Inspirations for Creepy

I love creepy. The spookier the better. In trying to figure out what to write next, I decided to give the Cobalt world a break and work on something dark and eerie (like Cobalt wasn’t?). I’m still working out the details, and trying to decide between two different story ideas that are taking shape.

Like many people, I’m inspired by other stories, music, and imagery. The following are a few of my favorite spooky inspirations. For some reason, I find myself really looking forward to Halloween now.

Neil Gaiman’s Coraline is just like an old-fashioned ghost story complete with nightmarish illustrations. The movie didn’t disappoint either. Would have scared the crap out of me as a kid.

I just finished reading this one. The Ocean at the End of the Lane had its creepy moments, but was, overall, a beautiful story written by an amazing author.

I read this book as an adult and had nightmares. I can’t see the upcoming movie being as creepy as the stories in this book and its sequels, but maybe we’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Stolen Babies knows how to do creepy when it comes to music and costumes. Heavily influenced by Oingo Boingo and Tim Burton, this band brings graveyards or nightmare carnivals to mind. Grubbery is about a couple of hillbilly cannibals who get a dose of karma when they find out their dinner doesn’t like being dug out of their graves. 🙂

https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/iW5dbSeViAY&source=uds

One of my friends on Facebook posted this great link on a gorgeous photo project that brings Grimms’ fairy tales to life, and provides more than enough inspiration for surreal settings and spooky forests.

And then…

Like her sister before her, this creepy 8-year-old left a bunch of scary photos on my phone that she edited herself.

She also touched up this one of her sister, which is creepy in a different way.

Do you have any other spooky or disturbing books, movies, or pictures to add to my list?

Meanwhile, Cobalt is on an editor’s desk awaiting approval or rejection and my fingers are cramping up from weeks of crossing them. Cross some of yours for me too, please!

All Work and No Play…

I’ve been a boring person lately. I write for a living, and it’s at home – so I rarely make myself pretty anymore. And often I find myself pulling all-nighters to make a deadline (when the kids or appointments have been keeping me busy during the day) or when it’s close to payday and I want to get in a few more assignments. The result is a crazy ugly lady in Spongebob pajamas who loves her job, but has pretty much forgotten about her fiction dreams. It looks a little like this:

I don’t have an ax, and I won’t get one. 😉

So I put Cobalt on my Nook for Emily to read last week. I thought it would make a good incentive for me to lighten up and do more of what I love – writing the fictions. You see, Emily inherited my tendency to become a raging fangirl of epic proportions when she develops a passion (or an obsession) for something. The following individuals, whether they’re fictional characters or not, should beware. Make sure Emily never finds out where you live.

Now what happened was Emily read Cobalt in two days, knowing that I’m still a few chapters out from being done. I asked her to keep me motivated to finish it. I knew she’d like the story…but I’d forgotten how she can get scary obsessed.

With my WIP cutting off at a cliffhanger chapter ending just before the book’s climax, she kind of freaked out at 4:00 in the morning and woke me up with a tantrum, then took my laptop and made a Facebook fan page for me! I wasn’t expecting that. But look what she did with my blog’s banner! I seriously love it.

Well, now that I have a 14-year-old coming up every time I’m at  the laptop, staring at me with her creepy eyes and asking if I’m writing, I have a really good reason to finish the book! Or else I might be facing this:

I am not even joking.

I know it’s a rare author who has all the time in the world to do only what he or she loves. Do you make writing your first priority, or do you get work done before rewarding yourself with writing?

This time last year:

Oh Never Mind, I Can’t Stay Away, Y’all! – So very much can change in a year! A blessing in disguise has given us the opportunity to reform our broken family stronger and happier than ever. Part of this drawn-out struggle will be over next week, when we go to court. We still have a long road ahead of us to break away completely, but 2013 looks full of hope.

Young Adult vs. Middle Grade

So until about three years ago, I’d never heard of the term “middle grade.” Young Adult fantasy had always been my favorite genre – or so I’d thought. Until I started researching agents and discovered a whole new freaking genre that I’d been reading all along and never knew it wasn’t YA.

To me, the lines dividing Young Adult and Middle Grade can be fuzzy, although most agents and publishers are pretty firm on distinguishing one from the other when you’re submitting a manuscript. Here’s a little of what I learned when looking to define the two categories. These are the points that matter the most to me in identifying whether a story is YA or MG – like I said, it’s not always clear to my strange little mind, but others might have entirely different opinions.

