Category Archives: blogs

July 25, 2013

Favourite Blogs… yeah, OK (blog challenge day 25)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

What’s that? The 25th isn’t always Christmas?! I’ve been living a lie all these years…

Oh, right. Not looking forward to this one. How in the name of blogging am I supposed to choose five favourite blogs? It’s not possible. I can’t even choose a favourite sweater (and believe me, I don’t have many of them), let alone pick five favourite blogs out of the ones I follow.

Ugh, fine. Here are five that I’ve found entertaining and helpful, and I’m purposely choosing blogs of people who are not close personal friends, top commenters, blogs I’ve mentioned before, etc.

Terrible Minds (Chuck Wendig) – Yes, the language is colourful, but he paints such interesting pictures with those colours that I laugh (or at least snort quietly to myself, if anyone’s watching me) when I read his stuff. It’s not just profanity and humour, though; this guy’s got interesting things to say about culture, books, publishing… just about everything.

A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing (Joe Konrath) – One of those bloggers whose words I take with a grain of salt because he’s so extreme in some of his views, but I enjoy his posts, especially when Barry Eisler jumps in to contribute. The comments are always worth reading through. Barry has a blog, too, that I haven’t looked at yet (http://barryeisler.blogspot.ca/)

Kels Not Chel s Not Live (Vlog, Kelsey Mackey) – Enthusiastic and adorable. I like this one.

Hide and Create – Yep, throwing a podcast in there, too. No, it’s not a blog. But it has regular posts, it’s informative and entertaining. Really, it’s just a different format… right? Close enough.

Picture Me Reading– I get completely overwhelmed when I see the number of books out there that I could be reading. It helps to have a few book review blogs on my list, especially when I know I’ll see honest reviews of the kind of books I might be interested in. This blog does that, with a few bonuses: a unique illustrated style on reviews, PLUS audio that I enjoy listening to while I do dishes (multitasking that actually works! Blog time and entertainment while slaving away! Hurrah!)

–

Don’t look at me like that. You know I love your blog. I just don’t have room for all of them…

2 Comments | posted in 31 Day Blog Challenge

July 24, 2013

Childhood Books (Blog Challenge day 24)

By Kate Sparkes

*cracks knuckles* What’s next?

“Your favourite childhood book.”

Wow. There are too many.

The My Book House series was huge for me, particularly volume 2, which was filled with fairy tales. I remember crying when I realized that the books were geared toward different ages, and I was afraid that I was going to have to leave the fairy tales behind. If you’ve read my work, you know that I never did.

image from Amazon.com; this is the version I had

I wish I still had these books for my kids, but they were sold at a garage sale when I was in high school. I think I’m going to have to save my pennies and buy this set, though. Old books are like old friends, and opening them is always like coming home. The set runs about $70 these days… though I can’t imagine what shipping here would cost!

Side note: I came across something when I was looking for pictures. Normally I say if you own something, do what you want with it (heck, I customize un-restorable toys myself), but having lost my own set of these books, this made me want to cry when I first ran across it. I wouldn’t hold it against this person, or say she’d done something wrong; art journals are important. But man. The value of a thing really does lie in the heart of the beholder, doesn’t it? 🙂

1 Comment | posted in 31 Day Blog Challenge, books

July 23, 2013

Barbie’s Dream Job Must Be Pink. Like Her Dream House. (blog challenge day 23)

By Kate Sparkes

Coming in to the home stretch now!

Day 23: Your dream job

Do I need to say it? I want to write. I want to write fiction, and I want to get paid (at least a little bit) for it. I don’t need a bestseller, I don’t need a million dollars. I just want it to be my job. It’s nothing I feel entitled to; I know that no matter how much I practice and how hard I work, it might be a dream forever. But that’s it, that’s my dream job. Working from home, with my own office space, writing.

Slight tangent: A friend and I went to see the movie Troy when it was in theatres, and she mentioned the fact that there was, in fact, at least one person who got paid to apply make-up to Brad Pitt’s ass. She said this was her dream job.

I don’t know if that still stands, but you have to admit, that’s a more interesting dream job than mine. 😉

2 Comments | posted in 31 Day Blog Challenge, about me

July 22, 2013

I Just… Aww, You Guys! (blog challenge, day 22)

By Kate Sparkes

Dayyyyyyy… twenny-twooooooo… *goes cross-eyed and falls over*

“The best thing to happen this year”

You mean besides this?

