Monday, November 24, 2014

Product Review: Resource Natural Spring Water #RefreshWithResource

I received a complete bottle of Resource Natural Spring water from Influenster.com free for testing purposes.

Who doesn't like water? Water is awesome, right?

So I took the bottle with me to work and plugged away at it through the day.

Resource advertises itself with "It's more than hydration, it's total Electrolytenment." 

Its major selling points are being sustainably sourced, packaging that is 50% recycled, and that it is full of naturally occurring electrolytes. That's all well and good, can't knock that.

The water tasted clean with no after taste, which can sometimes happen with bottled or tap water depending on whatever is accidentally or intentionally being put into it. 

I can't say there's anything that I found particularly special about it though, either. It would take A LOT for me to get passionate about a bottled water. I'm the type who is not bothered by drinking from a tap, and would rather just carry water around in a refillable bottle. If I am going to pay money for hydration, I would prefer it came in the form of tea or something else that qualifies as a "treat".

That said, there's nothing wrong with this product, it's just not something that really inspired much passion from me. For anyone else however, who is nuts over bottled water. Go for it. It's not bad. 



Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Influenster VoxBox Review: #ClearProof from Mary Kay




Check it out folks! 

The latest Vox Box I received from Influenster.com is the Mary Kay #ClearChoice Vox Box! In it I received:

The Clear Choice Clarifying Gel
The Clear Proof Blemish Control Toner
The Clear Proof Acne Treatment Gel
The Clear Proof Oil-Free Moisturizer for Acne Prone Skin



It was pretty awesome that I received full size bottles and not teeny sample sizes. After about a month using the products I'm happy to see that I have a lot left. 

Now to how well the products worked for me.

At the time I received the Vox Box, I was struggling with an acne breakout on my chin that had been going on for about two months. It was really frustrating because well, I'm not a teenager anymore for God's sake! Also, I always make sure to wash my face and never wear make-up, but it didn't seem to matter because my face was still breaking out.

The suggestion for the products is to start using them once a day and then  gradually increasing to avoid initial excessive drying  of the skin.

I used the Cleansing Gel in the evenings, the Blemish Control Toner twice a day--and yes I did notice dryness in the areas I used it, the Acne Treatment Gel on spots as needed, and the Moisturizer I used twice a day.

I started noticing a difference in a little over a week of usage. My cheeks, which are prone to small spots cleared up completely, and the overall look of my forehead and cheeks smoothed and lost the oily, shiny evening look I am prone to.

The big problem area, my chin, was a tougher nut to crack. Large pimples were just plaguing it and making me miserable, and I made sure to use the toner and treatment gel on the spots twice a day. When the dryness occurred I used the moisturizer and remained patient.

It took about two weeks but the large, most persistent blemishes on my chin began to shrink and jump ship. YESSSSS!

As of today I am using the product every morning and night but the Acne Treatment Gel I have not needed in a week. My skin feels and looks great and I am so relieved to be free of annoying and embarrassing blemishes.



I highly recommend this product to anyone!


I received these products complimentary from Influenster for testing purposes.

Friday, August 29, 2014

Product Review: Influenster #IceCreamStockUp Part 2

Yowza!

So went back for MOAR ICE CREAM at Target. Remember kiddies, tomorrow is the last day for you to get in on the ice cream stock up and take advantage of a buy 3 get 1 free deal.

There are so many flavors to choose from in just the three brands! Magnum, Klondike, and Fruttare all offered a wealth of yummy. It was pretty hard to choose. Here is the final take:
Needless to say my family was VERY happy with this. Their favorite brand/flavor was the Magnum ice cream, with one box of it devoured on the spot!

Klondike scored very high as well. The classic flavor, no bells and whistles, you can't beat it.

 I tried the Wild Cherry flavor of Fruttare and I enjoyed it immensely! It wasn't too tart, and it was quite refreshing! The portion size was pretty small, more so than I expected in fact but it made for a decent snack.
All in all, I have to say this has been a super fun promotion from Influenster, Magnum, Klondike, Fruttare, and Target. Thanks so much to Influenster for letting me participate in the #icecreamstockup party, and for sending me the voucher for free ice cream so I could review it!



Keep up the awesome guys!

Thursday, August 28, 2014

PRODUCT REVIEW: #icecreamstockup from Influenster! @Fruttare

Yay a sweet treat from Influenster!

