Amanda A. Allen's Blog, page 5

Disney, take my money…please!!!!

In my house, we have a two-year-old girl whose very first passion was, Elsa! Anna! Elsa!  To say that we want to watch Frozen Fever is to say we want ice cream and cookies and walks and dolls.  OF COURSE, we want Frozen Fever.  Like 6 days after Baby Girl learned to ask for Elsa, we wanted Frozen Fever.  For the love all that is holy, we want a video that doesn’t come with Let It Go.

Now, we love Let It Go.  Me and the four-year-old know every word.  It’s fun to sing as a family.  Baby girl pipes in when she can and it’s adorable.  Irritating beyond belief, but adorable.  I heard it four times today.  Four!  Baby girl only likes the Indina Menzel version and she is not amused at the Demi Lovato switch on the soundtrack.

(Baby Girl also pipes in with Let It Go for any song she wants to sing since that’s the only she knows any words to.  Except the Elsa? just before the Do You Want to Build a Snowman song.  You  know it.  Knock, knock, knock.  Elsa?  Cue the song.  Baby girl gets the “Elsa?” every dang time.)

Please, Disney, please…give me the chance to at least pre-order Frozen Fever.  Give a woman some hope.  I can’t take a 2 year old to Cinderella.  She’s two.  The only time she sits for longer than 7.1 seconds, ever, is when she’s strapped into her carseat or when she’s asleep.  The carseat is frankly requiring special devices because she’s a clever minx.  Surely there is some way under heaven that I can download it now without breaking laws?!?!?!??!

How about if we bargain?  You let me download it now.  I’ll pay you.  I’ll pay you again when it comes out on disc.  Again when my two year old scratches that disc and again when she wants the Frozen Fever versions of the dolls?  Because come on.  She’ll probably get the costumes, 8 t-shirts, 2 hoodies, and 813 stuffies.  And the dolls.  For the love….TAKE MY MONEY.

Take my money and save me.  Save us all.

Oh heeeeyyyyyy……have you heard?!?!??!?!?!  Frozen 2?  Dudes.  In 2018, my girls will be 4 and 5 or 5 and 6 depending on the time of year.  I am so damn excited.  There will be popcorn, treats, sodas….whatever.  The date has been SET, it’s going to be epic, and if anyone other than me takes them, I will (LITERALLY) slit their throats.  I mean…a movie we already love, getting a sequel, during the HEIGHTH of princess phase?  Shut. The. Front. Door!  The only thing better would have been growing up while the Harry Potter books were coming out.  Because…obv.

~Amanda

PS–Tangled is a better movie.  Baby Girl likes it *almost* as much.  And it’s true that Olaf wins all sidekicks ever.  But Rapunzel saves Flynn while Flynn saves Rapunzel back.  And there’s that powerful moment when Gothel dies and even though she totally just put Rapunzel in chains and stabbed her love, Rapunzel is still like…Mom!  Or when Gothel tracks down Rapunzel who’s out partying and finds her literally dancing on bars.  Or during the lantern part.  Doesn’t it just kill you 11,000 viewings later when Flynn still doesn’t get to kiss Rapunzel there?  Goodness.  Besides the visual of that scene is just beautiful.  What I would give to see something like that in real life.  And what about those silent, terrible, grieving parent moments?  The ones where they ache for their daughter even though they’re King and Queen and live in a palace?  It doesn’t matter.  They need their baby back.  Their pain is tangible even though they’re cartoons.  They don’t know where their baby is.  They don’t know if she’s okay.  They only know she was stolen and that with all their power, they can not find her.  And that moment at the end where they haul Flynn into the family hug and adopt him perfectly with that one move?? Tangled is a better movie.  Amanda wants a Tangled sequel for Amanda.  For my girls, I want Frozen.  For me, Tangled.  Even though it is perfect as it is.

In my opinion, it is the best princess movie that Disney has made and, quite frankly, that shocks book-loving-me to the core.  I mean, I loved Ariel until Belle came along.  And as I look back, I realize that Belle is no longer my girl.  I still love her, of course.  And her movie, with the scary beast parts, is too much for Baby Girl whose options are pretty limited.  I can not WAIT for the day when I can pop it in and not worry over my Baby Girl.  (Both of them really since by the time #1 will be ready, #2 will need some more time.  I mean Baby Girl’s movies are basically Cinderella, The Little Mermaid (which is also scary but doesn’t phase Baby Girl.  Probably because she doesn’t slow down long enough to watch the sea witch go all skeleton-y), Sleeping Beauty, Tangled, and Frozen.  Oh, and the Tinkerbell movies.  Those are FANTASTIC.  Boyo gets his mix but then Baby Girl doesn’t slow down at all, so it doesn’t do for the distraction while Mommy folds clothes or makes mac n’ cheese.  Y’know?

