My repertoire of online presence :)

Time to update all the ways you can stalk follow me :) I have a website where I post some free writing (I know! I'm behind. Haven't posted free stuff in a while and not enough posts!) and updates. It's more formal than my blog as I go on and on adnaseum on my blog :D LOL but then it is about the road to publishing (and after!) as a wife and mother :D so, ANYWAYS.

Here is my FB author page to follow me as an author and I have a bookmark giveaway. Have spent last few days with SOMEBODY, including me, sick. Hopefully will get the bookmarks made :D Or could give them the ones I already have made...

I have my artwork here. It's how I make a little money to try and support my family, especially with all of our medical bills. It's also a great compliment to my writing as I've mentioned a few times... :P

And soon, very very soon, I'll be on this website :D It's my publisher and they have some awesome talent there! Writers, editors, artists, it's amazing. They're wonderful people who really care about their authors. They have m/m and f/f and interracial romances as well. And more than a token selection. Go support them. And trust me, when my book comes, you'll see it :D
Also, on twitter @L_Bushman you'll find me bitching, witching, and stitching. :D I go on about EVERYTHING on there LOL

Whew. I think that about covers it...oh wait. I'm on Goodreads, LinkedIn and Tumbler too. Idk where or how to get to those though :P LOL I finally caved and did them cuz too many of my peeps were on there, but it's just too much trying to keep up with all the sites.

Ta ta for now ;D

THE DAY JOB part 3

I gave you all the gist of my horrific experience with a day job that sucked the soul out of me. Since then, I've had a baby with Down Syndrome, and have gone through some pretty stressful stuff. But, I don't let it suck my soul out anymore. I'm learning to catch it when it starts happening and hold back the tide until I've turned it around. But that doesn't mean I don't struggle or have bad days. It means I don't give up.

The only hard and fast rule I have is this: NEVER GIVE UP.

Easy to say but what are some things to do? Not only for managing your time, but finding the emotional energy for writing? First of all, get it in your mind that you don't have to be the next Stephen King or Laurell K Hamilton to be a success. If you write books, you are a writer. I've written literally multiple posts on being a writer, mother, wife and one was dedicated specifically to the whole are you a writer question. In order for any of the other tricks writers have learned to work, you have to believe it yourself.

So what can you do to help you attain your goal of writing?

If there are others around to help with household chores, remember to delegate.  No matter what anyone tells you, having your teenager do dishes isn't child abuse. Having your spouse help isn't an imposition. Take turns. Cooking and the like should all be rotated. It may take a chart for your family to work out who needs to do what when. Plan your meals. For some of my OCD friends that means down to the last grain of salt, but I mean, do your shopping ahead of time. Get everything prepped. Have a day that's dedicated to prepping meals for the weak. (You're going to find out that the things I'm going to share with you sound similar to what I suggest for nano. That's cuz it's all about finding more time to do more lol)

Make your goals clear to your family. If your writing for stress relief, to eventually get published, for self-publishing, whatever, tell them it's important to you. Hopefully, they'll understand and be supportive. That's the best case scenario. Worst case scenario they resent "your little hobby" and moan and complain about how "they have to do everything around here" and you have to fight for your right to be a writer. A real pain in the tush, but there ya' go. It is what it is.

So, you've prepped your family, told yourself to shut up and write, now what?? You're exhausted, the ideas that were flowing through your head at work seem to have gone the way of Beta videos. A strong coherent thought that fizzled instead of taking hold like it should have.

Carry notebooks, tape recorders, or PDA, whatever you're comfortable with and will actually use. Get those ideas down! Also, write or read on breaks. Do something for your writing. Which brings up the next part.

Writing is more than putting words down on paper. Or on the screen. It's a full scopic of things to do from marketing/networking to research on top of the stringing words together part. So, when looking at your writing time, be sure to include those things. READ. A lot. Then read some more in whichever genre you're wishing to write in and intersperse that with books or magazines on the craft. Look at blogs, become a part of the community.

The writer's community is a huge one, and by and large a supportive one. There's always a few bad apples, or peeps who get their feelings hurt too easily, or are easy to take offense. Learn from it and continue on. The rest of us are humans wanting to support our fellow humans. You'll need that support when the going gets tough. It's not an extra thing to do, it's a necessity. When one of the writers I followed got divorced, I cried. Seriously. I hurt so much for her. Then another got the deal of the century from her first series, I cried happy tears, she so deserved it. Why? because these writers have been blogging and sharing themselves with us and connected to us in the outside world. We've all been at the beginning. A dream. A wish. A thought.

