Category Archives: Erika Beebe
One More Day
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEJ. Taylor Publishing Signs Seven Authors To One More Day, A YA Anthology To Release December 2, 2013Six authors to be featured with L.S. Murphy in Young Adult Anthology, One More Day, from J. Taylor Publishing.Apex, NC – March 27, 2013 – On December 2, 2013, J. Taylor Publishing will release One More Day, an anthology of seven short stories written for young adults, with a world’s end theme.The anthology’s theme, centered around what would happen if ‘tomorrow’ didn’t happen, produced dozens of entries with seven stories selected. “We asked authors to think on a prompt, particularly what happens as characters feel the stop, feel the shift, as they realize, only they know how to make everything go back to normal,” says J. Taylor Publishing.With a singular theme, one might expect all stories to be “the same”, but in One More Day, the challenge to create something completely unique was met by all authors. From contemporary to paranormal, fantasy to comedy and mixes of multiple genres, each of the seven stories represents the author’s interpretation and method of ensuring the world doesn’t end—somehow, someway.The anthology will open with Anna Simpson’s Time PIece, a contemporary romance centering on a girl’s first kiss. Transitioning to a darker sci-fi, paranormal will be Marissa Halvorson’s Dark Rose. The anthology will then move into a more whimsical, twist-filled story, Dragon Flight by J. Keller Ford, perfect for those on the roller coaster ride of love. Anchoring the center is L.S. Murphy’s The 13th Month, a ready-made fight to the end. Following comes a different take on an old fairy tale with Kimberly Kay’s Sleepless Beauty, and afterward, Erika Beebe’s Stage Fright, which is exactly how it sounds. Rounding out the anthology is Danielle E. Shipley’s A Morrow More, concluding with a bit of humor intertwined with fantasy.“In choosing the stories, we looked for diversity, unique, intriguing stories and solid writing. In our six additional authors, we found a wonderful collection to add to L.S. Murphy, who’s debut Young Adult novel Reaper, released in January 2013,” says J. Taylor Publishing.About Anna Simpson
Anna Simpson, mother of Bossman, enjoys living the good life near the US-Canadian border, in beautiful British Columbia. You will have better luck Googling Emaginette than her given name. Anna chose a web persona that would standout; so far it’s one of a kind.About Marissa Halvorson
Marissa’s dream of writing came about when she was ten, after reading a particularly inspiring story of dragons and elves. She instantly fell in love with the fantasy genre, and characters soon began to manifest to satisfy her adoration. It started with a forty page handwritten novel, which she dubbed “Dragon Girl” and continued on to more challenging (and better written) works.Now, Marissa can often be found to be studying literature in English class, curled up at home with one book or another, or with her eyes glued to the computer screen as her newest set of characters manifest.About J. Keller Ford
J. Keller Ford is a quirky mother of four, grand-mother and scribbler of young adult fantasy tales. She has an insatiable appetite for magic, dragons, knights and faeries, and weaves at least one into every story she conceives. Her muse is a cranky old meadow gnome that follows her everywhere she goes and talks incessantly, feeding her ideas for stories 24/7.When she’s not writing or blogging, the former Corporate Paralegal enjoys listening to smooth jazz, collecting seashells, swimming, bowling, riding roller coasters and reading. Jenny lives minutes from the beaches of the west coast of Florida with her husband of twenty years, her two sons and a pair of wacky cats and three silly dogs. The pets have trained her well.
About L.S. Murphy
L.S. Murphy lives in the Greater St. Louis area where she watches Cardinals baseball, reads every book she can find, and weaves tales for young adults and adults. When not doing all of the above, she tends to her menagerie of pets as well as her daughter and husband.About Kimberly Kay
When Kimberly was younger, she was incredibly timid. She didn’t talk much because she was afraid of what others would think of her. Instead, she expressed herself through drawing. Eventually, art alone wasn’t enough. There were some things she couldn’t express with pencils, so she began talking, and when she did, she realized she had something to say. Now no one can get her to shut up! Worse, she’s discovered she can put those words into writing to share what she has to say with even more people.Kimberly writes short stories and novels—usually fantasy fairytale retellings. Scattered within her works are things she loves: horses, fencing, archery, and so much more. With her friends, she writes fun fan-fiction that expands her creativity, (and shows what a nerd she is).Through writing, she has found confidence and freedom.
