Tag Archives: Spazmatic

Misc. Monday

June 27, 2011 8:59 am ⋅ 1 Comment ⋅

This week is going to be crazy!  My son starts three-times-a-week swimming lessons today, I’m finishing up editing on Glow and publishing the e-book, and on Thursday I’m going to be in the delivery room when my second nephew is born! *Stacey goes into super-efficiency mode, which is one of her scariest modes.*

I forced myself to relax over the weekend because I knew it was absolutely my last chance.  I read for pleasure, beta read a book that The World is excited for, and caught Super 8 with Sarah on Sunday evening.

The novella I read for pleasure was Burden Kansas by Alan Ryker. I thought it was awesome.  We’re friends on Twitter and from the same neck of the woods.  Mostly, we talk about things we eat too much of. :)   When he found out I was from Missouri, he suggested that I might like Burden Kansas because of the familiar setting.  He was so right.

It has been called a  vampire/horror/western and I can’t resist any of those things.  It is fairly gory and not in the least bit romantic.  The vampires are evil muthas and the main character, Keith, is a hardcore badass.

Alan wondered if Burden Kansas would be something I’d like.  It’s not the kind of book I read most often, but I do think it’s silly not to give different genres a try.  If the story is good, I’m not sure that the genre matters much to me.

Also, writer peeps, I thought the action scenes were well done. Besides commas, action scenes are something I have a hard time with when writing.  So, it doesn’t hurt to learn from another writer who does something better than you do. (For instance, I can teach you all how to be more of a smart ass.) :)

At any rate, as they say on Yo Gabba Gabba, “Try it!  You’ll like it!”

Another thing you all are bound to like is Super 8.  The effects are so good and so loud and all the child actors are just wonderful.  The story is sweet and jump out of your seat scary.

But the scariest thing Sarah and I saw at the movies was the trailer for the remake of Footloose.

I love Footloose.  It is one of my favorite movies and probably half the reason I chose to write about a wild-child pastor’s daughter.  Before I die, I will own a Dance Your Ass Off t-shirt.

Sarah’s in the, “of course I’ll see it, but I won’t like it,” camp.  I think I’ll love it.  It seems to be a frame for frame remake of the original with updated dance moves.  The costumes are the same, the car is the same, the, “I just gotta dance!!!” scene in the warehouse is the same. I got kind of spazzy about it.

Yes, I like vampire/horror/westerns and over-the-top dance movies.  What can I say?  I’m just that complex. :P

(insert logical segway here) Hey!  Thursday will be the last day to sign up for my newsletter if you want to get the discount code for Glow.  Some of you have signed up for subscriptions to my blog lately, which is rad, but if you meant to sign up for the thing that’s gonna get you discounts, you’ll want to sign up for the newsletter too.  (Didn’t I make a promise about not writing the word newsletter 70 times ever again?  Oops.)

Time to get ready for swimming lessons!  Talk at you all later.

Posted in: E-books, Fiction, indie authors, indie readers, Progress, Self-publishing, Writers, Writing ⋅ Tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,

New covers, an interview and #ROW80

June 12, 2011 12:17 am ⋅ 3 Comments ⋅

Behold.  The Zellie Wells trilogy has all new covers!

I finally gave in to all the pressure from the road and transparent building haterz and put Zellie on the covers. :)   I’m quite pleased with them and think my sister did an awesome job.

I’d been reluctant to put a person on the cover because I didn’t want to influence reader’s ideas of what the characters looked like. (That’s also why I don’t spend much time describing them except initially.)

For me, I know that when I’m reading a book, most of the time what I picture the characters looking like and the suggestion of what they look like on the cover don’t jibe.  Maybe I’m weird that way. (In my mind, Peeta from the Hunger Games is the brunette and Gale is the blonde.)

But, then I got this Land’s End catalog in the mail and there was Zellie right on the front.  The exact Zellie that’s in my head and she was posing with a cute brunette Avery-in-his-twenties to boot! My sister had someone to model her drawings after.

It was meant to be.

Thank you, Universe!

Another great thing that happened to me this week (don’t worry, it hasn’t all been roses) is that author Angela Carlie asked if she could interview me on her blog.  She does a series on Fridays called (Someday) Famous YA Author.  She asked great questions and is a super cool person.  You guys should totally read her books. You can read my interview here.

And now for the dandelion part of my week.

ROW80 update: Glow’s not finished yet.  I had my butt in the chair writing on it all week, but I hit a wall on Thursday. Chapter 19 made the Chapter 11 debacle look like a day at the fair. I rewrote it seven times between Thursday and Friday and then I had to give up and watch Kyle XY and eat cookies.

