Announcing AJ's wHooligans!

I am so excited to announce my team for April A-Z. Here's a little bit of information about my team, Ayjay's wHooligans!

TaMara Sloan: http://www.talesofapeedeemama.com
I stumbled upon TaMara last year during A-Z. She writes about all sorts of awesome things related to homeschooling her five little munchkins - favorite snacks (some are seriously drool-worthy!), books, lesson plans, you name it. She is a creative person and I am excited to have her on the team!

Elsie Turtle: http://mockturtlemusings.com/
Elsie has been an assistant for the Insecure Writer's Support Group. That alone is enough cred to know she's amazing! But there's more! This woman writes extremely honest posts from time to time that will make you catch your breath. Her self-reflection and honesty is just.. great. Definitely check her out.

Shilpa Garg: http://shilpaagarg.com/
Shilpa joins me from India! The design of her site is so poetic and lovely :) Also she says she likes written words, sweets and beautiful conversations that happen over a mug of tea - totally my kind of lady! Excited to have her on the team :)

LuAnn Braley: http://backporchervations.blogspot.com/
LuAnn is a super-involved writer, reader and book reviewer. She's participated in loads of blog fests and seriously, you should go check out all the reading challenges this lady is participating in. How does she have enough time to do all that reading and be an excellent blogger too? I dunno, but I'm lucky to have her on my side this April!

Kripali Kulkarni: http://precari0us.wordpress.com
Kripali is such an observant writer! She notices little things around her and writes beautiful reflections on the things she sees. She has a very playful style, sometimes talking to you the reader in an almost sotto voce style. She approached the opportunity to be a wHooligan with such excitement I just had to bring her to the team!

Helen Jameson: http://helenjameson.wordpress.com/
Ohmygosh! Helen writes Murder Mystery Dinner scripts! How cool is that? Her posts range in topic from writing to her grandbaby, to conversations with Moe, her mafioso muse. That's right - we have a mafia connection on the team! Lookout A-Z :)

Those are my wonderful wHooligans! Please visit them and say hi! They're about to do a bunch of work to help keep the Challenge running so they deserve all the positive attention we can give them!

Six Word Saturday

Manicure, pedicure (eek!), pirates and palimpsests!

What are you up to today?

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

IWSG - February

OK, I will admit it. Our new book Sky Pirates is kind-of kicking my butt. Armageddon was a crazy ride, so much fun, and we had such a tight deadline. We wrote Armageddon as a party favor for the attendees at Dan's birthday party. So, the date was set, we knew the absolute latest we could finish in order to get it to the printer, and we skidded in under that deadline at about 3am. The whole thing went from concept to print in about three weeks. The reworking (aka removal of copyright infringements) and making it ready for actual publication took nine months, because, well.. life.

But Sky Pirates is different. We're writing it with the express purpose of publication. But this time we don't have a solid finish-or-you're-deadline. There's no reason that we absolutely have to finish by a certain date, and I'm having a bit of a time to find the motivation that I really need to settle down and do the work. I'm excited about the book and enjoy writing it, but it's so easy to get myself distracted by things like Co-hosting the A-Z Challenge, or going outside, or you know, life..

What do you do to keep yourself writing when life threatens to derail you?

This post brought to you by the Insecure Writer's Support Group - a bunch of lovely writers who help each other 'rock the neurotic writing world.'

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?

Minions/helpers needed! #atozchallenge

As we announced over on the A-Z blog today, us co-host types are in need of a few good people to work behind the scenes to make the Challenge run well. I think I'd like 6 or 7 wHooligans to help me out. Here are some details:

• You'd get a super-awesome badge to put on your blog, identifying you as one of my people.
• We'll list your name as a helper on the A-Z blog - this is really great for traffic, as we get TONS of visitors over there leading up to and during the Challenge.
• I'd like to do a feature post on each of my wHooligans in the two weeks before the Challenge, so you get to benefit from my extra traffic too!

What you'd be doing:

• I'll have a list of participants' blogs to keep track of. Y'all would be my team to actively support those folks as well as make sure they're actually participating (they're not just an ad site, etc). 
• You'll need to participate in our private blog where we'll keep track of all the goings-on with our list.

