Hurdles

Writing is like life, there are many hurdles that you have to overcome to get published.

Hurdle 1- Finish writing a complete manuscript. This hurdle does not seem hard to the average person. In fact, it has a bit of the "duh" factor when you first read it but that is part of it's deception. Anyone who has an imagination (and I hear we all have it; some people I will need to see the proof, though), can think of an idea for a story. We see it in children playing when they are young, give some kids blocks and rock and presto, they have a city! It's hard to write something to completion.

Hurdle 2- Taking a step back and revising. Nothing is perfect the first time, you do it. "Practice makes perfect" was thought up for a reason. I truly feel that the more practice you give to the craft of writing, the better you get at it. So once you are finished, it's important to reread and "make better". There is always something.

Hurdle 3- The whole submitting process. Once you think that your story is as good as you can make it; it's time to start the whole submission to publishers process. Again, not an easy hurdle. You have to write your cover letter and the dreaded synopsis. If you thought writing the story wasn't hard enough, try to boil it down to two to five pages that will catch an editor's attention and want them to take time to read your submission. Crazy!

Hurdle 4- The most heinous of all of the hurdles is the wait. You have submitted everything and now...(crickets and clock ticking in background) they want you to wait. Really? It's enough to make the most pious person say, WFT. Most publishers have a wait time of months. If you are "light" in patience, this is the most difficult part of the process. Sometimes you just want to scream, "Just give me an answer already. I don't even care what it is!!!!"

Hurdle 5- The response. Now here is where you can get some important feedback. A rejection letter can feel more stinging than an actual slap across the face. One publisher said that Fated Mates failed to capture her attention from the beginning. I received that within two hours of my submission. Ouch! Revise and resubmit, this is still a rejection but there is something that the editor likes but wants things to be changed. I got this from another publisher and despite the revisions that I made, they also rejected Fated Mates. Then you have the acceptance letter with contract attached (the heavens open up and a choir of angels sings above you). Fated Mates finally found a home with Secret Cravings Publishing! I think I was doing the happy dance around my house for days. For this, I totally have to thank Amber Skyze for recommending this publisher.

The fact of the matter is that just like life, the hurdles are never ending. After acceptance, there are another set of hurdles that need to be overcome. So the question is, how ready are you for the race? I am ready and even bought a new pair of  "sneakers" for it.

In conclusion, may you have wings on your feet to jump any hurdle that is put in front of you!

Peace Out

MRD

Blogging is tough

I don't know about any of you but I find lately that blogging is tough. I find it much more difficult than writing fiction. First off, the topic has to be interesting. It has to pull people in and have them want to read what you have to say. It's difficult coming up with interesting topics. Sometimes, I spend way too much time thinking about what I am going to blog about. I could write about my life. But in all actuality, I lead a extremely boring life. Although, on Friday, you could have caught me dragging a shopping cart full of books between the main school and the annex which is a block away. My car is still not fixed, so I am driving the man-truck and there is no place to park. So anytime, you need to laugh think about me wheeling a shopping cart full of books in the 'hood. (Pause for the laughter)

Home life is not that interesting either. I live with the hubby and two very curious cats. I feel like my appliances have made a suicide pack together. Every week, I have to defrost the freezer with a hair dryer because it gets clogged with frost and won't cool the fridge down. This takes about forty-five minutes and I get extremely cranky when I have to do this! Two burners on the oven have decided to join in. Now ants have decided that they like the inside of the house rather than the outside. I have tried every natural remedy known to man to get rid of them. I am soon going to have to call an exterminator. See nothing exciting, just normal every day stuff!

So blogging is hard.

Peace out,
MRD

A writing exile

Today is officially the last day of school in my district. It has been a year filled with ups and downs. I am glad that it is over. Next week, I will have to do some more curriculum writing but after that I will officially be on vacation.

After I am finished, I am placing myself on a self-imposed writing exile. I am about half way finished with my story Irish Rising. I would like to get it finished and submitted by the end of July. I think it is a realistic goal. My other WIP is at about 4K but there is this baseball player in my head that keeps on insisting that his story be told. So I think that the cowboy story can be put on hold for a little while.

I have a lot to do today, so that's it for now! Happy Friday and have a great weekend.

Peace out,
MRD

What's the wildest thing you've ever done?