• Age of the characters. MG characters are around pre-teen age or even early teens, while YA characters are usually 16 or 17.
• Romantic elements. Although there can be romance in a MG story, it’s usually just lightly touched upon, while the main focus is on the action. YA books usually have some sort of romance, with the romantic element being a main theme for many YA stories.
• Story and plot. This is where it sometimes gets fuzzy for me, and I’d think I was reading a YA book when in fact it was MG. Younger readers are smarter than a lot of people give them credit for, and you might be surprised at some of the themes that MG books touch on. A few can get pretty dark, and most are quite complicated. What I think should be the line that divides the two categories is the way the themes are presented. Some particularly dark, violent, or disturbing themes should really be saved until the reader is older and better able to handle them.

Other writing elements, like voice and length, can also define a YA or MG book, but to me the above three are what I look at the most. And I really do have a point to all this rambling: recently I’ve had to look carefully at The Moongate to decide if it’s really the YA book I’ve always thought it was – or if it fits more into the MG category. (I’ll also include Cobalt, because I meant for that one to be MG from the very beginning.)

• Age. In The Moongate, the main character Nissa is 16, and most of the supporting characters are the same age or older. (In Cobalt, Kate’s almost 13. Her friends are a little older, 15 and 16. I purposefully wrote it that way so the story might appeal to older readers as well.)
• Romance. An editor told me the lack of romantic tension in The Moongate (as well as Nissa’s voice) confused their readers as to my intended target audience. She told me that as a rule there should be at least some hint of romantic tension in a YA story. Originally, there was some romantic tension between Nissa and Theryn, which I simplified to just plain tension. I have to respectfully disagree with her on that point, with at least some books. I’ve read plenty of obvious YA series that don’t have any romance until at least the second book, sometimes even the third. What this editor couldn’t know is that in The Moongate‘s sequel, romantic tension suddenly ambushes Nissa like nobody’s business and she’s like what the crud. (In Cobalt, there’s romance between the older characters and even kissing! *giggles*)
• Story. Plenty of action and suspense in The Moongate that could work in either genre, I guess, although I don’t feel some of the violence in the sequel is appropriate for the MG category. (Cobalt gets pretty dark and spooky, but that’s on purpose. Scary stories are fun!)

Because of the editor’s feedback, I’ve planned out a complete rewrite of the first half of The Moongate – I’m not talking your general revisions and junk, but a literal do over. I’m changing the whole story so it fits more into the YA mold, because I’m just digging in my heels where that’s concerned – even if it does seem that MG fantasy is my favorite genre. 🙂 I’m excited about the change, and my toughest critic (besides myself), Lia, also approves.

Here are a few of my favorite stories that are either strictly MG or, in my opinion, sit on that fuzzy line between the two genres:

In 13 Treasures, the characters range in age from 12 to 14, and they all age about a year in the course of the trilogy. It’s a well-written, adventurous Middle Grade story about fairies who aren’t all sweet and pretty like they are in fairy tales. The climactic scene in the first book would have given me nightmares as a 12-year-old!

The main character is 11 or 12 at the beginning of this series, which I haven’t finished reading yet. Time passes as the books continue, and at the point I left off, there were hints of romance. As you can tell by this cover, the books are deliciously scary, with themes that many kids have to face, like the death of a parent, betrayal, and confronting your worst fears.

You can tell just by the prologue in Bones of Faerie that the story is going to be heartbreaking and mature. This is one of those stories that hovers between MG and YA; the main character, Liza, is 15 in the first book. By the end of the second book, the romantic “requirement” for YA catches up quite nicely. The dark horror elements in this story inspired the bloodthirsty Forest in Cobalt.

As most people know, Harry’s 11 when he gets his Hogwarts letter. The first few books fit right into the MG mold, with intelligent, dark, and scary plots. Romance is introduced as the characters age, and as the plots get darker, more mature, and more dangerous, I think the books themselves shift to YA. But of course, Harry Potter is loved by readers of all ages.

