Silly Names & My Photo Web Gallery

1.YOUR REAL NAME:
Nikki Rae Wilson
2.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME:(mother and fathers middle names)
Elizabeth Wayne
3.NASCAR NAME:(first name of your mother's dad, father's dad)
Wayne Phillip
4.STAR WARS NAME:(the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name)
Wilne (is it just me or does that sound bad?)
5.DETECTIVE NAME:(favorite color, favorite animal)
Blue Unicorn
6.SOAP OPERA NAME:(middle name, town where you were born)
Rae Goleta
7.SUPERHERO NAME:(2nd fav color, fav drink, add "THE" to the beginning)
The Red Apple juice (LOL)
8.FLY NAME:(first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name)
Niwi (huh???)
9.STREET NAME:(fav ice cream flavor, fav cookie)
Cookie Dough Chocolate Chip
10.SKANK NAME:(1st pet's name, street you grew up on)
Brandy Calle Hohokam, Callas, Cheryl, 69th Dr. (seriously, pick a street, cuz I've lived on alot of them growing up)
11.GANGSTA NAME:(first 3 letters of first name plus 'izzle')
Nikizzle
12.YOUR GOTH NAME:(black, and the name of one of your pets)
Black Spike (lol)
13. STRIPPER NAME:(name of your fav perfume/cologne, fav candy)
Lucky You Snickers

So do any of these sound like my pen name yet??? LOL! Maybe Black Spike?!

Ok, well this semester at school I'm taking a photography class. Here is a link to my photo web gallery. It was for a color assignment, analogous means colors close together on the the color wheel, complimentary means colors on the oppisite side from each other on the color wheel, and muted just means soft non descript colors.
http:/web.gccaz.edu/~nrwilson
Check it out and tell me what you think! Thanks!

Payback for Tiffany

This is the picture that Tiffany would have you see, the one of a happy family with very happy child!

These are the pictures that came BEFORE the forced happy picture above!

See the plastered smiles on the parent's faces?

This one you must blow up! Click on it twice...look at Bella's face, then look at Tiff's face! Like mother like daughter. Can you just picture the fights those two have???

Yes, Annabella is spitting in this picture! Nice picture Tiff!!! Click on this one too, you will see Tiff sticking out her tongue!!


That's right Tiff! When all else fails, stick your chest out and show off the boobies!!

I'd Like to Thank the Academy...

This is my first blog award! WAHOO!! Thanks, Jenn! So here's the rules:

Premio-Dardas: "This award 'acknowledges the values that every Blogger displays in their effort to transmit cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values with each message they write. Awards like this have been created with the intention of promoting community among Bloggers. It's a way to show appreciation and gratitude for work that adds value to the Web."
1. Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who granted it to you, along with his/her blog link.
2. Pass the award to (5) other blogs that you feel are worthy of this recognition. Remember to contact each of them to let them know they have been chosen as recipients.

1. Tiffany - for giving us a photo journal of her adventures as a mommy of a stubborn (sorry she doesn't use that word anymore, it's zealous!) child.
2. Nancy - For that wonderful recipe of Spring Rolls, I've been hungry for a week now!! (hey it's cultural!)
3. Sheena - For being so consistent in her postings and being so talented in all that she does.
4. Kim D. - Because I love her "Thankful Thursdays"!
5. Tara - For all her beautiful photographs, and very cute kids! I still love Jillian's video christmas list!!

Mormon Mommy Writers

I'm so excited about the blog that me and some friends put together. It's www.mormonmommywriters.blogspot.com Check us out! It's not just for mormons, or mommies, you don't even have to be a writer to read our blog. It's kind of an interactive blog where we expect lots of comments. We have writing exercises, round robin stories, interviews with authors, and any other zany things we think up. So check us out, pass the link around, and be sure to leave plenty of comments! Thanks!!!

Long Time, No Blog

Have you been waiting on pins and needles for me to finally post? Have you been refreshing your page every five minutes hoping something would change? Has the tension been driving you crazy? If you can answer yes to any of these questions then you know how I've been feeling for the past 6 weeks waiting for the agent to get back to me. And after 6 whole weeks of being completely stressed I can finally say..........I still know NOTHING!! I've been putting off posting because I really wanted to be able to tell you something about it, but I can't put off posting anymore! So here is our past month and a half in cliff notes version:

I finished the fall semester of school getting A's in both of my classes. Sammi and Noah got on the honor roll at their school. The week before Christmas, Mike's grandpa Swain passed away. So throwing everything to the wind, we took an extremely quick trip to Colorado so he could be buried next to Grandma Swain.