Last week, I was asked to go to a bachelorette party but I didn't know the bride and the person who invited me is just a coworker, so I didn't go. Yesterday, the woman was showing pictures of it to me and my office mate. Of course, there was the mandatory stripper, who is real life is NEVER as hot as in books or on    tv/movies.

The next set of pictures were the crew in the bus. This was impressive. It was called the "Buzz Bus". It had a full bar and a dance floor! I hear some people would have been happy just to drive around in the bus and dance while having a few cocktails. I love to dance, so this is something that I would SO like to do.

The next set of pictures were of bar hopping in Newport. This is typical but there was a twist that caught my attention. Each woman had to pick a card on the way out of the bus and on each card was a task. Flirt with a total stranger. Get a stranger to buy you a drink. Have a guy ask you to dance, or for your number... You get the picture. The one task that had my head spinning was ask a guy to do a shot off of his chest. EXCUSE ME??? Here's the deal. You have to go up to a random guy and ask him to lift or take of his shirt. You then pour a shot on his chest and lick it off! The kicker is apparently guys let you do this. There were pictures and everything. As I'm writing this, part of me still can't believe that this actually happens.

Maybe this is the norm. I haven't been to a bachelorette party in years. Mine was sixteen years ago this month and consisted of the girls in the wedding party taking me into Providence to play pool and have drinks. While I thought we were all doing shots, I was the only one drinking while they were doing shots of lime juice or water. I was home by 11:00 sitting over a bucket, crying and explaining to my husband-to-be that I wasn't crying over something that I did, as he thought, only because I hate to vomit. I am truly a wild child.

While I think it's a totally great idea to put in a book, I'm unsure that I could do it in real life. I keep on thinking, would a total stranger want me to lick a shot off of him? The husband, yes. I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't some type of alcohol waiting for me when I get home from work. Hmmm....

Let me know what you think. Have you ever been to one of these wild parties? What's the wildest thing that you have ever done at one.

Peace out,
MRD

Great kisses

I don't know if it is because I am coming up to the first sex scene in the current WIP or hormones but I have to tell you, all I think about lately is KISSING. Very weird but true. I catch myself dreaming and daydreaming of that one perfect kiss, whether it's the sweet or the hands-fisted in the hair type of kisses, I can't get enough of them. So this sent me on a quest this weekend to create a list of kisses, on film/tv today, that I absolutely could watch over and over again.

So here it is (in no real ranking order, other than I like to put numbers in front of my lists):

1. Aragorn and Arwyn- Return of the King
     I love the kiss at the end of the this movie. I love Viggo in this role.

2. Mr. Coulson and Josie Geller- Never Been Kissed
      A totally sigh-worthy kiss. Josie is waiting in the baseball field for her very first kiss as the clock counts down, only to be briefly disappointed as the buzzer goes off without that kiss. Then there is a growing roar from the crowd as Mr. Coulson makes his way down to the field to give her that kiss.

3. Buffy and Angel- Buffy the Vampire Slayer
      Any time these two tortured lovers kissed on screen the tv practically exploded!

4. Bella and Edward- Twilight
      The kiss in her bedroom when their kissing experiment almost goes wrong is a classic.

5. Spiderman and Mary Jane- Spiderman 1
     There is a kiss in the rain where Spiderman is hanging upside down and Mary Jane lifts his mask to kiss him that I could watch over and over again.

6. Bridget Jones and Mark Darcy- Bridget Jones' Diary
      Any adaptation of Jane Austen's work is near and dear to my heart. These two characters kiss on the London street in a snow storm after she goes running after him in her underwear. It's just perfect. It was such a perfect ending that I didn't see the second movie because I didn't want anything to muck it up!

7. Jonathan and Sarah- Serendipity
     I love this kiss. It comes after the two characters spent the whole movie trying to find each other years after their initial meeting. They finally realize how precious love is and how much time they wasted. The kiss is awesome. The tear that he sheds upon finding her is not that bad either.

8. Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood- Raiders of the Lost Ark
      When Indie goes into the tent and finds her alive, the kiss is so desperately passionate, it made a young girl's heart swoon.

9. Alex and Kate- The Lake House
     I actually made the hubby sit down and watch this kiss. I loved it that much! He says he can do better.  Hmmm....

10.

I left the tenth spot blank. In the comments section, tell me about a tv/movie kiss that really grabbed  your attention!

Peace Out,
MRD

Promo something

Hi all,
It has been crazy here in "Marie-land" lately. So I want you to take some time to highlight something that you have done recently.

