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Hi there, I am Nicole. This blog is simply my little corner of the writing world. I used to own and operate the previous website known as Freelance Writer's Exchange, but my focus changed a lot and I decided to let that go and run with this.

I am a YA & Women's Fiction writer. Trying my hand at my first steamy romance novel. Wife. Mom to 5. Freelance contributor to family, food & lifestyle pubs. I love chocolate, books, photography, scrapbooking & Sushi. Not necessarily in that order.

I absolutely love comments, and love meeting new people, so please be sure and leave a comment so I know you've visited, and so I can come visit you.

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A Little Bit Stalker, a Whole Lot Fan

In St. Louis today in Tower Grove Park, there were hundreds of thousands of people that came out for the Festival of the Nations. I’ve never attended before, but have always been curious. A family in our Fife and Drum corp., that we’ve only know a couple of months (this is important for much later in this post) is also in a Scottish Pipe Band and they were performing at the Festival. And it is my birthday, so we needed to do something. We decided to go and support them (and stalk them… er I mean watch them) because our whole family had been curious about the Pipe Band they talk about all the time. Plus, if you know anything about me at all, you would know that I am truly 100% obsessed with anything/all things Celtic. First and foremost all things Irish, and well, Scottish is darn close and my husband loves him some Scot. He’s also some odd percentage Scottish and/or Welsh, but don’t ask me how much. You probably shouldn’t ask him either, he really doesn’t know.

Anyway, so off we go to see the pipe band perform. We got there uber early, and by uber early, I mean pretty much 5 hours too early, but we wanted to see other stuff too. I won’t bore you with all the  details of the day, but I will show you some highlights.

We did this:

Henna Tatoos

and then we saw this:

The Dance of Life:

Yeah, I got nothing. I can’t even describe this enough to make it real in your mind. You just had to be there. It was….

  • Disturbing
  • Fascinating
  • Creative
  • Awkward
  • Crazy

But that’s okay. She’s doing “The Dance of Life” – see, her chair even says so. Sorry about her head being cut off in the second photo, my daughter was snapping the photo and she couldn’t quite get past her uhm…. costume.

Yeah, uhm. So anyway, we were there to see the St. Louis Caledonian Pipe Band play. So let’s move on, and not reflect too much on the oddness that was the above two photos.

The St. Louis Caledonian Pipe Band

(oh, and before you ask – those red arrows were not actually above their heads when I took the photos. The dude on the left is Braden, who teaches Ryan and Brie color guard. The dude on the left with that gigantic drum is Dave, his dad. They are some of the coolest people you will ever meet. The whole family actually. Not pictured are Robin, the totally non-musical mom (her words, not mine!) who is actually standing to my left in these photos (don’t look for her, she’s behind the camera lens) and Dakota who is her totally musical son and also in our Fife and Drum corp. who just wasn’t there that day. But don’t worry, I have more to say on him in a minute).

and since you weren’t there with us, I am including a very tiny video clip of them playing. Please don’t mind the dude at the end of the clip that gets in the way. That was all he did the entire time we were standing there. (Ah, but if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all, Nicole.)

Okay, so I said I was going to come back to Dakota, and I meant it and now’s the time. So we are standing there watching the pipe band, and it didn’t take us but a few seconds of them playing to start looking at each other, and by each other, I pretty much mean my kids and I. Not because the pipe band was bad, they so weren’t bad, they were SO good. But that was the problem, it became clear immediately that we had heard them before. Like a couple of times before. In fact, I remembered being obsessed with the group back at the Missouri Tartan Days 2 years ago. I mentioned this to said non-musical mom and she just sort of laughed it off. Remember, we’ve only known them a couple of months… She laughed until I sent her these little captures of history:

I present, my photos from the 2008 Missouri Tartan days (that might actually be somewhere on this blog or my other blog already, but here they are again…)

So see the guy in the last picture… and again in the next photo? That’s her son Dakota. mhmm…. who’s laughing now? And then see the guy playing that gigantic drum in the sixth photo? (second below) – That’s her husband. mhmm…. again, who’s the stalker uhm… I mean fan, now?

So yeah, this is only 8 of about 50 photos we took of the group performing. I’m a huge stalker fan. And that was of course proven again today, while watching them. Sorry I took up such a huge post, but it was worth sharing the story. Plus the different music, food and fun at the Festival of Nations was definitely worth mentioning.

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Looking Back…

I’ve noticed that I am left without much time to blog lately. I think that is mostly because I have a tendency to run myself dry and stretch myself like a rubber band that is about to snap. I wish I could say that it would change and I’d suddenly find myself with all this free time, like maybe when the kids go back to school or something. But yeah, I’m being realistic here and I know that when the kids do go back to school, which is like, pretty much right around the corner – I’m going to be spending my time playing catch up on my writing that has been neglected, and some seriously over due editing on one of the manuscripts that is way too many words for my liking.

