January 7th Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina –

Good Lord it’s COLD out! -19° wind chill! I don’t ever remember it being this cold in New Jersey. The coldest temperature ever recorded in New Jersey was -34 in 1904, needless to say, a bit before my time; so I guess we have a ways to go before we hit a record, but dang – it sure is cold!!

I’m not sure if it was because of the cold or because of frozen road conditions, but the kids have a delayed opening today. I know I’m going to have a battle on my hands later this morning insisting Dani wear a coat to school. She says she can’t because she cannot make it back to her locker at the end of the day and still catch her bus on time; but today I am going to put my foot down. I have her tell her bus driver this morning that she’ll be a minute late getting to the bus this afternoon. I’m sure the driver will understand.

I took on another editing assignment. So far the story is interesting and I am looking forward to seeing where it goes, and other than one recurring correction, it is going rather smoothly. The one thing that will be a challenge is, once I formatted the manuscript correctly, it brought it to over six hundred pages, so finishing it in the six weeks I quoted is going to be tough. Formatting and editing the first chapter took me four hours already. At that rate it would be more like eight to ten weeks of me working every day. Let’s hope things go a little quicker today.

Until I find a job, my plan is to split the allotted hours between editing and my own writing. I still have to finish Simply by Chance and Faerie Tale Queen, as well as do one more thorough edit on Corporate Blues before I send it off to my editor. It has been a few months since I looked at Corporate Blues, so I should be able to treat it as if it is a piece which was submitted for me to edit as opposed to being a piece I have written. Hopefully, my editor will be getting a fairly clean copy and will have an easy time with it.

Okay, off to the salt mines. I wish you all a warm day & happy writing!

Your Last Challenge was:

It was nice while it lasted…

I can’t complain. I was afforded an opportunity very few people will get to experience; a time to remove myself from the “real world” and focus on something I love to do. During these past two years I have published two books, brought three more to various stages of completion, suffered bumps and bruises of the publishing world, learned a lot about my characters’ worlds and my own, met some amazing people, started a blog, and grew as a writer. I have made public appearances, had several book signings, sat on an author’s panel at a school, and even won a fairly prestigious award for my writing.

All of this was made possible because someone I loved believed in me, and left me the resources to be able to pursue my dream. It was an amazing gift, a gift for which I am truly grateful.  It gave me the confidence to know I can eventually make a living doing something I love, even though it is going to take a little longer than I had hoped. So in the meantime, I need to reenter the real world and figure out how to meld my two worlds into one. It was nice while it lasted…

Your Next Challenge is:

There’s nothing better on a cold day than…

You have 10 minutes (be honest). There is no right or wrong, just write. Spelling and punctuation don’t count and NO ONE is allowed to criticize what someone else has written. Go.

January 4th Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina –

Negative eight…seriously? When the heck did I move to Alaska? That’s the actual temperature, not the wind chill. My kitchen window is a sheet of ice – on the inside! The kitchen tends to get hot with all the cooking I do, so we don’t pull down the storm window, but rather leave the screen in place all year round. In all the years I have lived here, it was never an issue.

Today is going to be spent (INSIDE – burrrrr!) getting my daughter ready for her return trip to college. She has all her clothes washed and ready to be packed. We will need to venture out later to pick up the few things she wants from the store, oatmeal and breakfast drinks, and then I’ll be dropping her off at her aunt’s so she can spend her last evening home with her cousins and grandparents.

Dang it, I just remembered my youngest slept over a friend’s house last night. I’m going to have to be out in this lovely weather several times today…ugh!

I posted this request on Facebook yesterday, but I am going to appeal to you here as well. There is an event I would like to participate in; however, I can’t until I have ten reviews on Amazon. So, if you have read A Second Chance (300+ copies sold), and/or Taking Chances (2,500+ copies sold/downloaded), could you please post a review?  It does not need to be long or in depth, just a few sentences. I would really appreciate it, and it would go a long way to boosting my books’ standings on Amazon. You would think the sales and winning the 2013 Indie Next Generation Award would have done the trick, but apparently everything revolves around the reviews – which unfortunately are the hardest things to get. L

Okay, I’m done begging. I hope you have a fantastic day, and happy writing!

Your Last Challenge was:

Write a story containing the following three words: Prunes, Grandmother, Missing

After all the dust from Christmas settled, I realized one thing was missing. I had forgotten to bake one thing my grandmother always used to make on Christmas. There was really no excuse, because I made the nut rolls and the bread, and this is made at the same time. Instead of using nuts for the filling of the roll, she would make a few with lekvar. Lekvar is a prune paste. Now before you go Ewwwww, I will tell you, even though I am not a fan of prunes, I do like them this way.

Lekvar is sweet, but not too sweet, and somehow, it doesn’t taste pruney. However, it is a pain to work with because when I make the roll with it, even though I put in vent holes, infallibly, the roll pops and some of the filling oozes out. I think this may be because the lekvar is a paste and you spread it on the dough as you would spread jam on toast. Then when you roll up the dough, it is very easy to roll it too tight, thereby leaving too little room for expansion while it bakes, resulting in the bread rupturing.

Sorry, I sat there and stared at the random words I chose and really had a difficult time figuring out how to string them together. Hopefully the next challenge will inspire better. J

Your Next Challenge is (what better challenge to warm your thoughts in this bitter cold?):

You have 10 minutes (be honest). There is no right or wrong, just write. Spelling and punctuation don’t count and NO ONE is allowed to criticize what someone else has written. Go.