Top Ten Tuesday

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Today’s Top Ten Tuesday list as suggested by The Broke and the Bookish is probably the easiest one I’ve ever done!  The hard part will be stopping at just 10.  🙂      The list is the “Top Ten Books I’d Buy Right This Second if Someone Handed my a Fully Loaded Gift Card”.

  1. The Shadow's Curse by [McCulloch, Amy]
  3. Kill Devil (Jed Patrick series Book 2) by [Dellosso, Mike]
  4. Thief of Lies (Library Jumpers) by [Drake, Brenda]
  5. Ice Massacre (Mermaids of Eriana Kwai Book 1) by [Warner, Tiana]
  6. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children Book 1) by [Riggs, Ransom]
  7. The Outliers by [McCreight, Kimberly]
  8. All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel by [Doerr, Anthony]
  9. The Rogue Knight by [McClure, Marcia Lynn]

Of course, I love to read fiction, but there are times I need to or choose to read nonfiction. Now, most of my nonfiction usually has something to do with writing, and because I have and use Scrivener, but not anywhere close to completely, I really want the last book on this list so that I can use Scrivener to its fullest. I could have made a list of top ten fiction books as well as a list of top ten nonfiction/writing books I would buy right this second with a really loaded gift card!  😀

How about you? Do you prefer fiction or nonfiction and why?

Coffee Shop Chat

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Coffee Shop Chat

I have been checking Tessa’s blog for another Coffee Shop Chats post, but she hasn’t posted one since July 6th, and I really want to do them every other week, so I hope she won’t be offended that I am doing this. I also recommend that you visit her blog for her other posts. She is a very busy, young, successful writer and shares lots of interesting things. Simply go to the website you see in the photo above.

Now for my Coffee Shop Chat post for this week:

What I did this week:

Monday through Wednesday weren’t anything out of the ordinary, but Thursday I took my oldest son to the airport. He went to work at the Demme Learning stand at a homeschool convention in Atlanta, Georgia. He returned on Sunday. I also took my youngest son to the dentist to have his last baby tooth pulled because it wasn’t budging and new adult teeth didn’t have enough room to come through the gums. (Last Thursday, this little guy also had a small lump removed from his left leg a little below his knee and received four stitches, which will come out next Thursday.)

Finally on Thursday, this:

arrived! I am so excited! I will now be able to know how to use ALL of the wonderful features of Scrivener! I have already found that when I write my next novel, (I think it’s too late to use all of the features for my current novel), I won’t have to have any paperwork, which will be really weird for me because I’ve been writing since before computers. (Yes, now you know I’m old.) But, all of my information on my characters, my time line, even my research can be kept in Scrivener! I highly recommend Scrivener to all serious writers.

The big news of the week is that yesterday, I met my Camp NaNoWriMo goal and became a Camp NaNoWinner for 2016! The best thing about participating in Camp NaNoWriMo was that I finally found a way to beat my procrastination with my writing. When I wanted to write, working on my novel, during the month of July, I would turn on my laptop and go straight to Scrivener, which immediately put me in writing mode because that is where I write my novels and short stories (not Flash Fiction). I was able to remain focused and write until I needed a break to figure out my next scene or one of my main characters’ (I have two) reactions to what happened in the previous scene. I averaged about 806 words a day. Sometimes I did between 700 and 800, a couple of times I wrote 1,000 or more and yesterday I wrote close to 3,000 words!  I have a nice little badge on my sidebar now showing my Camp NaNoWriMo accomplishment.

So the key to my writing success is to find a time earlier in the day for social media, and when I want to work on my novel or a short story, go straight to Scrivener and AVOID social media!

My Next Writing Goal, now that Camp NaNoWriMo is over:

Well, as much as I am enjoying writing this novel, the fact that I know that I have some changes to make and things to add in chapters I’ve already written will cause me to pause in the writing. I will take the time to read ALL of the wonderful information the Pony Express Museum sent to me, and I will go through all that I have written so far and make the needed corrections, changes, and additions before continuing the story because that is what works best for me. Besides, I have been impatiently waiting to dig into all of that fascinating material.   🙂

In addition to working on my novel, I want to continue to write and schedule blog posts far enough in advance that if I hit a crazy busy weekday or week, I won’t miss any posts here where you all come to visit.

