Sneak Peak at “The MacClery Chronicles” September 13, 2012
Posted by TXMoonbaby in TJWhelan Writes.Tags: blog challenge, natural disaster, paranormal romance, snippet, vampire
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The “Look” Challenge
Take your current manuscript and find the first instance of the word “look”. Then post the surrounding paragraphs as an excerpt of the book on your blog. Lastly, tag five more blogging authors who you think would be a good choice for the game.
The working title is “The MacClery Chronicles”. I hope you enjoy and feel free to comment.
The sounds of the crowd were building. The teams were on the field warming up for game three of the World Series between the Oakland A’s and the San Francisco Giants. A small group of men gathered around a television in a smoke filled bar, beers and hot dogs in their hands waiting for the opening pitch. None of them knowing that one of their lives was going to be changed forever.
On the other side of the country a face that was familiar to the group stood among the crowd watching the couple as they walked past various shops and took frequent bathroom breaks, the later being because the female was well into her last trimester of pregnancy. He had worked hard to make sure that his rival wouldn’t find out about the upcoming birth, even going so far as to arrange the all expense paid trip and the job interviews that would lead the last remaining lines of this family tree away from their benefactor and protector. Yes, it had been a lot of work and he owed more than a few favors, but if Simon’s predictions were to be believed the catalyst for his plan would happen and soon. All he needed was for the young lovebirds to be here when it did.
Simon lit up another cigar and offered them to the guys around the table as he looked from face to face in awe. “Man, thanks for finally letting me into the Wednesday night game fellas. What changed your mind?”
Patrick fought the need to roll his eyes. He didn’t want Simon here, but he did have access to great Cuban cigars and well, he preferred to have 6 people at the table when he played poker. Besides, Simon wasn’t a true player, they could probably wipe him of his cash in no time and then he would be on his way “Ach you know Thomas is out running down another lead on his daft idea. He thinks that this could be the next big thing. For me, I think he has smoked one too many tokes with the lads at UC Berkeley and CalTech.” Patrick chuckled and shuffled the cards. The truth of the matter was that the idea of the world being connected by computers was the most interesting thing that had come along in a while. Of course it meant more ways that they could be found out, but think of all the possibilities that it had, maybe Thomas wasn’t wrong to be providing those nerds inspiration after all, especially if he could talk a few of them in to designing something that would help benefit the clan.
“Alright lads, ante up. The buy in is five hundred and I do not accept IOUs.” Patrick smirked as he started dealing the cards. He looked up from the table to the television when McCarver repeated himself. The screen flashed green and then went to black as the earthquake struck. Slowly each of the members of the poker night started receiving pages on their beepers, everyone except Simon.
“I told Thom this was going to happen, but he just insisted on going to see the birth anyway.”
Simon’s words were lost in the confusion and the calls that continued in waves. Patrick wouldn’t realize for some time that he was betrayed by one he considered his brother. By the time he realized it, it would be too late. The date on the tombstone read October 17, 1989. It would mark the end of the Ó Caiside Clan as it’s last known member laid beneath that slate monument.
But Kelly Michaels, formerly Kelly Cassidy, didn’t pass from this world before she brought her daughter into it. Her best friend, who had tried so long to conceive, adopted the child and named her Maeve Cassidy Seward and with the love of two mothers, one here on earth and one above, the young girl thrived.
Three Days September 6, 2012
Posted by TXMoonbaby in Uncategorized.Tags: gray matter, HumanVampire, sick
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Three days since I have written any words, blog/wip or the like.
I’ve been feeling like crap and it just hasn’t gotten any better. It may be time for me to go to the doctor, which I HATE the very idea of doing.
It may just be a mind over matter thing, I sat down at my desk to write the other day and my best friend/sister called. We talked for two hours and I really needed that time. It made me get off my ass and setup some tasks for me to get accomplished today. I think I have managed to do one, I may get 3 out of 5 done by 9pm tonight. I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you, it’s not life and death, and well the power is out.
Yep, I said it. The power is out. Just went I sit down with my trusty blackberry to write this with grand plans to post this here and then move things around life sticks it’s tongue out and me and blows the raspberry of all raspberries.
Is it not enough that I have all but become a vampire because the sunlight makes me feel worse? Silvie comes in for quick petting sessions and then goes right back out because I can’t be outside and play fetch with her? The donkeys are tormenting us all because they are jokester who come onto the back porch and literally ring the doorbell?
