I posted this a while back on "the history lesson" section. But I've had a few people unable to find it - so I'm posting it here too. This is a short scene between my two characters Anna and Jenny. EnjoY!




This scene takes place after Anna has been zombified but before any meeting with Mr. Scrumptious. It is a stand alone (it doesn't appear in Supernaturally Yours) but showcases the relationship between Anna (my heroine) and her long time BFF, Jenny. So with that preface in mind lets delve into a girls night out....

"Oh my god Jenny, I cannot believe I let you talk me into this." Annas voice was raised over the thumping music.

"Pulease!" Jenny tossed her black hair over her shoulder and grinned. "You were looking for something to do tonight."

"Something. As in go out for coffee. Not this!"

"Just admit it, my favourite zombie, you love it!" Jenny squealed and turned towards the stage as the music swelled, announcing the next act was about to begin.

"Ladies, next up for your pleasure," a voice sounded over the loud speakers, "a return engagement with the Latin Lady Lover, Luciano!"

The women surrounding the stage surged and screeched with bliss.

Just before the lights dimmed Jenny waved at the place cards in front of both girls with a wicked gleam in her eyes.

Luciano dance onto the stage, his hips snapping back and forth. His smile was predatory as he twirled the little mustache on his upper lip. He mouthed the words to the song and the women in the bar went crazy. His waist length hair was unbound and by the end of his act he had turned around and was shaking a well waxed ass towards the crowd as his hair haloed about him.

Anna laughed along with Jenny and they both held up their large cards.

Annas read "7.5" and Jennys "5.0"

The music died off and Luciano was now available for private dances.

A tie dyed thong clad waiter brought them their latest round of drinks, a concoction aptly named "A full monty" for Jenny and a schmirnoff ice for Anna.

"7.5 really?" Jenny drawled.

"I was trying to be nice." Anna sipped on her drink.

"5.0 WAS being nice. Did you not see that huge pimple on his ass? And how small his -"

"Jenny!" Anna interrupted.

"I was gonna say, eyes were. How small his eyes were. You, Anna have a dirty mind."

Anna nodded in total agreement and they broke into laughter.

"Why aren't you drinking something fun, like a buttery nipple?" Jenny questioned when the giggles had finally dried up.

"I would think that's obvious." Anna smirked. "You won't catch me drinking anything in this place that doesn't come from a bottle." She waved a hand, indicating the dank dirty interior of "Hussies Strip Club" then she added. "You never know what you might catch."

"Anna, you're already a zombie. You can't 'catch' anything, hell you can't die!" Jenny giggled drunkenly into her drink.

"Hey just because one of us is being responsible doesn't mean you have to get huffy." Anna fluffed her insanely red hair out behind her, in the process she inadvertently slapped a passing drunk girl.

"I'm so sorry!" She turned towards the girl in apology.

The girl had a penis adorned necklace on and continued stumbling by without noticing the backhand. With relief Anna turned back to Jenny.

"I do not get huffy." Jenny stated emphatically.

"Um, that tone alone was huffy." Anna laughed just as the stage lights dimmed once more.

Jenny reached over and pinched Annas thigh in silent retaliation.

"Ow!" Anna yelped then leaned over and mock whispered in Jennys ear. "Just cuz I'm a zombie doesn't mean that didn't hurt! If you weren't my bestie I'd lay a beat down on you!"

Jenny rolled her blue eyes in disbelief then turned her attention back to the stage.

"Tonight we have a god among men here from down under." The disembodied voice announced. "The one, the only, The Long Dong Ranger!"

A man dressed in a khaki outfit sauntered onto the stage. In his left hand he carried a bullwhip, which he snapped loudly on the hard wood of the stage. His face was hidden in shadows below his Tillie hat. Slowly while his hips rocked back and forth to the beat of the music, he unbuttoned his shirt and slid it down his arms. The green shirt his the floor and Mr. Musclebound outbacker coiled the whip around his torso. The leather slicked against his greased up, hairless and oh-so-well-defined pectoral muscles. Like a snake finding its way home the whip slithered and slid its way around the pure perfection of the Long Dong Ranger.

The audience held its breath as Ranger grabbed at the waist band of his trousers. With a negligent flick of his wrist the outbacker yanked the tearaway pants off.

He stood there, all muscled and defined man, in his leopard skin thong, allowing the women to worship him with their screams. The audience lined up on the stage, waiting for their chance to tuck bills into his almost non-existent outfit.

