Dorris Beaird, you have won my Here Kitty, Kitty apron for subscribing to Apex Digest.  Wear it when you’ve invited friends for dinner.  <g>  Send me your address privately at RElliott4@aol.com.  I’d email you but your comment didn’t have a link.

Carol Shenold, CafePress notified me that your shirt is on the way!  Thanks for supporting my favorite science fiction and horror magazine!

Should have some conference pics tomorrow. 

I didn’t end up getting the writing day yesterday.  My employer needed a last minute rush job.  While I missed my writing day, I did end up witha  great sense of accomplishment last night.   Shoving two days of work into one is difficult and made my right hand ache like crazy, it was worth it to free up today. 

BTW, repeat that phrase to yourself every single time you want to procrastinate that writing process. 

The Sense of Accomplishment is Worth It.

I love that pic above!  To me, it screamed writer brain.  Look at it, carried along… helpless against those strands of wild, racing thoughts.  

I used to wonder why so many writers fight the writing process until I spent some time in that habit myself.  It can be caused by so many things–lack of free time, job responsibilities, etc.  Thing is, if something is that important to you, you make time. 

Harsh but true. 

When that struggle is broken down, it usually settles around one issue.  Lack of confidence.  Self doubt can root in anything, but we pretty much help it grow ourselves.  Writers set constant goals and fail them, expect perfection in first drafts, compare themselves to other writers…

These are some difficult habits to break. 

But oh, you can. 

All it takes is a little self discipline.  Sit down in that chair and write.  Write crap–and you probably will if you’re out of practice-but just write.  Set aside a time every day and make it happen.  My father gets up at five a.m. every single day and writes for three or four hours.  Every successful writer I know has this down. (Okay, maybe not the five a.m. part. ;)  ) But it’s that basic day to day habit.  Not to steal from Nike or anything but JUST DO IT.

I finished Dweller pretty fast once I truly grasped the importance of BICHOK (Butt in chair, hands on keyboard.)  It’s easy to say you understand, but putting it into consistent practice develops that creative mind and each day, it gets easier. 

You basically train your brain to function at will.  It works.  I swear!  In fact, you start to crave the process like a junkie because that sense of accomplishment is like nothing else.  ;)  But first, you have to work to break the bad habits. 

Yeah, unfortunately we will probably always compare ourselves to other writers.

Hmm..  bet they do it too.

Change the comparison.  Use the words different or unique instead of better. 

Set goals you can accomplish.  Be HONEST.  You may want to spill 3000 words a day, but don’t expect to do that in the beginning.  Takes practice and good habits to get there.  (And it doesn’t take that long.  Seriously.)

Write a bad first draft.  Why do you think NaNoWriMo is so popular?  Once you set aside your internal editors, you’ll be surprised at the gems you find in that mess.

And something else I learned from the years of hanging around with so many writers? 

Even the most successful ones occasionally have to go up against the self-doubt and procrastination monsters. 

Now, to lighten the mood, I stole this quiz from Jocelyn Drake.  (She has a cool widget for her book that won’t work on my site, damn it!  But go check her out!)

The shallow people part cracked me up.  Rinda.  The Elitist.  <g>

What Your Taste in Chocolate Says About You

You are sweet, mellow, and easily satisfied.You don’t like anything too intense and dramatic.Deep down, you’re a kid at heart… and you’re nostalgic for the past.You are energetic and quick to act.You are open minded, and you easily adopt new social causes.While your heart is in the right place, you often can’t follow through with your dreams.You love the feeling of accomplishment. You enjoy doing what’s important.You feel lost when you have to do frivolous tasks or hang out with shallow people.

I’ve been working a lot.  With the job I’m doing for pay, I tend to go over and over things because I’m a perfectionist.  Sad, but true. 

Working on that.

But because of this, I’ve been spending most of my down time trying to catch up on life.  I have two busy kids, a hubby who needs my attention, a big house that needs a spring cleaning…  So, Rinda has stayed overworked for a few weeks.

