Shauna Granger

Do you ever wonder how people get started in their jobs? I don't flatter myself enough to believe that a great following of people are drooling over my "How I Got Started Editing" story, but some may wonder, so I'll share.

Once upon a time, my favorite cousin got married to my favorite cousin-in-law. At their wedding, I met my new CIL's best friend. Her name is Shauna and she's a writer. A month or so after the wedding, Shauna remembered that I'm a writer wannabe and she offered to trade books for editing.

And then my world changed.

I loved editing her book. She was fun to work with, liberal with her praise, and actually thought I was good at editing. One would hope that, after years of higher education, I would have decent grammar skills, but I didn't have a ton of confidence in my editing ability. I just read a lot and edited based on what I've learned from reading. Nothing made me feel better than finding an inconsistency or pointing out where she needed more or less information and getting her to say, "Gah, why didn't I see that?!" One day I asked her if people actually get paid for this. She sent me a link to an editing agency and I shot them an email. Two days later, I was an official freelance editor!

Shauna has written a series of YA fantasy books and I have had the pleasure of working on all of them. Earth is available for sale on kindle and amazon now and I loved reading it. Her characters are Elementals, meaning they can control an element. In Earth, someone new to town to performing blood magic and trying to unleash hell. Shayna, Jodi, and Steven, along with some help from a local witch, are the ones left trying to stop a menace the police can't catch. Perhaps that isn't fair, but what can you do when you're given special powers? Seriously though, her book is better than my summarizing skills. You can follow her blog here: http://shaunasspot.blogspot.com/


On top of being a kick ass author and a pleasure to work with, Shauna has become my friend. It never ceases to amaze me how relationships can be formed over the internet. I read articles all the time about how people don't connect anymore because they're too busy sitting in front of computers or they go on tirades online, forgetting that real people with real emotions read those tirades. These articles always forget to mention the beautiful people putting their hearts on their online sleeves and connecting to people across the country.

I guess the moral to Shauna's story (or her story thus far) is to reach out and connect with someone. I'm not saying my life would be a black hole of suck if Shauna hadn't reached out to me, but it wouldn't be the bright, sparkly rainbow of joy it is now without her. The best part about it is that she's grateful for me too! So go email that person you want to talk to, go apply for that job you want, go try that hobby that you've always thought looked cool.

And they all lived happily ever after.

Being Human by Patricia Lynne

One of the books I had the privilege of proofreading recently is called Being Human by Patricia Lynne. This is her first book and I’ve already asked her to keep me informed about anything else she puts out, even if I don’t edit it. The book revolves around the after life of a vampire named… well, I probably shouldn’t tell you his name. In his world, to know one’s name means that you have power over them. In fact, there’s a young woman he tells his name to and then corners her friends, demanding they tell him her name so that he can counter her power over him. This vampire is turned at 15 years old and the book follows him for roughly 20 years after that event. One of the things I loved the most about Being Human is that the book covers the 20 years in five segments with time gaps in between. Lynne didn’t get cornered into the idea that she had to explain every moment of his life and let herself tell his story through the major events.

I love vampire books. Given the choice between a modern vampire novel and a classic novel, I’d pick the vampire book. Actually, I’d probably grab both and run away before you tried to take one away, but let’s run with the original decision. Like most readers, I hear vampire novel and think, “Vampire meets human girl, falls in love, and spends his after life trying to protect her from everything that tries to keep them apart.” Being Human has a bit of that kind of story in it (for those of you who can’t stand the idea of missing your vamp/human love story), but that isn’t even close to the majority of the story. One of my biggest complaints about standard vampire stories is that I want to know, “Why this girl?” Usually the answer is something like, “She smells good. She’s unusual.” Being Human has a better answer. You’ll have to read the book to get that answer, but trust me, it’s good. It’s understandable. And it’s really, really human.

