Anti-Heroes and Goodies

We're discussing the Redeemable Anti-Hero over at Swords & Stilettos today.

Tuesday, we'll be announcing a new book release for an author friend and there will be goodies given away...

Wednesday we have an interesting creative writing exercise crafted out of the discussions on this blog of what inspires our creativity.

Come see us each day, leave comments, join the discussion, play with your creativity, and grab your chance to win a prize!

Monday's List

1. We made it home in one day - a trip of 14 hours, with stops. That's 14 hours, 3 boys, and 1 backseat. You do the math.

2. We spent yesterday doing pretty much nothing just to recover.

3. I dislike doing laundry that is full of sand.

4. This is going to be one of those weeks where my "to do" list far outweighs the hours in every day.

5. I tried oysters while in Florida and very nearly vomited.

6. How anyone can eat something that smells like three-day-old dead fish is beyond me.

7. As we drove out of town, I saw a street sign for "Mullet Dr."

8. In all honesty, I don't think I could live on a street called "Mullet" anything.

9. Though with the South's propensity for mispronouncing common words (a city near me is Santa Fe with the "fe" pronounced "fee" for reasons that still escape me), perhaps the residents call it "mull-ay".

10. That's French for "Criminy, what did you DO to your hair?!"

11. We saw alligator road kill as we drove through Florida.

12. In the freeway median.

13. No wonder all the road workers wore high boots and looked extremely nervous.

14. Alligator wrestling is not on my bucket list - just fyi.

15. Neither is sky diving but I'd do that before I'd wrestle an alligator.

16. This week I'm working extra hours (filling in for someone on vacation), spending time at Nashville Shores while my hubby has a broadcast from there, hosting a 4th of July party, and working like a crazy woman to finish SHADOWING FATE and send it off.

17. Also, I'll be dealing with the fruit fly infestation we came home to.

18. And I'll be doing laundry and cleaning my house and taking the kids to the library so they can get more books for their summer reading incentive (they read 200 books between them and I buy them the all-access pass to the Pirates online game).

19. You'll notice that "sleep" is not on my list.

20. READER QUESTION: What's one thing you wouldn't add to your bucket list?

What Moves The Muse

I recently completed an interview for a fellow author's blog (I'll post a link when the interview goes up) where one of the questions asked me what inspires my writing - the context of her question was basically asking what I use to put myself in the mood for writing.

We all find inspiration in different ways. Where we find it isn't nearly as important as making sure we never stop looking for what unleashes our own creativity. That said, I thought I'd list what awakens my muse. I found that I have a pretty eclectic range of what inspires me to spill words onto a page.

MUSIC: I've always been inspired by music. I grew up with a classical musician for a father and I didn't even know pop music existed until I was in fifth grade. We listened to classical, classical, and more classical and in the absence of words, I learned to hear the voices of the instruments tell their story. I'm never far from my iPod and I have nearly 6000 songs on it at the moment, many of them soundtracks or instrumentals. The stories within the music inspire me to write something that matches the mood of the song. When I'm working on a novel, I choose two or three albums that I only listen to while writing that project. A few chapters in and just the sound of that album instantly puts me into the world of my novel.

Some music I'm currently using for my writing: Batman Begins soundtrack, Nightwish Poet and Pendulum (instrumental version), Fallen by Evanescence, and Resident Evil soundtrack.

ART: I love losing myself in a picture that tells a story. My favorite art pieces are mysterious, haunting, and sometimes slightly disturbing (at least to others. lol) I like art where I can imagine what lives around the corner or what happens next. The right art puts me in the mood to write something that matches the tone of the picture or sculpture.

Some art I have in my writing space: dragon sculptures where the dragon is definitely on the warpath and planning to start his evening off with Fricasse of Tasty Peasant, wrought iron candle holders in the shape of Celtic crosses, a calendar of real-life castles, a sepia-toned framed picture where an ornate rusty gate opens to a path winding through a tangled forest and then disappearing into the distance, illustrated books on Ireland, China, and medieval myths, and a Thomas Kinkaid Victorian Evening print.

PHRASES: I've been a love of words since I was a small child. Usually to the dismay of my teachers. lol. I used to keep spiral-bound notebooks full of lists of words that I loved. Hearing a phrase that catches my imagination can easily turn into a poem or story idea or another chapter in my WIP.

