1:30 pm - December 17, 2014 - sjcarlson

Christmas in Wisconsin: One expat reminiscing

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Don’t mind me. I’m not going home for Christmas this year and was just struck with a spontaneous, crippling bout of homesickness as the holidays approach :P. Occupational hazard of living the expat life over here in Singapore. Please. If you can. Ship me some snow.

Anyway, enjoy my glorious photos form last year’s Christmas back home in Wisconsin.

And then there’s the whole polar vortex thing? Like 40 below zero Fahrenheit for several days. You may remember that being when a bunch of people burned themselves throwing boiling water in the air to watch it freeze instantly–which it does. Maybe I’ll post my video later :P. In case you don’t live in a place that gets RIDICULOUSLY cold…if you leave your car sitting outside, your gasoline can freeze and then starting your car can be a bit tricky. Which is why you need……. HEET!

“Sorry we have no Heet.” In the entire city of Madison. CRISIS! Pssshhh I don’t need to unthaw my frozen gas anyway

Seriously though, I’ll be fine :P, just had to reminisce a bit.

Categories: An ode to Wisconsin, Expat in Singapore Tags: expat, Wisconsin

11:33 am - December 13, 2014 - sjcarlson

I’ve done it! Finally done it! Conquered the beginning of my novel!

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(Oh and I made this image by layering two of my Belfast photos on Pixlr :P)

Hey everyone. Good news. After five months of fighting with the beginning of Hooligans in Shining Armour, I’ve done it. Finally done it. I have conquered first chapters of my novel.

The rest of it has been done for months; it was just a matter of finding the right place to start. And believe me, it’s had many…many…many different starts. It’s now been fully critiqued and professionally edited. Ready to go! If you’d like to read the first three chapters of Hooligans in Shining Armour, click here and scroll down to the link 🙂 I’m so excited and so proud of it. Big props to all the many, many, many writers who helped me get here! Especially Kate Foster, who particularly helped me nail the beginning. Without them, I’d still be, oh God, don’t even want to imagine.

Anyone else have something to celebrate about their WIPs?

Category: Writing Tags: writing

10:34 am - December 12, 2014 - sjcarlson

Non-writers just don’t understand: My (not so) favorite question

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Granted, it is much easier to get published now with self-publishing, but still a ridiculous quantity of work, even after you finish and repeatedly re-work that novel.

Writer friends, do you have a (not so) favorite follow-up question you get after telling people you’re a writer?

Category: Non-writers just don't understand Tags: writing

10:14 am - December 11, 2014 - sjcarlson

Writer friends, do you have a favorite theme you like to explore?

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Here’s one of my favorites:

Share yours!

Category: Writing Tags: writing

8:18 pm - December 9, 2014 - sjcarlson

Non-writers just don’t understand: The moment you realize….

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Has this ever had that happen to you? You slave over your query letter. Tailor every sentence to perfection. I mean, you have, what, 300-400 words to craft a movie trailer of sorts for your book to suck in possible agents, lure them into at least reading the first line of your submission. You’ve had multiple people critique it and provide feedback. Maybe you’ve even hired someone to fine tune it. Must be perfect to send to agents, right?

So with one of my WIPs, I’ve been guilty of one thing: I keep thinking it’s done. So I’ve been working on my query. Then I discover that, nope, not so much done. But now, seriously, I am 99.999% done. I’ve finally done it. NAILED the beginning that’s been the bane of my existence for the past four months.

But my perfect query?

Not so perfect anymore…. It’s going to have to be re-worked.

But really though, I’m just so ecstatic that I’ve nailed the beginning of it!