I also started a short story just before Camp NaNoWriMo began and haven’t worked on it since, so I want to get back to that and finish it. I also want to write some devotionals, Chicken Soup for the Soul stories and other things.

Convo Starters:

  1. What is your favorite season?
  2. If you could be a character from a book, who would you be?
  3. Do you have a job in addition to writing?
  4. Do you prefer music or quiet while you write?

 

 

Flash Fiction Friday: Basking in the Summer Sun

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She stretched her arms up to the sun. She loved the way it kissed her face and warmed her after last night’s chilling rain. The world around her was waking up. Children came outdoors to play, their puppy following closely behind.

The puppy wandered over and sniffed her upturned face. She feared that it may sprinkle on her, but it soon moved on to open grass.

Soon a little girl came close to examine her. An older girl approached. The little girl looked up the the older one. “Pretty flower,” she said. “Yes, that is a dahlia. Now, come along.”

Bonus Post: Meet Another Writing Friend

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Yes, this is another Bonus Post. As you know, I ordinarily only write one post a day five days a week, Monday through Friday. However, once in a while, when I deem it necessary, I add a bonus post and write a second post on one of the days.

Today I want you to meet another one of my writing friends. I like to help my friends boost their blogs and gain more recognition from the worldwide blogosphere. My friend Melinda is a talented writer who writes a lot of Sci-Fi, as well as some other things. She has been posting on a blog for a couple of years here. This summer, she’s doing a cool new blog where she posts a story a week about a vampire in Baltimore, Maryland, and she said she’d never write a vampire story. You can read these fascinating stories here. She also created a Facebook page for her main character in the vampire stories, Niles Gule, which I think is really cool because she even has a photo which is really bizarre because he looks a lot like a guy I know.   😛

Now, I will warn you, none of her writing is Christian and you will encounter some language you may find offensive and, of course, in the Niles Gule stories, some blood and guts. But Melinda weaves some good tales, creates fascinating worlds and characters that grab your attention and make you like them and care about them pretty much from the moment you meet them.

Lyric Poem: Chipmunk Courage

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Chipmunk Courage
by Kelly F. Barr

Chipmunks running across my deck.
I stand at the top of the steps.
I see one peek from under the shed;
It and another come scurrying up
And stop one step below.
I am here, they know.
One decides to retreat
As the other flashes by my feet.

Top Ten Tuesday

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Anyway, this week’s Top Ten Tuesday, according to The Broke and the Bookish is “Top Ten Things Books Have Made You Want to Do or Learn About After Reading Them”.  Being a homeschool mom, this is an easy list for me because we read books and then go to learn things because of what we’ve read.  🙂

  1. Two years ago, two of my sons had an assignment to write an historical fiction story, and my youngest decided to write a story about the Pony Express, so we read several books about the Pony Express. I can’t remember a specific book, but the books we read left me wanting to learn more and gave me my desire and idea to write the current novel I am working on, so I have done a lot more research and learned a lot more about the Pony Express.

2. Misty of Chincoteague by [Henry, Marguerite]

I read the entire series of Misty books by Marguerite Henry with my youngest son, and we loved them so much that we wanted to see Chincoteague and the ponies. So, I looked it up online and planned a vacation, and two years ago we went to Chincoteague and Assateague for a week. We saw the ponies and visited the Chincoteague Museum where we participated in a fun scavenger hunt and saw the family Bible of the Bebee family, the family who were the main characters of Marguerite Henry’s books. We found out that the Misty of Chincoteague series were true stories!

3. 423156

Our first year of homeschooling, I read this story with my two oldest sons, and it made us want to know more about horses. Therefore, we studied horses that year as well.

4. Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

I saw the movie based on this book when I was a young teenager. It fascinated me. Being the first story of Multiple Personality Disorder many people didn’t believe it. When I got older, I read the book and still found MPD fascinating, so I did a little bit of studying about it. It is a very real issue for some people. It’s just quite rare.