Qualifying for a #voxbox or brand challenge from Influenster.com is such an exciting thing. This time around, I've received a voucher for a free box of ice cream treats. Granted, the shiny red envelope containing my voucher was a wee bit late in arriving but when I finally had it in hand it was OFF TO TARGET FOR MY FREE ICE CREAM! <--- free ice cream deserves to be all caps, n'est pas?

Shiny red envelope promising free ice cream is better than a golden ticket from WONKA! :)
So off to Target I went for my free ice cream. In this case I received a voucher for a free box of Fruttare ice cream. Super cool! The only problem, is when I got there I was met by this:

HEAVEN!


The choices of Fruttare I was met with were Strawberry and Milk, Coconut and Milk, and Mango Ice. Ugh! Too much yummy! Welp, since I have a free box anyhow, why not splurge and get all three? WOO! Once I've tried all three flavors I'll post a blog with my review :) . Sounds like I'm gonna be having Fruttare for lunch!

In the meantime, y'all should get to Target straightaway and take advantage of the buy 3 get 1 free deal being offered on Fruttare, Magnum, and Klondike before it ends on August 30. Time is a-ticking!




Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Product Reviews: The Influenster #GoVoxBox

The #govoxbox from Influenster is definitely my favorite voxbox to date! I'm just gonna say that right off the bat. It arrived packed full of goodies and samples of things that I really want to keep in my life forever.
ALL THE THINGS

Playtex Sport Fresh Balance Tampons

A coupon for a free Muller Yogurt product

3 packets of The Vitamin Shoppe's Fit N Full Shake AND a shaker cup to mix them

Blue Diamond Blueberry almonds

Profoot Triad Orthodic & PediRock

Aqua Spa Bath Salts






The things I didn't much care for: The tampons--they are "scented" and supposed to keep your "fresh" and "nice" down there BUT I don't really care for products that bring perfumes to the lady-parts. Sorry Playtex! 




The aqua Spa bath salts do have a luxurious feel and look, and are quite attractive to put on display in your bathroom. And who doesn't love having an excuse to just put the candles on and SOAK in that tub? 

The bath salts had a lovely smell but I found it quickly overwhelming. Now THIS is a feat considering I have lost 90% of my sense of smell! I did give the bath-salts to someone else who enjoyed them immensely. So on this one I have to chalk it up to personal preference



Now on to the goodies!

The Profoot Orthodics and the PediRock are amazing! The orthodics fit into my sneakers and took a lot of stress off my body. I will keep looking for those. The Pedi Rock is my new best friend! After using it once my feet were already glowing and smooth and free of pesky rough spots. It's soft and squishy but rough on the surface so it presses against every curve of your foot and gets all the dry stuff off. It's washable and easy to use and store. 

The Muller Yogurt voucher. YUMMY! Who doesn't love yogurt? Great stuff.

The Blue Diamond blue almonds. Okay... these almonds are more purple than blue and at first I was freaked out looking at them. I thought they would be drenched in food dye and I HATE food dye. They were colored with beet juice, though, so no worries about food dye headaches. Yay! They were tasty and attractive and sweet and almondy and basically a snack of awesome and win. 

I can see these as being a perfect snack for someone who finds a eating a handful of nuts and almonds boring despite it being good for them. It would also be a perfect snack for kids who are finicky. They're slightly sweet and fragrant so they make for a very attractive snack.



Then we come to the Vitamin Shoppe's Fit N Full shake samples. This was indeed a mixed bag ranging from "meh" to "awesome!" The Vitamin Shoppe sampler included three different flavor packs, the shaker cup, and a five dollar off certificate for a future purchase.

The shaker cup is super nifty! It has a big purple jax in it that mixes the powder and gets you a smooth, hassle free shake. BPA free as well so that's a plus.

The first time I used it, the shake was rather lukewarm and still had chunks in it. I didn't shake it long and hard enough. The next time I used it, instead of just cold water (as directed on the packet) I threw in some ice cubes and gave it the shaking of a lifetime. That made the shake super cold and smooth. 

The texture of all three flavors was smooth but also thin. It did not have the consistency of a smoothie but I'm sure anyone could remedy that by using a blender and adding fruit, crushed ice, and rice/soy/dairy milk and honey. That would add to the caloric count however.

