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Lost My Mind Again 

Husband: My plan is obviously working...

Posted by Ashley Turcotte at 12:14 PM 1 comment: 

EVER Blog Tour: A Review of the Awesomeness 

Some girls lose their hearts to love.

Some girls lose their minds.

Ever Van Ruysdael could lose her soul. 

Changes (Awesome Ones) 

Ultimate Deal Breaker

Drum roll please. 

Well, I Promised, Didn't I?

So I promised you that I would write at least once a week from now on. And I fully intend to keep that promise. I even went so far as to think up a bunch of different blog topics during the last week and a half or so. Just so that I would be prepared when the time came to sit down and write. I came up with some good stuff, too.

At least I'm almost sure I did. Because, as I tweeted earlier this week, I didn't bother to write any of this stuff down. I used to have the most incredible memory. I would remember everything. Okay, well, I guess not everything everything. Not like this guy:

But still, I remembered a hell of a lot more than most. I could remember huge chunks of conversations, verbatim, years after they took place. In fact, I once repeated back to my friend in college, right before we graduated and went out into the world, a conversation that we'd had early our freshman year. I did this because I mentioned something about him that he said never happened, when he'd told me all those years earlier than it had. And after I told him exactly what he'd said, he realized that he'd completely forgotten that such a thing had ever happened to him. Or, put a little differently, I knew more about him than he did.  :P

It was almost tiring, actually, having that many memories in my brain. But I kind of liked it nonetheless. And it definitely helped with my writing. I'm not going to get into how I felt about the creative writing program at my college right now (let's just leave it at this: genre fiction isn't sophisticated enough for some people), but I did still get some pretty good feedback on some of my short stories. (I'm also not going to get into how much I despise writing short stories, because I never have to write another one ever, ever again. So who cares if I hate them?)

Okay, getting sidetracked. The point I'm trying to come to is that, in all the feedback I ever got, in all of the fiction writing classes I had to take, one thing was consistent: they all thought my dialogue was completely natural/believable/real. This is because I have hundreds upon hundreds of conversations that actually happened milling about up in my brain. It's never been all that hard for me to draw on that knowledge to write dialogue that sounds like what people would actually say. Well, with contemporary characters, at least. My WIP at the moment is a traditional fantasy (something I haven't done for, oh, eight years or so), so that's a whole different kettle of fish.

Yeah, I didn't mean for this blog post to take this turn. In fact, I was mostly going to lament about how I guess I'm not as young as I used to be, my brain is turning to Swiss cheese, the mind is the first to go, blah blah blah. And how I need to write shit down. But I like the turn this post has taken. So the lesson of the day? LISTEN TO PEOPLE. Nothing you can possibly do will ever help your writing as much as listening to other people talk. You'll get a better idea of how they talk. The words they use. The cadence. So the next time you're sitting in a restaurant or shopping or just at your desk at work, listen to what the people around you are saying. Honestly, it's some of the best research you'll ever do. Nothing sucks more than crap, unrealistic dialogue in a book. That is one of the top two deal breakers for me.

Ooh. And now I have another idea for a blog post. Next time, I'm going to talk about the ultimate deal breaker. The one thing that will make me never read another book by an author, no matter what. Because with all the awesome books out there, why read something that sucks? And I followed my own advice and wrote it down. On the internet, no less. No way I can lose it now.

(And seriously, if you haven't already seen it, go watch Sherlock. It's amazing!!!)
Posted by Ashley Turcotte at 3:38 PM 2 comments: 

A Little Blog Hijacking

Hey guys and dolls, how's it going?

Don't look so startled - I don't bite. 

So I have to spread the word.

And I need your help to do it.

You're probably wondering why, right?

Evil lurks in the shadows.

Evil lurks in the shadows. And not just any evil. Posted by Ashley Turcotte at 10:24 AM 1 comment: 

Summer Funk

At least one of you already knows this (because I've mentioned it to you), but for the rest of you: I hate summer. I think I liked it a little more back when I was in school, because it meant time off. And it's hard to truly hate a time where you have minimal responsibilities. But even then, I don't think I ever loved summer the way so many others do. Such as my parents, who absolutely live to be on the beach and out in the sun, and anything under eighty degrees is long sleeve/pants weather. And heaven help them if it drops below fifty, because then it's practically too cold to survive.