As each woman approached, he thrust and spun and waggled his ass at them all perfectly in time with the music. Giving them exactly what they wanted, a show.

Jenny and Anna held up their matching scorecards. "9.0" They cheered their approval along with the entire audience.

A tap on Annas shoulder caught her off guard. She turned suddenly, and spilt her drink on the extra large body builder wearing a 'bouncer' shirt.

"I'm sorry!" She exclaimed, trying not to look at the offending spill, which happened to fall so it now looked like the bouncer had wet himself.

He took a long breath and then said. "Ladies. I'm going to have to ask you to leave. We don't allow Olympic type scoring."

"Hey!" Jenny yelled. "We're paying customers! You can't make us leave!"

"You may be paying customers, but you have had several complaints against you and you have made our artists feel uncomfortable."

"Artists?" Jenny stood in her five inch heels with her hands on her hips. "Artists, come on now, that's a pretty big stretch."

The bouncers lips thinned as he grabbed each womans arm and led them out of the bar.

The door slammed resolutely behind them.

"So," Anna laughed, "that was fun."

They walked laughing towards the nearest cab and Jenny smirked. "It was the first time for me."

"What you, a stripper virgin?" Anna feigned surprise to which Jenny snorted a negative. "Okay, I know you've been thrown out of bars before, so what cherry got popped for you tonight?"

Jenny grinned. "First time being kicked out of perverts row."

The cab pulled up to them and both girls, laughing piled into the back.

Don't call before nine a.m

Sorry it's been a little while. I've gotten quite wrapped up in a new project. The characters are taking over. lol. I'm at a bit of a stand still with Supernaturally Yours (waiting - patiently on the editor) so I've started something completely different. It's exciting, I love the way the characters feel, the interactions and the developing of a new story. I often feel like I have been taken over when I'm writing. As though the words aren't necessarily coming from me, but they are just spewing out into the world and I am merely a conduit, a pair of hands needed to put the story out there. It's been like that the last few days. While it is a great feeling on one hand - on the other it leaves me with more editing and reading, because it's like I have to read it again AFTER I've written the pieces to know what's going on. It's a little weird actually. Nonetheless I soldier on and love every minute of it.

I woke up this morning to the smell of spring in the air (about time too) the sun is shining and it feels like soon enough I will be wearing my beloved flip flops again.

I've always been a night owl, it's completely normal for me to see three a.m regularly. I woke up today truly wishing I was a morning person. I feel like being a morning person is a sign of maturity that I am lacking or perhaps that they get more done. I know, in my head, that there's the same number of hours in a day whether you get up early or late but it feels like the morning person is that much more productive. But when I see those chipper-little-happy-go-lucky-morning people who make it to the market, go to the gym, clean their houses, and do their gardening all before the sun rises, I get a little jealous.

I've tried to be a morning person - really I have, but I am just a total grouch if I get up before 9. All day I feel off and bitchy. PMS times four hundred and tired to boot. I can not seem to get things done. I yell. (well I'm more of a passive aggressive yeller so I glare and my venomous stare screams words for me) I just generally am not a happy person all day if I exit the comfort of my bed too early.

Then there's the fact that if I get up and go to bed early I don't get time to myself. At night when the house is quiet, thing 1 and 2 and Mr. Gloria are in bed, I find peace. I find the me time is valuable for my sanity. It's just me and Spike (my cockapoo) relaxing with either a book or the walking dead and my thoughts. Through the day I am so busy being Mom, wife, friend, sister, daughter, store owner and all the other titles I have, that when night comes I get to be me. I truly appreciate that time.

So while I want to be a morning person to prove some unilateral idea of maturity that I hold. I also don't want to be a morning person, because I feel I would lose myself. The spark that makes me - Me. I guess I will just continue on with my usual patterns. Enjoy the moon light and the quiet. The time to develop and become the person that I want to be.

Ideas, where do they come from?

Wowsers. Just finished my first edit and sent it off to the editor extraodinaire (I hope), waiting now. The first edit seemed to go well. I think...well, maybe...okay maybe not.... I guess I'll just wait and see.

