Awards! Who Said Living In a Fantasy Wasn't Fun?

HOLY TRACTORS! I won two awards. TWO. For being stylish while I sit here in my long johns, my toenails blue from the cold!! Yup baby, that's style.       ok, so I'm not in my long johns, but it is chilly, I should be.

Vicki Tremper presented me with this stylish blogger award. Thanks Vicki!!!Her site is so much fun. Vicki has been on incredible adventures. I love her stories, her ideas, her fun love of life, and her writing is an inspiration. Be sure to stop by and visit my new friend. It'll be fun, she always has a tale to tell. Ah stories.
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Witless Exposition at Cerebral Lunchbox presented me with this styling award.

Jessica is a fellow crusader and we landed in the same group, which means we have a few things in common. That we do. We love urban fantasy, video games, great books, and our dogs-  despite their drooling faults. Check out our Interview here! Her site is one of my homes away from home, so be sure to check out my new buddy, and share in her discussions, she brings life to everything with great photos and details. Thanks Jessica!!!

OK. So on to accepting these awards. I made two lists, about myself;

SEVEN THINGS THAT CONFUSE ME and why

and

SEVEN THINGS I HATE and why

turns out they were exactly the same so here they are, summed up in one list.

1- War. How is this fun?
2- Competitive sports for kids. Why is this fun?
3- Parents who take sports for their kids tooooo seriously. Who forgot this was for the little gaffers? Cripes.
4- Query letters. Why did all my fun end here?
5- Dogs that bark in the middle of the night. Why for the love of all things written don't they sleep? not.fun.
6- Socks with holes. I just don't get why one always wears out before the other. (I always wear two socks. It just doesn't make sense and frustrates me.)
7- The fact that everything I cook burns. I just don't get how I burnt mac and dogs. I really don't.

And now. I pass this award onto 15 unsuspecting stylish bloggers. Again, I did this twice, turned out to be the same ones! 

They all deserve a peek if you aren't following. If you are; yay!
All winners-- pick up your award and pass it on, give me praise and tell us 7 things about yourself. Go.
Life of Lois
Write on
Reading, Writing, Romance
The Girdle of Melian
Life, Love & Living in France
Literary Coldcuts on Toasty Buns
Ali Cross
Imagination Investigation
The Queen of Procrastination
Making It Up
Conversations with Self
Pensive Sarcasm
Carrie Keeps Typing
My Comfy Chair
Chris Phillips - Slushpile Savant

A Peek Into Your Life Jessica Cassell

Well. Here I am. A few weeks into Rachael Harrie's Platform Building Crusade. I'm following everyone's blog. I LOVE my group, and I'm making friends from many of the other groups.

What a fun bunch of writers. (Well... we're all here for a good time after all.) 

Today, I'd like you to meet Jessica Cassell over at Cerebral Lunchbox, a fellow crusader, a group member, and a cool gamer girl. Be sure to stop by her blog, for a chat, she's full of unique ideas and always has a fun discussion going. Yup, another place to call home.

What genre do you write?I've written a little of everything through the course of time, but these days I'm mostly sticking to urban fantasy.  I'm excited about the rise of popularity in the genre, because before the genre came along I never knew what to call the things I wrote.  Some of my stories do have a stronger horror bend than others, but I think that blending genres is a lot more acceptable now.

Where are you in your writing career?I'm published, but only with non-fiction.  The more research I do, the more I'm leaning to self-publishing an e-book when I finally get to that stage.  I'm about 90% done with my first novel, which I'm hoping will be the first in a series.  I have several short stories finished and polished ready and waiting for the right market to come along.

What advice would you give to a new writer? What advice do you wish someone had given you?

I used to fear making outlines, because I didn't want to "stifle" the energy I felt while I was writing.  Now I know this: Plan, plan, plan, and be completely ready to throw it all away in the course of writing. 

To keep from stalling out, you really do need to have your ideas fleshed out, but your characters will evolve as you write, and you may need to revise the plan as you go along.  If you're willing to evolve than the writing will still feel dynamic and alive, even if you have it planned to death. I've adapted the Snowflake Method for the planning stages, and have used yWriter to help me move scenes around, etc.

What’s the strangest place you’ve ever found yourself writing? Your favourite place to write?

I guess the strangest place I've written was in class (both high school and college).  In high school, I would get in trouble in math classes, because I would be scribbling away, and then passing the pages to my friends.  Even though looking back the writing was laughably bad, it was pretty fulfilling to get instant feedback.

My favorite place to write is at my desk in my corner of the bedroom.  It may not be a room of my own, but it is my own area.  I can get much more done there than anywhere else in the house.  Probably because it's far far away from the comfort of the couch.

What inspires you, motivates, or simply pushes you to be your very best?I'd love to have something wonderful and unique to say here, but I fear my answer is pretty standard.  Two things really push me, the first is the movie in my head.  I imagine my stories and see them playing in my head, and I desperately want to capture the images and translate them to paper.  As good as my writing may be, I always struggle, because it's never as good as the reel going in my mind.

The other thing that pushes me is my husband.  We met in junior college, when I was taking a creative writing class to round out my hours so I would be full time.  I would always let him read what I'd written and he loved it.  When we moved and I was unemployed, he was the one to really push me to begin seriously writing again.  Letting him read my work and the (sometimes pushy) encouragement he gives me helps me keep going.

And... Let's take a peek into your life. Tell us about yourself.

Oh gosh, these are the types of questions that I hate!  Let's see how this goes.  Well, I have a sailor's mouth, and I live in mortal fear of letting something slip in front of my family.  I've also decided that when I publish, I'll have to keep it secret from my family, because most of them are a bit...uptight.  They probably wouldn't dig the violence, language, and most definitely the sex I sometimes include in my stories.

I have two dogs that I love (even when they destroy the toilet paper and tear up pillows).  Don't ask me what breed they are, because they're both pound puppies.  I have a strong conviction about adopting from shelters instead of buying my dogs from breeders.

I have a very hard time creating brand new ideas.  Instead, it's often just a phrase or a legend that gets me going.  I never have several stories or ideas going at once, but I tend to hold on to the inspirations until I get them just right.  One of my two WIPs is based on a short story I wrote ten years ago that has been nibbling at my mind for all that time.

Thanks Jessica!!