And Anything

Photos: in the trees

admin — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 22:37:37 +0000

I did a shoot at Loose Park awhile back with Safa Warda, who was great fun to work with.

Written by Tessa, posted at And Anything

Photos: in the trees

Photos: January Muse GRAPEMO update: I’m 1k away from my revised goal! At this rate, I may even be able to make my...
iPhone photos: take and edit Today I discovered Hipstamatic, a very fun camera iPhone app. As I stopped at a random parking lot to take...

iPad: Pages and writing

admin — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 01:10:17 +0000

One of the things that excited me about the iPad was its writing possibilities. As much as I love my notebook, hauling it around is a pain--especially when I do all my hard core work (photo editing, site building) at home, and just need it to write on. The iPad, with its slim portability, seemed the perfect solution.

Having used the iPad for two weeks now, and finished my novel on it, I’ve found it an amazing (if not quite perfect yet) writing tool.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L01tl5xg0s

Shortcuts, quotes and weights

The iPad weighs 1.5lbs, and the wireless keyboard 11.5 ounces (I’m not sure if this includes the batteries or not. It requires two AAs).

While certain keyboard shortcuts don’t work--this keeps it from perfection, I want easier bolding and italics--several do. These include:

command+x = cut
command+c = copy
command+v = paste

shift+arrow keys = select areas of text
command+a = select all
command+z = undo
shift+command+z = redo

You can also use the option key shortcuts to type accented characters.

For quotation marks: Pages uses “straight quotes“ and Word uses “smart quotes.” Wikipedia has the details.

One of the big differences is touching the screen verses using a mouse, which takes some getting used to. At first, when I wanted to select something, I kept patting down the table next to my keyboard, thinking Mousy might magically show up. Now when I work on my notebook, I reach for the screen every time I want to move my cursor and am puzzled when nothing happens.

Hauling around the iPad

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg_5t8zPWLc

Accessories in the video

Purse: Deux Lux Tassel Bucket Bag (yeah, I’m cool)
Grippy case: Incase Grip
GelaSkin: She Who Dares
Keyboard: Apple wireless keyboard
Dock: Apple iPad dock
Manuscript: you’re on your own.

Photos: January Muse

admin — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:26:59 +0000

GRAPEMO update: I’m 1k away from my revised goal! At this rate, I may even be able to make my original goal. Here’s hoping. Especially since, as I was writing away last night, I got the feeling I’m closer to finishing my WIP than I originally thought.

Looking all cute & such

It took me awhile to dig through/edit the photos from the last Muse, but I think it was worth it. Here’s a few of my favorites.

Who did what

In order of appearance:

1&2) Model: Jessica S, Hair: Rose L, MUA: Sarah D, Wardrobe: House of Avondale
3&6) Model: Cameron H, Hair: Myreesha F, MUA: Marilee S, Wardrobe: Self
4&5) Model: Ashley J, Hair: M. Franklin, MUA: Krystal Franklin, Wardrobe: Monkey Wrench
7&8) Model: Britt D, Hair: Michelle L, MUA: Raysa W, Wardrobe: House of Avondale
9&10) Model: Meagan F, Hair: Becky R, MUA: Raysa, Wardrobe: City Girl, House of Avondale skirt and gloves
11) Model: Sharon W, Hair: Shana C, MUA: Sarah D, Wardrobe: Shirt & Jeans – City Girls Boutigue, Chain w/ Flowers – House of Avondale
12&13) Model: Michele S, Hair: Jen T, MUA: Lora W, Wardrobe: Self
14&15) Model: AJ D Hair: M. Franklin, MUA: Krystal F, Wardrobe: Self
16) Model: Stephanie H, Hair: Chelsea D, MUA: Krystal F, Wardrobe: House of Avondale

Written by Tessa, posted at And Anything

Photos: January Muse

The Muse Project In November I signed up for The Muse Project. (Yes I know, just look past the site design to the...
Success! Edits complete Finally, the January Muse photos are done! Got some good stuff and had fun. (On a side note, Joe McNally’s...
MP: Heather Heather Case is the lead model for the Muse Project. You can see why....

News: web design and webinars

admin — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 06:34:58 +0000

After much pain, sweat, and toil (read: putting off writing the next scene in my WIP), I’ve completely revamped the Pop Books website. If you’re an author in need of site/design work, it’s the place to go.

Pop Color is next up on my redesign list, though I think I should finish my WIP before tackling that.