Then there are the dreams. They make my head hurt. Surely I would remember if I was published in a teacher’s anthology wouldn’t I? I know that particular year was crazy as all get out with losing my mom and dad being sick and all, but even if someone else submitted the work for me, surely I would remember it. It wouldn’t have been tied to the school district or whatever would it?
Ugh, some days I just want to turn my brain off. This makes day number three that I’d have been functioning sans gray matter. I’m ready to unplug, just me, my dogs and well, air conditioning, so I guess that means hiking and camping are out.
Hey, I know I need to write, but this FarmPrincess needs to feel better or my characters will end up as whiny as I’m being right now.
Three days…that’s more than enough. Tomorrow the streak ends, I hope.
What Have I Done? September 2, 2012
Posted by TXMoonbaby in RolePlay, TammyJo's Voice.add a comment
Pacing back and forth I knew something wasn’t right. Even though the monitor to Ryder’s room was in my hand I had this irrational fear that something was blocking the signal or sneaking past it. If he suddenly stopped breathing there would be no noise to hear.
Death was close, and not the kind of death Roman was, real death and it was coming for someone that I loved. Whatever was in this protection amulet that Mena gave me let me feel it, I was just scared who Death was going to claim.
What do you do when your heart pulls you in four different directions? You carry on with big pieces of your missing. I loved Roman and Warren, but I couldn’t be happy with either one of them without making the other miserable. Warren seemed mollified since he had Ryder. He understood better than anyone why I had to try to go out on my own. He didn’t bitch too much as long as Rafe was near by, I guess there is something to be said for having the power but not the drive to use it.
Rafe was as powerful as any alpha I had ever met. His strength and malleability let him stay in situations that would have crushed anyone other person, human, were or vamp. He could easily have taken over his home pack, or mine but he didn’t want that. He was just a little too laid back, he would fight if he needed to, but he hadn’t found anything worth fighting for, at least not yet.
Me, I had too much to fight for and felt that I was battling myself. Ryder was my focus, he was my soul. There was no way that I could look into those sleepy green eyes of his and not want what was best for him. He loved Roman, and Roman loved him, but a centuries year old vampire, no matter how modern he became still had peculiar visions of what a woman could and should be. I could be Roman’s arm candy, I could be his right hand at a fight, but he took the vampire ideal of “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours as my bonded is mine too”. Yeah, I fought too hard for what I had accomplished, I had done things that, well let’s just say I don’t regret them, they lead me to this place but I don’t want my son to have to live though them.
And then there is Levy. He is the only time I wish I was other than wolf. A tiger or human, something that could be what he needed and what he deserved. He NEVER made me feel less than I am, but I know I am less than he deserved. I guess my own insecurities drove me away from him. When the second attempt was made on his life and I realized that it could be because of me, well, I know why King Solomon decided to cut the baby in half, I would rather live alone and in misery knowing that my Kitty is out there and safe than face a world without him in it.
That is how I ended up back here in Shreveport. I figured that it was the last place that Roman would look for me, it was still big enough that I could hide from my ghost and I already had a network of people that I could trust and a compound that we could secure. As far as I knew the men in my life, other than Ryder were states away. Warren had managed to weather the storm of Isaac well and was making sure the member of the pack there were safe, Roman was somewhere in New York, or Atlanta or wherever the hell he decided to let his newest toy talk him in to traveling and Levy…Levy was in Las Vegas, the place that I left a piece of my heart and where Ryder did too. Even now, he is sleeping with a stuffed tiger and sometimes cries out in the middle of the night for his Ash…
What have I done?
—tbc—
Writer’s Insight Required August 29, 2012
Posted by TXMoonbaby in Uncategorized.Tags: frustration, real life, writing
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I can not get my head to slow down so that I can do something, anything at this point. After such a good start to “The Clancy Chronicals” (Hey it’s just my own personal title!) I have run head-first into a brick wall.
There are so many things that are running through my mind. I’m all about the little details and I know that the perfectionist in me will get frustrated and give up on the idea soon if I’m not careful. I don’t want to give up, so how do I break through the bullshit?
Another part of me knows that I am a want-to-be writer, I don’t know that I can even consider myself aspiring at this point. No, right now I am farmgirl, business woman, caregiver, furmom and then probably a dozen titles away is the writing. Why is that important? One word: Isaac. While it looks like now it may just be a rain/wind event for us there was a point where everyone in my area was concerned because there was a chance, however small, that it could have been in our laps as a category 1 storm.
