After last week’s weirdness with all the repeat words, I thought we were going to get through this week without a repeat until I opened the Rare Words book this morning. Today’s #15tt word was supposed to be purlieu, but we already had it last August, so I moved on to the next one. At this rate, I’m starting to wonder if there are going to be enough unusual words left to keep going next year! But for now, here are the 15 Minute Tweet Tales for this week:

 

10/16 - The guards only pretend to do rounds during hyetal weather, giving Tim a perfect way to rescue his wife. Sucks about the six month drought.

 

10/17 - The effluvium preceding the Devil's visits frustrates Kim; she can't wash the smell from her clothes. Drawback of dating the king of hell.

 

10/18 - She thought she'd found someone special when he wrote her anacreontic poems. Turns out he was recycling them, plus they were plagiarized.

 

10/19 - She got an F on her orrery because it had an extra planet: a hidden one only her parents knew about because it was where they were born.

 

10/20 - He swore he'd protect his sister, but when the zombies broke through, he gave her a recreant push, creating a diversion for his escape.

 

10/21 - She had divers excuses for missing the deadline, none of which mentioned the hundred grand a rival company gave her to drag her feet.

 

10/22 - The strip club wasn't the milieu where she'd dreamed of getting engaged, but he loved her (well, her body) & she loved him (well, his money).

 

Play along and write tweet tales for the above words. If you’re willing to share, post them on twitter with the hashtag #15tt or add them below in the comments because I’d love to read them. Any thoughts about this week's tweet tales or #15tt words?

This week was crazy with repeat words from last year. Not only were there three of them, but there was some Halloween-worthy spookiness with two of them. On 10/9, the next word up to bat in the Rare Words book was supposed to be solipsism, but we’d already had it at the start of this tweet tale adventure waaay back in week 3. So as I usually do with repeats, I moved on to the next word in the book – it was solecism. Not only was it another a repeat word, but it was also in week 3 and was the word of the day before solipsism. *cue Twilight Zone music* I think it’s odd that two different providers of unusual words presented these two words back-to-back, albeit in a different order. Luckily when another repeat word showed up for 10/11 (sedulous) it was from week 39, so I didn’t have to get too weirded out by it.

 

And now here are my 15 Minute Tweet Tales for the week:

 

10/9 - The brumal weather outside's considerably warmer than the chill in the bedroom. She's found him dancing in a lacy thong. It isn't hers.

 

10/10 - Bill's doxastic research made him a top election advisor, but he was paralyzed when it was time to tell his son the truth about Santa.

 

10/11 - Ron gets jumpy when the temperature rises: he loves the skin displayed by estival outfits, but fears his wife's punishment for looking.

 

10/12 - The school nurse diagnoses pica, but he only eats weird things because it hurts less to be called a freak for stuff he does on purpose.

 

10/13 - The ducklings mourn their father: coming home after one too many quack-tails at the local watering hole, he crashed into an empennage.

 

10/14 - Wanted new haircut for first day of job but pileated result made her cry. Upside? Boss thinks she's edgy and gives Em her own trend column.

 

10/15 - Locked in her room, Suzy uses the hamate end of a coat hanger to pick the lock. What she finds downstairs changes her life forever.

 

Play along and write tweet tales for the above words. If you’re willing to share, post them on twitter with the hashtag #15tt or add them below in the comments because I’d love to read them. Any thoughts about this week's tweet tales or #15tt words?

After finishing the rewrite of my novel, I slept for twelve hours straight on Sunday night. It was awesome. Since then I’ve watched some TV (most of the new shows are terrible) and started reading Divergent (finally!). But I’ve also been spending time wandering around the house feeling a little lost. The rewrite had been hanging over me for so long that without it I feel like I don’t have a purpose. 

 

I think a bit of a break is good, but I also know I need to jump into the next project before I let myself get pulled back into the land of laziness. I’m actually planning to participate in NaNoWriMo in November after taking a break from it the last few years, so I need to start figuring out what I’m going to write. I have two ideas pulling equally at me, so probably the best course of action is to jot down a quick outline of each and see which one ‘feels’ right. 

 

But until NaNo starts, I’ll be keeping my writing muscles warmed up with my 15 Minute Tweet Tales. Here are the ones for the past week:

 

10/2 - Deb's supererogatory attempts to place the ideal ratio of condiments on the buns gets her fired. It's fast food, not slow perfection.