Things went better on Saturday.  I managed to get my act together and fix 19 and then bust out 20 and 21.  I’m halfway through 22, which is the big action-y showdown and then all that’s left is the epilogue.

I really wanted to get Glow out in June because my sales are tanking, (I’ve sold as many books this month as I was selling per day in March) but it looks like it will be out in July. This means the next DoS story will probably be out in August instead of July.

And then I’m taking a three-week vacation because I be burnt out.

On the upside, the tanking sales have forced me to do some actual marketing. :) I tweeted about The Toilet Business in a, hopefully, not annoying way all day today.  That effort garnered me a new review and two copies sold. Yay!

Okay, that’s all the blabbing I can handle for today. I apologize for the paragraph I used the word “out” in 16 times. I was going to schedule this post to go live at midnight and it’s 12:13. Time for bed!

Posted in: Author Interview, Blogs, Darn good television, E-books, Fiction, indie authors, indie readers, Kindle, Progress, Reviews, ROW80, Self-publishing, Writers, Writing, YAY YA, Young Adult ⋅ Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

School’s out and #ROW80 update

May 25, 2011 2:48 pm ⋅ 4 Comments ⋅

Good morning!  I’ve been up forever.  Both of my kids are going through growth spurts, so they eat all morning, fall asleep at 4pm, and wake up at 5am.  Not my favorite schedule, but at least my daughter is tall enough to reach the light switch in the playroom now.

Today is the boy’s last day of school.  I’m volunteering in his class and am currently trying to gauge how many Diet Coke’s I’ll need to deal.  It’s going to be fun, though, and probably a little sad for me.  After all the craziness he went through, he ended up really  liking school.  Let’s hope he remembers that in the fall when he starts nature school!

We decided to do one year at Christian preschool and one year at hippie preschool because there aren’t a lot of in-between options.  So, a little time singing Jesus songs and a little time identifying different scat on the trail at the nature park.  I feel that’s a well-rounded education for a Oregonian. :)

In related news, I’m convinced that we have a possum living in our garage.  Every morning when I go out to feed the cats (they’re 16 and senile and pee all over the house if we don’t put them out there at night) stuff is knocked over and the water and food bowls are empty.  Either there’s a possum or my two cats have started eating for four. It’s all very creepy and I open the garage door all the way so that I have the widest area to flee through in case the possum decides to jump out at me and attack my face.  I’m not equipped to deal with critters, probably because I went to two years of Christian preschool. :) (I seriously doubt there was such a thing as nature school in Georgia in the seventies anyway.)

I also get to pick up my van from the shop today!  I can’t wait to get her back.  The rental that I’ve been driving has lots of bells and whistles, but I miss opening the doors with my hands instead of pushing a button.  I keep thinking one of the kids is going to get stuck in the crazy automatic ghost doors.

Apparently, I have a lot of irrational fears.

ROW80: I’ve stopped keeping track of word count for the time being because I’m cutting the confusing stuff out and then adding new stuff back in.  The past two days I cut three pages and added eight.  I’m chugging along to the end of Glow.  Oh, if I had time and sleep and quiet…

That’s life.

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I just can’t quit you, #ROW80

May 15, 2011 7:12 pm ⋅ 7 Comments ⋅

You know who needs to quit making announcements?

*points to self*

This girl.

I was reading through The Toilet Business one last time this morning and when I was done I sat staring at my computer for a full five minutes.  It’s Sunday. ROW80 update day and I wasn’t doing anything, so I figured I should write an update even though I said I was going into hiding and wouldn’t be writing updates for a couple of weeks.  Same with announcing release dates…Glow might be out in June, as I have announced, but it also might be out in July.  I don’t like going back on my word, but I also don’t like putting out crap books that don’t make any sense. :)

I was pushing for June because my sales have been sluggish and the only way I know for them to improve is to release another book.  I’m trying not to freak out about it.  Mama said (and in this case “mama” is Zoe Winters) there would be months like this.  The drive to put out something every other month is strong and also a cycle that indies have to be careful not to fall into.

So, what’s my update?  Still plugging along on Glow, although I realized a major plot hole this morning that has to be dealt with before I can proceed.  Also, there is a thread involving a backpack that is, in a word, stoopid, so that has to be cut as well.

The Toilet Business is back from the betas and I sent it off to Sarah for one more look-see today. My husband is working on the cover. I will announce it has been published when I actually publish it. Ha!

I’m excited about doing marketing for it because it is something different.  I have some silly ideas that I think are going to work for it that would not work for Glow.