Preparations had to be made, that normally means spending money which I HATE with a passion. I can attest that in business sometimes you do have to spend money to make money, and sometimes you have to spend a little of it to not lose lots of it. Right now we are faced with both.
Now that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been writing. I have blogged and written small snippets each of three days since I have be challenged by my muse with this project. The only thing is I’m not putting out the numbers of words to the project that I would like. I don’t see any improvement, any advancement and it is making me cranky.
So after talking with my friend Jay I am considering a “non-flying by the seat of my pants approach” for a bit. Maybe if I am working on characters and outlines, plots and points-of-view then I can not feel like a failure before I’ve really given myself a chance to crawl, let alone walk, run or marathon.
So in the spirit of that hope I need some help from you all. You may not be use to my writing style, and while I realize that short works in the vein of role-playing won’t tell you much maybe the next part will.
I try to write like I live. I’m an earthy texture driven person. I like to roll things around in my mouth and mind and think if they sound and feel right. I want my words and my writing to have a texture to it. From starting with the character names “meaning” something in the story to the little hidden accents that although a reader may not catch them in the moment, they may have that a-ha experience later. I tend to write a lot and imagine the smells, like the warm apple pie the old man is having with his coffee two tables over while two girlfriends chat about their love lives.
Do I just have a vivid imagination that will constantly suffer from the lack of other skills I possess? Is there a book or a magic wand that we can beat me over the head with and stop this line of thinking?
What is my malfunction, because I’m feeling a blue screen coming along soon.
I Can Hear You August 27, 2012
Posted by TXMoonbaby in Uncategorized.2 comments
Yes dear I can hear you in my head. Since the idea was given to me by my muse you have been growing more and more confident and louder and louder. I see your back story, I see your enemy, I see your heartache…but what I can’t see is time to work on you.
Six AM and I am awake from a sound sleep with problems on the farm, problems, mind you, that were JUST fixed and it is almost 12:30. I have Isaac in the gulf, people calling to check to see if we’re ready and I want to hide in my office with my laptop and create Clancy. (Yeah I know, others didn’t like the name either. I still do. *shrugs*)
Tonight is Meet the local high school athletes and I have a niece who will be performing with the dance troup. I’d love to see it, maybe I can combine it with a trip to get diesel and supplies?
Where do they keep the time? Not Thyme, that stuff doesn’t work the same. I need some of the other, an economy pack of patience and a life-time supply of calm.
I wouldn’t mind a little success thrown in if you have any to spare. Well success in writing, I am making my own in other areas.
This weekend was HORRIBLE as far as relationships with my family goes. Dad treats my former stepbrothers like little adults when they are just kids. One roped pig, a herd of loose cows and lots of my ruffled feathers I got the gun the little monsters stole from my farmhand while they were nosing around in my barns and control rooms where they had no place being.
Add this morning’s massive water system failure in a room where their muddy hand prints are everywhere? I totally feel justified in demanding that they not step foot on my farm again. I realize that Dad may bring them, but I warned him to not let the hellions out of the truck.
Now back to Dear Clancy. I find my writings so far have had lots of pop culture references and humor in them. That is what I prefer to read, so it makes sense that is what I write. I’m the type of person that enjoys the kids movies but like to see the frozen prehistoric animals giving the Spock Salutation in the background.
While I realize that if I add the brown-chicken brown-cow to my writing that I want to, it WON’T be suitable for kids (DUH) but I guess I’m hoping that although I’m new to this game I can write something that the folks that grew up on Harry Potter and *cant type the words* can bridge into while still attracting more seasoned readers like me.
Did I dance around that well enough? 
Oh well, I’m rambling now and by the time I get my phone to post this the 5 mins I gave myself to write will be over.
Until next time…
New Faces, Same Game August 24, 2012
Posted by TXMoonbaby in TammyJo's Voice, Uncategorized.Tags: irish claddagh ring, prequel, vampire, witch, wolf
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So my character TammyJo is 3 years old today on Twitter.
To celebrate that milestone I decided that I would go back to her life before she hit twitter in the SL she has had there and write a short story prequel if you will.
I hope you enjoy.