Despite it being thin, the shake filled me up and I found I didn't need to add any extras in it to make it more feeling. So as a snack or quick meal replacement it does its job nicely.

The wild berry flavor looked attractive--turning pink when it hit the water, and the taste was initially ok, but the heavy stevia flavor of the shake left a heavy after taste and did not leave me wanting more. The vanilla shake was a bit better but again, the aftertaste remained. I can see trying the vanilla one again with a dollop of honey and cinnamon and a mashed banana. The swiss chocolate flavor was DELICIOUS! It mixed smoothly and even though I just used water and ice cubes, it didn't need a thing more. The chocolate taste overpowered the stevia taste and I felt satisfied and happy with it.

I did see a burst of energy each time after drinking these shakes, so that was interesting, considering they're not sweetened with sugar but with stevia.

I will use my five dollar off coupon to get more of the chocolate packs. They'll be great to have on hand for a quick snack or meal, especially when I'm being whiny about what I want to eat.


Well that's all for now! Thanks to Influenster.com for sending me the products FREE OF CHARGE for testing purposes. 

If any of you would like to join the influenster program, please feel free to ask! All I need is your email and I can get an invite sent to you.




Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Mad Writer's Club Week 8 -- BURNOUT

Writing goals are essential to getting anything completed. The main reason aspiring and frustrated writers fail is because they cannot find or make time to write, or if they can, they do not have a viable goal to reach for other than the concept of having an idea for the story and wanting to write it. Now wanting to write something is awesome but that's the easiest part, having an idea is even better but it's still kinda easy to have an idea. What matters is getting that damn thing completed!

There's nothing more fulfilling than just getting that beginning in and introducing your awesome character (you know, that scene at the beginning of your manuscript where the character has a long look at themselves in the mirror and you get to describe their hair color, skin type, bone structure, and what gemstone their eyes match). After that, you get to set the plot rolling by writing the catalyst scene that throws your character into turmoil and jeopardy and might even introduce them to the dreamy love interest or some other important character who is quirky, or cool, or tortured, or terrifying. There is such a RUSH in being able to breathe life into those scenes you've been rolling over in your head and at that point you can't stop writing!

The words just flow from your fingers. You find yourself laughing as you write or smiling smugly at your words. YOU ARE A MASTER OF WORDS and you get such a thrill at knowing how everyone is going to read this story and... and then...

The feeling leaves. It starts with hitting scenes that just don't excite you. They're important scenes but they don't feel right. You know you can come back and fix them later because of the rule of NO EDITING the first draft. Still, they're not as exciting as the scenes you can't wait to write.

So then you leave it a few days and then try coming back to work on more interesting scenes hoping to fill in the less interesting scenes later. That works for a short time but then even that loses it's luster. Writing becomes less and less every day, and what once was a torrent of words has become a drought. The manuscript gets put away and nothing more gets written.

That's burnout... fizzle out.... whatever you want to call it.

A good way of fighting burnout is by setting wordcount goals and making sure to meet the wordcount every day. It locks you into moving forward and even if the writing is bad the urge to turn back and delete or edit is curbed because you need to keep those precious words on the page so you can meet wordcount. It's the whole reason why National Novel Writing Month is so successful.

Sometimes, though, you even reach wordcount burnout! D: D: D: It's like, that goal of 2000 words becomes a goal of 1500 which becomes a skipped day which becomes a weekend off. Then it gets depressing when you find you haven't reached your weekly wordcount and it becomes easier to declare oneself defeated.

The only remedy I can see for this, if one does not want to abandon the story that is, is accepting the dwindling wordcount as a victory over writer's block rather than a failure to meet the self imposed standard. Writer's are naturally skittish creatures and it does no good to feel inadequate and depressed over something like the number of words written per day. Feeling like a failure only encourages giving up.

It's better to suffer a week or two, or even a month of writing days where only 200-600 words are written and trudging towards a second wind of epic writing than it is to become frustrated and give up completely on a manuscript when a daily wordcount of 1000-2000 is not met. Accepting the tiny wordcount results in a constant movement forward. The alternative of feeling inadequate and abandoning the manuscript only ends up in ashes and broken dreams.

I know they say "don't force it" but if you are really serious about finishing a longform manuscript I think you should force it when you've hit the wall. Squeeze out 200 painful words every day, even if they're words you are ultimately gonna overhaul or delete. Nothing about writing is easy, and pushing yourself to your limits even if your brain is tired, can only serve to toughen you up and prep you for sitting with a manuscript for the long haul.

