Friday Five

1. It's late, but I should still get this post in before the deadline, so I won't have to do a Saturday six.

2. My birthday is in March, quite close to St. Patrick's day, and I've always been obsessed with finding a four leaf clover. It's crazy that a thirty-four-year-old woman would sit down outside and just look for one. I know it's crazy. But in my defense, there isn't a lot to do at the bus stop, while I'm waiting for my kids to get home from school. And the clover patch is on a hill next to a wall that I sometimes sit on anyway. So it's easy to act like I'm not really looking.  I'd gotten to the point where I didn't think four leaf clovers actually existed, but then about two days before my 34th birthday, I found one. I was so excited, and it's pressed between the pages of a book.

And then two weeks later, I'd given up my obsessive searching, and I'm walking back from the bus stop looking down at the ground, and I see another one. Just randomly. So I picked it and took it home to press in the same book on the same page. This led me to two possible things. One you have to be looking, and out there looking or else luck just isn't going to happen to you. Even on the second one, I was randomly examining the clover. And second you never know when something totally, randomly great is going to fall into your life.

3. I've been thinking a lot about my writing habits, which have frankly sucked the last few months. In every possible way. And I think back to when I first started writing, and I was able to sit down and write and the words came and my story came, and I'd sit and wonder where the heck these ideas were coming from. Now I've got books mapped out, ideas to write, and I'm just not getting the words out onto paper the way I want. I definitely need to spend a little bit more time with my butt in my chair.

4. Books. I don't know if I mentioned it, but I am an obsessive reader. Seriously obsessive. I got a Kindle for my birthday last year, and I have more than 100 books that I have read on it, not to mention the ones I deleted after reading and all the books I've borrowed from the library on it.) This week I've only read three books, but I've been busy. I had some freelance writing projects that I had to do, and they totally burned me out. Plus the other work and being a mom stuff thrown in. Parent teacher conferences. Back to the books. I've been waiting forever for Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore to come out. She is one of my favorite authors. Her books have this great quality about them. They totally take you somewhere else. And this didn't disappoint. I've been waiting for Insurgent since I finished Divergent byVeronica Roth. And it was great as well. Awesome.

5. Finally I know I've mentioned that I flip ahead in books. I always do (well almost always--it really says something for the book if I haven't) and I've loved a series I started a few years ago. And I flipped to the end of the series (third book) and I'm not finishing it. I didn't like the resolution, which I'm sure is very justified and made beautiful through the telling of the story. The author is a great writer, and I'll definitely read other books by her again. But I want to keep the characters in one state in mind, and not in the state that they were at the end of the book. So if I never read it, it won't have really happened at least in to me. That probably makes no sense, but it does to me.

Have a great weekend!

Long Time No Write

It's been way too long since I've written on this blog. So much so that it's probably dead in the water. To be completely honest, I need to work on getting my focus back on writing. I've been doing it in short spurts and changing focus like crazy.

First of all, after a lot of thought and consideration, I've decided to go ahead and self publish Isis. It's going to be done under a pen name, and I'm still pursuing major publication with Lexy and other novels I have in the works. The truth is that I never thought that I would be someone who would self publish, and I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around it. But at the same time once I made the decision, it felt totally and completely like the right thing to do with my story. I've revised it so many times, and I'm getting good feedback from critiques and writer friends. I'm starting a blog (My first post will be today) about my publishing journey, and every step I'm taking to promote and get the book out there.

Fortunately I have an uber talented hubby who takes photos and has been paid for his graphic design skills. And he's likely going to put together a trailer for me.So that part will be good. It'll be interesting to see what happens with the story, and how well it is received.

Onto general writing stuff. I mentioned that I've been changing focus lately. I've been really inspired to go back and look over my old ideas and I love so many of them, and I totally think that I could develop them. It's got me excited to finish up Lexy so I can work on the next project.

Finally my goal for this blog is to do one post a week on writing in general and then a Friday Five. I think I can manage that.

Hope you all are doing well. Let me know what ideas are exciting to you right now!