Agent News

I can now officially announce that I have signed with the amazing, spectacular Natalie Lakosil of Bradford Literary Agency. :D :D :D

I AM SO EXCITED AND HONORED, YOU GUYS. If I hadn't twisted my ankle yesterday, I'd still be bouncing around like crazy.

July Updates

This month has been absolutely insane.

--I finished my July editing job really early. It took ten days from start to finish (that's me doing the first edits, the author doing the revisions, and me reviewing the revisions and going over final questions).

--Hubby and I went apartment hunting, found an apartment we really liked, waited a weekend to find out if we were approved, were approved, and will be moving in about three and a half weeks. We're only moving about five minutes away, but this still requires packing. And organizing. And sorting. And more packing. I started sorting my kids' toys today. One of my cats had a blast jumping in and out of the empty toy drawers I had spread across the living room floor. Entertainment for kitties = win.

--I revised one of my manuscripts completely in twenty-four hours. This meant changing plot elements, writing new things, cutting other things, etc. It's funny how you can change one thing and then realize that changes four other things, and you have to keep tweaking threads until they all connect again. It was a lot of fun, though. :D It took me weeks to decide to take this particular plunge, and I wasn't sure I would happy with it, but I really, really am.

--I went shopping for my kids' homeschool books. I think I'm pretty much set for the coming school year.

--I'm still writing Rising Book 2: Rebellion. I have (I think) about eight and a half chapters left to write. Considering that this book is now clocking in at...134,306 words, and I've already written nineteen and a half long chapters and twenty-eight shorter flashbacks, that's really not a huge amount left. I cannot begin to express how excited and relieved I will be when this book is done. Well, at least written. Of course there will be editing and running it through the critique partner gauntlet and all that stuff, but at least the story will be complete. Oh, and it has a Goodreads page now!

--The weeks have flown by so fast and I realized I neglected to properly thank a couple of people for awards I got.

First, thank you to Christine Rains for The Booker Award.

The rules for this award:

This award is for book bloggers only. To receive this award the blog must be at least 50% about books (reading or writing is okay)
Along with receiving this award, you must also share your top five favorite books you have ever read. (More than five is okay) You must give this award to 5-10 other lucky book blogs you adore.

 Here are my favorite books:

1. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

2. Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

3. The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

4. My Fair Godmother and My Unfair Godmother by Janette Rallison

5. The Giver by Lois Lowry
6. The Only Alien on the Planet by Kristen D. Randle
7. Into the Dream by William Sleator
8. The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede

There are so many bloggers I adore, and I'm so behind on this award that I'm not sure who's received it and who hasn't--so I'm going to just say that if any of you haven't received it and want to talk about your favorite books, have at it!

Next, thank you to Deirdra A. Eden for the Creative Blog Award.

And finally, thank you so much to T. Drecker for the Fabulous Blog Ribbon Award.

And this one has some questions:

Name five of your most fabulous moments, either in real life or in the blogosphere.

- marrying my husband

- having my children

- going to Mexico to help build houses and meeting some of the most amazing kids there

- moving back to the south after three and a half years in the north

- meeting my writing partners in person for the first time

Name five things you love.

- God

- my family

- my friends

- my cats

- it's a toss up between coffee and socks. Although this is definitely a "like" kind of love and not a "I'm very fond of my cats" love or a "I desperately love God and my family and friends" love.

Name five things you hate

- seeing the people I love hurt

- people chewing in my ear

- throwing up

- the smell of dog poo
- most horror movies




I will try to come back very soon with something more than a giant update on everything. O_o But for now, I hope you all have a FANTASTIC weekend!!

Father's Day Cupcakes

My daughter and I made Perry the Platypus (from the cartoon Phineas and Ferb) cupcakes for my husband for Father's Day. We still have six left to decorate (there are twelve altogether) but here's the process and initial result.

My daughter's stuffed animal Perry and the Starbursts that we used for bills. We also used Starbursts cut in half and dipped in frosting for the feet.

Graham crackers being shaped into the tails. I had no idea what I was going to use for the tails until I was hunting through the cupboard for something to use and went, "Aha! Graham crackers!"

Two cupcakes stuck together with frosting form the base for the bodies.

Completed cupcakes!

Close-up of completed cupcake. My daughter and I dyed toothpicks in food coloring for the top part sticking out.

