Confessions

Over the past few days I have felt the need to confess some things, so here we go…

1) I watch Big Brother…and I like it.  I was happy when Danielle got voted off.

2) I eat cereal every night for dinner because a) I like it and b) it is easy.

3) I despise ironing and washing dishes, but I will do it if forced at gun point or in the alternative if I run out of clothes or dishes.

4) I am a nerd, and I have seen the Star Wars saga many times, and I prefer 4, 5, and 6 to 1, 2 or 3. 

5) I hid M&M’s in my house (because I am diabetic) but it’s been so long since I wanted them I don’t remember where I put them.

6) I am terrified of water…more specifically drowning in it.

7) I give people nicknames when I first meet them because I can’t remember their names, and those nicknames usually stick for the remainder of the time I know them (although they may never know I call them that).

8) I do not know the proper sequence of button strokes to make combo’s in Mortal Combat on Sega Genesis, but I can still kick some major booty because I just push all of the buttons as fast as I can.

9) My hair is totally white.

10) I can be lazy, see confession #2.

11) I have useless facts in my head that take up room for more important things like math or what I did yesterday.

12) I worry constantly and about everything even though I fully trust in God’s control and strength.  My Mom told me that when I was a child I would worry about the birds in the trees during storms.  I don’t know how to stop. 

13) I have a crush on Eric Balfour.

14) I cannot spell very well and am thankful for Spell Check on Microsoft Word.

15) I think lipstick tastes horrible.

16) I am usually late for most everything but that is because of a) I am not a good judge of time and b) all the clocks in my house have the wrong time and 2 of them do not even work.

17) I would rather not wear shoes.

18) The movie “The Decent” scared me so much I slept with the light on for several nights.  No other horror movie has ever done that and I love horror movies.

19) I am the person that actually reads the manuals or directions.

20) I cannot swim.  See confession # 6.

21) On Christmas Eve, no matter how old I am, I still believe in Santa Claus.

22) I take Flintstone vitamins.

23) I long to be in Ireland.

24) I actually like romantic comedies, but I would rather have the exhilaration of surviving a horror movie then the disappointment of watching someone else fall in love…and yes I realize how cynical that sounds. 

25) When I write I cannot listen to music.  I can’t sit in silence either, so I have the television on to some channel that will not hold my interest, like the cooking channel.

26) I still refer to Mark Wahlberg as Marky Mark, even though I believe he is a phenomenal actor.

27)  Any meal that I have at home is eaten in front of the television, even though I have a dining room table that seats 6.

28) I have never watched the entire movie “Gone with the wind”.

29) I can be hurtfully sarcastic, but 99% of the time my powers of sarcasm are used for good, like defusing a tense situation.

30) I am afraid.

I hope you enjoyed these and that some of them made you chuckle.  All of them are completely and 100% true. 

Find something beautiful today,

M.L.

Another

I had another dream Sunday night, well, Monday morning actually.  The wee hours in the morning after my neighbor left out to go to work before the sun woke for the day.  (I live in what I lovingly refer to as a paper house as I can hear every noise outside, including my neighbors alarm clock.  Which I think that says the same thing about my neighbors house as well...perhaps we all live in paper houses.  I do reside in a mega metropolis of a little over 1600 people.) 

I stayed asleep as long as possible, only being interupted by my own alarm clock screaming at me to get up (e-v-e-r-y 9 minutes) because I myself had to go to work.  I waited and waited, glancing at the clock wishing for just 2 more minutes, just 2 more minutes!  Alas, I had no more minutes.  I had to get up.  I spent the rest of the next hour going over and over and over the dream in my head, tweaking it here and there, adding to it but never being able to write (or type) it down because I was rushing around getting ready for work. 
My morning routine is down to a science, every minute is accounted for, I had no spare minutes.  Maybe I should invest in a voice recorder...hmmm...your thoughts?   

As for the dreams, let me go more into detail about that.  I do not dream the whole story.  Well, I have only done that once and it was a week long dream, which is very tiring, honestly, I was exhausted by the end of it. (and that story is sitting in a drawer waiting to be written)  But 99.9% of the time I only dream the first part of it, and when written out that only equates to the first few chapters.  I may dream/remember snippits of something that did/should/could happen later in the story, but for the most part, after the first initial few chapters the rest comes from my head.  Well, honestly it comes from God who bestowed upon me this precious gift of an active vivid imagination.

So there you have it.  A third story idea, this one is about the Fey just in case you are wondering. :) 
So to sum it up, there are 2 that are finished and just in the proof reading part; 1 that is about 5 chapters in, which is the sequel to the first one about Renn and Zeb; 1 that is 15 chapters in, which is the sequel to the second one about Amelia and Bass; and now this new one that is a brand new one for a grand total of 5.  2 finished, 3 in the works, none available for anyone to read.  HA!   But I am working on that, promise.

Thanks for listening,
M.L.

Hades

Last week was horrible.  Not the actual week, the week itself was fine.  It kept moving forward in time as it always has, sunrise, sunshine, sunset, night, sunrise, sunshine, sunset, night.  But the time that filled last week was horrible.  By fate I touched something that started a process that wrought havoc in my stomach.  A door knob, phone, handle of the grocery cart, I don't know, but the evil microbes that claimed war and took over my abdomen were on a mission from Hades itself.  And they won. 

It all started Saturday evening the 6th.  I was having a fine day, doing chores, spending time and having fun with loved ones, then shortly after retiring for the evening my stomach heard the first battle cry.  I didn't think anything of it, I thought, "Oh, something I ate." and went about the business of sleeping.  Sunday the 7th was fine until that afternoon.  The second war cry rang out and my blissful thoughts of innocence were shattered.  By Monday the 8th all out war had broken out. 

