guys! guys! road trip wednesday!

As I sit here in my p'jams, eating pasta-from-a-pack for dinner (with a rescued OrangeLeaf spoonie-thing as utensil), I realize that it is HIGH TIME I rejoin the ranks for RTW.

total glamour.

Road Trip Wednesday is a "blog carnival" hosted by YA Highway. It's lots of fun (says the girl who always forgets to play-- oops).

This week's topic: What do you hope to be writing in one year? Three? Five?

Good question, internet.
The short answer: SOMETHING ELSE.
*snerk*

More specifically: I have reason to believe that one year from now, I will still be working on B&A, just in a different phase of the journey. After that, however, there are a lot of different things I'd like to try. I love writing short stories, and I've always wanted to develop more of those for submission and whatnot. This may come as a surprise to some (or, haha, as no surprise to others), but the work I was actually proudest of in college was a 10-minute play. (oh, be still my heart.)

So, now you know my pipe dreams. HA! Not including the current one.

As far as what I want to write about, here is a conglomerate love list (since I missed that week, too) of the ideas that are always fumbling around in my brain:

MC who feels no physical pain, but craploads of emotion
labyrinth under a woefully mundane small town
unrequited love (a popular theme from the first 2.2 decades of my life)
bonfires
glass arrowheads
red hair and brown eyes
parents genetically altering the looks of their children
Jamey Purlock, in all his glory (please find a home. I want to write you.)
girls school in American South during WWII

So... obviously not all the same story. Haha.

... OR IS IT?

No, seriously, there's no way.

I won't assign years to these things, since I honestly cannot fathom the timeline, but there you go. Whee!

*snuggles back into writing cave*

leap day, rtw, a goodreads question, and march madness.

You guys, you guys, you guys.

a) Time's about out to enter to win a signed copy of Article 5, by Kristen Simmons. Please check it out if you're interested. Info here!

b) Voting is still open for the 1st Campaign Challenge! My contribution, Maximum Splatter, is #196. Us bottom-dwellers {also known as the procrastinators} are pretty lonely, you know. If you're feeling daunted by the huge list of 200+ plus entries, might I suggest beginning at the end? We've got some good stuff, too! :)

and, c) I'm FINALLY posting for Road Trip Wednesday again. Hello, road trippers!

This week's topic is "What was the best book you read in February?"

Leave it to me to turn this into a loaded question.

I do love Leap Day.

You see, I'm in a book funk. Or, I keep telling myself that I am. My gut reaction to this topic was, "Yikes, I didn't read ANY books in February," which is entirely untrue! I don't know what's wrong with me. I actually read three, but they were all within the first two weeks of the month. Maybe that's why I forgot.

Of those three:

Article 5 takes the cake. I also read Anna Dressed in Blood and Legend. I enjoyed all of them, but A5 wins. And not just because my friend wrote it. Speaking of, in case you missed the earlier link: interview with Kristen! Giveaway of awesome! You still have a week to enter.

*end of shameless plugging*

The other night at a women's fellowship thing at church, we all went around the room and said what we were currently reading. But after the three mentioned above, I'd stalled out, and then overcompensated. You guys, I'm reading, like, five books right now. And I realized, if I can't read a book in about a week, I sort of feel like it'll never happen. I know this isn't true. I've proven myself wrong countless times. Still.

When it was my turn, I listed the five books that are currently stacked up by my bed, but something felt wrong. I know I'm in the middle of *something,* right now, I thought...

Then I remembered, but was to shy to blurt, "Oh, does manga count?"

Friends, tell me, does manga count?

Because, while I haven't devoured a novel in over two weeks, I *have* been eye-deep in this wonderfulness:

Fruits Basket, Fruits Basket, OH!

The day I discovered that I could get a free manga reader for le iPhone was a jolly day, indeed. And, according to it, I've read close to 30 {extra} books since the middle of January.

The secret is out. Not only does she watch anime, she reads manga, too.

It's a recent development. Really, I'm just fulfilling my role as a book person.

And a nerdy female.

So, here's my question.

Do I add these "extra" books to Goodreads? I want to. I want them to count toward my 2012 total. Is anyone out there going to demand my head on a spike for this? Will you scoff and say, "Yeah, sure, it says she's read {however many} books this year, but we all know half of them are manga."

Is that... even a bad thing?

Oh, and d) Have you all heard about March Madness? Not the basketball one, though I love that, too.* This one's about writing! And setting goals! And achieving them! Also, prizes. Here are my goals for March, in case you're interested:

~Finish crit for a CP before weekend.
~Pound out the first 15k of WiP rewrite (at least).
~Idea dash/loose-outline the first third.
~Remove myself from the internet after one hour of blog-reading.
~Finish reading three of the five books on my nightstand.

 Wish me all kinds of luck. Later taters.

*I grew up in Kentucky. Therefore, these things are true about me: I love basketball. I love horse-racing. It's just... a thing.

my first roadtrip wednesday. or, hopping on the bandwagon.

In case you're a stranger to the concept, Road Trip Wednesday is a weekly bloghopthing hosted by YA Highway wherein, uh, they ask a question, and you answer it.

Fun!

*This Week's Topic* If you couldn't use your own name, what would your pseudonym or penname be?

found here.

Well, YA Highway, I'm glad you asked.
Now, I'm worlds away from querying, let alone having an agent/selling a novel/actually having to worry about stuff like this, but it is something that continually picks at my brain.

Because, you see, my new last name?

Is a doozy.
Seriously, let's play a game. If any of you {who don't already know the answer} can pronounce Maughon correctly, using your best phonetic spelling in the comments, I will give you some sort of prize.

And my maiden name? I love it, truly I do, but when you Google "Julie Palmer," this is what you get:

hello.

I'm not even kidding, and that is one of the less-disgusting photos. I mean, I'm all for girl power, but body-building? Kind of looks bad on EVERYONE.

(Amusingly, on page 2 of the Julie Palmer image results, there was my own blogger profile photo. Haha! Things are already looking up.)

So, as you can see, the pseudonym/penname situation is one I mull over a lot. One idea I always go back to: nicknames.

I have a lot of them, and I generally love them. JP Maughon would be a wicked penname, if I wanted to go the initials/gender-ambiguous route. I've also always loved Jules and Jules P, but what would I match either of those with? Other than the enigmatic Maughon, I mean {which, don't get me wrong, would be ideal, just... difficult}. Another nickname I've had since birth is Dodie, but I'm not so attached to this one as a penname. Dodie Smith owns it, and I'll never be as brilliant as she was.

And, of course, my fondest nickname is Julie Bird, which is where Juliemybird comes from {I added the "my" because twitter already had a juliebird, and because of Mine That Bird and Calvin Borel* [hey-oh, Kentuckian here]}. I really, really wouldn't mind being published as Julie Bird... something. Palmer, I guess. Easy to pronounce, easy to remember. Fewer body-building connotations. I would miss the Maughon, though. Worth the confusion? Of course, it didn't stop Maugham... which Maughon doesn't even rhyme with {hey hey, I just gave you a hint}.

*if you have ten minutes to spare, and you don't absolutely hate horse racing, check out that video. The most amazing thing to me is that the commentators don't even see him coming.


So, there you have it. Lots of variations of my name, some easy, some mystifying. It would be fun to teach the world how to pronounce Maughon.

Then again, I could always go all-out pseudonym.

what?

In which case, Ariadne Skunkwater. Definitely.

The end!