Anyhoo, I've had a few people ask me where I got the idea for Supernaturally Yours, so I thought I'd write a blog post about it. It will sound cliché and maybe like a line, but I dreamt it. I awoke from a dream, a year and a half ago, with the first line of my novel stuck in my head. "Hi, my name is Anna and I am a zombie." It wasn't that I could remember the dream, just that one line on repeat. It reverberated there for days, while I tried to deny it. The thoughts continued in my head until it was the start of a story. I couldn't stop thinking about it. Within three days of waking up with that I had started writing. For the first two months it was like I had verbal diarrhea, it just came out. It was like my mind was vomiting on the page. (I know nice imagery huh? But it is how it felt) I was like a woman possessed, writing and thinking about the story, within a month I had the first twenty thousand words. After that it got harder, and a lot more work. I slogged through it. I never knew what it was, just that I had to get the story out of my brain. Supernaturally Yours is the first full novel that I wrote.

I've always been an A.D.D writer and crafter, you know the type, I pick something up play with it for a bit then forget about it. I've made stained glass, mosaics, knitting, wooden books, bath products, sewing, jewellery, and so on.. Each craft lasted for a couple of months then I got bored. Our basement is filled with craft supplies that Mr. Gloria is ready to throw out in frustration. Even with writing, which I have always done, I only wrote short stories or poetry because that's all my attention span could handle. When I say this novel is a first for me, you understand it really is a first for me. And you can understand that when I started Supernaturally Yours, I, and my friends and family, had some doubt as to whether it would go anywhere, or even get finished.

What I loved about writing a full novel was the characters. By the end of it, I felt like Anna and Jenny were my family. I knew them so well. I loved bringing the kind of relationship that they have into the light. Although it was my first, I found I truly had something to say.

I always had doubts in the back of my head. You know how it goes, that constantly nagging old lady voice in your head. "You'll never finish." "No one will like it." "It's not worth it, it won't be published." "What's the point?" THAT VOICE. I learned that the voice in my head was full of crap. I ignored Evil Gloria (as I call the doubts) and kept writing. I kept doing what I had to do, putting aside my self doubt and insecurities and letting ME out. Once I did that I found a sense of, it sounds so corny but, peace. I was doing what I had to do. Don't misunderstand, Evil Gloria still comes to play quite often but I've found I can ignore her. Well maybe ignore isn't the right word, but only listen for a little bit then I put her words aside and keep going.

Now how do I get ideas for other stories? The question is, how don't I. I constantly have ideas streaming through my head in full HD. I try to narrow them down, jot them on paper (or in my iphone as the case may be). I have no idea how many notebooks are filled with these thoughts that just come and demand to be let out, to be written down, to be heard. And those are just the ones I actually write down. (It is one of Mr. Gloria's pet peeves about me - especially since I don't write in order or even from the front to the back of the book. I just open any book up and write not caring what page I'm on. He'll grab a notebook and see that the first pages are empty so he starts to use it. Then about half way through he comes to a series of scribbled notes, and poems scattered through the pages. It frustrates him to no get out. That being said, we've been together for over twenty years now and I think that he's getting used to me...maybe.)

Right now I have two very opposing ideas floating around in there, not sure which one will take the forefront. But I'm gonna let them matriculate for a little bit longer to see which one wins.

Grammar, my cryptonite

So I'm busy editing away. While I love the story and creating the characters and world, I have issues - serious issues - with grammar. Grammar to me is much like math. Sometimes I get it, and sometimes well, lets just say, I find it a tad confusing. *understatement* Like there are rules to follow, but only sometimes. And I don't have a rule book so I have no idea what to expect. "You use a comma but only in this case, in another case it might be a period or a semi colon. It all depends." Garr! Sometimes I think this is why I write poetry - because I don't have to have grammar and can pretend it's just an "artistic statement."

I had the image today that I was on an episode of 'The Price is Right'. Growing up we were in the country and only had three channels, so in the summer I pretty much faithfully watched the price is right. Since it was the only thing on at 11 a.m through the week. (I also became addicted to soap operas, but that's another story.)

I digress, I don't know how many of you remember the one game they used to play (they may still have it, I'm not sure) but it was called the Race Game. Contestants had four prizes to choose from and four different prices. They had 45 seconds to race around putting the prices where they think they went. Then they'd race back to Bob, or Drew and pull the lever. The techno wonderful machine would flash how many were right, then they raced back out to change the ones that might be wrong. More often than not when they ran back a second time they had more wrong and had to keep going hoping to get as many right as they could.

