1 Word Interview with Misha Gericke and Celebrations!

As a newish feature on my blog, I'm hosting a series of guests for "1 Word" Interviews! My hope is to highlight authors and bloggers in super short interviews that will give you a taste of their awesomeness and make you long for more. Then you can follow the links I'll provide and get to know them better through their blogs and books.

Please welcome Misha Gericke, author and blogger!

1. What's your current favorite word?

Agitation. 

 

2. In one word, what inspires you?

Everything

 

3. What's one word that describes your writing habits?

Eclectic

 

4. What's one word that you wish you could get rid of in your writing?

That

 

5. What's one word that describes your writing desk?

Unused. For writing, that is.

 

6. Share the best writing advice/tool/quote that helps you. (please limit to one sentence)

Allow yourself to write a sucky first draft.

 

7. What's your current project?

 

Well... This year it's not so much that I have one current project. I'm trying to finish five by next year, so I'm working on more than one: 

 

The sequel to my epic fantasy. 

A high concept urban fantasy

A western

A paranormal dystopian

Spies

Pirates 

And Time Travel. 

 

Seems like I cater to a wide audience.

It seems like you do, Misha!

If you haven't visited her blogs, I highly recommend them. Misha is encouraging, honest, and thoughtful.
Her first book, The Vanished Knight just came out, and she'll be back for a guest post in a few weeks for her book blog tour. Check it out:

Since the death of her parents, Callan Blair has been shunted from one foster family to another, her dangerous secret forcing the move each time. Her latest foster family quickly ships her off to an exclusive boarding school in the Cumbrian countryside. While her foster-brother James makes it his mission to get Callan expelled, a nearby ancient castle holds the secret doorway to another land...

 

When Callan is forced through the doorway, she finds herself in the magical continent of Tardith, where she’s shocked to learn her schoolmates Gawain and Darrion are respected soldiers in service to the king of Nordaine, one of Tardith's realms. More than that, the two are potential heirs to the Black Knight—Nordaine's crown prince.

 

But when the Black Knight fails to return from a mysterious trip, the realm teeters on the brink of war. Darrion and Gawain set out to find him, while Callan discovers there is more to her family history than she thought. The elves are claiming she is their princess.

 

Now with Darrion growing ever more antagonistic and her friendship with Gawain blossoming, Callan must decide whether to stay in Nordaine—where her secret grows ever more threatening—or go to the elves and uncover the truth about her family before war sets the realms afire.

 
Bio
M. Gerrick (AKA Misha Gericke) has basically created stories since before she could write. Many of those stories grew up with her and can be seen in her current projects.
She lives close to Cape Town, with a view over False Bay and Table Mountain.
If you’d like to contact her, feel free to mail her at warofsixcrowns(AT)gmail(DOT)com, Circle her on Google Plus or follow her on Twitter. If you'd like to see her writer-side (beware, it's pretty insane), please feel free to check out her blog. 
Links: 
Amazon
Amazon UK
Barnes & Noble
Kobo
All Romance Reads
Goodreads

I love to Celebrate the Small Things with Viklit and the Celebration crew, so here are my celebrations for the week:

1. Had a tiny, but great, Writers' Workshop on Tuesday night.
2. Emily Ann Benedict gifted me with a preview copy of her newest cozy Christmas novel, The Father Christmas Profession, and I read it in less than 24 hours - it was sweet and wonderful. I highly recommend it!
3. My niece's wedding is tomorrow, and I've got the ceremony ready and the speech written . . . although I might tweak it a bit more.

What are you celebrating this week?

Now, go visit Misha at her site and get to know her better!

 

A to Z Reflection

I'm a reflective mood these days, not just from A to Z, although I'll focus mainly on that.
Today, I feel like that last word on the badge "SURVIVOR" - I came into A to Z this year, excited, sure, and ready to go. By the end, due to personal life stuff and the nature of the challenge, I felt like I barely survived.

I wanted to visit more, comment more, be a better blogger buddy. It was tough.

And yet, I still feel blessed to have been a part of the challenge. Not only did this amazing, talented blogger Michael Di Gesu honor me with a guest post on J - Joker's Wild Day, but I also found a whole batch of new-to-me, talented bloggers to follow and befriend.

I enjoyed so many of the posts, but I'm going to highlight a few of my favorite themes here: Michael Di Gesu creatively introduced us to 26 books and authors, Alex J. Cavanaugh intertwined favorite movie characters with talented bloggers and his favorite music, Michelle-in-Transit had us guessing definitions of words, Mark Means unearthed a variety of lesser known comic book heroes, Misha Gericke's writing and faith posts at her two blogs made me think and laugh, and Father Dragon had me laughing every day, and I needed that laughter. I also love the eclectic posts that were slices of life, the travel blogs that expanded my horizons, and the faith based blogs that helped me gain a little more perspective in the midst of a tough April. I also appreciated Diane's tips on marketing in little slices throughout the month.

For all the challengers, and for all the hosts, and for all the minions, I just want to say:

THANK YOU!!!!

 

 

In the homeschool part of my life, I'm doing some reflecting over the end of the year, the changing of seasons in my oldest daughter's life, and I captured some of my muddling about that in this post: 8th Grade Graduation.

BTW - it's Sunday, but this is my Monday post . . . I decided not to wait, but just put it up.

Oh, and scarily enough, I have some ideas for next year's challenge . . .