You only get one word to describe...

Hello from Chicago!

Okay, I am very curious. To all you blog readers out there...

Why do you do it?


Why do you follow blogs? Spend countless hours reading and commenting on top of all the other responsibilities you have.

What does this crazy online community give to you? 


And to make things super difficult, you can only use one word. And after that one word you can elaborate if you feel so inclined :)

So in fairness, I'll go first. My one word to describe why I partake in this amazing online community is: SUPPORT. The support from the online community is just awesome. I can't believe how selfless all of you are!

Can't wait to see what you all say!

An Agent Contest and More Awards!!

Morning everyone!

How is the week going so far? Mine's going pretty well, thank you.

I'd first like to let you know about an upcoming pitch contest with Tricia Lawrence of EMLA. Melodie Wright over at Forever Rewrighting is hosting it. Ms. Lawrence is going to read ANY and ALL query and first 250 words. She doesn't accept unsolicited submissions, so this is your chance guys! You can check out Melodie's post about it here. How cool is this?!


I am just feeling all sorts of lovin' lately. I was bestowed with another two awards! Thank you Lara for the 'Thumbs up from a Skunk' award (lol. I just love that name!). And thanks to Hope for the Liebster Award! Everyone should go check out their blogs. These ladies are fantastic!

Copied from Lara who copied it from Word + Stuff, the award is named 'The thumbs up from Skunk award' since "we all feel like stinky, stinky skunks some days" and there are people who "make us feel (and smell) a lot better". Isn't that such a cute idea?

I have to name one thing I love about myself, then pass on the award to as many bloggers as I want to! Sweet! We'll wait for the passing on after we talk about the next award :)

Hope bestowed the Liebster award to me which means I'm to say five things about myself and then pass it on to ten bloggers. 

So, we'll start with the things about me parts of these awards:

One thing I love about myself (per 'Thumbs Up From a Skunk' award): I am an optimist. Period. I will always give you the benefit of the doubt and I will always look for the positive in everything. I guess I do this because overall the world and the people in it have been very good to me, so I try to always be good to them.

Five things about me (per the Liebster Award): 

1. So far I have stuck with all four of my New Year Resolutions. That's pretty good I think. It's been a month.

2. I hate silence. I need noise when I'm awake and I need it when I'm sleeping. Silence just fills my ears and drives me nuts and I inevitably end up filling it with some sort of singing or humming. Much to the dismay of people in elevators or wherever else it's silent. :)

3. I have very few fears. In fact, I can't even name one right now, though I'm sure I've got to have some. This definitely worried my parents when I was growing up (and probably still does) because I'd do a lot of things without thinking. 

4. I could eat pizza everyday. 

5. On my last business trip I had a round of Tequila with a few coworkers including my boss's, boss's, boss. That was slightly weird, but totally cool. :)

Okay, now for passing on the awards! I find it incredibly hard to choose, because all of you wonderful followers make me smile and make this whole writing community just plain awesome. So, I have decided to bestow these awards to the ten most recent commentors (who didn't get these awards from Hope and Lara) on my blog. I think that sounds pretty fair.

So the awards go to... Drum roll please!

Theresa Paolo: No Rhyme or Reason

Cortney Pearson: Writer by Day, Mommy Always

Christa Desir: Christa Writes

Stacey S. Jensen: Writing My Way Through Life

Tracey Joseph: Tracey Joseph Young Adult and Middle Grade Writer

Ilima K. Todd: Ka'ao: Tell a Fanciful Tale

Jessie Humphries: Jessie Humphries...B-Word

Jenny Lee Young: Castles in the Sky

Melissa Marsh: Writing in Style

Amy L. Sonnichsen: The Green Bathtub

Peggy Eddleman: Will Write for Cookies

Deana Barnhart

Martin Willoughby: From Sand to Glass

Kamille Elahi

Jessica Love: Jessica Love Writes

Sharon Bayliss: The Blue Word

Okay, okay. You got me. There are more then ten of them. I decided to take all the commentors on my last two posts. Check em' out! I LOVE reading what they have to say. Thanks for the work you put into your blogs and for following mine, guys!