NATURE: I'm often inspired by what I see out my front door. I'm really not a flowers and flowing grasses kind of girl. I'm much more interested in the clouds that press against the horizon, sealing us off from the rest of the world, or the burning moon that looks like a half-lidded dragon eye glaring down at his prey.

EMOTION: There's a biggie. The darker emotion that hits me sometimes can be turned into fuel for creativity. Some of my best work comes from some of my darkest nights. I find satisfaction in taking what is painful and turning it into a piece of powerful beauty instead.

There's my short list of where I find inspiration for my creativity. Where do you find yours?

For Inspiration

"A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit."
Richard Bach, author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull

-Thanks to fellow writer Keli Gwyn for the quote!

Vacation Diary - Day Seven

We spent the vast majority of today at the beach and it was fun, despite the...um...interesting things that happened.

Highlights of the Day:

1. I forgot to record this yesterday: we saw a crab on the sand, scuttling around. My children and several others were delighted and crowded around him to get an up close and personal view. The crab did not take kindly to being studied and raced to safety. Inside someone's beach tent. Up the pant leg of a sleeping toddler.

Mayhem ensued. The mother snatched the toddler and began beating at his pants. The crab took exception to this treatment. So did the toddler. Much screaming emanated from the tent and then the mother snatched her child's pants down, yanked out the crab, and threw him from the tent.

I sympathized with all parties.

2. I got stung by a jelly fish. Twice. At least that's what we think happened. I didn't feel it at the time it happened but I ended up with welts across both ankles and those hurt. I declined the Scientist's instructions to pee on myself to rid myself of the pain and also refused Daredevil's generous offer to do it for me. The welts are already almost gone.

I did shame myself later that day by shrieking like a little girl when I felt something (probably seaweed but I didn't reach my hand down to check) float against my feet again.

3. Seagulls are brazen, defiant creatures. Spend enough time around a flock of them and you begin to believe Hitchcock was on to something.

4. Turns out that spray-on sunscreen is best applied indoors where there is no chance of even the slightest breeze. My hubby now has a strangley patterned sunburn where gusts of wind blew the sunscreen off course. Poor guy is not a happy camper.

Tomorrow we leave Florida bright and unbearably early and will boldly attempt to drive the entire way home in one please-God-just-kill-me-now day. I'll let you know how it goes.

A Message For Muggles

Today at Swords and Stilettos, we've posted a link to J.K. Rowling's commencement address to the 2008 graduating class of Harvard. In it, she discusses the benefits of failure and the importance of imagination.

Come check it out and join the discussion!

Vacation Diary - Days Four, Five, & Six

It's Thursday night and I haven't blogged in three days.

Why?

Disney World, that's why. My feet still have blisters (but we won't blame my hubby and the shoes he picked out for me because in all fairness, I wasn't there to try them on and he did his best).

That said, I have one pair of white women's athletic shoes, barely used, for sale if anyone's interested.

Disney World was Tuesday. And by Tuesday, I mean bright and early Tuesday morning into not-so-bright and waaaay-too-early Wednesday morning. We had to forcibly remove the kids from the park which is kind of the point of bringing them in the first place.

Highlights:

1. Pirates. Not just the ride, which has this cool hologram of Davy Jones you have to ride through to drop into the main ride and which has Jack Sparrow in all the right places, but the gift store the ride vomits every passenger into was totally my idea of Excellent Places To Blow Your Vacation Money.

2. The castle. Wow. The version in Anaheim's Disney Land (where we used to go 3 or 4 times a year when we lived just an hour away) is a poor cousin next to this incredible confection of splendor and beauty. Apparently, you can rent a room in the castle instead of staying at the Disney World resort. I shudder to think of what that night of sleep costs.

3. The Monster's Inc. comedy show. Totally freaking brilliant. A live comedy show using animated monsters who interact personally with the crowd. It's funny (the "psychotic" monster was my favorite) and amazing. If you go, don't miss it.

4. Big Thunder Mountain roller coaster. None of you will be surprised to hear that I'm a roller coaster girl through and through. I haven't met a coaster I won't try. Thunder Mountain has always been one of my favorites and this time I got to introduce it to Daredevil (who kept saying after each turn "Is it over? Please don't let it be over!") and Starshine.