12-year-old genius protag Artemis Fowl fits the MG age, but because he’s so intelligent, the story’s voice follows suit. The result is a brilliant series that crosses the border to fit comfortably into both MG and YA worlds. Artemis ages throughout the series, but there’s little romance (although there are hints now and then). Instead, the amazing action, wit, and genius carry the plot for the entire series.

What are your thoughts on how Middle Grade compares to Young Adult?

Any favorite Middle Grade books, or examples of some that could go either way?

Do you have any opinions on the rule of Young Adult always including some sort of romantic tension?

This time last year:

Cobalt Gets the Lia Treatment – Again – My 8yo was reading out loud over my shoulder, almost doubling up with laughter. “Did you write this?” he gasped. Lia became his new favorite author when I told him who really wrote the scene.

Happy Steampunk Christmas!

The Disney Trap: Cute Critter Sidekicks

I’m almost done with the first draft of Cobalt! Early on with this book, I discovered the story was kind of writing itself as a middle grade, rather than young adult. (More on that in a future post.) On a whim, I wrote an animal character into the story: Ruby, a cute-at-first-glance, venomous flying squirrel. I really didn’t have any reason at first for writing her in, other than I thought it would be cool to have a smart animal sidekick to add to the fun – and I was fully prepared to hack her mercilessly out of the story if she ended up being too cartoonish (a term my dear friend and beta reader Ryan brought up, and which he also pointed out that I’ve managed to avoid with Ruby so far).

I liked Pascal, but was he really necessary? He’s cute and spunky, but did he contribute anything to the story?

I think some authors, especially whimsical hopeless romantics like me, might find it too easy to fall into the Disney trap by trying to work in sweet but unnecessary animal sidekicks. How many popular middle grade and young adult books are there with precocious pets as main characters? A few, sure. Not a lot. And do they work? I’m betting very rarely. What’s the trick to making them fit into a story? I’m trying to be really careful with this, because I like Ruby and don’t want to have to delete her. I will if I must, but here are a few of my arguments for animal characters that could work in a story. (And I’m not talking about books with animals as the only characters, which is an entirely different sub-genre.)

They’re integral to the plot. Sure, I could write around some of the problems my characters face without Ruby, but she’s gotten them out of a couple jams already, and in entertaining ways. How? She’s a bad-a flying squirrel with fangs. And she won’t hesitate to bite her favorite people as well as the bad guys, if they tick her off enough.

They’re either believably smart, or perfectly normal animals. Critters who can talk or understand human language perfectly might get a little too cutesy for a story. Ruby’s more intelligent than the average squirrel, partly because she has Cobalt in her blood and it changes a creature, and partly because her owner has her well trained. In the end, she’s still an animal, and doesn’t understand the things her human friends are up to – however, like most pets, she does realize when her people in pain or in danger.

Just try this with Ruby! Really, in a book, an animal sidekick has to be more than just a cute pet.

The action doesn’t revolve around them. If the animal sidekick is getting the main characters out of every single sticky situation, it’s a lazy way to write a story. What use is your protagonist if her pet is the hero all the time? (Unless that’s the whole point of the book. Ruby: Steampunk Action Squirrel! In that case, the book would not be middle grade or young adult.) However, if you need a distraction and just happen to have a flying squirrel with a mischievous streak, that might work…only once or twice, though.

Add fangs and fur, and this is more like Ruby.

I’m just going to stop my list here, because I’m on cough medicine with codeine and I can’t words very much anymore. And speaking of the words and all of their confusions, I’ll leave you with this just for fun, before I pass out completely:

Read it out loud. Hilarious!

Feel free to comment with anything you’d like to share on animal sidekicks! Can you think of any that worked for you? What about some that didn’t, but made it into a published book anyway?

Buy A Moose For Your Mantel

It’s been two months since our move, and today I’m celebrating cable TV and internet at home! I’m also celebrating a new job as a freelance writer for an internet marketing company. I write content and custom articles for their clients. Finally, after writing for over 20 years, I’m able to support my family doing what I love! I work primarily from home, setting my own hours, but for right now I’m still at Denny’s one night a week. Waitressing for over five years has taken a bad toll on my shoulders and wrists, so I needed to severely cut my hours. Getting this writing job has been a miracle, because the pain I had from working three and four nights a week was almost unbearable.

