M.J. Fredrick's Blog, page 27

Goals for the Last Week of May

Usually the last week of May=the last week of school, but we started a week later in August, so…8 more days.

1) Survive the talent show. It was SUPPOSED to have been Friday but 3rd grade scheduled a field trip that day, and several kids were in the talent show, so we rescheduled it for Tuesday. GUESS WHAT? Third grade’s field trip got rained out, and they were back in PLENTY of time. So I’m stuck stressing about the talent show for the three day weekend.

2) Survive field day. The one thing more stressful than the talent show is Field Day. I like to be outside if it’s cool and shady and I can sit down. Not hot in the middle of the field with 600 kids, FYI.

3) Work on novella.

4) Finish edits on DLB and send to my formatter.

5) Clean out the “junk” bedroom so we can store the stuff Josh will be taking back to Austin in there. I figure packing up my old dishes and glasses to send with him will also serve the purpose of cleaning out my cabinets!

6) Faculty meeting

7) Breakfast duty–last one, and only 4 days. I don’t mind too much because I get to leave early those days.

Don’t Look Back Re-Release

I recently got the rights back to Don’t Look Back, my 2012 Epic Award finalist, and my 2006 Golden Heart finalist. I have a new cover and I’m going through it now, tweaking it a very small bit. I will re-release it in June, and hopefully find some new readers with this gorgeous cover!

Launch Party TONIGHT!!

So, Trish Milburn, Norah Wilson and I decided to create a romantic suspense bundle, one each, and offer it for a really good price (99 cents) to help introduce our fans to each other. Tonight we’re launching it with a big party on Facebook.

We’ll be at Trish’s fan page (because she has the most fans) giving away prizes and chatting from 6-9 CDT. Hope you can come by!

You can buy the bundled set at Amazon, BN and Kobo.

Goals for the Last Full Week of School!!!

13 more days, many of them crazy. This week shouldn’t be so bad (knock wood). Last week was NUTS. 2 days of testing, then I had to take my friend’s place in two ARDs because she got hurt playing basketball with the kids, then we had a guest speaker. Two days our schedules got shuffled, and then one night I stayed late for the Teacher of the Year award dinner and ceremony. Not to mention Josh coming home, getting a new oven and having it installed.

This week:

Work on novella

Read through Don’t Look Back. I got my rights back and am going to self-publish it.

Launch party tomorrow night with Trish and Norah for our bundled book set.

Faculty meeting

Help the kids write songs using the iPads

Cook

Get used to Josh’s schedule. He’s interning at the local paper for credit, supposedly 20 hours a week.

Blog at the Samhain blog. I haven’t had anything out with them in 2 1/2 years, but I’m still on the blog schedule, so…

Exercise.

Try to get the house in order. Between Josh moving home and kitchen construction, it’s a disaster. Which is why I spend a lot of time outside!

What a Week!

My behind is DRAGGING this morning! I didn’t get home from the Teacher of the Year dinner and awards until nine. It was all really nice–dinner at the high school and then awards on stage in the auditorium, along with the best and brightest of the students. The senior who is the valedictorian will be going to UT, and I know her mom, so I introduced her to Josh, just so she will have a contact when she gets up there. Anyway, the principal said some nice things about me, and several parents who were there did as well. Josh was my guest since Fred couldn’t make it, so I think Josh was impressed that people actually like me.

The night BEFORE, we bought an oven, so another long evening. It arrives at the store today, then my WONDERFUL step-dad will install it Sunday. You cannot imagine my excitement. It’s been almost a month with no oven! Would still be, if not for me posting on Facebook and Mom seeing it!

So Josh has been home 3 days and last night was the first I’d really spent with him. He starts his internship on Monday.

Anyway…next year remind me to save more days to take off in May! I always say I will, and I don’t!

Goals the Week the Boy Comes Home!

Today was my grandmother Gigi’s birthday. It would be her 101st. Hard to believe she’s been gone nine years.

I’m ridiculously excited that Josh will be home this week, even though I saw him Friday (he came down to get money for an apartment) and I’ll see him today, but he’ll be home for the summer on Tuesday. I keep texting him to see what he wants me to buy at the grocery store, any special meals, all that. It makes me sad that this will probably be the last summer he comes home since he’ll still have the apartment next summer.