See, being the realist I actually am, I can tell you that I will try better. And I will. But that certainly doesn’t mean it will be more often, maybe just more witty? Nah, probably not. And the realist in me, also has been known to utter the words “I will just stop taking on as much.” but even that is ridiculous too, because anyone who knows me knows that I will continue to take everything that comes my way, even if it does mean the aforementioned rubber band is about to snap.

What I can say, is that once the kids go back to school, and I am in more of a routine, I might start posting more. I might be a little witty here and there, and I might find some otherwise unknown to me free time to actually get something I really want to do done, rather than what I need/have to do.

Other than that, be patient. And if you’re hungry, I do have new recipes that go up near daily over on The Daily Dish, so feel free to check that out. I’m also all over the place, so if you want to friend me on twitter or facebook, I’m sure I’ll show up there, more than here. I’m working on fixing that, but in the meantime, don’t give up on me.

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“Old Spice” Guy in the Library – Simply Awesome!

What do you think? I’m still smiling. I love this guy.

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Favorite Posts & Tweets for Writers Round Up June 28 – July 18, 2010

Well, this particular favorite tweets covers a whole two, almost three week span, because I got so busy planning and then taking a short trip, that I didn’t get them up. Sorry about the “lateness”, but it is seriously jam packed with tons of links, so hopefully that makes up for it.

If you are interested in older posts of  Tweets for Writers and Round Ups you can either search the blog with the search box on the right or try looking under the Tweets for Writers category.

Agents/Querying/Submission

Blogging

Book Promotion/Marketing

Character Development

Copyright/Legal

  • TX judge dismisses Creationist lawsuit as disjointed, incoherent, maundering, full of irrelevant info http://j.mp/9PcDdg
  • Top 5 Copywriting Secrets To Selling Your Book http://bit.ly/c7S6NA

Digital/E-Books

Editing/Revision/Grammar

Freelance Writing

Genre Specific

Inspiration/Creativity/Organization

Journaling/Memoir

Poetry

Publishing

Self Publishing

Social Media and other Programs for Writers

Writing Process

Writing for Children/YA/Middle Grade

And just because this is my list, I am including:

Hilarious Stuff That Makes Me Giggle (and that I can almost relate to!) or Just plain COOL stuff.

If you know of a tweet/post I might have missed this week, please feel free to leave the link in the comments.

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I Write Like…

I tried the new site that everyone is tweeting about “I Write Like…” because I was curious. I was shocked at my result for one of my completed manuscripts. After pasting a portion of the first chapter, I was surprised to see this:

I write like
Stephen King

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

So after I checked that out, I pasted a blog post in, and got this one:

I write like
Dan Brown

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

So, after seeing these two results, it makes me wonder what the algorithm is that is used to determine these results. I just wish I knew what it was. At any rate, if there was any truth to either of these, I would be a very proud writer, because they are both amazing and gifted. The Stephen King one scares me a little because I don’t think my mind is as demented as his :p

Analyze your writing and let me know what you get!

Popularity: 51% [?]

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Where Are the Tweets for Writers?

So where are the Tweets for Writers? Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten. In fact, if you see the one that will be going up this Monday, July 19, 2010 you would be absolutely amazed. It is so jam packed full, I thought about breaking it up into two parts, but I’m keeping it as one.

So as . . . → Read More: Where Are the Tweets for Writers?

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My 13 Year old is at College!

We dropped our middle daughter off this weekend for a three week visit at a college. It is a program called the Joseph Baldwin Academy, and is an exceptional program. I am really excited for her, but oh my goodness, I miss her like crazy.

You can learn more about the program here, but the gist of the program . . . → Read More: My 13 Year old is at College!

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Story Write – Publish Your Stories

Have you checked out Story Write? It’s totally new to me, so I know very little about it so far, but if you like reading (and critiquing) other people’s stories, this might be a great site for you.

You can also post your own stories, though I am still learning how that all works. There is some . . . → Read More: Story Write – Publish Your Stories

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Book Review: Heart to Heart by Lurlene McDaniel

I read and re-read Lurlene’s books so often just to keep myself busy while I am waiting for a new book to come out. Prey came out in March and it has been sitting on my shelf waiting to be read ever since. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to read it, I already had so . . . → Read More: Book Review: Heart to Heart by Lurlene McDaniel

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Favorite Tweets for Writers June 21 – June 27, 2010

Life is getting back to normal slowly. I am writing more, and I seem to be a bit more focused than I was previously. Mike is off work until the end of July, once he has completed his Cardiac Rehabilitation. This is not really a bad thing – its kind of nice having him home during . . . → Read More: Favorite Tweets for Writers June 21 – June 27, 2010

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