Sugarland - Incredible Machine: Amex UNSTAGED

I stumbled upon the fact that Sugarland's cd Incredible Machine is full of Steampunk.
What an idiot!
I love Sugarland -- and I'd seen this cd numerous times w/o thinking anything...except, maybe, hey that's kind of cool...

The lyrics to Incredible Machine are gorgeous -- the outfits are fabulous and (now that I've noticed it) the cover is soooo cool.

Elvis

Okay, feeling a little maudlin -- thought I'd put up a little remembrance of the King. I was reminded that he died 34 years ago August 16 1977.

I HEART Baseball and Other Tales of Horror (ROW80 Check-in)

There are so many things not for the faint of heart.

Parenting: What do you mean, you want to drop out of school and (insert your worst nightmare HERE) 

Sports: And the (insert your favorite losing team HERE) lose by one...

Now, add the two together and you have a double whammy of heart-rending material. The latest tale of rendering-o-the-heart comes to you by way of an All-Stars tournament:

Morning. Bottom of the second inning, Mauraders are up to bat, Nathan hits a solid single, next batter up, Nathan steals 2nd, on the first pitch -- he's safe. Which is good, 'cuz he's not exactly built with wheels. Second batter hits a single, Nathan's on 3rd now.

Third base coach calls for a suicide squeeze (Batter will bunt and Nathan will slide into home -- if catcher is in the way, you hope you can knock the ball out of his glove or get in under the tag) Nathan nods, he's ready, batter bunts Nathan's got a good lead and he slides into home -- perfect form -- ball is knocked loose and he's under the catcher...He's SAFE.

Nathan's not taking his eyes off the ump until he hears those words. Then he he starts to curl up into a ball. By this time I'm hitting my husband and saying, he's hurt, he's hurt. Husband starts to go to him -- dad has to go first, it's one of those made up rules in baseball, like a balk, or a delayed steal to home -- one of the coaches is there, helping him up -- I'm clutching the fence behind homeplate. Nathan reaches down, pulls at his sock -- it's ripped, then he sees his shin and starts to scream.

That's when I go -- made-up rules are stupid anyway. By this time he's got all the coaches, both teams and the ump surrounding him. Luckily, there were some medical people at the tournament who could check on him. I'm on the ground at his head, holding his hand and saying mom things. His dad's at his side -- letting him know, it's okay (totally lying -- because this shit sucks) The EMT tells us, he needs stitches and someone's called the ambulance.

Ambulance! We did accept the cart that drove Nathan and me back to the parking lot while Rick ran to get the car...we got to the ER in about 10 minutes with lots of creative driving, perhaps not always following the letter of the law, yet making sure we wouldn't add more injury. So, for the weak of heart, this is where you don't want to look -- for everyone else, here's the before and after pics. Nathan thinks they're really cool.

See? He really does HEART baseball!

Y? Why did this happen? But the stitches are in the shape of a V -- V for Victory!

There are so many writing analagies here -- but, I'm still so tired, that adrenaline is a killer, I'll talk about those later.

Quick ROW80 check-in: Still outlining steampunk YA -- lots of new plot twists, love that. Otherwise, pretty much nothing. But I'm gearing up for a big push here...any day now.

What did you do on your summer vaca?

You Like Me? You Really Like Me!? I Like You Too!

This last month -- July, has been busy. I'm participating in ROW80 --cool brain child of equally cool  Kait Nolen

And I was a part of Deana Barnhart month long -- Gearing Up to Get an Agent month. If we could bottle her (Deana's) energy, I can only imagine what we could accomplish!

Two favorite new friends from from GUTGA gave me with this awesome award.

Angie Cothran She and her critique partners have a cool blog on books and writing. Loved her first 200 words of her YA novel. She's got that deep POV That I can only dream of.

K.V. Briar I'm loving the fact that she's got more frying pans in the fire than the short-order cook at Mickey's Diner. My kind of girl. Once again, a great YA writer

Seriously, you can tell just looking at these two, that you would want them as your friends.

The Liebster Award (meaning friend in German) is meant to connect us even more and spotlight new bloggers who have less than 200 followers—but hopefully not for long. The rules of the award are:

1.         Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.

2.        Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.

