A wonderful project is happening at NerdyGirlNotes

Katie is working on a book celebrating the impact of popular culture – specifically, the impact of strong, complex, developed, representational female characters – on female readers, viewers, listeners, etc. Check out the details of her concept and how you can participate – that’s right, she’s not writing this book alone; it’s a fantastic collaboration – by clicking on the link below.

Find Your Team and Get to Work: Let’s Write a Book Together!

Help her out and acknowledge the awesome heroines that have helped inspire us throughout our lives and continue to inspire us today.

Waxing Luna Giveaway

 

There is a giveaway under way for a free copy of Waxing Luna. It started today and will go until July 29 or all prizes are claimed. So head on over and check it out.

Waxing Luna giveaway

Stubbornly Flexible

“Failed plans should not be interpreted as a failed vision. Visions don’t change, they are only refined. Plans rarely stay the same, and are scrapped or adjusted as needed. Be stubborn about the vision, but flexible with your plan.” — John C. Maxwell

About two years ago now I began writing on a project that I intended to self-publish through a platform like Smashwords. I haven’t worked on it much in the last eighteen months, however, and I haven’t had much time to work on writing flash fiction pieces either. It’s not a project that I’m particularly passionate about or one that I was even sure about how I would ultimately assemble it. An examination of a modern romantic relationship and the dynamics between the two parties, I have abandoned the plans to compile and self-publish it as one unit (at least for the foreseeable future).

But rather than let the handful of completed episodes languish in a folder on my desktop, I have decided I’ll post them here. There was no set order to the episodes (pretty much the only thing I had settled on was that they wouldn’t be presented in chronological order of occurrence). I only have vague ideas for other episodes I intended to include and maybe I will get to them eventually. For now, though, I’m going to be posting these episodes every other Friday to make up for the stunning lack of my own creative fiction in recent months.

So make of them what you will. The working title I had for the piece as a whole is Together.

The Octavia Project

This appeal for The Octavia Project crossed my twitter feed today and I felt I had to share it given how much I love the work of Octavia Butler and what she stands for. The program itself seems like a wonderful way to carry on her legacy and I hope you’ll all check it out and consider donating. They’re already a third of the way to their goal and they have one month left.

Octavia Project Indiegogo Page

Out with the old and in with the slightly modified…

“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” – Henry David Thoreau

I did pretty well with the goals I set out for my blog last year. I posted regularly, I have more literary adventures both between the pages of books and on my own two feet, and I made some progress on both my 1001 Books list and my general To Read list. Since they worked out so well, I am going to be renewing several of them this year, with a few slight modifications.

1) When I started the year, I didn’t know that I would be invited to join NetGalley and have the opportunity to preview so many amazing (and some not so amazing) books. I would like to dedicate at least one post a month to previewing a book, though it will depend in part on what books I’m able to get approved for and what books I want to preview. So, at least twelve over the course of the year, I guess.

2) I want to continue with my Literary Travels series this year but my goal is to make it out of my home state of Massachusetts. I might not make it out of New England, but at least out of Mass, just for one post.

3) Since I didn’t break 160 last year, I’m going to try to make up for it by setting my 1001 Books goal to 175. I’m doing better about using some of them for my regular reviews, so hopefully that will help me do better this year.

4) I’ve been busy with ghostwriting and working on my own novel so I’ve been cutting myself some slack for not doing as much posting of my creative writing pieces. That stops now. I want to post at least one flash fiction piece a month. I did so well with those for so long and they really are excellent exercises for playing with things like style and for working out how specific scenes will read.

What goals have you, my readers, set out for the new year and how did you do last year?

Orchard House Documentary Kickstarter Campaign

“I think documentaries are the greatest way to educate an entire generation that doesn’t often look back to learn anything about the history that provided a safe haven for so many of us today.” — Steven Spielberg

I just received word that Orchard House has started a Kickstarter Campaign to help fund a documentary about the house and its history. Take a look at their Kickstarter video for a taste of the documentary’s potential and make your pledges to help them reach their goal of $150,000 by October 22, 2014.

Orchard House – Home of Little Women: A Documentary Kickstarter Page

Orchard House Website

Louisa May Alcott Orchard House Kickstarter Press Release

You haven’t heard the last from me…

“I’m back to doing everything I used to, loving life as ever.” – Donna Mills

I am kicking myself for not having posted anything in over a year now. I never intended to go silent for so long but grad school has been crazy in a busy, wonderful way (a one year program has its positives and its negatives; one negative is definitely the time crunching). I meant to write and post before classes started last fall but I found I had even less time as I put on my grown-up pants to find an apartment, move, pay the cable bill, and all those other fun tasks.

