Tag!!! I'm It! And the First Day of Blog Me Maybe

Today is the first day of the Blog Me Maybe blogfest for the month of May. (Note the button to your left!)  You'll be seeing a lot of this button on my blog posts this month as I take the leap and join in, all in an effort to get back into the habit of blogging about things that interest me, and hopefully those who stop on over to my blog as well.  Sara says it best when she says, "...really the point of this is to focus mostly on our own blogs and to write posts about things we're interested in that our followers will want to read about." (via Sara McClung)  I doubt I will hit a post everyday (still have a crazy schedule for the next 10 days before a two and half week break!), but I will at least have a guide in terms of general topic areas.  So I hope you enjoy the the Blog Me Maybe series and check out the rest of the participants via the linky at the Blog Me Maybe post.

First, I want to say that this post is way overdue.  See, I got tagged by Em and Lauren for the 7 Facts Tag but with everything going on, I haven't found a minute to post this.  But, with the blogfest starting, what better way to start it off than by letting everyone know a little bit about me, my writing and how it all came to be.  Well, some of it anyways.  So, here goes:

1. My family hasn't read anything I've written since the 8th grade.  It was then that a teacher told my mother there was something wrong with me because I wrote a story about a teenager who died and came back to earth as an angel (among other things). Not exactly an original idea or anything, but apparently this teacher was, well just an ass and decided to scare the hell out of my parents.  I mean seriously, it was a story!  I wonder what Stephen King's teachers thought of him...I mean, geesh! Anyways, after that,  I wrote in secret and kept all my stories hidden from that point on until I went to college.  In my freshman year, a published author had gone through our creative writing papers and then came to our class to speak.  He picked the best story out of the bunch to read to the class and it was mine. I cried for days because I felt like I had finally gotten some validation with my writing.

2.  Because of the above, no one in my family knows that I take writing seriously.  In fact, I don't think any of them have any idea that I still write.  And I won't offer up the information either.  I know that sounds kind of, well sad and pathetic, but it's not cause I am worried about they will think (I've moved well beyond worrying about what they think, thank goodness!).  I am just not ready to.

3.   In the late fall of 2010 I found an amazing community of writers and creators as I made my way through the world of gaming and virtual worlds.  Without having met them, I would not have ever had the courage to to even think of putting my stories out there for people to see.  They helped me, and continue to help me, come out of my shell a little bit more each day.

4.  When I was in middle school and high school, I wrote a series of short stories about a group of friends who were teenage 'detectives' that solved crimes of both the real and paranormal kind.  Think The Babysitters Club meets Nancy Drew meets Fear Street meets Ghostbusters.  I still have those stories, written in a combination of pencil and multi-colored pen ink, every other line skipped, on wide ruled loose leaf paper.  (Remember those pens with like, 5 different colors in them to choose from?!  That's the kind of I used for the stories.  I loved those things!)

5.  I constantly have music on when I am writing.  I can't write in silence.  As I go along, I keep note of the songs that have had a significant impact on my work.  I have a long playlist for my short story, Through the Rain.  And the newest WiP's playlist is getting rather long. One of these days I will do a couple blog posts about them to share the tunes with others.

6.  The WiP I started during NaNoWriMo (which I didn't finish, but that is another story) is on the back burner for now.  I had to put that one aside when I hit a bit of block in March.  There was a battle royale going on in my head about what Abby, the main character, would choose.  I finally made the decision in what I hope will be an interesting and plot twisty sort of way!

7.  The WiP I am currently working on has a main character, Charli, who is probably my most favorite ever.  This world is truly inspring and the story is just pouring out of me, which is one reason I am anxious to get classes over with!  I am thinking this will be novella length-ish, with possibly another story or two after the first one.  Don't know for sure, since I'm waiting to see where Charli, and her cohorts, take me.

And there it is, 7 Facts about me/my writing.  The second part of this meme is to tag 7 people but I think many people I know have already been tagged.  I've tried to tag people who I don't think have been tagged before, and so I have fallen short of the magic number 7,  I really hope a meteor doesn't fall out of the sky and crush me, or that I get bad luck forever, for not having 7! 0.0  jk jk!   If you've already done it, or don't want to, that's totally cool-you still rock in my estimation!  I just wanted everyone to know that the following writers and bloggers are awesome sauce, and to hop on over and check out their stuff!

Sunhi Mistwalker

Helen Jackson

Stacy Green

Ryan King

Alberta Ross