What else?  Oh, I’ve signed up to do the Blog Tour de Troops.  You guys know about this? I’ve probably mentioned it. Over Memorial Day weekend, authors will be giving away e-books to commentors on their blog and their book reviewer sponsor’s blog.  Each commenter can also request that an e-book be sent to the service member of their choice.  Yay!

My sponsor is Jennifer at Book Noise.  She’s awesome!  You can check out her blog here.

I suppose that’s it for now.  Thanks for all of the birthday wishes, you guys. Thirty-six has been lovely so far. :)

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SAHW and #ROW80 update

April 27, 2011 5:16 pm ⋅ 6 Comments ⋅

It’s been almost a month since my husband quit his job as an Optician/Office Manager to stay at home and write.  I’m happy to report that we’re both making good progress.  He’s in the formatting stage for three of his books of poetry and he’s been making all kinds of outlines for various short stories and novels. Yes, he’s a plotter. :)

Did you guys watch The Voice last night?  I haven’t watched Idol in years and sporadically watch So You Think You Can Dance, but I thought I’d give The Voice a try.  It was awesome!  First of all, people have to pre-audition and get called back to make it on the show.  So, even if they don’t get chosen by one of the “coaches,” it’s not like they are horrible singers.  I didn’t find it painful to watch is what I’m getting at.  And the people who did get chosen to move on to the next round were all fantastic. (Sue me, I like a feel good tv show.)

My point in bringing up all of this is that there was a contestant named Javier Colon that totally rocked the house.  His wife and two little girls were there to cheer him on and he talked about the pressure of trying to make it in an artistic career while having a family to support. Ding! Ding! Ding! That hit home.

And then he was awesome and his wife was crying at how awesome he did and I thought, “Rob is an awesome poet, when did I stop spazzing about how awesome he is?”  I read his first book of poetry before I even knew it was by him and decided that I would marry the guy that wrote it.  Yeah, he’s that awesome.

On the flip side, I’m starting to find out that he thinks I’m awesome too.  I think now that we’re back on an equal playing field there’s nothing for us to resent about the other. (Thank you for joining me for my couples therapy session today…and now back to the writing.)

Having Rob at home has also helped me out quite a bit with the kids, so that I can manage to get something written almost every day.  The Toilet Business is nearly done.  I’ve got to finish two essays and send it to beta’s and then it’s a go.  My husband will be making the cover for me.  It’s also nice having an in-house arteest.

Glow is back on track after I deleted 1K from chapter 11 yesterday.  It just wasn’t going where it needed to go.  The scene was a good one, but it brought up too many questions and plot holes that, for the pace of the story, I don’t have time to answer and fill.  I think my YA novels should be quick reads and if I bring up everything that ever happened to each character, they’d take longer than 6 hours to read. 

Word count-wise, I wrote 2,448 on Glow yesterday.  That’s close to the 3K I wanted for the week, which I’ll hopefully be able to finish out at some point.  On Monday I worked on essays all day long and I’ll be doing more of the same today before I go and help my friend get her house move-in ready.

Here’s a video of Javier Colon’s performance last night.  Enjoy!

Posted in: Darn good television, Fiction, indie authors, indie readers, Progress, ROW80, Self-publishing, Writers, Writing, YAY YA, Young Adult ⋅ Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Brandin’ and reprimandin’

April 19, 2011 5:44 am ⋅ 3 Comments ⋅

I have no idea why I titled this post that.  It rhymes.  I’ve also eaten a lot of Easter candy today and am kinda spazzy at the moment.  Lookout, there’s gonna be some rambling.  If you’re not in the mood to take a ride with Princess Crazytown, turn back now…

Still here?

Hi!  If you’ve visited my blog before, you’ll notice that a few things have changed.  Like…it’s now my website and if you type my full name into your browser, this is where you’ll end up. I know, I know.  It took me long enough.

Some authors have their shit together (Zoe Winters, Kait Nolan, Susan Bischoff to name a few) and some do not (Stacey Wallace Benefiel). When I started this whole self-publishing thing a year ago, there wasn’t nearly as much useful information on the internet as there is now and I made a lot of mistakes with  branding myself and building my platform. (Sounds like we all work at a ranch.)

There wasn’t an Indie Book Collective or Becoming an Indie Author at my disposal.  I didn’t go into this endeavor completely blind, I read everything I could find, but like I said, there wasn’t much.  No one was saying, “here are the steps to follow, do these things.”

Therefore, I ended up with a website and a blog that had essentially all the same content on them, an unprofessional Twitter handle and a Facebook fan page that was hard to find because of what I’d named it.

