#PitchMas First 250 Words of LOGIN

Since today is #PitchMas, I thought I would put up this post with the first 250 words of my MS! =)
Singing to the tune of "Two Front Teeth": "All I want for Christmas is an a-a-gent! An a-a-gent! An a-a-gent! All I want for Christmas is an a-a-gent! Oh how happy I would be!"
I also want another LotR 1/24th scale Beasts and Battle Figurines that I couldn't finish collecting when I was little. I can probably take care of that myself though.=-)

Login

Program 001: Birthday Candles

I’d woken with a jolt early this morning, peacekeepers beating on my door. I thought we still had one more day, but my parents’ Grace Period to raise me was over. They had prepared me for much, but not this—how could they? While a Customized would be thinking about blowing out candles on their sweet-sixteen, I was at the Judgment Building, trying to decide which of my parents to feed to the flame. Before I’d be allowed to leave the balcony room above the Pit, I’d have to choose which of my parents would die for me.

I dug my nails into the pale skin of my arm, not removing them until they left deep marks. I couldn’t really feel any pain. It was vague, a distant sting to a nervous system that no longer belonged to me. My consciousness seemed to float above my body, but it couldn’t escape, and neither could I. I remembered how I used to wake screaming when I was a little girl, plagued by guilt over a choice I hadn’t made yet. Now that that choice was before me, I was too numb to feel anything. 

My counselor tapped her clipboard with long fingernails. She was sitting somewhere behind me, reminding me that she was still there—and that I was still wasting her time—every few minutes when she shifted the order of her crossed legs.

After a long silence she prodded me yet again, “Fayten? It’s been another hour.” 

Egglet Pitch Contest Pitches!

Herbie gets camouflaged!

Ok, sorry it has taken me so long to get the pitch winner underway. I've had a lot going on. Just look at my car! I had to dig it out of the snow! That stuff is cold! I know I've been in Idaho for over a year now, but my NOLA blood still freezes, and so does my car apparently. If I ever get a book deal...well, I won't replace my car, since I am rather attached to it (it was my mom's college car, and mine too!), but I will at least buy a heater for it. It was my dream in NOLA to buy an ac, but now I want a heater!:-)

_______________________________________________________________________________

Other than digging my car out of snow, and "car-skating" around, I've also had a few Egglet orders that needed to be taken care of. These are some of the ones I just finished! I'm still working on the randomly selected winner's Egglet, and photos of that will be up soon on FairiesAndFinds! In the meantime, you should check out the winner's blog ! She's a very interesting writer I "met" on Twitter!=)

Hiker Owl!

AdventurOwl Family!

Mardi Gras Owl for Love-NOLA's giveaway!

My personal favorite: DracuOwl!

Anyway! On to the pitches! 

These are all (or most--some may have gotten lost if they were from random photo comments) of the Egglet pitches I received. If there were too many of the same theme, but someone pitched a second, I went with that theme for them (but don't worry, if a multiple-pitched theme is picked as the winner, I will draw from the pool of people who picked that theme!). 

There were a lot of cool pitches, so I will divide them into categories as best I can. I'm not sure how I am going to pick just one winner, so I am enlisting the aid of some judges! Until I get the system figured out, please leave a comment below on which pitches you would like to see make it into the next round! Yes, you can vote for your own!=)

Themes:

Swimmer

Mad Scientist

Irish

Ghost

Rock Star

Rainbow

Gamer

Writer

Planet Earth

Fairies

Hippy Flower Child

Teacher

Author

Bee Keeper

Hanukkah

Pirate Owl

Drunk Mardi Gras Owl

Confused owl that thinks it’s a penguin

Mathematician, Genius

Cheerleader

Adventure

Angel

Geisha

Scuba diver

Baby

Imgur

Lubitel Camera

Snowmen owls.  Also the Nativity Scene may be interesting. 

People/Team Themes:

Rob Ryan Flowing Hair Owl

Saints Owl

Rocketts or Flamingo Dancer owls

Marie Antowlnette with a Mardi Gras Mask,

Einstein

Beethoven

Characters:

Phantom of the Owlpera

Zorro

Mad Hatter

Santa/ Elves

Nightmare Before Christmas Sally

The Hobbit

Minion

Harry Potter Houses!