Moribund Tales by Erik Hofstatter

Moribund TalesMoribund Tales by Erik Hofstatter

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Children are never safe, neither are expectant fathers or philandering girlfriends in this devilish collection of short fiction from author Erik Hofstatter.

The tales collected in this slim volume range from revenge and comeuppance fables to the horrifying and harrowing. There is a consistent theme of how violent the emotions dredged up by jilted love or infidelity can make an unstable person, and there are also tales gleefully turning upside down any notion that children or babies have any safe spot in this world.

The prose is very poetic minded and descriptive, and although some might call that "flowery" , I rather liked it because it made me think of early Anne Rice or writers like Edgar Allen Poe. There is a lot of Victorian influence to the style of writing and the subjects, and the bleeding heart of the collection is very romantic minded.

I will note that there is one story that literally made my drop my kindle and gasp! But I will not say which one as I do not want to give away any spoilers.

I heartily recommend this book! Download it now!



View all my reviews

You can purchase Moribund Tales on Kindle for 2.99.

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Mad Writer's Club Week 7-- Clashing Storylines

One of the strangest thing about the manuscript I'm working on, (for all those keeping track it's my cracked out modern hockey rewrite of "Dangerous Liaisons"), is the schizoid differences between the various storylines of over a dozen characters.

Ideally, I outlined and intended to do a tongue in cheek rewrite just using the templates for the major characters, Valmont, Merteuil, Cecile, and Madame Tourvel. I really wanted to pay homage to the novel I am such a fan of, but also, I wanted to add a little bit of fun and humor to it, while also paying note to my rabid love of professional ice hockey. Even at THIS point it's already gone too far haha.

As the draft moved along though, weirder stuff began to pop up--like the talking goalposts, and a weird secret society that has its roots all the way up to the Vatican, and the appearance of a living saint! Truthfully, a lot of those storylines have a lot to do with my adolescent adoration for Anne Rice and the original "Dark Shadows" TV series. *salutes them*.

The storyline that surprised me the most, however, was how deeply I began immersing into the lives of the children of the characters. Initially they were just to be background fodder, only brought forward when needed as an excuse to bring character A (a nanny or parent) into a situation where they could interact with character B (another parent). Or they could pop forward with a cute scene or a reason to give a typically "bad" character a "see, she really has heart!" moment.

I couldn't bring myself to stay so distant though. Argh! I began to probe into the lives of the kids and spin tales for them. While the adults in this story are busy plotting, and seducing, and being seduced, what could the kids possibly be going through? Kids aren't stupid, even if things aren't spelled out for them they still notice when things are off. What sort of effect does all this craziness have on them?

And just like that, a door opened. Things in this reality are so weird that I began to write story-lines for the children that open doorways for them to other realities. A world where cursed mummies attack, flying monkeys descend, evil doppelgangers threaten, and magical scepters can transport them to different times and places! And this is not stuff just in the children's heads, this is REALLY happening to them right under their parents' noses and NO ONE notices.

Now the fun of it, is that none of these adventures are completely experienced upfront for the reader. The reader sees only slightly more than the parent sees, but not the whole picture. It'll just be a tease of the world that is mostly hidden from adults but is present and perfect for the children to escape into while the authority figures in their lives prance around their own soap opera.

Will any of this work? DOES THIS WORK?

I DON'T KNOW!

We'll see. The point is, I get to put in a mummy's curse. Woo!

*scampers*

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Mad Writer's Club Week 6 --To Trigger Warning or Not to Trigger Warning?

You know how everything comes with a trigger warning these days?

It's an increasing trend I'm seeing, this whole trigger warning business.

The first time I saw the trigger warning tag was back in the days of fan-fic and it was sandwiched among stories that held tags like M/M, non-con issues, bdsm, trigger warning: contains ass babies. Readers of all sorts traversed the world of fanfic and the writers, intoxicated with their strange sort of internet fame (every now and then someone got a cease and desist email from a famous person's lawyer, eeeeef!) began to oblige sensitive readers who demanded stories should have ratings on them because sometimes they just want to read a cute Harry Potter fanfic where Hermione takes initiative and wins Harry's heart, and they don't want to be surprised by Professor Trelawny getting it on with the Weasley twins while Ron is being forced to watch while gagged and bound on a chair.

