ACK! Where has my brain gone!?

And here I am, second month in a row, forgetting it is Insecure Writer's First Wednesday, so I apologize! I am coming in tardy, but that is better than what happened in June.

My insecurity this month is huge. I managed a week of diligent writing and then just got caught up in summer. It has been a good month, but totally undisciplined. How does a person get the discipline back when it has fallen? I was SO GOOD for SO LONG. But I haven't finished a new novel in almost two years. I did manage a couple editing rounds. But I need to get back to WRITING regularly!

Anybody else having trouble?

See how smart I am?

And now for the question of the month: What is one valuable lesson you've learned since you started writing?

Be yourself. Emulating admired authors is tempting, but they will always be them better than you, but NOBODY can be YOU better than you.

Now go visit some people who deserve it!!!

Are You Ready to BuNo!?

Say WHAT?

June is the month my writing group does BuNoWriMo. And June is coming, so here is what you need to know.

What's it stand for? Burrow Novel Writing Month.

And what is it? Just like NaNoWriMo, but in a month you don't have to cook a big meal or Christmas shop. 50,000 words in 30 days. We run it from Facebook because I administer it and don't have the skills for a real website.

How can I (meaning you) get involved? Just request to join here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/120068351365639/

I can't remember if it is open or not, but if not, I will just admit you provided you don't try to sell everybody Ray Bans.

So you are DEFINITELY all invited!!!


As for what I am writing next month... I am going to do my first shot at horror. Well sort of first shot—my very first novel had elements of horror. But this one will have a tiny bit more supernatural (not much, just a little creepy)--but the real horror is always people with evil agendas eh?

Do Gods Get Insecure?

Hallo fine peoples!!! Welcome to Insecure Writer's First Wednesday... gratuitous that it falls on a Wednesday... because I have a new obsessions. Lemme esplain... No. Is too much. Lemme sum up.

The series I've been most excited about since Game of Thrones has started...

Neil Gaiman's American Gods.

This is a stellar cast, a stellar director, Gaiman himself is involved in productions. And it is BEAUTIFUL! So what is there to be insecure about?

Well see... to survive, Gods, like writers, need believers. If they don't they start to fade. And when that happens sometimes they can get a little desperate...

I'm feeling like right now my god-level relevance is about Hermes. I'd much rather be Dionysus. Or Athena. Wine or wisdom. I'll take em. Instead I'm a messenger with popularity issues.

Which God are you?


Oh, yeah, right... and the question for the month... What is the weirdest/coolest thing you ever had to research for your story?

The one I had most fun with was probably the Roanoke Ghost stories. I tried to trickle then in backdrop for my cozy mystery series. Sadly, I only got to do three books, so they thread didn't go as far as I wanted.


Okay, now go see some other insecure people!

Some people are mentioning finding American Gods. As I understand it, it is Starz in the US and Amazon Prime in other countries. I believe Amazon Prime in the US can also do Starz as an add-on (so you don't need full cable pricing?)

Ode to A to Z and First Wednesday

I love A to Z, but some self honesty has led me to admit that while I BLOGGED A to Z the last few years, it really has been a few since I adequately participated enough to ask anyone to visit me, which was missing the spirit of the thing, so I opted out this month. This means this is probably my only post for April, since I know most people will be way too swamped with A to Z for any other distractions. But in the spirit of support, I have attempted to write y'all an ode...

Ample alliteration amplifies atmosphere
but barbarous boasting brings banality.
Clacking cacophony causes chaos and
Desired doses of description delight deities.
Exclude exaggeration except when excited.
Frank facts flounder in fiction, while
genres generally give grins.
Hyperbole hastens heart hammering and
Iambic idiom is intriguing.
Just jotting jargon jinxes the job but
Kindergarten keynotes keep kangaroos and koalas kosher (but don't eat them)
Lilting lyrics lure languorous llamas, but
Many metaphors make mockery of manuscripts.
Nobody needs non-specific nouns.
Onomatopoeia outrages ostriches and orangutans while
people perfecting pace and lot pursue paradise.
Quaint queries question quality but
Rabid reading reinforces radiance and
Singing sentence structure satisfies.
Tragedy and thrilling tales turn pages.
Unless unlikable urchins undermine everything.
Vigorous verbs are vibrant and vary
Whenever writing wins wonder we
X-ude x-actly x-cellent x-amples.
You yearn for yonder yarn
Zen.

And for the question of the month... have I taken advantage of A to Z? I have. And my first few years when I worked really hard to get around, it was absolutely effective in meeting new people who I continued to interact with. But as I mentioned, the real benefit (and the karma of it) comes not from the daily blogging, but from the commitment to get to lots of people. Which I somehow seem to not have time for anymore. (My day job has gotten less flexible and my nights have filled with other obligations—I am not even writing as much as I'd like).

But I hope all of YOU are having a wonderful time with it. Now go meet some other A to Zers or Insecure writers!

Rework WHAT? And some MADNESS!!!

Hallo, fine peoples!!! I can't believe we are already here. But I guess there are only 28 days in February...

So two things are happening today. One I can take care of quickly, so let's do it.

March Madness is HERE and I have a plan. BUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! *cough * I am going to finish Summer of Bones this month (I have about 70 pages, so need about 200-250 more). And I need to be efficient because I have a week mid month that I am traveling for work. I don't write well away from home and I have also never been to New Orleans PLUS my husband is going with me, so non-conference time will be sight-seeing time. If you want to join March Madness, check my last post.


But YOU are probably all here because it Insecure Writer's Support Group First Wednesday. And this month's question is this: Have you ever pulled out a really old story and reworked it? Did it work out?

And my answer, broadly, is... sort of.

I have a plan for my very first that I have never undertaken. But I have taken books back up that have sat for years... but they sat with me KNOWING I was coming back to them—that they needed serious revision. I write fast intentionally. I can take a tangent like you wouldn't believe, and writing fast keeps those to a minimum. But writing fast (for me anyway) means serious revisions. I skip sections if they aren't coming with just notes as to what broadly has to happen. It leaves wiggle room.

