Teaser Tuesday (61)

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly, bookish meme hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.

Rules for participating:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week, my teaser is from The Isle of Blood by Rick Yancey.

Jacob Torrance downed his glass of whiskey, smoothed his neatly trimmed mustache, and then proceeded to drum his fingers aggressively on the arm of the wingback chair. His ruby red signet ring, stamped with the motto of the Society (Nil timendum est), sparked and and spat back the light.

-p. 203

**********

Got a teaser, or thoughts on the book you're reading?


-----The Golden Eagle

I've Been Awarded!

Nutschell at The Writing Nut and Su at Cheekyness have awarded me in the past couple of weeks, so I think it's time for an awards post!

First, the Seriously Cute Award:

. . . which is adorable. Thank you, Nutschell! :) For this I have to list 5 books/movies/TV programs I've watched in the past 12 months. I've never been awarded this one before, so this should be interesting:

1. TV Program: The PBS NewsHour. I like keeping current with politics.

2. Book: The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp by Rick Yancey. I finished it earlier this afternoon, actually. I found it interesting that it says the character dies later in the story right on the first page. (Whether or not he does, I'm not saying. You'll have to read the book.)

3. Movie: I think the last movie I watched might have been the BBC's A Midsummer Night's Dream. (I know, I know . . .)

4. TV Program: NOVA. Yay for fascinating science shows.

5. Book: The Merlin Conspiracy by Diana Wynne Jones. I was sorry to hear she died this March. She was one excellent writer.

I don't think there's a set number of people you have to award for this one, so I'm just going to award six bloggers:

RaShelle Workman at A No. 2 Pencil Stat! (Don't forget to wish her a happy B-day on July 22nd!)
Madeleine at Scribble and Edit (You have to sign up for her Novel Films Blogfest.)
Bethany Elizabeth at Ink-Splattered (She posts some very interesting questions, and I love her comments.)
Krispy at A Nudge In the Right Direction (Vlogs, blogfests, memes, it's a great place to visit. Head over!)
Samantha Sotto at the blog of the same name (Her book, Before Ever After, is coming out this August.)
Tere Kirkland at The Lesser Key of Tere (I always enjoy her posts.)

And now for the the Versatile Blogger Award:

Thank you, Su! :)

Seven facts:

1. I like Blogger-in-Draft's new interface. When I first saw it a couple days ago (it had been like regular Blogger's that morning) I was frantically hovering and clicking and thinking "Wait! What does that arrow mean? Why are there drop-down menus all over the place? Why is it white and orange? HUH?!" But I like it now. The only problem I have is with the fact it's hard to see the shading in some places (or maybe it's just the angle I'm sitting) and I can't scroll through a post when I'm viewing it in the Editor. I have to use the cursor and arrow keys. But the home page is LOADING SO MUCH FASTER. Really, it's great. See (and/or use) the interface HERE.

2. Dance competition was awesome. Sure, I had to hang around for about eight hours, and yes I had only one dance, and there were over 400 numbers there, but it was still a lot of fun. And our studio took home awards!

3. I have decided what I'm going to do my website on. I mentioned before I was learning HTML in another awards post, and I want to experiment with it a little--so I'm planning to set up a website. I'm not telling you what it's about right now, though. You'll just have to see. ;)

4. I am currently listening to Maurice Andre, Trumpet Masterpieces. I love it. And he can certainly nail those trills.

5. Writing is slowing down. I did manage to write 30,000 words in June, which was my goal, but I've written little in July and it's already the 9th. I know what's supposed to happen . . . the inspiration just hasn't arrived. But I'm still optimistic about the novel right now.

6. I have an absurd number of books out on my card right now. It's over 50, I can tell you that.

7. I know I haven't been doing as much blogging lately. And I've said that before. And I know, it's about time I got back into the blogging swing--I had been following a schedule for a while there.

I've been awarded as a Versatile Blogger many times, so I'm not going to pass it on this time. (If you want to take it, though, feel free to do so!)


-----The Golden Eagle

Teaser Tuesday (24) and What's Your Writing Process? Blogfest

I thought it would be easier for the rest of you if I just put everything into one post, so here goes Teaser Tuesday and the What's Your Writing Process? Blogfest.

*****

Teaser Tuesday is a fun, book-based weekly meme hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.

Rules for participating:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser is from The Curse of the Wendigo, the sequel to the Michael L. Printz Award-winning The Monstrumologist.

   The gray land was deceptively still. It kept its secrets.

   Something was following us.

-p. 115

*****

The What's Your Process? Blogfest is hosted by Shallee McArthur at Life, the Universe, and Writing. Here's some information:

On Tuesday, January 18th, blog about ANY part of your writing process-- how you create characters, how you plot your novel, how you organize your rewrites, your whole writing process from start to finish, anything. Even if you're a complete pantser, tell us your pantsing process. Do you write chronologically? Jump around? Edit as you go, or just dump it all on the page? Let us know!

I have decided to talk about how I write a first draft.

Doing anything out of order makes me frustrated. If I don't write the first draft chronologically, then I get confused and jumbled up and ideas spring all over the place and the story feels to me like it's going to fall apart unless I do something about the whole mess. Chapters that don't connect smoothly drive me up the wall.

One of the main reasons I don't like writing out of order is because I hate going back and filling things in, when I've already written a scene that's based on that information. Sure, it's frustrating sometimes when I want to slam myself down in one of the major plot points and type furiously from there, but I always find that getting out the first draft in order pays off in the long run.

What about you? Do you write in order, out of order, or both?

*****

If you have at teaser to share, feel free to share it in the comments! If you're part of the blogfest, go ahead and mention it so that I know to get around to your entry. :)

(And don't forget: you can ask me questions of all kinds HERE, or on any post since then, which I will answer on Friday.)


-----The Golden Eagle