Promo yourself! You never know. Maybe you can get one more reader out of it, and that could lead to one more reader, and so on...



Peace Out,
MRD

Highs and Lows

If you haven't gone out and bought a copy of Amber Skyze's new release Chasing Forever. You can a get copy over at Ellora's Cave. Reading this book was the highlight of the weekend, I got my copy on Friday night after work and read it in one sitting. I loved the relationship between the two characters. It's a complex  when friends make the decision to move to the next level. There is always a chance that it will totally ruin the special relationship that they already have together. You won't be disappointed.

While Friday night was the highlight (despite no Friday Night Lights being on because of hockey, really?), Saturday was the ultimate low point. It started off by getting the husband up for a new MRI. Since his insomnia seems to be in full swing lately and didn't get to bed until 4 am. It took super-human strength to accomplish this. We were almost late to the appointment, only to have to wait twenty minutes for them to be ready. After he went in and the complaining stopped, I was able to do some writing in the waiting room. 

On the way home, he expressed that he wanted our I-Tunes music put on his Iphone. So when we got home, I had the delusion that I could do this. Except of course I couldn't and wiped his phone of the entire contents. The only saving grace was that we've only had these phones for a month, so the info lost was at a minimum. He grumbled about the pictures that were lost. I think that he can take more photos of the cats but that's just my opinion!

If that wasn't enough, the universe decided to throw in a major car malfunction. Coming home from errands, I heard a loud thump in the front end of the vehicle as I parked in the driveway. I really didn't think of it because my car creaks and groans all the time. Later, when I had to go to a Bar Mitzvah party, I couldn't get the car out of the driveway. Something is broken in the tire well. The tire is all crooked and it's going to have to be towed to the mechanic. 

I have to give the husband credit. He didn't do his usual freak out. I think that he was so happy that it happened in the driveway instead of on the highway driving 70mph that he didn't really car about the car. Of course now, he thinks the car is a death trap and wants to start looking for new ones. Don't know how I feel about another car payment when I was finally going to be free of them in six months. We'll see what the mechanic has to say.

So I was happy to see this weekend end.

Peace out,

MRD

Torn between two worlds

Right now, I feel like I am torn between two worlds. The dreaded day job which will be finished for the summer on June 30th and my writing. They are in a constant struggle to see who gets more of my time at the moment.

The dreaded day job will finally be over for the year on June 30th. I can't believe that the school is year is almost over. It has been a crazy roller coaster ride that decided to add a new loop at the very end. As I have complained many times over the course of the year, I have been writing curriculum for a new reading program that we are getting. The avalanche of boxes have been coming in, I have been moving them around to the great detriment of my skin, nails, legs, feet, and clothes. I have ruined two pairs of beautiful sandals trying to move boxes and be stylish. Silly yes, but I do love my shoes. My school is also broken up into two buildings. The main building that houses grades 2-6 and the annex that houses k-1. So I am constantly running between the two. It's a little harder to do this recently considering the two murders in the neighborhood. But I digress... So here's the new loop. My main building, which is housed in an old mill, is changing to a Prek-1 school. All of the Grade 2-5 students are moving to the school on the other side of the mill. So the moving has begun! It has been such  crazy ride and I can't wait to get off. Now the problem with this is that yesterday, the temperature skyrocketed to the mid-90's and today will be even worse. Moving is not what I want to do today. So by the time I get home, I'm a red-face, sweat-stained, dirty mess. I can barely drag myself into the shower to clean who-knows-what off of me. All I want to do is sit on the coach and watch tv.

So now the writer in me is feeling guilty. My WIP, Irish Rising, is coming along nicely. I am soon going to hit the 10k mark. I actually think it's a much better crafted story than the first one being published in November. It is true the more you  write, the better you get. Of course, now I am too tired to write anything of substance. I am trying to get into work a little bit earlier, to get in at least a hour before the craziness starts. Sometimes it works and sometimes, it doesn't. So my characters are constantly screaming, "What about me?" Also characters that are waiting to be written are not very patient people. I have a professional baseball player that keeps resurfacing in my dreams that wants his story told. He doesn't realize that a cowboy is in the line before him. I don't know there might be a brawl!

I am patiently waiting for July 1st to come around, so that for four glorious weeks I can sit and write full time.

