Super cool!
All posts for the month February, 2012
Hubble reveals a new class of extrasolar planet
Posted by saraleggz on February 21, 2012
http://saraleggz.wordpress.com/2012/02/21/57/
Let It All Fall
She’s been fighting it off, and yet here it creeps into the confines of her being.
The shadow grows darker everyday, stealing her heavy heart–burning every bridge.
Let it all fall.
In the depth of her soul it burns–it yearns for a better day.
Posted by saraleggz on February 20, 2012
http://saraleggz.wordpress.com/2012/02/20/let-it-all-fall/
My Entry For The Fairy Ring Writing Contest
This is my entry for Anna Meade’s (@ruanna3) The Fairy Ring Flash Fiction Contest. The rules: To win, write a piece of flash fiction (300 words or less) on your (fictional or not) first-person encounter with a faery, goblin, or fantastical being of your choice (no zombies or vampires, please).
It doesn’t have a title. I guess I’ll live dangerously, just this once.
So, here it is:
All I did was blink and the black clouds had swarmed the ship. Rain and wind capsized us, and I drowned. Yet I woke, with three others. Safe on shore. Now I am the only one. They faded, as do all things.
***
A song roused me, an enchanting serenade that caught at my ears. I scrambled to investigate.
A beauty was singing, and I chased her. She skipped away, feet touching in time with the music. Naked she was, with a halo of flowers atop blond hair.
I watched her stop at the water’s edge, beckoning me to come closer. My mouth dropped. Her beauty entranced me. Her lust captivated me.
Her lips grazed mine; teasing at first, then she pulled me in closer, her kisses more intense. My world fell away, and I floated free.
My eyes stung when I opened them, full of water and salt. They looked about, and I saw them — three women holding the lifeless bodies of my shipmates. I flailed towards the surface, and when I thought I was clear, she took hold of my ankle.
Hope you enjoyed it! If you want to enter or read the other entries, then click the cute blue frog below.
Posted by saraleggz on February 16, 2012
http://saraleggz.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/my-entry-for-the-fairy-ring-writing-contest/
Prioritizing
Our everyd
ay real lives can be a struggle trying to juggle all the things we would like to accomplish. There is anything from homework, kid time, writing, reading, beta reading, cooking, etc, that gets lost in the shuffle. There are never enough hours in the day.
Some of us turn in to insomniacs trying to get everything done. Others procrastinate and curl up in fetal position wishing for the work to go away, or magically be finished. Truth of the matter, no one will do it for us, and the more we procrastinate the worse we feel about it.
With a completely new workload, I am starting to feel overwhelmed (more than usual) myself. Instead of curling up in fetal position, I’m prioritizing. If by any chance, on this green Earth, I wake up early, that’s when I write. Most days that doesn’t happen. So as soon as my three-year-old bundle of joy wakes up, it is breakfast, schoolwork, and kiddo time. Writing usually suffers during the day, but I squeeze it in when possible.
After the little one goes to bed, I get all this free time. With my sudden freedom comes the “now what” part of the day. Reading… oh, how I have missed you, but I have to work on my story… sorry.
I still have trouble with all this free time because I want to do everything at once and run around like a chicken with my head chopped off. Not really, but I feel like this is the only time I have to do it all.
In reality, I need to take a deep breath because this time comes everyday. EVERDAY? Yes, everyday.
Queue the prioritizing.
Therefore, that is what I will be doing. If I happen to get some writing done during the day, then that night I will read. If I do not, then reading will come after I have written until my heart is content.
There is enough time in the day to do… a lot. Not everything, but a lot. Although you and I both may feel the same way, making a flexible schedule to prioritize your workload is probably the only way not go more insane than you already are.
Happy prioritizing, my friendly readers!
Posted by saraleggz on February 6, 2012
http://saraleggz.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/prioritizing/
Nightmares
Sleep Well
Black as night with a blue shine.
He perches in front of her, tilting his head to the side.
Watching her with his greedy, shifty eyes, puffing out his mane.
Daring her to make a move.
There she stands as motionless as he is silent.
The anticipation grows between them.
She thinks quick and goes for the knife stashed in her boot.
He unfurls his wings showing his full wingspan and takes flight.
His talons clawing as he flies over her.
She plunges the knife up into his ribs, twisting hard.
He let’s out an ear-piercing screech as he plummets to the ground.
She plucks a feather from his lifeless remains, tucking it behind her ear.
“Sleep well,” she says with a smirk, giving the bird one last swift kick to the head.
Nightmares. Who here gets the occasional nightmare?
Most of us get them from time to time in between the nice cozy dreams about the one we love and those dreamless nights where you wake up thinking “It’s morning already!” I, unfortunately, don’t dream. Or at least don’t remember them (ever) if I do. Since I can remember I have been plagued with nightmares. Dreamless sleep or nightmares.
This past September a giant bird scared my ever-loving heart for eight nights in a row. Yes, you might laugh, a bird, Ha Ha. This was the scariest looking bird I could ever have imagined. It towered over me and looked a cross between a vulture and a crow with a mane of feathers. Anyway, this bird stole something from me every time and left me feeling vulnerable. The ninth morning a friend suggested that I write about this creeptastic bird. So I did. After I killed it in this piece it never came back.
Hope you… um… enjoyed it? 
Posted by saraleggz on February 3, 2012
http://saraleggz.wordpress.com/2012/02/03/nightmares/
Your Story Loves You Too
Not finishing your novel is like cutting water, you can‘t. Well, maybe some of you can, but why would you give up? What would it take for you to say “enough is enough”?
Recently, I was in a rut. Started going through my first WIP (work in progress) to prune and edit, only to find that there were little to no transitions between scenes, my grammar (makes gagging noise and rolls eyes), and all around needed a lot more work than I was expecting. At one point, I was so discouraged I said I was going to re-plot it and start from scratch.
This did not help the discouraging factor. At all. I would sit there staring at it, cursing it… loudly might I add, and when not “working” on it, it was a nag in the front of my conscience saying that I should be. Little embarrassed to say, but I thought really hard about giving up on it. Would have been easy if only that nag would have gone away…
Upon recent decisions, I have decided to take yet another break from this WIP because all it was doing was driving me mad. And even though it has been almost a year since completing the first draft, it needs another break; I need the break, badly. I will finish it!… eventually.
The nagging hasn’t stopped this past week, but my focus has shifted to a short story with a brighter light at the end of the tunnel. Progress is being made somewhere, and what looked so bad before doesn’t look so bad now.
To arms first WIP, I am still coming to save you!
I love my story, like most writers, that is why we write them. And that’s why they are our own. No one else can write the story you have written or are writing like you can. My story is salvageable, and I am sure if you have or are feeling this way, that yours is too.
Find that love again. Renew your focus. Do what it takes because your story loves you too.
Posted by saraleggz on February 2, 2012
http://saraleggz.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/your-story-loves-you-too/
