Inspiration for Castle's sequel...

I received an extraordinary inspiration for Castle's sequel!

I will take you into the depths of the Castle. Down the stairs and into the cool cellar. Keep traveling below Valen's apartment and into the basement. The one hundred years that this Castle stood tall before it was revised into the lavish Castle it is today a hidden secret storage room is found. There beneath the basement, beneath the staircases, a secret hall awaits you...

Push aside the cobwebs and nevermind the dark dust among the floor as the hall has not been traveled through for nearly one hundred years. Look there above the enormous double doors. The arc of the hall welcomes you to a new room. Do you see it? Engraved in the stone above the arc read the words... "Librar Eerie"

That's all you'll get for now. I'm going to finish the edits on Blue Sky before I began my new adventure with this eerie library.

Updates on the proofreading...

It's taken many many days to get this far but I am on page 178 of 278. I've got to remap out quite a few chapters in the midst of this Blue Sky. I found my timeline wrong in over 5 chapters and had to go back and remap out many things that didn't line up. I had to ADD a complete chapter to help make since of it all, and bring a new character to life, but their life was short lived as they were killed off by the end of that same chapter.

This new book is definatley in a different genre. I think my body count is up to 6 people thus far halfway through the book and it's definatley not a romance but more of a drama. I'm going to have to search for what genre I think this falls in because it's not Mystery, and not murder, but not murder mystery, but does have murder and mystery in the plot. So I'm tossed.

I have high expectations that this novel will be ready to have new sets of eyes proof read it for me by January 1. I'm working hard on making that happen. I have over 100 pages and an entire chapter to add in to have it finshed by Friday. Let's cross our fingers and get to work... but first...let's get some sleep.

g'night!

December is half gone... what have I been doing?

Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) has been over for 15 days. What the heck have I been doing to busy myself? I've been running through a final edit of my book Blue Sky Exposure, that I hope to have released by this spring. I have been up late re-reading the chapters, and sentences ensuring I have the exact details of my corrupt Blue Sky.

My children attend elementary school and I was pleasantly surprised by the principal requesting my help of organizing a Young Writers Club in the school to help the children publish their short stories. It's all in the planning stages but I'm glad to accept this offer to slap on my resume of wonderful writing accomplishments that I've done.

The holidays are sucking any and all free time I have but I'll enjoy them nonetheless. Enjoy this time with your family. Call your long lost sibling, or send your mom a card. Let them know you care. Family is the core of a great support. Keep them close at heart, and just think... you are only given one family in life. Well; usually. Although there are some profoundly odd scenarios of odd things happening in which you get more than one... but that's in another story. So take care of the family you have. Enjoy one another, argue with one another, and live life as you've never lived before. You never know if you are going to wake up tomorrow.... why not make the most of today.

I'm getting back to my Blue Sky.... you get back to your life and see what tomorrow brings us.

Great Review!

Directly from the Domestic Goddess herself Leah Kanaan has graciously written a book review of A Castle Inside. Leah won, fair and square, a copy of my book. I was so honored to hear her comments about it I couldn't wait to share!

A Castle Inside is now for sale via Amazon.com

You can now purchase A Castle Inside via Amazon.com! Someone pinch me, I must be dreaming!

Please check me out, and you can see the feature that lets you get a sneak peek of Chapter 1. You know you want to check it out....it's pretty simple....just click here:
A Castle Inside, on Amazon.com

Amazon.com

Hey there fellow followers...
A slight complication of having my book listed on Amazon... unfortunately I didn't read the fine print and did not click "enable" to list it on Amazon...so after checking everyday for the last 15 days and it wasn't on there I was about to seek the "help" button and find out why! Little did I know that I didn't enable my request to list it on there, so now that it is enabled it's a waiting game again.

So be patient....we just have to wait another 15 business days and it will be there!!!!

Yay!

Short Story Contest Your Story/WritersDigest

I plan to post all of my short stories I submit to Writersdigest.com short story contest called Your Story.

Here is their intro to it:
"Every other month, Writer's Digest presents a creative challenge for fun and prizes. We'll provide a short, open-ended prompt. In turn, you'll submit a short story of 750 words or fewer based on that prompt. You can be funny, poignant, witty, etc.; it is, after all, your story. The winner will receive publication in an upcoming issue of Writer's Digest."

I'll post a comment each time I submit to this contest to let you all read it.

I made the front page of the Garden City Observer newspaper!

You can find the article on the Observer Website by clicking on this link.

It's November I'm writing a novel....are you?

Hey! It's day 2 of Nanowrimo.... www.nanowrimo.org/224498 if you want to see live stats of my progress this month feel free to visit me there!

I don't have much time as my word count is behind already but it seems to be going well so far. I've figured out how the killer will be caught, now it's all about setting the scene and lighting the candles and letting the character die and see what happens! But onto happier news.... the word count as of 11pm tonight is just over 2k, which is a great start but I'm still behind and should be over 3k so I better get to work.

National Novel Writing Month will keep me very busy and I will hopefully enjoy this different genre this time around. Hopefully I won't scare myself to death trying to write it. What was that? Was that a noise outside my livingroom window....clawing scratching....breaking glass...what the.... aaaaaaahhhhh!!!!

See you are interested in the mystery plots huh? LOL

I better get back to writing....the kids are sleeping soundly and I don't have to get up early tomorrow so I will enjoy the night of writing!

November 2009

This November I will be participating for the 3rd year in a row National Novel Writing Month, aka nanowrimo. I would be honored if you would join me in your own quest to write a novel. Haven't you always wanted to write a book? Some ideas floating around in your head about maybe writing about this fairy princess, or an alien from another world, or a Space Marine Army taking over the entire world, or maybe just an autobiography?