5. A Girl of the Limberlost (Limberlost, #2)

I read this book just a couple of years ago and it taught me that not all moths are ugly, which is what I always thought. There are actually some very beautiful moths, and I studied moths a little bit afterward to see what some of the beautiful ones look like.

6. Little House on the Prairie by [Wilder, Laura Ingalls]

When I read this book in elementary school, I enjoyed it so much I wanted to learn more about when the country was young and what it was like to travel in a wagon train. Over the years, I have studied this time period and traveling by covered wagon quite a bit.

7. Centralia (Jed Patrick series Book 1) by [Dellosso, Mike]

This is a more recent read, and our family had driven through Centralia once several years ago, and I found it fascinating. After reading this book, my curiosity was once again piqued, and so I’ve done a bit of research on Centralia.

8. Nick of Time (A Bug Man Novel) by [Downs, Tim]

This book has a character who has a bunch of dogs that she trained in a very unusual way that I found absolutely fascinating. Ever since I read it, I would love to learn how to train dogs the way that she did, but I haven’t been able to find anything on it.

9. 

When I read this book when I was younger, it made me want to learn more about why people years ago accused women of being witches. Many years later, when my husband and I were first married and we went to visit one of his sisters in Massachusetts, so I checked to see how far it would be to Salem, and we were able to do some touring there to learn more.

10. 

This book made me want to learn more about rabies and how it affects animals and how much of a danger it is to people.

This list actually turned out to be harder than I thought it would be because I haven’t kept a good reading list for most of the years I’ve been reading. Also, as I created this list, I realized that my desire to learn more about something in particular comes more from nature and my environment and/or news topics than from books I read.

How about you? Have you dug deeper into something because of books you’ve read?

It’s Here — Research Materials!

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You are about to get a small sneak peak into the novel I am working on.

Drum roll, please.    “Rat-a-tat-a-rat-a-tat-a-rat-a-tat-a-rat-a-tat-a-rat!”

My current work in progress (WIP) is an historical romance novel set in St. Joseph, Missouri in 1860, the year that the Pony Express began, and yes, my main male character (protoganist) is a Pony Express rider.  I am doing my very best to keep the historical aspects true to history, so I have done quite a bit of research but still wanted more.

Therefore, after scouring the St. Joseph, Missouri website as well as a few other websites, I decided to call the National Pony Express Museum that’s in St. Joseph, Missouri and see if they had any materials they could send me. I spoke with a very nice young lady on the phone who said it would be no problem to send me a packet of information.

I was excited and eagerly checked my mailbox daily watching for the packet’s arrival. After about three weeks, I thought that snail mail had either seriously slowed down or the packet wasn’t sent or it got lost in the mail. So, I called the museum again and spoke to the same young lady, who remembered speaking to me and asked me how my novel is coming! Then she apologized that I didn’t receive a packet of information and she promised to take care of putting it together and getting it sent.

It arrived last Monday, and I was so excited!  I am enjoying reading over the material and adding information to what I already have. I am having so much fun researching and writing this novel!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flash Fiction Friday: Bull Ride

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Tate Russell stood above the bull, one foot on the fence and one on the gate. He put leather gloves on and reached down with his left hand to grip the thick rope tied around the middle of the bulky animal.

All he had to do was stay on for twenty seconds after the gate lifted. The bull pawed the ground and snorted. A hard knot formed in Tate’s stomach. He swallowed and pushed all thoughts of what could go wrong out of his mind. He had to focus on his grip, the animal and take each moment as it came. He nodded that he was ready. He eased himself down upon the longhorn, the gate opened and the bull jumped out of the gate and started bucking.

Tate held on with his left hand, his right hand in the air helping to balance his body as he was jerked around by the bucking of the bull. Ten seconds in and the bull bucked and twisted its body throwing Tate to the ground.

Tate got up, ran and jumped over the fence to avoid further confrontation with the dangerous animal. He dusted off his behind shaking his head. He didn’t win this one, but there’s always another ride.