Anyways, my thought as I was making changes today was that when I send the book back to the editor, there would be more wrong with it this time BECAUSE of the edits I've made. That I'm stuck in some weird publishing version of the race game. Trying to get it right and just screwing up worse each time. Ending up making random changes, not because I think they are needed or correct, but because I have to try something if I want to win the game.

So that's where I've been, stuck in grammar world, worrying that I have been transported to a universe where commas are part of some weird conspiracy aimed to frustrate me beyond all get out. And hoping that by putting apostrophes in the right spot means I win.

I guess that's it for today. Wish me luck as I search for the semi colon.

gloria

My Public Profile...done

Today I took the blog, the Facebook page and twitter public. Phew. I got it all done, with a minimal amount of help. While I am not a technophobe, putting them all up and making sure they worked was a bit daunting. I'm just glad I got it done. I even managed to follow a tutorial that linked the Facebook and twitter pages together!! (that's me patting myself on the back a bit)

On that note feel free to "like" me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/gloriacbishopauthor or follow me on twitter @gloriacbishop

I've been editing away, slowly but surely taking bites out of the novel, one nibble at a time. I'm finding it interesting - prior to submitting the book to the publisher I had done 4 drafts, each one (in my humble opinion) better than the last. What I find interesting is as I go through it again I am still finding plenty of things to change. To tweak. To edit. I guess it is true what they say, that one is never truly satisfied with their own work.

I also want to give a quick shout out to my family and friends. Their support and encouragement as this journey begins has been amazing. I know by the time the book is published they will be frothing at the mouth, wanting to tell me to shut up and live in the real world instead of the imaginary one in my head. And they will be right. (I tend to be a touch obsessive) So while they are still happy and not tired of listening to me I will give them a happy high five now. Thanks guys (you know who you are).

Off to continue editing.

gloria

ComiCON

I am about to dive into the world of editing. I need to have Supernaturally Yours gone through again for the editor in two weeks. But before I immerse myself into the world of grammar and plot lines I had a day planned. 

I took Thing 1 and 2 to comicon in Toronto for their first convention.  I've always been a self professed geek, Buffy the vampire slayer, zombies and firefly are my biggest weaknesses.  But it was time to introduce my kids to the wonderful world of conventions (or cons as they are called). 

For those of you who have never had a chance to go to a con. It's an event, usually a weekend long, where geek culture is celebrated. There are workshops, vendors that cater to the geek, actors signing autographs and a veritable cornocopia of costumed fans in attendance. Most cons are for anime fans, science fiction, horror, comic book collectors and so on. 

The best part for me has always been the inclusiveness that happens at a con. In the real world us geeks are the outsiders. The "freaks" (a badge that I now wear proudly but has taken many years for me to accept). I love the fact that at a con we all fit it. There are no sideways looks. There is only celebration. Only true joy in being able to dress up and be the surrounded by kindred spirits. 

Anyways, I've proudly raised my kids to be who they are. To like what they like. Without worrying about what others think. Or about what's popular and in style.  Thing 1 is a gaming Star Wars fanatic. Thing 2 has grown into a rabid Whovian (for those who don't understand a whovian is a Doctor Who fan).  

So off we went to their first con with 1 dressed as a Sith Lord and 2 dressed as a female doctor. 

They had a blast. I loved showing them the fringe culture that I, and now they, belong to. A place where they can proudly let their freak flag fly.  They loved every aspect of the convention and are already asking about the next one. 

For them and me it's like coming home. A place where everyone from the jock who secretly watches Star Trek, to the computer geek to the fan girl feels comfortable. There is no judgement just is being us in the way we can. 

If you've never had a chance to go to a con I recommend it. It's definitely a blast for everyone. 

I think I've written enough here so I will go and search for commas. 

gloria 

I'll leave you with a picture of the best thing ever. I bought it a the con and love that I look like a Wookie!

Here we go...

Hey there! I'm Gloria - thanks for coming to check out my blog. I've just received my first contract to publish my novel "Supernaturally Yours" and here I am a couple days later, blogging away like a pro. Well, maybe not like a pro but definitely like me.

I've given it some thought and what I've come up with is to blog the process of getting published. The nitty gritty, the crazy (that would be me by the way), the insecurities. Basically all my stuff - baggage or laughter. Tears or successes. Tell you about the book, about me and generally bore you or make you giggle with the things that happen.

Here I am, metaphorically naked, as I begin this journey and hope to take a few of you with me. Thanks for coming along, enjoy the ride.

gloria