Characters Giving Back

The first manuscript I ever critiqued was for my good friend and amazing writer, Theresa. It still sticks with me, which is a testament to a well written story.

Without giving too much away, one of the MCs volunteers at a soup kitchen.

One of the stories I've written revolves around a teenage girl who gives her time to be a role model for an eight-year-old girl.

Often times we put our characters through the ringer. We force them to deal with death, love lost, the end of the world. It is how our characters react to these issues that shows us who they are.

Sometimes we write characters who, without being forced into a life or death situation, feel driven to help others, feel the need to give back.

I'm curious. Have you read or written a character who feels compelled to give back, volunteer? Why do they do it? What do they do? What does this tell you about them?


I'll go first. :) In the case of Emma, the girl who becomes a role model for eight-year-old Gigi in one of my stories, her motives are selfish, at first. She wants to get into a good college and needs volunteer hours. Gigi is her perfect charity case. But then she realizes all she has in common with the little girl and what a good influence she can have on her life. In the end, when she has to make an incredibly difficult choice, she ultimately chooses the unselfish option, promising to always be there for Gigi.

This post idea was inspired by some volunteer work I did while at a work conference in New Orleans. We put in three hours at Second Harvest and it was a really wonderful experience.

One in eight people in Louisiana are hungry. It felt good to get my hands dirty with complete strangers to do our own little part to help feed the community.

One of the coolest part about the experience were the others who volunteered with me. Out of the forty of us we had some from Germany, Italy, Brazil, Mexico and a number from the US. As we all packed boxes of donated food, sang to music and tried not to get run over my forklifts, it was totally awesome to think that many of the people helping weren't from the United States.

Our job, and yes we chose to accept it ;), was to unpack the boxes from the grocery store onto the conveyor belt where it moved to an area to be sorted. So by the end we had boxes of dry goods, canned goods, drinks, etc.

 These are the sorting ladies. TOTALLY reminded me of the I Love Lucy episode with Ethel, Lucy and the chocolates. They did a fantastic job.


Have you done any volunteering lately? Tell us so we can all say THANK YOU!

Come. I will take you on a journey through New Orleans' French Quarter!

Before we 'get our stroll on', I have to give A BIG THANKS to Sharon over at The Blue Word for the Kreativ Blogger Award!! If you guys don't know Sharon, you should go check her out. She's revealing things about herself which she rarely does. Hurry! Go, go, go. I'll wait for you. :)

Okay, now that you're back from visiting Sharon, swing your arm in mine. We're going to walk around The French Quarter in New Orleans!! For a small taste of what I saw my first few days in New Orleans you can visit my earlier post here.

Ready to go?? First let's cross Canal street and head into the French Quarter area. Watch out for the Street Cars!! They don't really stop...

We'll walk down Royal Street because this street is quintessential French Quarter. It's blocked off to traffic during the day so you're allowed to meander between both sidewalks and watch the performers and other special people that hang out in the street. And as you can tell, they're already getting ready for Mardi Gras!

We could go inside and get our fortune read.

*I do find it kind of weird that a sign saying this area is under surveillance 24/7 is posted outside a psychic's store. Wouldn't they know if someone meant to harm them?*

Maybe we should ask for our fortune from this lady instead...

Oh! Oh! Look to our left! There's a couple with lampshades on their heads!!

Holy crap. How does one choose which mask to get? I could spend hours in this store trying them all on...

Hmmm...New Orleans IS known for their Pralines. Perhaps we should get a box?

I LOVE how every other store on Royal street is an art gallery. SO beautiful! Too bad they won't fit in our carry-ons!

Aren't these guys amazing?? Their harmonies are spot on. Love that good ol' Louisiana music!

We HAVE to go in here!! Can we? Can we?

Wow. THAT is a lot of Mardi Gras stuff...

