I am friends with Lucia St. Clair Robson on facebook.
I can't even explain the way that this makes me feel. It's like there is this club and the club is all about the thing that you love the most. You want to be in this club so badly but you have to actually accomplish the thing that you love first.
I feel like by being friends with her on facebook and being able to carry on little conversations with her or watch them unfold on both her personal page and her author page, that I am being let into this club a little bit.
She is friends with spades of writers. But even if she weren't, she is brilliant. Freaking brilliant. I aspire to be able to move someone with something I've written the same way she has moved me with her books. And if I could only be friends, even cyber friends, with one writer, it would be her.
I am reading her newest book, The Last Train From Cuernavaca right now. And it feels different than having read all of her previous books. It feels more connected and for me, more special.
I've not been a good writer lately. With the Cody drama, and the trip planning and the newfound dislike of my job... but every day when I see her on facebook, I remember that I want to be a part of that club. I want to be an author more than anything in this world.

Labels: soul sisters, writing a book

4,100/60,000
6.9%

Labels: writing a book

I read.
I read A LOT.
And my most favorite book IN THE WORLD is Walk In My Soul which is written by one of the best authors I've ever had the pleasure of reading; Lucia St. Clair Robson. I love this book so much that I FOUGHT hard with Amanda's dad to let me name her Tiana. Obviously I didn't win BUT it wasn't for lack of trying.
Book description is here:
This is the story of Tiana Rogers of the Cherokee, the young Sam Houston, and the Trail of Tears.
Tiana grew up learning the magic, spells, and nature religion of the Cherokee. And in a tribe that revered the life force that was female, she became a Beloved Woman—priestess, warrior, healer, teacher.History knows him as the father of Texas, but the young Sam Houston ran away on a lark from his family’s general store in Maryville, Tennessee, to live among the Cherokee. He hunter and played ritual games with the men and was adopted as a headman’s son and known as Raven.

I can't tell you how excited I was to "friend" Lucia St. Clair Robson on Facebook but I can tell you that the excitement didn't even compare to the INSANE EXCITEMENT I felt when I received a message from her!
And even that was paled when I checked my mail yesterday and saw this:

I'll admit, I screamed.

More than once.

It was like freaking Christmas.

Can I tell you that when your DREAM is to be an author, receiving something like this from one of your FAVORITE authors is like meeting Brad Pitt in person.
You're all like BRAD PITT TOUCHED MY HAND!
I'm all like LUCIA ST. CLAIR ROBSON KNOWS MY NAME!
Shut. The. Front. Door.

And now, I have this!

To put in my copy of this! (Which you should read if you haven't already because, holy crap! SUCH A GREAT BOOK!!)


The photo and card are happily tacked to my story board for the book I am currently working on. Where I can look at them. And smile.
Oh the smiles!

Labels: stuff I like, writing a book

Friday night I had wine and conversation with my neighbor-boy’s mom and her girlfriend. I really like them. It’s been awhile since I’ve started a new friendship but I think I’m handling it ok :-)
One of the best things about them is that they only live one road over! So it’s super convenient for hanging out.
I’ve decided I am going to invite them to dinner sometime in the next few weeks and cook for them. And then I am going to invite them to my next Girl’s Night Dinner…
Friday night Triniti also had her friend Erin coming over which I had thought was happening in Saturday night… this worked out well though because not only did Erin spend the night but so did neighbor-boy’s mom’s girlfriend’s daughter.
Man, I need new names for people.
I think the combination of the wine drinking and company on Friday night made me think that the it was Saturday so it felt like I got an entire extra day out of my weekend.
Of course, three little girls having a sleepover is a pretty crazy amount of energy and those girls stayed up until like two in the morning. And then woke up at like six thirty.
There just wasn’t enough coffee in the world for that.
The girls and I putzed around, cleaning up a little before heading over to The Cake Lady’s house for Jimmy’s Gumbo. SO GOOD.
And so nice to spend some time with The Cake Lady and her family. We’ve hardly seen each other in months and I miss her. She had to work the next morning so we left around ten-ish and went home where I promptly went to sleep and slept straight through until ten o’clock on Sunday.
Did you read that?
Ten. O. Clock.
Fueled by what I can only assume was some hard core guilt over having slept until TEN, I worked my ass off yesterday cleaning and organizing and laundry washing and seed planting until it was bedtime.
It felt great.
All in all, a pretty darn good weekend.
And, I am over the writer’s block. I had some great ideas this weekend.

Labels: being a Home Owner, Being Mommy, soul sisters, The Cake Lady, Triniti, writing a book

Labels: soul sisters, Who do we love?, writing a book

I've blogged before about how my imagination can and will run away with me. I have a leash on it and I frequently need to rein it in... however, right now I am writing a lot and so when I start to feel my imagination taking over instead of saying, "whoa girl", I am trying to sit down and write it out.
And truthfully, sometimes, doing this makes me lonely and a little sad and occasionally it even makes my outlook on things going on in my life a little skewed.
My imagination glasses are powerful.
Additionally, when I really get into my head, I don't want to come out. I want to write and write and stay in my little imaginary world because I like it there. Because there, things are perfect... or could be anyway.
So Saturday night, there was an incident, one that I will right out very soon... my first inclination every time my stomach clenched up thinking about it was to shut it out. But I am not going to. I am going to write it out and get it out of my system and I am going to use all of the different emotions it gave me in my book.
This is hard for me because I will have to separate out the different feelings I had and explore how each one could have led to totally different outcomes. Essentially, I will have to relive the whole night with different ending and beginning possibilities until my head just explodes.
I am using Life right now. All of her twists and turns, all of the risks that I would probably be a little hesitant to take are research. It's beneficial. I am getting good writing out of it. It makes me want to write. It makes more ideas come out. And, like I said, it makes me a little sad when I let myself feel these things and then when I am done, I have to come back and accept that they aren't real for me, they are only real for my characters.

Labels: Being a Chic, writing a book

As with all things in life, I blame this on my mother.
hehehe
No, seriously, she is at the house... been there since before Christmas.
And I've been sick since LAST Tuesday.
And I am lazy.
And I am desk shopping. That takes a lot of time you know... choosing the desk that I am going to write my novel/screenplay on...
And I haven't had sex in a year and a half.
Oh yeah, and Facebook.
I have started about fifteen posts and they are all rubbish. Which I blame on the Robitussin/NyQuil cocktail I've been on for a week.
I love you.
Hang in there.

Labels: writing a book

So, I have my idea.
That is really the most crucial step in writing a book right?
No idea, no story, no book.
I have the idea.
And I'm in love with it.. but I am still getting to know my idea.
I'm learning about my characters... what they are like, what they do, how they feel about things. I need to do some research to better understand them.
This weekend, I had a fork in the road moment where I decided some things about my main character that are VERY different from my initial idea.
And better.
I was washing dishes and scrubbing my counter and I had to keep drying my hands to run over to my pc and jot down notes on the couple of pages of ideas I have saved for this novel on my desktop.
I'm ready to start a storyboard - both physically and electronically.
I want to be super organized while doing this so I don't get discouraged so I am also looking for a novel organizing, writing, software thingy to help.
I will be putting snippets up here once I have some but for now, I am still planning and organizing and smiling ear to effing ear because I am so super excited about this.

Labels: writing a book