Happy Halloween!!

I've always loved Halloween so this year it was kind of weird that I didn't dress up or do a whole bunch of Halloween stuff, but I swear the holiday just snuck up on me! Plus my niece went to a dance instead of trick-or-treating (something I go with her every year to do) so it just seemed a bit off plus with Halloween being on a Sunday, my town did everything on Saturday. But I did go over to my sisters and help do my niece's makeup. She made an awesome witch!

Pumpkins my niece, her cousin, and I carved....I kind of took the owl's head off on accident!

Since I didn't dress up and have seen a few other bloggers do this, I'll give you a spam of costumes past:

I'm guessing my parents were going for child who ate too much candy for my costume when I was 3.

My sister and I as Muppet Babies!

Scooby Dooby Doo where are you? My mom made this one for me and it's still my all time favorite.

Well until this costume. I loved dressing up as a witch and wore this costume the following year :)

Hope everyone had a safe and fun Halloween! I'm going to go watch some movies and eat left over candy and gear up for NaNoWriMo tomorrow!! Let the word count begin!!

Why I should never be allowed near a glue gun.

I blogged before that I loved the button earrings I had seen on Etsy. I even bought a pair, but sadly they turned out to be huge and they don't look too cute on my ears. So I went to this sew shop in town and bought a few bags of buttons to make my own.

You know that one friend of yours that somehow manages to get hurt by the most random things? Well, that friend is me. So I really shouldn't have been surprised that I got injured trying to make earrings while watching Hocus Pocus.

Right around the time when Max was delivering the line, "Well, in case Jimi Hendrix shows up tonight, here's my number." - which by the way is the best pick up line ever and I totally would have called Max if he said that to me -  I noticed there wasn't much glue coming out of my gun anymore so I pumped it a few times then grabbed another stick to push in. I shove it in, stare back at the TV, and suddenly there is something incredibly FREAKING HOT ON MY FOOT!

A huge glob of glue was chillin' on my foot! My first reaction of course was get it off! get it off! so I swipe it with my thumb....yeah, not a good idea. So not only did I have this nice blister on my thumb, but when I got the glue off, my skin came off with it. Observe:

But the plus side to this is that I have tons of cute button earrings like this so I say it's a win-win situation.

Wannabe Writers #39

Wannabe Writers is an Internet writing group. Everyone is welcome to join. It's a place to meet other writers, ask questions, and get feedback. Click here to find more about how it works.

Where I am in the writing process: Unpublished and have been writing since I was 10. Earlier this month I made the bold step (bold to me at least) to dump my adult WIP and turn it into a YA novel for NaNoWriMo.

My current problem(s): Strangely enough, I'm not really having any. Besides maybe not brainstorming enough to gear up for November 1st, I'm having a lot of fun just discovering more and more about my characters. I think turning this into a YA was quite possibly the best decision to make. One of my book blogging friends, Kim from And Anything Bookish made me this awesome banner to use:



My question this week: In middle school, I used to write all my stories in these big wide rule notebooks. I would carry them with me everywhere. Take them to a friend's house and always pass them around to see what they all thought of my new chapters. In some stories, I would make them look a bit more snazzy by adding cut out pictures from magazines. Like this one:

(Please don't judge me by that super cheese-tastic title. I was like thirteen when I put this together!)




(Poe was my favorite. Yes, she was named after the singer. Gotta love the 90's.)

(Those were the 'mean girls' in the story. And see, they've always came in a pair of three!)

My first ever full notebook story was called Joni's Unperfect/Perfect Life. It was about a teenage girl who lived with her mom and her older brother named Sean. He was in a grunge band trying to be the next Kurt Cobain. Joni had a kick butt set of friends, one was girl named Sammy who was influenced by one of my friends. (I even wrote a spin off called: Sammy's In Love. She played soccer and met her crush at a game. I don't think it had an ending though.) Anyways, Joni had this major thing for the new boy and a bunch of drama happened between her and the popular girl at school. I think Joni broke her nose in a fight and blah, blah, blah.

I only remember bits and pieces because I have long since lost that notebook. It makes me sad because I would love to read it again. Flipping through all my other stories, it's like the ultimate set of cheese. I'm perfectly fine with that because when I went through all these notebooks again, I remembered how much making these stories up even back then meant to me. Even though I've taken my writing way more seriously and want to pull my hair out, at the end of the day, I still love it.

So my question this week is:

What was the first story or book you wrote? How old were you and what was it about?

It's just a jump to the left!

The Rocky Horror Picture Show has been an all time favorite of mine since I was little. I used to do the time warp in my parents' living room and get in trouble when I sang along to Damn It, Janet. Because as my dad informed me, you couldn't say damn until you were eighteen. Yes, I realize I was probably entirely way too young to watch it, but eh oh well.

Ever since then I've always wanted to go to dress up as Magenta and go to a show. So when I heard there was going to be a full fledge play this month I texted my sister and said let's go! So on Sunday we headed up to Springfield to the Vandivort Center Theatre, bought a prop box, and settled in our seats.

I really had no idea what to expect, but I was blown away. The show was insane, hilarious, crazy, demented, and such an experience! The cast was perfect! The dancing the singing - holy moly! I couldn't even pick a favorite they all did such a wonderful job.