I have today and tomorrow off. 

Weird thing is, I’m quivering with giddiness over all the things I can do with my days.  Catch up the cleaning?  Yeah, have to do some of that.  Run errands.  Of course!  What mom doesn’t have to shove these into her days off????  (I will make a sushi run for lunch, tho–yum.)   Cook nice dinners.  I’m a weird writer–I love to cook.  New recipe tonight! 

Catch up my critiquing for Rachel?  Yeah, looking forward to having stretched time for that. 

Write???  Oh yes. 

But it’s been so long since I’ve had a free day, all these things are hovering about my head in this cloudy conglomeration of overwhelming, crying voices. 

“Do me first!”

“No, me!”

My muse is sitting on my shoulder, filing her nails (Cause I don’t file mine and she likes to make me feel guilty.) and lifting one tweezed eyebrow (Cause I don’t do that either.  Ouch.) and waiting on her pedicure appointment (Get the drift yet?) and telling me to catch all those voices, stuff em in a box and just take the days for what I want to do.  (She also promises pain if I don’t.)

Dive into BOAA. 

So, between my muse and my main character, Beri, I may get a wicked ass kicking if I don’t give in and make them all happy. (And me, too. ) 

Dorris Beaird and Carol Shenold are winners in my Apex Subscription Drive.  Email your addresses to me at RElliott4@aol.comand I will get the apron out to Dorris Beaird and the evil shirt to Carol.  The real prize is Apex,but I hope you have fun with the Snarky items.

I have school duties and one kiddo going to the doctor today, so it’s a drive by post for you today.  Pulled up a draft on cool linkage I’ve been working on–have fun s’plorin’.

Karen Fox Romance Deals.  Want to know what’s selling? Which agent finessed what deal?  This site stays pretty up to date.

Five Science Fiction movies that get the science right.  (Learned the abbreviation  sci-fi is a big no noat OWFI.  Wish someone had told me that before I created the Snark store. <g&gt

Behind the Name.  Want to know name history and meaning?  I actually use a book I keep within reach for name hunting and meaning, but this will do if I’m away from my desk.

Mercy’s Garage Shirts. You know you’re aproaching scary fangirl when you want to buy a shirt a character wore on a book.  Sheesh.  Yet… still I save the page and plan to buy one of the hoodies… <wg>

The Black Hole.  Want to know submission turn around in the science fiction, fantasy and horror markets? 

And for a pick me up?  Capucine. The beauty of the Internet–fall in love with a little sweetie who lives across the world and speaks a different language.  My favs are Too Much Candy!  Pump it! and Eat Your Carrots!  Ohhhh, there are new ones!!! 

Yeah, I blog about writing to bands like Korn and Tool, but I’m a sucker for any and all music that strikes me.  I discovered Elsiane on Last FM and was instantly hooked.  You can listen to them there or on their Myspace page–which has the studio recorded full versions.  But only four songs!

This CD is an import.  If you live in Canada, you lucky, lucky people, you can get it from Itunes.  NOT HERE!  Wah!  I’m so close to paying the import price…

The lyrics can inspire some gut wrenching writing people.

Warning:  If you are prone to heavy imagination overload, skip this post.

Rachel Vincent probably didn’t mean to twist my imagination in quite the way she did.  And no, while I am critiquing her work right now and LOVING IT, a few simple words did this terrible thing. (Okay that AND the critique.)

It’s the time of year when certain Oklahoma creatures begin invading the home.  There is nothing like bopping around barefoot and seeing one of these lift its back end at you.  (Did you know that isn’t a tail?  It’s an extension of their abdomen.)

So, I’m telling her about my almost-in-the-shower-heebie-jeebie dance and she casually mentions getting stung IN HER BED. 

In it, fairly warned readers.

Oh, and while I caught mine and took it outside, she puts hers down the garbage disposal. This werecat writer has a dark side, eh?  But then, she has been stung and so far, I’ve avoided it.  I have no idea how because I find these things everywhere.  I cleaned out a stack of magazines in my office and found two dead ones underneath.  They’ve been in my kids’ rooms–okay yes, when it comes to my kiddos, I can bring myself to administer a swift death. 