 

10/3 - The kick to his junk was painful but condign. He was just grateful she didn't know the entire story, or she'd have cut it off instead.

 

10/4 - Blind date set up by Mom. Infandous outfit to repel him. Regrets it when dream man arrives and says she looks hot with twinkle in his eye.

 

10/5 - Keeping her seity different from all the mindless followers at school turned into a challenge after it became trendy to be unique.

 

10/6 - Emma uses cacoepy in an adorable way when she speaks. It makes people underestimate her, which is vital for the success of her missions.

 

10/7 - Water weeps down dirty windowpanes, creating a loxotic image of men dancing in the rain rather than warriors battling to the death.

 

10/8 - Thinking she's about to be hit by a car, he tackles her. Then he has to explain to the cops he's a victim of parallax, not an attacker.

 

Play along and write tweet tales for the above words. If you’re willing to share, post them on twitter with the hashtag #15tt or add them below in the comments because I’d love to read them. Any thoughts about this week's tweet tales or #15tt words?

It’s been a busy week, so I'm keeping it short and sweet today – enjoy my 15 Minute Tweet Tales:

 

9/25 - Tim's the town bully, so people cheer when Ed finds muniments proving Tim's land belongs to Ed. No one mentions Ed's past as a forger.

 

9/26 - Her displays of love were exiguous - to make her kids grow up strong. It worked. The conditions of her nursing home didn't faze them.

 

9/27 - Despite my dirty looks, the man behind me crepitates through an endless tub of popcorn. In the parking lot, I get a perfect end to my movie.

 

9/28 - The audience freaks when he apostrophizes during his victory speech, but now that he's Governor he doesn't have to ignore Mr. Jingles.

 

9/29 - The women he picks up in bars doubt his claims of chiromancy until his fingers slide sensually across the lines etched in their palms.

 

9/30 - His heartfelt promises are nugatory words twisted into lies by all the other times he swore he'd never do it again but did it anyway.

 

10/1 - She affects a Palladian air, from her clothes to her decor, her followers blissfully unaware her insight is culled from fortune cookies. 

 

Play along and write tweet tales for the above words. If you’re willing to share, post them on twitter with the hashtag #15tt or add them below in the comments because I’d love to read them. Any thoughts about this week's tweet tales or #15tt words?

This weekend I participated in the NYC Madness Flash Fiction Challenge, where you have 48 hours to write a 1000 word short story for an assigned genre/location/object. My group got ghost story/a coffee shop/a light bulb. At first I was super excited because ghost story is right up my alley – the one time I was assigned the ‘open’ genre, I actually wrote a ghost story (which eventually became my short film High Heels & Hoodoo). 

 

But as soon as I started brainstorming ideas, my enthusiasm waned – everything felt so cliché or like it was going to be the same as everyone else’s story. I mean, that light bulb was going to be flickering in all of them, right? And it was either going to be a barista serving a customer who was actually a ghost or a customer being served by a barista who was actually a ghost. Eventually I came up with something I hoped at least started the story in a slightly original way and was also a fun kind of meta (the protagonist had to submit a short story for a competition’s midnight deadline, but her internet went down, so she was parked outside a coffee shop for wifi).

 

By the double halfway point (500 words in at 11:30pm Saturday night), I finally admitted I hated my story with the heat of a thousand suns. It was stupid and, worse, boring. I briefly attempted to fix it by rewriting it in the style of Edgar Allan Poe, but soon realized unless the judges got what I was doing, they were just going to think I was a terrible writer (so many adverbs, adjectives, and repeated words!). 

 

As I was pulling out my hair in writerly despair, a new idea revolving around format popped into my desperate brain. I was intrigued but wasn’t sure I could make it work. I spent the next hour thinking and pondering (it might have looked like I was napping, but I was working, I swear) until I had a plan, and then I was off! By 5:30am, I had a rough draft. I finally grabbed some zzz’s and then spent Sunday afternoon rewriting it several times. I managed to turn it in five minutes before the midnight deadline on Sunday night. Whew!

 

It’s not one of my finer efforts, but it’s not the shame-inducing mess of words that was my first attempt. The big format risk is that the entire thing is an online chat, with a few tweets thrown in at the end. So if the judges don’t spend time hanging out online, they might not understand what I was doing, and I’ll be completely screwed. Plus, since it all happens online, they might decide I didn’t meet the coffee shop location requirement. We’ll see, but regardless, it was fun to stretch myself with something new.

