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Finding Your Platform

Before I started a writing blog, my biggest hesitation was that I felt I had nothing to add. What would my platform be?

Because the word platform? It’s a really scary word. Right up there with Lord Voldemort and Blood-sucking. And if you’ve ever faced a mosquito, you KNOW that blood-sucking is one frightening word.

Obviously, I took the plunge, but easing into a platform that will really keep people coming back is another story.

• First I tried doling out writing advice using real life examples. I like that okay and I still do it sometimes. But it can get boring fast.
• Next I tried being the Grammar Nazi. Because I actually am one. But I just couldn’t make grammar interesting enough. Not like Missed Periods and Other Grammar Scares (who has a grammar book coming out soon!). And I didn’t really want to delve as deep as I needed to to make it useful like Grammar Girl. Besides, they were already doing it. So I stopped.
• Then I moved to talking about license plates, which I still love doing. That one stuck. I’ve even had some commenters tell me that they think of me whenever they see a personalized plate. Yay! Of course, if I ONLY did license plates, well, that might get old, too.

Finally, I had an epiphane about my platform. As much as I wish these were me, I will never be the Janice Hardy who doles out AMAZING writing advice on pretty much a daily basis. (Wow, I love that girl.) I will never be the Miss Snark’s First Victim, or even the recently-launched Cupid’s Literary Connection where I connect writers and agents in contests. I will never be the Literary Rambles which is a must-visit for all agent-seeking authors.

The problem? I don’t think it’s that there isn’t room for more blogs like those (just look at Cupid who is doing very well and has already had some success stories). The problem is that none of these types of blogs fit my personality.

If I tried to keep up a blog like that, I would lose interest fast. Not because I don’t love those blogs (in fact, you should all be following all of them!), but because I am simply not serious enough. At least, not when it comes to writing.

I love to laugh, joke around, get a little silly. Because I am serious enough in every other aspect of my life, I need the outlet. I remember agreeing to write an article in college about which grocery store to go to. My research started out serious enough, but it quickly turned into a series of limericks about the pros and cons of the various stores. Yeah, I have no idea if they printed it.

So while this isn’t exactly the platform I originally imagined for myself. Humor and inspiration have become my thing.

Why?

Because it’s what I need. It’s what will keep me coming back and writing posts. It’s what will keep me sane.

(But isn’t it ironic that this post doesn’t exactly fall into either of those? Please ignore my inconsistency and just go with it.)
So how about you? Have you figured out your platform? How did you find it?

P.S. This will be my last post for a while as the move is sneaking up quickly. I hope to be back by August or even sooner. Have a great summer!

Speak up:

28 comments

| TAGS:

Cupid's Literary Connection, Grammar Girl, Janice Hardy, Literary Rambles, Miss Snark's First Victim, Missed Periods, platform

My Final Talent: Video #5

This post will be brief since I was up so late last night watching the USA get thrashed by Brazil (4-1). Sigh.

But I couldn’t miss posting my final video. My duty is now fulfilled. Hope you enjoy!

(For those who don’t know, Leigh Moore and I were doing a 30K in 30 days challenge, and the pennance for missing a day was posting a Hacky Sack Club video. I missed 5 times!!!)

So what talent have you been cultivating?

P.S. All the winners in my giveaway have been contacted, and the books are on the way. Thanks for entering, and enjoy!

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14 comments

| TAGS:

Hacky Sack Club, Leigh Moore, Toilet Paper Rolls

You Are Beautiful!

So last night I stayed up late watching Pride and Prejudice with my husband (the long version), and I completely spaced on scheduling a post. But this song has been stuck in my head all week.

Take this with you today. YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!

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20 comments

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beauty, Jason Mraz, music video

Happy News and High Heels

Before I cut you a slice of my humble pie humiliation, I wanted to share some great news:

Angela Cervantes, one of the amazing writers in my critique group just had her book announced in Publisher Weekly!