Nanowrimo is a free service offered to those that would like encouragement, others just "like you". It gives you the support and commitment and structure you need to get it done. The premise behind Nano is to set a deadline of 30 days. You have 30 days to write 50,000 words, which is only like 1666 words a day. If you complete the task of 50,000 words within those 30 days, you will receive a Winners Certificate you can frame and hang on your wall at home. It gives you the personal accomplishment and the paper to prove it. Most of you write 2000 words in emails alone each day, how hard could it be to write your thoughts and ideas down during that time instead. Yes you will neglect some friends, and you may become withdrawn and house confined but it gives you the incentive to do it! There are so many other people in the world that are doing the exact same thing, and you've got Nano in common. There are forums to browse in there, that can keep you captivated for hours alone just reading others posts!

I completed my first year in Nano in 2007, where I wrote A Castle Inside that was just published earlier this week. I have been excited to share the news about that with everyone. In 2008, I conquered the Nano quest again, but will admit I had a hard time. I ended up writing nearly 25,000 words in a span over 24 hours to get the task completed just a day before the deadline. But I am proud to announce that I completed it for a 2nd year in a row. This year I will partake in it for a 3rd time, with hopes of writing a Murder/Mystery. I am eagerly awaiting November 1! Let the writing begin!

Feel free to sign up for Nanowrimo, it's free. Of course they accept donations to keep the lights on, and fund other programs such as Young Writers Program that provides kids and teens with a month-long language arts experience that improves self-esteem, teaches perseverance, and radically alters their relationship to writing and literature. or Script Frenzy by writing a movie, play, TV show, or graphic novel with us in April!.

Look for me pati_blue, I'll be in the forums periodically and am in the Ann Arbor, MI region. Feel free to send a buddy request, I can be a writing buddy!

My WIP (work in progress)

This idea has been a work in progress for soooooooooo many years. I initially wrote this book when I was about 16 years old, and finished it when I was about 25. So many things have changed in this book but it's one that has been dying to be finished. I remember staying up late in my parents living room typing on the large keyboard, starting at the big giant square monitor that took up half the dining room table with it's black screen and white binary code-like font pouring my thoughts down on what my characters were going through. I've grown so much, mentally and physically and as a writer that I've needed to re-write the entire work, twice over the last 10 years. I find this novel my safe-haven....something I can always count on being there to work on. UNTIL NOW! It will be finished soon...oh yes, it will be finished.

I believe it to fall into the Murder/Drama genre now. It used to be young adult, but I threw in a couple of bloody explicit scenes so I would not recommend this for anyone under the age of 16, I guess, maybe rated R. If I can do that.

So what I'm working on right now is a novel called Blue Sky Exposure. Blue Sky Exposure, is about a psychiatric hospital in the isolated town Blue Skies, West Virginia. This hospital has been secretly exposing its patients to a non-FDA approved drug. This drug increases ones awareness of the sense ESP. Things spiral downhill when their most exposed patient Robert Dorgan escapes. Murder comes easy as Robert tries to make them pay for what they have done. Innocent blood is shed as he tries to bring down the hospital.

This book stands at 68,000+ words, and is 258 pages long and has been broken down into 34 Chapters. It does still need some work with closing loop holes and whatever happened to that one character from Chapter 3...

So as I push my way through the edits I am currently on page 165. I'm reading through it, correcting any grammatical errors and any present/past tense issues. I would have loved to be done editing this before November 1 because Nano will take over my life on that day. Editing takes probably 3 times longer than you think it does. How hard is it to read 250 page softcover novel? Now imagine reading each sentence slowly. Change one word in that sentence, now does that flow better? Are you getting the right vibe sent to your readers? How about moving this sentence behind the last one in the paragraph, now how does that sound? Wait! This entire paragraph would look so much better back in Chapter 23....ooo then I could move Chapter 22 behind Chapter 24 and.....now you can see how easy edits seem to distract each other, when all I did was start off changing one word.

I'll keep you updated...

Get to know me and what I do...

Welcome to my blog!

Come follow along with me as I venture through this quest of becoming an established novelist. Names, characters and places are all products of this authors imagination!

I am proud to announce that my first book was released earlier this week, A Castle Inside. Take a walk inside the Castle and see what you find...no it's not a haunted castle, nor one built in the early 13th century. It's a love story about those that live inside the lavish Castle that stands tall among the rolling hills in Iceland.

In a normal work day for me, I get up early and take my 3 darling kids to school. Then I come home to a hot steamy pot of coffee and my keyboard. I get 2.5 precious hours of alone time to spend on my writing before Kindergarten is released, then I am back and forth to school for the 2nd time. Now my girls and I are home for lunch then it's back to school in the afternoon to a 3rd trip back and forth to pick up my son. Now we're all home for afterschool snacks and homework. The next thing I know it is dinner time and of course bath and bed times....then I do have a few more precious hours to work. Then it's all the same the very next day.

Writing a book is like the weather, it could be warm some days as you have a lot of fun interpreting your thoughts into what you want others to think. Other days you want to stay rolled up in your pajamas and not bother with it because you want just ten more minutes of sleep. But on those warm days, once I've got it all down on paper the hard part begins. The days just repeat with the same old pattern, edit, cut, paste, edit, cut, paste. Months, yes months go by and finally....the overcast parts and the sun shines down upon your finished work. Now you have to bribe a friend to read it for you to see what kind of stupid mistakes you made on your first draft.

So feel free to follow along with me. I plan to keep an updated post about the month's trip to Nanowrimo land, along with updating how my work in progress of Blue Sky Exposure is coming along, along with the many other short story contests I partake in, how my home life intermingles with my professional life, and what kind of adventure my newest publication is taking me on.

I'm glad to have a friends and family that support me and encourage me to continue with my life-long dream! Thanks friends! Thanks family!