O.L.L.E. HOW I LOVE THEE!!!

Today my family went to the park.  Not an unusual occurrence, true, but this weekend is special.  Today is the annual Frontier Days weekend.  There all various booths from out of town and local selling things  Community parade, games, competitions, and all sorts of things.

Every year,  for I don't know how long, my family waits for this event because of our favorite booth: the O.L.L.E. stand.

What is an O.L.L.E.? you ask.

It is a drink.  It's a combination of lemon, lime, orange juice (fresh from the fruit) with ice and maraschino cherries.  Or mana from heaven.

 With the sun beating down and the temp at 90+ degrees Fahrenheit (32+ Celsius), it is the most fantastic tasting thing.  So refreshing.

I drool thinking about it.

What's great is that they have cups that you can buy and then reuse every year.  It drops the price of a large drink by a dollar fifty.

Also, they have plain lemon, lime, or orange ades.  And you can get them sans cherries too for a more  tangy flavor.

Well, all I can say is that I'm dosed up on vitamin C.

And I can't wait to do it again next year!

NEW WRITING CONTEST!!

There is a new writing contest as well as a slew of other awesome contests on Sam'sblog.

There is a new contest on Sam's blog.  It has a piece of music to inspire you.

Not only that there are three other contests too!  The first is an audiomachine one where you design a t-shirt using the logos and tags.  The second is creating a book trailer for the book Colin Frake.  The third is cover art for an album for Really Slow Motion.

The writing one is blipping epic.  Steampunk Vikings!!!  I know.  Too cool, huh?  All ya have to do is write a 500 word flash fiction and post it to the page.

The due date is August 9th, peeps.  So get on the ball and let that imagination shine!

SUMMER AND WRITING PART 2 -- THE WHINING EDITION

So here I am trying to get the 17.5k word minimum for the Tor submission.  I've only reached the lofty (ha ha!) word count of 1500 words in the last two weeks.

Between work and time management, I don't seem to find a lot of computer time.  I usually start writings with pen and paper, but I tried that this time.  It failed miserably. 

Anyway, I only have 15,928 more words to go!  Yay!

Steampunk is a new genre for me.  Of course, I had to add fantasy to it because it adds froufrou bits to an otherwise gritty (IMO) genre.  I don't do gritty well.  I need to work on gritty and dirty (Ah ah ah! Keep it clean, peeps!) scenes. 

It's fun to write, but it's a pain to keep notes for it.  Every time I make up a new spell or new object, I need to add it to the **cough cough** glossary.  there are over twenty items on the thing already, including ship terms, magic, terms used, place names, people, and technologies.

It's only going to grow larger. 

Of course, I'm sick and twisted enough to own a dictionary for sailing/ship terms as well as one that lists words related to each other.  So they have British officers titles together, Victorian clothes listed, and so many more things.  My Geek-dar goes off whenever I flip through all those pages.

But considering I love etymology and random, weird factoids, y'all shouldn't be surprised.

Some of the problem is that my usual writing spot, (right hand corner of the couch) is used each morning.  It's one of my favorite writing times.  So I'm using the dining room table and my feng shui is off because of it.  I also like writing late at night when everyone is in bed.  Only sometimes I'm so tired I can't keep my eyes open.  Le sigh.

See.  I did say it's the whining edition.

Now that it's all off my chest.  I will try to get another ten words out.  woo!

As they do in Korean dramas: Fighting!

SUMMER AND WRITING

Well, I've learned that Tor is opening for unsolicited novella manuscripts for their new imprint, which is entitled Tor Imprint.

Tor is one of the major publishers that focus mainly on sci-fi and fantasy.

So dust off those short stories and polish them all nice and shiny.  You have until the end of August.

Here is the blog post announcing it:  Tor Post

The submission guidelines link is:  Imprint Guidelines

WRiTE CLUB

Well, I just found this the other day when I received a blog post.

I checked it out and thought it was neat so I entered.

Here is the link to the the details that I would mangle horribly.

http://www.dlhammons.com/p/write-club-2014.html

REFLECTING

This odyssey began last year when I found out about the challenge.  I declined that year.  This year I took up the challenge and entered in February and decided that I would do a story.  Crazy, huh?

How crazy was I?  Let me tell you: Pretty blipping crazy!

I thought I would do maybe a page for each entry, but the story took over.  Luckily I had up to M done by the end of March.  April was a scramble to keep up with my posts.  I started with a two week lead.  By the end of the month, I had only two days to finish Y.

On top of that, I got a head cold.  Woot!  10% alcohol chugged at 6 hr. intervals.  Let's just say I was a little high as a kite when writing Y.

