Author: Katie L. Carroll (Page 117 of 142)

No More Waiting!

October 24, 2011 / Katie L. Carroll

I’ve never thought that sitting around wishing for something to happen makes that thing happen. Not that I haven’t done my share of wishing on shooting stars, on eyelashes that have fallen out, when the digital clock reads all one number (like at 11:11, for example), on a coin thrown into a fountain, when splitting a wishbone, when blowing out birthday candles…okay, I really don’t just sit around wishing on things all day.

Oddly enough, though, a lot of writing is sitting–the old butt-in-chair as you write–is waiting–to hear back from critique partners, agents, or editors–and is wishing–because you’ve got to have something to keep the hope alive. But you also have to be active too. I need to experience life in order to be inspired while I’m sitting and writing, I need to send out my work in order to wait to hear back, and I need to actively daydream about my life as a best-selling author to fuel all those wishes (okay, that last one doesn’t really work, but you get the idea!).

So for that past year or so, I’ve been submitting my writing more actively than I have in all my previous years as a writer. Some opportunities have come up. And a strange thing happened: I found myself turning some of them down.

It wasn’t because they weren’t good opportunities or because I had so many offers pouring in that I could just shrug off the ones that didn’t give me the most gain. It was because they didn’t feel right in my gut. Not that the offers were bad; it’s more that they were not the right fit for me at the time. Every time I’ve said no, it’s been very, very hard. What if I never get another opportunity for that piece of writing? What if I never get another opportunity for any piece of writing? Did I just say no to the only chance I ever had as a writer?

The thing I’ve come to realize is that a single no or a string of noes (I originally typed “a string of nose,” which would be an entirely different thing…LOL!), whether it’s someone else telling me no or me telling someone else no, doesn’t mean the end of my writing career. My career ends when I stop sitting and writing and waiting and wishing.

It just so happens that some 3,120 days since I first conceived of the idea that, yes, I can be a writer for real (this is an estimate because I don’t remember the exact date I thought this), a pretty big opportunity has come up. One that I feel is right in my gut…one that I am going to say yes to. One that makes me want to climb to the top of my house and shout “YES!” from the rooftop (admittedly, this wouldn’t be too hard because I live in a one-story ranch).

So maybe sitting, waiting, wishing worked out okay for me after all. I think I’ll go do some more of that and maybe the next offer will be even bigger.

Making Connections

October 4, 2011 / Katie L. Carroll

When I was a freshman in high school, my older sisters’ best friend was the captain of my soccer team. She was kind enough to drive me to school, let me hang out with her in between school and practice, and drive me home from practice.

One day before practice we were driving around with some of our teammates and decided that we wanted to “make an entrance” as we drove down the small road that led to the field. We flipped through the radio, hoping to find either a rap song with a solid beat or a hard-hitting rock song to blast. The radio failed us.

So we went the complete opposite of what we had planned and blasted the lamest song we could find: Celine Dion’s It’s All Coming Back to Me Now. Let me tell you, we rocked that song like it’s never been rocked before! And we made a hell of an entrance! Even though I couldn’t stand that song before we rocked it out, I now listen to it fondly all these years later.

Then there was the time my sisters (all three of them) and I were at a wedding and Lady Marmalade (the Pink, Aguilera, Mya, and Lil’ Kim version) came on. The four of us danced and lip-synced to that song like we were shooting a music video for it. I had thought that song was pretty good, but now I love it and always listen to it with a bittersweet mixture of pure joy and pure sadness (since one of my sisters died not too long after that occasion).

The point of all this reminiscing (contrary to what it may seem, I try to have a point to all my posts…even when the point is somewhat pointless). I consider myself something of a free-thinker. I’m often stubborn (a trait it seems The Boy has inherited) and don’t like to think I’m easily swayed by others opinions. Not that I’m totally inflexible. On the rare occasion someone backs up their point with solid reasoning and proves me wrong, I’ll totally give them props for it.

Yet, when it comes to sharing moments with people and music (as is often the case) or a movie served as a catalyst to that moment, my opinions are easily changed. That song that I hated, but my hubby loved became a cherished song for both of us when we listened to it in the car together during a vacation. That TV show that always used to make me roll my eyes because it was just so dumb became one I faithfully watched with my dad and brother because we just had so much fun mocking it. And you know what, I truly ended up liking it by the time the series was over.

There’s the flip side of this too. Did you ever really like something and you mentioned it to someone and they were like, “Oh, I hated that. It was so stupid”? And then the magic of that thing was gone for you too.

I think what it comes down to is connections (and isn’t that what so many things come down to?). If you can make a connection over something, that thing becomes more special, but if that thing is a source of a disconnect, then it loses its charm. I guess I’m not as badass stubborn as I thought I was after all!

Was Einstein Wrong?

September 23, 2011 / Katie L. Carroll

BIG NEWS today regarding the very fundamentals of physics and how the universe works. This latest mind-blowing development comes not from the Large Hadron Collider, but from OPERA (Osciallation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus…yeah, I know…huh?). It turns out Einstein might have been wrong…that’s right, Einstein might have been wrong.