No freaking garbage disposal though!!!

So, while I was tucking my wonderfully relaxed (see post on Worst PAIN Ever! below) self into bed all weekend, I was lifting covers to inspect the bottom of the sheets.  On Mother’s Day, my hubby brings me coffee in bed then makes a joke about nests of scorpions in the bedroom somewhere.  I watched the floor all weekend.

Didn’t help.

I dreamed of freaking black werecats with stingers and huge garbage disposals. 

And since I’m critiquing, Rachel is going to know exactly how this “coming together” happened.

Yuck. 

(On a side note, I didn’t do a drawing for prizes in my Apex Digest Subscription Drive–I had two comment, so both won!  Congrats Carol and Dorris!!)

My baby brother got married this weekend in a lovely ceremony.  The reception was a blast.  Man, I haven’t laughed so hard in years.  Even the DJ said we were his most fun crowd.   Of course, sometimes he thought we were cheering over his music choices, but no.  We clapped and yelled every time someone had to go to the restroom. 

We’re uh, mean like that. 

So, we were joking about chair dancing and one of our friends said he wanted to take a chair onto the dance floor and have his wife dance around it.  We were laughing pretty hard over the image when my mother said something smart and he dared HER to do it. 

SHE DID IT. 

My mother danced around his chair.  Her friend joined after a minute, so he had two women boogieing around the chair while he just pointed his fingers and chin back and forth.  Then my sister, who is a FANTASTIC dancer stunned us all with her moves and danced with the best man who had the bride’s elastic garter around his head. 

(My brother had crawled under his new bride’s dress to remove it with his teeth.) 

As we were leaving, my ten year-old son did the worm across the entire dance floor.  The DJ announced he’d be signing autographs afterward.

I danced with friends, watched my parents dance together, danced with my father.  It was just genuinely wonderful. 

Until later.

After all this, the whole family ends up at my parents’ house.  I’m talking more than thirty or forty people.  We’re all sitting around in different areas of the house and a bunch of women end up down in what used to be the pool room.  We’re sharing stories and of course, laughing hysterically over something one of my aunts had printed from an email.  We start talking about health stuff and I bring up a sleep issue I’ve been having.  I have several aunts there but one of them shushes the room and holds out her hands.  ”Give me your foot.”

Oh no.  I’ve seen what happens to others who’ve trusted their feet to her.  I’ve managed to spend years avoiding this torture.  Last night I caved.  I don’t know why.  Maybe because chronic insomnia, while useful for a writer for a while, tends to blur life after an extended period of time. 

My aunt is a reflexologist. 

No, that’s not entirely true.

She’s a reflexologist and A SADIST WITH INCREDIBLY STRONG HANDS and a knack for finding your body’s problem areas by sending you into a haze of pain like nothing else! 

I’m talking pain, people. 

I was yelling and holding onto the back of a chair.  Everyone came in from outside and the kitchen.  They gathered around to enjoy the show of torture.  Seriously.  They poured drinks and carried the party on around me.  She found my problem areas and honed in.   I’m gasping while squirming to get away.  Someone brings me wine and I can barely get the liquid past the screams and tears.  When she hit certain spots, I came up off the chair and yelled very non kid friendly words.  The aunt merely smiled and told me my thyroid is causing me problems. 

I could have just told her that already! <g>   

But I have to say, I slept wonderfully.  I still woke up at three-thirty, but I slid back to sleep and didn’t wake the other two or three times.  Today, I am so relaxed, it’s amazing.  There is something to this reflexology.  You can read about it here.  I was thinking I’d never put myself through that again, but I really do feel well today…  With a clear head and a free day, I hope to get my critiquing caught up and get some writing of my own done. 

This seems to be one of the more popular questions we writers get.  And yet, I’m always surprised.