GoT Fire and Ice!

Harry Potter

Books, Wrinkle in Time

Anne of Green Gables

Pitch Wars Mentee Bio

I decided to make this page since I hope some mentors (and maybe some agents I've already queried?) will be interested enough in Login to click into my blog! Stranger things have happened!=-) 



_________________________________________________________________________

Dear Pitch Wars Mentors (and visiting Agents?),

I picked you because you sounded amazing. Now it's my turn to try and entice you into picking me! Whew, was it this nerve-wracking for you?

This picture pretty much sums me up.

Breathless Bio:

I'm a New Orleanian currently living in Idaho. I love cats, anime, and singing (badly) songs from LotR. I drive a '72 VW Superbeetle, although I push it more often than I drive it. I'm told I look like Merida from Brave. I've had 6 concussions because—these things just happen. I'm 26. My hair is naturally red, and my eyes are brown—but somehow my hair and eyes are the same color! If I could only eat one thing for the rest of my life it would be guacamole. I support food labeling, because chemicals banned in 120 countries for causing asthma, probably cause asthma where they aren't banned too. I graduated from the University of New Orleans with a B.A. in hypermedia. I still don't know what "hypermedia" is. I have AADD (Art Attention Deficit Disorder). If it's creative, I want to do it. Two years ago I finally made my decision to focus on writing, but I still do fine art, illustration, and some Flash games. I really want to do animations again too. I sell custom hand-painted egg-owls and creeptastic art dolls. I still do tumbling to some extent, and I LOVE hand-balancing on random objects.

Books:

My greatest love in reading is YA spec-fic, which is why I write it. I love new worlds, books with meaning, and characters who feel like friends and inspire fan-art. I like books that make me care enough to cry.
Some of my favorite books are: LotR, Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Battle Royale, Incarceron, Chronicles of Prydain, Narnia, Game of Thrones, Graveyard Book, 1984, Lord of the Flies, Fahrenheit 451, Sea Wolf, Call of the Wild, Candide, Don Quixote.

Three things about LOGIN: 

1:
I think I (mostly unintentionally) poured many of my own experiences into Login. Looking at it now, I think Login is a combination of losing my dad at 14 (and nearly losing my mom a couple of years ago), feeling lost after moving, and the "personal Apocalypse" feel of living in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Edit: Wow, I think those experiences made me a better writer, and they definitely inspired parts of the story, but I did not mean for that to sound so doom and gloomy! I'm a fun person! I swear! Just look at that picture of me! That is totally fun!

2:

The Customized Children (cyborgs) in my story aren't traditional cyborgs. My cyborgs are just people with the internet built directly into their fake eyes, and an inability to logout from social networking. They—and the fact that parents must purchase all legal children "Customized" from a corporation—are my favorite elements in the story. As much as I love the internet, I think it would be horrible to be unable to logout from it. People with smartphones in their heads? No thank you!

3:

Although my main character Fayten is a sixteen-year-old girl who teams up with two boys, she's not thinking about romance. I am a huge fan of adventure (give me Indiana Jones!) so I tried to pick mentors who liked adventure, and didn't require romantic elements. Sometimes a girl's just gotta survive!

Reasons to Pick Me:

1:CC and Me!
I thrived in the art department, so of course I live for constructive criticism! I will work as hard as possible on revisions!=-) If I wasn't a ginger I would SELL MY SOUL to make revisions happen! Soul, or no soul, I will work my hardest! =)

2: These gifs.

3: Incentive. Well...Virtual Bribes.
I know how to make chocolate. Just take a minute to let that sink in. Melty delicious chocolate.

I can also make Egg-Owls. Is that bribery? YES. Many will bribe you with cookies, but I have chocolate and Egg-Owls, so PICK ME! This applies to mentors, and any awesome agent who wants to be my awesome agent. EGG-OWLS FOR EVERYONE!

4: Fangirl friends.
You can fangirl with me about a LOT of things: books, anime, video games, Ghibli, Disney, Dr. Who, Adventure Time! You can fangirl with me even if you don't pick me. My Twitter name is @DreamOfFire . I can always use more fangirl/boy friends!