Photo editing 101

For the photographers out there – interested in how I edit my photos? Well I’m covering some photoshop basics (contrast, dodging & burning) in a webinar on March 28th. It’s part March’s event for the Muse Project. For all of $10, you get to see me in action!

Books and tumbles

I’m the proud winner of SAY THE WORD by Jeannine Garsee! She’s the awesome creator of GRAPEMO, which I’ve had the great pleasure of participating in this month. (We’re hopefully extending the Grapemo deadline a week. If so, maybe I can actually make my PWG.) My teaser was entered into a random drawing, and I won her book! Can’t wait to read it.

On another note, I’m officially in love with Tumblr and have setup my micro blog at feonua.tumblr.com. It’s full of weekly themed quotes, photo snippets and random thoughts. I need more people to follow–so if you have an account there, let me know and I’ll friend you.

Also, if you haven’t read it yet, Brina’s latest addition to Deciduus is beautiful.

Written by Tessa, posted at And Anything

News: web design and webinars

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Kelley Photo & Design Photographer, Kelley Photo & Design Basehor, KS, 2006-2007 Photographed weddings and portraits, designed photo books and guest albums. Edited photos...

Contests: Linger, queries, and marketing

admin — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:57:35 +0000

If you haven’t yet, you should check out this week’s Teaser Tuesday. (Speaking of Grapemo, I’ll have to get some serious writing done tomorrow–I’m two days behind!) There’s also some great contests floating around the web this week, including…

Query magic

Elana Johnson (YA author) is running a query contest on her blog, offering a query letter critique from some very cool agents, namely:

1. Kate Testerman-Shafer of KT Literary (critique will be posted on her blog, Ask Daphne)
2. Michelle Andelman of Lynn C. Franklin Associates
3. Mary Kole of Andrea Brown Literary Agency
4. Michelle Wolfson of Wolfson Literary Agency
5. Joanna Volpe of Nancy Coffey Literary & Media Representation

Visit her blog to enter.

Marketing ahoy

Shelli Johannes (MG/YA author) is also running a week long contest, which offers some great grand prizes:

Grand Prize Package #1 – The Unagented Writer Package is for those who currently DO NOT have an agent and want one. This includes:
- A lot of books on writing and querying
- A query/ 3 Chapter Critique by my awesome agent, Alyssa Eisner Henkin at Trident Media Group!!!!!!!

Grand Prize Package #2 – The Agented Writer Package is for those who do not want an agent, have an agent, are on submission, have a book deal, or are published. This includes:
- A lot of marketing books
- Free 2 hour consultation with me on marketing you and your book
- One free marketing item – design of a business card, bookmarker, postcard etc

Enter over at her blog.

You’ve got me wrapped around your finger

For everyone who read and loved SHIVER, Stiefvater has nine ARCs to give away. Nine!

In Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver, Grace and Sam found each other. Now, in Linger, they must fight to be together. For Grace, this means defying her parents and keeping a very dangerous secret about her own well-being. For Sam, this means grappling with his werewolf past . . . and figuring out a way to survive into the future. Add into the mix a new wolf named Cole, whose own past has the potential to destroy the whole pack. And Isabelle, who already lost her brother to the wolves . . . and is nonetheless drawn to Cole.

At turns harrowing and euphoric, Linger is a spellbinding love story that explores both sides of love — the light and the dark, the warm and the cold — in a way you will never forget.

Comes out in stores everywhere July 20th. Pre-order here.

Enter to win an advanced review copies of LINGER, Sisters Red, The Dead-Tossed Waves, and The Replacement on Maggie’s blog.

Written by Tessa, posted at And Anything

Contests: Linger, queries, and marketing

Research & agent interviews Do Your Research. It’s among the top rules/tips for getting an agent, along with Follow Submission Guidelines, and Never Handwrite...
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Latest general news The White House has a bran new site, which includes a blog, an agenda, and the upcoming weekly video...

Writing: scenes from hell

admin — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 04:49:28 +0000

Today I had a scene I didn’t want to write.

I began it last night, but stopped before things went down, because a) I wasn’t sure exactly how everything would happen, and b) I’d met my word count for the day.

The scene: the MC confronts a relation at a very public, oh-lookit-the-community’s-all-here event. Yesterday, I kept running through my head all the options that would let MC off the hook–extricate herself without a huge public blowup. Her life really isn’t the public’s business, and she has more than enough on her plate already without having to deal with that kind of humiliation and stress. I found a solution that would do the trick, involving a different (and private) blow up later on.
It was all settled.

