Happy Thanksgiving!

Guess what? You will never guess because I am so astonished about this myself...
I picked seven fellow bloggers(some I just discovered, some who just deserved it)to receive the award I won, what, two weeks ago? Geez...
Again, a big thank you to Julie Dao for this award:



To follow the rules:

1. Thank whoever gave this to you
2. Copy award
3. Post it in your blog
4. Tell us 7 things that your readers don’t know
5. Link 7 new bloggers
6. Notify winners of the award with a comment on their blog
7. Keep being awesome!

Already did 1, 2, and 3! Yay!!
As for the seven things about me...

1. I love tea. Hot tea, cold tea...it's wonderful, and in my opionion, fixes everything! Plus, I hoard it like it's going out of style. I have a whole cabinet devoted to all things tea. And now that the Christmas flavors are out, look out! I almost lost it when I saw the display at Walmart. My husband acted like he didn't know me.

2. I used to want to be a professional dancer. Like, a Laker girl(pro cheerleader?). Hey, Paul Abdul did it, so it must be awesome.

3. I think I am the funniest person in the whole wide world. Sometimes I send myself into fits of laughter at random moments, usually causing people to stop and stare, or my coworkers to come into my office to check on me. The funny things always happen in my head.

4. I am terrified of my slow cooker. I realize that this is irrational and that the house most likely will not burn down should I utilize this appliance, but the fear remains.

5. I would much rather watch the teen dramas like 90210 and Vampire Diaries than any 'grown up' shows on TV. This is usually only a problem when someone at work says, 'so and so from this grown up TV show is so sexy' and I'm all, 'yeah, so is Stefan and Liam' and I get this blank expression in return. Kind of embarrassing.

6. I once had a naughty dream about Daniel Radcliffe(you know. Harry Potter.). Which is strange because my fave character is Ron Weasley.

7. I snort when I laugh. This is when I find something extremely funny. Like those funny things I come up with in my head.

And now....for the seven blogs. This, by the way, was extremely difficult for me because most of my free time happens at work and I can't spend all my time on blogger at work! And there are so many deserving. But here are the ones I picked:

1. Anissa at Anissa off the Record.
2. Heather at See Heather Write because the first blog I read of hers was Harry Potter overload and I heart Harry Potter!
3. Jody Hedlund for being such an inspiration.
4. Jemi Fraser at Just Jemi.
5. Carrie Harris.
6. Sara Tribble at I Am Write.
7. Karen Denise Parkville at I'm Always Write because she loves Ron Weasley and I love Ron Weasley...therefore I love Karen.

So there you have it. Yay me! I know, I know, it's about time.
But check out all these great blogs and let them know how awesome you think they are(because they really are!).
And have a Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Me, Myself, and I....or He Said/She Said???

I'd like to start off by saying a HUGE thank you to Julie at Silver Lining for my awesome new award! I'm so excited about it. And I promise, promise, promise that I will complete what is required of me this time...just not tonight as it is eleven o'clock and I have just kicked my back's rear end(possible? Yes, I'm pretty sure of it.)by hands-and-knees scrubbing the kitchen and bathroom floors.
So I'll try to have my blog picks up by the end of this weekend.

Moving on...
I've been thinking a lot lately about POV. I feel as though I've hit a wall in my ms and I think that the POV is the cause of it. For years now, I've been writing in first person with no alternating narrators. It's just my thing.
But one thing I hate about reading books in first person is when the MC is not exactly cheery.
Sometimes I have a hard time liking the MC for this reason. I mean, all you hear is his/her inner turmoil and after a while, it gets tough to read.
I think that is my problem. My MC is going through some rough times and it's kind of depressing me. And the last thing I want to do is depress my readers!

I've also been reading several blogs about the stereotypical 'bad boy' lately. The bad boys always create that exciting, sexy element and they are fun to have around. But the beef is always that bad boys are bad just to be bad. And when you're reading something in first person, how do you really know what's going on in that bad boy's life without the MC constantly around him?

As I get to know my characters more and more, I'm realizing that I don't like not having the 'in' with my male character. I thought about alternating first person viewpoints, but I'm just not feeling it.
So I tried writing a scene in third person, just to see how it flowed for me. And it was great!
Now I think I might go back and change the whole thing to give the 'bad boy'(who's not really bad, just misunderstood)a chance to shine.

First person has always been my choice because I find that it's easier to be funny or to have exaggerated reactions from the MC. After all, everything is a much bigger deal in my own head than it actually is in real life which is how I entertain myself.
But I'm going to trust my gut and attempt this new POV. It will be a lot of work, but I think it will pay off in the end.

What do you think of this? Have you ever changed the POV in the middle of writing a story? Did you like the end result? And which POV do you usually prefer and why?

I'd love to hear everyone's opinions!

In Which I Whine

Ah, yes. It is true. I've been MIA for what seems like forever, but now I'm back, and filled with new writing drama. If it weren't ten in the morning, I would say that the silver lining would be the glass of wine(because every good whine deserves a glass of wine as a reward)at the end of this post....oh well.

Anyway, sorry I've been slacking for a while. I've had office drama, no sleep because my husband snores like a Looney Tunes character and flails about violently for no particular reason, waking me in the process so that I can cover my head for protection(seriously), and thank-goodness-my husband-is-still-alive-drama(he works with heavy machinery and sometimes it's scary), so things have been wearing on me lately.

Commence whining! Oh, wait, you mean I already started in that previous paragraph?? Silly me.

Continue whining!

I was blog surfing yesterday. And I decided to pick one and go back to the beginning, to get to know the blogger and where she came from. In one post she discusses her novel and happens to mention a backstory....um...hello?? Have I met you before, Person-who-wrote-an-almost-identical-backstory-to-my-MC? Because, seriously. The two were so similar, you would have thought that maybe we had been a writing duo at one time and recently decided to go solo but neither of us could decide who got to keep the ideas.
Unfortunately for me, this person has already been agented, and because we appear to write in the same genre, I have to come up with a completely different backstory. Or at least twist mine in some way to make it spectacular on its own.

::Sigh::

My other whine of the day is that my MC's name is the same as another fellow blogger. This is not so bad, as we write in different genres and they don't have the same surname. I don't think. If a name were easy to change, I would do it in a heartbeat, just so I wouldn't feel all copycatty. But it's not easy to change in the least. So, I'm going to keep it.

The bright side to my very whiny Saturday morning? I finally came up with a title for my ms! Or, at least a working title. Now I don't have to open my YA Novel file which has always made me feel a little silly. And now that I have this, I feel a little more pumped about writing it, like I know what I'm shooting for or something. Does that make sense?

So that, in a large nutshell, is what has been weighing on my mind lately. Hopefully by my next post I'll have the glass of wine(except that I usually write these at work which probably wouldn't be a good thing)and no whining to go along with it.

How about you? Have you ever read something that is eerily similar to what you've been pouring your heart and soul into? How did you react?

Have a good weekend, everyone!