Define that word

I have so much fun with word verification, as I have surely mentioned a jillion times. And, because I want to share my love with you, and hopefully SHOW you why I have fun with the annoying little buggers, I made a game.

Game is, simple enough: Define That Absurd Word!

Yea, it sucks having to decipher some of them. Yea it's a b**** when you don't see the word verification in time and close the window, thinking you have just commented, just as it pops up to taunt you.

But when they cooperate, it's just a little bit of fun to think of what the crap that word would ever mean. It's stupid, it's pointless, but isn't it nice to be easily amused?

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A thanks to Abby Minard, my amazing crit partner, for the Bee elle oh gee award! It made my day to know I could make someone smile! And then to get the proof to show off like it was diamonds was pretty killer too! Thanks Abby!

Passing it on to:
Katrina L. Lantz
Erica and Christy
Jennie Bailey
Shannon Whitney Messenger

Okay, another award!! WHOOTTTT!! This one comes from Katrina L. Lantz!!!!  Who is just a big bucket of awesome ALL THE TIME. Thank you Katrina!!

With this one I give you 7 things you didn't know about me(I hope): 1. my hubs got his hair cut Tuesday AND shaved down his beard from mountain man to distinguished business man without me knowing he was going to. I get home and seriously, no shittin', had a weird moment where I felt like I was cheating on my husband by kissing this sexy sexy man in my bedroom. Had to wonder if I had gotten in a serious accident on my way home and kissing a sexy stranger was going to be comma dream.

2. I HATE dark chocolate. HATE HATE HATE. Until I found Brookside Dark Chocolate Pomegranate. NOM! (but still hate DC)

3. Can't live without a throw on my couch. My mom told me recently that it is just expected of me to have a blanket wrapped around me. At the time I was on the couch. Wrapped in a Jack Sparrow-faced throw. It's just as good as it sounds, to be wrapped in a blanket with Johnny Depps face.

4. Just found out I had have 3 coats in the back seat of my car. That have been there since last year. I was going to bring them in but...who am I kidding, they will just end up back there in no time. I'm really just saving myself some work, bringing them back out.

5. "There's nothing sexier than a bread winner"(King of the Hill shout out!) is something ever man should know. And, whats more, UNDERSTAND.

6. I miss raising litters of kittens much more than I hated waking up ever 2 hours to bottle feed them. (cat sanctuary in my future where I can educate people on cat matters, home strays and unwanted, and save lil kitty lives!)

7. I have NEVER eaten Ben and Jerry's *sigh* It's just never come up.

Tada! Things about me!

This one goes to:
Jules Ausborn
W.B. @ Voltaire
Abby Minard
B.E. Sanderson

HERE is a repost by Rachelle Gardner that I liked about how to not get an agent.

HERE is a post by Shannon Whitney Messenger that seriously made me want to climb through the computer, surf the web, pop out on her side, and give her a hug. I thought I understood querying. And I did get the formula and the layout. But what I have been struggling with is my own hook and HOW to do it right.

Welp, my friends, she answered it for me!! Couldn't have been more thrilled to have that "AHA!" moment! Definitely good timing. I know so many of you are querying too this year, like me, and could use it. (you see why she needs an award!?)

Happy Wednesday!

Funny Friday with a little somethin' somethin'

Ah, Friday again and, as usual I have collected a few funnies for you!

But first, is it just me or does Nicolas Cage just look like Nicolas Cage in a costume rather than looking like he belongs in the particular story to which he is playing a character in movies lately? (practicing my unnecessarily long sentences for Elena Solodow's 100 words for $100 contest)

And I want to present my entry! Words to Elena. (zing)

There wasn't a whole lot I could do because, before I realized what was going on, Jo Jo the rhesus monkey had already stolen that guy’s watch and was running up the street, across pedestrians heads, toward the horizon where I swear I saw an eight foot guy holding up a banana which, surely, was what the monkey was after, so I can only wonder what was so special about the watch that the circus freak had to have a monkey rob a stranger, but either way, you can see why there was nothing I could do in the end. 

Epic has been banned? Why was there no vote on this? I should have been contacted! Harumph.

Cutest Bebeh evah!


HERE are 11 Smart Tips for Brilliant Writing.

The world is full of blogfests! But this one is simple, it's fun, and there are prizes! Erica and Christy are asking for your mugs!