The trigger warning increased, however, as readers wanted trigger warnings for more than just the bizarre, but also for the potentially emotionally upsetting. Everyone is unique in personality and experiences, and so one cannot anticipate the traumas a potential reader has gone through, and how they process reading scenes that may or may not remind them of bad things. This has always been true as long as there has been fiction writing, and as long as there have been people who have gone through traumas. In the old days, the only way a reader could avoid something with a triggering moment would be if someone else had read a certain novel or story and warned their friend off it, in case it might upset them.

The first time I ran afoul of the trigger warning code was when I posted a fanfic of pirates, and bad piratey behavior happens in it, which basically means murder, looting, rape, and mayhem. The pirates were not good guys by any means, and I wasn't presenting them as such, nor did I condone the bad stuff they were doing. It was just a pirate story.

Feeling pretty satisfied with it I posted it, got a few good reviews and then a very long, very upset review appeared. In it, I was called out for not putting a trigger for the bad things in it. I had ruined her day. I had ruined the characters she loves. The "R" for violence and sex tag I had put on it did not come close to covering what she had been assaulted with while reading. The bottom line, I was rude and uncaring and insensitive to her as a human being. I needed to apologize.

I didn't apologize. She felt bad after reading it, yeah that's sad, but... well... her existence did not come into play as I was writing the damn thing and after posting it? Well... I still don't know what I am supposed to feel. I've seen and been through some horrible things in my own lifetime, just as countless other people have, and those horrible things often show up in my writing. Of course those things are upsetting, they're supposed to be. That's why there are horrible things.

One way of coping after experiencing horrible things is to pretend horrible things do not exist. Now, it's understandable and good for someone who is fresh off a trauma to avoid that particular trauma if they can until they've healed enough to process the badness of the world again, but to avoid it completely for the rest of their lives and ask complete strangers to shield them as well? I'm just not on board with  that.

I have had editors tell me "this scene might be triggery", and although I have done what I can to tweak certain scenes to appease an editor I still can't shake that nagging irritation I feel at being told I have to self-censor to avoid hurting someone's feelings.

I don't think I'll be including one in the manuscript I'm writing. There will be material that is violent or aggressive, or hair raising or whatever. Perhaps there will be a reader or two who will be happily reading along and then they'll run into a chapter or scene where they go, "WTF this shit is upsetting!" They'll fling their kindle aside and never read it again.

 I am not answering to an editor, and potential readers are not my editor either. Sure, there will be some scenes and storylines that might upset someone or other... but I think we can all get through it and survive.

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Mad Writer's Club Week 5 --Finding Repetitive Phrases

As I'm  sludging through rewrites of my cracked out modernized hockey rewrite of Dangerous Liaisons, I am finding little annoying things. The worst things are little words and phrases used over and over again, they are sort of like... they must be the way my brain narrates naturally and they pour onto the page unfiltered and they MUST BE DESTROYED!

It's embarrassing finding little things like that but hell, just snip em and be done right?

What I am finding is that I have a tendency in rough drafts of describing everything as "a bit". She smiled a bit. He walked a bit. He laughed a bit. He moved forward a bit. She fell down the stairs, broke her arm, and fell down a pit of doom... a bit.

That's gotta be annoying for any reader to be met with. I know that sometimes when I read someone else's manuscript little word quirks like that will pop out at me and when that happens I cannot unsee them! It's aggravating! Argh! So when you read over a manuscript of yours, look for words that pop out at you frequently. If you notice words appearing multiple times in a paragraph, or worse, in a sentence, snip them out.

I recently had a manuscript rejected but with personal critique. The editor liked it but they noted that the frequency of the word "yet" was throwing them off in the story. WHAT! I gasped. And I looked over the manuscript and did indeed find a lot of "yet"... well maybe not a lot, maybe the editor was having a bad day and the word "yet" was just particularly irritating. Something . >_>

The point is, do NOT leave it to chance. Edit out those strays. Pluck em! NOW! DO IT!

Remember though, when you are writing a first draft, do not do anything to it. Just keep writing forward, and wait til second draft time to start plucking strays. If you keep backtracking and plucking strays or worse, getting paranoid about which words to choose while you're writing draft one you'll never get a thing done and this is what stops probably about 90 percent of aspiring authors who can never finish a draft of anything.

