Why, hello there, blogosphere! Hard to believe it has been six months since we sat for a chat. I have the scoop on what I've been up to, so it's share time! We'll do this in chronological order! (I know I sound perky, but it's just the extra endorphins from working out. I can still be broody if you need me to be. ^_^ )
(read all the way to the bottom to be surprised with cuteness!!!)
October 2010: I got engaged! That's right - the boy - I don't remember what I was calling him here (note: need sufficient nickname - STAT!), actually surprised the writer out of me and dropped to a knee while at an arts festival. We will be getting wed in November of this year, and fyi, because I know you'll squee with me, our reception theme is...BOOKS! Squeeeeeeee! ^_^
November 2010: I wrote a novel! That's right - me, Writer Quirk, actually wrote an
entire novel. Can you guess how? By that wonderful, God ordained, magical thing called
National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for us cool kids. The challenge: write 50,000 words (roughly the average length of a work of fiction) in 30 days. The point is just to get the thing written, no matter how despicably horrible and senseless the plot, characters, etc. So I wrote about 67,000 words, enough to get through my very first, very rough, draft. But
I did it.
Also that month, my fiancé bought me my very first, very own, laptop! It is blue and an HP and I carry it with me everywhere! During this time, I discovered that I love love love writing in one of my local cafes and I'm here a lot. I've pretty much sat in every chair in the place. They have great chicken salad, too.
December 2010: The beginning of snowpocalypse down here in the South. I love winter, don't get me wrong, but so much snow was absolutely ridiculous. My car got busted up and I slid to work most mornings.
January 2011: I turned 25! It was a great birthday. One of my friends got me a veil for my wedding and cooked me dinner and it was amazing! I did a kind of dress shopping test run with my sister, which was fun, though I'm not actually picking anything out until June.
I also started doing a weight-loss program at work (you know, because we writers tend to have bigger behinds) and thus far have lost nearly 30 pounds. I work out at least three times a week, and sometimes it makes me crazy, but I refuse to be chained to a myriad of medications when I get older. And, I must confess, I want to look hot for my honeymoon. There. I said it. My usual go-to answer is to be healthy, which is very true, considering what I've seen my parents go through, but I really want to (literally?) knock the socks off my future husband while we're hidden away in the mountains of my beloved state. And it wouldn't hurt to surprise some of my wedding guests when I walk down the aisle not looking like a giant cone of snow cream. A medium-large cone of snow cream is what I'm aiming for. :oP
February 2011: Valentine's Day! I have a great, wonderful, amazing fiancé (Can you see why I've been spending time away from the internet?) who loves to buy me flowers. Not only did I get them brought to me on the day, but two weeks later I got some just because, which made all the girls at work a little green. ^_^
During February I also took my first real look at my NaNoWriMo project (you aren't supposed to look at it for at least a month after the event, but I was a little scared of what I would find and waited longer). I then began not one, not two, but NINE re-writes. I was a little frustrated. I eventually settled on one and stuck with it (it was number nine, of course).
March 2011: Meg! My wonderful writer friend, whose name is Meg, but who I lovingly refer to, though she doesn't know it, as Montana, also did NaNoWriMo. We both write YA, though in different sub-genres, and we hadn't gotten together for a while so we planned a coffee date. We actually began swapping chapters and NaNo projects (something we talked about but never got around to) and it is AMAZING! Getting to hear another writer's perspective, and well, honestly, have someone who
wants to read my work, is extremely helpful. And I love getting to read her work, too. (I <3 Hades. That's all I'm gonna say.) It is a fun and rewarding process and I am so glad to be on this journey with her. She has a blog
here, though like me, she has been crazy busy of late. Check it out anyway. ^_^
April 2011: And here we are! Work is crazy, life is crazy, but I miss blogging, so here's what's going on with WQ. I am planning on blogging from time to time just about writing and whatever I may be reading. I am not going to be doing full-on formal reviews or list the books I have read (you can see that on my Goodreads page anyway) but more informal posts, kind of like this one. It will probably wind up a mix of life, writing, reading, and randoms. I will most likely not do many memes (though I do like the opinionated and writer-related ones).
My goal is not to fill every day with just something, anything, but to really write about what is going on in my life and what I see in the book world. I feel very safe and accepted in the writer/book blogger community, but I got a little carried away last time and ended up not really sharing anything, just adding to what was already going around. I found that the blogs I liked the most were the ones I actually connected to the blogger behind the blog, not just the books they read or the memes they did.
I hope my faithful quirks can get behind my small vision and help me make WQ a nice place to visit. Please, let me know what you think!
Keep it quirky!
Shalena
PS: Somewhere along the way, we had puppies!!!
If you are a writer, or know one, or have happened upon one in the wild, you may already know about Annoying Writer Syndrome. Maybe you call it something else, but the symptoms are usually the same no matter the moniker. 
But I chose it anyway. My current WIP is not my most original idea or my most complicated plot, or even have a crazy cool main character (though I like her plenty anyway). But I felt -- I don't know how else to say it -- that I had to write this story. That within me was this need to express what this MC goes through, what happens to her and those around, and why.
When it comes to food at Poet's, my absolute favorite thing (and by favorite I mean I watch what I eat all day so I can fit it within my caloric limit) is the chicken salad* on a warm croissant. It is lick-the-crumbs-off-the-plate good. You have to make sure you order it kind of early because they do run out. This happened to me recently. It was dinner time and I wasn't planning on leaving Poet's for a while (on average I'm here at least three hours a visit) and I waited too long to get it. The only alternative was tuna salad, something I had never had before. But I was hungry, and I was such a fan of the chicken salad I figured it couldn't be so bad, so I tried it. I was right! The tuna salad on the croissant was great and I didn't have to resort to eating cheesecake for dinner, which is always a good thing.
Besides the food and drink choices (of which there are many, but since I don't actually drink coffee, I've spoken only of what I know) there is the atmosphere Poet's provides. It is half indie, a quarter hipster, a quarter intellectual, and all relaxed. There is a big comfortable couch in the middle, lots of two and four seater tables and a red bar with black stools facing out the large picture window. There is a back room that harkens to the bookstore that used to be next
door, with comfy leather chairs and tables in a cozy carpeted space
where the walls are lined with bookshelves filled with random books and
pictures by local photographers. Coffee cups filled with fresh flowers
top the tables throughout, and a little white cabinet holds board and
card games for the more playful patrons.
Music, often of the indie variety (I've only ever recognized Coldplay, Iron and Wine, and John Mayer over the speakers; the rest is new to me), plays throughout the place while local artists display their works of art on the walls. The colors of the place are muted greens, reds, yellows, oranges, and browns, with a black and white checkerboard floor. The lighting makes the place glow, both inside beneath the always spinning ceiling fans, and outside, where a string of round bulbs lights up the outdoor tables for those wanting to relax in the open air. Inside or out, the ambiance is truly my favorite thing. I can have raucous conversations with my friends, write my novel, study, read, eat, look at art, play Apples to Apples, whatever, all in the same place. It is never too quiet and never too loud (unless you come on open mic night, and then it might be just a little).
