It's kind-of a big deal

Happy to be done!

Happy Monday, all!
I hope my US friends had a great 4th of July. And did y'all see that Women's World Cup Final? Incredible!

I completed my first half-marathon on Saturday. Crazy, right? Yeah I think so too. It seemed like a good idea when I signed up, and then for a couple days before (and for the last 3 miles of the race hah) I was like, "why did I think this was a good idea??" And then I finished, and the excitement and runner's high said, "this is why this was a good idea."

I find that writing is similar. I often get to a point halfway through a project and think, "why am I doing this? Why did I think this idea was worth all this work?" but then when it's finished and I finally get to show it to other people I am reminded why I do this. I do it because it's hard. Because it allows me to connect with people I might not otherwise. Because being able to say "I published a book" or two, or three, is a BIG DEAL.

I ran a half marathon. I wasn't the fastest by any stretch, but I did it. I put in the work, the sweat, the blisters, and I did it. It's a BIG DEAL.

What are you working on right now that is a BIG DEAL in your life?

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Just a couple quick notes this week!

So we are actually out backpacking right now, but I realized Sunday morning that I hadn't written my post for this week yet! Oops.

This week I've been attending LitFest at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver, and it has been fabulous.  You all should come next year! We have a lovely guest bedroom ;) Since I don't have much time, I figured I'd just share a couple things that I've learned and experienced, so others can learn them as well:

• A panel of agents ALL said that they don't care what kind of online platform an author has. They only care about the work, and will worry about platform later. This flies in the face of a lot of things I have read, and I've been chewing on it for several days.
• Some agents are, indeed, really intimidating. Others are super sweet.
• Authors are some of the best people out there. I have found my flock. I haven't felt so 'with my people' since summer camp.
• The Jesus story fits almost perfectly into the Three Act Structure that Aristotle wrote about. (draw your own conclusions from that)
• One of the women who taught a writing session did so one hour after finding out her father had passed away. She stole wine from the party downstairs and turned the session into a celebration of her father, who was known as a great teacher. I am glad that kind of beautiful act happens in our world.
• Stories are everywhere if we know where to look for them. Occasionally getting the full story will require getting out of our introvert caves, but it's so worth it.
• On a related note, I think I really do want to try some freelancing. Eek.
• A reminder: write the damn words. You can edit later. If you realize you need to edit something, make a note and write the rest of the piece as though you've already changed it. Will save your mind now, and time later.
• Imposter syndrome: We all have it. Even people whose books have made NY Times bestseller lists.
• It is possible to run 10 miles in the morning and sit through class all afternoon. But... you probably want some caffeine to do that.

Ok I have to go! I will check in with the blogging world this week, I promise!

Yeah.. I'm on #Instagram..

(Armageddon is still on sale!)

So I don't have anything to tell you about pirates this week, because my in-laws were in town and I haven't read even a page of anything. But! I have been learning how to use Instagram.

I still kinda feel like this about it:

Oh dear. I have joined Instagram...

A photo posted by AJ Lauer (@ayjaylauer) on May 26, 2015 at 4:28pm PDT

But I'm enjoying sharing pictures like this, so it might not be so bad:

Ominous crow is ominous #rmnp #100years

A photo posted by AJ Lauer (@ayjaylauer) on Jun 1, 2015 at 8:15pm PDT

If you use Instagram, come find me and we'll hang out :)

Muse Party Blogfest, and A Change of Mind book launch!

Happy Memorial Day!
A couple things for everyone today! The awesome Nick Wilford has a book being released today, and Sarah is hosting the Muse Party Blogfest! But first, your pirate fact of the week:

The Confederate army enlisted Privateers (aka Pirates!) to help bring down the North. Jefferson Davis issued a proclamation inviting, "all those who may desire, by service in private-armed vessels on the high seas, to aid this Government in resisting [Northern] aggression, to make application for commissions or letters of marque and reprisal to be issued under the seal of these Confederate States." And they came, and they did conquer some Northern ships!  -- information from Pirates: A Worldwide Illustrated History 

Nick Wilford has a book coming out today!

Title: A Change of Mind and Other Stories

Author: Nick Wilford

Genre: Speculative fiction

Format: Ebook only

Would you change something about your personality if you had the chance? Reuben Timsbury is ready to say yes to that question, but what is the cost? Read A Change of Mind and Other Stories to find out. This collection of dark, speculative fiction contains a novella and five accompanying stories. The pieces include four previously published in Writer’s Muse magazine. 