Really, this blog has been one of the best things. Not any one day, but as something that’s evolved over the past nine months or so. I really didn’t expect that anyone would read it. Why would you? This is my senseless rambling, my works in progress, my thoughts on writing and life that are no more insightful (and far less experienced) than what you could find elsewhere. But I’m part of a community here, of interconnected blogs and people commenting on each other’s posts and being all supportive and stuff. It’s forced me to write when I didn’t think I could, it’s given me a chance to share and explore in new ways, and it’s helped me build up the courage to actually let people see my fiction, which is in some ways more personal than anything else I write here.

So thank you all for this gift, for being here with me, for reading, for liking just to say you stopped by, for commenting, and for putting yourselves out there on your own blogs, where you inspire me every day.

Group hug! Aww.

4 Comments | posted in 31 Day Blog Challenge, blogs

July 21, 2013

Mmm-mmm good (blog challenge day 21)

By Kate Sparkes

Let’s hope for something cheery today…

“Your 10 favourite foods”

In no particular order:

crab legs/lobster (cold with hot butter)
Lindor chocolates
toutons (NOT something you should eat frequently. Or ever, really. But SO good!)
black cherries
raspberries
whipped cream (on fruit, jell-o, meringues, sweet coffee beverages, in a cup… whatever)
mashed potatoes
hot wings (I make the best ones ever, no lie)
Cantonese Chow Mein (but only from this one, amazing place near my parents’ house. It’s perfect)
Chicken Shwarma (again, from a place near my parents’ house, but a different place. I swear they put crack in the white sauce. ADDICTIVE.)

I like food. A lot. I could gorge myself on fresh fruit every day, maybe a nice cheese tray. Throw some fresh bread in there and a cup of tea in there, I’d probably be good forever. But those things up there… they make life wonderful. 🙂

5 Comments | posted in 31 Day Blog Challenge, Food

July 20, 2013

A Bad Time (Day 20)

By Kate Sparkes

SKIP THIS ONE. SERIOUSLY. I’m only posting so as not to leave the challenge incomplete. Go look at something entertaining. Now.

–

I really wasn’t looking forward to writing this, but stupid Past Me didn’t write this one in advance, so Present Me has to take care of it now. Up yours, Past Me!

I’m supposed to tell you about a difficult time in my life. I can think of a few. Four BIG rounds with depression (and many other times when it just sneaked up behind me and punched me in the back of the head for fun. Asshole).

The single “difficult time” that comes to mind is when I was pregnant for the second time. Now, you all know I love my children. I think they’re amazing, and they were worth every bit of pain I went through to get them this far. But they were both surprises, and our situation was less than ideal for having children both times (yes, we were using birth control. Apparently only performing demolition on my insides could stop this from happening again). At the time, all I knew was that I didn’t think I could go on. Looking back, I can see this highly-imperfect storm of factors:

Simon (#1) still wasn’t sleeping through the night, and I was exhausted
AJ was working full-time and I was working part-time when he could be home. We hardly ever saw each other, and it was putting a lot of strain on our marriage
I was on antidepressants that turned me into an emotional zombie before I got pregnant, and that did other horrible things to our marriage. I actually don’t know how Ike happened…
We were both working, but in retail. We lived in a crappy basement apartment. We had less than no money. We were in debt recovery over credit cards we’d used to buy groceries, trying to pay off that and student loans and still buy those groceries.
AJ was miserable, but he’s never agreed to be checked out for depression. He was definitely depressed at that time, but not getting any kind of help for it. He worked, he hated his job, he came home to a messy apartment because I had no energy or motivation or will to live. Not good, and I felt guilty about that. I still do.
Pregnancy hormones do horrible things to me. 40 weeks of morning sickness was actually the highlight. I was in so much emotional pain (the hormones got past the antidepressants and pushed me into the sub-basement of depression) that I couldn’t function. I was having panic attacks. I was exhausted. I wanted to sleep all the time, but I had a kid who needed me.
I wanted to not be alive anymore. I couldn’t kill myself (not with a kid who needed me and another one that literally couldn’t survive without me). I just wanted to be dead.

When you have depression (major depression, clinical depression, not emo-ism), pain and darkness consume you. You want to look on the bright side, see that life is worth living, but there’s just nothing there. Most of the time when I was dealing with it, I felt so much like this comic that it’s frightening for me to read this:

Depression part Two (really worth a read if you haven’t yet, whether you have Depression or just want to understand why we can’t just pull ourselves out of it and BE HAPPY, DAMMIT)

When I was pregnant, I had that emotional nothingness AND tears, anxiety, soul-crushing sadness and hopelessness. Don’t ask me how you can have both, but you can.

