Another Cool Story...

...from right here in Vancouver, WA. This one is about a teenage boy named Andrew Price who has Asperger's Syndrome.

Andrew's mother, Marilyn, found helpful resources at last year's Southwest Washington Special Education Conference and Resource Fair. This year, the event is taking place on Saturday, 4/27 at Prairie High School. My friends from Autism Empowerment will be there, and copies of Secret of the Songshell will be given away as door prizes. Check it out if you're in the area.

Weekend In Review

Thank you to all of the participants and guests who helped make the relaunch party a big success! I had a great time, and I hope you did too. As a writer, I should probably take exception to the old cliche "a picture is worth a thousand words," but, well, these say so much, so here you go.

With Karen Krejcha from Autism Empowerment

With Aaron Grimmer, Owner of the Picnic House (and Jack from Demure)

All-Star Jam featuring Ian Engelsman

Mmm cake

Now there's a party

That says it all

On Sunday, I had the pleasure of being an exhibitor at the Autism Society of Oregon's 11th Annual Walk-A-Thon. I had fun, ate a delicious breakfast, and met lots of cool people. If you haven't checked it out before, I strongly recommend doing so next year.

So that was my weekend. Now - back to writing Book Two!

Relaunch Party Guest List Vol. 4

The featured musical guest that night will be (drum roll) . . . Ian Engelsman! Ian will be anchoring an all-star lineup of musicians from the other bands (Demure, Item 9, Bellwether, and Second Player Score) as we jam on a couple of tunes that will showcase Ian's tremendous chops. We'll be closing out the evening with this performance, so be sure to stick around!

And don't forget, a portion of every sale of Secret of the Songshell is donated to Autism Empowerment. Karen and John from AE will be at the party with cool information about autism resources along with copies of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Raising Kids on the Spectrum, for which Karen was a contributor!

Relaunch Party Guest List Vol. 3

More bands! More bands! More bands at the Relaunch Party! Because you can never have enough music.

LUNCH WITH APOCALYPSE (KEVIN COY & BRIAN TASHIMA)

Acoustic duo performing covers of modern rock hits.

BELLWETHER PDX

Hard rock band with catchier hooks than a world champion fisherman. Check out their Facebook page here.

SECOND PLAYER SCORE

If you've been reading this blog, then you know who these guys are. If not, be sure to listen to their songs here.

Relaunch Party Guest List Vol. 2

Some of my fellow authors from the Northwest Independent Writers Association will be there to sign and sell their books!

Scheduled to attend:

Amber Cook - author of What The Faeries Left Behind

Andy Bunch - author of Suffering Rancor

Brad Wheeler - author of Fugitives From Earth

Courtney Pierce - author of Stitches

Lee Thompson - author of Jeremy's Kiss

Ripley Patton - author of Ghost Hand

Tonya Macalino - author of Faces In The Water and Spectre Of Intention

Relaunch Party Guest List Vol. 1

The Secret of the Songshell Relaunch Party is coming up soon! Like, next Friday!

Here are some of the special guests (with more to come):

DEMURE

Rock/pop/punk band featuring former members of iDigress and a current member of some other band. Check out their Facebook page here.

BOBBIE GILBERT

Awesome local artist making her showcase debut. Check out her deviantArt page here.

ITEM 9

Ska/punk/reggae/dub/rock band also featuring that same guy from that other band referenced above. He's a busy man (and no, it's not me). Check out Item 9's music here.

HENRY PRESTON

The lead singer and guitarist of Item 9 is also an artist and will have his works on display.

As I mentioned earlier, there are many more guests to announce, so keep watching this space!

Talkin' To Felicity

Me: Hey.

Felicity (not looking up from her e-reader): Sup

Me: Want to hear the latest about Moonfire?

Felicity (still not looking up): What the heck is "Moonfire"?

Me: You know, Mystery of the Moonfire. The second book. I announced the title, like, a month ago.

Felicity: Good for you.

Me: Okay. So anyway, remember how I scrapped the last draft and started over?

Felicity: Sure, why not.

Me: Well, now I'm back up to the same point that I was at before - about 17,000 words - and this time, I read them back again, and guess what?

Felicity:

Me: I really liked them. You know how sometimes you get that cool, giddy feeling when something you've created - like in your case, a song, or whatever - just really works, and you think, "Okay, yeah now that's what I'm talking about"?

Felicity (takes sip of diet soda):

Me: I got that feeling last night! I had a hunch as I was writing the new draft that it was going much better this time around, because now I'm working from a carefully thought-out outline, but I wasn't totally sure until I sat down last night and read the whole thing through once more.

Felicity (yawning): Awesome. You should throw a party or something.

Me: Oh, uh - well, I am, but that's for something different. Anyway, what's cool is that not only does the book flow a lot better now, but I was able to incorporate some of my favorite pieces from the previous draft. You know that expression "kill your darlings"? About getting rid of lines of prose that you love, but don't really work for your story?

Felicity: Anyone ever tell you that you ask a lot of questions?

Me: There were a bunch of darlings in the previous draft that I thought may be gone forever because they wouldn't make sense with the new draft, but fortunately, I was able to bring some of them back from the dead and they fit right in.

Felicity: Like zombies. Great.

Me: Um, no, not really. Although there are zombies in the first chapter. Sort of.

Felicity: You're kidding, right?

Me: Sure. Anyway, I'm never writing without an outline again, I can tell you that. It may work for some people, but not for me.

Felicity (holding up empty can): You're out of soda, by the way.