Tam Linsey's Blog, page 8

The Lucky Seven

Now that I’m over the flu, it’s time to respond to some lovely blog awards I’ve been nominated for (well, they’re more like tags than awards, but we’ll call them awards!) Sabrina Garie nominated me for the Lucky Seven, which is a fun chance to post an excerpt from the middle of a manuscript rather than the standard first pages.

For the Lucky Seven, the blogger posts seven sentences starting at the seventh line on the seventy-seventh page of their manuscript. They then tag seven other blogger buddies to do the same.

If you read my five page excerpt of Botanicaust, you’ll know enough about Tula and Jo Boy to figure out what might have happened here. But I’ll also warn readers – it’s a bit of a spoiler if you plan to read the book when it’s published!

Minutes after Tula found the girls, Burn Operatives located Jo Boy stumbling drunkenly across the Burn. He had refused to come peaceably. The Ops had followed procedure and taken him down.
Tula kept picturing the blackened body in Bats’ arms.
The shock of it all made her numb.
At least the girls were alive. Barely.

So, thumbs up or thumbs down on the snippet? Not much to go on, is there?

I’d like to pass the nomination for the Lucky Seven on to these fellow AKRWA writers and bloggers:   Jennifer Bernard, Maxine Mansfield, Morgan Q. O’Reilly, Lizbeth Selvig, Tiffinie Helmer, and Tielle St. Clare. I hope you choose to play along!

Breakup Contest Open for Entries

My local RWA Chapter is holding a contest. An awesome contest. One I want to promote here for any writers seeking some great feedback. All the judges are trained, and many of them are published authors. Entrants receive critique notes from at least three of them.

The top three entries will be read by Liz Pelletier at Entangled Publishing, who will be the final judge. The winner then gets a critique by NYT Bestselling author, Cherry Adair!

Author Cherry Adair (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Enter your best black moment, all-is-lost, or break-up scene. Show the moment your characters face their darkest fear, lose all hope, or dig deep for answers. Thrill us. Make us cry. Make us long for your characters to find their happy ending.

All the details about how to enter can be found at http://www.akrwa.org

The entry deadline is May 1. We can’t wait to read your black moment or break-up scene!

Planting by the Moon – Science or Myth?

It may seem unscientific to plant by the moon. But there is some logic to the practice. Several years back, I did a test planting with tomatoes, and was impressed enough by the results to swear I’d always pay attention to the moon when gardening. The test plot was small, but the comparative vigor of each set of plants was drastic.

I planted the first set of seeds in sterile, commercial growing medium during the fourth quarter. They took over a week to sprout and some seeds never germinated at all.

About ten days later, during the second quarter, I planted another set of the same seeds in medium from the same bag. The first seedling appeared in three days, and almost every seed had sprouted within five days.

After another three weeks of growth, with both flats of seedlings sharing the same light source, temperatures, and watering care, there was still an obvious difference in vigor. The seedlings planted earlier had weaker stems and smaller leaves than those planted on the later date.

The question was, why?

Not only does the moon add a tiny amount of extra light for plants to grow by when it is full, it also affects gravity here on earth. And gravity affects the flow of water – think of the ebb and flow of the tides. During and just after a full moon, the pull on the earth’s water increases, resulting in the highest tides. According to other research, it also means water in the soil is pulled upward and is more available to germinating seeds. So by planting my tomatoes in the second quarter, just before a full moon, they sprouted just in time to have the best possible access to water in the soil during a critical stage of their growth. Those I planted in the first quarter had just the opposite, with soil moisture at its lowest.

So next time you decide to plant a few seeds, it might just benefit you to look at the night sky. It certainly can’t hurt!

What’s in YOUR Food?

Today I’m at Romancing the Genres talking about my passion. I love to garden, I love to cook, and I love to eat. My novel, Botanicaust, is about about a future world where these things are taken away. Taken by a rogue genetic manipulation (GMO) that devastates food crops across the globe, and leaves humanity struggling for survival.

You might think this means I am anti-genetically modified organisms. I’m not. READ MORE HERE

Related articles

Are There GMOs in Your Backyard Garden? (blogher.com)

Spring is Coming. Really

My last post talked about grasping for a taste of summer by making strawberry liqueur. Here is a photo of my tomato (and other) seedlings as we wait for spring.

It’s good there’s no gardening to be done yet outside, because I’m focused on my writing right now. My #WriteMotivation goals are on track, with a total of 7K words written so far on my next novel (plus a short story which is poking me for attention), my critiques for fellow writers done, and my chapters-to-date compiled for my beta readers.

In another month, there will still be snow, but the greenhouse will be cleared and I will be tending cutting lettuce and my other transplants within. And six weeks from now, I will be repairing garden beds, turning soil, and spreading cool weather seeds.

Hard to believe with that snow pack outside, isn’t it?

Breakup, as we call the spring thaw in Alaska, happens fast. Once the sun passes the equinox, snow melts fast. And I will be forced to put writing on a back burner as I take advantage of our short summer. Short summer, but long daylight. There will not even be time for writing after sunset. I’ve been known to pull dandelions at midnight.

So cheer me on, now. While the snow keeps me tapping away at the keys. I’ve got the gardening itch.

© Tam Linsey, 2011. All rights reserved.