Hmmm...Lets head down this street one more block and then head over to the river. Sound good?

The St. Louis Cathedral! Let's take a peak, shall we?

Wow. What great timing! A school orchestra is playing. Doesn't it sound beautiful with the Cathedral's acoustics??

Since Jackson Square is right across from the St. Louis Cathedral, we might as well take a walk through it right?

Is it a coincidence that we ended up here?? No sir-re-sir! Sharon said that we had to come here for their beignets. So here we are!

And there THEY are! Oh my goodness these are SO GOOD!

You're going to want to wipe the powder sugar off your face before we continue.

One last look at the St. Louis Cathedral and Jackson Square.

Isn't the weather just beautiful? Seventy five. Doesn't even bother me that the sun's not out...

The Mississippi River. The coast along the river isn't too great. But that's okay.

Okay, now, wave your hands and say the magic words. WELL DONE! It's night time and I'm starving. How about you? Good! Let's head to Bourbon Street and find a good restaurant.

Let's watch these awesome performers first...my stomach can wait.

This street looks beautiful with its cafes and stuff... Let's take a look.

I hear The Pelican Club has to die for Lobster Ravioli. Head on in? I agree!

Oh my! That is A LOT of beads. What did you do to get all those?? ;) ;)

No worries. I won't tell.




Did you enjoy your tour through New Orleans' French Quarter?? Thanks for coming with me!

PARTAY!!!!

You guys!!!

One of my super, awesome, amazing, stupendous, talented, lovely, tremendous, spectacular (you get the point) critique partners, Cassie Mae, just got a FULL REQUEST in the Cupid's Literary Connection Contest!!!

You can follow THIS LINK to read her awesome entry.

And you can go HERE to visit her super duper blog.

I'm SO PROUD of my friend. As most of us know, this is a business of ups and downs. She deserves this. Her works is amazing and so is she. This is one of those 'ups' and I have a feeling its just going to keep ascending.

Yay Cassie!!!

Where in the World is Kelley? New Orleans, Louisiana!

Hello all!

This is us on Bourbon Street. SO COOL! Oh my gosh!
The PEOPLE WATCHING!!!
And that's Pablo right in the front of the picture. Hi Pablo!

I'm spending the week in New Orleans for a business conference! A number of you asked for pictures and I would NEVER want to disappoint. So here ya go!

First, I will mention that I've only been to New Orleans once. And I was nine months old. My parents inform me that they changed me in a bar. So, New Orleans and I go WAY back. We're tight. :)

But, for some reason, I can't for the life of me remember anything about my first trip here. *wink, wink* So it all seems like the first time.

It looks much nicer in person. My Blackberry doesn't take super
good night pics.

We're staying at a super nice hotel for the conference (I am so spoiled). I feel kind of bad because the two colleagues I am with are MUCH higher on the food chain than I am. (VP and Head of Marketing) and I got a corner room which overlooks the whole city. (At dinner I found out that they didn't...)

Downtown New Orleans!

We are only about a six block walk away from Bourbon Street so for dinner we got a list of recommendations, closed our eyes and picked one. We ended up at Arnaud's Restaurant. What a WONDERFUL place. Highly recommend it. The food was fantastic!

Like most the restaurants on Bourbon Street, Arnaud's had live music. I'm telling you, the guy playing the bass is THE person you think of when you think of New Orleans' Jazz. His voice was SO good. And all three were fantastic. They went around during dinner and took requests. So much fun!

And on the way back to the hotel we saw A LOT of crazy people. SO funny! My gosh, some of these characters have to make it into one of my manuscripts!

I went up to touch this 'statue' and then he moved. Yes, I screamed. Then I tipped him.

I'm sure I'll have more to share as the week goes on. I will say that I do A LOT of work while I'm on business. I just don't post that stuff because, really, what fun would that be? 

But I don't want you guys to get the wrong opinion. I don't travel around the world pretending to work ;)

And, because I had this song stuck in my head the WHOLE way here, I leave you with Willie Nelson.