I have too deep thoughts on all of these movies.  Cinderella is also almost perfect.  Except marrying the prince is like marrying a plastic doll who can’t remember your face and needs a shoe to hunt you down.  I hope the live action solves that problem.  But, the art and shading in the original, hand-drawn movies is astounding.

Sleeping Beauty…I mean…they sing a song, it’s true love, and then you find out that you’re parents are alive and your caretakers have been lying to you your whole life and you’re hung up on the song-guy?  What-the-ever.  It’s the LIES, sister that need to have you reeling.  (I believe we’ve established that people are lie-holes, so possibly Briar Rose had already been through a Nigerian-Romance-Scam and wasn’t surprised??! )

The Little Mermaid…Oh Eric…people can lose their voices.  Lets follow the sequence of events.  1) You’re on a ship.  2) You learn about mermaids.  3) Your ship goes down.  4) You are miraculously swum to shore by a hot girl with a pretty voice.  5)  You find a hot girl, in a sheet, on the shore who can’t speak but no one is LOOKING FOR HER  Plus later, she has a pink dress and red hair.  Every land girl would have hesitated over that.  You know?  Oh and she brushes her hair with a fork and has a crab in her pocket and doesn’t know what a pipe is…these are the things that I don’t know…a fish wouldn’t know.  6)  Come on Eric…you can do it….make the leap.  Make it!  Oh you can’t??!?!?!  You either don’t have the imagination or the brain capacity?  Ariel, my fishy sister, you can do better.  He’s the first human you saw who wasn’t a gross sailor, keep looking.

What I’m saying here is that I need some more movies in between the above you know?  Because I’m over-deconstructing them.  They’re stories written for two to 12 year olds and me.  They’re intended to capture an audience that deserves stories that aren’t scary, don’t have complicated back story they can’t understand, and that are well-done.  They need and deserve stories that people have made just for them.  Ones with beautiful music because they deserve it.  And funny little animals because that makes 2-year-olds happy.  And with jokes they can get.  And with pretty dresses because dresses make many a 2-year-old feel pretty.  And with shoes because they’re discovering shoes and feet and seeing a glass slipper or one made of ice makes them stand in awe.  And with love and kindness because that’s what those 2 year olds deserve in their lives even if all of them aren’t as protected as they should be.  And Disney does a damn good job of filling that need for that precious audience.

I have to say…the Tinkerbell movies, Tangled, and Frozen stand up.  Bless them!  They stand up to a million-gabadillion viewings.

PPS–Still reading Catch-22.  The odd construction is awesome and also makes my writer brain hurt.  I don’t know what I’ll read next.  Since it’ll probably be April maybe another Steinbeck?  I mean, I gotta get my classic a month in early just in case.

PPPS — Baby Girl is currently singing Let It Go to herself right now.  She really only knows those three words, so she sings them again and again.  She’s sick and coughy, so it’s this raspy little baby girl voice singing, “Let It Go!” Cough.  “Let It Goooo!”  Cough.  It’s adorable and precious and I am constantly amazed that she calls me Mommy and loves me.  I never knew you could love like I love Baby Girl and her siblings.

 

What.The.Ever

Getting sick sucks.  There’s a sign on Boyo’s daycare door that says something to the effect of:

Dear Parents,

If you’re kid has any of the following symptoms, they will be sent home and can not return until 48 hours after the symptoms disappear.

fever

chills

vomiting 

diarrhea

nausea

headache

sweating

aches

ebola

swine flu

seeing visions

Krystos virus

pale mare

salt plague and/ or black plague

spattergroit

Sincerely ,

The staff.

Basically, the entire school is ill.  Half the staff is out.  And though he’s fine, I’m pretty sure I totally caught it just from dropping him off and picking him up.  So suck.

Suck it.

Suck.

~Amanda

ps, I dumped For Whom the Bell Tolls to the curb and am currently reading Catch-22.

