. Two years later I can say, mouth overflowing sincerity, that my expectations about blogging were waaaaaay off.
I never imagined I'd have followers--let alone 200! Yep, we broke the bicentenary barrier this month. You guys--yeah, all of you--you rock.

A big HURRAH for you!

My Next Big Thing

I was invited to participate in the NEXT BIG THING blog hop by the awesome Vanessa Wu of Intense Sensations (read her awesome Big Thing post here; awesome short story collection of lesbian erotica)--thank you, Vanessa! 

Ten questions about the current / new WIP: check. 

1) What is the working title of your current/next book?

Okay... I'll go with Novel #1, A MANTRA FOR CATS AND OTHER RUNAWAYS. I've been working on revisions for over a year, so that definitely makes it "current" :D

NaNo Spotlight Interview

Today the great Chris Kelworth features me in his NaNo Spotlight series. Come on over and join the conversation!

Writer's Block and Boredom

So true. Like most (if not all) of HTML Giant's posts, this one felt like a dunking in icy water. Yeah, I'm awake now.

"You're blocked because you're boring yourself."

Plotters, Pantsters, And Self-Pubbing Success

Mona, the Montana Scribbler, had Rasana Atreya (author of A Thousand Lies) guest-posting on her blog today. If you're ever considering self-pubbing, this is a post you must read. And, by the way, A Thousand Lies rocks. Get it. Read it. You'll love it. 

A Thousand Lies blurb: 
In a land where skin colour can determine one's destiny, fraternal twins PULLAMMA and LATA are about to embark on a journey that will tear their lives apart.  

Dark-skinned Pullamma dreams of being a wife. With three girls in her family, the sixteen year old is aware there isn't enough dowry to secure suitable husbands for them all. But a girl can hope. She's well versed in cooking, pickle making, cow washing -- you name it. She's also obliged her old-fashioned grandmother by not doing well in school.  

Fair skinned and pretty, her twin sister Lata would rather study medicine than get married. Unable to grasp the depth of Lata's desire, the twins' Grandmother formalizes a wedding alliance for the girl. Distraught, Lata rebels, with devastating consequences. 

As Pullamma helps ready the house for her older sister Malli's bride viewing, she prays for a positive outcome to the event. What happens next is so inconceivable that it will shape Pullamma's future in ways she couldn't have foreseen.

Mantra for 2012--By Chuck Wendig

The Second Writer's Prayer, from Revenge Of The Pen Monkey, by awesome Chuck Wending.  Found it on TerribleMinds, Chuck's blog, and couldn't resist sharing it...  One, because Chuck's is a blog I think everyone should be following, and two, because the prayer is the most fuckin' uplifting thing I've ever read.  Made me want to climb to a rooftop and shout it out in a powerful Mercutio voice...  And, now I think of it, maybe I'll do just that.  Every day of 2012.

I am a writer, and I am done fucking around.

That which has prevented me lingers no longer. I am wind and storm and lightning and I shall huff and I shall puff and I shall blow all the barriers down. Then I will drink whisky made from the fear-urine of my loudest detractors and find power in their disbelief.

I don’t have time. I make time. I reach into the universe’s clockwork brain and I take whatever time I jolly well need. I cobble time out of sticks and mud and the finger-bones of naysayers. I am a motherfucking time wizard and with a wave of my pen shall create universes to conquer. Pockets of possibility. Born of my desire to have them made.

Fuck doubt. Doubt is a goblin on my back. I will reach for him with my ink-stained hands and grab his greasy head and fling him into the infinite nothing. His screams will thrill me. The resultant word-boner shall be mighty, and with this tremendous oaken stalk I shall swipe it left and swing it right and sweep all the road-blocks and brick-walls out of my way.

My distractions whimper and plead, their backs pressed against the wall, but I am no creature of mercy. Triple-Tap. Mozambique Drill. Two in the chest and one in the head. I laugh as they fall because their death clears the way and gives me purpose.

I will put myself on the page. I’m all in, with every card face up on the table. I am my stories and my stories are me. I do not merely write what I know: I write who I am. I’ll reach into my own chest and pluck out my still-beating heart and milk its juices like an overripe grapefruit. Squish.

That’s my blood on the page. The helix-spirals of my DNA wound around every word, every character, every plot point and page number. If CSI came here right now with one of those UV lights, you’d see the spatters and stains of my many penmonkey fluids because I can and will no longer contain my seed. You’ll take my inky seed and you’ll like my inky seed. It is a delightful moisturizer.