I kind of lean in the other direction. Anything over eighty degrees is so hot that I feel like I'm going to just fall over and die. Heat and humidity and an overabundance of sunlight make me feel exhausted. Sometimes even woozy. Just generally lethargic and icky, with a longing for fall weaving its way through my very being. I won't even wear a jacket until it gets down to around forty degrees. No wonder I moved to New England!

So they say that the publishing industry basically shuts down in the summer. Whether or not that's true is a different story (I've seen a lot of tweets to the contrary), but for sake of argument, let's say it does. Well, so do I. Remember back in July, when I was so excited because I'd written a page of a new WIP? As exciting as that was, it didn't manage to get me out of my summer funk. I wrote a few more pages after that, but my battery was running on low, and I just didn't have the mental or physical energy to do much more than that. Which, as any writer would understand, made me sad. Which made my battery run even lower. Vicious cycle and all of that.

What's my point, you may ask? Well, as you may have noticed, my summer funk also meant that I haven't posted on this blog in almost six weeks (for shame!). I know some other people who had to take a hiatus of a month or two over the summer for various reasons. But they were good enough to do a quick post letting people know. My hiatus, on the other hand, wasn't planned. I kept meaning to blog. And I managed to keep up with all of the blogs that I follow. But I wasn't writing anything. I wasn't even reading much of anything. Every time I sat down to write a post, I'd realize I had absolutely nothing to say. So I'm writing this post today to let you know that the weather has made a change for the better, my outlook on things has improved, and I'm ready to get back into the game. I got the jump start I needed.

This is the first post of many. I intend to post at least once a week, as I have in the past. Also, I now have two chapters of the WIP. At some point, I'll pull together a few paragraphs and make a new page for it here on the blog. But for now, that's just not possible. I don't have a title, you see, and my working title is...well, honestly, it's both ridiculous and kind of embarrassing. Only my husband and one of my CPs have been trusted with it. When I come up with something more suitable, you'll all be among the first to know.
Posted by Ashley Turcotte at 10:36 AM 1 comment: 

Puppy Shenanigans

In a bit of a departure from my regular posts, I would like to tell you the story of my morning. Because my dogs were acting like crazy critters, and I feel like sharing.

First, for some background, let me introduce you to my darling pups. I put them in the order that we adopted them, which is also (roughly) the order of their ages, oldest to youngest (we only know the exact birth date for pup #1).
﻿ ﻿ ﻿ ﻿ ﻿ ﻿ ﻿
Now that you've all met, on to the story. So I learned something new this morning: Indy and Shadow are terrified of the smoke detector. Now, before you start worrying that I, say, set my house on fire, let me assure you that this was a case of the battery getting low. So about once a minute, the smoke detector on the main floor would beep really loudly and an annoying voice would say, "Low battery." This started while I was in the shower, so when I got out, I opened the bathroom door to see what all the fuss was about. Indy and Shadow immediately ran into the bathroom (they usually avoid the bathroom, as it is the scary, horrifying place where the hated baths take place!), and went as far in as they could. Which means they were right by the hated tub.

*BEEP!* Low battery.


Every time it happened, they freaked out, and looked around like the frickin' grim reaper was after them or something. When I finally got them to leave the bathroom (quite a chore...I swear, at one point, Indy reared up like a spooked horse), I opened the bedroom door. At which point, Indy and Shadow rushed to hide under the bed. In Indy's case, this makes sense. He's tiny. But Shadow? He's not exactly a small dog. Nonetheless, he was somehow completely under the bed, about a foot and a half from the edge.



Try as I might, I couldn't get the dogs to come out. We always shut the bedroom door when we're gone (it isn't one of the puppy safe rooms), so I had to get them to come out. The logical solution? Go downstairs and turn off the smoke detector. So I manage to twist it away from the ceiling and, after a couple of false starts, locate the battery compartment. I remove the battery with a triumphant grin, happy that I have made the fire alarm stop scaring the poor pups hiding under the bed.


*BEEP!* No battery.


Stupid hard wired thing. So I tracked down a 9-Volt battery, managed to get the stupid thing in there (a couple more false starts...that smoke detector is really weird), and finally, at long last, silence. Victory!

Except the dogs were still hiding under the bed. And apparently, it became the place to be, because when I went back up to try to coax them out with treats, Jujube scurried under there and also refused to come out. Three crazy dogs hiding under the bed! Gah!