 

Here's my title and synopsis: A Spirited Chat - Kerri meets an exciting guy online, but he might be seeking more than she's willing to give.

 

And now for my awkward segue… NYC Midnight is the group that originally introduced me to twitter fiction, so here are my 15 Minute Tweet Tales for the week:

 

9/18 - She wants to play Dad's favorite song at his funeral. When the palinoia makes her fingers bleed, she's ready - she slips him the cyanide.

 

9/19 - At fist day roll call, she sighs at a name. Had his four hellion brothers, so it's ineluctable he'd be in her class. He hurls a spitball.

 

9/20 - Dr. More's wife had a jugal jut that caused people to call her exotic. Accurate, since he created her in a lab by splicing cat and human.

 

9/21 - Never one for birthdays, he celebrates his 38th with a perfervid energy that baffles his friends. Six months later cancer claims him.

 

9/22 - While the crepuscular lighting in the room is appropriately symbolic, Jane wants to feel the sun on her face when it's her turn to die.

 

9/23 - She recites his evil acts seriatim. Tied up, defiant, he says, "If you'd been this focused on housework, U wouldn't have needed discipline."

 

9/24 - Since his cube-mate has been hurt before, he plans a proreption to win her heart. But she thinks he's gay and starts dating Stan from HR.

 

Play along and write tweet tales for the above words. If you’re willing to share, post them on twitter with the hashtag #15tt or add them below in the comments because I’d love to read them. Any thoughts about this week's tweet tales or #15tt words?

It’s starting to feel like we have a repeat word from last year every week. This time the word on 9/16 was supposed to be orgulous, but we already had it almost exactly a year ago. With this many repeats, I hope I don’t run out of words in the Rare Words book before the end of the year!

 

I also thought it was interesting that three of the words this week actually had to do with words, or at least describing how words are put together: causerie, chrestomathy, and anaphora. Words about words are always fun!

 

And now here are my 15 Minute Tweet Tales for the week:

 

9/11 - She's barking mad the editor turned her essay about years of canine social behavior research into a causerie on how to train your dog.

 

9/12 - Ken panicked at his tingling lips - a broken embouchure before the concert would ruin him. His rival removed the IcyHot from his reed.

 

9/13 - The publisher includes the story he plagiarized from his ex-wife in his chrestomathy. He hates that it's always been his most popular.

 

9/14 - His tank runs out of air. The Tempean ocean's a nice place to die, but relief when a mermaid appears. Until she smiles. She's all teeth.

 

9/15 - "I adore your superb mind, your superb face, your superb body." He only means the last in his anaphora; it's the fist that wins her love.

 

9/16 - Costumes too expensive for 8 kids, so Mom pulls out trunk of Nana's fusty clothes. Find jewel sewn in skirt lining; changes their lives.

 

9/17 - On her 1st day as PTA president: 6 parents brawl about smartest kid & principal hires escort with bake sale money. She immediately demits.

 

Play along and write tweet tales for the above words. If you’re willing to share, post them on twitter with the hashtag #15tt or add them below in the comments because I’d love to read them. Any thoughts about this week's tweet tales or #15tt words?

This week we had another repeat word – on 9/9 the word was supposed to be antonomasia, but we already had it back in April of last year. The definition is a memorable one, but I never would have been able to pluck the word itself out of my brain. In fact, I’m not sure that many of these crazy words are sticking around to improve my vocabulary!

 

But here we go, on to my 15 Minute Tweet Tales for the past week: 

 

9/4 - The threnody for Father starts, and I pretend to cry. People already whisper about the fortune I'm inheriting – don't want them to suspect.

 

9/5 - Walking on the beach, she finds a muricate sphere and picks it up. It pricks her. The life-form rejoices. It's waited millennia for this.

 

9/6 "We like pie 'round here, 'specially pecan." The actor used aphesis to try to sound southern, but lacked the lyrical flow of a native.

 

9/7 - Romantic date at beach. Urticated by jellyfish. Tells him pee cure is old wives' tale. He does it anyway, a bit too excited. Break up.

 

9/8 - The baby shrieks, but defeating the level boss is his exigent concern. Wife comes home. His punishment? Four months of poopy diaper duty.

 

9/9 - The kids snigger at their dad's trophic lectures. No one wants eating advice from a man who looks like he's due to deliver any day now.