Awrite I'm done here. See ya next week. XD

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Mad Writer's Club Week 4 -- Jumping the Shark

Yeah we all know what Jumping the Shark is right? The legend of Fonzie jumping over a shark in "Happy Days" because the writer's had literally run out of all the plots and like... prolly drugs and stuff. Well even if you didn't know the origin of the phrase, you may have known the meaning which is basically when a writer has no clue what to do so they just open up the corral holding in the pink elephants.

I personally love when things jump the shark. I know it's considered a sign of a series, movie, television, or book hard up for fresh ideas and we're supposed to groan and stuff and moan about how things are just gonna get moar stoopit from now on in the story lines but whatevs man. I like shiny things. I love bizarre things.

So with my cracked out hockey rewrite of Dangerous Liaisons you can prolly say I began by jumping the shark, and that's prolly true, cause OMG WTF PREMISE! Well, if there's any doubt about it, I made sure to jump the shark early on in the manuscript. Mysterious intruder fixated on one of the wives? Bring it. Hockey player from a rival team so in love with another player that he sends him a deluge of tasty gift baskets to his hotel room? Check. Talking goal posts? Yup. Flying monkeys? Oh... they're coming.

There's going to be an experiment here. How willing will the reader be to traverse this messed up universe? How many genres can I mash into one tale? Can I mix both adult romance and children's fantasy into one storyline? Slapstick and melodrama, mush it all together! CAN I DO IT!

Well I sure as hell am going to try.

The thing that annoys me in anything, whether it's painting, or writing or music... whatever, is the words "You can't such and such...." . If it can't be done then it SHOULD be done. Everyone else is following rules so you may as well bend or break them. If it sounds stupid, it probably is but who cares if you're having fun?

:)

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Mad Writer's Club Week Three : Meet My Characters--The Lafets

Week three has arrived! And I seem to be spending more and more time on the rewrites for my insane hockey romance soapie reimagining of "Dangerous Liaisons". So let's meet moar characters!

Well let's meet Cecile Danceny!

She is of course, based on the character Valmont is supposed to seduce in "Dangerous Liaisons"-- Cecile de Volanges. Perky, achingly young, and naive, (the love interest of Chevalier Danceny). In "Dangerous Liaisons" she makes a tasty target and provides like ZERO challenge for Valmont. Well, the poor kid is like fourteen, what sort of fight is she gonna put up against a skeezoid old French rake? *shudders*
I mean just look at this poor innocent thing! Also, holy hamsters there was a time fairuza Balk was innocent!

The original Cecile is not much of a deep character, she is more like a lamb to slaughter. I originally intended the Cecile in my draft to be just as sweet and clueless. I began with her as a cheerful young nanny and a former parochial school girl, and I started writing her as a veritable sitting duck of girlhood and piety. The more I wrote of her, however, the more she began taking on the upstanding Madame de Tourvel's qualities, and well, I went with it.


Madame de Tourvel is the second target assigned to Valmont to seduce. The spotless wife of a member of French Parliament, she has attracted the disdain of Madame de Merteuil who wants to see her fall from her porcelain pedestal. Tourvel presents an epically tough challenge to Valmont and by the time he does get around to seducing her, he's fallen in love with her. (men, i swear!)

So in my rewrite, Cecile is going to have the qualities of both of these characters. She will start out as innocent, curious, girlish, but as the heat turns up and the Valmont character, Christopher Patrick, comes on strongly, Cecile becomes tougher, and begins to dip into her devoutly Catholic faith to try warding him off.

Not only that, but my Cecile belongs to a family tree that appears in and out of my manuscripts and short stories, The Lafets.

I like to connect almost all of my stories and manuscripts and poems together with reappearing characters. I have a few families that I like dipping into. I have the Forresters, the Bertrands, the Cromwells, and The Lafets.

The Lafet family is my most magical sort of family, and probably the most bonkers. They are very eccentric, and wealthy, the women in the family tend not to marry, generally have daughters, and are often tormented by madness and paranoia. They are prone to supernatural experiences and powers, and sometimes a Lafet woman can become quite powerful and apt to abusing that power. They're a perfect perpetual Greek Tragedy. Woo! :D

So the angle I want to work with my darling Cecile, who is a Lafet on her mother's side, is that she is young and innocent but as she matures, and finds her power and voice as a grown and increasingly sexual woman, she is also plagued by devastating fears about her family history and the possibility of madness. It's hard to talk TOO MUCH about her issues cause that will start giving away certain plot points. EEK!