The bigger love story in Being Human is the love story between the vampire and his human twin brother. I’m not a twin, so I don’t know anything about the bond between twins, but I’ve met enough twins to believe in it. This bond extends beyond death for these brothers and ties the vampire to humanity in a way that is unique among vampires. Most of the vampires in this book kill their families, no matter how close they were to them in life. After being turned, the only thing vampires care about is survival. That means that the sleeping human in the other room is fair game and they don’t feel any guilt about feeding from their gene pool.

In Being Human, vampires don’t retain memories of their human lives. They know how to walk and talk and they have instincts that teach them to hunt humans, avoid the sun and Vampire Forces, and survive, but they don’t understand why humans do the things they do. Well, that’s not entirely true. The vampire in this book understands why humans walk for exercise, because it keeps them healthy and helps them survive, but not why they walk for pleasure. One of my favorite scenes in this book is when the vampire is taught how to brush his teeth. Do you ever think brushing your teeth is weird? I don’t. Lynne wrote the scene in a way that kept me in the book, but made me step back and think, “Wow, that is a strange practice. Spreading goo over your teeth to make them smell better.” Almost as strange as people going to school dances where no one dances.


Being Human is almost ready for publishing and I highly recommend you buy it as soon as it is. You can follow Lynne’s blog here: http://plbjourney.blogspot.com/

Begin Again

As seems to be all the rage in our internet driven world, I feel the need to be sucked into blogging. What should I write about though? How about what I do with my days, which is mainly work. I work two jobs, one as a freelance editor and one as a hotel front desk clerk. I love editing, it's my favorite thing to do, but the health benefits and steady paycheck from the hotel are too good to pass up. So, for now, let's leave this introduction as is and I'll be back soon with some fun stories from the third shift and editing world!

Mid-day meditation

It's been a few days since I've posted, but that doesn't mean I've forgotten my challenge. I have missed a few days due to travel. I don't like anyone to see me meditate (I think I look silly) so sharing a room with my mom wasn't very condusive to meditating. I made sure to meditate today, though. I had a dinner date with my family and, since I tend to be a little quiet and withdrawn during family meals, I decided to try to get happy before the dinner. I got to the restaurant early and spent 10 minutes in my car smiling and focusing on the sound of the rain on the roof. I love the sound of rain, don't you? It was very relaxing. I think I succeeded in my goal since I was pretty smiley when I went in the restaurant (even after being soaked). Unfortunately, things went downhill kind of quickly. I felt a little insulted moments after greeting my family and that kind of ruined my good mood.

I have been trying so hard lately to release the woman I'm in love with. She needs to gain some self-confidence and self-esteem and I can't help her with that. I have tried, but it's something she needs to do herself. No one can make her believe she's beautiful and worthwhile. So, I've been trying to let her go into God's hands. I believe God can reach her heart and soul where I can't, so whenever I think about her, I pray for her. I've been praying a lot. I think it's a good thing, though. God and I don't talk often enough. Praying for her problems prompts me to pray for my own release and I think God's the only one who can truly change my heart, too.

Between the meditation and the prayer (and the talking to her less), my heart has been a more restful place. For the most part. Money problems are getting me down and family problems always bog down my spirits, but I am trying to focus on the future and the positive. I'm going to share a poem with you tonight. It's Shel Silverstein's The Land of Happy.

Have you been to The Land of Happy,
Where everyone's happy all day,
Where they joke and they sing
Of the happiest things,
And everything's jolly and gay?
There's no one unhappy in Happy,
There's laughter and smiles galore.
I have been to The Land of Happy-
What a bore!

What a great reminder to you and me that life's most entertaining moments are not found in peace and happiness. The pain of the trenches and crawling through metaphorical mud make much better stories. No matter how much you're hurting in whatever life is throwing at you and no matter how much you wish for a life without pain or drama, just remember that what you're living through will make a great story, today or tomorrow. A life without pain is boring. Friends bring pain, pets bring pain, family brings pain. Money, food, cars, houses, all things can bring you pain. But without those things and relationships, what would our lives be worth living for?

