Spring Cleaning - new layout, new name

This past weekend I decided to get some spring cleaning underway....starting with my apartment. Not only did I clean, I did some redecoration, and am quite satisfied with the outcome. I also decided to change my blog layout, I enjoyed the cuteness of my previous layout, but just felt like it was time for something new; I get bored with the same old thing after a while. And I also changed my pen name, which I'd been thinking of doing for a while, for various reasons, and I think I'm satisfied with what I came up with. Thus, I think spring cleaning is complete.

Now let's see...what writerly things have I been up to? I realize my last few posts have all been blogfest or giveaway related and I haven't posted anything about my writing life in a bit. For starters I've completed another book, which would be two books written for the year so far. Since finishing it in early March I've been juggling doing edits on it and the novel I wrote before it, so that's been keeping me busy, and I've also been doing some querying, which I always approach with trepidation because it's such a task! There's honing the query, then there's making sure the list of agents to query is in order, then there's tailoring the query to the agent's guidelines, and of course there's making sure the manuscript is in shape. I tell you, I actually prefer agents who just want to see a query letter initially because it's the easiest thing to get out! But alas, most agents want those sample pages, and many also want that damn synopsis, which I do not enjoy writing. I usually get a four page synopsis that I then whittle down to about 3, but I balk at those agents who say they want a 1 to 2 page synopsis, I just can't seem to get mine there, I think it's not possible! Anyway, yeah...querying is a headache inducing process. Not to mention the waiting. The waiting game is truly a painful one.

I also have a couple book ideas tossing around in my head, but I've been doing little more than making notes on them. I don't want to start another book yet because I know it will completely suck me in and my focus will shift from the editing/querying I'm currently doing, so I am forcing myself to stay on course and not write anything new yet. Plus I think I just need a little book writing break, two for the year already is plenty.

Rounding up the week with Awards

I picked up a couple awards this week, first the Sunshine Award and I'd like to thank Nick Wilford for it, be sure to check out his blog here!

Rules:

• Thank the person who gave you the award and provide a link.
• Write a post about it
• Answer the questions below.
• Pass it on to 10 bloggers who you think really deserve it and let them know
• Answer 10 Questions:

Favourite colour: Blue

Favourite animal: I like birds, don't like a specific type that's my favorite though

Favourite number: Hm, I don't have a favorite number

Favorite non-alcoholic drink: Water

Facebook or Twitter: Both, I like them for different reasons

My passion: Writing of course! But also being an artist

Getting or giving presents: Who doesn't love getting presents? I like giving them too though.

Favourite pattern: Ahh, I think I'm too artistic to have a favorite, I love all types of patterns, especially ones that have bright, bold colors.

Favourite day of the week: Saturday

Favourite flower: Orchids


I also received the Kreativ Blogger Award from Tina Moss, her blog can be found here!
For this award I'm supposed to give seven interesting facts about myself. Let's see...

1. I took three years of Japanese in college and can speak it conversationally though I'm largely out of practice since no one in my life can also speak it.

2. I used to do a lot of on stage things when I was in school in Trinidad such as singing competitions (with a group), plays, and I even hosted a Christmas show with three other girls in a huge concert hall.

3. I can move my ears, is this interesting? lol

4. The tips of my middle fingers are slightly bent. One leans a little to the right, the other leans a little to the left. I'm a freak!

5. The shortest amount of time it's taken me to write a book is ten days, and I recently tied that with my latest WIP. (Both of these books were back to back coincidentally)

6. My first novel was largely written on unlined computer paper and back then I only wrote at night using a tiny book light (ahh nostalgia)

7. I can recite all the books in the Bible in order, this is leftover knowledge from my days at Sunday School where I memorized them for a contest.


I'd like to pass both these awards on to: (sorry I've you've already received one or both!)

1. Jaycee Delorenzo
2. KS Collier
3. Rebecca Hoffman
4. CM Brown
5. Ashley Nixon
6. Yelena Casale
7. Angela Scott

Second Campainger Challenge

Quite an interesting challenge we have this week! We had five prompts this time, and the ability to use some of them or all of them using various writing guides. Complete info on the challenge can be found on Rachel's blog.

The activities I chose are:

1. Write a pitch/logline for a book based on the prompts (less than 100 words)
2. Write a short story/flash fiction piece of less than 200 words based on the prompts
3. Write a story/poem in five sentences, each sentence based on one of the prompts

And I decided to go with these challenges:

• Complete at least three of the activities and tie them all together with a common theme (feel free to either state the theme in your post or leave us to guess what it might be)
• Write in a genre that is not your own

Here are my pieces, feel free to interpret them how you wish. They are in the order I wrote them: poem, flash fiction, logline.

Silence fell through my Hands and Crashed at my Feet

We sit here together, and the only thing to cover us and keep us safe

is something that’s also on its way to decay.

We’ve become monsters who can only hide in the shadows

while children who can still dream play in the sun.

A long time ago the bubble burst and there was nothing there to catch us

so we shattered into a million shards.

Like forlorn souls, we sift through the wreckage

trying to find pieces of ourselves, but we’ve fallen too far.

I close my eyes as you stroke my hair, but instead of darkness, all I can see is fractured light;

a memory of all the things we let fall through our hands.

*

We used to think running away would solve our problems; that if we ran far enough we could find happiness and forget everything we left behind. But the only thing we’ve found is darkness thicker than what we used to know.

There was another bridge, in another life, where a little boy played for hours and all he knew of nightmares were things that weren’t really lurking under his bed. Does he still play there? Or like me, does he just stare at the water feeling like his heart burst in his chest, and even though he bleeds, he must live on?

I feel like a beggar, leaning on someone who bleeds for me, but who can’t give me light. I ran for him, but I am raked with regrets. Now, whenever I dream, it’s not people or places I see, but explosions of color like fireworks that remind me that when the light fades, the impenetrable night sky remains.

“What are you thinking about?”

“My son.” He holds me closer, but I’m still cold. “Do you think he still plays on the bridge?”

I thought I was suffocating then; now I truly know what it’s like to not breathe.

*

Aura was suffocating in a marriage that broke her in every way; her only joy being her son and a forbidden romance with her childhood friend, Micah, whose poverty put him far below Aura’s class. When Micah convinces Aura to run away with him, her desperation to be with him sends them into a world they soon realize they are not prepared to face. Weighed down by Aura’s regret for leaving her son, and their inability to support themselves, Aura and Micah may soon realize that happiness is what they left behind.