5: PIRATES.
I forgot to mention this, but my book has Freelancers (a.k.a. modern pirates!) in it!

6:...There should be more reasons...but I can't think of any, so just know that I will make this face if you don't pick me. Trust me, the face looks really sad without the handstand.

Thank you for stopping by my blog! I hope you consider me!

Giveaway Winner!

I was just walking around thinking about being hungry... when I tripped over a box of crackers! Fortune smiles upon me!

Ah! Katniss met a cracker box too!

Well, anyway... I'm eating crackers now (and safely sitting), so I thought I would make a quick post. My giveaway has ended, and winners will be contacted shortly (I hit the Rafflecopter email thing like 10 times...so it either didn't work, or it sent you 10 emails! I will try again tomorrow the traditional copy/paste way.)! 

The grand prize winner was #92! As for the second prize, I will pick the top 5-10 theme pitches and then put them up for a vote. So yes, you might still win! Hurrah! Here is a picture of Mardi Gras Egglet to celebrate!

Fun fact! The lovely lady who ordered Mardi Gras Egglet is doing a blog-giveaway of her own THIS MONTH, so this little guy is actually still up for grabs! I will post more details once she puts them up!

I would like to thank everyone who made my giveaway a success! I honestly didn't think anyone would enter, but I ended up with 137 entries! I also received 20+ fans to my facebook page, and got 8 custom orders! I am so grateful for all the shares and support! Yall rock my candy-cane striped socks off!=) P.S. Does anyone want me to pick extra winners for prints? The Egglets take too long to make to give away too many of them, but I could pick some winners for prints if anyone is interested. To see samples click the "Art" page. Dark stuff/fine art is on top, fun/cute illustration is on the bottom.=-) NOTE: Ava-Dolls is working now! Thanks to everyone who told me it wasn't working before! Go here to play, and send me a screencap on Twitter and/or Facebook if you make an Ava-Doll! http://writingrevelations.blogspot.com/2013/11/ava-dolls-game-wip.html

Ava-Dolls Game WIP

This is me as an Ava-Doll.
Yes, I dress this badly!

Ava-Dolls!

Sweet! It only took about 100 tutorials, but I finally found a way to upload my work-in-progress game to Blogger! I haven't uploaded it anywhere else yet — except I guess those very sketchy looking SWF host sites that didn't work....

The game isn't done, but there are only so many years something can sit unshared on your computer. The art gets sad when it is neglected, and I start to wonder why I spent so much time working on it for it to just sit in a poorly organized folder on my dying computer. The game still has some buggy code, there are a ton of items/hairstyles I've made but haven't added yet, and I STILL can't get the loader bar to work, but eh, you can play it now! I just haven't had any time to work on it for the last few...er...several months. ;_; Very sad. _________________________________________________

My sis on the left, her friend on the right!

Anywho, these are my Ava-Dolls (c)! I started making this game for these twins I used to babysit, but then I wanted to see how many of my friends I could make with the game, and I never stopped adding to it.

I want to have enough customization that it can eventually be a digital avatar maker. Yes, if you have read my book, you may have noticed I have an obsession with customization.*wink*

I think some of the Avas would be great DOLL dolls. If they were in better quality I would take them to the next Licensing Expo. I really want to get some of my artwork licensed.

Wow, this post sounds very dull and dry, doesn't it? I don't know why I'm not good at blogging. I love writing so much. It's what I want to do for the rest of my life, but dagnabbit, I am not good at blogging, or at formatting a blog!  Look at the oddly placed pictures and forget my boring words!

______________________________________

Hermione, Luna, Ginny, Cho, Pansy

Yes, I made it so you can make some of the girls from Harry Potter! I deactivated the "Wizard" button, so you have to work to find the Hogwarts-esque clothes! I have some more Witchy awesomeness that I haven't added yet.=)

Other combos!
The 2nd doll from the top is my BWEFF!
Check out her photography here!

Screencap!

On to the game! Like I said, it still needs a lot of work, but if you play it, take a screencap of the Ava-Dolls you make and post them in the comments!=-)

....I think you can post photos in the comments? Oh, well...guess we'll find out!