How did that turn out? Well, the sun kept on rising, so I had no choice but to keep plodding through my life. I went back to the psychiatrist who had treated me during my first pregnancy, and she put me on a second antidepressant, because obviously Effexor (the drug from hell) wasn’t doing what it should. I got through it. AJ got through it. Simon got through it without being neglected or damaged. The cats got through it, but probably could have used more-frequent litter box scoopings. We survived. There were some better days, especially with Simon (have I told you how he used to do all of the dances from Hairspray?), but mostly it was survival. Existence. Trying not to let the bad parts consume me.

GOOD EFFING TIMES.

And then AJ got into the RCMP. When Ike was two months old, he had to leave for six months. Things got better once he was back with us, but I think I’ve put you through enough for today.

Well, I feel better. Or not. Thanks a lot, blog challenge.

2 Comments | tags: bad times, depression, pregnancy | posted in 31 Day Blog Challenge, Depression

July 19, 2013

Let Me Show You Them (blog challenge Day 19)

By Kate Sparkes

Any guesses what it’s time for? Anyone? Is… is anyone still here? *checks microphone*

That’s right, it’s our daily dose of blogspiration, and it’s day 19 today.

“What do you collect?”

Too easy.

My Little Pony.

The obsession started when I was three or four years old. MLP were still fairly new; I missed what are now called the Collector Pose ponies (Minty, Bluebelle, Cotton Candy, Snuzzle, Butterscotch and Blossom), but my first ponies were Applejack, Moonstone and Posey (hey MA! Correct me if I’m wrong, will ya?)

Long story short, I had a ton of ponies, and my brother and I had some amazing adventures with them. Barbie was always the bad guy in those games, a rich, nasty woman named Vanessa Van Vandervan who rode the ponies even though she was far too big for them. Jem may have been in on this in later years. GI Joe was a frequent target for V-Van-V’s affections, but he was always Team Pony (and he was allowed to ride them, because dude was tiny).

I played with ponies for longer than most kids my age, but they eventually got put away in storage, where I visited them occasionally for longer than I care to admit.

So I grew up. I had kids. I saw a couple of ponies at Value Village and grabbed them, but never did anything with them. I started collecting them again about three years ago, around the time when I got into customizing the ones that were in terrible condition. I bought every one I found at thrift stores (first generation and third), cleaned them up and made them smell like my shampoo, displayed them when and where I had space, bought crappy lots on eBay to restore, often rehairing them with nylon doll hair when theirs was too smoky or otherwise ruined.

A few of my yellow friends (the one in the centre has been re-haired)

I still have them, still adore them, but I don’t have the time or money to actively add to the collection now. I display as many of my favourites as I can, and the others wait clean and safe in the closet until they can take their turn on display or find a home with someone who loves them.

My favourite? I have a few, mostly my earliest and best friends. But my absolute favourite is this guy, right here:

Yes, he helps me write.

Daddy Sweet Celebrations was my only boy pony when I was a kid. I have six of him now. STOP JUDGING ME. I don’t hoard cats, I don’t spend my mad money on drugs. I just like ponies…

3 Comments | tags: blog challenge, collection, my little pony, sweet celebrations | posted in 31 Day Blog Challenge, about me

July 18, 2013

Didn’t I Say I Was Bad With Names? (Blog Challenge Day 18)

By Kate Sparkes

I did. I did say that, and not just once. I do have a lot of trouble naming things. But today’s question is surprisingly easy to answer.

“What is the meaning behind your blog name?”

I’ve had blogs before. They had names. But they were (shh, don’t tell) mom blogs. When I started this blog, I knew I wanted something different. Yeah, my kids were bound to show up sometimes, but this was MY space, my room to grow and explore and talk about other things that were important to me.

Things like writing. Didn’t see that coming, did you? 😉

I’d just sent a draft of a novel out to the few friends and family members who offered to read it (including the far fewer who actually did, of course). I was still hemming and hawing over whether to keep the prologue (a different monster from the one in the tabs up there) in the story. I decided “no,” and sent out a message… to disregard the prologue.

It works, right? This blog is a new space for me, and everything that came before… well, I still like a lot of my old posts, but they have nothing to do with this. Post one here, last October, was the beginning of the story, and what happened before that was all prologue.

I’ve been quite happy with my blog’s name, even if it now makes me cringe when I see the word spelled “prolog” (“dialog” also makes me wince).

