SKY JUMPERS Winners, Quotes & Cookies, and the League

First of all, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for all the cover love! I really appreciate all the tweeting, sharing on facebook, liking, blogging--- everything. You guys are the best!

The Rafflecopter gods have spoken, and the people who apparently sacrificed the most cookies to he/she/it/them, and have won themselves a hardback copy of SKY JUMPERS (as soon as it's available) are:

From Literary Rambles:

Donna Weaver!

From Icey Books:

Amanda Ray!

From here:

Alyssa Hamilton!

Congratulations! I'll be emailing you soon.

And now, onto quotes and cookies! This is one I love.

“Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.” 

~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

This applies to so much, too! Definitely those hardships that come so fast and hard that they knock you off your feet. But also the ones that come slowly and steady. The ones that are there for a moment, and the ones that hang around long-term. Simply not surrendering makes you stronger and stronger, and makes the struggles easier to overcome.

*Grabs cookie* Here's to not surrendering!

photo credit: Renée S. Suen via photopin cc

And today I'm at The League of Extraordinary Writers, talking about the movie that triggered my love of post-apocalyptic fiction. Come join me!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Quotes and Cookies: Everyone's a Genius

“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.”

~Albert Einstein

I love Albert Einstein. I think I love him a little more because of this quote. We are all geniuses! Just at completely different things. And I think it is SO important to figure out what those things are that we're geniuses at. Those are our talents, and we're supposed to develop them! Make them shine. Sometimes it's hard to figure out what our writing strengths are. If we rock at writing life-like characters, or an engaging plot, or an enticing setting, or a sweeping epic or the intricacies of a political structure, or the dynamics of a family, or writing with lyrical language-- we need to figure that out.

No one wants to feel stupid trying to climb a tree with fins. So once you realize you're a fish, swim! Then work to be the best darn swimmer in the sea. (And if you figure out that you're actually a spider monkey, then by all means, get climbing that tree!)

Photo Credit and link for Whipped Bakeshop

Have a fantastic weekend!

N is for Never, Never, Never Compare

Why is it so bad to compare ourselves to other writers? Compare our books to other books?

Because quite often, we compare our WEAKNESSES to other people's STRENGTHS. (Or, the equally consequential method of comparing our strengths to others' weaknesses.)

Not only does it make us feel like crap (or in the opposite case, make us feel like everyone else is crap), but it STOPS US FROM GETTING BETTER.

No book is perfect. Let's just go ahead and get that out there. Those books you rate a 5 on Goodreads-- the authors just did the same things we're trying to do. Make our weaknesses not be negatives, and make our strengths shine to their fullest potential.

If we read a book and think, Holy wow! This author is SO GOOD at [fill in the blank], there is NO WAY I will ever be this good! I might as well stop right now. Well, um, yeah. They're amazing at [fill in the blank]. That's their strength. Does that mean we should stop? NO! That strength of theirs might not be our strength. In fact, it might be our greatest weaknesses. But did we notice the things they weren't so strong at? Maybe not, because we were so blown away by the thing they WERE good at, but those weaknesses were still there. No author has strengths in everything. But do you know what? YOUR BOOK CAN BE THAT SAME WAY. You'll just have a different strength that shines. A different thing that will blow others away.

But that bad feeling we get when we look at a strength of theirs that we don't possess, only has the power to discourage. And when we're discouraged, we turn off all ability to improve. Just say to yourself, I am comparing my weakness to their strength. It helps you put things in perspective! Then you can think, A master is at work here. If I pay attention to how they did things, then my weakness will become less of a weakness.

And by the same token, if we read a book where the author's weakness is our greatest strength, that critical Oh, my gosh. This got published?! feeling carries the same power. Yes, it got published because of the author's strength. If we spend the whole time noticing all the deficiencies in that area where we rock, we can totally miss out on learning from that area where they rock. Comparing our greatest strength to their greatest weakness has just as great a power to keep us from learning as does the opposite.

And that's what it's really all about, right? Getting better. Improving every day. Making our greatest weaknesses stronger, making our greatest strengths shine all the more, and making everything in the middle the best it can be.

And that's never going to happen if we compare.



Much gratitude to inluvwithwords at Out on a Limb for passing along the Sunshine Award to me. Thank you!

I've Got a Theory: You're Only GREAT at One Type of Social Media

As writers, we're supposed to have a strong online presence, and we've got so many choices. (I'm pretty sure there are about a million more types of social media than there are types of word processors!) Although online presence can mean a lot of things, for most of us it probably includes some combination of a blog, twitter, facebook, and possibly google plus. (It feels weird to type their names lowercase. About as weird as it feels to write them uppercase. Since their logos are lowercase, we're SUPPOSED to write it lowercase, right?)

Let's get one thing out of the way. We can't be good at everything. Your talents might lie in the areas of social media, so everything you do is fabulous. Your talents might lie in other areas, and every bit of social media is hard work for you.

Regardless of that, though, I stick with my theory-- You are only great at one type of social media.

Why? Because blogging uses an entirely different way of thinking than things like facebook and twitter use. Orson Scott Card said, "Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don't see any." I think you could very easily change this to read, "Everybody walks past a thousand blog ideas every day." Or "Everybody walks past a thousand tweet / status update ideas every day." And we, the social media savants that we are, :) have trained ourselves to notice those ideas.

So I guess it all comes down to this: When you walk past those thousand ideas, do they come to you in the form of a tweet or status update, or do they come to you in the form of an idea for a blog post?

It's likely the form it comes to you in is the type of social media you gravitate toward. The one you are quicker to update. The one you are more religious about checking. The one you work harder at to get followers.The one that comes to mind first when you think "Social Media" or "Online Platform."

Is this a bad thing? Certainly not!  And I'm not saying to only go with the one you're best at. I am saying it's a good thing to put the most effort into the one that works best for you. IT'S ALL ABOUT WORKING YOUR STRENGTHS.

For me? I can't even pretend that facebook and twitter are where my strengths lie. How about you? Which is you favorite? Where do your strengths lie?