Tuesday, June 25, 2013

I'd call it Three Year Old Streak

So we just had a lovely family party in our backyard.  I decided to buy a bunch of water toys at the local dollar store to keep the kids entertained.  After we ate, I filled a big tub with water and the kids did the rest.

But soon, one of the three-year-olds was wet.  She hates being wet.  So she stripped off her shirt, her shorts and her underwear and continued to play in the nude.  A few of the other kids thought this was a great idea.  It wasn't long until three of them were in various stages of undress.

Then it got real quiet.

I'd set the water bucket on the driveway near the garage door.  Our driveway was full of cars, though people had parked a ways back from the garage so the kids could play.  The kids had spent an hour washing the closest car with squirt guns and hosing down the garage door.  Then they disappeared.

???

I ran down the driveway to the sidewalk just in time to see the three youngest kids, naked, chasing each other to the top of the street.  I was laughing so hard I couldn't call them back.  It was a warm night and neighbors were everywhere and I could tell people were wondering, who are those naked children?

Seriously, I wish I'd had my camera . . . . 


Saturday, June 22, 2013

I'd call it: Stop-Motion Vent

So I've been working on my book trailer all day and !!!! (Insert golf-language here.)  It is driving me insane.  Constantly disappointing yourself is but one of the rewards of being a perfectionist, I suppose.  And that's definitely where I am today. 

Don't get me wrong y'all.  I enjoy the tortuous process of art.  I've been doing it since childhood and I've got the system down.  Like in the first grade, when I spent the day analyzing the printed and cursive alphabet examples and committing to myself that I was going to learn to do it better. . . .

It's just . . . argh!  Cameras have always challenged me.  There.  I said it.  Now I can move on.

On a funner note, here is an example of the mug I'm including in my buzz event give-away package:
ooooo.  ahhhh.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

I'd call it Whole N'uther Thing
Japanese Gardens, Portland Oregon

I love Portland, Oregon.  It's the capital of all things funky:  great vintage shops, awesome consignment clothing stores, Voo-Doo Donuts, the Japanese Gardens, Washington Park, Mt. Rainier, and of course, the people of Portlandia.  If you've never been to Portland, but you've watched Portlandia, I'll tell you now.  People like that really do exist.

We have family in Portland, and visited just last weekend.  Of course, when in Portland you must do as Portlanders do and head for Powell's Books.  We got a primo parking spot down the street from the bookstore and my husband noticed a parade going on one block farther.  He said 'let's check it out'.  Our daughter was in tow, and I could tell it was a gay-pride parade (not that there's anything wrong with that ...) so I said 'I don't know; the girl's a bit young'.

After a short debate we arrived just in time for an even shorter viewing: the guys dressed in S&M leathers (and nothing) else were passing by.  An hour later, after browsing books, we were sitting in the coffee shop, eating a fabulous pastry and drinking Chai tea when my daughter said, 'You two have scarred me for life'.  Her dad and I burst out laughing.

She probably would have disowned us had she seen the naked bike race . . .

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Thanks to all who participated in the Painted Boots cover reveal!  It was super cool to see my book cover posted on so many blogs. 

If today were a book, I'd have to call it: Crazy!

This morning as I rode my bike to work I was almost run-over by a geriatric trying to race me to where he could turn into the county recreation center before he had to wait for me to cross the entry.  Sheesh!

Then there were the cryptic messages from my boss (who only came in after hours yesterday) that took an hour and three phone calls to decipher.  Normally, I'm awesome at deciphering cryptic.  But today was a fail!

After I peddled home in thirty-mile-an-hour wind I settled down to write.  But alack!  I had to fetch my daughter from her day-camp, where she spent most of her three hours oozing over the guy who plays Sherlock and Khan (Benedict Cumberbach?)  He is cool, BTW.  An aura of smart.

So now, in the wee hours of the night, I get to settle into my fantasy world.  Except dang.  My husband is watching something interesting on TV . . . . .


 Aspen never thought she could lose everything . . . until she did.


And starting over in rural Wyoming feels impossible.  Then she meets Kyle.
His secrets swirl round Aspen like shadows.

But Aspen won’t lose everything again.
           

PAINTED BOOTS, a mature YA contemporary romance
starring Aspen Brand  .  Kyle Thacker  .  Em Harrelson

Available July, 2013 at AMAZON.COM and by special order through Barnes & Noble and independent booksellers everywhere.



