F³A: Road Trip Weekend

So I took a much needed road trip this weekend. Drove to the ocean last night. I love driving by myself. I crank the stereo (when the radio stations get fuzzy, I plug my iPod in), and sing at the top of my lungs.

Some of the favorites on my iPod right now are:

• Alt-J, Breezeblocks
• Anna Kendrick, Cups (Pitch Perfect's "When I'm Gone")
• Bright Eyes, First Day Of My Life
• Decemberists, Calamity Song
• Family of the Year, Hero
• The Fratellis, Chelsea Dagger
• Anything by Some Nights , The Head and the Heart , or Night Visions
• Joy Formidable, Whirring
•  The Lumineers, Stubborn Love
• The Mowgli's, San Francisco
• Ms Mr,Hurricane
• New Politics, Harlem
• Walk of the Earth, Red Hands
• Walk the Moon, Anna Sun
• Lorde, Royals

For now I'm by myself, but will be joined by friends later. Whenever I tell people, I'm going to the beach by myself, they always question it. As writers, I think we understand how important silence and solace is. I've not been able to write much lately. My work, my health, my kids, they've all taken precedence lately over my writing, which I hate, so this weekend I'm hoping to bust out some words.

I'm also looking to work on my future publication of Dissected. I have a website to set up, I have postcards I need to create to send to schools, libraries and bookstores. I also need to make new business cards. I've not yet bought my UPC code. I can do all that before getting my formatting back from Lori.

Are any of you on road trips this holiday weekend? If so, where are you off to?

I was also curious, many people have said Never Eighteen is one of their favorite road trip books. What are yours? To be honest, I've not read a lot of road trip books, though there are tons on my tbr list, like Paper Towns and An Abundance of Katherines by John Green, Nothing Special by Geoff Herbach, and The Year We Were Famous by Carole Estby Dagg.

Of course,The Stand by Stephen King is one of my favorite books of all time. The ultimate road trip to a battle to the death between good and evil. Then there is my friend, Gae Polisner's The Pull of Gravity , which is a lovely young adult novel about a boy trying to fulfill a promise to a sick friend.

I love writing me a good road trip book. Never Eighteen was a weekend trip around the South Sound. In the upcoming, Girl in Motion (I'll probably release it sometime next spring/summer) Chelsea "Cheesy" Reed drives from Mississippi to Texas to live with her estranged father after the death of her mother. In the WIP I'm working on now, working title, A Tattered Life, there will be a section where my main character Jaden drives from Georgia to Alabama in search of a girl he's sure is going to commit suicide after reading her journal.  I also had another in the works a few years ago titled, Finding Nirvana, in which a teenage girl travels cross country to find her dad.

Yes, love road trip stories.

If you're looking for road trip stories to read, here's a list on Goodreads, a post by the Nerdy Bookclub on their top ten YA road trip books,  and here is a list of more classic road trip books.

It's Friday, so we get the Scribbles.

iPod shuffle song: Red Hands by Walk Off the Earth

 Book of the Week: I'm back to reading Divergent . I took a break, just because I was so incredibly busy, then read a friend's book, Jenny Milchman's, Cover of Snow: A Novel , now I'm back to Divergent. Movie comes out soon. Need to finish.

Netflix of the Week: I started the last season of Breaking Bad. YES!

Quote of the Week: Oh my gosh, so many good quotes about traveling...I think I have to post a couple of my favorites.

 “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

 “Not all those who wander are lost.” – J. R. R. Tolkien

 “Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by.” – Robert Frost

Happy Friday, Happy Labor Day Weekend. Do the opposite, rest.

Monday Monkey Madness

I almost forgot it was Monday!  I'm back from seclusion.   A weekend at the beach where mostly I just worked worked worked, with intermittent walks on the beach and a trip to the casino.

I wrote out 169 postcards, dropped bookmarks off at the local bookstore and library, edited the 2k12 video, finished a first draft of a discussion guide for teachers and book clubs, wrote out lists for my release parties, wrote a poem, caught up on all my emails, and packaged up swag, books, etc, to send out.  The postcards were the big think.  Glad to have those all written out.

The walks on the beach really offered me not only exercise, but clarity.  I've been in a little bit of a haze lately, and though maybe I've not solved  anything, I'm thinking more clearly I think.  And the big, bloated, dead seal is still on the beach and I accidentally got downwind of it.  Ew!  Stink!

I think that's all I've got today.  Have a glorious Labor Day.  Rest your butts off!  I'm going to.  I've done enough work this week.  It's sunny and warm here in Tacoma.  I'm going to enjoy it because it could change at any given moment.  I mean, it IS September.

Peace Out.

Megan