Mid-April Update

I hope all of you doing the A-Z challenge have been having a blast with it! I can't believe it's already halfway through April. I haven't been blogging because all of my free time has been going to frantically writing Rising Book 2. I'm almost halfway done--I have about a chapter and three-fourths left to the halfway point. I think this will probably be my longest novel yet, considering I have 69,154 words already. There's just so much more story to tell and tie up in this one than the first one.

I've also been prepping for my daughter's birthday party, which is today. Her birthday was a couple of weeks ago, but today was the first day we had free to do it. She wanted a Yoshi cake from Mario Brothers, and let me tell you, that thing was hard to make. O_o I had made the head out of rice crispy treats, but it fell apart (slooooowly) after I attached the head to the body, so then I had to remake the head smaller. Plus, I was pretty much out of frosting at that point, which meant I had to steal some from around the body. Yeah. Definitely not my best cake ever, but it's together and it's edible, darn it.

Here is the end result:

I also had my next Taekwondo belt test this past week--I don't have the results for that yet. So. Yes. April has been busy.

I hope you all are having a wonderful month and that you have a fantastic day!! I need to go do final prep for a birthday party...

"Write Like You're the Only Person in the Room." Also, links to blog tour stop #2 and a giveaway.

Aside from the release of Rising Book 1, this week has been full of awesome stuff. First, I was hired as a freelance editor for Whiskey Creek Press, which I'm super excited about. I get the opportunity to combine three things I love: editing, reading fiction, and helping other writers with their books. I'm really looking forward to working with this publishing company and being a part of the process of helping authors get their books ready for publication.

Second, my son (who is turning nine in a few weeks) passed his most recent belt test in Taekwondo. He's a green belt now, so he starts advanced classes, and I have to get him sparring gear. My husband and I passed our tests as well and got our yellow belts. The helpful thing about having a son who's more advanced than us is that when we get stuck on a new pattern, we can be like, "Um, help, please?"

I did a post before on how Taekwondo is like writing. I've learned another thing about writing from Taekwondo, which ties in a lot with the Darth Vader/Comfort Zone stuff I was talking about recently. I've never done well when I have to perform in front of people. When I took gymnastics years ago, I was always super self-conscious about the fact that even mothers were watching. Well, when my son and I went to take our belt tests the week before last, there were like three hundred people there. About a third of them were testing, and about two thirds were watching, and there I was, a beginner student, expected to get up in front of judges and the whole room and show what I'd learned. Granted, they did have us test in groups of three or four, but I was so nervous when we walked into that room. I was self-conscious about even practicing in front of all those people. I leaned toward my son and told him, "I am so nervous. I'm going to forget my patterns or something. There are all these people watching!"

My son looked at me very earnestly and said, "Mommy, you just have to imagine you're the only person in the room."

My husband (who couldn't make it to that testing) told me pretty much the same thing when I frantically texted him before testing started.

So I took a deep breath and did just that. And I did fine. Then I used the same analogy recently in discussions with a fellow writer, because it's completely relatable to writing. Those scenes that make me nervous, I will remind myself to write as if I'm the only person there. I mean, I'm the only person looking at these scenes as I type, but I write them knowing that soon they'll be going to family and friends, and eventually, they'll be released into the world.

Those invisible eyes can be daunting. If you find yourself questioning what you're writing or worrying what other people are going to think, my advice to you is this: Write like you're the only person in the room.

Do the invisible eyes get to you or do you already write like you're the only person in the room?

--------

And finally, today's Rising Book 1: Resistance links and information:

1. Yesterday there were people who participated in the release event for the book. I had been going to give away several e-copies of the books and announce the winners today, so here it is: everyone who participated in the Rising Release Event will receive an e-copy of the book. If you signed up and participated in that yesterday (or had told me you'd be doing it Monday or today), you should have received an email from me; if I somehow missed you, please email me at the address under "contact" at the top of my blog and let me know. Thank you all so much for your help in spreading the news!

2. Rachel Morgan is hosting today's blog tour. She's an incredibly generous and wonderful person and I'm thrilled to be featured on her blog. If you're not already following her, you totally should be. To check out my interview on her blog, go here: Blog Tour Stop #2

3. Laura, whom I met through Twitter some months ago, is giving away a paperback copy of Rising Book 1. She did this entirely on her own—she asked me about signing a copy of the book, but she put the whole thing together because she loved the book and wanted to share it. (Thank you, Laura!!) Her giveaway runs through this Sunday, the 26th, and you can check out the contest and enter it here on her blog: Rising Paperback Giveaway.

how Taekwondo is like writing

My son has been taking Taekwondo since we moved to Tennessee this year. He did karate a little bit before that, but there was no karate dojo here that did the same form he had been learning, so he switched to Taekwondo. He loves it, and I've been watching him learn more and more and taking him to belt tests and a tournament and a gazillion classes.

Well, my husband and I recently decided to start taking Taekwondo, too. Hubby's been wanting to do it forever, and I always thought it would be neat, but didn't know if I had the motivation for it. However, I suck at exercising on a regular basis (I really, really do), and I have a heart condition (a mild form of it) and my cardiologist tells me I need to be exercising several times a week. So doing Taekwondo, I'll not only learn self-defense (which I've wanted to learn for ages) but I'll be holding myself accountable to the exercising.

After a couple of classes (and giving my legs time to adjust--all that kicking made them soooo sore), I'm fumbling with where the heck I'm supposed to put my feet and how to hold my arms and the teacher keeps saying, "Relax! Taekwondo is all about relaxing!" and I'm O_O.

I do have a point to all of this.

I went to a Taekwondo class to do it with my son, and he was in the back of the room, working on his moves with someone else, since he's several belts down and learning all sorts of patterns. And he always makes it looks so easy. The kicking, the punching, the various blocks and turns...and there I am, flailing my way through the basic moves and growing ever more impressed with how much my child has learned.

I got to thinking about how it's like writing. How when a person first sits down to write their very first book, it's a lot of flailing around and trying to find your footing and figure out what in the world you're doing. You read published books, or you read a friend's manuscript, and you wonder how you're ever, ever going to know how to do it that well. Or do it at all. And it doesn't always end with the first book. Maybe you're writing your tenth novel and you read something amazing and you realize how much you still have to learn and you wonder how your books are going to stand up among all of the books that are so incredible.

Sometimes it all comes back to perseverance, and determination, and knowing that there's always room for improvement, and you're going to make mistakes. It can be overwhelming when you think of how much you still have to learn, so much of the craft you still have to know. It's okay. You'll get there. One step at a time, one key stroke at a time. You'll slowly learn the movements and how everything fits together and why you're doing certain things and avoiding other things. You'll push yourself to new limits and learn and do things you didn't think you could before. If you give up because things look hard or you don't think you'll be able to push yourself that much, who knows what stories you'll miss out on? You have a story (or stories!) to tell, and only you can tell it. You'll figure out how if you just keep at it.

Now I just need to remind myself of this when I go to the next Taekwondo class...