The kids had a good time playing in the snow.

It was really great to see Mike's Uncle Spike and his cousin, Kyle.

Meanwhile, my mom and Glen, Sean, and Ryan, Wyatt, and Jason, Tiffany, Keyth and Annabella were all at my house partying without us! What compassion! LOL! We got back on Christmas Eve and were still able to visit with everyone. It was really great having everyone together. We got a Wii and Rock Band for Christmas. The whole family got their groove on!!

My sister Stephanie came for Christmas too with her two boys. My dad had all his children together so we took a huge family picture complete with Grandpa in it too!

Dad had all his grandchildren all together for the first time....EVER! So we took lots of pictures, Grandma would be so proud.

Look how many kids my dad has!! This isn't all my bros though, on my mom's side I have 4 more half brothers! So after the excitement of the holidays, things are finally getting back to normal...kind of!! School started again for the kids and I. We built a new room onto the back of our house. A friend of mine, Jennie Mercer, moved in with us for awhile. Sammi got a homework award at school. Mike has lost about 10 pounds since Christmas. After sinus infections, upper respiratory infections, and pink eye (that was just Mike and I!) we are all finally healthy and feeling good. I'll try to be better about updating now! (I say that everytime, don't I?) Thanks for bearing with me!

Another Agent Requested my Manuscript

My manuscript is now at the hands of another agent that wants it exclusively for four weeks. This agent also happens to be the agent of my friend Jenni James. Having friends in the business definately helps! Hopefully her agent will either be interested or be able to refer me to someone that might be.

It's crossed my mind that some of you might not know the process for becoming a published writer. It's something I've had to research extensively so now it doesn't seem so daunting to me. I will try to give a quick overview of the process. First you have to write a book. That is easier said than done! For the past five years, being a published writer has been my goal but I haven't quite been able to get past the first step until recently. I knew I wanted to write and had begun several books, but the "magic" never seemed to happen. If you've ever tried to take pen to paper then you know what I was looking for. I expected to suddenly be inspired to write and not be able to stop. Well it wasn't until I read a book entitled "Becoming a Writer" by Dorothea Brande, that I was able to find that magic. It is there, ready for the taking, you just have to be willing to do the work to find it. Her book helped me to harness my own magic. Another thing that helped me was online writing groups. They are full of advice and inspirational posts.

Second, you have to rewrite, edit, reread, edit, have friends read, edit, etc. Once your story is something you are proud of (not perfect mind you, because I could sit on my book forever with the excuse that it's not perfect if I let myself.) then you write a query letter. This is the point where you decide if you want to find an agent or send to publishers without an agent. I personally would love to have an agent. For one, some of your bigger publishers only accept agented works. For another, the book business is about connections, when you get an agent you are getting connections. This can only help. Plus the agent only works on commission so you know they will do all they can to sell your book and get you the best possible deal. Once you have decided which way you are going to go check out "Writer's Market" from your local library. It is full of advice on how to write a query letter and how to approach agents or publishers. It also has a full reprotoire of agents and publishers. It gives you detailed information on what each agent/publisher is looking for, who to contact, how to contact them, and what to submit.

So now that I am submitting query letters to agents, I hope for them to request the manuscript (which is what happened today) and review it. Now I wait. This is the hard part. Now let's say she likes my manuscript the next step is a contract, then she will give me some edits for my story to make it more marketable. Then I have to have a synopsis, and any other things the publishers may require, that I can give to my agent so she can get a novel proposal together. She would then approach a few publishers at a time using her connections. Once I land I publisher I am told the real work begins, but I'm not quite sure what that is yet. As I move through this process I will keep you all informed.

If you have any questions I will try to answer them. Also check out my friend Jenni Jame's website. www.authorjennijames.com There is a link to her blog on there as well. Pretty soon she will posting an interview from her agent about how the publishing world works. It should be pretty informative.

I feel so rejected!! LOL!!

So the agent that asked for my full manuscript said that it was a very strong concept and the writing was good, but it wasn't right for him. I'm up to 11 rejections right now and 15 agents haven't responded. My favorite rejection was today when I got a personal email, (not a form letter) but she put a different title down instead of Dream Swords. I couldn't help but laugh. She wrote back immediately and apologized for mixing it up with another story, but it was still a rejection. I wrote her back and told her that I've been dreaming about all the rejections I've been getting but I never dreamt I would get rejected for something I didn't write!! I thanked her for the laugh and the personal email. She wrote back and laughed with me. It was a good moment. If there are any good moments when your are being rejected anyways!!

Thanks for all your encouraging thoughts and words!!