“Today is a really awesome day!” I said to the kids when I picked them up.

They were in a good mood and got right in the car when I asked. They’d been patient all weekend while dealing with my crazy book signing schedule. I decided on a whim: “Let’s go get cupcakes!”

I’d seen the Cupcake Crusader was going to have her van in our neighborhood and so I took them over. When we arrived there was nobody else around. I leisurely got the kids out of the car and explained the flavors. While the kids were deciding a car drove up right behind us. The lady jumped out and speed walked over. I’d told the attended what flavors the kids would want. We were only getting two cupcakes. My wallet was buried deep under all the signing crud in my purse. Bookmarks, hat, kindle all came spilling out.

The lady jump ahead of me and said to me, “I’m going to just go ahead and order. I know what I want.”

— I nodded, now with wallet in hand. She then proceeded to hmm and ha over what flavors she wanted in her dozen box. She took the last of the flavors the kids wanted. Hooray for me for being nice and patient–rewarded with the unkindness of strangers.

Thankfully my kids were understanding and we voted to make our own at home (since Isaac is iffy with chocolate due to his stomach migraines and that was all that was left).

She did come up and apologize as I was tucking the kids back into the car– “I realize now took the last of the ones you’d planned to order. I had heard which you wanted, but I was in such a hurry it didn’t register!” She said it with a half smile, the kind people get when they know they did something wrong and are unwilling to fix it.

“Don’t worry,” I managed to somehow utter.

“Have a nice day!” Isaac called out to her as she rushed to her car in the rain.

Isaac turned to Ella. “We will save money.”

Ella clapped her hands. “Ours will taste better!”

I wondered if the woman’s cupcakes will taste as good with guilt mixed into the frosting.

If you’re looking for a great read for your middle grader, look no further than Monique Bucheger’s Ginnie West Adventure Series. Bucheger is kicking off her series on a week long blog tour to reveal the new covers and they’re gorgeous.

I think the series is especially tailored to girls, but boys will find plenty to enjoy between the pages, too. I first met Monique at a writer’s workshop taught by David Farland a.k.a David Wolverton. She has a talent for wholesome family stories with great morals and honest characters.

The series starts with The Secret Sisters Club, followed by Trouble Blows West, and then the third installment Simply West of Heaven.

Most of today I started writing a blog series on Secrets to Success with some of my insight to what makes a person successful. Usually I get a few thousand words in and think “Oh really? What makes me a pro at this?” and I set it aside to never hit publish. But then I found this blog linked from Melanie Meander’s Facebook page:

http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/what-are-the-odds-of-success-really/#comment-71046

The gist of the article is that really success is about doing things most people never actually do. Yes A LOT of people dream of being a writer, but very few actually DO the things it takes to “make it” and that’s such a huge part of success. We’d like to think it’s luck or good networking, but really, come on…It’s also the doing.

So I guess I’ll be diving into the doing.

Kristen Lamb is author of We Are Not Alone–a non-fiction book for writers on building an audience/platform. I can’t wait to read it. Just what every craft book junkie needs–another good book.

I love comments! 5% of all comments will elevate to greatness. Okay…you really have to read Kristen’s blog to get that one.

So it’s been a while since I’ve updated my blog, she says sheepishly. And a lot has happened in my writing career. Most people who even read this blog (hi mom!) will know these things, but just in case a random web surfers decides to look up “most awesome person ever” and finds my blog they’ll know the latest gossip on a nobody aspiring writer…. Who also happens to be awesome, thank-you-very-much.

(sorry, working on my “confidence”)

At the kick off of 2013 I sold a short story titled Today I Am Nobody to a professional science fiction and fantasy magazine, Galaxy’s Edge. It’s a newish magazine edited by Mike Resnick, who is NOT new to the SF/F field.