Even if it's only 10 min here and there, if you write on those breaks and just before you go to bed, pretty soon, you'll see a collection of words that add up to something. You may think it's a pile of dung. If it's your first book, there's a better than half a chance that's true, but you have to take the step. Learn from it, practice your craft. Soon, you will be better and what comes out of your mouth won't be "I wish I had time to write" it will be "I have to do my writing for the night." or "I'm writing in my spare time." or "I'm following my dreams."

Find a way to write. I waited way too long. During the time at work, if I'd taken more time to paint and write, the stress of it all would not have affected me as badly. I would have been happier, even with all the same stresses at home/work. I know. Writing and the writing community just pulled me through every parent's nightmare. My family that pulled together for me were important, but they were going through it as well. You will be amazed at the support you find.

So, we've got you thinking you have the right to write, your family, whether moaning & groaning or cheering used to the idea, and your cheer leading team of writers all there waving pom-poms. But you still have THE DAY JOB.

The soul sucking day job that makes your head hurt, your heart cry, and your soul wither. Seriously, if your job is like that, keep looking for a new one. Even if you're not a writer, no one can live with that for very long. But in the meantime, how do you get yourself to write? Keep a blog, a journal, a diary, what have you. This may sound silly, but think about it. Call it your warm up exercises. Call it whatever you wish, but pour that poison out of your soul. If you paint, paint it out. Do something that will take the poison and leech it out of your being. Get, It. Out.

Soon, the writing will flow easier. Like I said, you might think it's drivel. It might only be a few hundred words, but it's something. As you practice, you'll get faster, get more words out in same amount of time. When you get stuck, DO NOT SAY WRITER'S BLOCK, simply do research, edits or read and let your mind work on what's wrong. There are many things to look at, plot problems, characterizations, yada yada, but that's for another blog post. For now, do something related.

I promise you, that if you start with these few simple things, you'll feel better about yourself, your prospects, and you will start to want for more. That first taste will help you to find more times to write. To give up that favourite TV show for an extra half hour to write. It will happen if you want it to.

Follow me on twitter @L_Bushman I have a crazy sense of humor, am sometimes down about money, family life, and stress, and talk to people all the time lol Very rarely are people bored around me on twitter. They may be infuriated, shocked, appalled, laughing, snickering, loving, but rarely bored. Plus, I have a CP who is as irreverent as I am and I think people follow us just to see what's going to happen next. ;P

I have an abundant number of writers/agents/editors that I follow/RT to help you start your twitter journey if you haven't already. Now, let's take advantage of being in a free country and follow our dream!!

Happy Fourth of July!!!

Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday. It is the middle of the business week. I have done very little writing this week. I've been playing. Working on my homeschool stuff and writing a paragraph here and there. I had trouble getting character from A to B without losing momentum. I did okay. Will have to up it a bit during editing process. Now I have a problem. She's at point B and there's a problem. Of course there's a problem. You can't have zombies without a problem or two. Somehow, I've lost the immediacy of the problem. It's all in one POV. Last few have been omniscient or at least 2 peeps POV. So now, I have to go be all different and do it from one person's POV. Wouldn't want things to get all easy now, would we?

So, as I'm stuck, I've done some playing with my friends, networking, and crocheting. Yes, I crochet, in case you missed that before. I sort of forgot that I hadn't done this afghan yet for my Husband's birthday, which is now past, so have some serious hooking to do...

*scratches head* something in that last paragraph is jumping up and screaming at me. Anyhow, I will have to get busy tomorrow, or do some serious editing so I can do a short excerpt on Friday :) I have decided definitively to self publish my sci-fi fantasy stuff and concentrate on the other stuff with agents. *Sigh* sometimes it's rough being so prolific. *runs and ducks from the flying books and laptops from the fellow writers*

I'm also an artist. I'm going to design covers and release two books stimultaneously, I think... in about a month, unless I can squeeze photoshop and website out of the budget friday...

Thanks to all the wonderful people who have supported me and the other authors we have in our community! I will be referencing back to the Feb 1 post to help those writers throughout the month. Please go support them as they work hard to put out quality...

Signed,

The Ellipsis Dragon Queen

It's alive!

LOL I am still here :D I have been madly editing for contest that I entered. Sorry to say I did not make final cut, but Deidre Knight, agent for The Knight Agency, sent me a twitter letting me know I was in good company, that the choice had been a hard one. And, here's the part that made me favorite the tweet, to please send her future work:) Can't ask for more than that from losing a contest!