Sometimes you just get tired…

Like when your baby gets an ear infection and then stops even approximating sleeping through the night which she has never done for me before anyway.  So then…..

You stop writing so much and stop finishing the edits on your works-in-progress (except Convenient Murder) because you have to sleep.

That isn’t my baby.  Because she doesn’t sleep.

Sometimes, maybe, you go to sleep right after the kids go to bed.  Even if that is 7:00 o’clock.  And even if you’ve already slept the last few nights at 7:00 o’clock.  Or even every. single. day.

What I’m saying here is that I’m tired.

My goal is, however, to get Bewildered by Love to my grammar editor tonight.  I’m super close to the end.  I’ll then turn my attention to Snow White.  I’m so excited to rewrite it and let it morph into an even better version of itself.

As soon as I send it over to the fantastic cjanereid, I’ll be working through the outline I’ve made for Rose Red.

I’m planning on joining in on Camp Nanowrimo with a bunch of writer friends and Rose Red.  I would have written Rose in April anyway, but now I’ll have friends joined in on the battle.   I’m hoping to get a solid draft and am pretty sure I will.  I’d like to get it to the fantastic cjanereid for a developmental edit as soon as possible.

The roller coaster of being an adoptive parent continues.  But my sweet babies are amazing and loving–even when they don’t sleep they’re a joy to my life and the reason I work so hard.

~Amanda

PS For the popsugar book challenge, I’m currently reading Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos as my book by an author I’ve never read before.  I’ve owned this one for a while, and it’s pretty delightful so far.  I plan to follow up with Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.

Sigh. Alas. Stupid. Daylight. Savings.

Look.

I was already tired before the world decided to screw me over and steal an hour.  And then, I was all gung-ho to power through.  But my girls have ear infections and the Lamb–who didn’t sleep through the night before–is really not sleeping through the night now.  And I’m tired.  Damn it.

Dang tired.

Also, squirrels:

Plus, I could totally go for a cupcake.  A pretty one:

It is, however, time to get back to work.  Butt in chair.  Fingers on keyboard.  I’m gonna own this year, damn it.

Writing powered by:

My lovely grammar editor has decided to help me with my developmental edit.  Which does, in fact, delay Snow White once again.  *Head slam*  However, I am SUPER excited to say that I think it’ll be even better than before.  I promised myself I’d do my best for each story that I publish.  And my best requires at least 1 more rewrite.

Also, we’ve teamed up to developmental edit the rest of the series.  So.  Hurray.  Woot-dee-dooo.  It is pretty difficult to find someone you like to work with on these things who gives you advice that you recognize as good for you.  Carissa has done this beautifully for me, and I *soooo* appreciate it.  Additional rewrite or not.

My next books to be published will be the same three titles I’ve already told you about, but now Snow White won’t be first. Looks to be:

Bewildered by Love.  The second book for the Kendawyn world (from me).  There are two Kendawyns out now and two coming.  The two out now are:

The coming books are Mystified by Love by Pamela Welsh and Bewildered by Love by me!  My book will continue introducing us to the world of Wolfemuir pack and their friends.

Then, likely, A Convenient Murder by Auburn Seal and Amanda A. Allen.  Here’s another look at that fantastic cover:

And then likely, Snow White:

Though that order could totally change.  Regardless, my pinky swear to myself makes me acknowledge that I will write the best version of the above stories that I can.  So, maybe Snow will be April 15 instead of March 15.  Either way, it’ll still be *soon.*  (On a side note, I HATE the word soon.)

Anyhoosen. Progress took a daylight savings induced exhaustion break, but I’m OVER it and back to work.

Damn it.

~Amanda

PS, I’ve read a bunch more of the popsugar book challenge and my classic novel a month challenge.  I’ll recap at the end of the month, but I’m currently reading For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway.

Reading My Own Books

It’s super, super weird to read in print for me.  I can’t justify it.  *Ever*

I thought.

But then I realized I was plotting out the two sequels to Song of Sorrow.  So, yesterday, I picked up a book I wrote a year ago, and I re-read it.

One, it was LUXURIOUS to curl up on my couch and read a book.  Even my own book.  Even for the purpose of writing/ working on books.  I had a dog behind my neck, one of my lap, and my book on my phone.  There was a blanket over my feet.  Man, oh man, those are they days.

Two, it was super weird to read my writing and revisit what was going through my head.