It's available today, at an introductory price of only $0.99. I'll be getting my copy soon - will you?

Purchase Links:

Amazon US / Amazon UK / Smashwords / B&N / Kobo

My buddy Sarah, whom I met during A-Z this year, is having a blogfest to celebrate her blog's 4 year anniversary! So please join us for the Muse Party Blogfest :)

1. Who is your muse (or character)? Tell us a little bit about him/her and why you brought them. I don't really have a muse, so I brought a character from one of my works in progress: Ringer. He is a small business owner whose life has been taken over by searching for people who have mysteriously gone missing from his antique phone shop, so he doesn't get out much. And he needs some stress relief, so I thought a party might be a good distraction!

2. What are you guys wearing? Dressing up or keeping it casual? I'm wearing skinny jeans and cute heels. Ringer is wearing khakis and a button down shirt. Couldn't get him to shave, but he actually cleans up pretty nice in that scruffy sort of way :)

3. It's a potluck! Did you bring something yummy? Of course! I brought some gluten-free hazelnut bread, and Ringer brought meat for burgers. He's... not much of a cook, but always has burger meat on hand to feed his pet raven.

4. Open bar! What are you both drinking (booze or otherwise)? Ringer'll have a G&T and I'd like a dark & stormy, please! We like ampersands.

5. Wallflowers or social butterflies? We're probably both halfway in between. Conversations with a small group over to the side of the room are best, that way you can talk about real things. Also that will allow Ringer a chance to see if you know anything helpful...

6. What song(s) will you and your muse sing for karaoke? For karaoke I'm a fan of anything from Rent. Female country singers are good too. Anti-war ballads from the 70s are more Ringer's style. Maybe some Fortunate Son as performed by CCR, or Give Peace a Chance by John Lennon?
7. What's your favorite party game? Telephone, naturally. *snicker*

8. Which one of you is more likely to end up dancing on a table top? Definitely me. Preferably sans high heels.
9. Has your muse been a good date and would you ever hang out with them again? For sure! It was fun to get him out and give him a chance to loosen up a bit. And I always love a party...

Linky:

Happy Galentine's Day!

SO GOOD!

My dear friend Katie invited all us ladies out to lunch today, in honor of Galentine's Day. Which, for those of you who don't know (I didn't) is a holiday created by Leslie Knopes of Parks & Recreation. It's basically an opportunity to get together with all your favorite gals on February 13th, to celebrate how awesome we all are. Not bad, right?

I had been wanting to try making chocolate covered cherries for a while, and realized that Galentine's Day would be a great opportunity to try it out, and spoil some of my favorite people in the process. Don't they look delicious? Mmm.. 

We don't have any plans for Valentine's Day. If the weather is as nice as it has been, maybe a hike? *shrug* February is a big month because it's our date'iversary, Valentine's Day, AND my birthday! So yeah.. Lots of chocolate happening here in these couple weeks. :)

For reference, here's a video of Leslie explaining Galentine's Day. What's not to love?

Kleenex!

So.. Tissue packets count as souvenirs, right?
I hope so, because we found tissues from three different countries while cleaning our bathroom baskets tonight.

Left to right those are from England, Spain, and Korea. The Korean package is big because sometimes they don't have toilet paper in the restrooms, and you don't want to be caught without!

Still plugging away at the January Cure. It has definitely been interesting :)

Happy 4th of July!

We're pretty cute for 6:45am
on a holiday!

Busy day yesterday! And a nice calm one today, so finally getting some quality blogging time in. Ahh... Happy to get to visit some of my blogging buddies! Hello :)

Yesterday started with my second time participating in our town's Downhill Mile race, but this year my totally awesome friend Katie (@katieschmalzel) joined me!

Then Katie helped with some yardwork, which I am SO very happy to have finally gotten around to. You know that feeling of having a Thing To Do that irks you every time you think of it? But then you finally get it taken care of and it is the BEST feeling ever?? Yeah. This chore was like that.

The previous owners of our house did all the 'landscaping' in our backyard with piles of rocks that they used as borders around beds. I think they put in landscaping cloth to keep the grass from growing in the beds, but if so it was forever ago and the cloth is non-existent at this point. I tried last year to re-mulch, but it was not sufficient to keep the grass from growing, and I had given up on keeping things dealt with this year so the beds around our trees in back ended up looking like this:

I swear there's a bed under there, somewhere!