So very excited for her! You can check out Angela’s website, or congratulate her on Twitter: @AngelaCervantes. Yay Angela! Doing the happy dance for you. 😀

Now, on to that other thing. Video #4.

(For those who don’t know, Leigh Moore and I  were doing a 30K in 30 days challenge, and the pennance for missing a day was posting a Hacky Sack Club video. I missed 5 times!!!)

For the record, I sustained an injury in the making of this video. Darned high heels gouged me! I guess this’ll teach me not to skip out on writing.

And if you haven’t entered, and want a chance to win one of those books, you still have time! Just CLICK HERE. (Wow. Writing it in all caps like that makes it look kindof spammy. But it’s not. I promise.)

So can you walk with a book on your head?

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17 comments

| TAGS:

Angela Cervantes, books, High Heels, Leigh Moore

Humiliation With a Side of Awesome

As promised, video #3. Here I reveal some of my lesser-known talents. What are they? You’ll have to watch to find out! *cue evil laughter*

(For those who don’t know, Leigh Moore and I were doing a 30K in 30 days challenge, and the pennance for missing a day was posting a Hacky Sack Club video.)

Oh! The subterfuge of it all!! Sneaky little beggar.

Despite appearances, the side of awesome I mentioned is not my son (though even I have to admit it was pretty funny). The side of awesome is that I am giving away a boatload of books!

Since we are moving, I’m trying to clear off my shelves. Rather than give my precious books to just anyone, I thought I would offer them up to my lovely followers. Unfortunately, and I hate to do it, but since there are so many, I just don’t think I can afford the international postage on that many items, I’m going to have to limit it to US/Canada.

Okay, but now I feel too bad, soooo, I will draw the name of one international commenter and send them a book. So here are the rules:

1. You must be a follower.
2. Leave a comment with your e-mail and please mention if you are international or US/Canada.
3. For international participants, you have until May 29th to enter, and hopefully I’ll have the winners posted by Thursday.
4. For the rest of you, the contest is on-going until the books are gone and I announce the end. I’ll start picking winners at random very soon. Tomorrow maybe? Don’t you just love the randomness of it all?

No extra entries for tweeting or passing on the word, but I would love it if you did!

There will be as many winners as I have books to give away (which is a lot), and as a thanks to pay it forward (NTM, you’re the best!), one lucky random person will also win a $10 Starbucks card (I don’t drink coffee, so when my husband won it at work, I knew just what to do with it!).

Please note, the books are used (read at least once), but they are all in very good shape, and most are pretty recent. Most.

And since it will be a media mailer, there won’t be a warm, fuzzy note with it, but know it’s there in spirit.

Love you guys! Thanks for reading my posts, and laughing at my crazy videos (you DID laugh, didn’t you?!!!). Thanks for your support and for generally keeping me sane in this Wonderland World we call Publishing.

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11 comments

| TAGS:

books, Giveaway, Hacky Sack Club, Leigh Moore, Starbucks

License Plate Characterizations

I don’t want to overload you on the videos all at once, so today I’m giving you a break, but my third video of humiliation will be up Thursday. For those who don’t know, Leigh Moore and I were doing a 30K in 30 days challenge, and if you missed a day, the penance was posting a Hacky Sack Club video. So that’s what that’s all about.

Anyway, on the other things. In my extended absence, I saw a plethora of great license plates that I’ve been dying to share with you. I’ll just mention a couple with today.

The first is one I saw on a black BMW:

The second is from a black sedan with tinted windows (seriously):

On this last one, my first question is “Who would advertise that on their license plate?” and next “How did it get through the DMV?”

Anyhoo, that said, I’ve been thinking a lot about characterization as I’ve been working on my latest manuscript, and I’m finding that little details like these can really make your characters pop. With these license plates, I get an immediate image of these people. Granted, they may or may not be correct, BUT it’s a start for making them real.

