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#SoCS: In which your intrepid blogger whines about the Arizona heat
This post is part of the Stream of Consciousness Saturday blog hop. Linda Hill posts a prompt every Friday; this week’s prompt is, “hat/het/hit/hot/hut.” Me, about an hour ago: I haven’t participated in SoCS for awhile. I’m tired and sleep-deprived, and I really don’t feel like revising my novel, so I’ll hop over to Linda Hill’s blog and see what today’s prompt is. Maybe it’ll be something I can relate to. It includes the word, “hot.” There’s a massive heat wave in the Western U.S. And I live in Arizona. Yeah, I can relate. We’re on about day 6 of temperatures over 110. It was 113 yesterday here in Tucson,…
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PitMad and an Update from the Query Trenches (Otherwise Known as Rejection Report #1)
While working my way through the June posts in the IWSG Blog Hop, I found a wonderful post on Emma Louise Gill’s blog, in which she summarizes her querying experiences so far. I just started querying last month, and I found her post both encouraging and informative. Oh, and inspirational, in that it inspired me to post my own (much shorter and less eventful) query update here. I’ll try to make it a monthly tradition, so you can share my pain vicariously. I’m currently querying Vanishing, Inc., a time travel romance in which Alex Collins flees to a tiny town in the Arizona mountains to escape an abuser. There she…
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Prepping for #PitMad (#IWSG)
Thursday I’ll be pitching my time travel romance, Vanishing, Inc., in #PitMad. What, you ask, is PitMad? It’s a pitch party on Twitter, in which unagented authors like yours truly try to distill their magnum opuses into a 280-character tweet in the hope of attracting an agent’s attention. And I thought writing a query letter was hard. Fortunately, there’s lots of great advice out there for PitMad virgins like me. I’ll share the most useful tips I found, but first: This post is part of the Insecure Writers Support Group monthly blog hop. On the first Wednesday of each month, I and my fellow insecure writers post something related to…
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Bloom on an organ pipe cactus, Stenocereus thurberi (#FOTD)
Yes, I’m back with yet another cactus blossom for Cee’s Flower of the Day challenge. This one is on the organ pipe cactus in my front yard. Organ pipes are somewhat rare in Tucson. They’re native to an area southwest of here in the borderlands of Arizona (USA) and Sonora (Mexico). They even have their own national monument, named, fittingly enough, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Tucson is supposed to be a little too cold for them, but apparently the one in my yard doesn’t read botanical texts or garden guides. It just grows happily in front of my house, making magnificent blooms like this one. Or this one: Learn…
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#FOTD: Dragonfruit blossoms
For Cee’s Flower of the Day photo challenge, my neighbor’s dragonfruit blossoms, taken during my morning walk yesterday. Dragonfruit plants are scraggly and ugly, but dang, their blooms are spectacular. Here’s a closeup of the center. My husband says it looks like it has an alien bursting out of it. He’s kind of right.
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They liked it? They really, actually liked it? (#IWSG)
If you’ve hung out on my blog much, you know that I participate in the monthly IWSG (Insecure Writers Support Group) blog hop. On the first Wednesday of each month, I and my fellow insecure writers post something related to writing, and other insecure writers visit and maybe even leave a comment. That tiny bit of validation helps sooth our insecurities. The helpful hosts of the IWSG even give us an optional question to respond to, just in case our insecurity is seasoned with writer’s block. This month’s question is: Have any of your readers ever responded to your writing in a way that you didn’t expect? If so, did…
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#FOTD: Blooming prickly pear
Yes, it’s another bloomin’ cactus (with a bonus bee!) for Cee’s Flower of the Day challenge. I snapped this pic on my morning walk in the neighborhood last week. Most prickly pears aren’t much to look at most of the year–and then they bloom, and I understand why almost every yard in Tucson has at least one.
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#FOTD: Blooming saguaros
If you’re a regular here in my little corner of the interwebs, you probably know I’ve become smitten with cacti and especially our enormous, whimsical, and occasionally ridiculous-looking saguaros (see this post and this other post for examples). Well, now my favorite form of desert flora is floriferous, or, to put it less pretentiously, the saguaros are blooming! When they bloom, they look even more whimsical/ridiculous. I think the blooms, especially the ones on the main part of the plant, make them look like characters on The Simpsons. See? Or maybe like they’re carrying multiple bridal bouquets. And maybe I’ve lost my mind. Want to see lots of pretty flowers?…
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Oop goes the arm (#SoCS)
This post is part of the Stream of Consciousness Saturday blog hop. Linda Hill posts a prompt every Friday; this week’s prompt is, “oop.” Find a word with the “oop” sound in it and use it in your post. Ya know, people shouldn’t provide this kind of a writing prompt to someone with the sense of humor of a 12-year-old boy. I’m so tempted to craft a five-paragraph essay about poop. Or maybe a haiku. But I will restrain myself and play around with some other “oop” words. A few of them apply to this week: coop – I’ve been cooped up in the house more than usual this week, because something…
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Cool stuff I’ve read, fiction writing edition: Dana Stabenow on writing crime fiction, Janice Hardy on stage directions, and a handy scene checklist from Fiction Notes
Today I’m kicking off what I hope will become a regular feature around these parts: cool stuff I’ve read. Today’s edition covers blog posts about the craft of writing, but I hope to share non-writing things too: stories, podcasts, weird news, interesting science–whatever crosses my desk that would in normal times make me get out of my office chair, barge into your workspace unannounced, and say, “You have to read this.” So what cool stuff have I read lately? Glad you asked. 7 Tips for Writing Crime Fiction – Dana Stabenow Dana Stabenow, famous for her crime novels set in Alaska, gives us fellow crime writers a useful and occasionally…
Janet Alcorn
Suspense | Horror | Romance