My problem has never been ideas, it’s been time.  I want to live a long, long time (duh–don’t we all?) and partly because I have too many stories to write.  So my recent brain freeze while waiting to hear on DOTT and BOAA is EXTREMELY unusual for me.  No worries, tho–I have no doubt it will go away and I’ll get back to burying myself in my stories.  I’m really ALIVE when I write. 

Offhand, I’m going through an entirely new set of emotions with being so VERY CLOSE to realizing a long term dream.  The surge of ups and downs is pretty intense.  I thought the wait on magazine stories or agent replies was difficult, but this is something else.  I think maybe if my payjob used more of my brain, it would be easier–but no, it’s this monotonous drone of click, move and type.  My mind is entirely too free to wander.

But I have stopped racing to the phone when it rings. 

But back on topic.  (See?  I’m useless these days.  <g> )

Ideas. 

My ideas come from EVERYWHERE.  An overheard snippet from a casual conversation.  Two squirrels ripping each other to shreds outside my office window.  (Seriously, it was brutal.  I couldn’t help but wonder if something in their food had sparked the violence… )  As most of my long term readers know, I’m very visual and love nothing more than an excellent piece of art or a photograph.  And sometimes, the idea that sparks has little to do with what the artist was trying to portray.

I’ve been saving some images that sparked ideas.  Let’s see if they do anything for you.  Share if anything stirs!!!!

Not only did this crack me up, but I thought of a wonderful action scene with lots of humor.  Can you see it?

 Yes, they obviously built around the stunning trees–but what if there was a more sinister reason???

Funny yes, but this image sparked a very serious scene about the consequences of using magic.  It’s only an outline at this point, but I’m really looking forward to getting to that section of the manuscript. 

I’m always drawn to amber.  The color fascinates me.  This image sparked an idea I can’t share since it’s in my current WIP, but it has a lot to do with guardians of the forest.  That’s all I’m saying.

Breathing yet?  Go ahead and look at it again.  I get it.  This image is from my Gena file.  Yes, I find the male body absolutely beautiful and I’ve been a heavy contributor to Gena Showalter’s Monday pics.  She refers to me often as beefcake pimp.  <wg>  But this particular image sparked a gritty and uh, slippery scene.  What started out as sexy, turned heavy and emotional and I can’t wait for my CP’s reaction when she gets to it.  And that scene is a ways off for her.  Sorry Rachel.

And since I don’t want to use one of her images directly, I’ll direct you to Natalie Shau.  One of her pieces, which unfortunately isn’t on this website any longer, sparked an answer to a problem that was driving me nuts.  I needed something good for my depiction of a certain dimensional plane.  I found it in one of her images.  It’s for book three of my urban fantasy series.  Honestly, ideas flow every single time I look at her work, but this was the kind of flash that raises the hair on your arms and twists up the gut. 

Those are the ones you KNOW are good.  I live for those moments.

Ms. Shau will probably get a mention in the acknowledgments in that third book. ;) 

(And don’t forget, I’m working to help my favorite science fiction and horror magazine–giving away cool prizes to those who subscribe!  Drawing is Sunday.  Details below!)

Go See Why!    Woohoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Reminder:  I won’t be picking a winner until Sunday, so the Apex Subscription Drive continues!  It really is the best science fiction and horror short story publication, IMO, so it’s worth the 20 bucks.  Plus, you can win one of my cool Snarky items!  See post below for details.

Fun stuff this week!!!  This post will stay up a couple of days and I’ll do the drawing on Sunday.

Write Snark readers know I just LOVE Apex Digest!  Jason and I shared space as writers in a horror magazine a couple of years ago and stayed in touch since.  He’s a fantastic editor and this magazine never fails to give me a shiver or two.  So if you like your science fiction on the dark side, give them a chance.

I want to keep loving it, so I’m offering my own incentive to sweeten the pot.

If you take out a subscription, comment here and you will be automatically entered to win one of these three prizes.  I’ll do a random drawing, pick one winner (two if I’m feeling particularly generous and we have a great turnout!) confirm the purchase with Jason and then you get to pick which snarky item you like best.  I’ll ship directly to you. (Clicking on the image pulls it up large for you.)