Plus, in the midst of the contest, I saw that a specific house wanted thrillers (One of which I just happen to have) so I did the boring edits this past weekend. During the editing period, I sent twits out as story time from bits and pieces of my story. Well, Monday morning I woke up to an editor's request (through twitter) to please send to her :)

In this business, one never knows. However, I have had many requests from agents that I have submitted to, to send in future work to them. I am "this" close guys! I keep writing new stories in the hopes that one will make it. I learn something with every tale.

Plus, by following my favorite blog--edittorrent--I keep my brain refreshed on plotting ideas, pacing, and most importantly for my befuddled brain, grammar. I'm on a major roller coaster ride. For me, it is a high to be asked for my work!

How has your week been? Any highs and lows to go with mine :) I love to hear from others, whether by twitter or on comments, so don't be a stranger!

Freezer update, networking

This is going to be a long way around something, but things have been too disturbing in my neighborhood lately.

If you haven't read my rant about losing my freezer, go back a few blogs and do so. There. Now you see my state of mind?

Okay, a related update to forthcoming story? The Thursday before my freezer went missing, I came home to the neighbor's dog having come to our place to die from a bullet wound. Not pretty, but as a former EMT I could tell them the dog was seriously injured internally. From the outside it looked like a through-and-through his ear. It wasn't.

He was doing the harsh last breath. I told the neighbors I had done my normal, "Smoky, go home!" at him. He is a pit bull (lower teeth removed) mix and a nuisance. On a regular day/night he gets up trots to his side of the fence and commences barking.

This day, he looked at me forlorn and I gasped. Flies covered his head and he made no move to get them off. Blood poured off him. I quickly yelled for the neighbors to come over. When I told them he wasn't moving like normal and I though he was hurt, they thought I was complaining.

"Oh, we'll get the hose. It makes him move."

"No. He's in shock, at the very least. Don't soak him with the hose." They looked at me funny. I'm not Smoky's biggest fan. He's annoying and tears up my yard and my things. Yep, fence coming in with next tax return.

Yet, here I was telling them how to best not hurt him. What's the world come to when people have to be surprised that you can get over your personal dislike to help an injured animal? They knew I cared about animals as I'd helped with other animals.

Anyway, we got warm water to rinse off some of the blood and try to find the injury under the flies. It was a bullet hole in his ear. He was too far gone and had to be put down. It was a very sad thing. Worst for the mother, I believe. They'd had that dog for over 10 years. I felt bad for her. So then my freezer went missing that weekend.

I had a more than passing thought that the two incidents might be related. I spread the word that I would be offering a reward for the return of my freezer but that it would be accompanied by a police report. I let the week go by to see if I had any takers.

No bites. I was getting ready to follow through on things when something happened. The neighbor lady came over. She doesn't speak English so she had to bring her younger kids over to translate. Guess what they had to translate? Worse, they knew and had seen part of this incident.

They had a female dog (part poodle) that they used to sell her pups with. She had the cutes puppies and people were willing to pay 100 for them even though they were essentially mutts. That is how cute they were.

The first question was "Did you see who shot our white dog?" They said her name, but I don't remember it.

"What?" I was incredulous. "The little white one?"

Dogs roam this area cuz it's on the reservation and despite sheriff intervention, few are restrained. It's also not a big traffic area. But that dog wasn't bad and mostly stayed home. Once in a while she'd travel out with a few others, but almost never. She hardly barked, was sweet, didn't dig up my garden, chase my car, or the other things that put us all in relative danger. She was easy to manipulate and never even growled at anyone.

Even when I was trying to chase her out of my yard, I couldn't put any real heat into it. In fact, there was so little heat, the pups came up on the porch to play with me. That's how gentle she was. I'm seriously annoyed at the dogs for getting into my stuff and I still couldn't really chase her off.

So, to say the least, I feel bad. The kids went nuts when they knew I hadn't shot their dog. (Did I tell you how annoyed I was at the dogs? They all knew that I was beyond furious. I lost a whole years garden because of the neighbors dogs and they know I'm so not happy. Plus, they bark at 120ish every morning--give or take half hour for lateness of the train--sometimes that is when I've gotten baby down and almost asleep. He hears the pups and wants to play. See? Annoyed.) They talked over themselves and the mom was speaking in Spanish. I understand just enough Spanish to make the whole thing confusing.

Finally, the older daughter comes over and basically, this is what happened. Someone shot the dog. Let it get ran over, and then, put it in a trash bag, AND LEFT IT ON THEIR FRONT PORCH FOR THE KIDS TO FIND. I am livid. That is a truly shitty thing to do.

