I did a collaborative project recently over on the 2xCreative community on LiveJournal (incidentally, if you use LJ and we aren’t friends there… you know how this ends right? –> Moi On LJ). I was paired up with Dragon-Gypsy who is an artist. She and I had one month to come up with a creative project to do together and both of us were pretty short on time, but not enthusiasm. In the end I wrote a story and she illustrated it. It turned out great, and I enjoyed the collaboration. It was good to have deadlines and work with someone with the common goal of creating something creative and cool. Thank you Mab! You rock.

Click on the image to see go to her Deviant Art page and see the image in a larger size along with all of her other great artwork.

Late

I’m running down the stairs to the subway, the echo of my heels on stone sounds in my ears like gongs as I descend into the bowels of the city. I hold my dress above the filth I’m walking on like a heroine in some Victorian novel. It’s white; the kind of bright white that exists only for overexposed pictures and weddings. Marc always teased me that I’d be late for my own funeral, but I’d promised to be on time today. (more…)

So, I consulted the random number generator and it chose a winner from the subscribers of my mailing list. It did, and I’m pleased to announce the Patricia W. will receive a free copy of Shades of Green just as soon as she emails me and sends me her mailing address. I have also dropped her an email to let her know.

Congrats Patricia!

Do you want to win a copy too? Like I said I’ll be running a contest closer to the release of Lost and Found to give away a copy of Shades of Green, but instead of having to like, think of something interesting to blog about, I’ve also decided to do another giveaway on GoodReads:

Also, if you use Goodreads and we aren’t friends there? We really need to rectify that Send me an invite, I would love to hook up with all my friends over there.

There’s a brand new review of Shades of Green out, and the reviewer loved it. Universe? This is how I’d like to start all my Mondays, if you don’t mind.

Clayton Bye reviewed Shades of Green for Alternative-Read.com and said I worked magic. Awww! He also said:

When a story pulls a reader in to the extent that he forgets about all else, the author has done exactly what she’s supposed to do.

That’s awesome, what a great way to start my week

This review reminded me that I haven’t given away a copy of Shades of Green in a fairly long time. I’m going to have to change that. I will be giving away one copy to a random subscriber to my Newsletter tomorrow to make up for it. If you’re not into newsletters, don’t despair — I’ll also be giving one away in a contest to promote the fact I’m giving away Lost and Found… soon. That’s not a Blizzard soon, it’s a ‘In_a_month_or_so’ soon.

Last weekend was spent at my parent’s in southern Alberta. It’s often rather tricky to find something for all of us to do and enjoy, but my mom hit on a wonderful idea when she suggested we go to the Birds of Prey Centre in Coaldale. I will totally be going back, but in the meantime some of the pictures I took on that trip will decorate this post.

So far I’m doing very well at my goal to write more consistently. I’ve not been allowing myself to play World of Warcraft unless I’ve written that day. Occasionally I’m not very good at the whole self-denial thing, but so far I’m pulling it off. That means less naps, and a more regimented daily routine in order to get everything I need to do and some of the things I want to do done, and I really like it. I’ve mentioned that I do very well if I have a routine? Well, that one resolution is helping me establish one.

I’ve been using a couple aps to help me stick to this. The first is called ‘Streaks’ and is really just a calendar where I can tap any day I’ve written on and it puts an X on the day. It keeps track of my streaks and if I miss a day that ends the streak and I have to start again. If you’ve got a brain like mine it’s surprisingly movitating to be able to make that little X appear on the screen, as well as not wanting to miss any days LOL The other ap just came out last night and I love it already. It’s called ‘Epic Win!’ and basically it lets you add your chores into a list and then as you do them you gain expirience points so your little avatar dude gets to level up and get gear. It’s like the ultimate nerd to-do list. I love it already.

So, yeah — so far so good. I’m getting a fair amount of writing done. I’ve written, revised and re-revised Chapter Eight of Lost and Found, for example. It’s done — I’ve sent it to Bill to work his magic on, that means no more changes for it. Chapter Nine has also been written and revised and is just waiting for me to send it to my critique group for their feedback before polishing it and calling it done.

Chapter Ten on the other hand…oh, chapter ten.

Happily my aps and my new routine will help me write it, and if it’s really bad, write it again, and again until I get it right. After all, I really need to get Lost and Found finished up, and then move on to Shadows. I’d been hoping to have the first draft of it finished and resting by November so I could work on something else for NaNo. I don’t think that’s going to happen now, but maybe. And either way, like the tortoise I’m making my way to the finish line. Slow and steady — because that’s how you win the race.

P.S. I got 50 expirience points for writing this blog post

I hate missing deadlines, but I’m going bump the release of Lost and Found back a little bit. Not long, possibly November (it can be your NaNo reading!) but I’m hoping for October. The re-writes are going a little slower than I’d hoped because I’m actually making some major plot changes. Wheee! I blame my critique group and their wonderful feedback. The story will be better, but a lil later.

The other reason the re-writes are going slower than I’d hoped because I’m failing at monotasking. I’m working on it. Honest.

I’d like to do a blog post that isn’t all ‘Me, me, me enough about me, what do you think about me?’ but I haven’t any good ideas atm.