Well that's all for today!

Thanks for sticking with this ~_~

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Mad Writer's Club Week 2 -- Meet The Characters

If you've known me online for any number of years, and I'm talking a lot of years, you are quite familiar with my insane modern hockey rewrite of Dangerous Liaisons, and very familiar with my characters. So this post isn't for you. It's for everyone else who hasn't had the privilege of meeting my crack for brains characters.

So if you're still reading... HI!

I'll talk about just a couple of characters.

If you're not familiar with the novel "Dangerous Liaisons" you probably are familiar with the movie versions. The most famous one would of course be the version with Glenn Close and John Malkovich, followed closely by the modern remake starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and Ryan Phillipe. My favorite version happens to be "Valmont", starring Colin Firth and Annette Bening.

Why? Because even though "Valmont" takes the most liberties with the novel (and who am I to judge because... um hockey...), I do think "Valmont" has a fresher cast that sparkles with gleeful cruelty and innocence. There is JOY to them that I think lacks in the other versions. The other two versions just take themselves SO SERIOUSLY and ... ugh I just wanna beat the starch outta em.

Ah well.

So going forth!

First off , you cannot have Dangerous Liaisons without Madame de Merteuil!

Beautiful, bored, widowed, unstoppable! In the novel she is the centerpiece, the spider pulling all the strings. She manipulates everyone around her into thinking she is a generous, loving, chaste widow. She is everyone's best friend and the cream of society. Out of cruelty, she plays games with her former lover, seducing people on dares, breaking hearts and destroying lives!

She will be portrayed in my crackhouse of a novel by "Minni Patrick".

In a departure from the source material, Minni will be married, a mother of three! Thirty four years old, and seemingly a friendly, fluffy, blonde beauty of a housewife, no one around will realize the wicked games she is playing as she manipulates everyone out of their innocence, and hearts, and SOULS! Mwahahaha!!!!

Her character, however, will be tinkered with my melodramatic touches. She will have a tortured past, where she will have developed skills for manipulation to survive... but she also finds she has a taste for the cruel. She will love and protect her children with all of her heart, but at the same time, she will view the rest of humanity with a cold practicality.

I'm hoping to balance softness and sharpness, and will give her no middle ground!

Next up, say hello to the Vicomte de Valmont!!


Handsome, rakish, dandy, cruel! He devours innocence and hearts for fun, he matches wits with Madame Merteuil and when she throws him the gauntlet of gauntlets in the game of Broken Hearts he happily dives in to the demise of just about everyone involved.

Tinkering with this character, I have cast Valmont in the character of "Christopher Patrick". Minni's husband and the star goaltender for his hockey team. Even though he and Minni are married, they keep the spice in their relationship alive by seducing those around them and comparing notes. They give each other assignments and dares, and revel in the results.

Christopher will be a star at the peak of his career, drowning in accolades, and league records. To the adoring public he will be quirky, neurotic, a man of eccentric legend. To his family he will be fiercely protective and sometimes silly. Still, he will be driven by his need to own and dominate those in his shadow. Sex is a cold, mechanical thing to him, and it's a tool to claim a soul for him, it's a way to pass time, it's a way to control someone. What will drive his story is the gauntlet Minni will lay down for him, and his need to play the game all the way through, perhaps even past fatal limitations!

So there it is, a couple character sketches!

I hope this sounds interesting enough xD.

*scampers*










Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Mad Writer's Club! Week 1! THE BLOG POST OF DESTINY!

So I have agreed to join the mad writer's club and to be in the club there is blogging and there is writing and most importantly... blogging. ~_~

I'm a horrible blogging because I tend to just purge out everything on ALL THE SOCIAL NETWORKS that by the time I get to my blog I'm like... meh? So I've avoided a lot of networking today and come to the blog and ... whatevs.

LOL

Ok forrealz though.

We're doing like 90 days of writing all the things that can be written. So what is my goal for this venture?

Well I have two projects in mind and I will be alternating on both or both at the same time or whatevs when I have the time to tack away at them. My main project for the short term is to put a new chapbook of poetry together. You may or may not have become acquainted with my previous chapbook of poetry, The Yellow Staircase. It's also available in paperback! Well I have this urge to put out a new chapbook of poetry, and I might mix it up by throwing together poems and stories or something... I need a theme still so I'm just gonna write poems until a theme forms. Sounds like a good idea right?

