I’m working hard on my rewrite of Schooling of  a Monster.  I have heard rumors that a certain publisher is accepting un-agented manuscripts right now that are right up my alley as far as genre goes.  I really want to get this done so that I can try that and see how it goes.  I look at it this way, what’s the worst thing that could happen?  They tell me no?  Heard it all before and the word no does not intimidate me. 

I know I promised links for Helium articles far too long ago and haven’t had time since.  So I shall do so now!

What are some of the more common myths concerning domestic violence?  Do you think you know?  Find out here!

Have you ever wanted to increase your vocabulary in just seconds per day?  Now you can, read it with me to figure out how.

If you will need surgery anytime soon, this  article will be of particular interest to you, it discusses the side effects associated with general anesthesia.

Lupus is a disease that affects thousands worldwide every day.  But what causes this auto-immune disease?  I explore that in this article.

Imagine for a moment that you’re camping with your family, you hear a noise from the trees and turn to find a cougar looking right at you!  What do you do?  Let’s all find out together here.

Perhaps you’ve heard someone compared to a wolverine because they seem to devour anything edible within their grasp.  It’s a rather common phrase, but how did this assocation come about?  Are wolverines really that greedy?  Now you can know by reading here.

Sea cucumbers, it’s a strange name for an equally strange creature.  Find out just how strange in this article.

I have a bunch more that I’ve done in the last few weeks, but for now I think that will suffice.  I don’t want to overwhelm anyone’s brain too much.  Have a wonderful hump day and leave me a comment if you feel so inclined.  I love knowing you guys are out there!

I’m also considering writing more fan fiction, probably for Supernatural.  I remember that I started a story on a Fan Fiction website back during the summer break between seasons 4 and 5 but never got around to finishing it.  And now after the finale of season 6 my mind is racing with all the possible theories and possibilities for season 7.  I won’t share my ideas here in full, but let’s just say I think I figured out who God is and it’s not Prophet Chuck.  I might just write that new fan fiction after all because I just love this idea I thought of.

I do have a few new articles on Helium but I cannot post links yet.  The purchase deadline isn’t passed yet so they are not available on the website yet.  I’ll make another post this weekend when the links are available.

Happy Friday!

I have been considering something as far as my novels go, publishing it myself as an ebook.  Ebooks are exploding in popularity as the paper book market continues to shrink by the month.  But publishing yourself as an ebook takes out the publishing game that is almost impossible to win and gains you an audience without investing thousands of dollars like typical self-publishing schemes.  I have not decided on this yet, but just know that it is in my mind and being considered.  If that would be something you’d be interested in me doing, let me know cause I want to know if there’s an interest out there for me to go that route. 

I also have decided to invest more time in my freelance writing on Helium.  So I will post some updated links here, please give them a click cause it helps me make money and you may just discover something interesting too.

Ever wonder what the most common STDs are in women?  Find out here.

Learn the best ways to grow oregano, dill, and peas for all levels of gardening skill.

Should Happy Meals be blamed for rising obesity levels in children?  Find out what I think, with just a little bit of added sarcasm.

And the newest edition, discover some of the most rare breeds of cat in the world!

I hope you enjoy the latest batch of my freelance work, and I promise to update these links more often now that I am writing more.

It is yet another November and we all know what that means, it’s Nano time!  This year I am writing the sequel to Schooling of a Monster, which should be amazing.  In this sequel Micah is on his own and hunting without aid.  But when the police suspect that a monster is kidnapping baby girls in the area, he begins to question his competance.  I am calling it, Rock-A-Bye Baby.  Check out my Nano page for the cover I made today, just search for me with my screenname steffiebaby140.

Speaking of Schooling of a Monster, I still have no finished the rewrite.  But that is my goal for December so that I can send it off to a new potantial publisher early next year.  Humanity is going alright, though I will have to put it aside for awhile.

Update on personal life:  I recently got to actually spend time with my fiance.  It was fantastic and I was devastated to have to send him home.  Wedding date is tentatively planned for next August, that is all I have planned for now.  This wouldn’t be such a pain in the butt if he lived in the US or wasn’t opposed to thwarting the US’s immigration laws.  Why is it that the people who want to do it the right way are punished for doing so? 

That is all for now, off to write my 1,667 words for today.

Stef

Not much is going on with my writing, I’m too stressed and overwhelmed with personal stuff to really get anything useful from it.  I am making significant progress both on the rewrite of Schooling of a Monster, and the new piece I’m working on, Humanity.  I have 2 weeks off of work coming up that I will be having a lot of unexpected free time so I can work a lot then.  Let’s just say that I was planning some major life changes for those two weeks until it all went screaming to hell faster than I could blink, and now I intend to vegetate and recuperate in that time.  I will keep you updated on everything of course.

On a happier note I have almost finished the new Dan Brown book, The Lost Symbol.  I must admit that I was mildly annoyed with Mr. Brown at one point but that faded quickly since the twist that I normally don’t like turned out to be very important and integral to the plot.  I am back on board and the second major plot twist left me with my mouth hanging open in shock.  Definitely a great book for those that are a fan of Brown’s work, but if you’re expecting The Da Vinci Code 2.0 then you might be a bit disappointed. 

Also, if any of you have never seen the HBO series Big Love, I highly recommend it.  I was interested initially because I was raised Mormon, so polygamy is not an unfamiliar thing to me and I wanted to see how close to the mark they got.  The series is spectacular, and so close to reality it was a big eerie for me.  I have nearly finished season one in a little over a week and plan on getting season 2 and 3 as soon as I have the funds.  Have a great Thursday, the Supernatural dry spell of reruns is nearly finish, yay!!