3.        Post the award on your blog.

4.        Bask in the love from the most supportive people on the internet—other writers.

5.        And best of all – have fun and spread the karma.

My picks, which were hard to narrow down, are:

An Alleged Author funny funny funny.

Amber Plante smart, honest, funny. Great writing tips too!

Marie Andrews cool steampunk.

Ru she makes me laugh!

Lora Rivera just so cool. And her writing is dreamy.

I could have added so many more to this list...

What's so Bad About Being Skipper?

Like lots of young girls in the 60s, I adored Barbie. Her hair, her eyelashes, her eyeliner, her clothes, her high-heeled bare feet. Her ridiculous body ( even at 7 I knew real women couldn't possibly have a shape like Barbie, unless you were Sophia Loren or Barbarella) but, boy did she look good in those schmancy clothes.

Then Barbie got a little sister, Skipper. Skipper was not a knock-out. She was cute, and friendly (I could tell by her non-mean-girl expression) but not a show-stopper. She was the girl next door.

No one was threatened by Skipper. She wore capris -- a lot -- and sneakers, her bare feet were flat, not molded to high heels. She was sporty. And definately not sexy.

A few years ago an aquaintance said to me, "You remind me of my Skipper doll I used to own."

Huh?

"Your nose and face, and bangs!"

But Skipper's...Skipper not Barbie.

Now, I'm no dummy, well, not this time. I laughed and thanked her, because she was complimenting me, no matter how I felt about it.

I saw this person again on Tuesday. I had just had my hair trimmed and she said, "We should call you Skipper." And then she told her 3 year old niece about Skipper and how I looked like her.

This time I loved it. This time, I really was no dummy. Because I am a 52 year old woman and have finally accepted the Skipper in me.

I've figured out that I like being Skipper. She's not high-maintenance, she loves to laugh, she loves going to sporting events, she likes animals and small children.

Besides, those high-heels really hurt my flat feet.

Anything you've accepted about yourself? Tell us. Please. 

ROW80 Check In. Where am I?

ROW80 check-in. Star Date, July 27th, 2011.

We find ourself in a strange, non-writing place. The inhabitants are friendly and the climate temperate. Which only leads to our own inability to put words on paper...how much longer can we go on?

This strange place's name? Staycation.

All silliness aside, I had great plans for this staycation 2 weeks of no work and lots of writing time. Yeah, not so much so. As you can see Sunday, when I should have been writing a ROW80 check-in, I was at a Twins game with our youngest. Monday and Tuesday a bit of writing got done, mainly for a contest. Plus, another baseball game, little league semi-finals. They lost :( after rallying back from a 5 run deficit, they were ahead by 1...other team had last ups and they pulled it off.

Plus, I don't know what I was thinking: no work. Ha! No work, except for laundry and vacuuming and dusting and organising and cooking. Not to mention all the stuff that needs to be done, but not enough time like, re-paint porch and basement. Crap.

Enough with the whining.

Even more than new words on the page, I need to nail the outline for my YA steampunk/fantasy.

NEW PLAN

Brainstorm and notecard outline

Re-write query 

Post on Blog 2x a week not counting ROW80 check-ins

I'm not posting a goal for wordcount this go around. We'll see how I feel on Sunday.

How's everyone else doing?

GEARING UP TO GET AN AGENT WEEK 4 FIRST 200 WORDS!

For week 4 of Gearing up to Get an Agent we're posting the first 200 words of our manuscript...I have started this in so many places, I no longer know what makes sense. Here's the first 200 words of my YA steampunk romance:

I was alone in the attic bedroom. That wasn't entirely true, I had the skitterings of Aurora in the eaves to keep me company. My foster sisters were performing in the production tonight so they would not be along to for another few hours. I hadn't felt well earlier and was excused from my duties as second stage-hand. I didn't act or sing, my foster parents said acting was not my cup of tea -- what they meant was, I had no talent for it. It's not the life for you, they'd say.

It's alright, I didn't care for the theatre, I only cared for the corner of the Mississippi I could see with my distance goggles through my bedroom window. Every moment That could be spared I me eyes were on that bend. One day soon, I would see the AirPirate ship that carried the Captain who was responsible for my parents' death.

If only I knew what I would do after I spied the ship. It's not as if I could call him out for a duel. I might be able to tinker a bomb...but, that was no good, I only wanted vengeance on the Captain not the whole crew.