A little bit of this and a little bit of that...
It's been a while since I blogged. The summer has been busy; I've moved, taken summer classes, and tried to promote my books. Now everything is falling into place, and there seems to be some time left over to do things I actually enjoy. Like, talking to myself in writing...
As some of you might already know, I'm in college. It's mostly for practical reasons, but it's fun too. Anyway, I've signed up for a class in Creative Writing, and the first assignment was to start a journal. The goal is to get people used to writing regularly, and the teacher wants us to write a little something every day. She recommended about twelve pages in a four week period. That seemed easy enough. I mean, I already babble constantly in blogs and books, and spend my nights doodling ideas and thoughts down in my iPod. When I got home and told my boyfriend about the journal he nearly rolled on the floor laughing, and hollered, "Did she give you an upper limit, like a notebook a day?" He knows that the problem with me usually isn't to make me write. It's to make me shut up! LOL!
Today, the class assignment was about poetry. I really hadn't counted on having to write poems. Not my strong side. The teacher handed out little notecards and everyone got to write five words each. Then, the notecards were collected and scrambled up, and everyone ended up with new words. The assignment was to write a poem in twenty minutes containing all the words you got, and a minimum of fourty words. It also had to make sense. Owww! Hahaha!
I looked at my cards and scratched my head, thinking, "I could easily write a STORY about this..." Rearranging the cards on the desk didn't do much. I mean, the words turtle and gourmet might have a connection if one is into eating the cutesie little animals, and the step from there to information, exercise, and future might not have been as far as it seemed at the time, but nothing came to mind. My head has never been that blank.
I ended up scribbling something down, and it was the worst piece of s...t I've written in my life. I wasn't too worried about it, until it dawned on me that we were supposed to read the poems to the class. I didn't think I had much of a comfort zone; I'm not afraid to do a lot of things that normal people dread. Things like public speaking, attempting to pilot a plane or facing large and angry dogs don't faze me. Reading this utterly terrible figment of my imagination loud to the group did. I couldn't get out of it, I tried to look confident and not apologize for it, and it was a really good experience for me. I think I learned more from that than I've done from the past two years in school!
Ok, enough of babbling about things I can't write. Let's talk about books instead! There is currently a giveaway of my book "Kidnapped" on Goodreads, and during fall there will be chances to win copies of "Undercover" and "Touch of the Goddess." Soon there will also be a giveaway of my books on the site untamedbookreviews.com. Might be worth checking out!
:-)
To my great joy, a couple of people have asked if there might be another book about the characters in “Kidnapped.” The answer, at the moment, is “Yes and No.” I have started working on a little something, but it's a prequel telling the story of how the rebels get together, and giving the background story of Travis and Veronica. Thus, most of the characters from “Kidnapped” would be in it, except for Tricia. This project is still at an early stage. I write on it every now and then, but it won’t be ready this year.
Another figment of my imagination that’s almost ready takes place in the future. It will be a romantic story with a more humorous twist than the other books. Alexandra wakes up in an unfamiliar environment, and finds herself in a strange room together with one woman that seems to be half cat, and one that looks and sounds exactly like a musician Alex saw in a concert a few months earlier. Or, what she thinks is a few months earlier. It turns out that she has amnesia, that she died while saving someone, and that said someone brought her into the future to save her life. It’s really the year 2577. If all goes well, and if I can think of a name for it, hahaha, this book will be released this autumn. Funny thing with names; I have no problem writing 300 pages about something, but making up a name for it makes me want to pull my hair out!
Besides this, I keep trying to finish “Wrath of the Goddess.” My plans for “Wrath” is to have it out around Christmas, but I might have to push that a little into 2011. We’ll see what happens!
Oooh, I almost forgot a funny thing that I just have to share! I’m a real “curious George,” and I subscribe to Google Alerts. That way, I get a nice little mail every time Google discovers something written about me. The other day I got an alert for a review of “Touch,” and today I got three more alerts for the same book. When I peeked at it, I thought that it seemed familiar. Turns out that people have snatched the first review someone wrote and re-posted it on other websites under their own names. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not complaining. To me, publicity is good, and I’m delighted if people spread a positive review for something I wrote. I’m just fascinated with a review being plagiarized. Intriguing!