I haven’t posted anything funny in a long time, but Lia helped me with that last night, when I stepped away for a few minutes from an article I was writing on mantelpieces. Because any content I write belongs to the company, I can’t post parts of the actual article – but I will post Lia’s additions. Note: Take her advice at your own risk. And if you do, send pictures! (Just don’t post them on Facebook.)

If your mantel has a chicken on it, you should probably remove it. If your mantel doesn’t have a moose on it, get one. Always wear clothes when decorating your mantel, as you never know where someone has hidden a camera. Don’t post pictures of your mantel on Facebook. That’s annoying.

Fine, I’ll post a picture on my blog instead!

My mantelpiece is a little narrow for a moose, but at least I don’t have a chicken on it. I think I’m good.

I have two more articles on mantels to write, so my fun blogging break is over. I wonder if I should include any tips on where to put those chickens that won’t look good on your mantelpiece?

Change to my blog: The spammers in my comments have been really amusing lately (I got an invitation to a site on getting rid of man-boobs, and I just love the attempts on coherent English), but I think I’m done with spammer fun now. So I’m changing the settings on who can comment on my posts. Let me know if you’re having trouble commenting!

A couple posts from this time last year:

Deadlines Are Great! So Are Parties! – No Halloween party this year, because my mom owns our townhouse and won’t allow it. (Kristin breathes a secret sigh of relief.)

Derpy Mistakes and Horrible Sisters – Funny how I can barely remember things that seemed like huge emergencies a year ago. But seeing those pictures again made me laugh! Emily still does that troll face, and she’s perfected it even more.

Inspirations (a blog post inspired by an award)

Well! I’ve received an award from the lovely Tonja Drecker, and I’m loving this one because it’s all about inspirations – a vital part of being a writer. This fits in nicely with a post I was going to do anyway, so I’m just going to go for it.

The rules of receiving this award are simple: I give an acceptance speech, then list five things that inspire me, as well as a song.

So my acceptance speech…um…I get stage fright really bad! Um…Y’all like, really love me? I’ll also accept gifts in the form of chocolate and sushi, and I have a Paypal account! Thanks, Tonja!

Okay, anyway…on to the stuff that inspires this crazy lady!

1. Being a fangirl. Yes. All of these. Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Doctor Who, The Hunger Games, and even Star Wars (hey, I wanted a Princess Leia hairstyle in kindergarten which totally dates me but oh well), although if I knew how to use Photoshop I’d replace the light saber with a pirate sword and horrify all my Star Wars geek friends. :B Because one of the most important rules of keeping your imagination alive: Get crazy about something! Turn into a total geek about the things you love, attend conventions, wear costumes, fill your head with enough useless trivia about your passions to worry your relatives…At the very least, people will think you’re interesting. (Or weird. But weird counts as interesting!)

2. Books. Books are a big time inspiration for my own stories! Cobalt was partially inspired by the book pictured here, Bones of Faerie by Janni Lee Simner. Not only could the trees in her world move, they were also deadly. I started thinking of ways I’d use the idea of a dangerous, sentient forest in my own writing, and ideas popped into my head: Murderous trees and mutated forest creatures. Airships because they’re the only safe way to travel. A girl changed by the same kind of curse that affects the forest. Pirates. Steampunk!!

3. Smells. Scents unlock memories and emotions like nothing else. My very favorite smell, one that always gets me in the mood to create new stories, is fresh rain on dry ground. (Petrichor – thank you Doctor Who for teaching me that awesome word!) Other favorite scents: Vanilla, the ocean, fresh brownies, new books, evergreen forest, lemon, rosemary. What’s your favorite smell?

4. Pictures. Sorry for the scary image there; my daughter Lia sent that to me and freaked me out! (I’m easily scared; also, one of my worst phobias is a forest after dark – although it’s mildly creepy now, if I saw something like this at night I’d lose my shiz). It immediately got me thinking about what kind of a story I can make out of this. If a picture hits me a certain way, I’ll save it on my computer so I can go back to it later and see what kinds of stories pop into my head.

Another good way to use pictures for inspiration is to look up scenery and actors for your WIP; I was always gazing at forest pictures like this when I was working on The Moongate. It puts your mind in the right place.

5. Pirates! That’s right. Pirates of the Caribbean is one of the biggest inspirations for me EVER. In my life. I dress like a pirate almost every friggin’ day, and after Cobalt I want to develop a book series with even more pirates. Love ’em. I just can’t get enough pirates!!

