First Line Fun!

Think I finally have a first line for this new book!

I was dancing like a maniac last night when I finally figured it out 😀

I’d been feeling like I had writer’s block, and I hadn’t even started writing yet. Really not a good way to start out a new project. To get over that hump, I …wrote.

I worked on my characters, writing what I knew about them as I filled out questionaires for them. When I came to my heroine, the first line fell into place.

Now, I need to create a few more characters, then I’ll be ready to write!

Spent all of this month researching and warping that research into the world my characters live in, as well as creating the characters. Goal is to get writing December 3rd.

What Are You Afraid Of?

Seriously, I want to know 🙂

I’m playing with new characters today. I try to create well-rounded characters, part of that is giving them flaws and defects. Fear is part of that.

That got me thinking, I know what I’m afraid of, but what about other people?

So, tell me, what are you afraid of?

Yay!

No, this isn’t a post about my van catching fire, although, the insurance company was more generous than we anticipated, so this really is a double yay post 🙂

I’m excited because I’ve been world building again! Love being creative. Things are starting to come together with this book now. It’s set in the future, after a major world disaster, and I’ve had to figure out how that disaster changed the world, and how the survivors adapted. And the really fun part, figuring out how my villain came to be. Apparently, there’s more than one of these suckers (no, this isn’t a vampire book).

I’ve been in edit mode for so long, I forgot how good it feels to be creative!

Oh, I love this feeling!

Have a great thanksgiving week!

Well. That’s interesting.

My van caught on fire today.

There was a weird sound under the hood, and I think we left part of our car on the road. A passing driver yelled, “You’re on fire!” Before we saw any smoke. We pulled off the road and onto the grass and gathered up most of our things and got away from the van.

My husband called 911 to let them know what was going on. I heard him say, “Follow the smoke. You should be able to see it now.”

It did go up pretty quickly.

Here’s what it looked like after the KCFD put out the fire.

Better my car than my house.

I’m sure this will end up in a book somewhere 😉

 

National Epilepsy Awareness Month

The whole month of November 😀 If you see lots of lavender/purple, it’s the ribbon color for epilepsy.

     My now eleven year old daughter was diagnosed with epilepsy when she was eight. Her first seizure was one of the scariest nights of my life. We didn’t know she’d had a seizure, we just knew we had a daughter we couldn’t wake up. She was checked out at the children’s hospital in town – shout out to Children’s Mercy! – and they determined that she’d most likely had a seizure.

FACT ONE: A very high number of the population will have one seizure in their lifetime (I want to say 90%, but my stats are a little rusty).

Because of this, they told us to keep an eye on her. Maybe this was her one.

It wasn’t.

Within a month, after several more seizures, trips to the neurologist, and a handful of tests, she was diagnosed with Epilepsy.

FACT TWO: Because of great medical advances, the medical community has gathered more information on seizures (but not nearly enough). There are now many different names for types of seizures depending on where in the brain they originate.

Or sometimes, they’re not specific, like my daughter’s. She was diagnosed with general seizure disorder, and has two different types of seizures.

FACT THREE: Grand mal and petite mal are no longer used as seizure labels in the epilepsy community, because doctors can be more specific due to advances in science.

My girl has tonic-clonic and absence. In the older terms, grand mal and petite.

In August she reached her two-year anniversary of being seizure free. Under her doctor’s supervision, we were able to wean her from her anti-seizure medication. So far, so good. We have to keep a close eye on her until the end of the year. At that time, if she’s still seizure free, her doctor said we can say my daughter’s in remission.

Not everyone with epilepsy, or with a child that has it, is as lucky. I know we’ve been very blessed. Things could take a turn for the worst at any time. I continue to hold out hope and pray that things continue to go well.

FACT FOUR: About 30% (and again, my stats are rusty) of the epilepsy population is medicine resistant.

Sometimes it takes multiple medications to control the seizures. Sometimes medications don’t work. These are the patients who most often consider surgical means for controlling seizures. Sometimes surgical implants, other times surgery on the brain itself.

For these families, I continue to hope and pray that more medical and scientific advances will happen. Sadly, Epilepsy research is underfunded. Until Epilepsy has more well-known people championing the cause, it will continue to be underfunded.

FACT FIVE: There are the same number of epilepsy cases diagnosed each year as there are breast cancer.

Didn’t know that, did you? Breast cancer receives twice as much funding for research. I understand these are our moms, daughters, aunts, nieces, grandmas, granddaughters, and friends. I’m not suggesting we take research away from them.

We need to raise awareness for epilepsy research. Our children, our elderly, and our soldiers are no less important than the women in our lives.

For more information: http://www.epilepsyfoundation.org/

I Knew It Was Time For Bed When

I jotted down the rules for taking and keep souls

AND

Made my villain afraid of rubber duckies.

That’s when I packed it in last night and headed for bed. Excited to get back to my new book tomorrow. Not sure if I’m keeping the rubber duckie, though.

 

Good-bye Halloween

I love, love, LOVE Halloween! My kids love it, too. It’s exciting to see them come up with costumes on their own, and watch their creativity at work. It’s also fun for me to help with their make-up 🙂

This year we had Bat Man – along with the deep, scratchy voice so no one could tell who he was, a little vampiress, Enchantress – from the Avengers cartoon, The Phantom – complete with messed up face beneath the mask, and me. A harlequin themed marionette. I mentioned helping the kids with their make-up was fun, well painting my own face was just as fun!

Here’s my make-up and homemade hat from last night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 This was so much fun! Too bad it’s socially unacceptable to dress like this at other times of the year. Although, I was thinking about dressing up on my birthday, because, well, I can. It’s my day, right? Okay, so I probably won’t, but it was a good thought!

Hope everyone one had a fantastic and safe Halloween! On to Thanksgiving!