After about an hour of work digging the rocks back out of the dirt into which they had sunk, adding topsoil, new landscaping cloth and mulch and re-placing the stones, the beds now look like this:

Ahh... much better..

Strawberry rhubarb
and mint chocolate chip! Yum.

I'm very pleased :)

After all that work, we headed to the town Pancake Breakfast (as many free pancakes as you can eat! and adorable booths from local businesses!). After running and then doing manual labor, we'd definitely earned breakfast and made short work of some nice stacks of cakes. So yummy. :) Then we walked home and showered before heading to Boulder for some delicious cupcakes from Tee and Cakes.

By the time we got home we had about an hour to relax before folks came over for a BBQ, so we played with some SunPrint paper, and sprawled on the living room floor to rest. There might have been a little bit of a sugar crash in this part of the day. Yup.

The rest of the day was slightly more typical for the 4th - BBQ, movie to fill the time a bit, and then fireworks. All in all, pretty epic!

What did you do for the 4th? 

Six Word Saturday- Spring Break!

Spring Break! Snowshoeing, camping, shivering, ROMO!

Yup, we've decided to go snowshoeing and camping up at Rocky Mountain National Park for the weekend :) It's a very rare weekend that I am not on call, and since this is one of them, we're peacing out for a couple days. Not to worry - it's car camping so there will be lots of down blankets in our tent, and I'll come back with pictures, I promise!

This post is part of the Six Word Saturday blog hop. Stop by showmyface.com to join the fun!

Support the Blog Blitz!

Hosted by the incredibly kind and talented DL Hammons, the Blog Blitz is an opportunity to show lucky bloggers some love, in a BIG way. Periodically DL will select a member or two of the team and email everyone their website, and then we ALL show up and leave comment love on that person's most recent post, all on the same day. This can result in hundreds of comments, which is pretty darn cool.

I had the incredible experience of getting 'blitzed' last April when he sent the team to visit my Percy's Pick Your Plot Prequel post (yeah, that was my post for P ;) ). We were in Tucson at my friend Sam's wedding, so the whole evening while we were enjoying wedding festivities and hanging out with friends, my phone just buzzed away as the comments poured in. It was quite the experience, and I love to think of giving other bloggers the same.

If you want to see the power of the Blitz, I encourage you to stop by the A-Z blog to see today's Blitz in action!

The Blog Blitz is one of the coolest things in the blogosphere, so I hope you'll join us!

Superb Owl Sunday Snowshoe

We decided to make use of all the Superbowl excitement and get some snowshoeing in while everyone else was getting ready for their parties and whatnot.

Parking was a bit of a shenanigan involving snowbanks and a VW bus that someone had painted all over with acrylics. There may have been a couple exclamations of, "Damn hippies!" as we attempted to get my car to squeeze between their bus and the snowbank. But we made it through with a little bit of a boost from behind from a kind stranger, and all was well. (Really it's a little funny to complain about hippies, living where we do, because we're really all rather hippie'ish. But that's another post :) )

The trail we took was Peaceful Valley, and it certainly was that! We only saw six or seven people the whole time we were out, including a woman who was biking on the trail. Which.. well. Let's just say it was very impressive. There's something to be said for someone whom, after you've just snowshoed for seven miles, makes you feel like you're a lazy person!

The picture is of the spot where we stopped for lunch. The snow ledge in the center of the picture shows how deep the snow is. The part where it juts out is where the pile of snow starts on top of a giant rock. It had melted quite a bit, since it was being hit by the strong sun, but there were still about four feet piled up.

It was a lovely day and I certainly feel as though I took a bit of the Peaceful Valley back down the hill with me. (A good thing, because the Super Bowl did not lend itself to peaceful feelings! Poor Broncos forgot to show up to the game...)

How was your Sunday? Did you do anything fun this weekend?

CoHosting April A-Z!

Well, it's official! I'm going to be one of the cohosts for the illustrious April A-Z Challenge this year! I had a ball being one of Tina's helper Minions for the Challenge last year and am so honored that they offered me a spot on the cohosting team for this spring's event.

April is always a crazy month for me, what with being the month before my Summer work-craziness starts, and it won't be any different this year, but I'm excited about the additional responsibilities and the opportunity to be on such a great team. Also, one of my goals for this spring is to get out there and do more networking to support my writing habit - what better way than by being heavily involved with the biggest blog hop in the 'verse?

