Stocking Up On Experiences

Tip of the Day: Happy INDIE-pendence Day! Today's the last day of the INDIE-pendence celebration over at the Indelibles blog. Click through the list of participating blogs and learn about great Indie authors and have a chance of winning some cool prizes.

This week my son had a boy scout field trip to a rock quarry. I could have just dropped him off with the other scouts and picked him up two hours later. After all, it was freaking hot out (104 degrees according to my car) and I had my other three kids with me too. But I thought hmm, I've never been in a quarry. What if I can use this in a book someday? You never know. I can have a scene where my main character has to sneak into a quarry to meet a mysterious guy. Or hide a body. Whatever. :-) So I decided we should all stay and take the tour with them. And it was so cool! We took a bus down into the quarry, saw the massive trucks hauling limestone, saw the machines shooting the stone up from underground (they're mining underground now), fed the huge catfish in their lake, and picked up pretty crystal rocks. It was basically awesome and I'm so happy we decided to stay.

What about you guys? Do you ever make yourself do something thinking you might someday use it in a book?

Below are some pics from the day.

Kristina, Miss Author in Action

Around the Publishing World This Week

Tip of the Day: There is still time to enter our Valentine Makeover contest. There are lots of cool prizes so check it out. And hey, if you don't win this one, I still have a contest for a signed copy of Just Your Average Princess over on my blog.

Everyone has been talking about things they love this week so I thought I'd talk about some of the fun/interesting publishing related stuff I've seen on the Internet this week.

1) This crazy funny VLOG:



2) This interesting blog post from Rachelle Gardner called, Do You Know What Business You're In? In it she compares the publishing industry to Kodak and how they kept denying the changing times (from printed film to digital) until they were out of business.

3) You know the hilarious Ryan Gosling Love YA web site? Well, it seems Ryan is tweeting now as a lit agent and he's somehow even funnier on twitter with updates like, "Hey Girl, there were chocolates and glitter inside your query envelope. You didn't need to do that. But thanks." Follow him @GoslingLitAgent

4) Anna Reads's Top 10 Most Heartbreaking Young Adult Books list.

5) USA Today's blog post, Why Do We Need Romance Novels? Complete with answers from loads of authors.


6) Karly Kirkpatrick's list of Strong Ladies in YA books on The Indelibles site.


7) Rebecca Besser's and Megan Crewe's individual posts about ways to support your favorite authors for FREE. Both ladies have excellent suggestions.


Did you see anything awesome this week that you want to share?


Kristina, Miss Author in Action