So there are THOSE kind of revisions. (not just those... my draft # typically runs about 10 before I consider a book done). But there are also things like changing PoV—third to first. And there are big plot adds that change a lot. Those things don't happen too often, but HAVE happened.

What about you? Have you pulled out something really old and reworked it?

Who’s Ready for a bit of MADNESS!?

That’s right, March Madness is upon us! And I don’t mean the broomless Quidditch silliness. I mean the annual WRITING event!

Wanna hear more?

My Writing Group, The Burrow, began this a few years ago… a crunch month, but instead of a novel in the month, it is a push to FINISH something, or EDIT something, or if you want to WRITE something. Your choice. Your goal. But with the support of fellow writers.

If you want to make March a month to get something done, JOIN US! We do our support at Facebook: BuNoWriMo


So that's it! Wanna join!  What do you plan on writing in March!?

Self Care in the Age of Activism

Before I get started, I have a question. Anybody else being inundated with spam? I normally used to get a notification once a month or so that there was a blog comment that needed moderating, but over the weekend I got like 15, in just a couple days. I'm thinking blogger botched some upgrade and made it a downgrade.

But back to the topic at hand...

Some of my Facebook friends will have seen an abbreviated version of this, but I thought it was work expanding on.

It is a time of high passions and many of us find ourselves putting a lot of energy into trying to hold off things we see as not just bad but destructive. Now I'm not going to get into which side and what activities. If you have been around, you know my politics, but this is not ABOUT that. This is some wisdom gleaned at a wellness day put on for some employees at the U where I work.

Now my purpose at being invited to this has to do with my dayjob. The U is making a serious effort at creating a more inclusive environment on campus and departments have champions, if you will. These champions, by definition, CARE. We care about people feeling included, which means collectively, we have higher than average empathy. And the risk factor I am addressing is related to THAT.

Compassion Fatigue

Why don't I start with a definition. Compassion fatigue is what happens when we see so many people hurting and we work like crazy to try to help, but the cases keep on coming. A person with a soul could get it watching the news these days. But at particular risk are people with causes close to their hearts. Nurses. Social workers. People who see people in the saddest of situations. But also human rights advocates. Aid workers. It covers an awful lot of us.

So How Do We Combat It?

Please consider these to be the patronuses against the dementors that are out there:

Purpose: keep the faith in yours—what you are doing is important. Allow yourself to feel that.

Creativity: use some, no matter how small it seems. This can be challenging. I find when my heart is drained it is harder to do what I consider good work. But there are lots of kinds of creativity, and who says it has to be “good”?

Connectedness with other people, real, online, friends, strangers. We did an exercise where we spent 90 seconds with a stranger, alternating—each got 45 seconds to ask questions, with a goal of finding a connection. And you know what? We did. It can be that fast. So the kind words in the grocery line matter. So does reaching out to someone you haven't talked to for a while, or pausing to actually interact with someone you see daily.

Presence: The other word is mindfulness. Try to be in the moment, rather than worrying about things that are happening in some other place or will take place at some other time. Our minds can wander, but if we stick to the here and now, the stresses don't compound so badly.

Sleep: 7+ hours a night, whenever possible.

Exercise: Especially if you can get out in nature to do it, or if it also involves some mind/body interaction. But most of us can get in a zone to exercise and take a little mental break.

Eat well: Lots of vitamins and minerals. Minimal highly processed crap. Whatever else works for your body, you probably know best. You can put whatever energy you can manage into it, but fresh stuff=good; processed crap=bad. Those are reliable rules.

Self Compassion: This is one we may have to keep reminding ourselves on. Be gentle with yourself. Take a break if you need. Let yourself feel good if you get something good accomplished. Let yourself grieve when it's called for. Treat you like you treat others... you are no less deserving.


And just keep on being your excellent selves and do what you can to make the world a better place, eh?

Insecure First Wednesday Anallat

Hallo fine peoples! Welcome to Insecure Writer's First Wednesday, and one month into the re-boot, known as the New Year.

So it's been a month of chaos... I did that old writing thing for a while. My buddy Tina-Sue and I holding each other accountable... but it all sort of fell to heck when the world did. So once again, back to it...

But as for this month's Insecure Post... the question is:

How has being a writer changed your experience as a reader?

The answer, at risk of sounding like a major moron, is bigly. Oops. Was than political? Sorry.

I still walk and read. That hasn't changed.

But to be honest, for a while it sort of ruined it for me. It used to be that I just loved a good story. It didn't matter if they broke writing rules, or hit a couple cliches, or pulled a deus ex machina. I was okay starting the story in a dream, or looking in a mirror. I actually liked adverbs. So for a while after learning the writing rule it was really disappointing to read all these bad books.

But you know what? They aren't actually all bad. The rule abiding writer sort notices, but if other readers don't then the book is FINE.

And then I sort of got into a perverse cycle of loving bad books because they taught me what not to do. I'm over that. Though I still advocate doing it for a while. Just not long enough to pick up any bad habits.

And for more than a year of learning to write mysteries I read only mysteries, and then learning to write YA I read only YA. Anymore I try to mix it up a bit. And I try to separate from the rules. But I am definitely a more critical reader than I used to be. I read a lot of fantasy because I don't write ANY fantasy. I'm more a puzzlemaster than a world maker. It allows me that domain to figure “fantasy just does that”. I want so badly to have reading as escapism still available to me, and that is where I've found it.

What about the rest of you? Has it made reading better? Worse? Just different? No different?

Go check out the other Insecure Writers!