Except, when I woke up this morning, I knew it wasn’t.
The easy way out is, well, the easy way out, and there’s no way (in the world of my story) the MC’s relation wouldn’t throw the Screaming Fit From Hell. There just wasn’t.

I’m always saying that if you remain true to your characters, your story will write itself, because in any given situation there’s only so many ways your characters will act. They are who they are, this is how they behave, and if you want them to act differently you’ll have to change the situation–not the people.

So I sat at my computer with my coffee and headphones and wished myself anywhere else. Wishing my MC anywhere else–in a life where she didn’t have to go through this sticky, public hell.
But she isn’t, she just has her life.
And it’s not fair.
Or maybe it’s just me.
Because I made her deal.
The relation went from zero to sixty, bringing up resentments even I, as the author, didn’t know existed. The whole room went silent as everyone in the community got to hear a load of total, unjust bs about my MC, and I Hated. Every. Second. Of. It.

But I wrote it anyway, because that’s how it happened.

Because if her life was easy, my MC wouldn’t be who she is.

Because if she can’t overcome this, she’s not the person I take her for.

Written by Tessa, posted at And Anything

Writing: scenes from hell

iPad: Pages and writing One of the things that excited me about the iPad was its writing possibilities. As much as I love my...

Books: from werewolves to Austen

admin — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 22:09:59 +0000

For young paranormal romance, SHIVER by Maggie Stiefvater was excellent. Not necessarily because I was in love with either of the leads, but because they suited each other so well and I rooted for them all the way. Sweetness.

And the whole werewolf lore? Interesting. Of course, I’d take werewolves over vampires any day.

Checking out the author’s site, apparently SHIVER is the first of a trilogy. I’m not sure if I’m excited or…worried. I really enjoyed SHIVER, about would hate to watch it deteriorate as a series (Twilight anyone?).

Not exactly persuasive

I ran across ACCORDING TO JANE by Marilyn Brant on Amazon (before the whole Macmillan bit went down), and thought for some unknown reason it was YA. Instead, it’s an adult romance. Which is fine…except, well, if the whole I-slept-with-this-boy-once-in-High-School-and-then-hooked-back-up-with-him-when-I-was-34-despite-his-being-a-jerk story line is your thing. I found it depressing, even with the happy ending. If it meant to be a retelling of Persuasion, it missed (or miss-understood) that book.

Everyone always goes on about Pride and Prejudice, and it’s a good love story, don’t get me wrong, but for the whole depth and breadth and height my soul can reach, when feeling out of sight — that would be Persuasion. Not only is Anne an amazing, if quiet, protagonist, but the story holds THE most romantic letter in all fiction:

You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago.

It’s like hearing Nat King Cole sing “My Flaming Heart,” how could you not melt in a puddle on the floor?

But more often then not, Persuasion gets lost, tucked somewhere between Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey.

When I watched The Jane Austen Book Club movie (I can’t speak for the book, never having read it), I was floored by how every person in the film, and thus probably the script writer as well, completely missed the point of Persuasion. They at least had talking points with Austen’s other novels, some more valid than others, but all at least somewhat relevant. Persuasion, however, might as well have been written in Martian for all they grasped or understood.

Maybe it’s story’s quietness, that it’s more about people than a general social commentary, it’s threads running deep. Perhaps because the characters have endured more, lived years of making the best of what they had, when all the while they dreamed for more. Anne is strong in ways Elizabeth never had to be, and yet it’s Elizabeth who touted as Austen’s greatest heroine.

Poor Anne, she’s overlooked, maligned, and undervalued even in the world outside her pages. Still, considering how the story ends, I don’t think she’d mind.

Written by Tessa, posted at And Anything

Books: from werewolves to Austen

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Iphone: app & recipe

admin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:05:47 +0000

The first week of teasers and updates are up at Grapemo! Some very interesting stuff. I’m feonua on LJ (and Twitter and most other places on the net). My teaser is up under the new working title *drum roll please* PRESCIENCE. Wowed yet? What? Oh. Well neither am I. It’ll do until I can think of something else. Hey, my previous working title was my MC’s name, so this is an improvement.

Momento: iPhone diary

Momento, my new favorite app, is an amazing journal for the iPhone. It imports your latest activity from Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr, organizing it on a single page with your private, in-app thoughts by time. Each in-app entry can be tagged–I use this to keep up with my WIP word counts, photo projects, random events, etc.

Momento can also import past updates from the social networks into the calendar. For example, on this day last year (according to Twitter) I was:

Photo editing…editing…editing. But Rumpole keeps my company.

