BINGO! We have a winner...

We did it! We won! Lessons IV: The Dead Carnival and Other Morbid Drabbles won the 2013 BigAl's Books and Pals Readers' Choice Award for Best Short Story Collection/Anthology. This was exciting news to wake up to! I was thrilled to be nominated, and I honestly had no idea if I'd win or not.

Thanks for your support! You guys are awesome! :)

For more info on the winners, click here!

Getting past the first draft...

One of my biggest struggles when it comes to writing has always been the first draft. The main problem is I start a story and then halfway through I say, "Ugh. This is crap! I need to start something new. This isn't working." It's a terrible habit that I thought I'd be over by now, but alas it still haunts me. Just now I started something and not even five hundred words in, I said, "This is crap. This isn't going to work."

I need to stop that. Seriously.

The first draft is not supposed to be perfect. When you write the first draft, your only concern is telling the story. From beginning to end, just tell the fucking story. Who cares if it isn't working? How do you know for sure? If you're on the first draft, then of course it's going to look like utter crap. That's why it's a first draft.

First drafts aren't meant to be pretty and neat. You can be as sloppy as you want. Time-jump if you have to. Hell, do some head-hopping if that gets the story told. Switch to the POV of a frying pan. I don't care! You need to finish the story.

When you start the re-write and then realize that it isn't working, that's different. Then there is a very good chance that it isn't going to work. But that's something I shouldn't worry about until I get there.

So, I need to remind myself; when it comes to the first draft, just see it all the way through. Even if it isn't working. Just do my best to tell the story. When I'm done, then I can decide if it's worth re-writing or if I should just give up on it and try something new.

LESSONS IV nominated for an award!

I know, it's been a long time since I've blogged here. A lot has been going on in my life lately--all of them good! I usually hate Mondays, but today I really can't gripe about that. That's because I've just found out that Lessons IV: The Dead Carnival and Other Morbid Drabbles has been nominated for a BigAl's Books and Pals Readers' Choice Award in the short story/anthology category.

Holy... crap!

I really didn't expect this. It's a huge surprise and I'm flattered as hell. I'm not sure if I actually have a shot at winning, but it's just a thrill to be nominated.

If you've read Lessons IV and enjoyed it, please feel free to vote for me! You can vote here!

Please check out the other categories and see if there's a book by an author you've enjoyed! And vote!

And please, this is important: DO NOT FEEL OBLIGATED TO VOTE FOR ME JUST BECAUSE YOU KNOW ME. Only vote if you've read the book and enjoyed it. And if you haven't read the book, you can pick up a copy here (also available on BN.com and other sites). If you enjoyed the read, then by all means feel free to vote (but only if you enjoyed it and feel it's worthy of a vote)!

If you want to learn more about BigAl's Books and Pals, please visit their page!

That's all for now. I'll try not to be a stranger here. It's hard with all that's going on, but I'll do my best!

(Note: People who use IE as their web browser have experienced issues with trying to vote. If you can, try another browser and see if that helps. I've heard Chrome works fine.)

Happy 2013

Holy CRAP! I haven't written anything on here since October??? Many apologies, although I think I remember warning you guys it might happen again!

I've been extremely busy lately. I didn't even get to really focus on my writing during the past few months. I'm hoping that's something I can correct this year. Speaking of which... HAPPY 2013!

I proposed to my girlfriend of 4 years on Christmas Eve and she said yes! So now we're engaged and we couldn't be happier. Still not sure about the exact date, but we're thinking November.

So, that's the big news with me. Probably deserves a longer post, but this will have to do for now. :)

Here's a post... because I'm slacking on the ol' blog again!

I know. You're all shocked. I really need to do a better job of keeping this thing updated.

My apologies. It's been pretty busy around here. Mainly, my girlfriend and I finally moved into an apartment a few weeks ago. After living all of this time at home with my family, it feels good to finally get out there and have a place I can call my own--well for seven months, at least. We're hoping to find an actual home by the time our lease is up (although we're so in love with our apartment, I don't think it'd be overly devastating if we ended up having to stay for a little bit longer).

I know, this is something I should've done a long, long time ago. But it really worked out for the best. I was able to save a lot of money while living at home. I worked, so it wasn't like I was mooching off my parents. It's hard to turn down a free roof over your head. And when you're not in a relationship, then you feel like there's no rush to leave.

But once I finally got into a wonderful relationship, I knew it was time to get out and finally find a place.

We're loving the new place. I should post some more pics. If you're on Instagram, you can follow me on there. I'm "mdrabbles" (yes, I'm sooooo original it's scary. I suck at coming up with user names, so lay off!) I've taken a bunch of pictures of our cats taking advantage of our new home--and constantly stealing my chair.

In fact, here's one of them. While both cats love the chair, Bubbles (or Bubbs) seems to be the repeat offender:

So overall, we couldn't be happier. And that's one of the main reasons why you haven't heard from me for a while... other than... you know... me just being terrible at keeping a regular blogging schedule.

I've done very little writing, but I'm doing my best to correct that. Working on something right now. Another problem was I had a pretty nasty fight with writer's block--well, I don't know if I can call it that. I had ideas, but none of them worked when I tried to execute them. All writers hit a rough patch or a dry spell every now and then. I've still written little prompts for myself, so at the very least I'm still writing something.

That's all for now. Hopefully I'll remember to do another post before 2015.

Milestone!

I just wanted to thank you all. Yesterday I hit a pretty big milestone. I ended up selling my 5,000th book. I still can't believe it. When I started this, I really thought I'd sell a couple here and there. I had no idea these books would reach so many.

You guys are the best! Thanks for all of your wonderful support. It really means the world to me. Have a great day!

Tumblr: My new home

Don't panic. I'm still going to post here, but I think this blog is going to be more about my writing, projects, etc.

I joined Tumblr a few weeks ago (you can follow me at http://mdrabbles.tumblr.com/). I'm still tweaking it here and there, and I'm still trying to figure out how I want to use it.

But I will say this... it is very random. Hence the title, "Random Shenanigans."

Kind of like my Twitter account, this is going to be me posting about a bunch of random things. The vibe I'm getting over there, I feel a bit more free to do whatever I want. Of course, I can do whatever I want here as well, but for some reason I feel like I have to stick to a certain structure.

On my Tumblr, I'll be re-blogging a bunch of pics that catch my attention; I'll post some random thoughts/entries; oh--and I'll be posting a BUNCH about Breaking Bad, so let that be a warning to you!

I'll still post here, but again, I might keep this more as a writing blog. Who knows? I might not even be able to keep up with my Tumblr page. But I figure what the hell? Might as well give it a shot.

Hope to see you all there!