Author: Katie L. Carroll (Page 112 of 142)

Elixir Bound Excerpt on Muse Blog

July 28, 2012 / Katie L. Carroll

I’m super busy gearing up for the release of Elixir Bound on August 31. Soooo….get ready for a promotional frenzy in late August and continuing into September.

I’ll be sharing excerpts of Elixir Bound; inside info about creating the cover; why I wrote the story in the first place; interviews; writing tips on scenes and characters; writing lesson from The Boy; and who knows what else.

But guess what? You actually don’t have to wait until late August because the frenzy starts today! It just so happens, you can get a sneak peak of Elixir Bound on the MuseItUp blog. And it’s a lip-smacking juicy one!

I’d love to know what you all think. (Unless you don’t like it…then you can kindly keep your terrible opinions to yourself!)

Flying Through Lucid Dreams

July 23, 2012 / Katie L. Carroll

Did you ever have a dream that you realized was a dream? That’s a lucid dream. Did you ever have a dream where you realized you were dreaming and then you were able to manipulate what was going on in the dream? That’s a crazy, awesome lucid dream (no, that’s not a technical term, but it should be).

I’m not even talking about Inception type stuff either (I wish I could do that). It’s just a regular dream, and then Whoa! you realize I’m in a dream and I know it. The subconscious dream become conscious, but you’re still asleep. (You can go from awake directly into a lucid dream, but that’s never happened to me before.)

For me, a lucid dream usually starts when I notice some logical inconsistency. It’s like my brain can’t just let the dream world unfold before me; it has to question it. Right now I can’t even think of a concrete example (even lucid dreams are fickle to remember in a wakeful state), but I know the feeling it gives me. All of a sudden something happens in my dreams that I know can’t happen in real life, and just like that, I’m aware.

And you know what the first thing I almost always do is? Fly! I imagine that says something about my personality, like I have lofty aspirations or I feel I’m in control of my life or something, but really being able to fly is just fun. It’s never a Superman faster-than-a-bullet flying, but more of a floating, gliding flying. I tend to drift up and then down, even landing on the ground at times.

I had a lucid dream the other night, and man was it exhilarating. And not only because I, of course, went for a nice fly. The experience alone of having that kind of power in a world, where you can pretty much do anything you want and physics be damned, is unbelievable.

What kind of dreams have you been having lately?

The Guests Get Creative Again!

July 18, 2012 / Katie L. Carroll

I’ve been remiss not to share the wonderful magnetic poetry that has been languishing on my refrigerator for awhile now. Such creativity needs to be shared with the world. As always, I kept the spaces in between the different magnets and I’ve decided to show line breaks with a slash (or is it a backslash..I always forget the difference).

gray man give s life like dark dream s do burn (as long as it doesn’t burn when you urinate, you’re fine)
good light / some easy / look (I couldn’t tell if the look was actually part of this poem, but it felt like the right closer for this particular piece…forgive me if I’ve overstepped my bounds a mere purveyor of poetry)
genius obsess es / inspiration play s / hard work succe ed s (the ed was cleverly placed over the ss in success)
bake me a beautiful (I love how this one is almost like a fill-in-the-blank…bake me a beautiful cake, a beautiful world, a beautiful life)
chance create s a spark of light / visible between rain and snow fall / never to be experience d after (yes, I know that moment)
blue sky / fruit trick / naked will (that will just had to ruin the party by getting naked)
always another step bird fight (can’t thosestep birds just get along)

Now it’s your turn. Here’s a selection of words from the fridge. What can you make with it?

Five Things I Hate About You!

July 11, 2012 / Katie L. Carroll

I’ve been selected to receive two very prestigious (or silly…your call) blog awards! Thanks to the lovely Mirka Breen for choosing me. First up:

For this one, I have the pleasure of naming five of my favorite books by writers I have met or know from the interweb. These are all authors I’ve met in person at my favorite conference, the SCBWI Eastern PA Poconos conference.

When A Dragon Moves In by Jodi Moore
Olivia Bean, Trivia Queen by Donna Gephart
Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
May the Best Dog Win by Kelly Hashway
Touching the Surface by Kimberly Sabatini (okay, I haven’t read this whole book yet and it doesn’t release until October, but I love Kim and know it’s going to be fantastic)

Next award up is:

For this, I have to name five things I like and five I don’t.

Likes:

American cheese (not only are you unAmerican if you don’t like this cheese, but I suspect your taste buds might be dead too)
Cream cheese (preferably on a sesame seed bagel, but it’s also good with toast and jelly)
Cheddar cheese (on crackers, in tacos, in little cubes by the handful…it’s all good)
Mozzarella cheese (pizza…’nuf said)
Ricotta cheese (but only in a cannoli, otherwise this cheese belongs in the next list)

Don’t:

When TV shows actually show people vomiting…why do they do that?
Bicyclists who want to be respected on the road but refuse to follow the rules of the road
The phrase “it is what it is”
Books where nothing happens
When you’re passing by someone and you smile at them, but they don’t smile back, even though they clearly saw you

Okay, now it’s my job to pass these awards along to five other bloggers. Except I don’t want to give them to peeps who don’t like doing these types of things, so I’ll bestow the awards on the first five commenters who say they would like to be awarded.

Finding the God Particle

July 4, 2012 / Katie L. Carroll

Big news in the world of physics today! Scientists claim they have discovered a new subatomic particle that is most likely the God Particle, a.k.a. the Higgs boson (here’s my not-so-scientific explanation of what the Higgs boson is). Basically, the Higgs boson is believed to be the key to understanding the mysteries of the universe, including what the universe is made of and how it was formed.

Two independent groups of scientists who work with the Large Hadron Collider, a giant particle collider tucked more than 500 feet under the ground just outside Geneva, came to the same conclusion that the new subatomic particle is “consistent” with the Higgs boson.

My interpretation: there’s a new particle and it looks like the Higgs boson and acts like the Higgs boson, but they can’t say for sure it’s the Higgs boson because they are afraid it might not be the Higgs boson and it would terribly embarrassing to be wrong.

There’s a chance it’s an entirely new particle that has never been imagined before. Either way these are exciting times for all humankind!