Happy Father's Day to my wonderful, amazing husband! Happy Father's Day to my dad and my father-in-law. And Happy Father's Day to all of you dads out there!

Editing Slots, Award, and Camp NaNoWriMo

First, I still have two slots for editing the first ten pages of a manuscript, if anyone else is interested. (It's first come, first served.)


Second, thank you to Sherry Ellis at Mama Diaries, who graced me with the One Lovely Blog Award. ^_^

Third, is anyone participating in Camp NaNoWriMo?

 

It's basically a NaNo in June, but I'm not using it as NaNo. I mean, I'm not like "WORD COUNT! MUST GET WORD COUNT!" I did sign up because a) I'm still writing Rising Book 2, so I might as well and b) so I can offer encouragement to anyone else doing it by writing with them. But I'm just going to take this book the same way I've been taking it: one chapter at a time.


I have about 91,000 words on Rising Book 2. I have about twelve chapters and nine flashbacks left to write. I'm also up to my eyeballs in editing, which is why I haven't gotten as much writing done. And my husband and kids and I just went on a weekend vacation to visit some of his family in Ohio. The trip was awesome and so much fun, and it was great to see family. I'm in Vacation Recovery Mode right now--I love traveling; it's just very tiring!

Random Act of Kindness Blitz

I've been kind of out of the blogosphere loop lately--I've been so busy with family, homeschooling, and writing and editing deadlines. I would have completely missed the fact there's a Random Act of Kindness blitz going on right now if Donna Weaver hadn't graced me with an amazing shout out and gift. Donna is such a lovely, generous person and I'm so touched by her constant thoughtfulness.

As part of the RAOK blitz, I'd like to offer something to some of the wonderful people who have supported me on this blog, so for the first five writers who request this in the comments, I will edit the first ten pages of your book. I know ten pages isn't a tremendous amount, but it might let you know if I spot anything huge that I think you could work on grammatically or narratively. I would offer to edit more, but as I said, I'm on editing and writing deadlines. I work as an editor for a publishing company and do freelance editing on the side. (Fair warning: I'm a picky editor. ;))

To all of you, thank you for your encouragement and support since I started this blog. (And to Donna, thank you again--you have been a wonderful source of encouragement and inspiration, and it has meant a lot to me. Thank you for your RAOK gift.)

Grammar Daze: A While vs. Awhile

My past few weeks have been stuffed full of writing and editing. I'm still writing Rising Book 2, and I've been doing my freelance editing in between. I'm on deadlines all around, but with all the editing I've been doing, I figured it would be a good opportunity to do another Grammar Daze, since it's been a while since I've done one.

Speaking of "a while," that happens to be the subject of today's post.

A While vs. Awhile

A While is a noun. It's a period of time.

Awhile is an adverb, and it means "for a while."

There are a couple of ways to test which one we need.

Test #1:

You can replace "awhile/a while" with an adverb and see if it works. If it works, you need the adverb, "awhile." If it doesn't work, you need the noun, "a while."

Examples:

1. Lie down awhile.

This is correct. We could use another adverb here. We could say: "Lie down quietly." And it makes sense, so we know we need to use the adverb awhile.

2. I'm going out for a while.

This is correct. We could not use an adverb here. We couldn't say "I'm going out for a quietly."

Remember: An adverb (words like awhile, quietly, happily, peacefully) can never be the object of a preposition (words like with, for, on, under).  So you can never, ever say "for awhile." If you have the word for in there, you have to use the noun: for a while.

This is another way to figure out whether to use "a while" or "awhile."

Test #2:

"Awhile" already has "for" in its meaning. You can try to put "for a while" in a sentence. If you can use "for a while" then you can use the word "awhile." If it doesn't make sense, you need "a while."

Examples:

1. I'll be awhile.

This is incorrect, because if we say "I'll be for a while" it doesn't make sense. You need the noun: I'll be a while. (This is also where we could substitute another adverb and see that it would not make sense: "I'll be happily.")


2. I'll be over there awhile.

This is correct, because if we say "I'll be over there for a while" it makes sense. (This is also where we could substitute another adverb and see that it would make sense: "I'll be over there happily.") This means we could also reword the sentence to use the noun if we wanted to: I'll be over there for a while.


Any questions? Thoughts? Have I completely confused you?

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...