Ok, so you can't post photos in the comments on here, but you can always tweet screencaps of your dolls at me "@DreamOfFire" or post them to https://www.facebook.com/IndiscriminateArt
I will make an Ava-Doll gallery!

Stay tuned! I sometimes do giveaways where you can get your own custom Ava-Doll picture + your favorite clothes added to the game! I also do commissions for them for 20 bucks!=)


Game WIP! After a dozen tutorials, I still can't get the loader bar to work, so it takes a minute for the game to pop up. It's a fun 2 minute distraction, so make some Ava-Dolls!=-)
Any suggestions are welcome! I think the eye/hair colors need to match up, and the game needs more hats, bags, and hairstyle choices. ...Gods, that is the girliest thing I have EVER said.



End Test.
NOTE: I apologize for the terrible formatting of this post. It makes my eyes hurt to look at it too, I just can't get things where I want them. Blogger mystifies me.

My 15 Minutes of Sorta Fanart Fame!

Stare at the glory of my illustration skills! Do IT!

Ok, so a year or so ago I typed "Boy with the Bread" into Google because I am a HUGE "Hunger Games" fan, and Peeta is one amazing character ("Boy with the Bread" is his nickname). I was scrolling through the images...and WHAT THE HECK, I saw a fanart  I drew in 2011 on the bottom of the first page of Google Images. I counted and it was like 48th or something. Anywho, I thought that was super cool.

I forgot about it for a couple months, and when I typed it in again it was 23rd! I was so excited, I started checking more often. It was 14th for forever, and then BAM, number 6--JUST outside showing up in the top 5. It stayed there for months. I thought this was my proudest achievement EVER.

Then...I checked again a couple weeks ago. DeviantArt changed the way it was hosting the original image, so clicking it no longer went straight to the image. My picture moved down... and down... and down again...
.=-(
I was very sad.

What did I ever do to deserve this sadness?

I sighed and decided my little 15 minutes of "sorta fanart fame" were up (if I ever had any sorta fanart fame to begin with...I mean, only 1 person stole my image! The higher the volume of thieves, the more successful the artist, so yeah, I'm not famous yet. :-) ). I decided to move on with my life and just forget about it ever being in the top again.

Depths of despair pictured above.

But...

I have crazy OCD. I can't leave things alone. I used to do the whole light switch thing and everything. I even thought about taking all the clothes numbers off the doors in a dressing room to match them up with their appropriate numbers last week. HOW DARE you take 5 articles of clothes into the 3rd dressing room! What is wrong with you?! Anyway, yes, I am crazy, so I checked one last time and WHAT!?

Pictured: proudest moment of my life!

My illustration broke the top 5! It's number 3 right now, which means it shows up on Google results before you even click into images!!!!!!!!! I never thought anything of mine would make it anywhere near the top! I don't know how or why it got there, but I am so happy!

90% of gifs lazily obtained from same source.

WHO KNOWS! Maybe Suzanne Collins herself has seen my drawing! AHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

End gloat!

I hope someday my writing will make it, and people will draw fanart of my characters!:-)


------Process!

GifTASTIC!

If you want to see the WIP, click this post! http://writingrevelations.blogspot.com/2013/08/still-boy-with-bread.html
If you noticed that Peeta's sword disappears (kinda like his other leg...I shouldn't draw attention to that...), congratulations! You win a prize! I forgot about it, but its ghost remains!!=-P

-----PLEASE vote for me!

If you want to vote for me to be Hunger Games' Fan of the Week, click here and give my drawing a "spark"! http://www.thehungergamesexplorer.com/competitions/onsite/Fan-Of-The-Week/hge/2648/

----- OWL GIVEAWAY!

If you want to enter my shop's Egglet owl giveaway, there are still a couple of weeks left to enter (commissions are always available too)! Go here!
http://writingrevelations.blogspot.com/2013/10/custom-eggletowl-giveaway.html

Custom Egglet/Owl GIVEAWAY

The writing world is filled with amazing contest organizers, blog hosts, slush zombies, critique-rs, and participating agents. These wonderful people have given me the warm fuzzies for contests.

So... I thought I would do a contest of my own!

My shop Fairies&Finds is doing a giveaway.