 

9/10 - The fuliginous cat runs through the den leaving a trail of ash. "Whose cat is that?" "I don't know." "How'd it get in?" "The chimney?"

 

Play along and write tweet tales for the above words. If you’re willing to share, post them on twitter with the hashtag #15tt or add them below in the comments because I’d love to read them. Any thoughts about this week's tweet tales or #15tt words?

A few years ago I was searching for books about Greek gods and stumbled across the Oh. My. Gods. series by Tera Lynn Childs, and today I’m excited to be part of the blog blitz for her new book Sweet Legacy, which is the third book in her Sweet Venom series. The series is set in a world where “Medusa wasn’t a monster, she and her gorgon sisters were guardians who protected the world of man from mythological beasts. Grace, Gretchen, and Greer are her descendants, triplets separated at birth who must reunite, fulfill ancient prophecy, and take up their legacy in a world where monsters lurk in plain sight.”

 

Here’s the blurb for Sweet Legacy:

Greer has always known she was privileged, though she had no idea how special her second sight made her, even among her triplet monster-fighting sisters. But when a god starts playing with her mind, can Greer step up in her pretty high heels to prevent anything from stopping her sisters’ mission?

 

Grace loves her adopted brother, Thane, but now that he’s back and has joined her sisters’ team, it’s clear his past is full of dark mysteries. She wants to trust him, but will Thane’s secret put the girls in even more danger?

 

Gretchen knows she can rely on her sisters to help her stop the monsters. But after getting to know some of the beasties in the abyss, she finds her role as a huntress comes with more responsibility than she ever imagined. How can she know what her birthright demands of her now?

 

The girls cannot hesitate as they seek the location of the lost door between the realms, even as monsters and gods descend on San Francisco in battle-ready droves. In this exciting conclusion to the Sweet Venom trilogy, these teenage heirs of Medusa must seek the truth, answer the ancient riddles, and claim their immortal legacy.

 

Sounds exciting! And to celebrate the release of Tera’s book, I asked her to give me one-word answers to five questions:

 

Most inspiring goddess? 

Artemis

 

Favorite dog breed? 

Mutt

 

Food you absolutely refuse to eat? 

Meat

 

Word you overuse while writing a first draft? 

Just

 

Favorite beverage for celebrating exciting writing news? 

Barq’s root beer

 

Thanks for stopping by, Tera! You can find out more about Tera at her website, on twitter, and on facebook. And you can buy her book at all the usual places: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indiebound, Apple, Books-a-Million, and Book Depository.

 

Tera is also giving away a complete set of her books, as well as other prizes, so enter using the Rafflecopter form. The giveaway is US/Canada only. Good luck!

 

 

And now on to today’s regularly scheduled 15 Minute Tweet Tales. I had planned to somehow incorporate Sweet Legacy into the tweet tale on 9/3 to commemorate the release of the book, but was worried the #15tt word of the day would make it too tough. I couldn’t believe my luck when the Rare Words book gave exuviate as the word of the day – too perfect when the inspiration for Tera's series had snakes for hair.  

 

Enjoy the tales:

 

8/28 - The ubiety of the sprawling oak served as the landmark for giving directions, so when a developer cut it down, the entire town was lost.

 

8/29 - He loves her truly, deeply. But he needs to sleep with other women. The antinomy of their marriage causes her to weep softly at night.

 

8/30 - The writer manqué sits in cafés talking characters & themes, but when he goes home each night, the cursor blinks from a blank document.

 

8/31 - He says their love is olamic, claiming they've lived many lives wrapped in each other's arms. She switches to another seat on the bus.

 

9/1 - She had a heart of gold, but her invidious beauty made the women shun her. Heart turned to lead, she stole their husbands in return.

 

9/2 - Amy is thrilled to hold her first book in her hands until she sees the comma corrigendum in her bio: Amy loves eating dogs and cats.

 

9/3 - Medusa brushes off her shoulders with a sigh. When her snakes exuviate, no amount of dandruff shampoo can help with her first impression.  

 

If you're not familiar with old shampoo commercials, here's an example with the slogan that inspired my Medusa tale.

 

Have you read any of Tera’s books? Play along and write tweet tales for the above words. If you’re willing to share, post them on twitter with the hashtag #15tt or add them below in the comments because I’d love to read them. Any thoughts about this week's tweet tales or #15tt words?

