What I did in 2009 and Goals for 2010

I wanted to write one last blog for 2009 and today is the day (the in-laws are coming for New Years and the house MUST be clean!)

This has been a great year for my writing and I'm so excited about 2010, so I thought I'd share some of my 2009 activities and 2010 goals.

Top 10 things I did for my writing in 2009 (in chronological order):

1. I finished the first novel I've really felt good about

2. I queried that novel and got some encouraging feedback, though it was ultimately rejected

3. I joined a critique group with the three coolest girls ever

4. I revised and rewrote until my eyes glazed over, my knuckles were sore, and I had a manuscript I was REALLY proud of

5. I resubmitted to Sara and sent out a few new queries

6. I got THE CALL and then I got ANOTHER CALL

7. I started this blog and met hundreds of people who love to write, just like me!

8. I chose Sara, because she's awesome

9. She submitted my manuscript to REAL publishers

10. I started my current project--one that I'm SO excited about (and I also started about 10 others--half of which I still want to finish)

Ten things I will do in 2010 to become a better writer:

1. Get on a schedule!!! (The first one I'm going to try is 1000 words a day BEFORE blogging--yes I've tried this before. It's going to work this time!)

2. Blog 3 times a week

3. Try to keep up with blogging/writing friends by going through my Google Reader at least once a week.

4. Post on Twitter at least once a day

5. Finish my rough draft by January 29th

6. Go to SCBWI with my critique group girls!!!

7. Get current project to betas by March

8. Read and critique friends' projects. Learn from their brilliance.

9. Finish current project by June and start a new one

10. Read 100 books!

So now you tell me, what did you accomplish with your writing in 2009? What are your goals for 2010?

And HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

(Oh, and I probably gave you an award in the last few weeks, scroll down and check it out.)

Appreciation

I'm going to pass along the last two awards today and get back to real blogging later this week. I've been giving out awards for the past couple weeks, so If you've been following this blog for a while, chances are you got one! Scroll on down to see what you've won! (I'm sorry, I didn't notify everyone like I was supposed to). And remember these are no pressure awards. You don't need to accept them, pass them on, or post them unless you want to.

The first award for today is the Best Blog award. Thank you Jemi (mystery/ romance author, thoughtful commenter and blogger) and Roni (who blogs like a professional--seriously, she's always got something interesting to say)

The Best Blog recipients are:

Shelli at Market My Words

Weronika Janczuk

Amy Tate at The Virginia Scribe

Matt at Pensive Sarcasm

Kristi Faith at Random Acts of Writing

L.T. Elliot at Dreams of Quill and Ink

Sande at So to Speak

Also, From Me to You, given to me by the beautiful and talented Bethany Mattingly. She blogs about her two loves, agriculture and writing.

This award goes out to all those people who have most of the other awards. What do you give to the person who has everything? Flowers. Everyone loves flowers. Please accept these flowers of appreciation from me to you.

The recipients are:

Karen Amanda Hooper

Linda Kage

Wendy at All in a Day's Thought

Abby Annis

Jessica Nelson at Booking It

Jill Kemerer

Sherinda at A Writer Wannabe

Tamika at The Write Workshop

Suzyhayze at Tales of Extraordinary Ordinariness

T. Anne at White Platonic Dreams

If you didn't get an award and you'd like one, just choose one from the sidebar. You deserve it! If I gave you one you already have, feel free to take a different one. I have really enjoyed getting to know you all over the last few months and I look forward to getting to know you better in 2010!

Humane Writing

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, or a Happy Hanukkah, or a nice other holiday. Mine was wonderful. We have family in town, so my blogging will be sporadic for the next week or so.

I still have several awards to give out, so I'm going to do two today.

The first is the Humane Award which I received from a lovely friend and YA writer, Dawn Simon. I'm not sure why I deserve this award since I don't feel like I do much for humanity (or dogs). But we did get my dog from a rescue organization, and I clean up after him when he pees on the floor, so I guess that's pretty humane.