Ok, that's more than enough babble from me for one night. Over and out!
//Maria
As some of you might already know, I'm in college. It's mostly for practical reasons, but it's fun too. Anyway, I've signed up for a class in Creative Writing, and the first assignment was to start a journal. The goal is to get people used to writing regularly, and the teacher wants us to write a little something every day. She recommended about twelve pages in a four week period. That seemed easy enough. I mean, I already babble constantly in blogs and books, and spend my nights doodling ideas and thoughts down in my iPod. When I got home and told my boyfriend about the journal he nearly rolled on the floor laughing, and hollered, "Did she give you an upper limit, like a notebook a day?" He knows that the problem with me usually isn't to make me write. It's to make me shut up! LOL!
Today, the class assignment was about poetry. I really hadn't counted on having to write poems. Not my strong side. The teacher handed out little notecards and everyone got to write five words each. Then, the notecards were collected and scrambled up, and everyone ended up with new words. The assignment was to write a poem in twenty minutes containing all the words you got, and a minimum of fourty words. It also had to make sense. Owww! Hahaha!
I looked at my cards and scratched my head, thinking, "I could easily write a STORY about this..." Rearranging the cards on the desk didn't do much. I mean, the words turtle and gourmet might have a connection if one is into eating the cutesie little animals, and the step from there to information, exercise, and future might not have been as far as it seemed at the time, but nothing came to mind. My head has never been that blank.
I ended up scribbling something down, and it was the worst piece of s...t I've written in my life. I wasn't too worried about it, until it dawned on me that we were supposed to read the poems to the class. I didn't think I had much of a comfort zone; I'm not afraid to do a lot of things that normal people dread. Things like public speaking, attempting to pilot a plane or facing large and angry dogs don't faze me. Reading this utterly terrible figment of my imagination loud to the group did. I couldn't get out of it, I tried to look confident and not apologize for it, and it was a really good experience for me. I think I learned more from that than I've done from the past two years in school!
Ok, enough of babbling about things I can't write. Let's talk about books instead! There is currently a giveaway of my book "Kidnapped" on Goodreads, and during fall there will be chances to win copies of "Undercover" and "Touch of the Goddess." Soon there will also be a giveaway of my books on the site untamedbookreviews.com. Might be worth checking out!
:-)
To my great joy, a couple of people have asked if there might be another book about the characters in “Kidnapped.” The answer, at the moment, is “Yes and No.” I have started working on a little something, but it's a prequel telling the story of how the rebels get together, and giving the background story of Travis and Veronica. Thus, most of the characters from “Kidnapped” would be in it, except for Tricia. This project is still at an early stage. I write on it every now and then, but it won’t be ready this year.
Another figment of my imagination that’s almost ready takes place in the future. It will be a romantic story with a more humorous twist than the other books. Alexandra wakes up in an unfamiliar environment, and finds herself in a strange room together with one woman that seems to be half cat, and one that looks and sounds exactly like a musician Alex saw in a concert a few months earlier. Or, what she thinks is a few months earlier. It turns out that she has amnesia, that she died while saving someone, and that said someone brought her into the future to save her life. It’s really the year 2577. If all goes well, and if I can think of a name for it, hahaha, this book will be released this autumn. Funny thing with names; I have no problem writing 300 pages about something, but making up a name for it makes me want to pull my hair out!
Besides this, I keep trying to finish “Wrath of the Goddess.” My plans for “Wrath” is to have it out around Christmas, but I might have to push that a little into 2011. We’ll see what happens!
Oooh, I almost forgot a funny thing that I just have to share! I’m a real “curious George,” and I subscribe to Google Alerts. That way, I get a nice little mail every time Google discovers something written about me. The other day I got an alert for a review of “Touch,” and today I got three more alerts for the same book. When I peeked at it, I thought that it seemed familiar. Turns out that people have snatched the first review someone wrote and re-posted it on other websites under their own names. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not complaining. To me, publicity is good, and I’m delighted if people spread a positive review for something I wrote. I’m just fascinated with a review being plagiarized. Intriguing!
Ok, that's more than enough babble from me for one night. Over and out!
//Maria
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