Snoopy Dance Time!

Hey everyone!

First of all, if you don't know what the snoopy dance is... go out and rent a Peanuts movie. No one should go through life having not seen the beagle dance.

The picture to the left is my little way of celebrating. Celebrating what, you might ask? Celebrating the fact that I won the grand prize in the Pen and Muse Romantic Short Story Contest in the unpublished author category!!! So yes, that is the reason for the blog title, "Snoopy Dance Time!" When I read the email from Denisse last night, jumping up and doing the snoopy dance was the first thing that I wanted to do, sadly not the first thing I did do. I think it went something like this...

Slightly hyperventilating, Willow puts her hand to her agape mouth. "Honey!" she calls out to her husband.

"What is it?" he answers from his chair across the room.

"I... won... I won the short story contest," she says, re-reading the email, certain that she misread something.

"Awesome!" he says before pulling out the phone to call his mother and tell her the great news.

I then sent a Gmail chat to my beta reader, M, who happened to be on at that moment. I think she wanted to snoopy dance with me too. I really wish that I could've jumped up and celebrated, but sadly I'm getting sick again... ear ache, sore throat, the works. Getting the email about this contest was exactly what I needed to make me feel a little better after a day spent huddled under my blanket.

So today, once I finish this blog post, I'm going to be filling out a interview questionnaire and sending it off to Denisse. The awesome thing, she'll post it on the blog! How often do unpublished authors get interviewed about their writing? Answer: Rarely.

I still don't think I've fully processed the fact that I won. I mean, I believe in my writing and really enjoyed the story I submitted, but I really wasn't expecting to win, you know? I was just hoping to place, especially since this is the first writing contest that I've ever entered.

Hearing that someone else likes my story (other than family and friends who have to say they like it) has really re-energized me towards writing. I think I sort of hit that slump that I've read about where you feel like everything that you write is crap. I spent so much of my writing time second-guessing everything that I've written that I really wasn't getting anything accomplished. Once the shock wears off, I'm sure that I'll end up in another typing frenzy on Instinct, which will probably bring me to the end of the first draft.

So , I think I'll start on that interview questionnaire now. I'll post a link to it once it's up over at the Pen and Muse. I still can't get over the fact that I'm being interviewed for my writing... me... plain little, unpublished me... just wow... but anyway...

Until I blog again...
Talk 2ya later...

~Willow

New story idea & "Are you Willow?"...

I'm ba-ack!

Still no news on the job my husband applied for or about my short story. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for both though. I've lived in Southern Illinois my entire life and due to personal issues with my family, I'm more than ready to get out of the area. Long story short, after the death of my father in 2003 things between me and my family went downhill fast. Lucky for me, I absolutely love my in-laws and can't wait for us to move closer to them.

But anyway, this blog is supposed to be about my writing... so I'll get back to that.

Still waiting on news from the editor at the publishing house on my short story. It's been over two weeks and no form rejection yet, so I'm still hanging on to hope. My realistic goal is to receive a personalized rejection letter while my "head in the clouds" goal is to get "the call"... which would actually be "the e-mail" in this case, but you get the idea...

Today was the final day for the Pen & Muse short story contest. I'm not sure how long it'll take them to judge all of the entries and come up with a winner, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed on that as well. It would be nice to have a contest win to list under my bio in query letters. I'll keep you updated if I hear anything.

I've made a little bit of progress on Instinct this past week. Nothing like I was accomplishing before I got sick and had to stop completely for a few weeks. Man, I cringe just thinking back on those days. So desperate to write, so stuck in medicine-head-land...

I know what my lack of progress this week was about though. Once again my lovely Writing Gremlin or his girlfriend, not sure which, decided to have me jot down yet another story idea. This is the second YA (Young Adult) novel idea that they've presented to me in the past month. The first was Megan and Joseph's story that came from my short story, On Occasion.... This new one is about a girl named Lisa and her adventures as a pop/rock singer. Dealing with her singing career, a very public breakup from her boyfriend, paparazzi, interactions with friends (celebrity and not), and the ups and downs of starting another "Hollywood relationship" fairly soon after her breakup... that's a lot for an 18 year old girl to handle! Watching this story play itself out in my head the past week has been crazy! I felt like I was on a roller coaster ride because her emotions are all over the place! Then, the night before last, she let me in on an absolutely heartbreaking moment from her past that makes her character so much clearer to me. She has such a fun voice that I'd really like to explore writing in, which leads me to my next dilemma...

Now I don't know what I'll write once I finish Instinct. I have a folder full of ideas (that is growing every week it seems), some more fleshed out than others, that are all just screaming to be written. To make matters worse, I have three or four that I've really made a connection with the characters. To make things even worse... Instinct is supposed to be the first in a four-part series! Gah! I need to learn how to manage my time better so I can write multiple projects simultaneously. It shouldn't be that hard, right? I just have a house to run, an over-active toddler to chase, typical errands and appointments to attend to, a horrible addiction to celebrity gossip and blog reading... Oh boy, I could really be in trouble here...

For right now though, I think I'll just focus on Instinct and keep filing away all of these story idea outlines as I think them up. The sooner I type up this new twist in Lisa's story, the sooner I can wipe it from my memory and free up some mental space for the novel at hand. I'm getting so close to having the first draft done that I can taste it! If I can get the rough draft done then I can start working on one of these new projects while I work on edits. I know that most of the hard work on a novel comes after the first draft is done, but I'm looking forward to it. I'll keep ya posted on my progress on everything.

Let's see... what else?

I had my second Southern Illinois Writers Guild meeting tonight. It was really fun. And, get this, I wasn't the youngest person this month! A man brought his daughter, a freshman in high school, to support her dream of becoming an author. How cool is that? Why couldn't my family have been supportive of my writing like that? I gave her the best piece of advice that I could come up with, "Don't let anyone talk you out of your dream." I then told her a 30 second run down of how I let well-intentioned family members talk me out of pursuing a college degree in Journalism and Creative Writing because I'm "good with computers.." But that's another blog that I'm pretty sure I've already written...

Had an interesting experience tonight. I was actually recognized by my blog at the meeting. It felt so weird to have someone call me "Willow" in real life. I mean, I play Final Fantasy XI online as a character named Willowdream (known fondly as Willow) so people type it as my name a lot, but it's still a different experience to hear someone say the name out loud. I know that I've considered using Willow as a pseudonym should I get published, and I guess tonight I got my first taste of what that would feel like. I just can't decide on the whole pseudonym issue. I'll probably just go with my gut instinct on what name to publish under once I sell a novel.

Speaking of blogs, I found a small group of ladies in the group who blog regularly. We so need some really cool name for ourselves amongst the guild members... but I'm tapped out on creativity at the moment though... so tired... So big cheers to Kristin and "Neechiwoo"!

Well, as I'm tapped out on creativity as I mentioned above and the two year old is refusing to sleep... again *groans*... I think I'll sign off for tonight.

So, until I blog again...
Talk 2ya later...

~Willow