Schooling of a Monster – Yes, old news I know.  But I am currently working on a complete rewrite and edit of it that I think will make it a lot better.  The old version is still on Authonomy  and I urge you to check it out there and put it on your bookshelf if you have an account there.  I highly recommend it, the books are a lot of fun and I need to focus on that site a lot more.  I will be updating that version as soon as I get the individual chapters rewritten so keep an eye on it even if you have already read it.

Crimson Scream – I still haven’t finished this one, even though it was my Nano novel 2 years ago.  I got stuck on a bunch of plot points at the end and pushed it aside.  But I am still working on it and will be finishing it soon.  Then it can be edited and probably posted on Authonomy as well.

Last Days of a Saint – I finished the Nano part of it in time, but it was a close call.  Halfway through November I decided that I didn’t like who these characters were becoming so I started over and am much happier with it.  It’s nowhere near done and for now has been placed on hold while I work on other projects.

Humanity – I may have mentioned this as a short story that I did, but that is not what I’m referring to now.  This is a brand new novel that I started based on that short story.  I am very excited about it and will share more details with you along the road.  This is in the very early stages right now but it is getting a lot of my attention.  Let’s just say…it’s vampires like you’ve never read them before.

Those are all my official projects right now, but I have so many more ideas that I could just burst.  If you want an update on anything specific feel free to leave a comment and I’ll address it as soon as I can.  Blessed Be my good people!   ~Stef

My novel this year is about a Mormon woman who becomes disenchanted with her faith.  When she asks questions and receives nothing but criticism and punishment, she decides to seek answers on her own.  Only she doesn’t realize that could mean her demise.

Anyway, I also have a new blog that is totally unrelated to this one, but completely related to my novel this year.  I encourage you to look at it

http://steffiebaby140.wordpress.com/

Stef

I am also going to make a renewed effort at getting my first Nano novel published.  But I seem to have hit a huge Catch-22.  Publishers won’t publish you without an agent.  And agents won’t take you without being published.  How in the world is anyone supposed to get anywhere?  So I have decided to look into ebook publishing and try that.  I’ll keep you all up to date on that and provide links to my book if it works out. 

New Helium Links

Reflections: People We Miss

Can Christians ever reclaim Christmas as Holy Day?

How different are Witches and Satanists?

How to survive a long distance relationship

How to successfully use a matchmaker

How low self-esteem affects a relationship

Moving on from a bad breakup

Writing an online dating profile

Whale Parasites

Humpback Whale Songs

Laws Protecting Whales

Is the Megalodon extinct?

What is cryptozoology?

The world’s most dangerous sharks

Personal life:  I am getting ready to go to England and spend two weeks with my amazing boyfriend.  I am so excited.  And I’ll be coming back with a new piece of jewelry (hint hint, wink wink)

Stef

Thus we see the official first day of Nano come to an end.  I managed to stay up until midnight and wrote 650 stunningly awful words before I fell asleep at my laptop.  I also sent off my first nanomail to my nano-ites.  I think it went extraordinarily well actually, and I hope to be as good as mentor to them as the one I had last year.

I had a fairly good day for writing, except for losing power for half of it.  It rained horrendously all day.  Imagine buckets of water pouring from the sky and that’s about what my house looked like today.  We always lose power in weather like that as I live in a very old building.  I managed to bust out a total of 2,185 words for the day which is not as good as I hoped, but not nearly as bad as I feared.

My plot seems to be starting out nicely, although I was surprised at what came out in my writing first.  I never imagined the beginning of the story being this way, but I think I like it.  It introduces my main character, Gisele Porter, and gives us enough of her circumstances and background to intrigue, without giving anything away.  We also briefly meet the character that will turn everything around for Gisele.  I won’t say anything more right now, I don’t want to give too much of my plot away, but I was surprised by how well this first chapter turned out.  I just hope I can maintain this pace once I get back to work on Monday.  I remember last year being very frustrated that I could write like crazy all weekend then was struggling for words during the week because I was so tired.

Anyway, I had better run along to bed or I’ll be too tired to do anything tomorrow.  ~Stef

Happy Samhain/Halloween to all!  This is a big day of the year for me, and I could not be more excited.  October 31st has to be my favorite day of the year.  As a pagan, its also the biggest holiday of the year.  I will be busy, busy, busy too.  I work today then I will go to ritual tonight, come home and watch a scary movie or two.  Then I will write my first message to my Nano-ites (that’s what I’m calling the new people I’m mentoring this year), and promptly at midnight start writing.

My novel prep did not go as well as I had hoped it would.  I had hoped that by today I would have character profiles and main plot points all planned out.  I have a total of…..drum roll please……one character profile.  Not the most impressive prep, but I’m sure I’ll manage.  I will try and finish up at least a few character profiles tonight and then get the plot down as I go along.  It will all work out in the end and I am very excited about this plot.

I also got sidetracked with a new story idea as well.  That is why I didn’t get a lot of nano work done, I’ve been busy writing that.  It’s a good one with the main character based heavily on my boyfriend, the infamous Steve.  Its going to be an amazing story and I am almost disappointed that I will have to put it on hold for a month.  Technically I shouldn’t have even started it until after Nano, but oh well.

Oh yes, before I forget.  I did get my Nano novel from last year up on the Authonomy website.  That is the site form Harper Collins I was talking about last time.  I am excited about it, and hopefully this site can help me on the road to getting published.  At the very least I will get a lot of alternate opinions on my work and maybe be able to improve on it.  Anyway, here is the link:  http://www.authonomy.com/ViewBook.aspx?bookid=3086

So, stay safe tonight everyone, stay spooky and have a good time!  ~Stef