About Erika Beebe
Inspired by her first grade teacher’s belief in her imagination from the first story she ever wrote, Erika has been a storyteller ever since. A dreamer and an experiencer, she envisions the possibilities in life and writes to bring hope when sometimes the moment doesn’t always feel that way.Working in the field of public relations and communications for more than ten years, she has always been involved with writing, editing, and engaging others in public speaking.Her two young children help keep her creativity alive and the feeling of play in the forefront of her mind.About Danielle E. Shipley
Danielle E. Shipley’s first novelettes told the everyday misadventures of wacky kids like herself. …Or so she thought. Unbeknownst to them all, half of her characters were actually closeted elves, dwarves, fairies, or some combination thereof. When it all came to light, Danielle did the sensible thing: Packed up and moved to Fantasy Land, where daily rent is the low, low price of her heart, soul, blood, sweat, tears, firstborn child, sanity, and words; lots of them. She’s also been known to spend short bursts of time in the real-life Chicago area with the parents who home schooled her and the two little sisters who keep her humble. When she’s not living the highs and lows of writing young adult novels, she’s probably blogging about it.The cover for One More day, and short summaries for each story, will release on May 13, 2013.About the PublisherJ. Taylor Publishing is an Independent Publisher who, thanks to the Internet, has a worldwide reach. Our debut authors are in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. The company produces print and electronic books. For more information about J. Taylor Publishing, please visit www.jtaylorpublishing.com.
Day 5: My Pet Peeves, Then and Now
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Imagine this…
…you have been standing in a really long line for at least thirty minutes. It’s your lunch break. You have to buy what is in your arms. It is the perfect thing and you drove forever to get to that store. Everyone’s cart is full. You are fidgety, shifting back and forth, staring at your watch, smiling at the people around you, when someone in a really nice suit is talking on their cell, looks at you, looks at the line—a cashier is suddenly free! It is your turn! You step forward and… they do that horrible thing they do. They cut in front of you…
…What do you do?
You decide to visit the gym. You have your perfect music play list to motivate you and help you work harder. You jump on your favorite cardio machine and you start to sweat. It is a fast interval moment, where you are pushing yourself and maybe you have closed your eyes so proud to be in that moment wanting to make it all the way…
And then…
….a stinky bomb sneaks up your nose and you gag and wince—and you just want to die it stinks so bad! Yes. A stinky fart so potent has silently bombed the whole gym and permanently stained your nostrils for the rest of your life…three times!
…What do you do?
You are at a party…
…Your favorite music is playing. The lights are amazing. You’re in your favorite outfit feeling pretty darn good about yourself. You meet a friend. Not someone close, but someone you respect, and they smile. You smile. They start to talk and you say something, but they interrupt. And then they’re talking some more and they just won’t stop talking about themselves. Minutes pass. It feels like hours and they’re still talking…
…What do you do?
You have had a really bad day at work. Traffic was a mess. You waited on the highway for a good hour. You get home. The kids are having fun. Dinner smells good. You take your shoes off, head upstairs and crunch a toy right under your foot! It burns! It stings! And then there’s the kitchen counter! You cleaned the whole thing just five minutes before and when you turn around, there’s a trail of bread crumbs like a mouse had just destroyed an entire loaf of bread….ack!
….What do you do?
Pet peeves make me laugh. Especially as I’m capturing some of them now. They seemed so important in the moment, but in looking back, they are kind of funny. Some pet peeves become big things. Some peeves are so big it distorts the way we can look at a person at times, but you know what? After I’ve had a chance to look mine over, I’ve come to a really great cloud nine moment. They are not so big. Well, maybe the line-cutting lady, but I did end up saying something to her, which resulted in an immediate apology and a hustle to the back of the line.
We all have our idiosyncrasies. We all have our moments where we just don’t make sense to someone else. And as I get older, it is becoming more about believing in doing the right thing by someone else. And sometimes I have to believe the best in someone else, because it is also the right thing to do. Maybe the lady on the cell who cut in line had a terrible moment in her life right then. Maybe the guy passing wind on the treadmill was so embarrassed he didn’t know what to do. That toy? That counter? I can live with that.
Because then I think, there are so many other wonderful things about people, so many things the people I love in my life share with me.
Erika
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Day Four: Skipping Ahead to Laughter and What it Means to Me
I had to get a drink of water.
It was Saturday night. I sat on the couch, sniffling with my Kleenex held to my nose, my brown furry blanket sprawled across my lap while my kiddos ran in circles in the living room, dancing to their dad, strumming his guitar.
I got up. He got up. I moved up the steps, and he turned to our two kids, smiling so big, his blue eyes sparkled. He strummed a made up song on the guitar, letting his voice carry away a hilarious tune starting something like, “Baby Bear, baby bear, likes to wear her stinky socks…”
…Laughter!
…Rolling laughter!
…Squeals of joy!
The three of them, my two-year-old princess, my four-year-old creative boy, and my fun loving computer husband sang and danced and made up lyrics on the spot! My heart was practically beaming inside with joy.
My husband let each character in our family star in their own verse: Daddy Bear, Simon Bear, Cyrus Bear (our dog) and then Mommy Bear, and we all became the brunt of a really funny song about something stinky; from socks, to underwear to anything we could think of!
…just like Smelly Cat from the sitcom Friends, when Phoebe captivated the coffee shop with her song and it went a little something like this…
“Smelly Cat…
Smelly Cat…
What are they feeding you…
Smelly Cat…
Smelly Cat…It’s not your fault…”
…And then she invites her friends to chime in with words helping create a community of fun in the coffee shop, much like the moment in my very own living room.