It’s the first of four crazy weeks, the countdown to the end of the school year. SO MUCH TO DO!

1) Work on short story.

2) Testing 2 days.

3) Teacher of the Year dinner, followed by an award ceremony.

4) Adjust to having Josh home.

5) Cook.

6) Exercise.

7) Figure out how to deal with two books whose rights reverted to me last week.

Please, a clone would be useful right now!

Goals the Week of Teacher Appreciation

Life is insane. I’m teaching 5th grade this week, the kids who passed. I split them with a tutor, and we have them almost all day. All we do is Social Studies and Art, and even that is like pulling teeth! They’re acting like they’re already on summer vacation! And we put a lot of thought into these plans–the kids went on a field trip last Tuesday around 10:30 and we planned until almost 3, only taking a half-hour for lunch!

I think I have most of what I need for this week–I spent over $50 getting supplies for last week, stuff that made huge messes, btw–tissue paper and corn syrup and food coloring and salt!

May is just crazy. Crazy. And I’m making myself more so by writing 2 short stories this month! Alllllllmmoooosssttt done with the first, which I need to have to my editor tomorrow.

1) Finish short story

2) Get stuff for punch for baby shower/get baby shower gift.

3) Get pots and potting soil for plants I keep buying.

4) Cook more.

5) Exercise more.

6) Go see Iron Man.

7) Go to baby shower.

8) Get Mom’s birthday and Mother’s Day presents. (Her birthday is the day before Mother’s Day. My grandmother’s birthday was the 12th, Mother’s Day.) I have 2 little things for Mom, but want to get something else.

9) Start new short story, book dates with editor and formatter.

10) Edit the first short story when I get it back from the editor!

11) Submit a book to some advertisers.

12) There was something else but I forgot.

This is only part of the crazy, y’all!

Book Lover’s Buffet

Some of the indie authors got together and put up a site where all the books are on sale for 99 cents through Friday. Check it out!

Favorite Movies

Saturday night Fred and I went to see Jurassic Park in 3D. Now, I’ve seen this movie so many times, I can recite the dialogue. A LOT of my phrases come from this movie. But I wanted to see it in 3D. There are plot holes (BOY HOWDY) and the ending is awful (T Rex saves the day!) but it remains one of my all-time favorites.

I do not have sophisticated taste in movies. I sent back Les Miserables without watching because I didn’t want to be depressed. The movies I love, the ones I can watch over and over again are mostly a mix of romance and action. Except Harry Potter.

This was going to be a top 10 list, but I couldn’t stop!

1) The Mummy. OMG, I love this movie. Even the mummy was in love in this movie.

2) Lord of the Rings, the whole trilogy. But if I had to pick a favorite, it would be Two Towers.

3) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I love the first movie, too, but this is my favorite.

4) Independence Day

5) Harry Potter, the first and last best

6) X-Men, the first

7) Avengers (okay, maybe no romance there)

8) O, Brother Where Art Thou?

9) Pirates of the Caribbean

10) Wall-E

11) Star Wars (the first best)

12) Speed

13) So Proudly We Hail

14) Romancing the Stone

15) Bridget Jones’s Diary

16) Ghostbusters

17) Best in Show

18) Perks of Being a Wallflower

19) Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

20) Battle Cry

21) Silverado

22) How to Train Your Dragon

23) Pride and Prejudice (BBC)

24) Tangled

25) The Commitments

26) The Princess Bride

27) Foul Play

28) The Money Pit

29) Jaws

30) Star Trek–the new one

Chemistry

I’m listening to an audiobook now by one of my FAVORITE authors and, well, I’m ready to call it quits. The couple has no chemistry. She’s attractive, he’s attractive, whatever. They’ve both got interesting backstory. But they don’t belong together. I think it might be that she is too perfect–she can bake and give massage and make jewelry and do yoga and all those bazillionty things, and he’s not really flawed either. Their stories aren’t really tied together–she’s his housekeeper, not really invested in his life. I’m not sure which of these things, if any, is the cause. I’m just bored. I don’t buy the romance, other than convenience, and I don’t really buy the mystery. I’ll finish because it was $14, and I’ve never stopped reading a book by this author, but that’s the only reason.

How do you create good chemistry between characters? How do you define it?