Heck, Z was written and scheduled back when I was supposed to be writing S.  Heh heh heh.  In hindsight, that was a good thing.  Non-linear writing.  My forte.  Know what happens afterward and you can write what happens before that.

And then I chapter!  Insert Expletives and Curse Words here!  Oh my giddy goodness!  This chapter had me.  I could not figure out how to write it.  It was crap-tastic the three other times I tried.  I was ready to bang my head against a brick wall.  (I have access to one, and I would have done it too!)  Then Lo and Behold!  I HAD A DREAM!  No, I mean that literally.  I had a dream about it.  And there it was.  Completely change the p.o.v. and tense. Who the heck cares how random it is!  It worked. 

So thinking on it, I don't write A to Z.  What the hell was I doing when I signed up for a challenge that required it!

On to the mushy and heart-wrenching stuff.

As I look back on the last month, I have to grin.  I found some wonderful new blogs and learned so many new things that didn't know about mythology, monsters, fairy tales, morbidity, and grammar.

I have to thank the PTBs that make the annual Blogging from A to Z Challenge possible.  THANK YOU! 

I also want to thank the wonderful peeps that popped up on my blog every day and commented.  I felt the love!

First off, to the lovely lady that pointed out this awesome challenge to me, Sam.  Thank you for believing me so much. 

Sara, you were my first comment on the first day.  Not only that you were with me the entire way.  Yggdrasil will never be forgotten!  Your posts were fantastic.

Patricia, I have to say wow!  You kept me entertained with your fantastic flash fictions with those terrifying words!  Thanks for sticking with me!

Li, I had fun with all those neat posts about character development and all those links to the tests.  The results were kinda scary . . . 

Mina, those posts on monsters were fantastic.  I had a blast reliving some of them from childhood and reading about ones I never saw.  Btw, love the monster links for the social websites.  Where did you get those? 

S. L. Hennessy, those fairy tale posts were dark and loved every minute of the creepyness.  The pics of the zombies . . . LOVE THEM!  

Natasha,  I had an amazing journey with all those different vampires.  I didn't know that there were so many species of them.  Talk about terrifying.  


Marlene, those grammar lessons came in handy.  I realize I need to have remedial grammar lessons! =D

Then there are all those fantastic blogs I found that also had stories, recipes, ghosts, fictional characters.  I had a great time reading each day.

Thank you to everyone who stopped by during the challenge.

A to Z Challenge. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX -- TIME

           The zephyr blew her thick hair back as she stood on the balcony of their bedroom. The sun painted the jagged sky a gorgeous palette of crimsons and oranges. She breathed in the cool air in contentment.    

           The rugged fortress home appealed to her. It reminded her of the Aerie in that was cradled in a valley of those same rugged mountains. The forest was tame here, but it was still a breathtaking sight.

           Below her, in the main hall, she knew that the zakuski were being plated and the zitherist was giving her instrument the last bit of tuning. Tonight was the anniversary celebration of their marriage. The jubilation would commence the moon’s zenith.   

            Two years. She said a prayer to thank the Zeitgeist for giving them such zephyrean benevolence. Only the minor conflicts between lords and petty disputes between neighbors had plagued them. The diplomatic relations between the bordering countries were strong.

            A knock sounded on the door. “Enter.”

            The door opened and a loving rogue strode into the room. His eyes lit up as he saw her come into the room, closing the balcony doors behind her. A scar curved over his left eye, a permanent reminder of Phaeris. 

            “How is my zaftig woman?” he asked as he touched the obvious bump with a gentle hand.

            A snort escaped her as a second person entered the room. “My wife would much better off if you would quit manhandling her with such zeal all the time.”

            “But, coz, she doesn’t mind it. Do you, Ruya?” Garrick asked with a pathetic puppy look.

            “No, I don’t mind,” she answered as she gave his hand a tender squeeze before approaching Nándor.

            Nándor pressed a kiss to Ruya’s temple. “Don’t encourage him. It only makes him worse.”

            “Still jealous?”

            Nándor gave Garrick a speaking look. “Don’t push your luck, coz, or you’ll find yourself on the training fields with the first years.”

            Horror washed over Garrick’s face. He raised his hands in supplication and backed toward the door. “Oh no! Anything but that!” he groaned. “Will you let your husband torture me?”

            Ruya giggled. “Why not? They could not ask for a better teacher. The story of your scar is legendary. They will flock all over you in worship.”

            Garrick made a disgusted sound and said, “You’re as bad as he is.”

            They watched as he hastened out of the room; their laughter ringing out into the corridor.



©djinnia 2014