Peace Out,
MRS

Sorry about being MIA

I apologize for being MIA for a few days. I am on some medication that this time seems to be kicking my butt all over the state of Rhode Island. I come home from work and immediately want to sleep most days with a migraine, so I have been doing nothing, including writing. This morning, I was going to try to catch up on the blogs that I read but when I went scrolling through them, there were too many. So I decided to start fresh again today with my own blog and others that I follow.

This morning, I can feel another migraine already coming on behind my eyes. I had to go to the eye doctor yesterday with one. She did so many tests and added so many drops that for a while, I actually thought that there might be something wrong that all the long hours at the computer had changed my vision but she very bubbly told me that nothing had changed. She ordered me new contacts, I hate wearing my glasses. My husband says I'm very vain about it. But I can be, and I don't care. But between the migraine and contacts on order, I am going to be forced to wear my glasses today.

Now, if I had some sexy librarian type glasses that would be another story.  I wanted to look at some yesterday but the headache was too bad. So here is my question. Are women in glasses sexy? Have you ever written a character that has glasses? In all of my works, my vast 3 manuscripts (two unfinished), none of my characters wear glasses. Is it Freudian of me? Hmmm...

Peace Out,
MRD

The next steps

I have finished the blurbs- the 25 word blurb, the 50 word blurb, and the 150 word blurb. I can't even explain how hard it was to write a teaser blurb with only 25 words. My first draft came in at 43 words, so had to cut it down drastically. I know what your thinking. It could have been my 50 word blurb but my mind does not work that way. I have to build up from the smallest amount of words to the largest amount.

The cover questionnaire is also completed. It was very exciting to give ideas of what I want my cover for Fates Mates to look like. Now, I just have to wait for the edits and the cover to come in. Very exciting.

So what I have been noticing is that a lot of authors are creating book trailers to promote their books. Let's pretend for a minute that I have any knowledge on how to create one. Some of them that I've seen have been really cool. So the question is, do they help sell books? I am interested in what all of you have to say about this. 

The second WIP is coming along nicely, although a little slower than what I would like but the day job is a little crazy. The big deadlines have passed so, I think that the writing can increased. My goal is to have at least two books subbed out by the time Fated Mates is released in November. I think it's realistic. I secretly hope to have three or four but that might be pushing the limit. Two is realistic. 

Peace Out,

MRD

Why are we surprised?

I had the idea for this post a while ago but with all that's happened, it went on the back burner for a while.

A few weeks ago, all of the blog were buzzing about the fact that Arnold cheated on Maria Shriver with another woman and had a secret child with this woman. I was shocked myself but why was I shocked? I guess I bought the hype. Maria coming from a well-know family that some equate to the closest thing to royalty that America has (This comes from my mother, a totally different generation.). Him, a body builder from another country that came from nothing and became a Hollywood star. It seemed perfect. We bought that dream.

Now we have John Edwards who is in a heap load of trouble. Not only cheated on his wife (sick wife), had a child with the woman but is now under investigation on whether or not he used campaign funds to cover up the affair. What a peach he truly turned out to be.

So the question is why are we shocked by this behavior? These are just men who have power and money. When you combine the two, most of the time, it is a cocktail for trouble. These men can fall into a few categories. One of them is the type of man that thinks that he can do anything because of who he is. Another is type is the one who think that he will never get caught. Lastly, some of them are the perfect prey for woman looking to sleep with someone famous/unattainable. Some of these predators are blatant, throwing panties in you face type of woman but then there is another more deadly type. The subtle type that works into the man's affections without him even knowing it is happening.

"Oh, your girlfriend/wife doesn't understand why you want to hang out at the bar with your friends all night. That's terrible, if I was your girlfriend/wife, I would totally understand why you need that time to be with your friends."

And the seed is planted, as easy as that.

My mother read a statistic the other day that 1 in 4 men cheat on their wives. She didn't believe it. She believes it's more like 3 out of 4. My God-fearing, rosary bead carrying, go to confession once a month mother, believes that more men cheat than stay faithful. I have to say, I was shaken to the core. I think that's pretty grim. I'm a realist but that depressed me.

So basically, for your own respect, the respect of your family, and your reputation, just keep it in your pants unless you want to be the running jokes on all of the late night talk shows. If you don't and get caught, you deserve everything you get.

So I will keep writing my stories where this is not a possibility. And for Mr. M, if you ever think about it, we have big knives in the house and I know how to use them!!!

Peace out,
MRD