Thursday Thirteen Nov 18 - "Speak Now" lyrics

I've always been attracted to and moved by song lyrics.  Songs inspire me almost more than anything else.  Most recently I have been listening excessively to Taylor Swift's new CD Speak Now.  The thing is, so many of the songs either resonate with where I'm right now, or paint vivid pictures in my mind so the song lives and breathes in my head. So here are my 13 favorite lyrics from various songs on Speak Now.
1. "Long live all the mountains we moved.  I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you" - "Long Live"
2.  'I love how you walk with your hands in your pockets, how you'd kiss me when I was in the middle of saying something.  There's not a day I don't miss those rude interruptions." - "Last Kiss"
3. "Get me with those green eyes, baby, as the lights go down.  Give me something that'll haunt me when you're not around."  - "Sparks Fly"

4. "Then I think about summer, all the beautiful times I watched you laughing from the passenger side." -  "Back to December"

5. "...and she is yelling at a bridesmaid, somewhere in a back room wearing a gown shaped like a pastry."  "Speak Now"
 
6. The song "Dear John" - although not any one lyric.  What is actually most cool about this song is how a song about Taylor's relationship with John Mayer even sounds like a John Mayer song.

7. "This night is sparkling, don't you let it go.  I'm wonderstruck, blushing all the way home.  I'll spend forever wondering if you knew I was enchanted to meet you." - "Enchanted"

8. "I  hope you remember today is never too late to be brand new." - "Innocent"

9. "I'd go back and change it, but I can't.  So if the chain is on your door I understand."  - "Back to December" from Speak Now by Taylor Swift.


10. "The playful conversation starts, counter all your quick remarks like passing notes in secrecy."  -  "Enchanted"
 
11. "She got him alone, and let's hear the applause - she took him faster than you could say sabotage." - "Better Than Revenge"

12. "He will try to take away my pain, and he just might make me smile, but the whole time I'm wishing he was you instead." - "Haunted"

13. "I'm not much for dancing, but for you I did." - "Last Kiss"

Whether it's a new song or an old favorite, I hope everyone finds some lyrics that speak to them today! 

Thursday Thirteen 9/30 - The Senses

Here are thirteen things that strongly appeal to my senses.  You know, the things that stay with you, the things you want to feel, hear, see over and over again.

1. The sound of tires or feet on gravel


2. Watching snow fall

3. The smell of fresh ground coffee

4. Rain falling on the carport roof

5. A fire in the fireplace

6. The sound of the ocean

7. The breeze on my skin at Red Rock Canyon, NV

8. The way light glows through a cream colored candle

9. flannel sheets

10. The fur on Fluffy’s head when he head-butts my arm

11. fresh picked strawberries

12. paraffin wax on my feet during a pedicure

13. the smell of Mountain Spring Downy on my carpet after I vacuum (I mix Downy and water and mist it on the carpet before I vacuum to get up more cat hair). If’ I’ve gone that far, it means my whole house is clean.

Final days of GLBT Bookshelf Rummage Sale!

Thursday September 30 is the final day of the GLBT Bookshelf Rummage Sale!  Almost Home and A Case of Mistaken Identity will not be available anywhere else after the sale closes, so make sure you get your copy today! 

Also don't miss the Miya and Unmasking Miya bundle by Darla M. Sands, as well as many other great stories available at great discounts during the sale!

GLBT Bookshelf Rummage Sale

Sneak Peek - Kasey Whittaker

Those who have read Almost Home have already met Gabriel McCullough.  I thought I would take a moment to introduce Kasey Whittaker, who comes to stay with Gabe in my upcoming story Going Home.

This piece is titled The Gray Man.  It's set about eighteen months before Kasey comes to Gabe's farm, when Kasey is still living in the big city with his then-boyfriend, Brynn.

I hope you enjoy this glimpse of Kasey!

* language warning*

The Gray Man

Kasey looked at the painting, the same force drawing the man’s face down into the urn tugging at him, pulling him in.

“What the fuck is that?”

Brynn’s comment shattered the moment, leaving Kasey suddenly adrift as the connection between himself and the piece was severed. He drew a couple of deep breaths, as though the extra air would weigh him down, anchor him more securely to the floor.

Writer's Retreat Blog

Check out my newest post on the Writer's Retreat Blog.

A Beautiful Book?

It touches on my experience reading The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards.

Thursday Thirteen for 9/2 - Things that make me happy

There is never a bad time to remember things that make you happy. And since I just seem to have gotten a second wind, I'm full happy things at the moment! So here they are:

1. Soft pajamas.
2. The “’Now We are Free’ from Gladiator” station on Pandora playing in surround sound.
3. Oregon Strawberries
4. Unscented candles, so I can have as many as I want and not get a headache.
5. Cuddles with the Fluff.
6. My apartment just after I’ve vacuumed
7. Cheese enchiladas that stay intact when I bake them instead of morphing into enchilada casserole
8. E-books and MP3’s on my Blackberry so I can have them whenever I want.
9. That my brother reads my m/m stories just because he loves me.
10. Strawberry Fanta from Popeye’s Chicken. (You laugh, but I am not kidding. Best stuff on earth.)
11. The sound of the ocean
12. The ending of Regularly Scheduled Life by K. A. Mitchell
13. My floaty pool chair – butt in the water, back and feet propped up on the floaty part…best chair EVER.


I hope you have a day full of happy things, too!

The GLBT Bookshelf Rummage Sale is LIVE!