I Survived Blogfest

So you guys know how I love the end of the world, right? So when I saw this blogfest from Chrys Fey as part of her book release, I couldn't resist... Besides, it's tsunami themed!  I have a recurring tsunami dream... of course it turns out I can breathe underwater and that seemed to not fit here, but I do have some attachment to the idea of tsunamis. It is her third installment in her disaster crimes series, with a blurb, details and a contest after blogfest portion of this post... But since this is a blogfest, let's start with that!

I Survived with on-site reporter Chrys Fey (interviewing ME!)

Ecola State Park overlooking Cannon Beach, Oregon

"This is Chrys Fey reporting for Disaster 5 News. I am at Ecola State Park just north of Cannon Beach, Oregon, where a tsunami hit yesterday morning. I have Hart Johnson with me, a survivor of the tsunami. Hart, can you tell our viewers what happened, and how you survived?"

Hart: Hi Chrys. You know it's funny. I has a trip to Oregon planned when one of my readers, a middle school apocaplyse enthusiast, asked if I'd come talk at their library. While we were at the library we felt the ground rumble, so the librarian found a news site and said it had been an 8.2 earthquake off the coast and that a tsunami was coming. Annika, the gal who invited me, shouted “get to higher ground” to me and then pulled my arm out of the library.

I guess the west coast was about 70 years overdue for a tsunami that comes every 260 years, something Annika chattered at me as she told me to drive. But instead of heading for higher ground, she directed me to her house—she needed to warn her family, you see. At the time I was mad—I thought she'd killed us with the detour, but it seems little Annika not only loves apocalypse tales, but had a plan. It involved two inflatable rafts, three air mattresses, six rolls of duct tape and two coolers of survival gear.

You know, it was close. We had a lot of inflating to do. But her dad and brother helped while her mother pulled together the gear. We set it up in a field behind her house that sits with a protective cove around it, so the water didn't slam us exactly. Some came over the top, but not a ton. Mostly it came around the sides and then back filled, lifting us up. Of course we couldn't see except through the little camera she had outside—one raft was under us, the other over. The air mattresses were to make sure the stuff flying around inside the raft bubble, namely us, didn't hurt anyone else too badly.

Oh, we got tossed over—ended up in the raft that had been over our heads with all our gear upside down. And as the water retreated, it pulled us into a tangle of downed trees. Took a while to get out of that. Even longer to get up here, but it turns out when she said she had survival gear, she meant it—her family has been patching people up and feeding them as they get up here and we wait for the National Guard and whoever else plans to help out.

Title: Tsunami Crimes

Series: Disaster Crimes #3

Author: Chrys Fey

Genre: Romantic-Suspense

Page Count: 272

BLURB: Beth and Donovan have come a long way from Hurricane
Sabrina and the San Francisco earthquake. Now they are approaching their
wedding day and anxiously waiting to promise each other a lifetime of love. The
journey down the aisle isn’t smooth, though, as they receive threats from the
followers of the notorious criminal, Jackson Storm. They think they’ll be safe
in Hawaii, but distance can’t stop these killers. Not even a tsunami can.

This monstrous wave is the most devastating disaster Beth
has ever faced. It leaves her beaten, frightened. Is she a widow on her
honeymoon? As she struggles to hold herself together and find Donovan, she’s
kidnapped by Jackson's men.

Fearing her dead, Donovan searches the rubble and shelters
with no luck. The thought of her being swept out to sea is almost too much for
him to bear, but the reality is much worse. She’s being used as bait to get him
to fall into a deadly trap.

If they live through this disaster, they may never be the
same again. 

DIGITAL LINKS:

Amazon US / Amazon UK / Amazon CA

Nook / Kobo / The Wild Rose Press

PRINT LINK:

The Wild Rose Press 

99 CENTS: Amazon

And everywhere ebooks are sold. 

GIVEAWAY!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Alternative Anthem

Know how it’s fun to take a song and write alternative lyrics? Usually it is for humorous purpose, and this seems to be something school children arrive at as an activity even without being prompted. I know my friends and I used to do it, and as I’ve met people from other walks of life, I find we aren’t the only people to have done this.

But did you KNOW this used to really be a THING? Like in the 19th century people would write them on broad sheets and distribute them. And then sometimes they would make it to newspapers and other publications. Often the purpose of these was protest, so yesterday, watching the Martin Luther King Jr. celebration at the University where I work, I had the opportunity to head this one performed.

Written by EA Atlee in 1844 and published in two Abolitionist Papers

1. Oh, say do you hear, at the dawn’s early light,
The shrieks of those bondmen, whose blood is now streaming
From the merciless lash, while our banner in sight
With its stars, mocking freedom, is fitfully gleaming?
Do you see the backs bare? Do you mark every score
Of the whip of the driver trace channels of gore?
And say, doth our star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?

2. On the shore, dimly seen thro’ the mists of the deep,
Where Afric’s race in false safety reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it heedlessly sweeps, half conceals, half discloses?
’Tis a slave ship that’s seen, by the morning’s first beam,
And its tarnished reflection pollutes now the stream:
’Tis our star-spangled banner! Oh! When shall it wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!

3. And where is the band, who so valiantly bore
The havoc of war, and the battle’s confusion,
For Liberty’s sweets? We shall know them no more:
Their fame is eclispsed by foul Slavery’s pollution.
No refuge is found on our unhallowed ground,
For the wretched in Slavery’s manacles bound;
While our star-spangled banner in vain boasts to wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!

4. Shall we ne’er hail the day when as freemen shall stand
The millions who groan under matchless oppression?
Shall Liberty’s shouts, in our heaven-rescued land,
Ne’er be shared by the slave in our blood-guilty nation?
Oh, let us be just, ere in God we dare trust;
Else the day will o’er take us when perish we must;
And our star-spangled banner at half mast shall wave
O’er the death-bed of Freedom—the home of the slave.

I felt like that was an appropriate historical reminder for MLK Day, and also maybe a suggestion… we are mostly writers here. And these alternative lyric movements seem like a nice way to make our point.

