July 4th Challenge

Hi it’s Christina –

Good Morning!

First and foremost, I want to wish my wonderful son, a very Happy 24^th Birthday! I love you, and I’m so very proud of the man you’ve become! Can’t wait to see you in a few hours!!

Next, I want to wish all my American friends a Happy 4^th. I hope the weather holds out wherever you are, so you can enjoy a wonderful day with your friends and family; and if you are setting off fireworks, please be safe! I live in a state where fireworks are illegal, but that doesn’t seem to stop many from setting them off. And a final cautionary note, if you’ve been drinking, even only two drinks, let someone else drive (provided they haven’t been drinking). It’s just not worth the risk. I’m a selfish person. I don’t want to lose ANY of you, especially to something preventable. So please, be smart, be safe, and enjoy the festivities responsibly.

To everyone else, who does not fit into the two shout-outs above, HAPPY FRIDAY! You’ve made it through another week, and you’ve got two days to enjoy yourself. I know, I know, you’re saying I’m off my rocker – you work harder on your days off than you do at “work”. LOL

Okay, I have a very limited time to work on FTQ today, because I have food to make for the party, so it’s time to skip across the pond. I hope you have an incredible day, and happy writing!

Your Last Challenge was:

Use the following three in a story: Rummaging, Hat, Telescope

We inherited a house from one of our elderly relatives, and with the house came all of the contents. It was a massive endeavor to clean it out, but you have to take the good with the bad, right?

At first, we focused on the living space; weeded out what we could not use, and then rearrange the items we were keeping so they fit into our lifestyle. The last places we tackled were the basement and the attic. Luckily, the basement only took a few hours because it was incredibly organized, and surprisingly, pretty much everything that was down there, had a purpose.

The attic, on the other hand, was a different story. After our initial cursory inspection, we determined it would take several days to rummage through all the contents.

Fortified with a good breakfast, and armed with bottles of water – the attic was hot, even though it was early spring – and a box of heavy duty lawn and leaf garbage bags, we headed up. Boxes and trunks, armoires and dressers, a full-length mirror, one of those dummies dress makers use, adorned with a floppy hat and a feathered boa, a brass telescope on a stand pointing out of the window.

The enormity of the job ahead of me was intimidating, and I guess my panic showed, because my husband squeezed my hand, lead me to a box in the far corner, and said, “One box at a time.”

For the record, the above is total fiction.

Your Next Challenge is (short but appropriate for today):

Fireworks

You have ten 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.

November 8th Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina – 

Happy Friday! To be honest, yesterday felt like Friday already because my daughter has a four day weekend. Yesterday and today are Teachers’ Convention, so schools are closed. I had forgotten all about it until my daughter came home from school on Wednesday and asked if she could sleep over a friend’s house. I said not on a school night and she said not to worry, she’d be home by Sunday. She’s such a brat. The child is incredibly quick-witted.

When she was four or five, which put her brother in the thirteen - fourteen range, was when we really started noticing this, often comical, sometimes annoying, trait. My son used to be a big guy – I’m talking 4’6” and 100 lbs going into kindergarten big. Anyway, my son was going through a phase, like many teenaged boys do, where he was growing his hair long. Normally I didn’t care about the kids’ hair (it can be short, long, purple, spiked, shaved – whatever, it was hair, no matter what they did, it wasn’t permanent), but we were coming up on a holiday.

We were sitting in the living room watching tv, when my son walked through. I asked him if he was going to cut his hair, and said he was starting to look like a hippie. That’s when my little one chimes in and says, “Yeah, a hippiepotomus.” For a second, the room went completely silent, then we all busted up laughing, even my son. He did go and get his hair cut. Not short, but he got it shaped so he no longer looked like a sheepdog, and that’s all I really wanted. However, because of the reaction my daughter got, she now felt free to release her one-liners at will.

Sorry for the detour into left field there, but I thought you’d get a kick out of the story. The reason I began to tell you all of this was, since my daughter spent Wednesday night into Thursday at a friend’s, I had the house to myself, so it was quiet and I was able to work on Faerie Tale Queen. (The next chapter will be posted on FB later today.) Today however, she’s home. Hopefully she’ll sleep until ten and I’ll get some writing accomplished. If not, it won’t be until Monday when I can get some serious words down, and I’m behind already. Yesterday I should have hit the 12.5K mark and I’m only at 10K.

Since my window for writing is going to be very small for these next three days, my blogs are going to be on the short and sweet side, so I can grab whatever quiet I’m allotted.

On that note, I hope you have a fabulous Friday and happy writing!

Your Last Challenge:

 

The countdown has begun…

 

Thirty days, a whole month, no problem, this will be a piece of cake. I’ll pace myself, do a little each day, and, who knows, maybe I’ll even finish early. Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work I go. I’m so excited.

Twenty seven days, I’m off to a good start, as expected, I’m ahead of the game. I think I’ve earned a break.

Twenty two days, I’ve been a little distracted and have fallen behind a bit, but it’s no big deal, there’s still plenty of time. I’m not worried.