Smiling as a chore

Today was my first day meditating. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to keep the place silent or not while I meditate (or even if there are rules). I put some music on. It helps me keep my brain quiet. Ladysmith Black Mambazo. I like the fact that I can't understand the lyrics. Life has been really stressful since yesterday, yet I am oddly cheerful. My Jen is in the hospital and I was pretty much scared numb yesterday. Today I found out that I've probably lost my job. It was only something to keep money coming in while I work on my books, but I still need the money. I figure I probably have to record my stress factors while I examine whether or not my experiment is helping me.

Smiling for 10 minutes straight is painful. I'm not used to smiling for that long non-stop and my face was hurting afterwards. My back was hurting too, but that's just because of my bad posture. I am feeling more cheerful and smiley now. Not a lot, but it's nice to feel a smile on my face that doesn't want to go away. I like it :)

Down, but not out

If you follow this blog, then you know that this month has not been a good one for my challenge. I started out valiantly trying to see the sunrise and it died pretty quickly. Truthfully, with my nocturnal tendancies, seeing the sunrise every day was just not feasible. But that's okay. I saw a couple and I was well rested for the rest of my life this month. And this month has been crazy. Women hurting me, guests visiting, work kicking my butt. September will be a busy month for me too, but I hope that my September challenge will fit into my life a little easier.

This coming month's challenge comes straight out of Eat, Pray, Love. I went to see the movie a couple of weeks ago and I loved it. I thought it was a great movie that you had to be in the right (or wrong) place emotionally to truly appreciate. If you've seen it, then that should tell you where I've been emotionally. I have been lost in the soul of another person and, while I still love her, I want to move out of her soul and back into my own.

I thought for a while that my efforts to focus on who I am rather than who I am with her were selfish. I thought that I should be focusing outwards, on other people I love, rather than inwards on myself. But you know what? I love myself and I have to keep working on that. I am not always an easy to person to love (yes, I do know that) but there are a lot of things about myself that are wonderful. When I get lost in the soul of a woman who doesn't want me, it's too easy to only see the flaws she sees. So now for the challenge.

I am not a meditating person. The idea of sitting in one place thinking about nothing is kind of painful and boring sounding to me. I don't have any interest in yoga (although tai chi sounds appealing). So this month, I will meditate. As the creepy old guy with no teeth told Liz in the movie, I will meditate and smile. Smile with my face, smile with brain, smile with my liver. Not really sure how I'm going to achieve the last one, but I will try. I will try to meditate for 10 minutes a day, more if I feel the need to. It's a pretty well documented fact that smiling will make you happy and I need that. So, if you are like me and you need to be happy with who you are again, I would also challenge you to join me. Join me in making yourself happy and not relying on someone else to do it for you.

Sunrise and worship

As of this morning, I have seen the sun rise twice this month. The first two days of the month I was too tired to stay up that late, but I managed it on the 3rd. This morning's sunrise was interrupted by my father waking up and turning a bunch of lights on. In order to really appreciate the shifts in the natural light, one must not be surrounded by artificial light.

I've been enjoying watching the sunrise, actually. We have a pond in our backyard with a lot of animals living there, so it's fun to listen to the birds wake up. It's silent one moment, then one bird makes a noise, and then whole set of them start talking. I also like watching the shifts in light. I studied stage lighting in college, so it's fun to look at the colors in the sunrise and compare them to the colors in the sunset. I like watching the leaves on the trees go from one dark blob to barely distinguishable individual dark leaves to green leaves.

Watching the sun rise also makes me wish I was into Earth worship. I don't actually want to worship the Earth, but I think it's silly to remove the Earth's cycles and properties from your worship of the Creator. Watching the sunrise makes me want to be in a circle with candles at the four corners, chanting and singing. Maybe that sounds silly, but it's what I want. I don't actually think I will (my father would not be pleased to wake up to me chanting) but it's a nice thought. This morning I ended up thinking more about a personal situation than what I was watching though and I kind of wished I didn't have to sit there with nothing to do but think and watch.