Best Camera recipe: Winter

Want to make pretty snow pictures on your iPhone?

Get the recipe after the jump.

Before:

The Best Camera method:

Filters used (in order): Cool, Fade, Slate, Border, and Contrast.

Written by Tessa, posted at And Anything

Iphone: app & recipe

iPhone photos: take and edit Today I discovered Hipstamatic, a very fun camera iPhone app. As I stopped at a random parking lot to take...
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Ann Ingalls at the Jazz Museum

admin — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:37:20 +0000

Last Saturday, Ann Ingalls read her new book, THE LITTLE PIANO GIRL, at The American Jazz Museum. Oh to all of you who have little kids – you need to take your kids to the museum’s Jazz Storytelling sessions (right after hitting up your local bookstore for Ann’s latest). Trust me, you won’t regret it. Man, if I’d been six or so, I’d have been jumping and singing my heart out.

Ann & her husband Winston before her reading began.

Cindi tore herself away from Farmville especially for the occasion.

The jazzy storytellers got Ann out on the floor to do some improvising.

Then Ann’s storytelling began.

Bookmarks anyone?

Written by Tessa, posted at And Anything

Ann Ingalls at the Jazz Museum

No related posts.

Books: boys and angels

admin — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 17:02:48 +0000

THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN by Sherman Alexie had me laughing from the first paragraph. Sweet, sad, true. Junior is flat-out irresistible. And yet…it’s hard for me to gauge my overall reaction to the book, since I’m not sure what to make of the ending. On the one hand, it’s very realistic. On the other…it petered out. Everything that was going to happen, happened, and then there’s extra pages about other things.

Still, I haven’t laughed aloud like that from a story for a while, and will definitely look for other of Alexie’s books to read. ABSOLUTELY is on my list-of-books-to-buy-once-I-get-myself-to-give-this-copy-back-to-the-library.

lust, fear, and flat-out stupidity

HUSH HUSH by Becca Fitzpatrick has sexy teenage lust down to a science, steamy scenes abound, but the outcomes are all Twilightesque. (The characters do, eventually, kiss later in the book.) It’s a fun page-turner, and I enjoyed the escapism.

On the BUT side, I’ve got three things:
1) Fear for your personal safety isn’t sexy. Sure bad boys and the aura of danger can be attractive -- but if you are honest-to-God afraid of being alone with him? It’s time to back up, find your pepper spray, and get the hell outta Dodge. To reiterate: IF YOUR GUT IS SAYING THIS MAN MIGHT/WILL DO YOU BODILY HARM, THEN (and I seriously cannot stress this enough) DON’T GO OUT WITH HIM!!!! This is dating basics 101, or What Your Parents Should Have Taught You When You Were Twelve. Or Seven. Or Straight Out Of The Womb.

Getting into the whole Nora/Patch romance was, at times, near impossible. If a guy frightened me as much as Nora was frightened of Patch, I’d be calling 911. You should too.

Just so we’re clear on that point.

2) I’m still not entirely sure who Patch is, as in his personality. HUSH HUSH is written in first person from Nora’s viewpoint, so most of my interactions with the boy involve Nora’s a) fear, and b) lust which don’t mix well.

3) The antagonist has a monologue. Actually, a series of monologues. I almost wished he’d go ahead and kill the protagonist so we could just get on with things. I have no respect for bad guys who feel the need to explain themselves to their victims. I’m not talking justification, but the whole let-me-draw-you-a-picture-of-why-you-need-to-die.
(Side note: monologues are especially monotonous when listened to in Audible format.)

However, on the plus side, the story had loads of atmosphere and some very creepy occurrences. And I like Nora. She annoyed the hell out of me sometimes, but then most good (as in, well written) characters tend to do that now and again.

Hush Hush

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UsDkZ1Ej5I

THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN

I couldn’t find an official book trailer, but I did find a video of the author reading his work:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwiQb8OQ6dY

Written by Tessa, posted at And Anything

Books: boys and angels

Books: Verse and fantasy I follow Lisa Schroeder’s blog, so when I saw CHASING BROOKLYN, at Borders, I snagged it from the shelf &...
Site transfers and odd books Two days and six phone calls later, the AndAnything conglomerate (including ReadWriteTweet, Deciduus, and various others) is officially hosted on...
Books: from werewolves to Austen For young paranormal romance, SHIVER by Maggie Stiefvater was excellent. Not necessarily because I was in love with either of...