Scientists at the CERN physics lab just announced that subatomic particles called neutrinos were observed to be traveling faster than the speed of sound. So that whole E=mc²thing may need to be rethought because it is based on the the theory that it is impossible for any particle with mass to accelerate at or above the speed of sound. BAZINGA (as Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory would say)!

But you may want to wait a little longer before you tell that iconic Einstein poster hanging above your bed, “You just got served!” Before scientists call the measurements true (even though the 60 nanoseconds faster than the speed of sound the neutrinos traveled is above the 10 nanosecond margin of error), they want to verify with independent tests.

Tune into the CERN live webcast, which I thought was supposed to take place at 16:00:00 (Europe/Zurich) today, but I think that time has already passed and the webcast doesn’t seem to be up. I’ll keep checking back to the page for the latest.

A Beautiful Life Is Born

September 19, 2011 / Katie L. Carroll

I believe I tempted fate with my last post because The Boy decided to make his appearance right in the middle of the hurricane! He was 17 days early (still full term, but his nursery wasn’t quite ready for him!) and mommy and baby are happy and healthy. (And, no, if The Boy had turned out to be The Girl, we would not have named her Irene!)

What I learned during the whole labor and delivery process (don’t worry, no gory details) is that it’s great to have a plan, but expect that plan to be thrown out the window (and whisked away by hurricane-force winds). My doctor was on vacation (of course) and so the on-call doctor (who I had never met) was there for the delivery. She was perfectly competent and an experienced doctor, but let me just say that I wasn’t used to her brand of bedside manner. It wasn’t that she was necessarily rude or mean or uncaring, she was just a bit odd.

Case in point, the doc and her husband has purchased property a few blocks from us. We noticed this piece of land because what had been a tiny old, dilapidated house surrounded by overgrown plants was very quickly transformed into a huge, gorgeous house with a manicured lawn and nice cars in the driveway. It came as no surprise that a doctor had bought it. When we first learned she was the on-call doctor, my husband recognized the name from the property transaction in the local newspaper.

During the early part of my labor (when I was still coherent and interested in engaging in small talk), the doc mentioned that she was in the hurricane evacuation zone, but that her husband was going to stay in the house with the dog. I was like, “Oh, yeah. You live not that far from us.” Then I went on to compliment her on her nice new home.

Big mistake! I realized it was kind of weird that I knew where she lived and quickly explained that we had noticed how quickly the house had been built and saw the property transfer in the paper. The doc was like, “It bothers me that anyone can see how much I was taken for a property by the water.” The she went on a bit of rant about how a suspicious car was driving up and down her street recently and she didn’t understand why she couldn’t find out who it belonged to by looking up the license plate but it’s posted in the paper how much properties go for.

It seemed like a weird time to vent about such a trivial thing (given that I was in labor 2 1/2 weeks early in the middle of a hurricane) and I wasn’t really in the mood to debate what goes into public records and why. Yet she kind of has a point. I don’t necessarily care that property transactions are listed in the local paper, but I do think that certain things should be kept private. Hence why I’m not posting The Boy’s name or a picture of him on my blog.

Exploring the Uncontrollable and Unexplainable

August 26, 2011 / Katie L. Carroll

I know, I know: Everyone’s talking about Hurricane Irene! Well, I do what I want to do, which often isn’t what everyone else is doing, but what I want to do today is talk about Hurricane Irene, so I won’t let the fact that everyone else is doing it stop me.

I’ve got to admit, earlier in the week I was a little freaked out. I don’t normally get all worked up about things like the weather. Where a hurricane goes is out of my “circle of influence” and while I can take steps to prepare for one, there’s absolutely nothing I can do to stop it from coming. But I’m 9 months pregnant, so I’m trying to give myself a little slack for being more worried than usual about something like the weather.

Really, I shouldn’t be that concerned because The Boy has proven to be resilient through record-setting snowfall, a tsunami, and an earthquake. He’s probably in the womb saying, “Bring it on, Mother Nature!”

Thinking about my lack of control over the weather, got me thinking about my YA fantasy Elixir Bound because certain higher beings in that story can control the weather. They use it to communicate with each other and to send messages to regular-old humans too.

Then that got me thinking about how an author can take something that is uncontrollable in the real world and manipulate and control it in a story. There’s terrible things in life that we have no control over, like war, rape, abuse, your 16-year-old sister suddenly dying when some unknown thing attacks her lungs. And for all intents and purposes, none of these things make any sense.

So as a writer, I can take a world that is often confusing and scary and try to make sense of it. There is something very empowering about that. That doesn’t mean I will succeed at making anything in this real world make sense through my fictional world, but at least it might open up a dialogue (even if that conversation is only taking place in my own head). And maybe someday others will connect to that thing I was trying to make sense of and will realize they’re not alone in their feelings.

Because there’s lots of other wonderful things in the world that can’t be explained either, like love and souls. As a writer, I explore these crazy, scary, wonderful things in my stories. First I explore these things for myself. And hopefully, others will read what I’ve written and explore those things for themselves.