So now I get to share a song that inspires me. Ugh, just one song?? That’s hard, because music has always been a huge inspiration to me…I guess it’ll be one of the new ones by Abney Park – a really cool pirate shanty, one of my very favorite types of music. 😀

Rather than pick people to give this award to, I’ll invite any and all of you to take it and post it on your blogs, and share the things that inspire you!

Music For Writing: Book Soundtracks!

I always thought the idea of a soundtrack for your WIP was kind of funny, because I usually listen to the same playlist no matter what I’m writing. Then I realized, I actually do unconsciously put together a small soundtrack for each of my WIPs. Usually it’s just a few songs that I end up listening to more than the others in my playlist, that hold some special kind of significance to me while I’m working on a particular project.

I was on a huge Evanescence kick when I was writing The Moongate. Not because I thought the band matched the book, but because Lia had just discovered them, and when she discovers new music, she saturates the house with that music for weeks. (Right now it’s Florence and the Machine that I constantly have stuck in my head thanks to Lia – not that I’m complaining or anything!)

So when I started listening to this song by Evanescence, I was surprised at how well the lyrics match Nissa’s predicament.

And then for a while, I thought this song worked for The Moongate too, but after I’d written the sequel, Blood Moon, I felt it fit that book better.

And with the steampunk Cobalt, I’m enjoying a lot of instrumentals that evoke the feel of flight or old-fashioned sci-fi. Like Vernian Process’ instrumental version of Unhallowed Metropolis:

And, since there’s a strong dark fantasy theme, I think this spooky, atmospheric one from Myst fits:

This is a current favorite. I listened to it over and over again while writing an airship battle scene. You can’t hear it and not feel epic with whatever you’re doing. At one point I just sat there and picked my teeth with this song playing in the background (an unconscious activity when I’m stuck on a sentence, hehe), and it was the most epic tooth-picking I’ve ever done.

Do you listen to music while writing, or do you find it distracting? Do you make playlists for your WIPs?

Being Your Own Reviewer?

A random thought hit me in the brain today. I’m still rubbing the bruise. What if…as an author, you wrote a review of your own book on sites like Amazon and Goodreads? I’m sure that happens actually, an author could totally boost their ratings by making up fake screen names and writing reviews on their stuff, right? I wouldn’t (who has time for that anyway, gotta write!), but I thought it would be funny to make up false (as in, they would never actually get posted) reviews for my books.

For example:

The Moongate

The honest review: 4 stars. Would give it 3 1/2 stars if I had that option. Pretty good story overall, but you can tell it’s the author’s first book. She likes fairies and unicorns a little bit too much – she probably collects them. (true enough) Still, it had its fair share of action and conflict, so I’m looking forward to the sequel!

The fake review: 5 STARS OMG!!1! Best book I’ve ever read! I can’t wait for the next one to come out! The characters are soooo awesome and hawt and I’m like team Theryn all the way even though there’s no love triangle! When is there gonna be a movie?!

( I rarely do that; I’m usually a 4-star reviewer if I like the book. Unless it’s Harry Potter or The Hunger Games, then I’m one of those raving 5-star fans. Most of us could use a little bit of constructive criticism!)

The snarky Goodreads review: 1 star, and if I could give it 0 I would. Or negative 50 billion. Can we say Mary Sue? This author needs a serious trip to reality-ville. Or she’s on a serious trip. I read somewhere that she’s a Mormon stay-at-home mom with no English degree, so it’s obvious she’s just trying to cash in on the success of Twilight!

(First time I ever heard of the description Mary Sue was when I was writing The Moongate’s first draft. For weeks I obsessed over whether Nissa was a Mary Sue. I did all the tests to see if she was, I lost sleep over it, and I’ll admit I even cried over it. In the end, I accepted that if this book ever gets published, some people will probably think she’s a Mary Sue and others will think she’s all right. At least she’s likable.)

Cobalt

The honest review: 4 solid stars. (Told you I like giving out 4 stars!) Now we’re talking. The author has a few books under her belt now, her writing is more solid, and the action and imagination in the plot make up for her slight difficulties in character development. Plus – killer trees and airships! Pretty cool. Good introduction to lighthearted steampunk for the tween to young adult.