Did you guys see this homeless man with the amazing voice!? The videos of him speaking for money on the side of the road got him job offers with HUGE names and house offers! How cool!? He seems like a pretty awesome dude too. Very honest about going down the wrong road and making the mistakes that landed him homeless. Just thought it was a cool story. Good for him!  (the video of his voice is at the bottom of the article)

 Phyllis Sweetwater over at The Epitome gave me one of my favorite awards! The Versitile Blogger one. I love that one. So green and pretty. Ah...THANK you Phyllis! I love it! As my duties to the award have already been done, I just wanted to give her a shout out and a thank you in public!

Quinn over at Seeing, Dreaming...Writing gave me the Life is Good award!! I love the pinky sunshinyness of this one. It's so bubbly and sweet. Again, I have done my duties to it and just wanted to shout it out to him for being a lovely bit of awesome sauce!!


Lastly, you know what can make any bad day better? Looking at the search words that got you blog traffic.  And here is why: 

Search Keywords

"will work for prom dress" <--HA! What!? Awesome. Earn that shiz ladies!

colene writer  <--Whooo! I'm gonna just pretend you were looking for me, the writer and not the actual published Colene...

how to crack spontanious joke  <--also gonna pretend I am so awesome at this that you can find only me that way.

my lof is creepy <--can someone tell me what a "lof" is and why it wouldn't be creepy?

ladies that are sexy and i can see there bubs and weeners <-- yea. I am so calling you out for this one, dooder....WHAT!?!


Happy Friday!! 
 

Get Naked.

I got an awesome award 5x in 1 week! How flipping kick-ass is that?!

Thank you Quinn, Jessica Hill, Lisa Galek, Jennie Bailey and Lettuce Head !!!
 

 

Five very awesome, very friendly, very entertaining blogger/writers whose places I NEED to haunt every day, they are so great. Don't know em? You need to. Them's good people.

I would like to pass this on to:

Matthew Rush @ The Quintessentially Questionable Query Experiment
Kristal Shaff: Fantasy Author
Samantha Vérant @ Life, Love, and Living in France
Alexia Chamberlynn

The rules say I have to share 10 things about myself. Aren't you guys sick of me talking about me yet?

1.I got up to do some work and forgot my first fact I was going to share with you.

2.When I graduated high school my friends and I went to the grocery store, picked out a cake and had the nice bakery woman write "Get Naked" on it. To her credit, she didn't bat an eye. Which was sort of disappointing to a group of giggly girls

3.In my younger days I used to be able to hop a fence one handed without having to stop running.

4.I grew up in a small town . ("the hell" you say.) It was and is a retirement town. Very beautiful but very...old.

5.No matter where I move, I seriously always work out an escape plan for zombie attacks. Judge me not. Always better to be prepared than caught off guard and get eaten.

6.Cold feet are the worst thing about winter.

7.No matter how hard I try, I kill all household plants. I'm terrible with greenery.

8.I always wanted to learn to play an instrument. I have a harp I have had for many years and can't play more than a part of the super mario theme on it. This fact makes me terribly sad.

9.I am terrified, paranoid, and stressed out when it comes to boogies and being in public.

10.My eyes are terribibble. So bad. Awful, no good, and rotten. Can't see anything without my contacts.

11. (This makes up for the forgotten fact) I value manners above most other personality traits in people.


Second Award is from Samantha @ Life, Love, and Living in France! I loved this award when I first saw it. It's ridiculously adorbs.

I want to pass this one on to
Lisa Galek @ Read. Write. Repeat. 
Jennie Bailey @ Garden Full of Lily (this is just too appropriate for her too!)
Abby Minard @ Abover Water
Sara B. Larson 

THIRD AWARD(That's right. You love it...why..? ..what is wrong with you people??) is from an incredible new blogger, Alexia Chamberlynn! She is some good bloggin' stuff wrapped up in a...umm this got weird. But she is totally amazingly awesome!!

Melissa @ Through the Looking Glass
Lydia Kang @ The Word is My Oyster
Lettuce Head
Jessica Hill
Salarsenッ 

So there you have it, all. Some of my favorite haunts, writers, and internetty people, all right there for you. You guys all rock my world every day. Lurv!

I had the very awesome pleasure of meeting my crit partner Abby Minard for the first time in person. We communicate all the time through emails and I knew early on that I liked her. She's funny and sympathetic, kind and a good ear. Think she's pretty in pictures? Prettier in person. Makes me sick...

But she really is a fun person to meet! It was like I had already met her before. You know? Not nearly as awkward as meeting people for the first time can be which can be terrifying.

