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!

Six Word Saturday

Happy "Chocolate is on Sale" Day!

Even if you don't celebrate Valentine's Day, I think we can all get behind the day after when all the chocolate and roses go on sale. It only happens a couple times a year (after Easter and Halloween too!) so you better believe we're going to take advantage of it :)

If you are going out to take advantage of the sale today, what kind of chocolate will you buy?

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

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?