It’s time for another #writemotivation check-in – I can’t believe it’s already the last week of August! This week I managed to revise three chapters, and since that’s more than the previous weeks, I’m gonna go ahead and give that a whoo hoo!! Although with only four and a half days left in the month and nine more chapters to go, it doesn’t look good for meeting my ultimate goal of completely finishing the rewrite. But I’m so happy with the quality of what I’ve gotten done that I’m not going to sweat it. Good luck to all the other #writemotivation folks in this last push to the end of the month.

 

As for the 15 Minute Tweet Tales this week, we definitely had some interesting words, including another repeat. On 8/23 the word was supposed to be fulsome, but we’d already had it almost exactly a year ago on 8/29/12. Weird. Anyway, here they are:

 

8/21 - As he emerges from the darkness, his eyes fulgurate; she prays it's a trick of the light, but the god before her laughs at such prayers.

 

8/22 - A serious crisis arises, so the men gather for maieutic prodding: how are they going to get more beer if they're all too drunk to drive?

 

8/23 - The dog's lusory tail wags lure Timmy into a game of chase; he falls down a well. She prances away: no more fake ball throwing from you.

 

8/24 - She steps on stage and shudders at the canaille leering at her. As she swings around the pole, she chants 'It's paying for med school.'

 

8/25 - The death squads march. The twins separate, each taking half of the parure. The power in the rubies will lead them back when it's safe.

 

8/26 - For years she heaped his plate with fried veggies and meats plus extra butter. It took awhile, but her stenotic homicide went undetected.

 

8/27 - He bought paint with antimony to capture the luster of her skin. When she torched his studio, his portrait of her was all that survived.

 

How did you do with your #writemotivation goals this week? Play along and write tweet tales for the above words. If you’re willing to share, post them on twitter with the hashtag #15tt or add them below in the comments because I’d love to read them. Any thoughts about this week's tweet tales or #15tt words?

 

#writemotivation image courtesy of Hugh Lee and licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

I can’t believe it’s already time for another #writemotivation update – it seems like this past week FLEW by. As I predicted in last week’s update, I spent much of the week completely immersed in WriteOnCon. They do a truly excellent job putting it together, so there were a ton of wonderful posts and vlogs, and now my brain is pretty much mush. And since I put my query and writing samples out on the forums for feedback, I spent a lot of time paying it forward by critiquing others. If you missed WriteOnCon, they keep the information up all year, so you can browse at your leisure rather than gorging like I did.

 

So with all that happening, did I actually accomplish anything on my WIP? Fortunately, the answer is yes! I revised two more chapters. I'm still not setting the world on fire with my speed, but since one of the chapters ended up needing to be almost completely rewritten, I’m pleased with my progress. I hope all the other #writemotivation folks are making steady progress!

 

And that brings us to my 15 Minute Tweet Tales for this past week. On the first two days, I unintentionally mentioned Facebook in both stories, so I decided to incorporate Facebook in all my tales this week. I remembered on the third day, but then completely spaced on the fourth day, so that idea pretty much fizzled out. Hope you enjoy them anyway! 

 

8/14 - She gives Tim detention for his rabelaisian test answers, but she's eager to post it on Facebook: it's so funny it'll surely go viral.

 

8/15 - Chocolate, ice cream, hot bath - nothing breaks the anhedonia gripping Amy since the pic of her boyfriend kissing Max popped up on FB.

 

8/16 - Posting pics of his abs from 20 years ago, telling plain high school girls they're beautiful: Facebook's the perfect place for his venery.

 

8/17 - He cries every day because classmates torment him. His mom gives him cookies as a roborant, not realizing they tease him for being fat.

 

8/18 - Searching the pockets of plague victims, he hopes his periapt works: the stench from a pouch of his own filth should chase away disease.

 

8/19 - The jongleur wasn't afraid to sing about the king's love of playing with dolls, but now his jester bells are jingling from balls.

 

8/20 - He thinks the symbols on the vase are enchorial to Egypt, but the linguist expert says they're fake - she then sells it for a fortune.

 

How did you do with your #writemotivation goals this week? Play along and write tweet tales for the above words. If you’re willing to share, post them on twitter with the hashtag #15tt or add them below in the comments because I’d love to read them. Any thoughts about this week's tweet tales or #15tt words?

 

#writemotivation image courtesy of Hugh Lee and licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.