5. The fireworks show "Believe" at the end of the night was really cool.

As for my children, the Scientist loved driving the race cars with his customary careful precision, Starshine was constantly in danger of either being lost or of bowling over innocent groups of tourists as he spent the entire day either staring at something behind him, or hopping over cracks (so he wouldn't break his mom's back!) with his eyes firmly fixed on his feet (I should have just recorded myself saying "Starshine! Please catch up!) to save myself the 857 times I had to repeat it.), and Daredevil had a new rule instituted after a particularly interesting encounter while waiting in line for Peter Pan - "No talking to strangers!". Unfortunately, the rule was for the safety of the strangers.

We spent much of Wednesday in Epcot and it was a nice change of pace from Disney World. Epcot is right up the Scientist's alley as it has a showcase of innovations you can play with, the history of space exploration, and a really cool walk through various countries of the world.

Highlights from Epcot:

1. Soarin' is an amazing ride, made even more special for us since we lived in Cali for years. Some featured cities in California included where we used to live, where we went to college, and where we spent our honeymoon.

2. Spending time in the "land" of China was really cool. We could close out the view of the rest of the park for just a little while and pretend we were there to collect our daughter. Plus, they had this amazing shop of all kinds of Chinese exports including the most incredible carved jade dragon ship ($3300! Ouch!) and I wanted one of everything. I'm bringing an empty suitcase when we travel to China so I can bring home tons of cool stuff.

3. Turtle Talk with Crush (from Nemo) is an interactive experience with an animated character where Crush actually interviews some of the kids in the audience. Our worst fear was that Daredevil would be interviewed and would ask one of the many questions he'd already run by us for pre-approval (all of which were turned down with an emphatic "NOT unless you want us to deport you to the Netherlands!"). He wanted to ask things like "Where do you poop?" and "How can you tell if you're a boy?"

Sure enough, the first child Crush turned to was Daredevil. It's Murphy's law. Since he was sitting on the floor and we were up on a bench, I had visions of turning to other parents and saying, "Wow! Whose kid is that?!" but all my fears were for naught. Daredevil eschewed all bathroom-oriented questions and instead amused the entire crowd (his dark gift) with his answers.

Starshine was the true problem.


Crush finished interviewing various kids and went behind a rock to grab an item he'd found the other day on the beach that he needed the kids' help explaining. He returned with a bikini top hanging from his neck.

Cute, I thought. This is because I am not psychic and had no idea the disaster about to commence from Starshine himself.

Crush then asked, "Can anyone tell me what this is?"

And Starshine, who has never once, not ONCE, clued in to something before everyone else, suddenly yelled out, in that split second before anyone else could respond,

"IT'S A BRA!"

Crush had some difficulty recovering from that one.

So did I.

Today, we left Orlando and drove to Cocoa Beach where we spent the rest of the day on the beach body surfing, finding shells to make a family photo frame, and building a sand castle "home" for the dead jelly fish (sans tentacles) Starshine found. I still don't think Starshine realizes the jelly fish isn't just taking a nap.

Highlights from today:

1. The Scientist dragged a body board out to where the waves were really breaking and proved to be a natural at body surfing.

2. At one point, my hubby joined him using a skim board, an ill-fated decision since a) skim boards are not meant for body surfing and have a regretable tendancy to plow their noses into the sand and their tails into your stomach and b) immediately after my hubby recovered from being punched in the gut with the skim board, the Scientist rode a wave right over his head, plunging my poor hubby once more onto the edge of the skim board.

My hubby gave up boarding after that.

3. The Atlantic Ocean is so different from the Pacific. Not just the temperature, either. The Pacific has so much going on out in the water... boats, barges, islands or rocks jutting out, a definite break between the water and the sky. The Atlantic looks like you're standing at the very edge of the world. The sky presses against the water until it looks like maybe we're all living inside Truman's bubble. You can't see any rocks, islands, or any indication that anything exists beyond the sand at your feet. No wonder people thought the world was flat.

4. Daredevil, Starshine, and I waded out to body surf without boards which translates into me anchoring myself against the wave and the gravitational pull of the undertow, one hand grasping Starshine, the other holding onto Daredevil, and then letting them float along without ever letting go. We chose to face the shore and let the waves crash into us from behind. For some reason, the catch phrase of the day became "Hold on to your poop decks!" before each wave.

No, I did not think of it.

Yes, I yelled it with them.

Unfortunately, after one particularly fierce wave knocked me off my feet and I surfaced to a few unexpected drafts, I realized that it wasn't my poop deck that needed holding.

It was my bow. Both of them.

I think a surfer or two owe me some singles.