Have you been to New Orleans? Anything I MUST do while I'm here??

Painting Poppies and Cousin Update

Some people assume that since I am a writer I am fairly good at all things 'creative'.

This, I tell you, is not the case.

Any type of artwork (aside from the occasional successful stick person) is not very good. However, I will never turn down a challenge. And just because I'm not good at it, doesn't mean I don't have fun doing it.

My sister and I tried out this place called Sips N Strokes sometime in December (or was it November? Ah, well, we tried it out and some point. :)) and we had SO MUCH FUN my sister gave gift certificates to our cousins as a Christmas present. So this past Wednesday, we got to go again!

The concept is that you start out with a canvas like this:

A teacher stands at the front of the class and leads you step by step through your painting. There is also a BAR at the location. Hence the 'sips' part. ;)

Below are the three artists that were with me. On the left is my cousin Jess. In the middle is my sister Jenny. And on the right is my cousin Loni. (Jess and Loni are sisters.)

For those of you who are newer to my blog, my cousin Jess was diagnosed with stage 2 Brain Cancer in November. She had brain surgery just after Thanksgiving and is doing awesome! For more on her story you can go to this post, and this post. Thank you all SO MUCH for your thoughts and prayers. While this cancer is one that, with technology the way it is right now, will never 'go away', her prognosis is very positive and her recovery is at nearly 100% after a little over a month.

And while our paintings didn't look exactly like the one in the advertisement, we certainly had fun. And mine isn't so embarrassing that I've hidden it in my closet. Instead, it's in my bedroom, where only myself and my dog will see it :)

I think Jess's turned out REALLY good.

Loni has a way with the dramatic. :) Hers turned out really good too!

Here's mine. I think I could have done the same quality when I have seven.
But like I said, it was SO FUN!

Awards! Pass on the smile :)

After packing up my pooch and getting 'wet dog' smell in my car (we've gotten quite a bit of snow today) I made it all the way to the groomers and the place was closed. Even though I had an appointment. Oh geez.


So, what better way to unfrustrate (I made that word up) and put a smile on, than to assign blog awards and thank the lovely ladies who bestowed the awards on me!

Big thank yous to Juliana Haygert and Sara Bulla/Angie Cothran for the Kreativ Blogger Award and Versatile Blogger Award respectively!

Now the rules for getting and passing these awards on are quite similar. For the Kreativ one I'm supposed to share ten things about myself and pass it on to six bloggers.

For the Versatile one I'm supposed to share seven things about myself and pass it on to fifteen bloggers.


So I'm going to do a mixture of the two. I'll list eight random things about myself and pass this award onto the amount of bloggers I feel like. (Haha. I'm such a rebel.)

1. I worked for Mickey Mouse for six months. Yup, that's right. Me and Mickey were tight. Minnie didn't appreciate it too much but by the end of the six months we were pals too. (And yes, working for Disney is wonderful not to mention Florida weather is AWESOME.)





2. My high school Varsity Soccer team won state my senior year. We were also ranked in the top ten teams in the country. (Number eight I believe.) I still play two times a week and have managed not to lose too much of my mad skills. ;) ;) Ya, right.

3. I once had to file a tax return for three different states in the same year: Wisconsin, Illinois and Florida. Wasn't too fun...though living in the three different states was.

4. I have been known to hit the volleyball backward more than forward during a game. Now it's only a bar league so in all fairness I have a drink in the other hand...

5. I went to Ireland this past summer, just before I started taking writing seriously. Some of my inspiration for landscapes in my manuscripts is from this trip.

I can't help but sing 'Climb Every Mountain' when I see this pic... 

6. My favorite TV shows are Bones, Fringe, The New Girl, White Collar and Rizzoli and Isles.

7. I have a bachelors degree in Chemical Engineering and am a Technical Service Chemist for an adhesives company. I really like my job and the people I work with as well as the customers I get to visit. One of the perks (at least as of right now) is that there is a good amount of travel so I get to see many places on the North American continent.