Sixteen days, the laundry, the groceries, the house, a nasty cold, now I’m really behind. How am I ever going to finish? Don’t panic, don’t panic, you can still do this.

One week left! Maybe if I kick everyone out of the house and pull a couple of all nighters, I’ll still have a chance. Why do I do this to myself? Never again!

The last day. The final word is written. The end product is submitted. I finished with a few hours to spare. I knew I could. I can’t wait for next time!

The cycle of a NaNoWriMo participant.

 

Hey guys, don't forget today is the last day to enter Heidi Angell's contest for a signed copy of Angel's Dance. It's the top contest on the right of my page. Good luck!

 

Your Next Challenge is:

 

 

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.

September 20th Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina – 
 

Happy Friday Y’all! I’m getting an early start today because I need to leave soon to take my van into the shop. The second sliding door failed and they need to replace it. I knew it would. After what happened the last time, I begged them to fix both doors at the same time, but they wouldn’t. I even wrote a letter to the CEO of Toyota, but they wouldn’t listen, and sure enough, the door crapped out while I had a van load of kids in it. Thankfully, with a really hard thump from my oversized rump, I was able to get the door closed to get back safely from the shore.

 

Let me tell you, if I couldn’t have gotten it closed, I would have been on the phone with the dealer demanding they come down to Sandy Hook and pick us up. And knowing the dealer, they would have. They are such nice folks at Crystal, and I know they would have fixed the door the last time I was there, but corporate wouldn’t allow them to do it. Big corporations can be so shortsighted sometimes. What if that door failed while I was driving and something happened to one of those kids, especially after I warned them, in writing, that was what I was afraid would happen?

 

I’m not going to get riled up. The kids were fine and the door is being fixed. That’s all that really matters.

 

Technology is confusing me again, but in a good way this time. Every day I open my email and see I have several more followers on Twitter. I’m averaging five new follows every day. This is wonderful, and I am not complaining in the least, but I would love to know what has caused this spike in interest so I can keep doing whatever it is I’m doing. I have asked the question before when I jumped from thirty followers to a hundred followers in two weeks, but no one answered me. However, my Facebook author’s page has been hovering around three-fifty “likes” for months now and I can’t seem to manage to get to the five-hundred level. The tweets are directly linked to my Facebook feed. I have made less than ten direct tweets. Very few of my Twitter followers are also followers on Facebook and visa-versa. Can you see why I’m confused? How can I be doing the EXACT same thing in two different places and be getting dramatically different results?

 

Speaking of Twitter, I came across a site through a Twitter connection, and although I cannot participate as a sponsored author because I do not have enough reviews yet, I thought it was interesting and you might want to check it out and participate as a reader. The concept is really cool. You tell them exactly what kind of books you enjoy, ie: Romance, Thriller, Mystery and they notify you when a good book (3.5 star review rating or better) comes out. BUT WAIT, it gets better. You only like Historical and Paranormal Romances with a little sex, but nothing too graphic; the Thrillers you like have to be FBI ones and the Mysteries need to be the old fashioned London ones, neither of which can have excessive violence, then that is what they are going to tell you about. They tailor your requests into that level of specificity. See, I said it was really a cool idea. Check out the site if you get a chance.

 http://www.thefussylibrarian.com/

 

After I pick up my car, I need to pick up a few last things for my book signing this weekend – like candy for the jar. Remember, both Saturday and Sunday I will be at Canterbury Tales Forever in Peddler’s Village. If you’re in the area, please stop by to say “hi”. I’d love to see/meet you!

 

Tomorrow and Sunday may be a little hectic, so I probably won’t be able to get any challenges out there for you; which means, you very well may have until Monday to think about today’s challenge. I will try to get photos and updates of the event posted. I’ll just have to get up earlier. It’s ok, you’re worth it! I hope you have a wonderful day and happy writing!

 

Your Last Challenge was:

Write a story containing the following three words: Queen, Computer & Assignment

 

I joined a writing group which meets every other week and the person who is running it is a middle school English teacher, and I guess you can’t take the teacher out of the classroom. He actually gives us homework assignments! Thankfully, for the first time ever, I don’t mind doing homework.

 

Over the weeks the assignments have been quite creative. One week we needed to rewrite or summarize a story (book, movie, heck someone even did a song) without using the character’s names or mentioning the name of the story. It was fun reading what the others in the group wrote and trying to guess what story they were retelling.

 

Anyway, this week’s assignment was to choose a historical figure, and tell a story completely different and unexpected than how the history books have portrayed this figure. As an example we were given General George Patton, renowned military genius, known for his quick thinking in difficult situation, actually needed to consult with is astrologer before making a single move.

 

For the assignment, I chose the Queen of England, the epitome of grace and good manners. I had many ideas swirling in my head, like she was the reigning beer pong champion in disguise and paid off the producers of “Girls Gone Wild” not to air a certain video, but when I got to my computer, opened up the page and had my fingers hovering over the keys, I drew a complete blank. The previous brilliant and hysterical ideas I had tickled the far reaches of my brain and would not come to the forefront. For an hour I sat there and stared at a white screen.

 

Your Next Challenge is:

 

 

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.