Now, if only naming books was so simple…

6 Comments | tags: blog names, disregard the prologue, titles | posted in 31 Day Blog Challenge, blogs

July 17, 2013

“You Must Be Very Proud” (Blog Challenge Day 17)

By Kate Sparkes

Day… Seventeen! We are past the halfway mark!

Today’s question: “What is your most proud moment?”

Psssshhhhh… I don’t know. Is that sad? I was proud of myself a lot in high school, when I was always making the honour roll and cleaning up at the End of the Year awards assembly. I was proud of myself when I finished 1st year of university with a 11.20 GPA (on a 12 point scale). I know, it’s crazy, I used to be, like, rilly smart-like.

But a single moment? I don’t know. Most of my accomplishments are things that came naturally to me (I claim no responsibility for my body popping out those kids), or they’re things that I didn’t do on my own. I know when I was proudest of someone else who I’d helped along: my husband, when he graduated into the RCMP after six months away from his family, going through hell to follow his dream and make a better life for us.

Damn right I was proud. I guess I was proud of myself, too, for getting through that six months, but I was with my parents during that time, so I don’t take full credit. That moment was really all AJ’s.

Oh, but here’s one. Maybe not the top of the heap, but it’s something: the first time I wrote a story, when I started getting better after round 1 with Depression. Not only that I wrote it (though that was a huge accomplishment), but that I read it over and thought it was good. Yep, pretty proud of myself then.

Finishing a first draft of a novel after years of false starts and abandoned attempts? Also priceless.

3 Comments | posted in 31 Day Blog Challenge, about me

July 16, 2013

MAH BUKKIT LIST (blog challenge day 16)

By Kate Sparkes

*sings* Oh, the challenge, it is a challengin’…

Day 16: “What’s at the top of your bucket list”

Holy crap, that thing is scary.

Honestly? I don’t have a bucket list, at least not as I understand it (having not seen that movie, the concept a little fuzzy in my mind). This is a list of things you’d like to do before you die, right? Go skydiving, convert a crocodile to vegetarianism (or Mormonism), eat a pan-fried endangered animal on every continent, stuff like that.

I don’t have that list. I have another list (you know, The List), but that’s not what we’re talking about.

Wow, that was the worst-quality video ever.

I have things I want to accomplish in my life. I have places I want to visit, books I want to read, books I want to write. I want to go back to school, raise my kids to be decent human beings, learn to find balance and peace in my life. These are good things, but they do not a bucket list make. Well, maybe the travel, but I can guarantee I won’t get to most of those places, so that would be a crappy, CRAPPY bucket list.

If you told me I was going to die in a month, I’d want to spend more time with my family, not go bungee jumping. Once I’m dead, I’m not going to care that I jumped out of an airplane, rode a hot-air balloon directly into a volcano, smoked cigars until I barfed* or achieved anything from that other list. I won’t even care whether I finish any of my career/education goals.

I’m not saying bucket lists are a bad thing, if they help you live life more fully. I’m just not a very exciting person. 😉

*I think my number for that would be one. Possibly fewer.

2 Comments | tags: blog challenge, bucket list, freebie list, goals | posted in 31 Day Blog Challenge

disregard the prologue

Category Archives: blogs

Favourite Blogs… yeah, OK (blog challenge day 25)

Childhood Books (Blog Challenge day 24)

Barbie’s Dream Job Must Be Pink. Like Her Dream House. (blog challenge day 23)

I Just… Aww, You Guys! (blog challenge, day 22)

Mmm-mmm good (blog challenge day 21)

A Bad Time (Day 20)

Let Me Show You Them (blog challenge Day 19)

Didn’t I Say I Was Bad With Names? (Blog Challenge Day 18)

“You Must Be Very Proud” (Blog Challenge Day 17)

MAH BUKKIT LIST (blog challenge day 16)

Vines and Vices (All the Queen’s Knaves book one)

Urban Fantasy (writing as Tanith Frost)

Bound (Bound Trilogy Book One)

Torn (Bound Trilogy Book Two)

Into Elurien

At Any Cost (Bound Trilogy prequel novella)

The Binding (Short Story)

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Kate Sparkes

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disregard the prologue

Category Archives: blogs

Vines and Vices (All the Queen’s Knaves book one)

Urban Fantasy (writing as Tanith Frost)

Bound (Bound Trilogy Book One)

Torn (Bound Trilogy Book Two)

Into Elurien

At Any Cost (Bound Trilogy prequel novella)

The Binding (Short Story)

Follow via Email

Kate Sparkes

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Recent Posts

Archives

Stories and Whatnot

Blogs I Follow

Goodreads

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