Dudes, I am always lost and running late so if we ever meet in person, lets "plan on" one time and then you guys show up 30 min. later cause it is really embarrassing for me...

I'm super excited to announce that I have INTO in my possession again! Okay...I never didn't have it but I have the copy Abby worked on for me in my hands! Couldn't be any more excited to dig in again.

When I started out writing I hated critiques. I hated that people thought they could tell me how to make my story better because, what the crap did they know?! I took it too personal. I was too attached and too cocky. My first adventure into the critique group world I was awakened pretty harshly to the fact that I knew nothing. And I have been grateful of that ever since. It was hard. I didn't take it well at the time but it did make me realize what I was writing was crap. Big bunch of blabby crap and I needed to work hard to not be crap.

That isn't to say I'm still not crappy writer but I have worked to improve over the past year and I am confident, if nothing else, I have improved.  And now, when I see a page full of marks and notes my world isn't destroyed. I don't tense up and immediately get defensive.

All those notes and marks are there to make it better. Make the story stronger. Make my writing flow more easily. And make my world more clear to see.

So, as you can tell, I can't wait to make my love, my story, my book better.

And thanks to amazing people like Abby, I have the ability to. It isn't always easy to admit you have room to improve. But you always do. So get over yourself and make sure you get some amazing people to have your back and show you how to do it.  


HERE is an amazing article about JK Rowling and writing advice.

HERE is a crazy amazing/sad post about human's, beauty, and missing out on a great experience in life by Laini Taylor.


And to finish out my obsessive Harry Potter fanatical posts until next year:

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

Awards for me, awards for you!

Firstly: This has been brought to my attention thanks to an amazing blogger, Lisa Galek @ Read. Write. Repeat,  who's debt I am now in. What I'm talking about is Leakycon 2011! I have to go. That's all there is to it. HAVE TO GO. Who's in?!?!?!?!
*************************************************************
Upon farther calculations, I don't believe I will be able to budget enough to go! MORTIFIED!!!! But, I suppose having a roof over our heads and food are just two non-negotiable things at this point. Oh, Harry...I have failed! Oh well. Maybe next year!

And there is a small chance you will find me in a death eater ensemble for the midnight showing of HP this month...Would you all still follow me? Or would I sign back on to, like, 3 followers? haha! I LOVE to dress up for movies, you guys!!

I blame him for this Leakycon debacle. If you don't already, I highly suggest following Lord Voldemort@Lord_Voldemort7 on twitter if you're in the mood for hilarity and uncensored evil. I also must credit Lisa Galek for introducing me to him on twitter. She is just a secret treasure box for Harry Potter goodness.

This one took a little while to finally post but here it is! Two more awards have been gifted to me, and I am super, fanastigasmically amazed at the blogging world. You have no idea how touched, pleased, happified I feel every time I log on and read blogs and get comments. It's just...ugh. So nice.

Enough sap, lets get to it!


This one comes from Quinn over at Seeing, Dreaming...writing. An amazing honor to be qualified as an Irresistible Blogger! WoW! But Quinn definitely is too. So check him out pronto!

He didn't think there was a stipulation to accepting this award so I'm going to say there isn't too and just enjoy its prettiness!
I can't not pass it along to blogs I can't seem to stay away from so:

Matthew Rush @The Quintessentially Questionable Query Experiment
Talli Roland 
Abby Minard @ Above Water
Alex Cavanaugh 
Jennifer Hiller 
Melissa @ Through the Looking Glass





This one comes from amazing author Alex Cavanaugh whos debut novel (just released!) CassaStar is in the Top 5 List of Best Debut Sci-fi Books by New Writers!  How cool is that?! I urge anyone who doesn't know this brilliant author to check him out!

 My five favorite words today are: 

Phantasmagoria - A fantastic sequence of haphazardly associative imagery, as seen in dreams or fever.

Incognito(its fun to say and to do.)

Poppycock(self-explanatory.)

Steak(because nothing bad ever comes from someone mentioning steak.)

and Hell (Because I say it a lot. As in: "Awe...hell..." "what the hell!?" "hell if I know" "who the hell knows")

Passing this one on to:
Andy @ Writing Myself Crazy
Madeleine @ Scribble and Edit
Nicole Zoltack @Where Fantasy and Love Take Flight

And lastly:(this cut off when I watched it mid  sentence, but still worth the watch if you're interested)