The Here Kitty Kitty apron which reads “All it takes is time, drive and maybe… a small blood sacrifice.”  I find the idea of wearing this while cooking pretty damned amusing myself. <g>  Here’s how it looks on.  If you’re tall.  And a guy.

Or

It Was Just Getting Bloody!  dark T. (This comes in several nice, dark colors.)  I wore this shirt into the hospital for surgery recently.  Cracked up those who got it– I feel sorry for those who didn’t.

Or

Could Be Worse T.  I wear this shirt all the time.  My favorite place is my son’s school. <g>

Here’s Apex’s Blurb:

Okay, we’re going to come right out and say it. The magazine needs more subscribers. Probably doesn’t come as any shock, as this happens every year.

So we’re going to do an old-fashioned subscription drive.

The reality of the situation is that we need 150 new subscribers (or roughly $3000), or we’re looking at a hiatus until I have enough disposable income to push out another issue. We use the term “hiatus” because there won’t be any mercy killings going on around here. We love the damn magazine too much to let it go (or possibly too stubborn), but the hiatus could be an extended one.

–How can you help?
–By taking out a subscription! Or buying magazines from our store!

Subscriptions are a measly $20 for 4 issues in the US. $24 for Canada/Mexico. $34 for the rest of the world.

We’ve re-initiated the APEX FOR LIFE subscription option that gives you Apex until you die. This goes for $100.

If you’re interested in the magazine, but want to check it out before taking out a subscription, then take a look through our ample back catalog.

Or, heck, if you’re wanting to show your support but not necessarily want a subscription, check out our ample back catalog.

Every person taking out APEX FOR LIFE subscriptions will be entered to win the following prizes:
1) ARC copy of Broken on the Wheel of Sexby Jack Ketchum (Overlook Connection)
2) Signed limited copy of Orpheus and the Pearlby Kim Paffenroth (Magus Press)
3) Signed copy of Homebody by Orson Scott Card
4) Limited signed copy of When Dark Descendsby Charles L. Grand & Thomas F. Monteleone (Borderlands Press)
5) Hardcover copies ofGratia Placenti and Aegri Somniaedited by Gill Ainsworth and Jason Sizemore

Furthermore, every person taking out a lifetime subscription will receive a TPB copy of either Unwelcome Bodies or The Next Fix.

Get your own subscription here!

Thought I’d share some conference seeds, but didn’t want to leave anyone out, so they sprouted.  There is some fun info in here, so read at your leisure.

Pictures will come later!  In a post with less words. I was forced to use one of those disposable cameras–so cross your fingers and hope some of the images came out.  I’m a writer, not a photographer.  Some of you remember the wild turkey shots, yes?  Remember the casual suggestions I stick to writing???  I have such lovely, honest readers here.

First night at the hotel in Midwest City, we had one of those freak, Oklahoma storms that come out of nowhere.  Well, for those of us who don’t always pay close attention to the news.  Julia Mozingo did tell me that she’d heard Lubbock would be visiting us that evening in the form of wind carried dirt.  Lubbock is over 300 miles southwest.  In Texas.

Instead of dirt, we had huge hail and tornado sirens that sent everyone running into the storm shelter.  I couldn’t help but wonder what our out of town guests thought.  <g>

JA Jance was our keynote and she did talk about explaining the hail damage to the car rental place.  Ouch.  Her speech was wonderful, funny and inspiring.  Have to say, the keynote is usually my favorite part of the conference. She has a blog and if it is half as entertaining as her speech, I’ll be following it.

I attended two workshops by A.C. Crispin.  She talked about the popularity of urban fantasy but warned new writers about writing to trends.  Not necessarily in reference to UF, no, she was talking about all recent trends and how long it can take to write the book, get an agent, go through the publishing process…. the trends could be over by then.  Her advice is excellent.  Write what you love. 