The fake review: 5++++!!! There are goggles and airship pirates and gears and corsets! This book is so steampunk it makes me want to barf cogs.

The snarky Goodreads review: A big fat zero in the shape of a clock gear. Obviously this author thinks she’s a steampunk just because she’s friends with some of the members of Abney Park. Poseur. I mean, sentient moving trees? Since when did steampunk shift from Victorian sci-fi to fantasy? Just because there are a few airships in the story? I bet she glues gears on her knickers and calls it steampunk. She probably wears Hot Topic goggles too.

That was actually more fun than I’d thought it would be. I especially had fun being snarky at myself! *giggles*

So anyway. My buddy ol’ pal Samantha (who is in college so she won’t have to deal with any comments about being a writer without a degree) tagged me in a fun meme!

The rules:

1. Go to page 77 of your current MS/WIP
2. Go to line 7
3. Copy down the next 7 lines, sentences, or paragraphs, and post them as they’re written.
4. Tag 7 authors

Okay, so I’m the world’s worst tagger. I’m going to tell you guys to look at my follower list, and if you’re in my top 7 newest followers, then you’re tagged and you should do this meme! Or if you’re not one of those lucky 7 and you like this meme, do it anyway.

So here’s my excerpt from Cobalt. It shows up as more than 7 lines here on Blogger, but it’s about 7 3/4 lines in my ms. I had to keep in the little bit of extra to avoid cutting a sentence short.

“All this time,” he squeaked, “all these years flying over the trees and making port in the most remote Forest villages possible, if only to catch a rumor or a glimpse. To think, I could have found one of you here on Murdock! I never knew that’s what old Stark dealt in. Everyone knew he was an expert on Cobalt, but I’d have never guessed how he gained his knowledge…”

Kate shrank back against Anthia, who wrapped one hand around her shoulder and rested the other on her knife hilt.

“Oh, don’t you worry,” Fletcher said with a chuckle. “That must be why I wasn’t in the loop. Never did want to trade my ship in for one of the bigger ones, see, those that could handle human cargo.”

So. If you wrote a review on your book or WIP, how would you write it? How many stars would you bestow upon your pride and joy, and would you be honest or would load up your review with sugar and a cherry on top? Come on, you can be honest here!

Happy Funny To Me!

Did I do Monday funnies the last week or two? I don’t think I did. Thanks a LOT, dead laptop! Well, guess what…

It’sss my birthday!

And I got a great present from God and Mother Nature. All winter long I’ve been complaining that we haven’t had enough snow, it’s been too warm, etc. etc. blah blah gripe. 1. I LOVE snow, and 2. When we have a dry winter, I worry that the upcoming summer is going to be hell on earth.

Anyway, it’s been snowing all day! Happy birthday to me!

Now, what I want most of all is a book deal, but since I’m not going to get that today – I haven’t been submitting to publishers because I need to print a hard copy of The Moongate for Shadow Mountain Publishing and I’ve been procrastinating on that out of fear – I think for today’s funny I’ll share the writing-related pics and stuff I’ve been collecting recently.

Or, for a slightly racier explanation of the Oxford comma that might get me in trouble. 😉

Ain’t that the truth!

I think you might need to click on this pic to read it (and a few others), but it’s so worth it.

Really? Really?? And agents didn’t want to touch The Moongate?

I was saying something like this, and then Lia sent the pic to me.

I should print this out and staple it to my face.

Oh my glarbl, can I do this?? Can I make this my front door, pleeease??!

Oh okay, and speaking of funny, Lia finally has a blog, here on Tumblr. I don’t get Tumblr, really. And she sticks up her nose at Blogger. Whatever, her page is funny anyway.

I know a while back I said I was going to do some kind of crazy fun thing for my 100th follower party, and I’m still going to! Just working out the difficulties that a dead laptop presents. And I’ve never done anything like this before, so I’m trying not to mess up. I have some ideas and stuff, so it’ll be sooooon…

Now I guess I’m going to go do some housework and see if the kids catch on and make me get back on the computer! I’m not supposed to be doing any work today.

Multitasking Madness!

