Sunday, September 2, 2012

GUTGAA Meet and Greet

Hey all you GUTGAA folks and any unsuspecting victims people who've stumbled onto my blog. I'm so glad you stopped by.

Deana Barnhart
I'm terribly nervous about everyone visiting my fledgling blog. The pressure! *tears at hair* This is only my fifth post, but hopefully you'll enjoy getting to know a little about me. I'll be snooping around out in GUTGAA's Blogfestville checking out all of your Meet and Greets, too.

On to business.

Where do you write? Most of the time I'm sitting in my bed, laptop on my handy dandy lapdesk with my toy poodle, Penny, warming my feet. Otherwise I'm hanging out in the living room in my glider rocker, or whatever you call those things, with my feet propped up on the footstool, Penny warming my feet. That is, until my ass butt goes numb, then I park the laptop on the counter in the kitchen and work there.

Quick. Go to your writing space, sit down and look to your left. What is the first thing you see? To the left of my bed spot, is my bubby's side of the bed, with his nightstand neatly aranged. Of course, if you look to my right, my nightstand sits stacked to the brink with the girl's school papers, drinks, crumpled tissues- from when I write death scenes, Aleve (for my numb ass butt), alergy medicine bottles, and lip balm (I'm a compulsive lip balm user).

Favorite time to write? I love to get up early (5:30ish) and get started while the house is quiet and there's less of a chance someone (namely children) are going to need my urgent attention - everything is urgent with my girls. Otherwise, I enjoy writing any time I can squeeze it in. I've even been known to take the laptop to the school when my daughter has an activity and tap away at the keyboard while waiting for her turn to do her thing (track, part in play, schedule changes, whatever). This is actually a great place to work, becuase I write YA and there are all these teens around to watch and gleen tidbits from. It's fantabulous!

Drink of choice while writing? Ice cold mocha, until I get caffeine overload, then I switch to water.

When writing , do you listen to music or do you need complete silence? Music. It inspires me.

What was your inspiration for your latest manuscript and where did you find it? My eldest daughter, Alex, is an artist- no really, she's got talent (of course I'm biased, but even her art teacher wants her to go to art school, so that's got to say something, right?). She drew a picture of an angel. Her angel was fitted in full battle gear, breastplate, shield, sword, the whole nine yards. What it would be like if she weren't an angel at all, but a regular girl who one day woke up with wings? How would she react? Why would she have wings? That was the beginning of DEVASTATION. For the full story, click here.

What's your most valuable writing tip? I guess it would have to be "Begin as you mean to go on." This is useful in so many of life's situations, but for writing it means to start out with more show, less tell. Write great dialog that's realistic. Stay away from weak and passive verbs. Write with few filler words, and even fewer filters. In other words tone up flabby writing. Because editing is a bitch pain and the less of these you have the easier it will be.

To learn more about me and my novel, DEVASTATION, visit my website.

Feel free to comment on my Meet and Greet. I'd love to hear from you!








18 comments:

  1. Yay for being brave! I thought I was reading my own Meet and Greet for the first couple of questions. ^_^ Best wishes with GUTGAA!

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    1. Thanks for visiting my Meet and Greet for GUTGAA! I'll bet we're not the only bed writters around, there's bound to be loads of us out there... just so much more comfy than the desk, which I do have but is mostly abandoned and cries into the darked office around it. :) Have fun with GUTGAA!

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    2. Hello from another bed-writer! I've found it's just much easier to crawl into bed with my one-year-old when it's nap-time, settle him down, and write while he sleeps. Parenting-advice authors are probably recoiling in horror at that, but it works for us...

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  2. I like how you were inspired by the drawing. I'm impressed at all these people on GUTGAA who get up so early to write. It makes me thankful I've been childfree a lot longer than I ever planned.

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    1. Carrie-Anne, thanks for checking out my M&G for GUTGAA. So excited about this week, hopefully we'll both have a fantabulous month! Have fun!

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  3. Hi Kelley! Nice to meet you. I'm impressed by your getting up so early--at 5:30 I can barely form a coherent sentence! And that's a great idea to write YA while surrounded by teenagers.

    Good luck with the rest of GUTGAA!

    http://thinkingtoinking.blogspot.com

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  4. Triona, thanks for stoppin' in! Thanks! Good luck to you too, and everyone else out there in GUTGAA world!

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  5. Greetings!

    I'm hopping over from GUTGAA and trying to visit some blogs before the fun begins! Nice to meet you...you have a lovely blog...good luck with GUTGAA!

    Donna L Martin
    www.donnalmartin.com
    www.donasdays.blogspot.com

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  6. Thanks, Donna.I'll skip on by your blog sometime soon. Best of luck to you, too.

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  7. Hi Kelley,

    Nice to meet you. Your project sounds so imaginative and wonderful. So excited for all the GUTGAA fun:)

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  8. Oh man. Schools are SO good for YA inspiration. I volunteered to be a Relay for Life sponsor for my cousin's team (freshmen). For 12 hours I was locked in a school full of students. It was fantastic.

    Plus she asked me to be the sponsor because I was the 'cool' cousin :0

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    1. Hey Kelley! So good to hear from you! I'll bet you ARE the cool cousin! Talk with you soon!

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  9. I read your blurb for your book on the main page, and it sounds amazing! Love your voice :) Also, I am a compulsive lib balm user too!! Things can get really ugly if I don't have lip balm within easy reach.

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    1. So good to know I'm not alone in my addiction to lip-balm. I'm so screwed if TSHTF some day and I can no longer buy it. Thanks for visiting my website! I think you may be the first to do so outside of friends and family. *squee* I'm thrilled you like Lexa's voice... she's based very loosely on my daughter, so I know her REALLY well. Hopefully you'll get a chance to read the book some day.

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  10. "Begin where you mean to go on." Good advice. Thanks for sharing.

    http://otherworlddiner.blogspot.com/2012/09/deana-barnharts-gearing-up-to-get-agent.html

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  11. I recognize your story from WriteonCon. My head is still spinning from all the feedback from that. I'm working pretty steady to retool my opening page... again. Glad to see you are in with GUTGAA too!

    Here's my GUTGAA Meet and Greet Post

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    1. Glad you remembered it. Hopefully that means it's memorable. I know about retooling the first page, done that about a gagillion times. May do it again, who knows? I'll hop on over to your blog and take a peek at your meet and greet!

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Thanks for visiting and commenting! I hope you've enjoyed the blog.