I also want to get a new novel rolling. I have a few strong ideas going but I also am dusting off an oldie. It's a completed first draft that I am going to completely rewrite by hand so it's going to be tedious to do but it's gotta get done.

The novel is a modern rewrite of Les Liaisons Dangeureuses. It oringinated as a hockey fanfic and I am going to retool the entire sucker and release it onto the unsuspecting public. It'll be amazing. It'll be hilarious. It jumps the shark 15 chapters in. IT JUMPS THE SHARK!

Will it actually be amazing? Dunno.... lol Hopefully it'll be fun. I want to write something just for fun! With The Yellow Staircase I gutted my emotions to create a collection of poems that is near and dear, raw and pointy and it just makes me nervous to think people read it.

My novel Antipathia (also in kindle) also was a work that emotionally drained me what with all the angst and vampires and blood.

I want to do something fun! So I won't apologize for starting work on a soap opera hockey retelling of a celebrated French Classic that will at some point include a scene where hockey goalposts develop a mind of their own and sabotage a professional hockey game in Montreal. (there will also be flying monkeys and a mummy's curse, because I always thought Dangerous Liaisons needed more monkeys)

So far I have a week's worth of chapters rewritten and queued for MOAR REWRITES and I have written five poems.

*wanders off*

Monday, February 24, 2014

My Writing Process Blog Tour

The lovely Katie Young recruited me to participate in the My Writing Life Blog tour which is a brilliant way of linking writers from all over the world and delving into the mechanics of their writing habits. You can find her My Writing Life entry HERE

So let's dive into this!

My Writing Process

Right now I am working on the first draft of a manuscript that started off as a National Novel Writing Month idea run amuck. Tentatively titled "1000 Butterflies" it is a science fiction tale about three young women in three different periods of the near future who have all been affected by a new anxiety treatment that involves tampering with the minds of the girls in question.

My work differs from others of its genre because it is focused almost completely on the points of view of the girls, and less on the men around them who created the technology. I think in a typical story of this genre, the plot-line would probably revolve around a scientist or a boyfriend who would be struggling with the fallout of symptoms with an extreme treatment like this with the female characters affected serving as a trophy at the end for the character who "fixes them". I'm more interested in creating a story that deals with each of these young women as individuals are surviving the best they can with the hand dealt them and that may or may not lead to a sad end.

I also like to connect all the characters in all of my stories and most of my poems in the same universe. It helps keep all my stories real for me. So it's quite common to find characters and headlines intersecting across all of my stories.

I write purely to keep myself interested. Oftentimes an initial motivation for me writing something is because I don't see what I want to read out there. If I can't find it, then I write it! Hopefully the potential readers will enjoy it as well.

My writing process is very disorganized sadly. I wish I could say I had a set schedule and a time frame that was set in stone and no one ever bothered me and there were no chores to do... but alas! I'm an opportunist sort, so I wait patiently (or impatiently) until I can find a block of time to start writing.

I always have three or four writing projects going on at the same time, and if I sour or stall on one, it means I have something else to fall back on. I MUST be passionate about my ideas at all times or else I can't write a thing. If I do become lukewarm on a manuscript or it feels too difficult to get enthused about it, I will set it aside for days to years while I work on other things more interesting.

My poems are almost always handwritten first, and my short stories are tapped up by computer. My novel Antipathia was actually handwritten in its first draft entirety with blue gel ink on pink notebooks! The pink paper actually kept me motivated for the writing process in that period. LOL whatever works right?

Make sure to check out the next participants in the My Writing Process Blog Hop!

The darling Elena Jacob who will be posting Monday, March 3:

Here is her blog: Raven Hart Press

Elena Jacob is a not-so-mild-mannered owner of a social media marketing company, and by night, she works on her novel, because sleep is for the weak. She is a fan of tea, a hopeless geek, and an Oxford comma enthusiast.

And the awesome Tim Baughman Jr. will be posting on the 10th:

Here is his blog Short Stories and Sustenance

Tim Baughman Jr author of the blog Short Stories and Sustenance. His work primarily focuses on dark fiction, the road to becoming a successful twenty-something, and his love for rocky road ice cream.