Kissing Day Has Arrived!

In honor of the mistletoe a couple of my Twitter friends and I decided to dub today Kissing Day, and share a scene from one of our manuscripts that included kissing or almost kissing.

There isn't any kissing in my finished MG manuscript or my WIP. I tried to search through manuscript #1 for a good kissing scene, but reading it was just too painful (Wow it's bad! Don't quit after your first manuscript folks--you will get better!) So I wrote an entirely new kissing scene for your reading pleasure. It's a little rough since I just wrote it on Thursday, but here it is:

“Okay Paige who’s it going to be?” Chris Rodriguez asked as he sent the bottle spinning.

It zipped around like a merry-go-round. I imagined it stopping in front that boy from pre-algebra who was always pulling at his nose hairs. There were 10 possible candidates, but I planned for the worst—then anyone else would be an improvement.

My heart raced. I felt nauseous. I pictured kissing nose-hair-guy, with his crusty chapped lips and greasy hair. I could do it. It’d just be a quick peck. If I could kiss my grandma, who had more facial hair than my dad and smelled like Bengay, I could kiss anyone, right?

When was that bottle going to stop?

It lazed around a few more times, slowing as it passed each person. It inched past nose-hair-guy and crawled past the next guy too, and pointed to Alex.

It felt like a brick hit my stomach. Alex Henson. The Alex Henson. That same Alex Henson that I’d had a crush on since third grade. He looked up at me and smiled, pushing his messy blond hair out of his eyes. I tried to smile back as the tsunami in my stomach inched up my esophagus.

I’d picked the wrong worst-case scenario. Kissing Alex would be a thousand times worse than kissing nose-hair-guy. What happened to Chris’s parents? They were only going out to get pizza. Shouldn’t they be back by now?

Alex stepped up to me and winked as he whispered, “You ready Paige?”

I felt my knees buckle as he wrapped his arm around me and led me out to the back porch.

I think I was hyperventilating by this point, though I’m not exactly sure, since I don’t really know what hyperventilating feels like. I felt strange and lightheaded, like I was breathing, but no air was getting into my lungs.

Alex walked me over to the porch swing and we both sat down, so close I could smell his mom’s fabric softener. He reached up and put his hand in my hair and smiled again, his blue eyes glistening and sincere.

How was this happening to me?

I watched as his eyelids covered his eyes, and his soft lips, turned up just a bit at the corners, came towards me.

Then, the chaos in my stomach erupted. I backed away and yelled, “STOP!”

He jumped back, his expression changing from charming to confused.

“I just had a throw up burp.” I blurted.

His pained look got worse. His eyes fell to ground as he stood. “It’s totally fine if you don’t want to. I’m sorry. I just. It’s no big deal. Lets go back in. We can pretend it’s done.”

I nodded, speechless.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and I stood up to walk beside him back into the room full of hopeful pre-teens.

He gave them a half smile and they cheered. Then he sunk into the beanbag in the corner, and I went to hide in the bathroom.

Sorry about the grossness and lack of romance. I tried--I really did. Sherrinda is hosting the day, and putting together a massive list of participants, so go read their (probably much more romantic) kissing scenes and link to your own. And if you've posted a kissing scene let me know in the comments so I can check it out! I'm going to try to read all of them.

Something Lovely

This is probably the last awards post I'll do this week. Monday is kissing day blogfest so get ready for some kissing (or almost kissing)! Then I'll finish up the rest of the awards over the Christmas break.

Up today is the One Lovely Blog Award. This was given to me by three bloggy friends:

Mary at Writers Butt Does Not Apply to Me. Mary chronicles her quest to write a novel and lose weight. Her honesty and humor keep me coming back for more.

Stephanie at Hatshepsut gave it to me too. The thing I love about Stephanie is that she's done a great job of making me WANT to read her novel. She doesn't post teasers or give stats on her progress, she just writes about her research about ancient Egypt and her MC, Hatshepsut, who was one of only a few female Pharaohs.

The I got it from Voidwalker at Into The Void. He's pretty new to blogging (so go follow him!) He's a funny guy. You'll like him.

I am supposed to pass this on to 15 blogger friends who have lovely blogs. I chose people who not only have lovely blogs, but also seem like lovely people. Here they are:

Anissa at Anissa Off the Record

Anita at Anita's Edge

Yaya at Yaya's Changing World

Valery Geary at Something to Write About

CKHB at Heim Binas Fiction

Candice at Suffering From Writer's Blog

Storyqueen at Storyqueen's Storycastle

Georgina at Olive Juice

Roni at Fiction Groupie

Renee at Midnight Meditations

Melissa at Chasing the Dream

LT Host at Quest: Published

Julie at The Climb

BJ Anderson

Terry Lynn Johnson

Thanks for sharing your lovely blogs with us!