Like I said: treats. Lo and behold, treats are not a good enough motivation for Shadow or Jujube. Who knew? They stayed under the bed, staring at me with a "Yeah right!" look. Or maybe it was more of a, "Hells to the no!" look from Shadow, and a, "I have better things to do than make your life easy, Mommy," look from Jujube. (You don't know Jujube, but trust me when I say that's her general attitude.) Indy however...the second the treat came into view, his eyes lit up. And after about 10 seconds of indecision, he army crawled his way to the edge, sticking his head out just enough for me to hand him the treat. Unfortunately for him, that was also just enough for me to grab him and pull him out. Yay! One down! I put him in the hall and shut the door.

I decided Jujube was my next best bet, because she wasn't completely under the bed (her tail was sticking out). So since words and treats weren't working, I grabbed and pulled. There was a bit of a scramble of front paws, but alas, she has no thumbs and couldn't grab hold of anything. Two dogs down. And while this scramble was going on, I'm pretty sure Shadow's thought process was something along the lines of, "Oh, shit...she just pulled both of them out. Is she going to do that to me!?" And by the time I'd gotten Jujube out, Shadow was waiting by the door.

Dash got an extra treat for being the only one not to make my morning difficult. And even with all this, I still made it to work 10 minutes early. Ooh yeah.  :)
Posted by Ashley Turcotte at 2:24 PM 1 comment: 

Life Is Short, So Go Kick Ass

So tomorrow is the three year anniversary of when I totaled my car. (You already know where I'm going with this, don't you? It's okay...I'll be brief. Well, as brief as I'm capable of being.)

Life is so freaking short. You never know what's going to happen. Even if you live to a ripe old age and die peacefully in your sleep at 105, life is still freaking short. I mean really? 105 years? Out of all of human (and pre-human) existence? Just a drop in the bucket. So why waste even an instant? I know so many people that say, "I've always wanted to write, but I just can't seem to find the time." Or a very good friend of mine who loves to paint and dance and do so many different things, who never seems to find the time for any of it. Or another friend who is stuck in a job she hates, and just can't seem to get out.

So I say again: life is so freaking short! If you don't like what you're doing, do something else! I realize it's easier said than done, but it sure as hell isn't going to happen on its own. And if you have a dream, something you've wanted to do all your life, for the love of happiness, go do it! No time like the present. Yes, it'll take time. Yes, it'll take effort. Yes, it'll probably be hard. But God almighty, it'll be worth it in the end. Even if you don't succeed, you'll know you tried, and you'll know you tried your damnedest, and you can be damn proud of yourself and what you've done with your life.

Here are a couple pictures of my car after the crash (and it was a single car spin out, so no one else was hurt at all): I would be lying my ass off if I said this crash didn't affect me. For one thing, I'm a much better driver! And for another, I know that I shouldn't waste any time. There are so, so many things that I want to do in my life. And for me, there's no time like the present. Why waste your time being miserable? Why waste your time wishing for something, but never trying to get it?

I have the mangled front license plate from this car hanging on the wall of my office (we never found the back plate...I think it ended up in a ditch with my antenna and some other random car parts). Some people probably think this is weird and/or morbid. But for me, it reminds me every time that I see it that I am so fucking alive and I have so much I can give this world. And damn it, I'm going to give it.

The only one who can make your dreams come true is you. Now get out there and kick some serious ass.
Posted by Ashley Turcotte at 9:41 AM 6 comments: 

Code Name Verity: Anger, Awe, & a Lack of Tears

Time for another book review. Unlike my review of Amanda Hocking's Trylle trilogy, this one shall be spoiler free. Let's start with a quick blurb about the book. Here's what is says about it on Amazon: 

Okay. So I bought Code Name Verity for a couple of reasons. One, I love stories set during WWII. This has always been a particularly interesting period in history for me, so I was already sold on the idea. And two, because people kept going on and on and on and frickin on (on Twitter) about how it made them cry and cry and cry. I love books and movies that get me so emotionally involved that I cry (tears of joy or sadness are both welcome), so I was sold.

The title of this blog post may lead you to believe that I didn't like this book. For the love of all things good and shiny, please do not think that! It was wonderful. Absolutely out of this world, awe-inspiringly wonderful. From the very first page, I was so involved in this story that I couldn't put it down. Literally. It's been a while since I had the stamina to read a book in one sitting. But there I was at 4 o'clock on Saturday morning, turning to the last page with exhausted, tearless eyes. I would recommend this book to absolutely anyone who has even a passing interest in WWII. The writing was absolutely stellar. I felt so very connected to these characters. Like I was right there with them. It was beautiful. It was heartbreaking. I loved every god damn word.