I then spend the rest of the early months preparing for the Writers of the Future Workshop, approving galleys and doing copy edits to my story Twelve Seconds Man it feels good to finally reveal even just the title name. I had to keep it super sekrit for so long. Twelve Seconds is a story about a man with autism who archives the last memories of homicide victims. He’s pulled into a mystery when he discovers a memory that is incomplete. I received first place for the first quarter of the contest in the middle of last year and then had to wait for the other three quarters of judging to complete. Then all the first place winners are re-judged for the grand prize.

I got the grand prize *throws confetti*

But rewind. I didn’t get to tell the good parts. So a month before I left for Writers of the Future (WOTF), I’d been working on short stories and second drafting the first few chapters of my novel. I thought since I’d written a cross-over novel (cross between science fiction and romance) that wouldn’t it be smart to also try to enter it into some romance contests as well? So I looked a few up, found one I really liked and had been impressed with winners in the past–The Daphne du Maurier Awards–and entered the first few chapters of my novel.

Then Mike Resnick asked me to write him two novelettes in a week (or novellas, but I pretended not to hear, because novellas are soooo long. So I plugged my ears and said “Lalalala”). I had one that was in good shape, but had to write a second that could impress, according to Locus, “the all time award winner, living or dead, in short fiction.”

And because I have a failure complex I immediately started to panic, because he’d know I’m a total fake. He’ll see right though all my smoke and mirrors. It’s easy to convince someone to buy a short story, but a novelette?? I’d have to keep up my singing and dancing act through sixty pages—that’s a lot of nouns and verbs!

Well, I wrote it. Then I gave him the stories before I left for the WOTF workshop. He read them and when he attended the workshop he offered me a chance to collaborate on a Stellar Guild novel. I said “holy crap!” in my head, but managed to keep my cool and say, “yes” in real life. I might have muddled the two phrases together; I might have just nodded my head enthusiastically. Heck, I might have just passed out and filled the rest of reality in and have yet to still wake up. Because from that point on things continued to get better and better.

Later that week I won the Writers of the Future Grand Prize (as I mentioned before). Then I flew home and a few days later got a call from the Daphne Awards that I was a finalist for their contest too.

And that’s what you missed on Smashed Picket Fences.

November 2011 I read a book that literarly changed my writing career. I had signed up for a writing workshop with David Farland (aka Dave Wolverton) and he chatted over the phone with me about my writing and then sent me a book he’d been working on called Million Dollar Outlines:

http://www.amazon.com/Million-Dollar-Outlines-ebook/dp/B00B9JYJ6W

I’d been working on my Writers of the Future story and facing my next rejection after a string of rejections from the contest and wondering what I’d been doing wrong. I pushed the story I’d been working on aside and started skimming the book.

I soon realized I’d stumbled into one of those rooms in cartoons where the amazingly rich character piles all his gold, treasures, and priceless items. Usually in these cartoons start swimming in the piles of gold and that’s pretty much what I started doing. I actually started a whole different story that I’d been outlining for years, but could never figure out how I could get it to work. I changed the POV character, I changed the structure of the story and then wrote for ten days straight (right before Christmas and into New Years). THAT story won Writers of the Future. Not only did Dave Farland pull that story aside in blind judging, but four other judges voted it in first place.

Then I waited a year and the contest flew me out to LA (this week and I’m having a blast). I’m learning from the best teacher of the field (other bestselling writers and editors).

I had been extremely excited to learn that David Farland would be teaching part of the workshop. However, a few days before we were all scheduled to leave, his son Ben was involved in a horrible accident and is now currently at a hospital in a coma, fighting for his life. Many writers have benefited from Dave’s wisdom (Brandon Mull, Brandon Sanderson, and Stephanie Meyers, to name a few).

If I were you, and I were a writer I’d buy Million Dollar Outlines or buy it for a friend today.

If I were you and I were not a writer I’d buy Nightingale, an award winning Young Adult novel.

I love comments! But I also love seeing people swimming through the room of treasures, so go buy the book and maybe stuff your pockets full of riches.