Nerves were making me more uneasy than usual. It didn’t help that I was in a different town, hours away from home, I still had the distinct feeling that someone was following me and watching my every move. It should be impossible. I had taken so many different roads to get here, made so many detours and thanks to my father and other pack members, I had driven not one or two but six different vehicles to arrive at this spot, each of the previous ones heading off in one of the wrong directions leaving clues to try and help cover my tracks. Was it possible that someone had kept up with me through that elaborate shell game? (more…)
Anxiety, Dread and a Slight Detour to Happily Ever After August 17, 2012
Posted by TXMoonbaby in Uncategorized.1 comment so far
I think I have written before how I decided to be strong enough to face my depression and seek treatment for it for a second time. Lexapro has been a Godsend for me and my whole attitude had improved, and still remains improved for the most part.
The reason the doctor and I decided to go with Lexapro is I had anxiety as well and being told they tend to go hand-in-hand I just accepted it and moved forward.
Then I watched this “reality show” that is my secret guilty pleasure. I love Jersey Shore, but I didn’t realize that the show would help me discover something about myself, but it did.
Looking back on it, talking with my doctor and others, I’ve fought a mild anxiety disorder all of my life. Certain people like my mom could make it worse, now it seems to be that most everyone in my world does.
If I separate myself from them, the normal stress of the farm and being a caregiver can be balanced out with chocolate and a little time on my Kindle Fire. If I don’t, well I know that on one particular bad day I took 3-.25mg Xanax in a day. It was well within the allowed limits of my prescription but honestly I feel that if I have to take 2 or more especially during consecutive days then I need to do something to change the environment in which I find myself.
Lately Role Playing has caused me more stress than it has ever brought me joy. I have all but retired characters that I love because of the drama around them. I’m not naming names and placing blame, I’m a grown ass woman and I’m making up my own mind about how I proceed from here.
So far this is what I have decided:
I’m going to “hide” the Twitter apps on my phone, out of sight, out of mind. (Already doing this, it helps!)
I’m only going to be signed in to my RL accounts and possibly TammyJo who may or may not get a User Name change.
All other accounts will be either deleted, pruned of followers/following or given-up for adoption. Some of the @s are popular characters in role play worlds and I hate to be selfish and delete them and forever take the name as well.
I am NOT going to stop writing, but instead of doing it 140 characters at a time or posting something to tumblr here or there I’m going to concentrate on building a complete work of well rounded characters and seek representation and the ever-coveted book deal.
Most importantly I’m going to spend more time on the farm and with the 3-legged wonder pup Bonnie. We may finally break down and get a puppy and start training him or her while Bonnie is still as agile as she is. Like the heroine from the movie Bonnie gets her name from I draw strength from this land beneath my feet. I’m a farm girl and I’ll die a farm girl, it may not be Tara but it means the world to me.
This isn’t goodbye, this isn’t a dramatic attention seeking ploy, this is me being as honest as I can be and remaining true to myself.
I hope that the friendships I have made here can last through this, that our paths will continue on together for a long while yet, but if this is our crossroads and we take a different path that leads us apart I hope that at some point I managed to let you know what you mean to me.
My Superman June 18, 2012
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So I’m sitting in this hospital that I lost my mom in, the same waiting room in fact where I sat all alone waiting because they wouldn’t let me go back to ICU, they had called my family and somehow from the time I left the school where I was teaching to the 45minute drive to the hospital they had decided that she wasn’t going to make it.
This same waiting room, this time I’m alone again except it is Dad that is going in for another back surgery.
It isn’t the same because his strength and will is far stronger than anyone I know. It isn’t the same because mom’s diabetes was out of control and she refused to take the doctor’s advice. Because a flesh eating bacteria decided to make her its host.
It isn’t the same. I have to keep telling myself that.
He isn’t my uncle who died just after father’s day, who I couldn’t get to in time. He isn’t his brother though they look so much alike.
He’s my Superman even when he’s curled up on his side looked like a little boy in a too big bed. All I want to do is run my fingers in his soft short hair and cry and beg for him to come back to me.
I can’t do that. I have to be strong and I try to never let him down. The roles have reversed, he’s my small child and I’m the doting mom except for times like these, I’m very much the child.
Daddy come back soon, your little girl is scared and all alone.
Merry Ole Month of May June 2, 2012
Posted by TXMoonbaby in Uncategorized.Tags: #Yard #Reclaimation #Budget #Progress
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May has turned out to be one of my busy months yet again. We had a week and a half lost to selling and putting back livestock, I was sick and then diagnostics on Dad show that his back surgery from a year ago has already collapsed and his nerves are once again being pinched and compressed.