Honest Scrap

This passing on awards thing is more difficult than I imagined! Most of you already have some of the awards, so it's been like a giant puzzle trying to determine which awards I can give to who. While searching for award rules today I discovered there is an award I'd missed, so I had to shuffle everything again. I know I'm going to accidently leave someone out or give them an award they already have. So PLEASE forgive me if I do (and take whichever one you want-- you all deserve one!) A little grace is always a good thing.

Today I'll be passing on the Honest Scrap award. It was given to me by Victoria S. Victoria is a dreamer (and I mean that in a good way). She writes paranormal/romantic YA and her blog posts are always lovely.

This is one of the awards with a lot of rules and since I don't feel like following rules today I hope you won't mind if I disregard them and do my own thing. (I'm such a rebel).

Instead of sharing 10 honest things about myself I'm just going to tell you one story about how honesty pays off.

I know I've mentioned that I met my husband in college. He and I were good friends for several months before we started dating, and we may never have started dating if it weren't for his philosophy teacher.

This teacher gave his class an assignment to be 100% honest for one weekend (no lying period--not even white lies or avoidance). My husband made the mistake of telling me and my roommates about this assignment. One of my roomies decided to take advantage of his perfect honesty to see exactly what he thought of us, so she asked, "do you have a crush on me?"

He replied (honestly), "No Em. I like you as a friend."

Then she asked about a few of our other roommates and the answer was the same.

Then she asked about me. I was sure he'd say no (and break my little heart because I kind of liked him).

But instead he blushed, looked right at me, and said, "Yes Nat. I think you're hot." He said other nice things after that (just so you know he wasn't totally shallow).

We started dating soon after and now we've been married for 7 years (with no itch in sight). Honesty is a good thing folks.

Now, without further ado, I give you 10 Honest Scrap bloggers. They write very different blogs, but all are sincere, great reads.

Beth at This Mommy's Life

Corey Schwartz at Thing 1 and Thing 2

Erica at Laugh. Write. Play.

Bane of Anubis at Bane's Blogging Blues

Jade at Jade Hears Voices

Janna Qualman at Something She Wrote

Lisa and Laura at Lisa and Laura Write

Stacy J Warner at Stacey's Respite

Thomas Taylor at That Elusive Line

Sarah Skilton

Thanks to all of you for your honest posts! You are wonderful.

Stay tuned for more awards.

(And don't forget about kissing day blogfest! You know you want to share one of your kissing scenes with the world!)

Blog Award Extravaganza

I'm going to be giving out blog awards for the next week so check back to see what you are awarded!

First up we have my personal favorite, the Loyal Friend and Visitor Award. This little beauty was given to me by Tricia O'Brien who writes an excellent blog called Talespinning, (which is such a clever name), and she almost always includes beautiful pictures. She's been a blog friend since the very beginning of this blog and I'm so grateful for all of her support. Thank you Tricia!

I'd like to pass it on to 15 bloggers who have been loyal friends since I started this blog. Since there weren't any rules about how to award it I'm just going to tell you a bit about their wonderful blogs so you can check them out. The people who've been around since the beginning and aren't bored of me yet, or continue to visit despite boredom are:

Susan R. Mills at A Walk in My Shoes-- I'm pretty sure most of you already follow Susan. She writes excellent posts (all relating writing to shoes), and leaves thoughtful comments even though I'm sure her bloglist is astronomical.

Laura Martone at Laura's Simple Pleasures-- Laura's blog almost always makes me hungry. She lives a crazy life where she moves every couple of months for film festivals. Her blog focuses on travel and FOOD.

Megan Rebekah at Megan Rebekah Blogs---And Writes-- I love Megan's blog. I love it so much in fact that I read it before I ever started blogging myself. She always has something interesting to say about writing, agent hunting, and publishing and she's often hilarious (which is always a good thing).

Caroline Starr Rose at Caroline by line-- Caroline is a former teacher and a VERY GOOD MG writer. I had the opportunity to read her novel in verse May B. I hope I can write as well as she does someday.

Heather Sunseri at Balance with Purpose-- Heather always writes thoughtful, meaningful posts about life, faith, and writing. I love visiting her blog because I always come away feeling inspired. Plus, Heather leaves the sweetest comments.

Marybeth Smith at Desperately Searching for my Inner Mary Poppins-- Marybeth's blog is hilarious and probably the cutest themed blog ever. And I have no doubt she will soon be as awesome as Mary Poppins herself.

Jennifer Shirk at Me, My Muse, and I-- Jennifer is a seasoned blogger, and by that I mean, she knows what she's doing. Her posts are always interesting and fun to read.