I have two parents, like everyone does.  My dad was a research veterinarian for 35 years. (Use Frontline? My parents thank you for their new house.) Because he spent his work life researching and testing, in his home life my dad is impulsive.  If, at 11pm at night he desires a banana split, he goes and gets a banana split.  He doesn’t consider the consequences of eating a heartburn bomb right before he goes to bed, he just does what he wants to do.  On the other hand, my mom is a worrier.  She overthinks and considers everyone’s opinion and wants to do what’s best for the group.  My parents are a good balance for each other.

But they made me.  I’m both hugely impulsive and hugely indecisive.  I’ve been known to take off and go to the casino for the day because it’s Tuesday. I’ve also been known to fret over whether or not I should put a chip clip on the leftovers of a bag of steam-in-the-bag corn because I don’t know what method of reheating would be best.  In the bag? In a ceramic bowl?  Will it burn or be overcooked if I don’t cover it?  Who cares?  I just won $200 on slots, I could just buy another bag. (Please don’t chastise me for microwaving veggies in plastic bags.  I’ve been ingesting Sweet-N-Low for thirty-some years; I think I’m immune to toxins by now. I am made of Diet Coke.)

Getting back on track: When it came to branding and building my platform, I researched to the best of my abilities.  I fretted over using my real name or a pen name.  I wanted to make sure I was doing things correctly.

 But then I just said eff it and started signing up for stuff.

Um, don’t do what I did.  A year later I’m still cleaning up my messes. The Facebook page is now named after me (Author Stacey Wallace Benefiel) and my twitter handle is pretty close to my name (Stacey_WB).  That left the website/blog melding.

My website is fine, although I never go there except to update it after a new release.  Neither does anyone else.  It’s kinda boring and blah and I could never really settle on a template.  With my blog, I like the template I have and more people cruise by here.  There’s some interaction.  It also has the preferrable domain.  As my sister pointed out, no one is going to type StaceyWB.com into their browser on a whim, they’re going to type my full name.

So, check it out and let me know if you think anything is missing.  Meanwhile, I have to go to all my book pages on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Smashwords and change the web address.  Fun times.  I’m saving the task of changing it in all my books for when I go on one of my quarterly re-uploading sprees.

All right, Princess Crazytown is over and out.  I talk at you all again later this week when my sugar high has hopefully worn off.

Posted in: Blogs, E-books, Fiction, indie authors, indie readers, Self-publishing, Writers, Writing ⋅ Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

One Year

April 2, 2011 7:00 pm ⋅ 8 Comments ⋅

It’s my indieversary!  And stop haterz, self-publishversary just doesn’t sound as good, okay? :)

Whatever you want to call it, I’ve been a published writer for a year! A year that started and ended just before my birthday, so, to me, age 35 will always be the year I got my act together and finally started doing what I wanted with my life.

I’d like to thank my readers for buying my books, writing reviews, and helping me realize my dream of making a living from writing.

A big awkward girlie high-five to all the book bloggers who have reviewed my books, interviewed me, spread the word and held contests.  I appreciate the support you’ve given me and I hope you all know how instrumental you are in helping to build my writing career.

To all the writers I’ve become friends with this year, let’s have a convention or something.  And by convention, I mean a big party where we all drink beers, quote Buffy and get to hang out in person.  You guys are the best.  Thanks for showing me the ropes and commiserating and having my back.  Thank you for writing books that don’t suck and feeding my reading habit as well. :)

Soooooooo many thanks to Sarah, my BFF. Thanks for the editing and suggestions and chats on FB and all the Busch Light/ Masterpiece Theatre evenings.  If you like what I write, then I know it’s good enough. :)

Eleventy-billion hugs and kisses to my sister for lovingly and repeatedly telling me to get off my ass and write a book already.  Thanks for believing in me!

And to my family – my crazy kids, my long-suffering-at-his-horrible-job-so-I-could-make-a-go-of-being-a-writer husband, my fantastically supportive parents – I love and appreciate you all more than you could know!

I don’t really have anything brand spankin’ new to give away right now, but if you all would like an e-copy of Day of Sacrifice Vol. 1-3, simply leave your e-mail in the comments and I’ll send you the Smashwords code.

Thanks to everyone for making my first year as an indie author a fabulous one and here’s to the next year being just as great!

Posted in: Blogs, Darn good television, E-books, Fiction, good neighbors, indie authors, indie readers, Kindle, Progress, Reviews, ROW80, Self-publishing, Writers, Writing, YAY YA, Young Adult ⋅ Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

#ROW80 part deux and other good things

March 31, 2011 5:59 pm ⋅ 9 Comments ⋅

Round two of ROW80 starts on April 4th.  To sign up, go here.  I’m not saving anything up for it this time as I’ve already taken a little break before starting work on Glow, so I’ll just keep working on that. 