Your sick of dogs in your yard? Fine. chase them off. If they threaten you or your kids, fine shoot them. (I don't like this, but I've seen some of the dogs around here. Pack mentality and some of these dogs have been bred for dog fights. We've been in more trouble because we keep taming the pups we see around. They become too playful for dog fights. Oohh don't I feel bad? Ruining all that time and energy of breeding dogs for fights? NOPE NOT AT ALL. I'm kinda aggressive that way. I have no proof to take to the cops or I would. So I do what I can to stop it with little things like loving the animals since they're being so obliging and letting them run around my yard:P)

ANYWAYS. I am totally and thoroughly pissed. See, a week earlier someone had told my son that if he didn't keep the dog (the one that's not our dog but that follows him around and protects him whenever he's not at his "other" home?) away from their yard, they'd shoot it. This dog is so friendly that he sits and shakes when he sees you.

What the fucking hell you doing threatening a 9 & 6 YO with shooting the dog you think is theirs? REALLY? When I get proof of who it was, this momma gonna go postal on their a--, uh, there's going to be trouble. Sorry rabbit trail.

If that's not bad enough you're going to shoot a dog, run her over, throw her in a trash bag and leave it on the porch for the kids to find? I'm so upset. I told the neighbors I was sick of it.

The father of one of the children showed up to see why we were all congregating at my front door. I know he understands English as well. He told me of a former friend of theirs that had been standing on my car but Smoky chased off. That did it. Jerks were jumping on my cars when I wasn't looking? Yeah, NO. So I went into tough mode.

"My freezer was the last straw for me. Doing this to your harmless dog was plain shitty. If I don't have my freezer back IMMEDIATELY, I'm going to file a police report. Then I'm going to call my friends in SAR (ran by the sheriff's office here in our county) and ask them to start sending at least one patrol car by everyday. As a former SAR member and volunteer firefighter, it would happen." Their faces all got an interesting look on it.

"I know that would piss some people off around here, but that puppy was shitty work. They knew who and where and it was a little dog that didn't bite or even threaten to bite anyone." Spread the word. If my freezer isn't back and another animal is so senselessly hurt, I will be calling the police and they will be patrolling. Daily, if not more often."

Hell, I might anyway. Through the talking things out process, it has occurred to me that I might be dealing with cousins on this manner. The mom is looney. I mean seriously. Has come and threatened my MIL on occasion. Well, now the 19 yo daughter JUST found out she has cancer and my DH mom and dad are over there a lot. I don't know what I'm going to do if I find out it was them. They better hope the neighbors don't find out. Two dogs shot in a week is enough to start a feud. I would end up in the middle of it. I so don't need that on my plate.

Anyway, with the threat of constant police patrols (It would happen. They drive by the area FREQUENTLY and it would take very little time or effort to swing through the town instead of skirting it.) in the air I hoped for less problems regarding the dogs.

That was yesterday. And oh yeah, did I mention that my boys all followed me out and locked the door? Seriously, I was locked out.

So around noon, my teenager comes rushing in. "We found the freezer. It's not very far from here. We need a tarp."

"Where is it?"

"In the ditch that's not really a ditch."

I knew exactly what they meant. LOL I gave them keys to the van instead and they brought it back. It still had a magnet we had on it from before it went into storage. It was ours. The model placard on the front was cracked but otherwise it's in fine condition.

Amazing what a little networking will do. Now if we can spread the word about the dogs. Keep them tied up and quit shooting the harmless ones with homes.

THAT story

You know? The one that I edited out my voice? Edited it so much so that one editor remarked that "your style of writing would be good for nonfiction"? THAT story? Well, I'd started a quick edit to put things back in. A couple of spots where it still hurt that I took stuff out. Added about 1800 words. Then you know what? I had to work on something else.

I finished my query workshop through CJ Redwine http://cjredwine.blogspot.com *you know, it's bad enough I can't do that fancy-schmancy hide a link under the words, but now, it won't even copy and paste the link! One of these days...* who is a fantastic and gifted query critiquer with a record number of only 3 tries. I don't remember the number from my first one. However, if you look back on my blog, you may find that I was so happy to have finally finished I may have dared to put it out there for all to see. Now, nope. Not happening.

So, with that query finished, waiting to hear back from queries, I went back to work on this one. However, before I actually opened up the file, I got word back on an art piece that I entered into forever nocturne's ezine. And you know what? They really liked it and said they had to find a story to match. So guess what? I wrote a short story to match. Now if only they like the story as much as the artwork! *bites nails*

So back to this wonderful fantasy and throwing back in those beautiful purple prose words that need to be there when you're world building. And guess what? I'll bet you can't guess. (Unless you follow me on twitter!) IT WAS GONE. AGAIN. Yep. It's happened before, despite this wonderful world of auto save and auto recover (a HUGE reason I still use Word, thank you.) I had lost it before.