My laptop is still out of commission, so for the past couple of weeks I’ve had some serious computer withdrawals. I’ve been able to snag some time for Facebook now and then, but nothing that’ll really let me write, until today I saw my hubby’s laptop lying around and grabbed it! Thanks to the wonders of Dropbox (see my previous post on the subject), I’ve been able to catch up on some badly neglected writing. But, because I’m also a mom and a housekeeper, those little feelings of guilt over many other unfinished tasks start nagging at me anytime I sit down at the computer while the sun is still shining.

So this weekend I’ve been running around like a decapitated chicken, trying to get all the following tasks accomplished, among others I’m sure I’m forgetting but will remember around 2:00 am:

recipe

Homemade brownies! The girls had a few friends sleep over, so I made a quadruple-batch of these brownies, since Mother Hubbard’s cupboard is always bare and I didn’t want the poor girls to starve. (The recipe calls for ingredients that are already present in most pantries.) Then I sent the friends home all sugared up!

Gotta catch up with what my friends are doing! Always a top priority. 😉

These are not my dishes, although they could be. Except I obsessively pile the dirty dishes into categories before I wash them, and I wash them in a certain order. OCD kinda sucks sometimes. (So does having a broken dishwasher, because dirty dishes are a constant affliction!)

I love homemade bread! But last night I forgot to take it out of the bread machine, so this afternoon I discovered the wasted dough and I cried over it. Now I have to make some all over again. (I only use the machine to knead, because I don’t like the shape of bread machine loaves.)

Not having regular access to a computer is seriously affecting a major addiction of mine! I haven’t been able to read and comment on my friends’ blogs like I usually do. So I don’t know what a lot of you are up to right now, but I’m trying to catch up.

This isn’t quite a realistic portrayal of a basket of laundry, for me at least. I have 30 times that amount. (Not an exaggeration.) And my worst habit is washing it all at once, then dumping it in the family room and putting off the folding! At least I have all the clean laundry sorted…

These little weirdos are always demanding my attention as well. Can’t I just lock them in the closet with a board game and some snacks?

I don’t want to think about what I’m going to cook tonight. It’s 5:30 and I haven’t even started. I know I could at least make some chicken stock. We have leftovers, right?

Oh yeah, I almost forgot:

My 13-year-old saved up her money to get bunnies (a neighbor gave us her huge hutch), and we let them out in the living room a couple times a day to get some exercise. While I’ve been working on this post, the cute little piggies have been bouncing off the keyboard, fighting over a carrot, and pooping on the couch. And they’ve just figured out how to escape the living room barricade. *groan*

Also, a guilty pleasure. I watch very little TV since it takes away from writing time, so I’ll give myself a guilt trip if I watch more than I should. Last night we decided to watch The River, which had intrigued me from the first time I saw the trailer at a movie theater – and we ended up staying awake all night to catch up with the entire show! Huge addiction now. The show is seriously creepy and exciting! This season it looks like I’ll be glued to the TV whenever The River or The Walking Dead are on.

And finally…

I love how being a writer comes with these images of fancy pens, candles burning in an inspirational manner on a gleaming desk, and stacks of gorgeous leather-bound reference tomes. I’d rip holes in paper with pens like that! And my handwriting has so gone downhill over the last decade, I get writer’s cramp after just a paragraph…

Anyway, I’ve been writing today too, bouncing between Cobalt and a project I should’ve finished a couple weeks ago, just before my laptop went ptooie. It’s been a lot of fun, but also brain-melting. I think I’ll end with a snip from the latest scene I’ve been working on:

Kate’s fingers scrabbled for a knot in a plank or a bit of broken rail, but closed over nothing but wet air as the ship bucked in the wind. The deck vanished beneath her. Her stomach jammed itself in her throat as she hung in the air for an instant before gravity took over. She could still hear the distant sounds of the fighting crew, somewhere on the other end of the ship. Closer, the sound of a whip crack split the air above her. Or maybe it had been a clap of thunder. Something slapped painfully against her bruised upper arm, jerking her descent to a stop. Her lower body slammed into the ship’s aft end.

Kate shook soaking tendrils of hair out of her face and stared in horror at the rope that had saved her from falling into the Forest – which was not a rope at all but a cold, clinging tongue that wrapped around her arm at one end and disappeared into the wide open mouth of the monster glaring down at her from the broken window high above. Its rows of teeth glimmered white in a flash of lightning.

How often do you guys find yourselves muddling through days of multitasking insanity when you’d rather just sit and write?