I know I’ve asked the question before, but do you know your character’s personalized plates? And what about the car they would be on?

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16 comments

Blowdryers and Characterization

Day 2 of my Hackey Sack Club humiliation. Today I’ll cut right to the video, with a brief footnote to mention how impressed I am with the video program for capturing such a . . . shall we say expressive  moment as the stand-by picture. Yoinks.

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12 comments

| TAGS:

Blowdryers, characterization, Hacky Sack Club, Humiliation, Round Brush

Silliness Ensues

I’m back!

April was a weird month for me in that it seemed to last forever (a la my husband’s job), yet at the same time went by in a flash (a la my goals). I wasn’t a total stranger to the blogosphere (thanks Ruth!), but I wasn’t exactly a close friend either. I think acquaintance is the word. 😉

As for my writing challenge with the fabulous Leigh Moore (1K of writing a day), I missed 5 times. Five!!! So that means I will be embarrassing myself a la video for the Hacky Sack Club pretty much most of this month. Hopefully a la your viewing pleasure. (“A la” is my pet phrase of the day.)

Like Leigh, I can’t decide if I’m more embarrassed by that expression on my face at the first, or by my horrible accent. Anyway, enough chatter. First installment, here:

So now that I’m back, did I miss anyone’s happy news? I’d love to hear your shoutouts for yourself or your friends. 🙂

Speak up:

18 comments

| TAGS:

French, Hacky Sack Club, Leigh Moore, Ruth Lauren Stevens, Subtitles

Not ‘Goodbye’ . . . Just ‘See You Soon’

Some of you may have noticed, but I have been a bad bloggy friend the past little bit. I haven’t replied to comments like usual (for those who have their e-mail address available in their user settings), and I haven’t visited others blogs.

And I know, I know, it happens to the best of us, but I really do feel terrible about it, because I love all you people who visit and comment on my blog. I can’t tell you how happy a little comment makes me. Ridiculously happy. 🙂 

But alas, despite the less sleep I’ve been trying to get by on, I’m just not getting everything done. Because some things simply must come first. *cough* kids *cough*

So where I am going with this? I’m going to take a blogging break for the month of April. Hopefully in that time I can catch up on replies and visiting some of your blogs, too, but I must do a few other things first:

1. Spend every possible second enjoying my parents when they come out to visit.
2. Continue potty training little miss dirt monkey (no accidents yesterday!).
3. Finish the big translation job hanging over me.
4. Write 1000 words of my wip [work in progress] every day (or you just might see a post in April after all). For an explanation, check out this post by the fabulous Leigh Moore.
5. Spend time with my hubs every spare second he has.
6. Exercise. Time to find a new race to work towards . . . preferably a shorter one.
7. Relax. Excuse me while I go look up the definition of this word . . .
8. Begin the clearing out process for our move in June. My but junk builds up fast.

Well, I could go on . . . I didn’t even mention spending QT with kids, because I hope that’s a given . . . though it hasn’t been lately. *sigh*

So have a great April everyone! I will miss you, but look forward to hearing all your wonderful news come May. 🙂

This picture just makes me happy, so I’m sharing it again.

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23 comments

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blogging, comments, Time

La la la la la! I Can’t Hear You.

I feel like I’m one of the few people who did not get to go see The Hunger Games this weekend. Even my brother went to the Midnight Opening . . . my brother!

So today, knowing that there will be a wash of blog posts and tweets exclaiming how much they loved it, I am simply going to plug my ears and pretend I can’t hear you.

Because even though I may have read the books, I don’t want to hear too much about the movie before I’ve seen it. I like to be surprised.

It’s an -ism. I totally admit that.

I’m the same way with books. I don’t want to hear anything beyond the blurb before I read. Unlike my mom who actually skips to the end to read that first. Crazy.

So how about you? Do you read the ending first? Or do you  prefer the blank slate method?

Speak up:

14 comments

| TAGS:

endings, movies, Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games