But now I’m on the other side and I’m back. I don’t know what the future holds as I hit the job market once more, shiny new degree in hand. There may not be much of a schedule to my posting but I will be posting. To atone for my sins of negligence, I’m posting a book review (which I thought I had already put up but apparently I hadn’t) as well as a new-ish short story. The exact address for this blog has been updated and I’ll be making updates to my site aesthetically in the coming days as well.

Study Break

“The proper study of mankind is books.” – Aldous Huxley

In spite of my best efforts to keep myself to a regular reading and posting schedule, I am staring down a stretch of weeks where my free time will be severely limited. With graduate school applications and the holidays on the horizon, I will need to take a study break from my posting schedule. I still plan to read as much as time allows and will work on writing when I can, I just don’t know when exactly I’ll get the chance to post anything.

Creativity triumphs over expense

“Creativity is the answer. I always prefer the creative solution to an expensive solution.” – Keenen Ivory Wayans

After much research, thought, evaluation, and finally some good old fashioned Magyvering, my laptop is back in working order. It would have been too expensive to send it away for them to fix (finding out the extended warranties had expired and the cost would be even greater than originally anticipated also played a role). The computer is four years old and in the next few years I’ll end up needing to buy a new one for something more serious than a broken key. Better to put the money I would have spent fixing it towards a newer (and better) one.

In the mean time, I needed to find a solution to spacelessness. Pulling off the little rubber nub showed the underlying component would still work but it was a lot harder to hit it every time. I hadn’t thrown out the rubber nub though, so I found some good old Elmer’s glue and with the help of a toothpick, glued the tiny sucker back on. All that worry and the solution was sitting in the craft cabinet where it’s been since I was four.

Anyway, starting tomorrow everything should be back to normal as far as my regular posting schedule.

Technical difficulties

“My biggest problem is what to do about all the things I can’t do anything about.” – Ashleigh Brilliant

Back in May I mentioned that my niece had pulled the space bar key off my laptop. It wasn’t difficult to learn to hit the little rubber nub the key used to press down. Unfortunately, now that little rubber nub is becoming detached from such repetitive use (it lasted far longer than I ever hoped it would so I can’t really complain). Tomorrow I’ll be taking my laptop back to the Mac store to see what they can do about fixing it. I’m not sure how long it will take but hopefully I’ll have my laptop back and all keys fully functional sometime next week.

In the mean time most of my posting capabilities will be limited. For now, it’s strictly pen and paper unless I can hijack my dad’s laptop again for some typing time. I’m going to be doing what I can. I still plan to post a book review Sunday (I finally finished Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol last night and I have a few things to say about it).

The worst part is that I was doing so well with the schedule I had set up for myself. It’s breaking my momentum. But, all things can and must be dealt with. I’ll get over it.

Check back for updates about when we’ll be back to regularly scheduled programming.

Here’s to the nicest word and all the rest

“Home is the nicest word there is.” – Laura Ingalls Wilder

It’s good to be back from vacation. It was wonderful but I need time to let the sunburn fade before heading out again. Plus, I need time to write again (I missed my laptop more than I expected; thank heavens I brought a notepad to jot things down on). As promised, I’ll be resuming Living with Myself and I should have a book review done and posted tomorrow and another later next week. Starting Monday it’ll be back to the business of trying to get published and just plain writing.

Hopefully I won’t need a vacation to recover from my vacation

“No man needs a vacation so much as the man who has just had one.” – Elbert Hubbard

There won’t be any new posts for the next few days because I will be on vacation. I’ll resume posting as soon as I get back on Saturday with the next piece of Living with Myself. I plan to have some more book reviews after I get back and, as often happens when I’m trying not to work, I’ll probably have too many new story ideas than I’ll know what to do with.

In the mean time, enjoy what I’ve posted so far and don’t be afraid to leave feedback.

“You see honey, I’m late because… there was this whale…”

“Fiction was invented the day Jonas arrived home and told his wife he was three days late because he had been swallowed by a whale” – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Welcome to my blog. I love writing fiction and have been writing since I was little (well, littler). I hope to publish someday (hopefully sooner rather than later). Right now, I want to work on getting my name out and have people read my work. Feedback is not only welcome, it’s encouraged. In addition to posting some of my short stories and excerpts from longer projects. I’ll probably be writing a lot about books and reading too. The look will likely change and evolve as I figure out where everything is and adjust.