An Interview with Christy (aka: Cecelia Earl) on the release of When Ash Rains Down

It's fun to have a friend I've known for a couple years have a first book release, and in spite of the unfamiliar name on the cover, this book is by none other than our friend Christy from Erica and Christy, writing under a pen name (my guess is because teaching is one of those professions where it is best to keep fiction from real life persona). I think it's more fun to do these book release posts as interviews, so Christy was gracious enough to share an ARC of her book with me.


Let me just give you a brief teaser first:

Enter a world where angels and demons battle for souls while hidden from human sight...

Being crowned homecoming queen and enduring a week at the center of her classmates' attention is eighteen-year-old Julia White's worst nightmare--even with Cole, her long-time crush, as her date. But when Julia is attacked by a green-blooded demon that vanishes in a plume of smoke, she comes face to face with what real nightmares look like--in the flesh, and all of the homecoming stuff hardly matters anymore.

As a frightening wave of crime infiltrates her small Wisconsin town, Julia tries to avoid Nicholas, a brooding, infuriating relative of Cole's, who insists she's the reason behind the corruption. He claims the culprits are demons who are after powers that only she--a human-angel hybrid--possesses. It's unbelievable, of course, until he takes her to a hidden battlefield where warrior angels train to fight soul-siphoning demons--and her own angelic wings unfold.

When angels and demons draw battle lines, endangering everyone in their way, Julia has to find a way to protect them all, including herself. Because as it turns out, she's the devil's most powerful weapon against the angels, and he'll stop at nothing to claim her.

The final battle between Heaven and Hell has begun.


*cue spooky music*

And now without further ado... to the interview...

So I want to start a little with the theme of angels and demons. When did you first become interested in them as a paranormal phenomenon?

Ohmygosh…I racked my brain trying to come up with a better answer than…I can’t remember! I wrote When Ash Rains Down (it had a different title back then) in 2012. Or 2013. No! I just spent half an hour looking for when I first wrote it…the summer of 2014!! Anyways, I can only think that I must’ve drawn the “write what you want to read” inspiration card and felt compelled to go with an angel/demon muse coming from a reading binge, probably the Unearthly series, Hush Hush trilogy, Mortal Instrument series, and Infernal Devices series.

I DO remember that it all began because I’d wanted to write a novella to experiment with writing a book with plot and more fast-paced action than I was used to writing with my more lyrical, character-driven, plot-less contemporary realistic manuscripts.


And do you envision all angels and demons are “born” or can other people become one or the other? Do you distinguish between fallen angels and demons?

I don’t believe angels/demons are born, nor can anyone become one. I tried to remain true to my Catholic Christian faith in as many aspects surrounding angels as I could (aside from the completely imaginative fantastical main part of the novel—the hybrid human-angel characters who are born, of course). I believe angels were created at the time of creation and that demons came into existence when the devil challenged God, and lost, taking 1/3 of the angels with him when he left Heaven. I believe fallen angels are demons, same thing. In the book, however, there are angels believed to be fallen that are, in fact…maybe demonic, or maybe…not fully.


Have you found it at all tricky to determine how much religion to come into your stories? Is there a “too much” or “not enough” line for you or have you felt it sort of fell into place organically?

This was probably one of the most difficult aspects of writing this book. I struggled, deliberated, researched, prayed about, discussed, revised, rewrote, and ultimately crossed my fingers and hoped for the best about how to remain authentic and true to my faith without being overbearing or preachy.

This final, published version is quite different from earlier drafts that had a LOT more explicit beliefs included in conversations between Julia and Nicholas (the main character and her angel warrior trainer). When trying to come up with the purpose for her to decide to do as he asked-- to fight demons. Initially my reasons were much more faith-based, without including my faith intentionally. Basing the stakes on my faith, where angels, demons, and souls were concerned, was just the natural way my thought process worked.

It wasn’t until after a (paid) beta reader, hired through my editing company, pointed out that I was really polarizing my readers, that I went back and forth, discussing my story with other Christian and non-believing writers, and finally decided on the amount that exists today. My hope is that other believers see my faith included, but that non-believers, or believers in other religions, read it seeing the story and characters without its faith--or lack-thereof--arising in their thoughts to the extent that they don’t enjoy the book.

Though, I must say, when my dad asked if I write with any purpose, meaning, do I write to convey a faith-based message, I told him it wouldn’t hurt for readers to contemplate whether or not their souls live on since their physical lives are only temporary, whether or not they have angels protecting, and demons preying upon, their souls.

Mostly, though, I wanted to convey a theme of friendship, trust, and forgiveness. And I wanted to tell a story that people got a little lost in, an escape from real life, with characters that readers enjoyed getting to know and want to spend even more time with in the future.

Are any of your characters or any character characteristics based in anyone you know? Or any characters who inspire you?

There was a boy in my high school, years and years and years ago, that loosely inspired Mitch, though Mitch’s character ended up becoming someone quite different. Over the summer, when I was revising the novel, my husband’s uncle showed us the 1953 movie Invaders from Mars while camping, and so he inspired Mitch’s obsession with classic sci-fi.

Other than that, there are probably characteristics of myself in Julia, and Cole and Nicholas are polar opposites, one an extreme of Julia’s personality, the other her flip side. Her character arc will determine who she ends up most like in the end. So…I guess Julia inspired their personalities.

I find Mr. Alex to be inspiring and intriguing. And the peaceful man. I look forward to finding out more about them in future books… wink.


And is your setting a real one? Or is it an “anytown” near where you live? Are there features of the town and setting you felt were critical to the story?

It is an “anytown” in Wisconsin, not based off of any real place that I’ve lived or visited, but it’s most definitely real in my mind after “spending so much time there”. The size of the town, small-ish, is vital to my main character’s school setting as it influences the environment in which she coexists with her peers, as is the small-town diner setting and its necessary neighboring shops and customers, important to her mom, though nameless to Julia. The main street and shops are very like “downtowns” I’ve visited, and even like the ones near where I live, in smaller towns in Wisconsin.


