You Know You're A Writer When...

1. You can't sit in the bath without being struck with ideas for your current project (This happens to me all the time)

2. You write lines of dialogue on your hands at work because you do not have a notebook in your bag or can't leave the room

3. In school when the teacher was not looking you pull out a notebook from under your pencil case and continue writing your stories

4. You spend your lunch break at work/school writing stories

5. You're talking to a real, living, breathing person and suddenly stop and listen because one of your characters interrupted you.

6. Your novels are backed up on your laptop, your husband's laptop, two thumb drives, and you're seriously toying with the idea of getting a safe deposit box.

7. You scribble your characters names all over your school work

8. When your computer crashes you burst into tears at the thought of loosing your work (I've done this)

9. You have a favorite pen. Uniball Signo 207 in medium with the comfi-grip in black ink. Excellent ink coverage.

10. You get caught up in plotting your next scene and put the cereal in the fridge, and the milk in the pantry.

11. The stacks of your old manuscripts and rejection letters officially constitutes a fire hazard.

12. You desperately want Crayola tub markers so you can write down all that great dialog that comes to you in the shower.

13. You love restaurants that put a big sheet of paper over the table cloth and leave you with a handful of crayons.

14. You spend time "casting" the future movie production of your novel

15. You create "sound tracks" for your novels

16. You have dreams of getting the "call" from an agent/editor

17. You practise writing dedications on your computer

18. You plan how to break the news you're getting published to your friends and family even though you're not yet.

19. You start drooling at the thought at looking at your front cover for the first time

20. You're on hoilday and you start looking forward going home so you can continue writing (This happened to me in Rome)

21. You frame your first acceptance letter

22. You pin all of your rejection letters to the walls in your room

23. You make excuses to get out of social events so you can write at home in wonderful silence while everyone is out

24. You bitch and complain about the cost of Microsoft Office

25. You can excited when the "Back To School Sales" come out because you can pick up pens and notebooks for ten cents each. Ten frigging cents!!

25. You create posters and banners of your characters in photoshop to display on message boards

26. You sketch pictures of your characters, their clothing, their magical items, weapons, houses, cities, maps, etc....

27. You spend your weekends doing research on irritating, hard to find out subjects, like if the ancient Greeks had last names (I never did find out)

28. You hang on writers message boards

29. You get irritated when you give something you've written to a family member to critique and all they say is "Its good"

30.And finally, you know your a writer if you look at yourself and see a writer. Everyone else looks at you and sees an obsessive-compulsive, anal-retentive insomniac with a pen fetish

Whispers in the Dark release date!

I found out the release date for Whispers in the Dark today! Its coming out in May 2009! That's much quicker then I thought it would be released. I was expecting it to come out much later in the year. I'm so happy. I should be getting the front cover soon. I'll post it here once I get it. It will be May before I know it and my story will be for sale on the internet! whoop!

Marisa's Website of the Month is...Encyclopedia Mythica

Encyclopedia Mythica is a wonderful resource for fantasy writers. It is an online encycolopedia of mythologly, legends, and deities from all over the world. I don't know where I would be if it wasn't for this website. I copied and pasted their articles on all of the major gods and goddesses from Greek mythologly and put them on my laptop so if I needed to double check something about a particular god I can just bring up their bio. So if you're thinking about adding a few satyrs, mermaids, or hamadrayds to your story and want to learn more about them then this is the website to go: http://www.pantheon.org/

Mild Panic Attack

The Eternal Press website server crashed yesterday. I've made a habit of checking the website at least once a day. When I clicked on the lick and a page came up saying it was broken I started worrying that they had gone out of business, but luckily, I was wrong, their server had just gone down. The webpage is back up now. I'm impressed with the front covers for the books coming out next month. The quality is improving. I'm waiting with baited breath to see my front cover. I'm hoping it will be soon. It'd be cool if I get it next month near my birthday. I'm planning on printing it on a large peice of paper, framing it and hanging it on my bedroom wall. It's my first ever cover! It deserves a place of pride. My brother Ryan finally came home. I got woken up at a quarter to eleven last night by the sound of hysterical screaming coming from the living room. He'd let himself into the house and put a Kylie Mingoue CD on then hid behind the couch. Its nice to have him home. I still don't know when Whispers in the Dark is going to come out. I saw a book trailer for a book being done by Eternal Press coming out in June. I think Whispers in the Dark might be coming out towards the end of the year. I have a feeling about October.

Waiting...waiting...

