Attack of the Query Ninja!

So the query for the book I'm submitting needed work. Enter Query Ninja aka Carrie Harris and her awesome blog! She gave me a new perspective and it really helped. Now if only I can rewrite it to be good this time. . . .

I'm not dead!!!!

Nope, just super super busy (and lazy!). So lots of stuff has happened. #1 - I got a new job freelancing. Now I write about Macs and review video games! That means I have to play a lot of video games. I know, utter torture, but a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do ^_^

Also, I am a proud member of the Illiterati, a Las Vegas based writer's group. We are all pretty damn awesome, if I do say so myself. They got me to start writing flash fiction and short stories. I've been too lazy to submit many of them, but I'm gonna try! Getting something little published would be cool.

Right now I'm working on two things. First, I'm finishing my WIP, a magically realistic novel set in the 1890s about four people with ties to gods and demons coming together to fight an oppressive force set against them. Second, I'm querying an MS I wrote before I moved to Japan about a boy who gets lost in the world of the forgotten and must find his way home. Next, I need to start editing my sci-fi epic, which will happen when I finish my WIP.

Oh, and I put up a new writing sample. It's from my MS, A World Forgotten. Enjoy!

Sci-Fi epic completed!

Okay, so I finished my book awhile ago. I just didn't have time to post about it because I have been crazy busy with the DS thing. Now that is slowing down, damn it! Anyway, the book is finished. But I have a new problem, (which doesn't even involve the massive edits I have to do to it!) the book needs a title. I can usual come up with a title as I'm writing, but this time I've been completely blank. I was thinking of something like "The Pale Horse's Rider" as an omage to "The King of Elfland's Daughter," but I don't know. There are already a lot of books with Pale Rider refs. I guess I'll just have to keep thinking about it. . . .

How to write How to articles. . . .

I know. I know. I've been really lazy when it comes to updating this blog thing. Not that anyone cares, but whatever.

So, I got a new job writing How to articles for Demand Media and it's going pretty well. Here's a page to my articles if you want to learn how to do some stuff.

And here is the link to an essay about Crime and Punishment I just got published. I wrote it in college. Not my best, but I got paid for it!

Otherwise, I'm still plugging toward the end of my book. Soon. Soon!

Oh, and here's another eHow account I have. It is not associated with Demand Media, but I wanted to see how much money I could make through their writer's comp program. See? I'm an expert at Zelda!! How cool is that?

Just. A little. Farther. . . .

Okay, so it's been a while. Been busy, you know. But I'm getting close to the end of my WIP. So close I can taste the bittersweet ending practically melting on my tongue, and yet I can't seem to get there. I'm like Winner, crippled and crawling across the floor. I've never had the ending of a story take this long. Usually I can pop out an ending within a week. Now it's like my story is moving in slow motion while the world around me is sped up. Weird.

This story is longer *cough* 100,000+ *cough* than anything else I've written,so maybe that's why. Plus, there is a hell of a lot more explaining to do. And Winner has a much bigger choice to make than any of my previous MC's. But still. . . .

I just want to get it over with so I can start editing it in earnest and, you know, title the damn thing!

So there was this flying hippo with a machine gun and then . . .

So I'm watching an episode of Eureka right now about dreams, and it got me thinking about the weird dreams I've been having lately. Now, I'm not one of those people who use dreams as ideas for my writing (yet) or I'd write really weird books. Okay, weirder than they already are. But why do we dream what we dream?

I know dreams are supposed to be a way of dealing with the days events, but sometimes they don't make sense to a point where I'm wondering 'what kind of crazy day did I have anyway?'

I used dreams as a major plot point in The White City. Lock's dreams are prophetic because of his unprotected jaunts into the astral world. While I don't think my dreams are prophetic (although that would be cool) I have had déjà vu dreams. It's always disconcerting to have something happen that I've done in a dream. What does that mean?

I wish I knew.

It's not called 'The Happy Rainbow Knight,' now is it?

So, like the rest of the world, I saw 'The Dark Knight.' I'm not going to gush about how much I loved Health Ledger as the Joker (although I really did!). I want to tell all of those people out there who think the movie is too violent and should be rated R to protect the kiddies to shut up.

Yes. I told you to shut up. If you don't think it ought to be rated R, I probably like you.

Okay, the movie is rated PG-13. That means it is suitable for anyone over the age of (drum roll please) 13! Do not take a 7-year-old to this movie! It is not meant for kids. The film was never marketed towards kids, so I'm not sure where parents got the idea it would be okay for them to see it. Watch the trailer, then tell me if that's a kids movie. Is it? No. Now stop complaining.



Batman is a vigilante. In the original comics he kills people and feels virtually no remorse. The Joker is a psychopath. That's who these characters are. If you want to expose your children to this, go ahead. Just don't complain after the fact. It's not Hollywood's fault for making the film. It's your fault for taking your damn kid to see it in the first place.

Okay, now I can go back to day dreaming about making pencils disappear. . . .