Details:

This will be a random drawing, so no stress for entries! 
Enter via the Rafflecopter widget below. You will have until November 18th to enter.
All the Rafflecopter extras are optional. Liking my page/Twitter through it will give you extra entries!  
    

The Prize?
One (1) custom Egglet (owl) from my shop! Egglets are wooden, hand painted, egg-shaped owls around 3-4 inches tall. They are all designed, painted, and signed by me.
---Note:
The winner is going to have to pick the theme they want. Anything from "I want a purple owl," to: rainbow, cowboy, doctor, Frakenstein's monster, African animals.... Yes, basically anything you can think of, so get your creative pants on!

Secondary Prize?
People can pitch their owl "theme ideas" via Rafflecopter, FairiesAndFinds' FaceBook giveaway post, or in the comments below. A second winner might be chosen if enough themes are pitched!
(Comment example: YOUR NAME:___ Theme: BALLERINA)  Get creative! =-)

Note:
Egglets take a while to create, so winner(s) should expect a week or two for their Egglets to be made.

Please like my shop's FaceBook page for updates! https://www.facebook.com/FairiesAndFinds !


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Dreamcast!

It was all that jazz!

These last 2 weeks or so have been mental. Working until 3a.m. + getting up with the sun? Ahh! NO! 

I haven't had any time to relax or do anything fun. ...Ok, I did go see "Chicago" so the "no fun" part is not entirely true.  I basically have had no fun, and this tendinitis in my right shoulder is making typing painful, and me miserable. I'm a masochist though, and although I have a ton of work-related typing I should be doing, I'm going to blog instead! Take that, world! I'm taking a break from this week, and I'm going to blog, AND I'm going to create a new board on Pinterest! Go me!

Ok, on to the subject of this post. I've seen several other writers do "Dreamcast" boards for their novels, so I thought I'd start one too! I haven't been able to give it a lot of thought yet, but I've at least found a couple of actresses who would be great for my heroine, and honestly...I actually already had Sendhil Ramamurthy in mind when I first introduced my MC's godfather. Sendhil  was just so cool in "Covert Affairs."

PINTEREST LINK:    http://www.pinterest.com/dreamoffire/dreamcast/

[edit] DREAMCAST for my book! Woo!

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Fayten Lena

Alia Shawkat

Picks for "Fayten Lena," heroine of my MS.

I just saw my first episode of "Arrested Development" and I thought this girl looked familiar. One IMDB minute later, my suspicions were confirmed. Alia Shawkat played in one of my sister's all time favorite shows: "State of Grace."

While looking at Alia's IMDB page, it suddenly occurred to me that she looks a bit like my sketches for Fayten. That's actually were this whole "dreamcast" thing started.

Isabelle Fuhrman

Isabelle Fuhrman played "Clove" in "The Hunger Games." She seems like an awesome actress, and she fits Fayten's description really well!

Fayten is supposed to be a tough cookie, and both of these girls look like they kick butt!=-)

Kyran

James Gaisford

Why James Gaisford? Because he was amazing as young Haymitch in Mainstay Pro's Quarter Quell mini-movie.I will put a link to that later. He's talented, and he already has the glare thing down.

Rian Vance

Roomie!

Oh gosh, another cute boy. Now it looks like my story is a romance.... It's not. It's an adventure, baby!

Ok, so this is not the most prepared of choices. I don't even know what this guy's full name is, or if he's even an actor.... but I do know he's a Swedish singer called "Roomie" and when I was laughing my head off at one of his awesome videos last year, I decided that he looked a lot like my character Rian. Rian is a genius hacker, but he's also a musician, so I thought this choice was appropriate.;-)

Robbie Kay

I am loving Robbie Kay as Peter Pan on Once Upon a Time, so now he's also on my dreamcast list for Rian too!

Roy Rangarajan

Sendhil Ramamurthy

Sendhil Ramamurthy would be my pick for Fayten's godfather Roy, the leader of the Unplugged. I would write more about how awesome Sendhil is if the tendonitis in my shoulder wasn't throbbing so much! Owww!