So, yeah, GOALS: Finish Glow.  Edit Glow. Send Glow to betas. Edit Glow again.  Publish Glow.  That is it. I’m all about the Glow, people. :)

Except: My brain is crazy and I had a fab idea for a rom-com at 3 in the morning the other day.  Thus, there might be some noodling on The Five Engagements of Ruby McClure and I’ve also got the 4th DoS story, Takeover, to bust out at the end of this round.

But THAT IS ALL.  Really. I’m not working on anything else!

Now for some links to things that other hardworking folks are doing:

Jessica Subject is a writer and book blogger who is celebrating the blogoversary for her blog, Mark of the Stars this April.  There will be author interviews, reviews, guest blogs and giveaways aplenty. The schedule is here. My post is on April 25th.  I’ve offered up e-copies of all of my books for the massive month-long giveaway.  There are soooo many good things to win!

Today over at Electrifying Reviews, you can enter to win a paperback copy of Angela Charlie’s debut, Dream Smashers!  It’s international, y’all!

Keyboard Hussy, (otherwise known as Evelyn Lafont) is having a party on Facebook to celebrate the release of her new book The Vampire Relationship Guide, Volume 1: Meeting and Mating. Check here for all the deets.

And, if you get the chance, please remember to tell everyone you have ever known that likes to read e-books that Glimpse is 99 cents for the month of April on Smashwords, Barnes and Noble and Amazon.  That would be swell of you.

Now back to working on Glow.  I finally got all the characters out of their respective cars.

Posted in: Author Interview, Blogs, E-books, Fiction, indie authors, indie readers, Kindle, Progress, Reviews, ROW80, Self-publishing, Writers, Writing, YAY YA, Young Adult ⋅ Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Do the Hustle and #ROW80 update

March 20, 2011 4:12 pm ⋅ 6 Comments ⋅

Happy Sunday!  This is our next to last ROW80 check-in for this round?  Man, that flew by!

I haven’t done any writing since the beginning of the week, but I have been doing a lot of editing and formatting.  Dormant is up on Smashwords and Barnes and Noble now. It’s still publishing on Amazon. Hopefully it will be up by tomorrow.

Also, check out this interview I did over at Lara Dunning’s blog.  I definitely get interviewed about Glimpse and Glimmer more often, so it was nice to answer some DoS questions.  I actually had to think about my answers. :)

That’s it for today. I’m recovering from staying up way past my bedtime at a disco birthday party last night.  I taught a bunch of people how to do the Hustle, which should illustrate what a good time I had.  I am looking forward to doing nothing the rest of the day, that is after I wash the entire bottle of hairspray I used out of my Jacyln Smith hair-do.

Posted in: Author Interview, Darn good television, E-books, Fiction, indie authors, indie readers, Progress, ROW80, Self-publishing, Writers, Writing ⋅ Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Chello and #ROW80 update

March 16, 2011 3:08 pm ⋅ 7 Comments ⋅

So, I may have panicked.  I thought I needed the rest of March off, but what I really needed was to not be accountable to anyone but myself for a week.  Apparently, that makes me get my act together.  Hmmm.  I told you all I would rebel against ROW80 eventually, whether I wanted to or not!

I finished Dormant yesterday after writing an awesome 5,508 words on Monday.  I used Focus Booster, which is basically a timer, and it somehow tricks your brain into writing. (Or getting other tasks done, but like I’m going to use it for cleaning.  I still have to have an excuse to get out of that.)

I’ve left Dormant alone for a day, so my goal for today is to read through it, fix minor things like typos or weird sentences and then send it to Sarah.  As for the rest of the week, I’m taking a bit of writing time off, but I have Glimmer typos to fix and then I’ll re-upload it to all the various platforms.  I might even fix the paperback too while I’m at it.

Yesterday, Day of Sacrifice got a lovely review from Lara Dunning on her blog.  You can check it out here.  She’ll also be reviewing Rebellion sometime this week and on Sunday she’ll post an interview with me as well as a giveaway.

On another note, have you all read Lori Brighton’s story, Wild Passion, in Kiss Me, Kill Me?  Well, I loved it! Therefore, I am super stoked that Wild Desire is free on Amazon and B&N right now!  Who knows why (she doesn’t) or for how long, so if you’re a fan, I’d snap that freebie up!  Wild Desire is the second book, but the first book Wild Heart is only $3.19 on Amazon.  Deals are swell.

That’s all I’ve got to report for today.  Tonight I’m going to see The Adjustment Bureau.  I have to admit that 85% of my excitement at seeing it has to do with Matt Damn in that hat.  Ooh, lawdy.

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