I wanted so much to cry during this book. It makes me feel like I must not have a scrap of humanity in me that I didn't. Especially since I'm a big crybaby. Seriously, everything makes me cry. My husband sometimes thinks I'm a crazy person (it's just fiction...why am I getting so upset?). I cry when people die. I cry when people almost die. I cry when something in a movie or book might possibly be something resembling sad or bad or unfair. And it's not just sad/bad/unfair things. I cry when I'm really happy, too. I cry at the end of chick flicks when the guy and the girl finally get together. I cry when someone's lifelong dream comes true.

And it's not just books and movies. I cry in real life when things are emotionally charged. When something horrible happens in the world, even though it technically has absolutely nothing to do with me, I cry myself sick. Without fail. And when something wonderful happens, I turn into a blubbering idiot. Like my wedding, for example. I knew myself well enough to know that I might just be so happy during the ceremony that I wouldn't be able to keep it together. So my something blue was an embroidered handkerchief (my new initials and the date in a lovely, light blue) that I kept with me the whole time. And thank goodness I did. Here I am, before the ceremony, looking good and happy and in control of my crazy self: See how I'm not crying? I was actually quite proud of myself. I've shown you this picture first so you won't think I looked horrible on my wedding day.  ;)  I managed to be perfectly normal until it came time to start walking down the aisle. Even then, I held it together. I held the tears in. I didn't want to spend my wedding ceremony crying. But I guess it was pretty obvious, because as soon as I got up to the front and my husband took my hand, he whispered, "Don't cry." And he continued to mouth those two words throughout the ceremony. So I must have been hanging by a pretty tenuous thread. And when our Justice of the Peace said, "By the power invested in me by the state of New Hampshire, I now..." that thread snapped. That's as far as I made it. And then I was sobbing: Not the most attractive I've ever looked. Hence putting the pretty picture first! See how my beloved husband, the maid of honor, and the Justice of the Peace are all laughing at me? Yeah, everyone else was, too. You just can't see them.

My point in all of this? Everything makes me cry. And it pisses me off that Code Name Verity didn't. Because it deserved ALL THE TEARS. But I had been hearing for weeks about how I would sob myself silly. So when it came to "that part," I had nothing in me. I was expecting it. I knew I was supposed to cry, and I've never been very good at doing what I'm "supposed" to do. I think my subconscious is just too damn stubborn. So in a way, I feel cheated by all of the hype. It robbed me of my tears (hence the anger). But I don't regret reading the book, even despite that. Because it was just that amazing.
Posted by Ashley Turcotte at 1:30 PM 4 comments: 

Finally Moving On

Or starting over. Or something along those lines. But whatever it is, the ultimate moral of the story is you can't keep a good writer down. There are plenty of people through the course of human history who have started writing a book and never finished it. Or started writing several books and never finished any of them. I'm sure this could be for a number of reasons. Lack of focus, maybe. Or just a general lack of passion. Maybe writing was a passing fancy. Something they didn't actually care about, but figured they'd give a try just for the hell of it. And when the going got tough, they said screw it and moved on with their lives.

Having already written four novels, I'm obviously not one of these people. That said, I do have projects that I started and haven't (yet) finished. The WIP I was working on during Camp NaNoWriMo has been added to this group of unfinished manuscripts, at least for now. Pretty sure I mentioned this in my last blog post, but I haven't written a word of Dr. Pepper Kisses and Vodka Smiles since June 10th. In fact, until today, I haven't written a word of anything since June 10th. But today on my lunch break, as I was standing by the microwave and waiting for my leftover spaghetti to be ready, it came to me. The perfect way to start a different WIP. One I've been plotting since March, but could never figure out how to write.

I didn't write much. Just a page or so. But that one page means so much to me right now. I'm back in the game, people. And while I'm a little sad that I only made it about halfway through the first draft of Dr. Pepper Kisses, I know that it's time to move on/start over/whatever. That WIP just wasn't working for me. I need more time to let the idea percolate before I can finish it, because it was too rushed and underdeveloped and just...wrong. And it frustrated me so much that I just stopped writing altogether for weeks and weeks. (Horrible, I know.)