Here's to keeping busy and making connections in 2014 :)

Check out the other members of the super-awesome A-Z Cohost team!
Arlee Bird (the creator of the A-Z Challenge!)
Tossing it Out

Nicole Ayers

Madlab Post 

Damyanti Biswas

Writing on Writing: Amlokiblogs

Alex J. Cavanaugh (self-titled blog)

Tina Downey

Life is Good 

Julie Flanders (self-titled blog)

Heather Gardner

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

Jeremy Hawkins

Being Retro 

MJ Joachim

M.J Joachim's Writing Tips 

Stephen Tremp

Author Stephen Tremp

NaNoWriMo Day 27 - A Little Raw

It's the 27th. I have three more days to finish NaNoWriMo and about 10,000 words to goal. I am definitely going to make it! Pretty exciting. A bit that I wrote this evening:

"I’d picture her as if in a movie, on her knees shaking her fists at the sky and cursing god and Jesus and all his friends for the unfairness of it all. She’d have tears of blood pouring down her face, her hair loose and dramatic around her face, entire body tense with the exertion of grief. ..until she’d collapse, wrung out and intoxicated and unable to scream any more."

NaNoWriMo Day 23 - one week left!

Only one week left in NaNoWriMo! Things are going pretty well. I'm a little behind a the moment as I didn't write at all on Thursday or Friday due to choir concert stuff, but I'm determined to put some mileage in tomorrow. Today I spent a moment reflecting on some late 80s/early 90s fashion..

"We had a babysitter down the street for a bit. I got a couple hideous dresses from her (one was a button down, sleeveless flowy long dress of greys and sandy browns, with giant deep grey snails on it - yikes), and a cheap gold heart necklace. They were such treasures and I’m sure I wore that dress entirely too frequently."

I'm also pretty sure that that dress was an improvement over the sweat pants outfits I insisted on wearing every day. Some things never change - I still prefer to wear the most comfortable clothing I can get away with in any situation. Thankfully I've moved a bit beyond sweats with glittery splatter-paint on them...

NaNoWriMo Day 16 - 25,000 words!

Woohoo! I made it over 25,000 words today! I got a little behind due to a couple busy days this week, but will be caught up tomorrow. 25k is halfway, which is a major milestone. I spent today mostly writing about happy things, so here is a little bit from a remembered dream:

"Sprawling on my couch was a darkly shining alien creature. It was humanoid but every bit of its skin was sinewy and textured, as though seeing every fiber of muscle that operated its frame."

NaNoWriMo Day 13

"As she danced, the storm started outside. I looked out the window past this glowing person and it was as though she and the storm were urging one another on."

NaNoWriMo Day 11

"There is nothing like going to a school dance with a gay guy. They dance, they compliment you all night long, and they don't try to make a move on you. What's not to love?"

NaNoWriMo Day 9

One of my favorite Christmas memories:
"Precious little Dylan with his blond curly hair, a sweater, and a dog collar with bells on it."

NaNoWriMo Day 7

On keeping diaries during some of the more chaotic times in my childhood:

"Perhaps part of it was my young identification with Anne Frank. I’d always felt a kinship with that remarkable woman and her diary. Not so much now for obvious reasons of survival and the incredible safety of my current situation, but for years she felt like a dear friend. Someone who understood. I wanted to survive the chaos and come out with a similarly well-thought-out optimism and faith in humanity. And I think I have.. I really do."

NaNoWriMo Day 6

So I got a flu shot yesterday, and it turns out that I am one of those people who really reacts to it. I had the shot at 9am, by 1:30 I had a sore throat and all of a sudden at 4pm I got the chills and the start of a fever. By the time I got home at 4:45 I had full-blown chills and was headed toward the 100 degree fever that stuck with me for the rest of the night. So.. Yeah. I didn't write anything yesterday. I'm thankful that I had a little bit of extra writing done, so I didn't fall a full day behind! Today was slow too but I am already feeling a fair bit better, so hopefully I will catch up soon.

Today's last line, which was talking about a Pickle Party we threw as kids:
"I think I remember that only one or two of our friends actually took us up on the pickle juice, but I know that Tim and I definitely partook."

NaNoWriMo Day 4

"And so my life in Miami started off with great emotional difficulty. I was in a strange place where I only knew two people, and had lost a friend and been through a natural disaster within two days."

Passed the 7,000 word line today!