Vocabulary Wheel for Emotions

I found this nifty little tool that might come in handy for when I'm struggling with finding just the right word. It happens more often than I like to admit. I am a wordsmith, after all.

On the other hand, that's probably why I struggle - because I want to get it just right. Now if only there were such a vocab wheel for verbs, too... 

*scurries off to search the interwebz*

The Fast & Furious 7 Paradox

I went to see the latest Fast & Furious installment last night. I think it fried my sense of judgement (not to mention my brain, but that was a given), because I came out of the cinema with a strangely conflicting opinion about this movie.

On the one hand, a lot of it is... um, well, actually kind of terrible. For example:
- The hackneyed lines. In my opinion, you could cut half the dialogue from the script and wouldn't miss a thing. Rather the opposite. Sometimes it's better to say nothing at all than to insert something, anything, just so Vin Diesel can have the last word.
- The overacting (oh boy, the overacting)
- The meandering plot, held together by a very loose, very frayed thread.
- Vin Diesel's single expression (It's so singularly single, it almost deserves its own term. I think I might call it The Vingle)
- The impossible, over-the-top stunts. Believability = Zero. Needs to be taken with a pitcher of salt.

BUT

Somehow, the movie still manages to be
- Fun. Sit back, relax, enjoy the fireworks kind of fun.
- Moving. The tribute to Paul Walker at the end actually fit into the story. Sort of. But it definitely managed to induce sniffles in Yours Truly.
- Fun. Don't take it - and yourself - too seriously kind of fun.
- Funny. All the bad stuff was so over the top bad, that it was actually laugh-out-loud funny more than groan-worthy.
- Just Fun. Fun, fun, fun. Still not sure why, exactly.

It may remain a mystery.
:-D

Does anyone else feel the same way? 

My Writing Paradise

I recently went on a ten-day vacation in Florida, with the full intention of finishing round three of revisions of my work-in-progress by the end of it. I would have made it, too - if the solution to a few issues I still had with the plot hadn't popped into my head some time around day four. After figuring out how to integrate said solution, I realized I'd never manage to add the necessary seven to eight chapters (this would also help me up my word count, the lowness of which I'd been fretting about) in the next six days. So my self-set deadline for revision round three has been bumped back to the middle of May. But...

I'm glad that I finally found this solution. I'm especially glad that I found it now, before I finished this revision round and then would have had to tear it all apart again. I'm glad I didn't waste that time. In the end, it would have taken me longer to finish the entire revision process if I hadn't figured this out now.

Which brings me to the point of this post: I can once again confirm that I seem to write best when near a large(r) body of water. My mind feels 'looser', inspiration flows more freely, ideas are presented with less effort. I'm sure some of this can be attributed to the fact that I was on vacation and more relaxed in general. But it doesn't happen on every vacation that I find my way back to this urgent need to write, which used to hit me much more often, especially in my teenage years. I love to write, but that feeling that I must write right this second or spontaneously combust has gentled. Around water, it tends to flare up, which made the Sunshine State - with its hundreds of miles of coastline, and myriad number of lakes, rivers and swamps - a writing paradise for me. How could it not, with vistas such as this:

... and this: 

... and this: 

Does anyone else have their own personal writing paradise - a place or even places that have this certain energy that makes you breeze through those chapters? I'd love to hear about them.

Behind the Scenes Cover Production

As an aspiring author hoping to one day have amazing covers on my books, I love in-depth descriptions of how a book cover is created. Add to that one of my favorite cover artists (or favorite artists in general), Dan Dos Santos, painting the cover for one of my favorite UF authors, Lilith Saintcrow, and I was hooked. 

Even better: the post on the Muddy Colors blog I'm referring to details the entire process between the painter, publisher, model and author, not 'only' the creation of the painting itself.

Awesome!

The book comes out on June 23rd in Germany. I pre-ordered it immediately. FTW