The rest of the week was a tug of war for my insides.  Eight vials of blood, five finger sticks, three urine tests, two doctor visits, one ultrasound (and throw in a partridge for good luck) later, it was determined that my gall bladder would be staying internal, yay!, and that the doctors had no idea what it was.  He even said, "I don't know what it is."  Which is a fantastic thing to hear from a learned professional to whom you are giving precious monies to.  His recommendation, "Eat as much as possible and hope that something sticks."  Really? $270 for you to tell me to eat?  I had been trying to eat, but any food that I took in was abruptly kicked out by the invading troops.   I believe I was speaking another language when I was dry heaving. 

So, taking the advice of a different learned person, I went home and stayed put for two and a half days.  Never venturing out beyond the walls of my home.  My couch and I became one, I think I have permanent dimples from the fabric.  I surpassed 'bored' and went to a place I like to call 'numb'.  I did stumble across a marathon of Teen Wolf on MTV.  I don't know if it was my numb stupor or what, but it wasn't that bad. 

So, here I am, the invading party having been defeated and are currently being banished from my insides.  I apologize for the delay in writing anything, the epic battle for my internal organs caused a lapse. 
I wish you all well, and may I suggest hand sanitizer for everyone who knows me.

M.L.

The Beginning

So, here I am, writing my very first blog about my very first attempts at writing.  Yes, thats right.  Writing, i.e. being an author.  Thus far I have written two books and am currently writing the third. None of which are available to be viewed by the public because they are hung up in proof reading.  I clearly do not know how to use punctuation properly, among other things.  Which is funny since I type for a living.  Hopefully some day, over the rainbow, I will be published and all of you can run to the nearest computer and get the latest version of my book(s). 

There may be a few of you who know me, and if so, "Hi!"  but for those of you who do not, you can call me M.L. or Mel if that's easier.  I am a plain girl, perhaps in appearance alone, since I am unique and... might as well call a spade a spade...I am down right weird sometimes.  But people still love me for which I am very blessed.  By day I work at a law firm, rowing the proverbial boat with several others and by night I am a crime fighting member of a super duo...nah, nothing so thrilling...at night I am writing.  

This all started, oh, about twenty four years ago when I met my best friend Stephanie.  And no, it hasn't taken twenty four years to write two and 1/2 books.  Twenty four years ago I met Stephanie after having a personal earthquake in Algebra and we became the best of best sister friends and have been through thick and thin ever since.  During these past many years I have entertained (sometimes to her chagrin because of my need for details, which includes using scraps of paper to draw out locations) with numerous stories and tales that I have dreamt.  Literally dreamt.  We call them 'movie dreams'.  Sometimes they appear in that waking hour when my alarm clock is yelling at me every nine minutes to wake up and I keep telling it to shut up, and sometimes they last a week long.  For years she has encouraged me to write them down, and luckily I did.  But in the summer of 2010 she began to encourage me to write them out in the form of a book.  Something I had never done before.  EVER.  One would think that would be overwhelming, but the weird thing was, it wasn't.  The words just started pouring out of me.  And before I knew it I was obsessed with writing.  So much so, that I bought my very first laptop in February 2011.  Yay me!  After obtaining and getting used to the newly purchased extension of my hands I began to write nightly (where I was only writing on the weekends or Friday afternoons after work.) and Tah Dah! two books later, here I am, writing on the third.

The daunting part is the "fixing" after they have been proof read.  It can be disheartening to see tons of tiny little red marks on a page of your imagination.  But I decided not to let that bother me.  Either I need to hewn up on my grammar or get over it and just fix it.  But that decision took a while to come to me (and many many many pep talks), especially after receiving back two books from two different people who were proof reading them and they were covered with red (and green-one girl uses a green pen) marks.  It looked like the pages had Christmas-pox.  And there they now sit.  I haven't fixed them yet because of a) being disheartened at my lack of grammar skills and the time consuming daunting task at fixing them and b) I am still writing the third book.  I do not have the stomach to switch back and forth between them fixing one, writing one, fixing one, writing one, Egads! that would make me sea sick.   
But I will fix them.  Otherwise what is the point of having proof readers. 
Please everyone who reads this and is an aspiring author,  DO NOT let the task of repairing or fixing your stories, after a proof reader or editor goes over them, tear you down.  It is merely part of the process, and a good part at that.  You want your words to be as clear and as well written as possible before they make it out for public view. 

My favorite authors are Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Stephanie Meyers, Cassandra Clare, PC Cast, Amanda Hocking, Melissa Marr, and so forth.  I tend to lean toward the supernatural/scifi/fantasy type books (and movies and television shows), which leads us to my tales.

I can't just tell you what they are about, but I can give you a hint or two, perhaps three...

Renn and Zeb have been co-workers for the past three years.  Flirting comes naturally for Zeb but he misses his mark when he aims toward Renn, she remains oblivious, even though everyone at their cubical notices.  On a quest for paperclips Renn makes a discovery in the supply room that will send her and Zeb on an adventure that neither thought possible.  They are brought together under circumstances beyond their control, emotions are revealed and Renn's life becomes in danger and it is up to Zeb to figure out what do to to save her. 

and the other...

Ameila had a good life, young, pretty, married to the love of her life, Bass (like the fish).  Her life was going according to plan, she an editor at a popular publishing company and he an award winning actor, that was until the shadows started moving.  She is thrown into a world that she never knew existed and the knowledge of a creature that shouldn't exist. 

I hope you are intrigued....

So, with all of this said.  I hope that over the next little while that you will get to know me and perhaps when these books do become available you might sneak a peek and get one and hopefully enjoy it. 
I look forward to hearing from you!

Thanks! 
M.L.