When I published Song of Sorrow, I was a month from finally sending back to their birth mother my first foster care placements, Boy Blue and Feisty Pants.  So, I was dealing with my own serious loss.  I had them in my home for ten months, saw them through some rough times, and miss them like I miss my Dad.  Desperately.

I probably wrote a book about parents losing their children because of that loss.

I was also mothering a baby girl–only fourteen months old.  Her big brother…who was three and a half.  And being semi-prepared for a new baby.  None of whom I was sure were going to stay with me.  So I was dealing with other, terrible emotions.

I can tell what I was thinking at the time by reading those words.  It was a weird little psychological trip.

Also, it was like reading it new again.  As if someone else had wrote it.  It had been so long and I’ve mostly been fighting with Snow White since I published that book that I had forgotten pieces of it.  And how much I like it.  And how proud I am of it.  My goal is make each subsequent book better than the ones before.  I hope that this is true not just of These Lying Eyes and Song of Sorrow.  But of Compelled by Love, Snow White, A Convenient Murder, and what comes thereafter.

Anyhoosen.  It was weird.

~Amanda

Ohhhhh! Sniff! Sniff, sniff, sniff!

Did someone brush you, wash you, and hack off your too long fur with kitchen shears????

It is a HARD knock life!

~Amanda

Fairy Tale Rewrites!

Since I was a girl, wherein I was adorable, I have LOVED fairy tale rewrites!

I’m Red Riding Hood!  Aren’t I adorbs?  Yes.  Though too much bangs, Mumma!  Those took forever to grow out.  Sigh.  Sign and alas.

My love of rewrites started with Beauty, A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley.

I freaking love this book to this day.  This was my first favorite and I read it time and again.  But I think this is my current favorite:

This book is the kind of masterful story telling that energizes me while also making me jealous!  So dang jealous!  Even still I can not WAIT to read it to my little girls.  Honestly, there are so many wonderful fairy tale rewrites.  I could list them and list more.  Gail Carson Levine has a career of rewriting them, and all of her rewrites are amazing.  And Robin McKinely wrote TWO Beauty and the Beasts.  (For that matter, Gail Carson Levine wrote two versions of Cinderella.)  I love them both.

I will do the same someday.  Maybe I’ll write three just to have written three.  I mean Beauty and the Beast, though I do have a plotted version of Cinderella.  The stories in fairy tales are so archetypal you can do it again and again–as evidenced by the literally hundreds of people who have played with the classic stories and come up with entirely different stories.

I have plotted out a whole series of fairy tales with Rose Red and Red Riding Hood and the Snow Queen and…

Though, to be perfectly honest, I’ve plotted two series and a stand alone Beauty and the Beast.  Fairy tales were the first stories I wanted to write.  Or rewrite.  In fact, I intended to start writing (when I finally got brave enough to try writing the stories I’d been dreaming of), with the one about the girl whose brothers were turned into birds.  That story was so precious to me, I didn’t start there.  I was afraid to, so I started with something I intended to be a light funny story. I ended up with These Lying Eyes.

But, *my* rewrite of Snow White–my favorite fairy tale–is being published this month.  I’ve told the story before that I started with a new doucment and the words Snow White.  My goal, at the time, was simply looking to up my word count for Nano.  The world grew from there and went to incorporate plot lines I’ve been playing with for years.

Once, I dreamed I was queen of a magic land and another time when I dreamed I was the abandoned child who had been adopted by giants.  In this case, giants who were simply larger than normal people not Jack and the Beanstalk giants.  I have the most lovely dreams.  These stories will like make their way to the same world that is home to my Snow White.

My stand alone Beauty and the Beast plot line came just a week or two ago and was so much a novelized story that, while dreaming, I thought, “Oh there’s part one of the story.”  I guess I know I’m a real writer now when I break my dreams down into a story arc while still having them.

Or, perhaps, I’m just a freak.

~Amanda

February Popsugar and Classic Book Challenge Update

So this month, I read:

Looking for Alaska by John Green which was A Popular Author’s First Book.  Five stars!

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck which was my February Classic and Pulitzer Prize Winning Book.  5 Stars!

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley which was my A Book Set in a Different Country.  5 Stars!

The Pearl by John Steinbeck which was a second classic challenge and A Book that Became a Movie. 5 Stars!