8. I LOVE eating out. And though it's not good for my pocketbook, I eat out every day for lunch during the work week. There's just something about getting out of the office. And probably that I'm a HORRIBLE cook so there's no such thing as leftovers for lunch...

Okay... now the BEST part. Bestowing these awards on to other lovely bloggers! 

First, I apologize if you've already received this award in the past. You can feel free to do with the award as you wish. Put in on your fridge, tape it on your mirror, post it on your blog, or just smile and move on with life.

ALSO, to these wonderful bloggers I bestow BOTH awards! Yes, that's right. Each one of these bloggers gets both awards. So congratulations!!!

How did I choose them you might ask? I read every one of their posts. These bloggers are a part of my life and I thank them for the hard work they put into their blog.

Tracey Joseph

Ruth Josse at Ruth + Writing

Melanie Fowler at Adventure Writes

Alexis Bass Writes about Writing

Ru at And then she was like blah, blah, blah

Rachael McClellan at Blackbird in my Window

David Powers King at The Cosmic Laire of Science Fiction and Fantasy

Deana Barnhart

Emily R. King

Jess at Falling Leaflets 

Jenna Cooper at Finding the Write Way

Jenny S. Morris at Jenny's Imaginary World

Jessica Love at Jessica Love Writes

Jessica Humphries...B-Word

Ilima at ka'ao: tell a fanciful tale

Kate Coursey - Weaving Colors

Kelley Vitollo

Lacie Nezbeth at The Real Deal: One Mom's journey to having it all

Lindsey N. Currie

Leigh Covington

Lara Schiffbauer's: Motivation for Creation

Krista V. at Mother. Write. (Repeat.)

Jenna Quentin at Meandering in a Field of Words

Mark Noce Stories

Christina Dos Santos at Once Upon a Time

Karen Akins at Novels During Naptime

Hope at My Protector: The Calling

Stacy Coles at Say this Write

Cassie Mae at Reading, Writing and Loving It!

Peggy Eddleman at Will Write for Cookies

Candy Lynn Fite at On the Trail to Publication

DRC @ WTF (Writing Thrilling Fiction)

Melissa Marsh at Writing with Style

Donna K. Weaver at Weaving a Tale or Two

Theresa Paolo at No Rhyme or Reason

Amy L. Sonnichsen at The Green Bathtub

Stacy S. Jensen at Writing my way Through Life

Jay Noel at Writer on Fire

Jolene Perry at Been Writing

Lillie McFerrin Writes

Confessions of a Twenty Something Fiction Writer

41 wonderful writers!!! (If I counted right...) Thank you again!

Can You Hit a Perfect Pitch?

If you're looking for The Writer's Voice entry you can find it here.

Title: Fraction of Stone
Genre: YA Fantasy
Word Count: 65,000

Pitch: Akara and Rydan are the last of an extinguished tribe and only they have the power to save a crumbling world. Is the world worth saving when the only souls alive murdered their people?

            The chains around her wrists jingled, echoing off the stone walls, a cheery sound out of place. If she closed her eyes and moved her arms again it would be as if she were listening to a wind chime, twittering in the breeze. But the cold metal was not a wind chime. It was a tether, a leash, holding her captive in the belly of her city.

            She could have called it her room, for it was where she slept, where she ate. The situation would seem more bleak once the drugs wore off, sending her into a depression of why she even bothered to live.

            She had no choice, that’s why. They needed her and refused to let her die. They kept her down there in an almost comatose state until it was time for her to work her magic.

            Literally.

Snow, snow, snow, snow, snow!

I usually don't post two days in a row so if you missed my Sandwich Theory post, you can head here.

We had our first snowfall of the season today! This is my view from my little cubicle.

And, when I think of snow, I think of this song from the movie and musical White Christmas.




How's the weather by you?


I hope you all have a fantastic weekend!