Do you have a specific arch and set number of books planned for your series, or are you setting up a world with broader potential for an undefined number of installations? Want to share a little about your planned pacing for publishing and what we will see from you next?

I do! When Ash Rains Down is the first in a planned trilogy. When Smoke Rains Down’s publication is planned for Spring 2017, and When Fire Rains Down will then be published in Summer 2017. I’m planning at least one series novelette, but probably more. The one I’m ready to write now would fall into the order between books one and two and would be told from the perspective of a female angel you’ve not met, Rach’s Guardian. I’m also planning for a prequel trilogy from the point of view of Julia’s mother, Melissa, about the years when she was a teenager and met her own Guardian Angel, Julia’s dad.


Awesome!  It's great to hear about your book and your process. Thank you!

Thank you so much for having me here today, for taking the time to read my novel, and for preparing these questions for me. These were fun to consider and respond to. And I’m excited to share these tidbits of my writing process and details of my novel(s) with you all. Thanks for visiting, blog readers!


Author Bio

Cecelia Earl graduated with a degree in education and has been teaching ever since. She’s a wife, a mom of three boys, and an owner of a magical laundry pile that never stops growing. She lives near enough to Green Bay, WI that her refrigerator is always stocked with cheese, and the first colors her children learned were green and gold. She’s a teacher by day, a mom always, and a writer in her sleep, but that’s okay because being an author is a dream come true. She writes angel books for young and youngish adults. If you feel young, she writes for you—whether or not you feel particularly angelic.


And you can find Christy/Cecelia and her book at:

Website https://ceceliaearl.wordpress.com/
Blog https://ceceliaearl.wordpress.com/blog/
Author Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/authorcecelia
Twitter https://twitter.com/authorcecelia
Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32611801-when-ash-rains-down
Newsletter (for giveaways, updates, exclusive content, etc) http://eepurl.com/cdvvIj

Buy Links:
Amazon Paperback $8.99

Amazon e-book 99 cents/free with KindleUnlimited

Createspace (Paperback) $8.99


So let all your Angel and Demon lover friends know, and go like Cecelia on all her social media. Oh... and buy the book!

Rules Schmules

Hallo fine peoples! And welcome to the first 2017 meeting of the Insecure Writer's Support Group!

For this month's meeting the question is:

What writing rule do you wish you’d never heard?

But I'm not going to answer the question. At least not exactly. Because I will tell you this. For a while, rules killed my voice. You see... I'm not really a rules girl.

That said, a number of rules, like in life, are rules for a reason, and if you break them (like don't hit people) you are likely to get smacked upside the head for it. These writing rules, once learned, can just seem like common sense:

Information dumps pull the reader out of the story.
Adverbs are often a lazy substitution for a better verb.
Active language is more engaging.

But for every rule, there are also appropriate times to break them. We can all think of great books that do just that.

So as it is the new year, and the world is trying to impose moderation... think of rules as moderation and remember that even moderation should be done in moderation.

You heard me. Moderation in moderation. Rules followed in moderation.

But to walk the line, you do indeed need to KNOW the rules. And have your valid reason ready when you break them, otherwise an editor is going to argue with you. (and nine times out of ten these arguments are not worth having—you will just end up changing it anyway. Though I have argued and convinced editors on one or two points on every book I've worked with an editor on—but one or two points out of dozens of edits is a small number). Still, be true to your own voice and your narrative voice and most voices do not hold vises on the rules (see what I did there?)

I thought this was rather a beautiful way to put this

AH! But there are a couple writing rules I hate. And those are the rules that try to shame us into a certain PROCESS. Everybody is different. Anybody who claims to know the rules for getting a story written is full of himself. Some outline. Some pants. Some write daily. Some in bursts. (though REGULARLY is more productive). Some edit as they go. Some wait to the end. On process it really is Rules Schmules.


So there.

Any rules you hate?

Now go see what other insecure folks have to say about it!

The Writing Plan – Buwahahahahahahaha!

So I started off with my big goals:

Keeping up hope...

TWO First drafts this year. Scheduled for June and November as usual.

TWO previously started books FINISHED (one of my intended is 1/3 done, the other 2/3 done, so pretty much this amounts to a third book).

TWO Edits of previously written books.

And then this is the tricky one: SELL TWO BOOKS. I have 4 that I think are done enough, and TWO agents are currently reading the full of Medium Wrong, so if I get representation for THAT, I will let said agent guide on which OTHER book to push out. If neither wants it, I will continue to shop it, as the agent nibbles of 2 for 2 seems like I have my package in order. I even had 4 more on my list but they wanted synopses so I didn't send, but I had to send a synopsis with one of the fulls so now it is written so those are just emails.

My tactics

Dedicate one hour daily to writing (more on those WriMo months, but I've gotten out of the habit) – blogging doesn't count.

Rotate editing back into my commute time (I really could ALWAYS be editing but then I would be reading much less, so I am going to alternate.)

Get back to PLANNING. No pants for me. I started three books in 2016 that petered out because my plan was too squirrelly.

If I hit writing blocks, other than WriMos, allow short stories to rotate through.


Specifically

January: I will be PLOTTING. Working at both the stories I intend to finish this year and getting a feel for which is more developed. I will also continue querying Medium Wrong if I don't hear from either of the agents that have it in the first few weeks. And I will finish the short stories I started to get back in the practice of actually writing daily.

February: I will edit Kahlotus Disposal Site so I have a #2 ready to go.

March: I will finish the book chosen from my January efforts.

April: I will assess Undoing, another epic—this one new adult, that is meant to be a trilogy, each in three acts and has the first two acts written, but I already know serious revisions, as it may end up rather timely in the current political climate. Also work on plotting my BuNo book.