The Pearl and The Grapes of Wrath are difficult and powerful books.  Damn it!  Both books have SPOILERS dead babies.  I freaking hate that.  But man he was an amazing writer.  He knocks my writer and reader socks off.  And he is POWERFUL with how me puts his stories together.  I’d love to have lunch with the man.  Talk about writer crush.  So looking forward to reading more by him.

The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag by Alan Bradley which was the Book Set Somewhere You’ve Always Wanted to Visit.  4 Stars!

The Weed is the second of the Flavia de Luce books which I heart.  I had been reading them each time the new one came out.  Then an event occurred in the series which I wasn’t excited about and I didn’t read that one.  The reviews of that particular book are good, so I’ve decided to jump back in, re-read the first and carry through to the end. You’ll be seeing the rest of the series (probably) as I plan to plow through, at the minimum, the book I hesitated to read.  I don’t want to spoiler it for anyone if you’re interested in the series.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin which was the Book I Was Supposed to Read in School but Didn’t.  2 Stars!  This is a rebellious little and I didn’t really care for it in the end, but neither did I care for it in the beginning or middle. (It also ruined my good run of excellent, excellent books.  :( )

I chased the above with Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) by Jerome K. Jerome.  I chose it for my book A Funny Book which I assumed I’d love based off of the review that it was like Wodehouse–who is hilarious and I heart that writer to pieces.  Plus Martin K. Jarvis read it and he’s my favorite book reader.   Still reading that one.  :)

It’s been fun, oddly, to choose books with a random reason to read them.  I have enjoyed it so much I’m thinking of continuing in the same style and making my continued “Popsugar Challenge.”  We’ll see.  First let’s accomplish this one.  Things that are likely ahead but who the heck knows….

More Flave!

Travels with Charley by Steinbeck

Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck

A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick

~Amanda

Cover Reveal: A Convenient Murder by Amanda A. Allen & Auburn Seal

Ingrid and Emily are spoiled, incompetent witches who are attempting to begin a new life in the San Juan islands when someone they both despise dies in their book shop. To prevent themselves from getting arrested for a crime they both totally would have committed, they decide to solve the mystery themselves before going back to their rigid schedule of naps and pedicures.

They probably shouldn’t have so much fun trying to prove their innocence even when their spells go awry. But they do!

Coming March 2015!

~Amanda

Pinky Swears Update

So, maybe you remember the list?  The crazy list of partially drafted works-in-progress?  Look!  Look!  Look!

Compelled by Love –PUBLISHED!

Snow White — PREPPING FOR GRAMMAR EDIT

A Convenient Murder (aka Witches #1) — IN THE PROCESS OF GETTING SOME FEEDBACK

The Unraveling of Prince Roger (aka Witch Queen Shorts)– IN THE PROCESS OF GETTING SOME FEEDBACK

Bewildered by Love (Kendawyn #2) –ALMOST READY FOR FEEDBACK

Sister for Sister (aka Witch Short #3) — ALMOST READY FOR FEEDBACK

Song of Loss — IN PROCESS

Song of Heartbreak — IN PROCESS, READY FOR A REWRITE

Paradisi Novella — IN PROCESS, FULLY DRAFTED, BUT NEEDS SERIOUS WORK. (seriously this book is MELODRAMATIC)

Rose Red — Oi and Such.  Oi! (Aka I haven’t touched it yet.  I’m excited to get to it, but it is also a job that will take a bit more time than the above.)

*There is absolutely something to be said about putting your head down and getting to work. There are other things that are in process–but I haven’t touched them since the last time.  These are the ones that are currently being worked in their various stages.

It is absolutely delightful to see the progress of my work and realize that the hard work I have been putting in for over a year is coming to a fruition all at once.  I am in love with the books that are about to be published.  I supposed I should be, but I have varying degrees of love for my books.  Snow White is probably my favorite outside of These Lying Eyes.

A Convenient Murder is so absolutely fun and was a delight to write.  It was so interesting and different to work with someone else, and it has such a lovely history in my mind that I think I’ll always look at A Convenient Murder and realize it is a love story in a way.  A love story of friends.

This book was started the weekend my babies were out of my care for a weekend against my will.  It was one of the worst weekends of my life and Auburn Seal helped me through it by staying with me and making me write.  God bless her forever for that weekend.  You wouldn’t think that something so fun came out of something so hard.

~Amanda

ps sorry about those who got the draft of this while it was in progress.  I’m an auto saver–except I hit publish instead.