It's here! Your chance to buy A Case of Mistaken Identity and Almost Home for just $1 each at the GLBT Bookshelf Rummage Sale! Or buy the Sweet Short Bundle for just $9 and save two dollars over buying the 8 stories separately.

Click here for to check out the GLBT Rummage Sale!

GLBT Rummage Sale!

I am very excited to report that two of my stories will be part of the GLBT Bookshelf Rummage Sale taking place in September!!


A Case of Mistaken Identity:

Matt Marshall walks into Haven on top of the world. All he has to do is find his boyfriend, Lance Masters, so they can take the next step in their relationship. The trouble is, when Matt finds Lance, Lance isn’t alone. Is there more to this situation than meets the eye? Matt must decide if he’s made the biggest mistake of his life, or if he’s found more than he ever hoped for.


Almost Home:

Gabriel McCullough and Travis Anderson have been best friends since high school. They’ve been through it all. Whether it was Gabe discovering his bisexuality or Travis’s father stealing his college tuition money, they’ve always supported each other. When Travis’s father dies unexpectedly in prison, he turns, as always, to Gabe. This time, however, their familiar connection takes an unexpected turn. Will this change in their relationship bring them closer than ever, or drive them apart?


I'll post the link for these as soon as they are available!

Florence +The Machine - Drumming Song

I heard this song last night and fell in love with it. Enjoy!

Initial Public Offering Chapter Two on the Nightlight Blog!

Check out the second installment of Initial Public Offering from A. Catherine Noon on the Nightlight Blog!

Coffee and the Collar on Nightlight July 24!

In preparation for the launch of my serial story Coffee and the Collar on the Nightlight blog on July 24, I am posting the story that introduces its main character, Charlie. He only has a brief appearance here, but a couple paragraphs was all it took to launch a whole serial story!

Here is Treasure Hunt:


Ulysses P. Rathbone slapped his credit card on the counter, snatched the cell phone out of the sales clerk’s hands and started dialing. He still had no idea why those ducks had dive bombed him at the fountain and sent his Blackberry plunging to the depths of the wishing pool, but he’d finally gotten it replaced. Now he just needed to get a hold of Charlie and have him resend the email with the final Super Search clue.

“Hi, Boss!” came the enthusiastic reply from the other end of the line. Charlie was gay as a maypole and twice as chipper, but he was a genius with computers, so Ulysses put up with the sugar shock.

Writer's Retreat Blog posts

Although I have been neglecting my own blog, I have actually been posting elsewhere and thought I would share the links here.

The most recent one is around the recent Independence Day

The second one is a brief piece on Inspiration, something that came out of my work through Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way.


Enjoy!

Oh, that's right - I have a blog!

Apparently it's been a little longer than I thought since I posted here. So, quick update:

The first draft of Mistaken Identity is done, and came in at 3400 words. It needs editing, but it rolled out in such a rush, I wanted to breathe for a bit before I try to be objective about it.

Then I did a Duel on Romance Divas with a couple of my Knight characters, which was fun. I haven't gotten to play with Connor and Phallon very much for a while.

Then work blew up and I didn't get anything done at all.

Most recently, Gabe finally got his hands out of Travis's pants, although the story's not done. They need to talk, but men being men, they don't seem quite sure how to go about it.

The counters are updated, and even with a 0 week on there, it is a great reminder that I have been keeping at least in the ballpark of my objective of 1000 words a week. I'll take it!

It all started with a case of mistaken identity...

Given that Maddox and Kieran have been languishing and Gabe has his hand in Travis's pants, the last thing I probably needed was a new WIP. In a lot of ways, though I did.

At least, I needed this WIP.

It's short (really - I might not even make it to 3000 words on this one) so I can finish it quickly. I have a strong image of what's happening in the story in my head, and it's making its way onto the page almost exactly how I'm seeing it. I've had some issues with character names, and some of the voices are a little unexpected, but overall this is the kind of story that makes you actually feel like a writer. You have words to say, they flow easily out of your head and onto the page, and it just works.

Sometimes, I swear there is nothing better than that.

Week One

Well, last week was a bit hit or miss in terms of word count. Too many days with zero added up to not enough for the week. Still, the point of tracking word count is really to keep me productive, and seeing that I got to 399 reminds me that progress was made. Otherwise it would be much easier to write the week off as one where nothing got done, and that's not really true.

This week is off to a much better start, with 1444 words on Sunday. I've also managed to connect two separate parts of the Gabe and Travis story together, which is even better. I'm much more comfortable working in chronological order when I can.

I've gotten bogged down in the smutty part, as usual, but I need to keep working through it, because then I will be able to join the last piece to the whole and I'll be all caught up with it. I can't wait!

The Word Meter is Online!

Woohoo!

I feel like a total genius right this minute because I have managed to get a word meter to show up on my blog all by myself! I found the website for the counter, I looked up the html coding to make it show as an image, figured out which Blogger gadget to use to make it post....

And there it is! Over there, on the right! See it? (oooh....shiny...)

My (admittedly rather modest) goal is 1,o00 words a week right now that's actually WIP-oriented rather than Duels or exercises or something else. Theoretically then I could finish a novel in a year. The plan at the moment is to track three or four weeks in a row, see how I'm doing.

Anyway, I am so dang excited about that little picture I almost can't stand it. So enjoy. With any luck there'll actually be some word count on there shortly!

Day One

Well, here I am at last. I've finally taken a new step towards treating my writing as a profession instead of just a dream. I am still a long way from the reality of publishing, but baby steps, right? Wish me luck.