My Love Affair

This appeared on my personal blog yesterday, but I wanted to share it with my SSS friends.

My love affair with music started when I was just a little girl. My parents were fans of rock music – Led Zeppelin, The Kinks, and The Doors to name a few. I was a fan of all three. There was one album though that touched me: Heart’s Dreamboat Annie.

My favorite song on the album is Magic Man, but I love Crazy on You too. When my parents were at work I’d put the album on the record player and sing my heart out. (Sure I’m showing my age. I was 8 when the album came out.) I loved Nancy Wilson. A chick with a guitar. What’s not to love? I dreamed about being a rock chick. I wanted to play guitar and sing.

Musical talent I wasn’t blessed with. My uncle though was another story. He played the harmonica and acoustic guitar. He could sing too. He was blessed with the ability to draw too. He has incredible drawings, unfortunately our family no longer has. When he was killed in a car accident his wife took all the drawings, but that’s another story.

My uncle and I were very close and I was his biggest fan. I could sit and listen to him play the guitar for hours.

At 12 we got a dog.  Dusty was my responsibility. I had to walk him. My parents were kind enough to buy me a small radio that I could carry with me while walking the dog. I’d listen to Top 40 music and the dog got to hear my lovely voice. Hahahaha.

By high school my music taste changed again to the hairbands. Sorry, but I still listen to Hair Nation on Sirius.

I can listen to just about any music but Country. No offense to anyone out there who enjoys Country. It was something I could never connect with. I’m not sure why and I’d never judge anyone by the music they listen to.

Music has always played a huge part in my life. So it makes sense that I would write a Rock Band Series. I’m still editing and hope to have this new book to my readers by May or June the latest. Each day I open my WIP I’m excited for where the book is headed.

Book 2 is already in the works so hopefully it won’t be too far behind book one.

Coming soon a blog on how I entered the world of Hard Core Rock.

The last word on NaNo 2011

I cannot believe the first week of December just zipped past! Where did it go?

Last month’s NaNo project went great. I enjoyed the experience very much. I was aiming for a mini-NaNo of 30k, but the story I was working on ran away with me. My WIP is currently at 45k and I’m going to wrap it up at 50k in a couple of days.

It’s true I didn’t follow the actual NaNo format, nor did I work as hard as some of you did, but this is lightening fast progress for a slowpoke writer like me. It was good for me to just write without judgment and constant going backward to make endless revisions, which I tend to bog me down…

I couldn’t do that with NaNo. I had to just keep pushing the basic plot forward. Added to all this, November had daily challenges and many distractions from the day job that had to be juggled into the mix. It was good for me to know that despite what was going on during the day, I could sit down and write something of significance that quickly built into a story, if I would just get out of my own way and allow it to happen.

In fact NaNo was such a positive experience I’d recommend it to any aspiring writer. I wish I’d done it sooner. NaNo may have taught me some habits and skills that I hope will carry forward and become a regular part of my writer’s toolkit. It was well worth it if only for that. The other plus is, I was doing this project with Amber Skyze and soon we get to swap WIPs and enjoy what the other wrote. That will be the icing on the cake for me.

XXOO Kat

PS. It’s my baby brother’s birthday today. Happy birthday Mark, I love you! Mark’s retired Navy, served mostly in the Asian Pacific and it’s ironic his birthday is also the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.