So the question about seriousness of life and humor begins and I think Audrey Hepburn sums it up best for me:
“I don’t take my life seriously, but I do take what I do – in my life – seriously -”
― Audrey Hepburn
I have been through a struggle in what it means to live and laugh, and then how to accept my serious side, because that’s part of me too. There’s this war inside of me between a carefree, wanting to skip through a field of daisies girl, and a side that says listen to me! Take me serious, please!
The point of today is how I’m learning to let go of seriousness and what laughter means to me. I think laughter is about letting go and living life and most of all, learning to laugh at myself again. Watching my husband and my two beautiful kids who have absolutely stolen my heart, they have no qualms with making fun of themselves in good times. That’s what I aim to go back to.
So laughter is what I strive for everyday. I want to make fun of myself in a good way, to laugh at the ridiculous things that sometimes fall out of my mouth without thinking. Like when the ice and snow storm hit, I said something about the power lines going down, a total blind and blonde moment. I forgot, power lines, are in the ground, Erika, not above it anymore, duh…
So don’t forget what it feels like to laugh at your own silliness. When you feel tense, when you feel like the world is sort of spiraling out of control, do something fast so your moment doesn’t drag you down. Have someone distract you. Remember something silly you did when you were little, something hilarious about yourself. Maybe call an old friend, your best friend. Let laughter change your mood. It works for me anyway—and of course post-its too. I am the post-it queen. LOL
Day 3 of Blog Challenge: Where Does Inspiration Come From?
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A memory from High School explains it best—Junior Year.
A fire alarm went off one cold and dreary day. I was in Seminar, a class where we designed our own projects through the year and like the nerd that I was, I think I wanted to learn some of the classics, reading novels and poetry, and trying to prep myself for some of the crazy tests to get into College.
The alarm screamed and I jumped up from the couch in the library taking off after my classmates already filing out of the door. Someone pushed it open and several of us stumbled backwards, suddenly smacked by a cold blast of wind. I looked at the sky. No sun. Thick gray clouds. And burr….
“Move!” Our teacher yelled.
So we did, and we huddled around the nearest wall trying to block that terrible crazy wind off our faces. I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering next to one of my friends’ in class, laughing and talking about our poems we were writing, when one of the really smart popular kids walked up to us. I knew her. I’d always wished I knew her better, but I was the quiet and shy type and I kept to myself a lot.
The popular girl squeezed in next to us with her back against the pale brick wall. “I just don’t get it,” she interrupted. “ I can’t be creative without, you know, a little help. How do you do it?”
My blonde friend and I looked at each other and I quickly said, “I don’t need anything to make me dream about stuff.” Because back then, I was sort of an all natural girl. I wore long sweaters, beat up jeans and tall clunky boots probably weighing more than I did. I didn’t like too much make-up, eye liner and mascara maybe, and my hair was really long and straight.
Speaking of hair, it was plastered to my face, and I brushed it straight back behind my ears. “I don’t worry about being creative,” I said. “ I just think. I wonder. And then I find a really great song, put my pencil on the paper and let my thoughts drift.”
If you asked me now, I’d probably say, a cup of coffee first. Then I listen to a song or find a fun quote to make me smile. I think the trick about inspiration, is knowing what makes you happy. Getting past the negative fog that swirls in our heads. Fighting it. Telling yourself you can do better. Then start with that activity that charges you, and let your attitude carry your actions through the rest of the day.
I read a really great article on inspiration. It’s short and dirty, the perfect kind of articles I like to read.
How to Feel Inspired When You’ve Lost Motivation
~By Hulbert Lee
Sometimes we get stuck in a rut. If you’re not a hundred percent passionate about your work, then it’s impossible to wake up everyday feeling motivated when you wake up. You might compare it to the ocean. Sometimes you’ll wake up feeling like a tsunami, other time you’ll feel like just barely drifting to shore. When you feel like drifting to the shore, understand that it doesn’t always have to feel like there’s no hope. You can still feel inspired when there’s no motivation.
1. Connecting the dots—Faith.
You have to use what you know in your past, and connect the dots in the present—Trust in You is huge! Even when nothing is working. Steve Jobs used Calligraphy as a model for his first Mac computer designs. I had no clue, but how awesome is that?
2. Allowing your environment to influence your mood.
Know when you feel inspired naturally. For me? Morning times. First thing after a cup of coffee. How about your work space? Does it inspire you to think? Make your space your own to allow creativity in.
3. Don’t work so hard.
This is my number one lesson in life. I overwork things to death and then I lose the heart. When I’m writing, I have to let go of perfection. Then I go back over it, reshape my sentences, and drop in the links. If I try too hard to make it perfect in the beginning, I always ALWAYS fail. Don’t force anything, a sheer indicator that you might be working too hard. I believe, if you set yourself up for success in the beginning, clear your head, get your heart right, work in an environment that makes you happy, great work and inspiration will come to you.
Cloud Nine Girl 