May: Edit book #2. Which one depends how things go.

June: BuNoWriMo. Which book idea depends a bit how things go between now and then...

July and August: Endangered and Undoing are both epic, enormous projects.... Imma commit to working on one of these in July and August while I also assess and plan the rest of the year.

November: Only other pre-commitment at this point is that I write a book for NaNoWrimo.


Promotion Plan

I have some abandoned (or nearly) spots that I need to get back to. I also want to shoot for blogging twice a week—helpful or at least relevant in the first half, entertaining or at least silly in the second. If I have author interviews I will do those Wednesdays, except first Wednesday which is Insecure Writer's Support Group.

2017 Fitness Plan

The Problem: I am at least 100 pounds overweight (gads that sounds scary) and everything I've tried in the last decade has not worked.

The OTHER Problem: I need to work on my core and flexibility.


So here is the plan:

Eating: I am on my own 5 nights a week now. I am working out a 2 week rotation for a meal plan that will use weight watcher points, but also the Type A diet (only approved foods for Type As). If I am eating the same things and I have pre-calculated, then it should be easier. I will plan in a few slurges... number and size dependent on the calculations I make for my plan. (I've done an initial, but I need to fine tune it with the exact points and Type A list)

Sleep: Get enough of it. 7 hours is hard during the week, but there is evidence it helps metabolism efficiency.

Cardio: Continue my walking. Add in 2 days a week of dance (I will be looking for videos, but may just find a good dance list and call it good.

Strength/Flexibility: 3 days a week of core (just 10-15 minutes... any recommendations for a video?) and 2 days a week of limb strengthening (lunges, squats, weights) and stretching (these will be my dance days—so two workouts a week to shake things up)


So there... that is THAT plan...

Any of you doing new years fitness plans?

The Most Fantabulous Holidays to All of You!!!

First, to get it out of the way, I will have the complaint portion of this blog...

1) It is FREAKING COLD!

2) They made me get a flu shot. Last year they made me and I did. But I kept asking what would happen if I DID NOT and nobody would answer the darn question, so this year I tested it. I did NOT get it... well today they finally answered the question... continuously escalating consequences that could end in termination. I need my job. But you all KNOW how I feel about it. If you don't, I suggest you read A Shot in the Light. So GRRRRRR.

3) My kindle charger disappeared and I need it.

4) Part of my desired gifts to give have been out of stock.

5) We have an ugly sweater day tomorrow and I am thoroughly annoyed. I have been poor way to much of my life to spend money on a sweater I will only wear MAYBE once a year for a a stupid occasion. Now had this been a thing when I was in my 20s and it was a real party with booze, I probably would have trekked myself to Goodwill for a dumb sweater. But I am middle aged with no room in my house for extra crap, a student in college and another who still needs financial help now and then. I have a Christmas colors sweater and I am calling it good enough, but if anybody calls it ugly I'm going to be pissed.


Okay, so enough of the grumbles.

In the positive...

1) Son is home from college for three weeks!

2) Starting Friday I get 11 days off!

3) Harry Potter marathon!!! (every Christmas)

4) Remember my new eating thing? Not much meat (turkey and fish is all), not much dairy... well I found ALMOND NOG!!!

5) I have great family and friends and am really ready for this reboot.

6) I thought THIS was the best idea ever: Welcome to being Santa 

Next week I plan to PLAN *BUWAHAHAHAHAHA * which is my typical mode for preparing to start the year, so I intend to be here a couple times.

But in the MEANTIME, I wish all of you amazing holidays!!!

Slightly Lately Insecure… Erm…

So Hallo, fine peoples! Sorry to screech in here tardy. Life interrupted last night and the blogging thing didn’t happen. But here I am… only about 5 hours later than usual, which in some cultures is pretty much on time…

So what am I late for? Insecure Writer’s Support Group First Wednesday!!! Welcome!

Always so judgy...

The question this month is: In terms of your writing career, where do you see yourself five years from now, and what’s your plan to get there?

Well SHEESH… we all know how MY plans go… Okay, so maybe you don’t. Let me e’splain. No. Is too long. Let me sum up…

Five years ago I had just met my first deadline for a to-be-published by Penguin (Berkley Prime Crime) cozy mystery. I was flying high and sure I could leave the day job by this point in my career. But a thriving book business was also being simultaneously flooded with brand new “I can publish myself” authors.

Now I am not knocking self-publishing. Done right, many authors produce fantastic books. I still hold up Helena Soister’s The Compass Master as one of the best books I’ve ever read. And tons of people do a fine job. BUT, having tried that thing myself, I know doing it RIGHT is more work than just finding a publisher to help you. The trouble was, many people were also NOT doing it right… and sales for people began falling… and then life interfered (bloody inconsiderate sometimes, that life) and so a self-publishing year that coincided with a life pelting me upside the head year threw me off my supposed fast track. This year I’ve published ONE short story and have ONE YA book with an agent. I’ve written no full novels (though I have written a couple short stories). I am scrambling to get myself back up on the rails, but I am butt heavy so my center of gravity is off.

What was the question?
Oh right… five years… Well I hope to GET this agent (or another). I have three fairly done YA books, so if someone finally wants me and likes me, maybe I can get some help for final touches and have that YA career launched. I also have a fairly done mystery I think I am going to try with, but I don’t want to confuse things with the agent process… I know a single agent is what most want to be…

Anyway, in five years I hope to be on a traditional publishing track putting out about one YA and one Mystery a year, with an occasional thriller mixed in for good measure. I would LOVE to break out, but I’ve come to believe you can’t count on that. I just want to be back in my zone. Writing regularly, supplementing my income, getting the retirement stream flowing well enough that at least I can retire as soon as I’m eligible (nine years this month until I can access my retirement money and it is sooner than that that my age and years of service is enough for health benefits in perpetuity).