I'm going to pass it on to 5 blogs that I think make the world a little brighter place. They are:

Eileen Astels at A Christian Romance Writer's Journey

Roxane Salonen at Peace Garden Mama

Teressa at The Chocolate Chip Waffle

Bethany Wiggins and Suzette Saxton at Shooting Stars

Shannon O'Donnell at Book Dreaming

The other award for today is the Superior Scribbler Award. I got this award from Thomas (author/illustrator extraordinare) and Kelly (YA sci-fi/fantasy/romance writer). I'm passing it along to 5 blogs that I always enjoy reading. They are:

Jemi Fraser at Just Jemi

Paul Greci at Northwriter

Stephenie at Hapshepsut: The Writing of a Novel

Tricia at Talespinning

Diane Estrella

Thanks to all of you for your excellent blogs and comments!

Happy Holidays!

I just wanted to say Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah (and Happy anything else you celebrate) to all of you. I hope you all have a great holiday and enjoy time with friends and family!

Kreativ Blogger Award

Kissing Day was awesome! I really enjoyed reading everyone's scenes. I didn't get to every one, because there were so many, but I think I read most of them. It turned out to be an awesome way to meet new people too. Thank you Sherrinda for hosting the day. You should check out some of the posts if you haven't already.

The award I want to share today is the Kreativ Blogger. I've received this one a few times so thank you to:

Thomas Taylor- A picture book writer and illustrator living in France and working on his first MG novel.

V.R. Barkowski- A lovely blogger who focuses her posts on her writing journey.

Melissa-A busy mom of 2 who writes YA sci-fi and fantasy.

Erica- A YA Paranormal writer who is also a major Twitterer (follow her at @EricaWrites).

This award has rules that I'm going to try to follow... sort of.

-Thank the person (or people) who gave you the award.

-Write 7 things about yourself we do not know

-Choose 7 other bloggers to award and link to their blogs

7 Things:

1. I'm horribly allergic to cats (my face gets all puffy, my eyes start to swell shut, and any part of me that comes in contact with cat hair breaks out in hives), but I'm not allergic to dogs.

2. I got my degrees in Print Journalism and American Studies. It's been 7 years since I graduated and I don't really remember anything. (Why did I go to college?)

3. I've moved 6 times in the last 6 years.

4. I read about 20 times more picture books and MG and YA novels than books meant for adults. I guess I never grew up.

5. I am an art mom for my daughter's kindergarten class, even though I can't even draw a decent stick figure.

6. I love cookies, especially Christmas cookies.

7. My favorite book ever is probably Charles Dickens' A TALE OF TWO CITIES.

Since I've received this award a few times I'm going to give it to more than 7 people. I've selected 20 bloggers who all have kreativ blogs (or spelling). Most of these blogs have a little different format than regular writing blogs and they are all fun reads. They are:

Mary at Writer's Butt Does Not Apply to Me

Cammie at My Mental Marathon

Catherine Denton at Winged Writer

Dawn Simon at Plotting and Scheming

Devon Ellington at Ink in My Coffee

The Girl with One Eye at A Squirrel Among Lions

Kelly Lyman at Kelly's Compositions

Bethany Mattingly at Aspirations

Jeannie Campbell at The Character Therapist

Voidwalker at Into the Void

Wendy at On Words and Upwards

Jessie Oliveros at Louder than Noise

Tracy at A Blissful Life

Aubrie at Author, Flutist, Teacher

Belle at Ms. Bookish

Beth at Writing it out

Victoria S.

Chelle Sandell

Judith Coughlin

Kathryn Jankowski

Once again, these are NO PRESSURE awards! Don't feel like you need to pass them on, accept them, or post them (unless you want to of course). Just know that I appreciate you.

I think this will be my last post until after Christmas. Happy Holidays to all of you! More awards next week.

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!