Upcoming surgeries abound for his back and my own oral surgery. I’ve been putting mine off for six months and now that my doctor has added Xanax to my Lexapro I feel I may be able to combat what dad calls White Coat Syndrome and get this done.
Bonnie needs to go to the vet and the newest stray I acquired needs to be checked out as well before she can join us indoors. All of those things took away from my intent to reclaim my yard but although I failed to complete it, I will share what I have managed to do.
First of all, I bought my grill. It is a dual fuel half gas/half charcoal/wood with a separate burner. I have seen these grills priced at 350 dollars and I consider myself lucky to get mine on sale and coming in just under 300. Sure I could have gotten a cheaper one at 25 bucks but living in the country and having survived long periods of time with no electricity and no way to cook, this is a necessary expenditure.
That brings my working budget on the outdoor reclamation down to 450 left. 100 of that went to a premade compost barrel. I have larger areas where we compost other things for the farm and garden but I wanted something I could use to maintain my house plants and my private picking garden.
Speaking of which, that is another thing that I have partially accomplished. Half of the use-to-be strawberry beds have been converted into what I call a pico de gallo bed with tomatoes, peppers, cilantro and green onions. The other half of the bed will be a stir-fry bed. I’m not sure if I will plant Japanese eggplant or just good old fashioned yellow squash and zucchini in it. There is just something cool about picking things fresh from the garden after watching it grow and planning the menu around it. These plants cost me nothing, they were grown by us as seeds and were ‘pinched’ from the larger 4 acres of gardens we have.
The only flowers I have bought are two blue hydrangeas that I think will be planted in front of my kitchen window since I don’t have anything else prepped. They ran me 10 bucks a piece so my total budget is now down to 330 dollars remaining.
My next big expense and the one that will decimate the budget no matter at what point it comes will be the patio area. I personally want to use paving stones since I hope at some point I’ll get the balcony and outside stairs completed but Dad is pushing for concrete, even if I do it myself.
That means that this is the point in the project that I sit down with the numbers and the plans and do a pro/con on each. If I make my own concrete (country living affords me access to sand and small rock) I might be able to swing the more substantial and equity boosting alternative. Like I said I just need to think on it more…and I will.
Till Next Time…
Hello Trouble May 15, 2012
Posted by TXMoonbaby in Uncategorized.Tags: #EastTexas #gardening #fireants #countrylife #JohnDeere #LoneStarFeed
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My working dog turned indoor pampered pet has been having cabin fever, and who am I to lie, so have I. Today with everything that is going on at the house and farm I decided to take advantage of being tied to a cellphone, stuck on the farm and an overcast day to head outside and do some weeding and prep in what were the strawberry beds.
I say what were because, well these beds stopped holding strawberries two seasons ago. Two years ago Dad had the great idea to use these raised beds for blackberries but the same fate found them that had awaited the strawberries. My cats loved lounging in them and waiting for the Blue jays and Mocking birds that came down to pick at the fruit and the bugs that were drawn to it. Since I don’t like using chemicals unless I have to, and building a wire screen also kept ME from walking by and popping a fresh berry in my mouth, once the frost hit, these beds were forgotten only to find next spring they had been covered by soaking Milo buckets, potting supplies and the electric fence Dad had threatened the bed with but I put my foot down about it.
The beds also had two things that I can’t stand. Poison Ivy and East Texas Fire Ants.
Now it use to be if I got poison ivy I would just have blisters in that area, but now it is like the stuff goes on my body’s superhighway and travels to places via my blood stream. It takes oral steroids and shots of cortisone to treat it now and I have to get it early or the affected area expands rapidly.
Fire ants? They suck. I can remember stories of me as a toddler, just starting to walk and being outside with my family. I stumbled and fell…right in the only fire ant mound in our yard. Seems this has come full circle now, thirty plus years later and I’m still finding fire ant mounds. I’ve tried that trick of taking fire ants from different mounds and battling them against each other. I think our Texas fire ants are smarter than that. Like they have mini belt buckles that say Bubba or tiny John Deere or Lone Star Feed hats. Regardless, I’m looking for a solution to my fire ant problem that doesn’t involve moving from Texas. Maybe I do need to try chemical means…then again maybe I should lose the joy of dirt under my fingernails and wear gloves.
Got a suggestion for me? Hit me up in my comments.
Till Next Time…