Is that a plan? Hardly. But I am scrambling here… thus my insecurity…

Anybody have a better plan?

Political Climate, Going Viral and Coming Together

In case you didn't notice, there was an election in the US last week. And all hell has broken loose. And anything I can say will barely skirt all the issues, but I feel like it is important for the piece I really DO have something to say about, as background, if you will.

The candidate who won said a number of horrible things during the election about Mexican immigrants (and even about a few US born Mexican Americans—for instance a judge he said was not trustworthy on an issue because of his heritage). He said some horrible things about Muslim Americans and Muslim immigrants. He made some aspersions about Black Americans, unable to go to any subject from bringing up black people except “inner city problems”. As if black people are not more diverse and their problems and issues more varied than that. He made a lot of derogatory remarks about women, suggesting they were worthless unless they were pretty. He said some of the women accusing him of sexual assault “were not pretty enough” to sexually assault—as if if they were pretty he would have, but less attractive women were not worth even that. He bragged about sexually assaulting women, claimed he gets away with it because he's a celebrity.

So there have been protests about his winning from the people who did not want him. Some of them have included violence and vandalism, though I have also heard there have been some paid people in there committing the violence with a goal of de-legitimizing peaceful protests.

But on the other side there have been many many incidents of people emboldened by the hateful rhetoric doing hateful things. The Southern Poverty Law Center has documented hundreds of cases, some of them in elementary and middle schools, causing children to fear their parents would be deported, or direct hateful acts or speech to the kids. My own story falls in this category but is just one of HUNDREDS if not thousands.

If you have an incident to report, go here.


Last Thursday

A post about this went viral Thursday (more about that shortly) so you may have seen this previously, though I am giving a bit more detail here, as I know more than the brief text from my daughter which was the basis of my original Facebook post. Plus there has been followup.

On Thursday at noon, my daughter, age 21, was at her boyfriend's apartment (he was at class) and decided to walk the two blocks to the store to get something. On her way she passed a house with four men, just a little older than her on the porch. They called the typical “flirty” taunts to her and she ignored them. Then one came off the porch, came at her, grabbed her butt and said, “this will be mine. I've seen you around before. This is a free country now, bitch."

She ran. She was worried she would be dragged into that house with the four of them so she ran back to her boyfriend's apartment and when he got home from class they went to the police station. She was warned it would be her word against the four boys, so it was likely all that would happen was a warning, but it would be on record and they would be warned.

And I shared how traumatized she was, and me, by extension, on Facebook and proceeded to have the very bizarre experience of going viral.


Going Viral

When I shared I had a couple friends ask if they could share, and I said they could. I felt like hearing the story of a friend would be more real to some people, so I said they could... but it ended up shared and shared and shared... Almost 700 times.

At first people were very supportive. They sent love, and were compassionate. A few people were ruffled because I did call for conservative friends to try to police their own, and they said this was not conservative behavior... I get it. It isn't. But it IS behavior directly reflective of the conservative candidate saying “I just grab em by the pussy”. I was calling on people to make it clear that this behavior is not acceptable from that side and to ask their candidate to condemn it in sharp terms.

But anyway... Overnight strangers began to show up. And BOY HOWDY, do I now know what Internet trolls are about. The most common response was “this didn't happen”, but I even got accused of trying a ploy for my 15 minutes of fame. I was lectured about not going to the police (she did), told she needed to fight back (statistics show running is safer if it is a possibility). But it was frankly exhausting. Total life of its own


Coming Together

We are in desperate need of some unity... of supporting each other in spite of differences. Of making a stand to stand up for people being mistreated. Of defending peaceful processes and condemning violence. I don't believe I am alone here. I think we can disagree on politics and still commit to caring for each other—for ALL others.

In that vein, I think many of you have seen the safety pin movement... I know it has gotten a bit of scoffing and a bit of poo pooing. But I think it shows some promise if it is done right.

Here is some history on something similar done during World War II.
For the record, here is a really good link on what “doing it right” means.

By day I work in an office dedicated to inclusion, which by definition connects to “climate”. It is my goal that enough people wear these that people who fear victimization look around and feel a little safer, and that people who might victimize others look around and know they will not get away with it.

There are also unity rallies, all over.

Please commit to not letting hate stand. To defending our fellow human beings and to calming what could end up really ugly if it continues to escalate.

An Interview with Lisa Koosis, Author of Resurrecting Sunshine

Hallo, fine peoples!!! Need a break from election shouting, crying, cheering, catastrophizing? I've got something more fun here... Remember when I announced Lisa's book release at the beginning of October? Well I read her book and then fired her some questions, so today I am going to share them with YOU!!!

Without further ado, Welcome Lisa!!!

1)  So just to give us some background, you allude in the acknowledgments to this being the book that wouldn't die. When was it first written and could you share a little about this topsy journey?

Absolutely! And thank you so much for having me.

I wrote the first draft of Resurrecting Sunshine in 2009, and the draft was so bad that I filed it away, never to be looked at again. And honestly, I didn’t think about it again for a very long time. I went on to other manuscripts, ones that I thought had a better chance of going the distance. But then maybe a year and a half after I’d put it aside, I woke up in the middle of the night one night, thinking about that godawful manuscript and how I might fix it.

It became something of an obsession after that. I rewrote it and rewrote it. Characters were added. Characters were deleted. Characters were added back in. The ending changed twice. Eventually, I called it done and started querying agents. Lots of agents. And I got back plenty of encouragement, some wonderful feedback, and rejections by the bucket-load.

A few times I quit, and I mean quit the whole thing; querying, writing. It wasn’t the first manuscript I’d queried. It wasn’t even the second. I’d watched other people fly by me, landing agents and book deals after having spent, by far, less time in the novel-writing world, and much less time querying. And after a while, it gets exhausting. But I kept coming back to it. And eventually, after yet another round of revisions, and a whole series of domino-like events, I signed with a fantastic agent, and less than a year later I had two offers on the book.