Jenna Tack

Zoe Kravitz

Ok, so I was looking for an actress who looked like they could kick @ss, since Jenna Tack spends most of her time in combat training. I also wanted to find an actress that I'd seen in at least one movie (I'm really bad at remembering actor/actress' names...except for the cast of Harry Potter...) so I knew they were talented as well as pretty. Zoe Kravitz is all those things rolled into one!

Yay! And I found a picture of her with short hair! Now she fits Jenna so perfectly, and I'm even more in love with my pick!

Wow...I only just realized Lenny Kravitz is her father! I'm such a dummy! American woman, da-duhn!

Catrina (aka, the Red Witch)

Evangeline Lilly

Catrina is the captain of the Freelancer ship, the Trickster, and she is one of my favorite characters. She's a sexist jerk, and I totally love her! Finding an awesome dreamcast actress for her was fun, and ended with the amazing Evangeline Lilly! I can totally see her as the man-crusher!=)

#PitMad

Created a tab for PitMad info! Yeah, and then I deleted most of it! Woo! http://writingrevelations.blogspot.com/p/pitmad-excerpt.html

Still the Boy with the Bread

I've always wanted to do one of these "illustration process"-things. This is one of the few drawings where I did save jpgs throughout my time working on it, so yay! Now I can! If you click to expand the first drawing, you can click through the slideshow and see the changes applied.=)

This is my TRIBUTE (pun heavily intended) to Suzanne Collins' wonderful "Hunger Games" series. It's one of my favorite series, and this is one of my favorite drawings too. If you type "boy with the bread" (Peeta's nickname) into Google images, this drawing actually shows up on the front page! How cool is that?

1: Sketch!
      Katniss is the "Girl on Fire," so I've always felt like Peeta was the water to Katniss' fire. <3
      Rue, Cinna, Prim, Gale, and Haymitch were originally going to be inserts on the left side, but I
      won't put up a jpg of that since they didn't make the final cut.

2: Lineart!
           Cleaned up the characters with ink, and extended/added detail to the background in pencil!

3: Colored characters!

4:Laying in colors!
              Never really painted trees, so I kinda didn't know what I was doing! These were the original                         colors, and yes, they are quite horrid!=)

5: Final Version!
         Blurred the background elements, added some plants, and darkened everything.

6: Space reserved for possible Future Final Edit!
            I do still occasionally  edit things that bother me.=-)

Licensing Expo 2013 (Favorite Photos)

Licensing Expo 2013!

Since writing is my thing,
I had to get a photo of the Penguin booth before opening!
I actually saw a nice editor I'd met at a SCBWI!

Ok, so I got asked to assist my friend (who is an incredible artist!) at Licensing Expo 2013 in Vegas, and, for once in my life, I didn't overthink things, bought my ticket, headed to Las Vegas... and had the greatest experience of my life! I learned trade secrets from artists whose work I have unknowingly encountered for years, and had my mind opened to new possibilities and new inspiration. The Expo was like everything good in this world, combined and wrapped in a tortilla with extra guacamole on top! The only way it could have been a better experience, would have been if I could have attended Licensing University, and the Expo, at the same time!

The Expo was chock-full of every major company/brand you could think of (Disney/Cartoon Network/ Nickelodeon /Mattel/Hello Kitty/Lamborghini/Penguin Publishing), each competing for attention with mind-blowing visual displays that often trailed down (or climbed up) to the 3-story tall ceiling in the Mandalay Bay convention hall. I saw everything from Macy's Day Parade-esque balloons, to giant sculptures of popular characters and massive banners. The "booths" showed off new merchandise and exclusive giveaways, while important looking people from all over the world discussed business.

One of my drawings! Yay!

The Expo also had a smaller area specifically for artists looking for (and finding) licensees.

 I loved working for an exhibitor, although I'm not sure how much I helped. It was hard not to wander off, lost in displays that more than rivaled the Vegas Strip. It was incredible to get this "behind the scenes" look at the global world of licensing (and to be surrounded by global brands, celebrities, and artists!). I'm still searching for an agent for my novel, but I'm hoping to find enough time to develop some of my art concepts, and to invest in a booth of my own next year. With a bit of luck, and a lot of work, it might actually be possible to have merchandise made from my drawings!!

Licensing Expo 2013 Photo Dump!

Licensing Expo 2013 Photo Dump!

Oh my goodness, where to begin! Ok, so I got asked to assist my friend at the Licensing Expo in Vegas this year, and, for once in my life, I didn't overthink things, bought my ticket, headed to Las Vegas... and had the greatest experience of my life!

Wrestling With Word!

Wrestling With Word!

Ok, like most people, I have a love/hate relationship with Microsoft Word. On the one hand, I couldn't live without it. It's the air I breathe, the water I drink, the spellchecker I so desperately need! So yeah, it's the best thing since sliced bread! But there is a darker side to Word, and it is called, "Oh, you want to do something other than write in me? GOOD LUCK!"

The most recent wrestling match I've had with it: How to change where "Page 1" starts. 

Note: I have Word 2007, so these tutorials (most likely) only work on that version.

Onwards! So if you want  "Page 1" to start on the second page of your document, it's pretty simple: Insert > Page Number > (select a style) > (green Design Tab pops open) select the "Different First Page" checkbox. 

Now Page 1 will be blank, but Page 2 will still say that it's 2. To fix that, follow this next step.

"Page Number" (on the left side of the ribbon) > Format Page Numbers > select "Start At" > change number in the dropdown list to "0".   

Yay! That should work!

Now here is where things get pull-your-hair-out-complicated. What if you want the numbers of your document to start on Page 3? Since the search term popped up before I'd even finished typing it, clearly a lot of people have been asking the same question. You would think that you could go to "Start At" and simply change that number to a minus 1, but that would be way too easy--and life is all about trials, right?

A Google search can lead you to the right 20-step answer in seconds, but finding the answer doesn't mean your troubles are gone.

Most of the tutorials I tried ended up messing up my document's formatting for some reason, and after an hour or two of wrestling with it, I still couldn't manage to get the numbers exactly how I wanted them. I wanted the first two pages to be blank, but for some reason, page 2 wanted to say "Page 1," and every time I deleted it, it deleted all the other page numbers too. So I ended up having two "Page 1"s.

Note: I had to Copy>Delete>Paste most of my document to keep it from having a blank page between the page break.

Here is a link to the tutorial that worked best for me. If I figure out how to do a better job, I will edit this post!

I used the answer by "The Phlebob":  http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090521031120AASsL1l

The Cutest Graveyard

Out of the Ditch of Distraction, Back in the Trenches

My "Egglets (c)"! I am opening a shop that sells them!=-)
Distraction # 1

      Ah, lately my brain has been just about everywhere (except where it needs to be)! I've allowed myself to get distracted, but now it's time to get back on that query horse. I have a lot of things I truly love, but I only have one dream, and writing is it! To help me out of the ditch of distraction I've fallen into, I ate ice-cream for breakfast, and bought some lucky bamboo for inspiration. The planets have aligned, my mechanic said my car has the only working windshield washer sprayer he's ever seen on a bug (which is a very good sign, if ya didn't know!), and my mom gave me a pep-talk. My mom also gave "over analyzing" a new pronunciation/neologism to let me know that I am being way too obsessive about my query letter! I need to stop nitpicking its appearance. I'm not sure if this counts as a "Writing Revelation" or not, but I guess I've learned that staring at a query letter is not the same thing as querying. I can brush its hair and straighten its tie one last time, but then I really have to close my eyes and wish it the best as it ventures off on its own life. I'm not going to get anywhere unless my baby does!=)

The Cutest Graveyard

     I just bought an iPod Touch! Yes, I am entering the modern world! As much as I write about technology, one would think that I used a lot of the stuff, but I don't. I just got rid of my bunny-eared TV last year, and this iPod is my first Apple-anything! I am super excited that I can have a camera with me at all times now, and I am able to record things such as...the CUTEST GRAVEYARD EVER! Yes, I made the mechanic laugh when I called it that. :-)

     I think I might have mentioned I drive a '72 Super Beetle. In NOLA there were few bugs (especially after Katrina), but in Idaho they are a lot more common, so there are shops that actually work specifically on them! Yay! My car needed a check-up, and this is the Cutest Graveyard Ever, where the mechanics pull some of their car parts. I think the cars in the front row are mostly running/fixer-uppers, but there are a lot of old wrecks in the back.