Marie Devers at Booknapped-- Marie takes quotes from songs, books, movies, poems etc. and relates them to her own life. She told me blogging for her is like a scrapbook of things she loves. The quotes she shares are often inspirational and ALWAYS thought-provoking.

Matt Delman at Free the Princess-- Matt is an expert in steampunk. Before I started reading his blog I'd never heard of steampunk. Thanks to Matt's excellent posts I feel like I know quite a bit about the genre. If you have ever wanted to write steampunk (or read it) Matt's blog is a must.

Tabitha Bird at Through My Eyes-- Tabitha's writing is always beautiful and honest. Several of her posts have moved me to tears.

Vonna Carter-- The thing I love most about Vonna is that she's able to dissect writing and books and make sense of the way things are done. In one of my favorite posts, she busts publishing myths (like the myth that agents and editors hate prologues).

Patti Nelson-- Patti's blog is full of great things. She's a mom of 3 (like me!) and she shares a bit of everything in a very fun and informative way.

Jody Hedlund-- I imaging most of you read Jody's blog too. If you don't, this is one you need to add to your list. Jody shares EVERYTHING about her road to publication. I learn something new almost every time I visit. Jody is also a great Twitterer, so you should follow her there too.

Terri Tiffany-- Terri is an inspirational writer and her posts really are inspirational. I love visiting there and I often come away feeling encouraged to do better.

Karen Amanda Hooper-- Karen already has this award (I'll have to give her another one that she doesn't have), but I couldn't not give this one to her. Her blog is honest, sweet, and magical (just like her).

Thanks to all of you for your wonderful blogs and all the comments and encouragement these past 3 months. I appreciate you more than I can say.

If you didn't get this award NEVER FEAR! There are many more to come.

(Oh and have you heard about Kissing Day Blogfest? I will be participating. You should too.)

From Me to You

I love getting blog awards. They are fun, and pretty, and getting one means someone out there (at least kind of) likes my blog. But, I've wondered how (or if) I should pass them along or put them on my blog.

I've heard some criticism of blog awards including:

-They always get passed out to the same people, thus going in circles until everyone in a clique has them all.

-It's painfully difficult to pick and choose who should get the awards (I like all my blogging buddies)

-They clutter up your blog and make it look less professional

-They don't really mean anything

I've come up with a few ideas to combat these negatives. Do you want to hear them?

Yes!

Okay then.

Over the past few months I've received 7 awards, so I figure that is more than enough to go around. I won't have to exclude people! I'm going to try to give you all an award that you don't already have and I'm going to try to be thoughtful about it so the awards actually mean something (at least to me).

So, starting tomorrow and going until Christmas there will be some major blog award giving happening here. Don't feel like you need to post or pass along the awards I give you (unless you want to of course), just know that I appreciate all of you!

How do you feel about blog awards? Do you ever discover a great new blog because someone you knew gave it an award?

Digging deep

When I was in high school I sang in a jazz choir (you might be thinking this sounds lame, but it was cool, trust me). It was a small choir so there were a lot of opportunities to sing solos. I sang things like Duke Ellington and Paul Francis Webster's, I Got it Bad (and That Ain't Good), and Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein's, Can't Help Lovin Dat Man. They were gorgeous, emotional songs, but they were kind of a stretch for a sixteen-year-old who'd never had a boyfriend, never been in love, and didn't use words like "ain't" or "dat" in regular conversation.

I strived to have an emotional connection with the audience (kind of like writing), so I worked hard to feel the words I sang. Since I couldn't draw on experiences from my own life I often borrowed emotion from books, movies, songs, or the lives of friends.

I find that I do the same thing when I write. We've all heard the advice to "write what you know," and I think it's good advice, but I think we can sometimes "know" without experiencing things first hand.

Most of the characters in one of my WIPs live lives that are nothing like what I know, but I've been able to draw on many other sources (books mostly, but also movies and even music) to make them feel real--at least to me.

Do you ever write what you don't know? How do you make the characters, setting, and plot feel authentic?

Agent Appreciation Day

I'm a little late to the party, but I just read on Lisa and Laura's blog that today is Agent Appreciation Day, and I wanted to appreciate my lovely agent Sara Megibow.

Here are 3 things wonderful things about Sara:

1. She is ALWAYS positive (even when she's 9 months pregnant, which is pretty darn amazing if you ask me).

2. She believes in me and my writing. It is still incredible to me that the same woman who plucked Jamie Ford's HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET (which is SO WORTH READING if you haven't yet) from the slush pile also connected with my little middle grade adventure. And I love her for it!

3. She is about the coolest person I know (example #1, example #2)

There you go. I am so, so grateful that Sara is my agent. I can't imagine any agent who'd be better for me.

If you want to check out all the other agents being appreciated today, go visit Lisa and Laura-- they have a huge list. Happy Agent Appreciation Day!