That's pretty much it! Being an A-Z helper is super fun and a great way to make new blogging friends. I was on Tina's Terrific Team last year and it made the Challenge just that much more awesome! 

Leave a comment below if you are interested :)

A-Z Sign-ups are open!!

You guys! You guys, you guys, you guys, I'm so excited!
The April A-Z Challenge sign-up is open! The guidelines are included in the post below (make sure to read ALL the guidelines before signing up, please) but basically, we do a blog post every day in April except Sundays, with a topic going from A-Z. Last year I wrote character sketches and you can check out my posts from last year, starting on April 1st. Or take a read-through of the ever-popular Percy's Pick Your Plot Prequel, which was last year's entry for the letter P :)

This blog hop is one of my favorite things about blogging - meeting all the people, seeing all the random blogs, laughing at people's silly themes.. It's really a good time.

And! This year I am one of the official co-hosts of the Challenge! That means I'll be running around behind-the-scenes making everything work and helping to keep things fun. Have you done the Challenge before? Want to help out? I am looking for a team of 'minions' to help keep everyone encouraged throughout the month, and make sure the Challenge runs smoothly. If you're interested, comment on this post and we'll get you hooked up!

And now for the official details...

Please read and follow the sign-up instructions outlined below so you sign onto the list correctly!   

The brainchild of Arlee Bird, at Tossing it Out, the A to Z Challenge is posting every day in April except Sundays (we get those off for good behavior.) And since there are 26 days, that matches the 26 letters of the alphabet. On April 1, blog about something that begins with the letter “A.” April 2 is “B,” April 3 is “C,” and so on. You can use a theme for the month or go random – just as long as it matches the letter of the alphabet for the day.

We recommend short posts, turn off Word Verification, and visit five blogs (or more) a day beginning with the one after yours on the list.

To streamline legitimate blogs from advertisement blogs, the Co-Hosts will be visiting each blog on this list throughout the Challenge. Blogs on the list showing no activity once the Challenge starts will be removed.

There are categories for those looking for like-minded blogs. Select ONE category code and enter it after your blog’s title/name. The code applies to your blog, not your theme for the Challenge and is purely optional. However, if your blog has adult content, you MUST mark it (AC) or it will be removed from the list. Codes are as follows: 

1. WRITING: (WR) 
2. BOOKS: (BO) 
3. FILM: (FM) 
4. PHOTOGRAPHY: (PH) 
5. GARDENING: (GR) 
6. CRAFT: (CR) 
7. ART: (AR) 
8. MUSIC: (MU) 
9. CULINARY: (CU) 
10. LIFESTYLE: (LI ) 
11. FASHION: (FA) 
12. PERSONAL: (PR) 
13. SOCIAL MEDIA: (SO) 
14. GAMING: (GA) 
15. EDUCATION: (ED) 
16. POLITICS: (PO) 
17. HISTORY: (HI) 
18. SCIENCE: (SC) 
19. HUMOR: (HU) 
20. TRAVEL: (TR) 
21. MISCELLANEOUS: (MI) 
22. ADULT CONTENT: (AC) 

Be sure to grab the badge and display it in your sidebar so we know you are participating and link to the A to Z Blog. 

For more information we recommend you follow the A to Z Challenge Blog and the hosts:

Arlee Bird @ Tossing it Out http://tossingitout.blogspot.com/

Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/

Author Stephen Tremp http://authorstephentremp.blogspot.com/

Tina @ Life is Good http://kmdlifeisgood.blogspot.com/

Damyanti@Amlokiblogs http://amloki.blogspot.com/

Jeremy @ Being Retro http://www.beingretro.com/

Nicole Ayers - The Madlab Post www.madlabpost.com

M. J. Joachim's Writing Tips http://mjjoachim.blogspot.com

Heather M. Gardner http://hmgardner.blogspot.com/

AJ @ Naturally Sweet http://frodofrog.blogspot.com

Pam @ An Unconventional Librarian http://unconventionallibrarian.com/

We also have a Facebook page,

email address is infoatoz2014@gmail.com,

and the Twitter hashtag is #AtoZChallenge.

Sign up below and join us for a month of alphabet fun!