Kate Swenson

I have been tagged by the lovely Alynza Smith  and now must come up with ten random things about myself that will be interesting but not frighten any of my pretty birdie followers. Then I shall tag four of my new buddies and the fun continues across the internetwebs!  Here it goes. Hee hee - gross! 1.   I prefer plastic utensils for most foods, especially sweet or cold things. (But I can act like a normal person when out in public) 2.  My day job often involves playing dress up and being bossy...perfection. 3.  I collect frogs, but not just any frog I have frog standards. 4.  Whenever I leave a car, the seatbelts are twisted.  Same goes for a room with rugs.  Chaos is my calling card. 5.  Stuffed animals displayed in the back window of a car give me rage. 6.  I grew up in a very small town - there were 20 people in my graduating class. 7.  I love recipes and changing them. 8.  I like ...

Hmm..I probably should have made a bigger deal about the last chapter I posted being the last chapter I am going to post.  Tee hee - silly blogger.  So here is a little reverse fanfare (with added cheese so you will have to like it) Delicious-no? What could possible follow a giant can 'o cheeze? Good question! I have been scooting all over the internwebnets checking out how my fellow Write Campaigners do their thing.  Inspiring. Nerdy. Delightful. As I scoot I have been learning what I do and don't like as a blog reader and filling my brain bucket full of ideas.  I started this blog to share my writing adventures with friends and family and I will keep up with that. For the rest of my birdies, I am thinking book reviews, theatre skills for the writer, and probably some other silliness.  What would you like to see?

CHASE — No Show The waiting was starting to get to her. Chase leaned up against the curved wooden wall of the old wishing well. Stood up by her own twin—nice, real nice. Her butt was falling asleep so she flopped on to her back, stretching her legs up the inside wall of the wishing well. The old structure was perfectly maintained like everything else in Papa V’s garden. She couldn’t see a single cobweb in the triangle of roof above her, and the decorative bucket looked like it might actually be watertight. The wood of the interior was painted gray and smooth as an icicle, yet Chase had managed to get a ginormous sliver embedded in her palm. The dull throb of the intruding wood was a complement to her mood. Growing up, the well had been like a playhouse. Back then she and Charlie had been little enough to fit inside together. Chase hadn’t really thought about the wishing well in years—until this week when it suddenly began starring in her dreams, and she woke up with a feeling that she ...

Wanted things to look nice around here as I joined the Platform Building Campaign over at Rach Writes . It's a crash course in this whole network and blog world and I thought it would be a great way to jump into the deep end with my hot pink water wings firmly in place. Plus, I get a sweet badge for participating and you know I like that kind of business! So shiny! Now we mingle, play blogging games, and scratch each other's blogs between the ears. As I am used to collaborating with many artists at a time in my day job, this will be a welcomed boost to only collaborating with the voices in my head. Not that they aren't entertaining. Oooo - don't be scared new writer friends. I am just as normal as you. Looking forward to meeting you in my courage zone (smooches to Bob Mayer ) Now I must finish my cow choreography. 

CHARLIE — Secret Ingredients Charlie’s mother leaned in the frame of the kitchen door, lost in some kind of memory. It wasn’t a good one. Her eyes were far away, and her jaw clenched. Sometimes Charlie wondered if his mother had any happy memories. She’d never told them anything about her life before he and Chase were born; it was an extremely touchy subject. The sun slanted through the kitchen window, lighting flames in her red hair. Annika had already pulled and secured the shades in the rest of the house, so it would be ready for his sister when she got home. “Chase will be home soon, don’t forget your shade,” she signed as well as spoke. No one in the family was deaf, but Charlie didn’t speak so they all learned ASL. Annika always liked to keep in practice, she said it made it easier to understand Charlie if her own hands were moving. Charlie gave his mother a look; they both knew he would keep the shade over the sink open until the last minute. “What are you making?” she aske...

VIRGIL— Gammal Värd (Seventeen Years Later) Virgil took a deep and stinging drag of his joint. Nothing beat the satisfaction of tasting something home grown. The marinara sauce burbling on the back burner echoed the sentiment. Holding his breath, he nestled Mary between the naked breasts of the mermaid ash tray. With a slow exhale, he waited for the smoke to dissipate, helping it along out the screen door with a lazy wave of the hand. Pulling the rubber band free, Virgil shook his dark pewter streaked hair down around his shoulders. Viv had always liked it long, so he kept it that way. Not as much left on top as on the bottom, but he could still manage a respectable ponytail. Heaven forbid that his grandson smell it in his hair. Though he wasn’t entirely sure why he bothered—Charlie was a bloodhound. And Virgil was a grownup, dammit. He picked up his scissors and headed outside. Dusk settled around the quiet yard with a strange, yellow-tinged heaviness. The huge trees surrounding the b...

ANNIKA - Utrøst Behind her, Annika could hear Dagmar fighting to breathe. The babies were blessedly quiet, hidden in the exposed roots of the tree. A dozen vourdalaks stepped from the shadows into the clearing. The majority had shifted, walking upright. Others, unable to manage on two legs, added an arm in a grotesque stumbling crawl. Time had been cruel to the wolfmen; fighting and inbreeding had greatly decreased their numbers and health over the years. They advanced in chilling unity, a theatrical display controlled by unseen hands. Annika shook her short, fox-red hair from her eyes and settled her sword into her pale hand. She could handle two or three, had done so earlier that very night, but now there were too many. She would not win. It came down to just how many she could take out before she died. If her last gift to Dagmar was a few moments more with their newborn children, then so be it. Annika clenched her jaw highlighting the bone structure that had allowed her troll anc...

So here's my pitch. When delivering it in the moment I use it as guide and improvise. Children of Utrøst Chase and Charlie have always been the freakiest twins on the block: she's allergic to light, he can smell emotions, their mother is a sword loving lesbian, and their grandpa grows his own. It doesn't get much weirder, until it does. They all  get sucked through the garden wishing well and end up on Utrøst, an island sanctuary for all things magic. The last rat of Hamelin and her army of werewolves have declared war and naturally Chase and Charlie are the only ones who can stop her. No pressure. Going from the bottom of the social ladder to the top of the food chain isn't easy.  Puberty is even wilder on Utrøst, along with the usual falling in love and figuring yourself out, there are new magic powers and unexpected body parts-distractions that will prove deadly in the midst of war. Stay tuned for the chapters from my PNWA Finalist Entry!!

Thankfully this kind of pitching does not involve any coordination! (I looked for a picture of me with a ball. The closest thing I could find was blowing bubbles.) If you want to get your book on a shelf without self-publishing you need a publisher. If you want a publisher you need an editor. If you want an editor you need an agent. If you want an agent you need to learn how to pitch.  Sort of.  Basically the pitch is your novel narrowed down to the juicy bits and delivered in under a minute.  If an agent thinks it sounds even vaguely promising they will ask you to send them some variety of sample pages. They might request the first three chapters, 50 pages, a synopsis and 25 page, or the whole shebang-it's really their personal preference. If your material is requested, you are one step up the "pile-archy" from those sending in their work unsolicited.  That stuff goes in the slush pile, which is big and ugly and lowest in priority.  Not th...

My YA Fantasy Novel, Children of Utrøst, was a finalist in the 2011 PNWA Contest.  Inspired by my experience at the conference I am going to try to overcome my fear of public typos and self promotion, starting with this thing called blog.