2) You managed a very difficult task. You include real time, memories, dreams, and simulations, all seamlessly. An impressive feat. Did you consciously do anything to keep these all so distinct? Did this create any challenges for you, or things you had to work at in editing?

That aspect actually came pretty naturally. I wanted the book to have a drifting, dreamlike feel, and to have places where dreams and memory and reality blurred a bit. Logistically though, it did present a few challenges in editing, the biggest being just keeping the timeline straight since I was essentially weaving together two stories: the story taking place in the present, and the story of the events leading up to Sunshine’s death.

3) So the major themes I saw here were identity, self-determination, grief, and fate. Did I miss any big ones? Can you speak a bit about how YA, speculative fiction, and "organic process" might have influenced how your themes developed?

I’ve always believed that speculative fiction provides the perfect backdrop for exploring very human themes, because it puts everyday people/characters in extraordinary circumstances and allows us, as writers, to examine them under this sort of literary microscope. To add to this, I think YA takes us to a particularly formative time in life, when everything is naturally intensified.

But that said, a lot of the themes in Sunshine came from a very personal place and definitely emerged through more of an organic process. I had just separated from my husband, and I think without even realizing it, I was exploring through writing the very themes I was experiencing in my own life right then: loss, identity (who do you become when you lose the person closest to you?), personal responsibility, and most of all, trying to understand how you move forward when it seems impossible to do so.

4) So about cloning... I feel like the story you've told is the very personal ramifications, but for the sake of blowing this wide open, if cloning, complete with memory upload were really possible, what do you see as the biggest danger?

If I’m honest, I think there’s no limit to the dangers, both practically and ethically. One of the ideas I’ve always enjoyed exploring in fiction is the idea that what science can do, science will do. Sometimes it feels as if we advance so quickly, that our laws and our morality can’t keep up. I think that’s a truly scary thing.

Follow up: how do you feel about inspiring other works that would like to use this technology? (I have a story idea I'd love to develop, probably novella length--I'd of course give credit)

To think my speculative technology might inspire someone else is incredibly flattering. I’m all for it!

5) If you could be cloned, would you?

Oh lord, no! One of me can get into enough trouble all alone! (Although there is something to be said for having someone else to do the laundry and take care of the day job so I could just write.)

6) If you could clone a deceased loved one, would you?

I feel like this should be an easy question to answer, and yet somehow, it isn’t. I’d like to be able to say no way, that it would be wrong, that I would never even consider such a thing, that it wouldn’t truly be that person anyway. But emotionally, thinking about seeing someone I’ve loved and lost even one more time—particularly if they’d had their memories restored—I’m not sure that the temptation would be as easy to say no to as I’d like it to be.

7) And since 7 is the most magical number, what can we expect from you next?

I’ve always been a little bit superstitious when it comes to talking about what I’m working on, for fear that I’ll rob the project of some of its energy. But I can say that I’m planning to stay in the realm of young adult science fiction, which has started to feel like home to me.

Thank you so much, Lisa!  It was great to have you here! And thank you for being so candid!


Author Bio: In high school, much to the dismay of her guidance counselor, Lisa Koosis traded AP English for a creative writing class and a class in speculative fiction. She never looked back. Lisa is a member of the SCBWI, an ambassador for National Novel Writing Month, and an active member of her local writing community. Her short stories have been published widely. When she isn’t writing, you’ll probably find her out walking her dog, or chilling with her cats.

My Favorite (Writing) Thing

Hallo fine peoples! Another month gone already? Welcome to the Insecure Writer's Support Group's Monthly meeting! If you don't know what this is about, it is a LARGE group of writers dedicated to a bit of support for this process that we all do differently, yet all seem to experience many of the same things—most significantly, insecurity.

This month the question is: What is your favorite aspect of being a writer?

And let me tell you...

There is so much I love about writing. But really my FAVORITE thing is when I have a couple strands of story and a place I need to get to and I get this big swoopy moment of genius where the idea comes that will pull it all together. It doesn't happen OFTEN. Not even every book. Sometimes it happens in the planning. Or the writing. Or even the editing. But it is like this fireball to the gut—a good time—like a roller coaster almost—where this enormous weight lifts and this airy feeling of genius settles, however fleetingly.

It can't be forced, but I can give you a couple ways it might be triggered.

First: The problem needs to be sufficiently complicated or you are just not going to feel that clever solving it.

Or you could get one of these...

Second: Being naked helps. The shower is a good place for this, though it can strain memory to remember it until you are dry enough to write it down. Or likewise (also naked) that early morning not quite awake, but conscious time. (if you sleep in clothes this is never going to happen because you are too busy wrestling the strangling bindy pajama monsters that are trying to choke you)

If you can't be naked then this combo: Busy body, quiet mind. Like a swim or power walk with no music and minimal human interaction—something where your body is GOING but you don't really have to think too much.

So there. What is YOUR favorite aspect of writing?
And who is NaNo-ing?

Now go see what some of the others have to say...

Are You Ready to NaNo!?

So sorry for a two week skip. That was very bad of me. I am offering myself up for a spanking if anyone feels they must. Not sure exactly where my head has been. But now it's time to gear up for NaNoWriMo, so I need to get with the program.

I've got my victim, suspect, and have planned my inciting event, along with the characters who will be there... I just need to sort my clues and how they will pop up then plop them on a timeline.

For anybody wanting the personal touch, don't forget to join BuNoWriMo in addition to the formal NaNo site. It is a bit more personal—smaller group so we get to know each other.

As for what I am writing—a mystery. My buddy is off a breakup so I offered to kill her ex, but I am planting it in Portland in my Micro-brewery setting—I am starting with the grand opening—going BEFORE the other book I wrote, hoping to figure out the character piece that was off before so people love Kenny like I love Kenny.

So who else is playing? Are you planning ahead or diving in the day of?