During a woe is me pity party, a wonderful person @AuthoressAnon on twitter, asked if I'd sent it to anyone for critiqueing. Well, sort of I said. I sent a chapter at a time to a friend who then edited it and I, ehum, over fixed it, plus added a couple of scenes. That was gone. But then, this reminded me. Good little girl that I am, I had sent it to my husband as backup. The completed story with the edits. Yep. The day was saved. Well, that All happened again, except I kept the pity party short as I went straight to the back-ups to see if I'd sent in the corrections--and I did, of course. *Gulp*

So now, I'm putting in beautifully woven adjectives and description and when I went back through, you couldn't even tell. One more thing though. In all the rearranging I did (I moved a couple of scenes around in the beginning. mwah. Beautiful effect, I think.) I moved the description of the characters down a bit. I'll wait and see what the beta reader thinks. Then I'll worry. Now, it's there at the back of my mind as something that may come up.

Added another 1k last night. I'm jazzed. Rereading it myself and I can't hardly tell where the additions went. At least 2k words in the first 3.5 chapters and they seamlessly flow? *pats self on back* I am so relieved. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to add the necessary words without sounding stilted or contrived.

You know what else? This fantasy is what I wrote for last years NaNoWriMo. At the end of that month, it clocked in at 64k. Now it's 86+.

So for last NaNoWriMo, I wrote 64k on one book, and over 2k for another one. (I didn't clock the other one.) Talk about pressure on myself that I have to live up to. I'm thinking I may need to shoot for 70k That means, if I follow my own rule of taking 2 days off a week, I should aim at 4k a day. Definitely attainable if I put my mind to it. I had over 7k one day last year on this manuscript alone, plus some on the other. For the day I was around 8300 words. And I did hit 4-6 consistently.

So, do I have any writing buddies? Or people who want to egg me on, er, encourage me? And in case you missed it, my twitter handle is @L_Bushman now. Will be for my writing networking for ever and ever, amen. Well, maybe not that long :P

Publishing and Networking

I need some chees and crackers to go with my wine please. I wasn't going to blog today, and now I'm doing it AGAIN the first one lost to the nether regions of cyber space! I so don't feel good and my allergies need to find a new home. Maybe in the same place as my last blog?

I have had a long row to hoe, so to speak, in becoming a writer and an author. What's the difference? Well, most people like to differentiate between published and non published. Of course, some snobbish types don't think you qualify as a writer if you're not making money. An opinion I would beg to differ, but I don't believe in begging to have an opinion -- I simply do.

In my mind, what you are doesn't change, whether the world recognizes it or not, or if you are getting paid or not. I liken it to being a parent. I am a mother. I don't get paid to do this. Even with child support and social security benefits for my disabled child, I don't get nearly enough to cover the cost of those children. In my state benefits max out at 674 and it goes down the more you make. So, yeah, not making money here. However, with or without that money, I am a mother. I'm not getting paid to be a mother. Child support is to support the child's physical needs. A small part of being a mother. So, if you are a writer, painter, or appliance repair man, be happy and proud and be what you are, regardless of the pay, status, etc.... Yeah, I'll get off that rabbit trail soap box now :D

Anyways, what induced me to write a blog even though I have to stop and blow my nose a hundred times? (Thank God for wipes for the keyboard, right?) This article ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-pinter/an-analog-industry-in-the_b_499817.html )that I found through the blogs I read. The blog is by Jessica Faust at Book Ends Literary Agency LLC. Side note, Jessica is an agent that gently led me to the path of what a query letter needs to be and how to find that information.

I recently sent her my query of awesomeness even though it didn't quite fit her house, and she responded as courtesly as ever. follow her blog if you have any intentions of ever getting published and READ IT ALL. She will also have links to other people, agents, etc., with more good information for the writer who wants to get published. It's called networking.

My first book, which is not done in the traditional manner, nor is it quite self-published. Go figure, when did I ever do anything the normal way? I went Joint Venture. What did that mean? I didn't put out thousands of dollars, and I got a professionally published book. It means its on Ingram and any book store can find it. What it doesn't mean, that I didn't understand, is that I don't get the press packets, review copies, networking options that usually happen withing a publishing house, nada. I have been doing it all on my own.

I didn't know how to blog, much less have one. I knew next to nothing about twitter, or how to really use the internet for social networking. Now, my best friends are cyber friends and I look to my blogs, like edittorrent and Janet Reid and others, to keep me informed and feel closer to the business I am aspiring to be a part of. Networking on the internet is a fairly new beast. Read the article to see what I mean. He's an aquisition editor and writer and really shows how the netwroking process in the business has changed, just since I began to do this with the intent of eventually making money.