In the meantime, my new WIP is ready, and I'm ecstatic. Not only because it's one of the coolest ideas I've ever had (though that's a big part of it). But also because it's fantasy. I threw my hat in the contemporary YA ring with Dr. Pepper Kisses, but I kept feeling like something was missing. Pretty sure that something was magic. And while magic has absolutely no place in Dr. Pepper Kisses (and I still might finish it, despite that fact), writing the first page of my new WIP felt like coming home.
Posted by Ashley Turcotte at 6:30 PM 1 comment: 


Okay, so you've probably noticed that I haven't blogged in quite a while. Again. Let me assure you that it has nothing to do with laziness, nor have I just grown tired of blogging. I actually love blogging. When it comes down to it, I just haven't been able to think of anything to say. For those of you that follow me on Twitter, I haven't been tweeting as much, either. (And honestly, the tweets I have sent have had more to do with Doctor Who than writing. But I'm already on the 5th season, so it won't be long before my attention turns elsewhere.)

I think a Camp NaNoWriMo update is overdue. As I posted here, I was attempting to finish writing Dr. Pepper Kisses and Vodka Smiles in the month of June. Alas, I did not succeed. I started off really well. In the first ten days of June, I wrote 22,362 words. That, for me, is really good. Like, incredibly good. I was setting word count goals for each day, and very nearly always hitting them. For those ten days, things were going swimmingly.

But then I hit a wall. And I hit it hard. On Sunday, June 10th, I was absolutely miserable. I was exhausted, I was grumpy, I had a splitting headache. I was, in all ways, overwhelmed. And, frankly, I missed my husband. Even so, I forced myself to write, aiming for 5,000 words. I made it to about 4,600 before I just couldn't do it anymore. And I haven't written a word since. (Don't worry, though. I'll get back into the swing of things very soon. I'm still hoping to finish a first draft of the MS this summer.)

So what did I learn from my Camp NaNoWriMo experience?

1)  I don't have to try to make it perfect the first time. With all my other novels, I'd get bogged down in striving for perfection. I'd ponder over what word to use for twenty minutes, just to make sure it was exactly right. I was so, so careful. And so, so slow. The fastest I've ever written the first draft of a novel is just about a year and three months. The slowest is a little over two years. For this book, I wrote about half the first draft (total word count so far is 33,531) in under a month. That's under a month from the moment I came up with the idea to 33,531 words. And writing that way, just letting the words flow from my mind and knowing I could always go back and change them later, was liberating as hell.

2)  I can't be a full time writer and have a "real" full time job at the same time. In other words, I need to work on my pacing. As it was, I was going to work (with my commute, it's usually about 10 1/2 hours from the time I leave home to the time I get back again) and using up a large part of my energy (mental and physical) there. Then I'd go home, hang out with my husband just long enough to eat dinner, and then seclude myself in my office until bedtime. Then on the weekend, I wrote from the time I woke up until the time I hit my word count goal. Which was usually about 12-ish hours. I'm sure there are lots of writers out there who can do that, no problem. But I'm not one of them. Writing is harder work than anything else I've ever done (professionally or otherwise). The sheer amount of energy it takes to create these characters and these scenes is incredible. I was exhausted all the time. If the writing was my "real" job, and then I finished when my husband got home and spent my evenings relaxing with him, I'm sure I could write a draft in a month without any issues at all. But that's not how it's working right now. And ten days of running on fumes while I basically ignored my husband was more than I could take. But if I try to schedule it better, I think I could succeed at something like this. I just need to figure out what works for me, personally, and the way I can and cannot write.

3)  You writers who are able to have full time jobs and husbands and kids (kids! I can't even imagine!) who are still able to win any of the NaNoWriMo challenges are INCREDIBLE. I bow down to you and your seemingly endless stores of energy. I am forever impressed by your greatness.

Final Camp NaNoWriMo thoughts: do I regret trying to write the book in a month, and almost making myself go crazy? Not in the least. It was an awesome experience. Would I do it again? Absolutely. But as I said above, I would have to approach it differently. Since I'd never tried anything like this before, I didn't know how I would react to it. Now that I do, I think I can adjust my methods accordingly.

What about you? I know that several of you were participating in Camp NaNoWriMo. Some of those who weren't have participated in other NaNoWriMo and similar writing challenges in the past. Did you succeed? If so, any tricks you can impart for keeping one's sanity? And if not, what were your biggest challenges? Any ideas on how to overcome them in the future?
Posted by Ashley Turcotte at 10:52 AM 1 comment: