This Week’s Topic: What book and/or writing conference would you love to go to?

A little over a week ago, I got to attend the DFW Writer’s Conference*, which was on the top of my MUST-GO list last year. I had a wonderful time meeting my friends, listening to inspirational speakers, and pitching to agents. 

Aside from that writer’s conference, though, my “dream conferences” to attend actually cater more toward my book-nerd-fangirl heart: BEA, ALA, and a variety of conventions, including World Fantasy con, Dragon*Con, ComicCon, YALLfest. Eventually, over the course of the next five years, I’ll be able to get to all of these conventions!

What about YOU? Any book conferences I should know about to add to my MUST-GO list?

(*I really wish I had the chance to go to my local SCBWI’s conference this year, but they held their annual conference on the same weekend as DFW Con’s. Next year!)

[I'm celebrating my blog's Birthday Month! Hop over HERE to read the deets, and fill out the comment form to enter for a chance to win a $20 Amazon or Barnes and Noble e-gift card. Remember, any additional comments on any post this month will earn you extra entries!]

I’m sure you’ve seen the “Rock God” iPhone commercial. If not, you can refresh your memory by clicking HERE.

I’ve loved that commercial ever since Apple launched it. It shows in simple digestible snippets how a dream becomes a reality. The boy doesn’t question his path. With smooth confidence, he buys a guitar, learns to play it, and eventually, rocks out with friends. And, he doesn’t wait for others to recognize that he’s a musician–he claims it for himself.

So, I’m under no illusion that he is far from sounding like a Rock God. But, I still watch the commercial and come away with the belief that yes, this boy creating this horrible racket, is indeed a musician. He is the Rock God he claims to be. Why? Because he lives his dream. Even before he had a guitar to call his own, let alone a band to play with, he had the Rock God mindset that drove him to find a guitar and learn how to play it.

I spent the weekend at DFW Writer’s Conference, and NYT bestselling author, James Rollins (the keynote speaker) shared the difference between getting published and not getting published: writing down his goal. 

After he wrote down his goal, he spent Every Single Day pursuing that goal. Even if it was a twenty-minute research session for his novel in progress or a full day of writing, every day was focused on making progress toward his goal. No one doubts that he is a successful author now, but I would argue that he thought of himself as an author before he was even published, before he found his agent. Probably the only thing that carried him through writing his first novel was the belief that he is an author.  A self-fulfilling prophecy, wouldn’t you say?

I attended several classes with James Rollins, and every time he spoke, I loved him more and more. I admired his ability to balance being a veterinarian (he can spay/neuter a cat in under 30 seconds!) and completing his novels.

(And, hearing about his journey inspired me to continue on my own. I’ll be hosting a giveaway of his children’s novel, Jake Ransom and the Skull King’s Shadow starting next week.)

I recognized some self-limiting beliefs this past week, and actually, this past month, that I need to change: mainly, that I can’t do this writing thing and should just give up, and I’m a fraud to call myself an author.

Thanks to James Rollins, I can claim that I’m an author. And, now I need to get to work!

Any self-limiting beliefs you’ve been clinging to? Let them go! Tell me your “Call Me ___” or “I am ___” in the comments below! If you’d like, I can be an accountability buddy…I throw a mean badger if you stray from your path

[I'm celebrating my blog's Birthday Month! Hop over HERE to read the deets, and fill out the comment form to enter for a chance to win a $20 Amazon or Barnes and Noble e-gift card. Remember, any additional comments on any post this month will earn you extra entries!]

Related articles

• Apple adds two new iPhone 4S Siri ads: Road Trip, Rock God (electronista.com)
• Apple Airs “Road Trip” And “Rock God” TV Ads For The iPhone 4S (cultofmac.com)

{About the Kindness Project–Too often kindness is relegated to a random act performed only when we’re feeling good.  But an even greater kindness (to ourselves and others) occurs when we reach out even when we aren’t feeling entirely whole . It’s not easy, and no one is perfect. But we’ve decided it’s not impossible to brighten the world one smile, one kind word, one blog post at a time. To that end, a few of us writers have established The Kindness Project, starting with a series of inspirational posts.}

I haven’t seen one of my favorite regular customers in a long time. I think it’s been over a year now. The last time I saw her, we hugged for a long minute on my sales floor, at the end of which I whispered in her ear, “I’ll pray for you,” to which she whispered back, “Thank you.”

She left my store that day to fight an enemy from within–breast cancer. She was the main reason why I walked in  Race for the Cure last year, and I have yet to tell her.

Some days, not often, I wonder what my life would have been like if I had chosen to stay on a pre-med track in college. If I didn’t succumb to the sweet siren call of being an English literature major. I wonder what I’d be doing if I’d finished my application to The Radcliffe Publishing course (now simply called the Columbia Publishing course) hosted in Columbia University.

It’s funny how I seem to ask these questions and entertain these thoughts when I’m feeling especially sorry for myself. When I’m feeling the most insecure about my life decisions. When I’m feeling kind of like a loser because for all my schooling, all my nerdiness, I only amounted to a store manager of a specialty retail store. Like my job title has any bearing on my worth. (Does that mean I’d feel more important if I became a doctor like I’d originally planned?)

Of course, if I I’d taken those paths, I may not have met my now husband. I wouldn’t have married him on a beach on Maui. We wouldn’t be living our version of This Old House. And, I wouldn’t have become a store manager who made friends with one of her customers and became someone she can cry on during a bleak moment in her life.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not spouting empowered, “If you believe, you’ll achieve” vibes every moment of my life. Being a store manager is hard work, plain and simple. It drains your mind, body, and soul. I never see my family during times families usually meet (like holidays). But, I have learned what it means to exercise kindness; to act on my sympathy; and to go beyond “feeling bad” about XYZ to actually doing something about XYZ. I don’t need an “I’m a Missionary” or “I’m a Doctor” badge to reach outside myself and make someone else’s day a little bit brighter.

At work, we often observe that the best and worst part of our job is the customer. There are days when they can make you feel worthless, less than the dirt stuck to the bottom of their shoe. But then there are those that cling to you like a friend and make you feel like you matter. Like your presence in their life, however infinitesimally short, meant something to them.

I know it’s ridiculously self-serving of me to even think about this, but knowing that I matter to someone for even a brief moment makes me feel like I made the right life choices after all. That it validated that one moment back in 1999 when I dropped the “Biology major” from my double major course load, and decided to pursue only English. I can still see my course advisor’s face and still remember him telling me that I wouldn’t amount to much with an English degree. I’d like to think that the people I’ve helped in my work would beg to differ. And, to me, that’s enough.

Recently, I watched This Means War, and in it one of the characters says that there are no mistakes. Every choice, every regret, makes us who we are today. We just need to accept where we are and move on from there. Or, as Steve Jobs said, “You can’t connect the dots going forward. Only backward.”

I used to wonder, “I need to find another job.” Over the past couple of years, I’ve learned to tell myself, “I’m here for a reason, and I’m exactly where I need to be.”

* * *

Posting today for The Kindness Project:

• Elizabeth Davis
• Sarah Fine
• Liza Kane
• Amie Kaufman
• Sara Larson
• Matthew MacNish
• Sara McClung
• Gretchen McNeil
• Tracey Neithercott
• Lola Sharp
• Michele Shaw
• Meagan Spooner
• Carolina Valdez Miller

Be sure to check them out We post the second Wednesday of every month. Want to join us? Grab our button and spread a little kindness.

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[I'm celebrating my blog's Birthday Month! Hop over HERE to read the deets, and fill out the comment form to enter for a chance to win a $20 Amazon or Barnes and Noble e-gift card. Remember, any additional comments on any post this month will earn you extra entries!]

“That upon which we focus our attention is what we manifest in the third dimension…

I stumbled upon this blog post over at The Struggling Writer and was so intrigued by the video that I had to share. This is an engaging keynote speech by Levar Burton that explores the idea that stories are bridges to real world experiences; that imagination is the key to the unlocking of experience.

He shares his deep love with science fiction literature, a genre that dares to ask “What if?” Science fiction literature invites us and engages us in imagining a world that we ourselves would like to see, to inhabit, to explore.

He uses his own life as an example. As a child, he read a lot of science fiction books, but it was rare for him to see people like him in those pages, any heroes of color. Of course there were exceptions, but it was not the norm, especially in the ’60s.

Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future, then, was hugely influential to him, and became one of his greatest life changing moments. Because what Gene’s vision said was:

“by the virtue of Nichelle Nichols sitting on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, there was going to be a place for me in that imagined future.”

(Considering his role as Lt. Geordi LaForge in Star Trek: The Next Generation, this reality manifested for him in more ways than one.)

…the stories that we tell each other inform us of who we are, why we’re here and where we’re going.”

He also goes on to say that he likes to think that there was a child back in those days who saw Captain Kirk speak into a handheld device to communicate to his team, and eventually created one of the most ubiquitously used device in our society–the cellular phone. (Now, if that same geek can please develop a teleportation device, I would truly be grateful.)

My favorite moment is around minute 2:50, where he talks about the link between that which we imagine and that which we create. He posits:

“The stories that we tell each other and have told each other throughout the history of development of civilization are integrally important, inextricably linked with how we continue to invent the world in which we live.”

“Human beings are manifesting machines. We are that child watching episodes of Star Trek, seeing those images, using our imaginations, coming up with a piece of technology that actually serves humanity going forward. Imaginations are our continuing link into ourselves in order to make contact with ourselves that we might share the beauty of ourselves through culture with the rest of the world.”

I enjoyed that our perspectives on science fiction literature align. I mentioned in a previous post, SciFridays: The Green Float Concept that science fiction literature is an ally to innovation because it asks “What if” and lends itself to “Why not?” 

I feel the need to quote Einstein again, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

What are your thoughts? Have you had an encounter with the written word that resonated with you as strongly?

[I'm celebrating my blog's Birthday Month! Hop over HERE to read the deets, and fill out the comment form to enter for a chance to win a $20 Amazon or Barnes and Noble e-gift card. Remember, any additional comments on any post this month will earn you extra entries!]

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway’s contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered.

This Week’s Topic:

What IRL people can you talk to about YA?

I haven’t met many of my current YA book buddies, since most of of them live in my computer, and I have yet to determine whether or not they’re just cleverly disguised Twitterbots. However, I did have the pleasure of meeting and lunching with several YA writers IRL at my local SCBWI’s annual conference, and since then, have had quarterly business lunches with a few of them to catch up on…business. So, I do have an occasional outlet to talk books.

I’m also grateful that I have a bunch of book nerds in my family. So even though they may not be up to the specific goings-on of Young Adult literature, we can always talk about stories in general and what great stories we have read recently, and why it worked for us, and what didn’t work. And, these stories can range from every genre of literature to the latest movie or television series. I know that I’ve been over-the-moon enamored of the CBS series, Person of Interest, simply because of the intriguing storyline that show offers every. Single. Week.

(Oh, and my siblings and I have been SO EXCITED that Legend of Korra finally started airing after years of following news of its release!  Don’t know what I’m talking about? Then, we probably shouldn’t be friends. Just click over HERE, and soak in all the Avatar-goodness!)

Maybe you don’t get to talk YA with people IRL (heck, maybe it’s not even your genre, so why would you?), but do YOU have anyone you can gush to about stories? What story has captured your interest lately?

[I'm celebrating my blog's Birthday Month! Hop over HERE to read the deets, and fill out the comment form to enter for a chance to win a $20 Amazon or Barnes and Noble e-gift card. Remember, any additional comments on any post this month will earn you extra entries!]

I’ve enjoyed the blogging community, and have met a lot of lovely writers, readers, and delightful nerds (and in a few weeks, I will actually meet many of you in real life!) who have become some of my closest friends. Because I believe in sharing the love and “paying it forward,” I want to celebrate the month by hosting a little giveaway.

Usually, I would normally host a giveaway for a book or two, but since there are so. Many. Awesome. Books out this month, like Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Drowned Cities or Veronica Roth’s Insurgent, I thought it would be better for you all to pick the book you want!

So, for my Blog Birthday, I’ll be giving away a $20 Amazon (or Barnes and Noble) e-giftcard! (Winner’s preference, of course!) All you have to do is be a subscriber/follower of this blog, and comment below, and you’ll be entered into the raffle! This giveaway will be open from NOW till May 31, 2012 11:59PM EST.

Please see this fancy contact form to see how many potential entries you can earn:

[contact-form]

Also, because I want you to know how much I appreciate you, any comment on any post this month, will count as extra entries!

So, tell me…Why do YOU blog? If you’re not a blogger, please feel free to share your goals for this year! If you’re a fellow writer, anything fun and shiny you’re working on?

Usually, I can follow the threads and make connections to my real life and motivate myself to keep striving, to keep pushing toward my goals. But lately, I  feel more tired than motivated. More why bother than why not–echoes of my previous thought patterns. 

‘I can’t believe that!‘ said Alice.

‘Can’t you?’ the Queen said in a pitying tone. ‘Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.’

Alice laughed. ‘There’s no use trying,’ she said ‘one can’t believe impossible things.’

‘I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

(Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, Chapter 5)

Then I remembered Alice. She was constantly faced with all kinds of strange obstacles and unknowns. No one seemed to give her a straight answer about anything. Even though the other characters gave her all the answers and resources she needed, at the time, she didn’t have context for that information until after she finished the quest.

Alice was comfortable with the unknown. She encountered the non-sensical world of Wonderland, with its talking animals and took it all in stride.

Alice was open to new experiences. A potion made her shrink. A cake made her grow. But, Alice would never have known that if she didn’t follow the vague “Drink me” and “Eat me” commands.

Alice was the ultimate problem-solver. She would question everything around her, and even when she received riddles for answers, she persisted in asking more questions. Ultimately, she made those answers work for her, bending them to fit her agenda.

And, at least Tim Burton’s reimagining of Alice, her belief in the impossible things that she already knew to be true (talking animals, a potion that can make you shrink, a cake that can make you grow, etc) allowed her to accomplish the (seemingly) impossible feat of slaying the Jabberwock. When Alice returns to her real life, she used that new found strength to leave the life that was expected of her (an arranged marriage and kowtowing to weird relatives), and forged her own path.

Alice’s adventures is yet another reminder that you can’t connect the dots forward, only backward. You don’t get to find out if the path you’re on right now is the right path. You don’t get to know if your decisions are the right decisions. You just have to trust that the choices that resonate the most with your core values are the right choices–that each day is a deliberate step in the path of your own choosing.

PS,

Just in case you need an extra push toward your life’s goals…

Have you allowed yourself to believe in the impossible lately? Have you encountered gurus (self-proclaimed or otherwise) that made you question your path? What steps have you taken lately toward your goal(s)?

[If for some reason the video can't play, please visit the TED TALK HERE.]

“It made me wonder if there could be a better way. A way to circumvent death, and yet deliver the gift of life that could exponentially impact millions of patients worldwide.”

“Stem cells provide hope for a new beginning.”

Dr. Susan Lim

I admire Dr. Lim’s vision and compassion as she talks through her personal experiences as a pioneer surgeon. I am inspired by how she reacted to moral concerns, and followed her values to find better, more innovative solutions that focused on gifting life to patients.

I think my favorite part is around ten minutes in, when she mentioned that she led her team, “at the ridicule of my colleagues,” to focus on adult adipose stem cells. Though these stem cells were more restricted in their ability to give rise to a variety of other cells, I admire her courage to break from the scientific mainstream (who were only focused on embryonic stem cells at the time) to focus on the least controversial source of new cells.

And, how rewarding it is for her that she and her team discovered that adult adipose stem cells were not only a better source for transplant cells, but through the efforts of other researchers, could also be induced* to be reprogrammed back to the pluripotent state of embryonic stem cells (with their ability to give rise to a wide variety of other cells).

So, now her lab is focused on reprogramming mounds of adult fat cells into fountains of youthful cells that they may use to form other more specialized cells, which will one day be used as cell transplants. (Uhm, I’d gladly donate some. Just sayin’)

She mentioned that the pioneering efforts today could not be possible without the curiosity, courage, and commitment of those medical pioneers that have gone before. They each have their own story. Her story was her journey from organs to cells, a “journey through controversy, inspired by hope that one day we could all experience longevity with an improved quality of life.”

Dr. Lim’s journey started with a mindset shift. What are some of your thoughts on Dr. Lim’s journey? What mindset shift (great or small) have you encountered lately? Have you debated on whether to choose the ‘road less traveled’?

Please share, I’d love to hear from you!

*The researchers named these induced adult stem cells “IPS” which stands for “Induced pluripotent stem cells”

I don’t think I can convey how much I love Julie Kagawa’s story-telling. I honestly don’t know what it is, but whenever I pick up one of her books, I get sucked right into the story.

She captivated me with her Iron Fey series, writing a world so lush and imaginative that the words disappeared, and for a time, I felt like I actually lived in a hybrid Alice In Wonderland meets Labyrinth landscape. Even when I didn’t agree with the decisions her characters made, I was lost in the fairy tales she wove.

The Immortal Rules is no exception.

Set in a post-apocalyptic world where a mutated virus creates Rabids that threaten the survival of humans and vampires alike, the vampires step out of their shadowed existence, creating cities where humans are herded and kept like cattle. Humans are registered to each Master Vampire, trading blood for food rations and resources within the city walls. Those who are unregistered with the vampires live in the Fringe, eking out an existence by any means necessary.

One such Fringer is Allison Sekemoto, who dreams of the long ago world without vampires that she’s only read about in books; where humans fought against their oppressors and not merely kowtowed to them. Allie hates vampires, and sees them for the monsters they are, but when she is attacked by Rabids outside the protective city walls, her overdeveloped sense of survival clutches onto the only lifeline offered to her: become a vampire, and live to fight another day.

And fight, she does! This is definitely not one of those “being a vampire will make your life easier” tales. If Allie isn’t slicing through hordes of Rabids, she is battling with her own inner monster that pushes her to feed. (Sidenote to writers: I would recommend this book just for the pacing alone!)

I know that many people may be put off with the vampire theme in this book, but please believe me when I say that vampires (or any other literary theme) don’t have to be “played out” or over done. In fact, this book is a great example of twisting up what’s already out there. Yes I know YA is the “hot” thing to do now. Yes, I know that vampires and dystopian and  post-apocalyptic themes have been done. But I promise you that The Immortal Rules is much, much more than the sum total of all those labels.

Moreover, it’s a great example of the power of storytelling. This book simply has It: that je ne sais quoi that elevates it from its various labels to create a compelling story.

* * *

As you know, I believe that good books are meant to be shared, and the authors who wrote the books (and took the time and care to craft these wonderful worlds) should be appreciated and supported. So, I’m giving away a copy of this book.

The Immortal Rules releases Tuesday, April 24, 2012. I plan on ordering the book Wednesday, April 25. For your chance* at a copy, please fill out the fancy contact form below. I’ll have it up between now till 12AM, April 25, 2012, at which point, random.org will pick the lucky winner for me, and I will announce the winner that day.

This giveaway is closed. Congratulations, Susan S!

*I will be ordering through The Book Depository, so if they deliver to your country, feel free to enter!

So, have you read a book lately that transcended its genre? Or, have you read a book that didn’t live up to its hype? I’d LOVE to know about it!

Also, if you’ve read The Immortal Rules, please share your thoughts, too!

Almost there (Photo credit: Kaneda71)

Recently, I discovered that I was a winner in my paythebills job’s most coveted contest. I’m not going to lie, ever since I became a store manager three years ago, winning this contest has been something that I’ve hoped for. Not in one of those realistic ways, like saving up to pay for a cool vacation or to buy the next awesome book. No. It was more like one of those “wouldn’t it be nice if I win the lottery” kind of wishful thinking.

For two years, I was a finalist, good enough for recognition and a gift card (for which I was truly grateful), but just missed out on the grand prize. So, when I finally won for 2011, I actually didn’t believe it. I still don’t. Heck, I probably won’t really believe I won the contest till I’m actually at the conference.

Isn’t that the funniest thing? Something that was beyond a possibility suddenly becoming a reality and here I am, not even believing it. I guess my issue is that I haven’t really reached an end point. In fact, I feel like I just climbed a reeeaaallllyyyy long flight of stairs, reached the platform, only to see another flight of stairs. And, another. A never-ending spiral of increasing challenges and expectations.

It’s enough to make me dizzy if I think about it for too long.

I know I shouldn’t be surprised. There will always be another milestone to reach, another goal to shoot for, another layer of complexity to master. That’s life. Besides, any goal worth pursuing isn’t about arriving at a destination, but the stuff you learn about yourself along the way. Or something.

So instead of freaking out about the sky-high results that I’m expected to deliver year-over-year, and the ever-expanding areas for which I’m held accountable, I’ve made a concerted effort to focus on my priorities week by week, measuring progress on them each month.

Eventually, I’ll get to a point where I can be in the moment and celebrate winning (probably during the conference in June). But, now, I have work to do. I need to train my mindset to meet a whole new level of expectations this year, and I have to answer this internal voice that questions if I can win again next year.

It’s a good thing I like challenges.

How about you? Any big goals for this year? Where do you see yourself a year from now?