Monday, June 17, 2013

I'd call it JUNE 18!
The cover reveal for Painted Boots is tomorrow!  I'm excited to cut my characters' apron strings a bit and launch their story into the light of day.  (It would be an embarrassing YouTube post, but yeah, I'm pretty much jumping up and down and screaming like an Olympic-metal winning figure-skating fifteen-year-old.)  Whoo-hoo!


To all the bloggers hosting my cover reveal:  a HUGE thanks and lots of cyber hugs.  Seriously!  I can't wait to visit every one of your blogs tomorrow.  And right around the corner is the Painted Boots buzz event (July) and blog tour (September).  Along with the buzz event I'll be releasing the stop-animation book trailer (it's a blast to make).  And this week I'll start posting pictures of some of the give-aways because ... I can't wait to share.  The give-aways (that aren't the book itself!) draw from Painted Boots themes:  Aspen's talent for creating her wardrobe from second-hand stores and yard sales, flowers, lyrics from Kyle's songs and more.

In the meantime, I'm just a few short weeks away from Painted Boots being available on Amazon.  Ahh!  Love.

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

I'd call it:  Weird Ideas

My daughter says I'm full of weird ideas.  Some turn into things, like the stories I write or the art I create or the quirky need I have to refinish every piece of furniture we own.  Others I never find the time to act on, like how I've always wanted to learn to make a movie or take a trip up the Amazon.

One thing I do know about myself is that without my weird ideas, I'm not me.  Something in me needs to be creative ... it needs to write and draw and have a house that's never-quite-finished.

I was a fanciful kid, always dreaming I could fly away on clouds or see microscopic creatures in the air.  Sometimes at night I'd sneak out of bed and hide behind the dining room curtains, just so I could stare into the night view and make believe it was something more than it was.  As an adult, that's what I like about the future.  Maybe I can see about how it will go, but in truth it's blank--unwritten.  I can dream the future will be something more than it might actually be. 

Thinking on it now, I realize I kinda got there on the movie thing.  But more on that later.  And now that I mention it, I guess you could say that because I'm in the process of self-pubbing, I'm about to take a trip on Amazon .... 

Friday, June 7, 2013

I'd call it: How the Other Half Lives.

So this evening I did something I've put off doing since the day I was born: I drove around in my dream neighborhood.  I suppose we all have one of those ... a place where the architecture is appealing, or the trees are mature and foresty.  This place for me is both, and to make it perfect, the neighborhood sits on a side of a mountain.  Not a hill.  A tall, towering mountain.

From the topmost streets in my dream neighborhood the views are unbelievable, like you've stepped out of an airplane onto a patio.  But the weird part is, and was, I've never viewed my home city from the perspective from which I saw it tonight.  The perspective turned my city surreal; almost unrecognizable.  I was looking down on it, after all.  I saw where the land swells and falls, and realized how building upon the land didn't flatten it the way it seems from living down there.  I saw the roofs of buildings set against the city-scape rather than the rise of buildings set against the sky.  It was fabulous.

The mountain itself looked so different it was almost like being in Zermatt and staring up at the alps.  If you've ever done that you'll recall the alps are right there, for all the world looking like giant cardboard cut-outs, like if you touched them you'd find them as flat as a painted set.  And stranger still, the mountain, which I've always viewed as a whole, is really a rolling crest of hills that eventually become the mountain.

Something to aspire to!

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

I'd call it: The Blog's a bit Behind!

I love to blog.  I really do.  It's like unloading on your husband at the end of the day, except you don't have the eye-rolls.  I mean, maybe I have the eye-rolls.  I just don't have to see them now.

The blog's a bit behind because I'm working on the Painted Boots book trailer and I'll tell ya, it's a doozie.  I've done stop-motion animation before.  But I've never done one so complex as the one I'm doing now.  By the time I've finished it will either be incredible or messed-up.  My fingers are crossed for incredible.

And though I'm paying Createspace to help in the production of my book--they're doing the cover art and interior lay-out--it's still an amazingly time-consuming process to self-publish.  All those little details to pull together.

I love the nights when I can simply focus on my story, get into the characters and their reason for being and lose myself in their world.  I made their world up, yeah, but it all started somewhere in the threads of my own.  The connections are so deep and personal that I don't know if anyone beyond me could ever recognize them for what they are (though Fan sees some of them, as she pointed out one night over dinner).

It's a way-cool process, that's for sure.