I still haven't heard back from the editing department at Eternal Press. I asked around and got told to wait at least 6 weeks before emailing for an update. I don't know how many other things they have to edit. In the mean time, I've been constructing a playlist of songs to help inspire me to write. I find music a great way to get me into the mood to write. The right song is almost like a drug to me. I'll sit on my bed with my laptop on my arm waving my arounds around, lost in the beat, my brain swimming with images from my stories, like a music video. Since I write dark fantasy/paranormal romance, alot of the music I listen to has either a dark edge to it or an epic opera feel. I listened to the soundtrack of the Dark Knight for the first time today. The track "Why so serious" is an edgy, dark piece, that feels insane, perfect for the Joker. When I listen to it I am bombarded with images of some of my darker, more rebellious characters, like Hades, Pan and Zeus. Its an awesome track. Very rock and roll. Then there's X-Ray Dog "Dark Empire" which sounds like the themesong to a hollywood epic fantasy movie. Its hard to describe. But it fits my stories perfectly. Very epic. Lots of ups and downs. I also listen to "Destiny" by Vanessea Mae (jazz techno song that fits my story Deep Embrace perfectly), Whispers in the Dark by Skillet (which is a perfect match to all my stories including my own version of Whispers in the Dark), Phantom of the Opera (the lyrics match my concept of soul mates. I imagine Poseidon and Cleito singing the song), and the overtures to Phantom of the Opera and Jesus Christ Super Star which both conjour images of the Greek Gods dancing in Mount Olympus in my mind.

Brother Watch

My brother Ryan is coming home from London any day now for a two week hoilday. The little buggar has decided not to tell us when he's arriving. He sent us an email a week ago telling us "Goodbye" and that he will not be answering his phone or going online until he came home. He's going to try and sneak in the house and hide in his bedroom so he can surprise us in the morning. I was so convinced he was going to come home last night I kept waking up every couple of hours and glancing at the clock. I was so exhausted today my head felt like a balloon that was going to pop. I hate it when I wake up sleepy. It makes writing so hard. I sit in my room and stare at my laptop bleary eyed trying to ignore the pounding pain inside my head. Occasionally I will grumble and collaspe face first into my pillow in an attempt to have a sleep. The sun hits my side of the house which means my room is hot and bright during the day. So sleeping for me is hard if its not dark. Its damn irritating when my body wants to sleep but my brain won't turn off the lights because its too bright in my room. I end up lying in a heap on my bed with one eye cracked open wishing I was dead. So if you're reading this Ryan, this is all your fault! I hope you're having fun messing with our brains.

I still haven't heard back from the editing department of Eternal Press. They've released the line of books coming out this month and posted the front covers of the ones due out next month. I'm very happy to say the front covers are improving. I'm hoping I will hear back from the editing department soon. As for when Whispers is due out, I'm going to hazard a guess and say April.

Bored and Blocked

I'm stuck in unemployment limbo at the moment so every couple of days I find myself unable to write because I get really, really, bored. Writing is so isolating. I'm perfectly happy to lock myself in my room for eight or nine hours if I have something interesting to watch on television in the background, if I don't I end up floating around the house doing housework or opening the fridge doors to see if the ice cream fairies have come to visit me. I managed to finish a scene in my latest project Echoes in the Wind the other day. It took me three months to write. It was so difficult it almost killed me. I think that's because its rapidly morphing into epic fantasy. Lots of magical creatures and lots of battles. I'm such a slow writer I can spend days on a single paragraph. I've been trying to write another scene but I can't get into it. I'm waiting for inspiration to strike me like a lightning bolt. As a writer IT IS SO IRRIRTATING to know what I want to write but being unable to put it into words. Its like watching a video with no sound. You can see the images perfectly but you can't hear anything. I have three scenes left in Echoes. I know exactly how I want to start them I just can't figure out how to begin writing them. And who says writers block doesn't exist? I hate people who claim that there's no such thing as writers block. Writes are human. We get bored, we get tired, we get fed up with staring at a computer screen for hours on end. Sometimes the creative spark just isn't there. Its usually a sign to have a break and go do something else. Since its been a couple of days for me I'm at the point where I'm pushing myself to write something. The beginning of a scene is always the hardest for me. I can spend days trying to figure out that first line. Once I get past it, I'm fine. Its like a door in front of me, or a wall. Once I get over the top of it and land on the other side I set off at a run. I'm trying to do the beginning scene of Echoes now. It starts off with dialogue. Its a tricky scene because I have to paint Narcissus, the male lead, as a sad lonely character, and not just a jerk who sleeps with alot of women.

I had my first comment! horrary! It was about the trailer. If the trailer does not work try this link: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=3VAVhCSZX14&feature=channel_page

Whispers in the Dark book trailer

I constrcted a book trailer for Whispers in the Dark today. Its short and sweet. It contains some dialogue from the book. This is just a teaser trailer. I might construct a longer one containing dialogue later on. Once I get my front cover I'm going to make banners and links and icons. In the mean time here is the trailer:

If the video does not load correctly (it does for me) here is the you tube link: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=3VAVhCSZX14&feature=channel_page