I taught a class on blogging today. One of my students may come read this.

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Oops. You got your real life in my blog! You got your blog in my real life!

But in all seriousness, I had a great time doing my Intro to Blogging with WordPress series as part of my job at our county library. I’m so sad to be leaving next week for my new job at a neighboring county. :( But one does what one must. (Psst: They offered me full time.)

So, is anyone out there interested in some basic teaching WordPress handouts? I’ll get them off my work computer and attach them to this post later, if so.

Now back to your regularly scheduled, if sporadic, programming.

~ Laura

In which I apologize for lack of updates, and apparently my brain is full of bees

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Greetings fellow human inhabitants of the world wide web. Welcome to my black hole of non-writing, non-reading, non-stop craftstraveganza time.

So, I just got back from Momocon, an anime and sci-fi convention in Atlanta, Georgia, where I sold laser cat paintings and jewelry all weekend. Great times were had, and very little writing was done in the weeks leading up to the event, cause I had a lot of sparkly stuff to make. It happens. That being said, I’m pretty behind on writing and reading right now. According to Goodreads, I am 7 books behind schedule (SEVEN!) on my Goodreads Reading Challenge *weeping and gnashing of teeth*. I gotta get my butt in gear, you guys. Oh and add me on Goodreads if you like. That link goes to my profile.

Still working sporadically on True Love Waits, still liking it. The girls at NaNoPants writers’ group like it, so that’s good (CONSIDERING THEY BULLIED ME INTO THE WHOLE THING IN THE FIRST PLACE),  but I’m also rolling ideas around in my head for the sci-fi epic I’ve been trying to write for a year or so. Right now I’m listening to the audio book version of Michio Kaku’s Physics of the Future and that has been giving me all kinds of future feels.

I’ve been playing with this idea of a time-travely, first contacty type story with an unlikely heroine MC and a hivemind alien race… The aliens would not have a positive outlook on individual needs and personal goals…

“The essence of consciousness is selfishness. The moment an individual being becomes aware of their own existence, they become concerned with their own needs, their own wants, their own achievements. All other beings become secondary to the one. We have observed the fall of those species who have become individually sentient, and so we remain the All.”

So yeah. There’s that. But I’m kind of afraid people will just associate hivemind aliens with the Borg and these people are definitely not the Borg. I dunno. I like the idea of a really independent, self-aware space pirate lady teaming up with a hivemind alien who finds the human’s need to express her individual personality all very unsettling but also refreshing in a way? It’s all a jumble in my head right now but I’ll be giving it thought over the next weeks. Also continue working on murder by beehives. LOL, I have hives in both my novel concepts right now, you guys. Do I just have bees on the brain, or what?

LOVE AND CUPCAKES,

LAURA

A Post about Writing from Chuck Wendig, and Life Update

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Pushing Past the Bullshit: A Post by Chuck Wendig about Writing

^ This guy is awesome and hilarious and extremely NSFW.

So this is me basically turning my blog into Tumblr and reblogging Chuck Wendig. Because this guy knows what’s up. In the post linked above, he outlines a plan to finish your novel in a year by writing only 350 words a day.

So there’s that. Hope you guys enjoy it. Dude’s funny as shit and full of Star Wars references, which I’m always in favor of. Look at that, I just ended a sentence with a preposition. Suck on that, grammarians.

What’s new here? I’m writing a murder mystery, which is new for me. I mentioned it in a previous post. Also moved out of my parents’ house in early January. Yay?

Went on a writer’s retreat in late January, which was awesome. My friend Sara Taylor Woods wrote about it on her blog. Pics so you know it happened!

Climbed mountains, went hot-tubbin,’ drank a lot of wine, and oh yeah did some writing while there. Good times. Had a delightful Valentine’s Day with my honey, and am now plowing through the end of February trying to get this novel started. Only 5k in so far, and I’m struggling with POV and plotting issues. Mystery is new for me, and my usual approach of full on pantsing doesn’t seem to be cutting it. Trying a new approach and writing from the end back towards the beginning. Anywho, we’ll see how that goes.

Also in Jan/Feb I made everyone I know read The Fault in Our Stars. BOOM. JOB WELL DONE. Am currently re-reading it myself, and then I might be ready to do an actual book review. We’ll see.

Happy hump day, everyone! <3

My 2013 Writing Goals

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writing goals

 

Puttin’ on my overachiever pants this year, you guys. I really want to finish my NaNo novel from November 2012 (I’m Not a Zombie, I Just Play One on TV) which is currently sitting at ~60,000 words. So that’s not really like writing an entire new novel in April…

Also the new project I started at our writers’ retreat is looking good so far, and I’m going to want to revise that at some point this year. Fish Out of Water is going to be a 5k-ish short story retelling of The Little Mermaid that I’ve had flopping around in my head for several months. I already wrote most of it sometime last year, so that will give me some down time from writing in March. And then… I might scrap Passages (my YA space epic) and just write Two Plus Two during August and NaNo 2013. TPT is a YA, “the teenager that finds Winston’s journal and starts a revolution against Big Brother” continuation of 1984.

So, yeah. I’m totally not writing 3 completely new novels this year or anything. We’ll see. If I end up not liking something, it will get dropped, obviously. I’m planning lots of revision time for True Love Waits right now because I’m really liking this so far.

I find that it really helps me to set personal deadlines for myself. That’s why I love NaNoWriMo so much. Do you guys set writing goals for yourselves? What helps you stay on target for your personal deadlines? Anyone else doing Camp NaNoWriMo in April or July this year?

True Love Waits – A blurb for my new novel project

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I’m very happy with this blurb, so I wanted to share:

Patsy Godwin is a good Christian woman, but lately God has been testing her. She and Peter were having some marital problems, but that’s all behind them now. So is Peter’s bashed in skull. She should have seen it coming. He was too perfect. Too holy. Outwardly, he was the perfect Baptist preacher, protector of his small rural flock. But even the godliest of men is bound to have a flaw. Peter’s fatal flaw turned out to be fucking Patsy’s daughter in the tool shed one night after the Father/Daughter dance. Now Patsy’s got a taste for blood that can only be quenched with more murder.

Yowsa.

This will certainly be something different from what I’m used to writing.