I am hoping UF takes on its own powerful genre identity and stays around a long, long time. ;) 

I highly recommend any author searching for an agent to first check out A. C. Crispin’s Writer Beware site on scam artists.

I walked up and introduced myself to Jason Pinter.  He writes for Mira (like Rachel!) and I’ve followed his blog for a little while.  Unfortunately, I tend to cross my arms over my name tag, so he didn’t know who I was until right before he had to run off.   He then recognized my name from Rachel’s blog.  I told him I wasn’t number one, but number two.  (heh heh)  I bought The Mark and The Guilty and look forward to reading them very much.

Selina McLemore, an editor from Grand Central Publishing, sat with us during the banquet.  She is especially interested in fiction and non-fiction that resonates with the Latino community in the United States and also looks for romance, women’s fiction and narrative non-fiction.   I enjoyed meeting her.  She’s very personable, smiles often and is truly excited about her work.  She also listened to a couple of stories about me from MY MOTHER.  LOL! 

(My father attended the conference–his first– and my mother joined us for the banquet.  She looked stunning in her white dress and seemed to really enjoy herself.  It was lovely having her there, but I kept thinking she would have really enjoyed coming when I was entering the contests and collecting those awards myself. <g> )

The best thing about the Oklahoma Writer’s Federation conference is spending time with my close friends Sarah Basore, Carol Shenold, Kathy Moad (currently building a new site), Lou Mansfied and Deborah Bouziden. I missed Christy Jenkins something awful! 

I also like touching base with writers I only see once a year.  I’m terrible with names at times, but I know the smiles and I get a kick out of all the cheering and support given to those who place in the Saturday night contests. 

I didn’t enter them the last couple of years, but I feel they are a wonderful, wonderful thing for Oklahoma writers.  I honed my craft in those contests, spending year after year working harder to get to first places.  It’s a great source of feedback and it’s nice for new writers to get the positive vibes from the support when otherwise they might be swimming in rejections. 

I do think there should be a bit of caution there and I don’t want to bring a positive post down, but feel it’s necessary to warn new writers not to let that positive feedback sustain you.  It’s easy to fall into the habit of writing for the contests and not put your hard work toward publishing. 

I also got to spend time with writers Maria Hooley and Kathleen Redwine.  Maria and I have been friends for years and we try to touch base at the conference.  She’s a fantastic writer who also happened to get up quite a few times to accept awards.  Kathleen is a new member of OKRWA and just a fascinating and gorgeous woman! 

So, while I enjoyed the conference, I’m always so happy to get home.  I didn’t stay and celebrate with the winners last night.  My father and I were both pretty wiped, so my parents gave me a ride home.  (We had one vehicle in the shop, so the hubby gave me a ride up Thursday.)

I’m one of those oddly introverted people who does well at conferences for a few days, then needs to scurry off to recuperate.   But my imagination never fails to find inspiration in something there.  I came home with several ideas I can’t wait to explore. 

And okay, okay.  Yes.  It was VERY fun telling people I’d signed with an agent.   I worried I might say it too often, but then remembered how long I’ve been waiting to share that kind of news.  <g>

Oh I almost forgot–yes, I know this is long– but I did attend an interesting workshop about marketing yourself from home.  Dan Poynter  created the workshop especially for introverts. You might want to check out his site and sign up for the newsletter.  Some of his suggestions were incredibly simple, yet they’d escaped me.  I picked up valuable ideas on promotion.

He shared a story about Johnny Carson that had me smiling.  Carson as an introvert might surprise a lot of people, but it made sense to me.  I tend to come off as highly extroverted at writer’s meetings and conferences because I’m talkative (too much when the nerves set in!) and I gather up the nerve to introduce myself to strangers. (Remember Pinter?)  I do okay in crowds and don’t stare at my feet as Poynter said introverts are prone to do.  I find people too interesting for that.  

I do plan to market my books heavily and in person as much as possible, but I will always be more comfortable here, curled up in a chair with my laptop.  Diving into worlds of my own making. 

I’m a writer because I love to write. :)