My sister & I. We ended up not dressing up - maybe next time

There were a lot of people in the audience who weren't 'virgins' like my sister and I. (Though we did NOT raise our hands when the director asked the audience who were virgins. I've seen documentaries, I know what can happen to those virgins.) There were a few people who shouted out stuff, and I even shouted out an asshole to Brad with everyone. My favorite was definitely the prop box. To go to a play where you can actually participate and have the cast interact with you was something you don't see often. We threw confetti, toilet paper, had newspapers over our heads while the Transylvanians squirted us with water guns from above, snapped gloves and ummm other things, rang bells - it was all just a crazy fun ride. When it was over, they even did an encore of the time warp and you better believe I along with most of the audience busted it out.

So if you live in the Springfield area then what are you waiting for?! There are still two more weeks of the show left SO GO GET YOUR TICKETS NOW!!

*First picture was snagged from the Vandivort Center Theatre's facebook page.

Getting some hobbies.

I've become a bit obsessed with Etsy.com. I spend hours just looking and looking at things. There is SO MUCH STUFF THERE! I'll admit, some stuff is beyond ridiculous. Or maybe it's just ridiculous to me because I'm a bit of a cheap wad. But there are some things I've fallen in love with.



Button earrings. I ended up ordering a pair. (Not the ones pictured but I think they're super freaking cute - You can get those from Hannah Earrings' shop.)




Don't you just want that on your head?! I love wearing beanies and so glad that it's Fall (!!) so I can wear them more often. You can purchase the one in the picture from Love Fuzz's shop.

Before I went crazy on buying things, it hit me that I may be able to make some of this stuff. When I put effort towards it, I can be quite the crafty person. I've been wanting to get a couple more hobbies so what the heck! I'm going to start making earrings and learn how to crotchet! And I pretty much have no clue what I'm doing, but I'm going to Hobby Lobby on Wednesday to get some stuff so let's all cross our fingers that something pretty comes out of it.

What about you? Have you recently picked up any hobbies or maybe have some already? Do share!

Wannabe Writers #37

Where I am in the writing process: Unpublished. Never fully finished a story unless you count one I wrote in middle school and a fanfiction.

My current problem(s): Getting some balls. Yep. Balls. And I might even need some Jumbo Coconut Balls (points for you if you can guess what movie that saying came out of) if I'm really going to turn my old WIP into a YA novel. I have a lot of things outlined. A lot of ideas, and some missing plot holes that seem to make more sense when the story is now being told through a seventeen year old rather than a twenty-four year old. But I dunno. I'm afraid that I might just crap this story all over the place and end up hating it. Yes, I know I am over analyzing the hell out of this. Welcome to my neurotic writing life.

My question this week: How do you outline? I usually give myself big points like what I want to happen at the beginning, middle, or end. I know it will change at some point, but I'm curious how other people do it.

NaNoWriMo - Are you signing up this year?

I'm sure everyone and their mother knows by now that the NaNoWriMo boards have opened up. I plan on joining up this year, and tackling my first ever Young Adult novel. I haven't written YA since I was probably 19. Kind of funny seeing that's about all I read, but when I write, I write about people in their twenties. I'm excited to see what's going to happen. Details of my story coming up later when I can actually sum it up without writing a million paragraphs that go "Well then this will happen...."

If you're doing NaNoWriMo this year feel free to add me. I'd love to have many writing partners especially for encouragement! Just click here to buddy me on the site.

Wannabe Writers #36

Wannabee Writers is an Internet writing group I created. Everyone is welcome to join. It's a place to meet other writers, ask questions, and get feedback. Click here to find out more about how it works.

Where I am in the writing process: Oh lord. Don't even ask me this week.

My current problem(s): Deciding on what to freaking write. I haven't written in almost three weeks since I made the decision to finally pull the plug on That Damn Novel. I had been working on That Damn Novel for two and a half years. Had four different beginning drafts, over 100 pages of notes, but yet somehow could never really meet a middle and an end. I kept thinking WHY CAN'T I TELL THIS STORY?! Finally. I went over it, really looked into, and realized all I had was this back story. This whole story of who my character used to be when she was a teenager. How her family used to be before she ran away. All of her friends and relationships and how they were when she was a teenager. So I decided no more, and maybe just maybe one day I would just write the backstory because that's obviously where the story was at.

So after dumping That Damn Novel off in the desert, I decided to take a spin at my old WIP, The Unexpected Clash of Strangers. That story is fun. Gracie is the type of girl who should have to wear a helmet every time she ventures out into the street. I worked on it for two days before I decided to just take a break from it all. Last week, ideas starts brewing and I decided ya know what - I am going to tackle that YA novel and I'm going to do it for NaNoWriMo. So in the between time when I'm not mapping out ideas for what shall be called That Damn YA Novel (no, not really it has a title: Just Call Me Gus but I just like saying damn. It fits my mood this week) I'm also going to work here and there on The Unexpected Clash of Strangers just to see where it'll take me before I dump it off in the desert too.

My question this week: What have you done when a story just wasn't working right? Did you change the plot? Change your characters? Knock off a character? Give up? Or decide that maybe switching genres would be the best bet?