I do what needs doing. I ride the Loch Ness Monster through the gates of Carthage. I learn forbidden power words from the Undead Shamans of the Tulsa Underground. I kung-fu-kick a hole in the fabric of space and time and stick my head through to see what exists on the other side. I eat planets. I drink oceans. I piss rivers and I shit mountain lions. No task exists that I cannot accomplish on the page.

I write from a place of honesty. My stories are lies that speak truth.

Nobody tells me who I am or what I can’t do. I tell stories. I write characters. I make true shit up out of thin air. And nothing is more perfect than that.

My doubt is dead.

The dream is no longer a dream.

My desires are made manifest.

This is my reality now.

It’s time to load the guns, brew the ink, and go to work.

Because I am a writer, and I am done fucking around.

Amen.

Six Sentence Sunday (November 27)

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.  I thought of you all last Thursday, you lucky people with big turkey dinners on your tables, surrounded by family and friends, eating pumpkin pie and mashed potatoes and gravy and stuffing and cranberry sauce...  Oh, yum.  See, down here we don't celebrate Thanksgiving. And, man, I miss it.  So I hope you enjoyed it double--for me.

We're back to Alexia's and Michael's goodbye scene from Chapter 7 of Restoring Experience for another six of Six Sentence Sunday.  I skipped a couple paragraphs between last week's six and this, but I doubt you'll notice.

“Okay, Friend,”  Michael said, “can I get a kiss goodbye?” 

“Of course.” I took a step forward, stood on tiptoe to reach his cheek. 

He pressed his hand to the side of my face, tilting it up towards him, and suddenly his mouth was very close.   

Alexia, slap him, scream!  

But this was happening to someone else, this body wasn’t mine, because I couldn’t move it.

Alexia's in trouble, I think.  Her boyfriend is NOT going to be happy about this.  Hope to see you back next week to find out if Alex will give in or slap him in the best Mexican tradition :)

Remember to visit the other Six Sundayers--there are some fantastic writers in there, and it's well worth the blog hop.  Have a fantastic Sunday, everyone!

Six Sentence Sunday (November 20)

One more six-sentence snippet from Chapter 7 of the WIP (Restoring Experience), a novel about loss and the search for meaning to give that loss a sense of purpose.

Last week I posted but I forgot to link to Six Sentence Sunday--yeah, where's my head these days?  If you're interested, here's that snippet, and here's the one from the week before.

Just a quick refresher: Alexia and Michael, the two MCs, are in the language school lobby waiting for the bus that will take Michael and the rest of the American students to Acapulco.  Alexia, an English teacher and not involved with this group (they're studying Spanish), isn't going, but Michael has been trying to convince her otherwise.  He's even offered--oh-so-generously--to share his hotel room with her.

Enjoy!

“Please--stop.”  

He took a step back, but didn’t let go of my hand.  “It’s so strong,” he murmured. 

“What is?” 

“This.  I’m seriously considering not going to Acapulco.”  

His tone was light, but it sounded like it was only half a joke.

Look forward to your feedback (I looooove comments), and to reading the rest of the Six Sundayers.  Thanks for the visit, and happy Sunday!

More on Revision

I really shouldn't be posting about this now.  I should be focused on NaNo, writing like crazy...  But this post I just found, from Janice Hardy over at The Other Side of the Story, is so great and struck so many chords for me, that I had to share.  And also, this way I'll have it linked here and easily findable when I finally get around to finishing that hardest of the hard revisions for Restoring Experience--the last one.


If you're revising and you haven't seen Janice's post yet (it's from yesterday), please take a jump over now and bookmark it, or print it, or do whatever you do with valuable information on the internet.  I thought it was brilliant--hopefully you will too.


In the immortal words of Rick Bylina (another fantastic blog on writing by a self-published author of uncommon wit and brilliant insight), Write on!

More Awards!

Brilliant blogger and darkish author E.R. King of Get Busy Writing passed me the Liebster Blog award, the Versatile Blogger Award and the Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award (a month ago... I'm nothing if not a procrastinator, dammit).

This entails, of course, profusely thanking Emily:

Then I need to share seven things about myself--I'll share seven more, since I'd already shared some when Stuart Nager of Tale Spinning passed the Versatile Blogger Award to me in September:

Revision, revision, revision

I found this excellent post on The Writer's Resource (if you write and you're not following that blog boo for you) with links to some outstanding resources for revising.  It's got Nathan Bransford's checklist, a great post on editing by Janice Hardy...  And eight other jewels you MUST have if you're revising.  Which is, if you're like me with several WIPs in several stages of completion, all the time.


Enjoy!