Pitch Wars Mentee Bio

Hello!

Welcome to my Pitch Wars bio page. For those of you here because you follow my blog and get email updates, Pitch Wars is a writing competition created by Brenda Drake where agented and/or published writers volunteer their time to mentor other writers trying to become agented/published.  I submitted my manuscript, Two Bit Mind, for consideration.  To follow along use #PitchWars on Twitter. My twitter handle is @thetomboymommy, but I warn you, my feed is all pitchwars all the time right now.  If you love GIFs, go-go now.

If you are a fellow mentee, or a mentor, welcome! It took getting my nerve up to actually hit submit, so there were a few false starts.

, but then I got my nerve up and was all, 

My nickname is Stephanie The Avenger!.  I became The Avenger! back in the early nineties, inspired by Towanda The Avenger! from Fried Green Tomatoes.  In fact, many people refer to me as Avenger, even the cops who would bust my parties my first stint in college. “Avenger, we told you no more parties.” That sort of thing. I have a corporation set up as Stephanie The Avenger! LLC, so you can make checks payable that way.            The love interest in my life story is my husband, 28 years my senior (like the MC in my book).

He’s pretty super too.   We have two kids together- a one year old and a four year old.  They are superheros in training.

Now for some random facts:

I’m a personal trainer.

I think it’s funny when people fall (even my kids).

Red is my favoirite color, but sometimes I forget and tell people green.

I had my first amateur MMA fight back in June.

I love Dirty Dancing, but it’s not my favorite movie.

My favorite movie is probably The Philadelphia Story.  “The time to make up your mind about people, is never.”

I’d leave my husband for Cary Grant if he was still alive and I stood a chance. 

I played rugby for 11 years.

My favorite book is a toss-up between To Kill a Mockingbird and Jane Eyre.

I re-read the Harry Potter series every summer.

I love the At Home in Mitford series by Jan Karon.

I tell people I’m 5’4″, but I’m really more like 5’3″

My first car was a red slugbug named Wanda.  She was my partner in crime and I could write a whole book about our stories.  She burned down on the side of the highway while I stood watching the fifteen foot flames with a pinkie mouse in a 5gl aquarium.

I’m rooting for Miley Cyrus to get her shit together so her music doesn’t have to be a guilty pleasure.

I used to be a zoo keeper. I have taken care of all kinds of animals, but my favorites are the primates.  I love the great apes and got to hand raise a baby chimpanzee named Zoe when her mother died during labor. I have taken many parenting cues from that experience. I could also write a book about all of those experiences, like the time a llama flung me on his back when I tried to step over his lowered head as he ate.  I hung on to his furry butt and wrapped my legs around his neck and hung on for dear life while he tried to get this pain in the ass keeper off his back. Lessons were learned that day.

I love telling stories and believe that PitchWars has already improved my odds of being a professional storyteller. Thank you Brenda Drake and all of the mentors volunteering their time to support all writers.

If you would like to check out the other PitchWars mentee bios, go to this link at Pimpmybio to check them out! Thank you, Christopher Keelty for organizing a blog hop for the mentees!

Maternity Leave

I didn’t mean to take a 3 week maternity leave from my blog.
Do stay at home moms even get maternity leave? How does that work? I don’t really feel like a stay at home mom. As I write more I consider myself a work from home mom. No one is paying me yet so I often feel like I’m lying to myself and certainly do not feel justified in stealing a few precious moments to write. But I’m a writer and writers, aspiring or otherwise, write.

I have thought about you, my readers, regularly.
Would you miss my posts? Would you come back when I could get around to posting again? Will the quality of my posts suffer as I steal time to type a line here and there between diaper changes, feedings and replacing the pacifier? Yes, these first few posts might be a little slap-dash as I steal what moments I can, just to write what I can…to keep writing.

Every time I think I will sit down to write while the baby is sleeping I think about how exhausted I am, or how little sleep I will probably get tonight so I should sleep whether I feel like it right then or not. I think I should do the dishes or pick up the toys my three year old has scattered across the house in an attempt to get a little attention. At this exact moment, my three year old is hanging on the back of my neck saying,

I miss you mommy.

I hug him back and assure him I love him too and try to type another sentence. This is Tuesday so he’s home. He goes to “school” three days a week, but even then, I find myself taking every available moment from tending the baby to do something else.

So this lament is my reintroduction to writing after a 3 week hiatus.
I think about writing as much as I think about working out. I’m on a mandatory 6 weeks post C-section recovery though so my outlets are dwindling while I attend a stressful stage that requires outlets I cannot access. But I’m writing right now, though briefly, because the baby is screaming from the swing that had been placating him for a few moments. I suspect the bright blue toy gecko perched atop his head is the reason he’s screaming- my three year old sitting innocently by, the most likely culprit.

I have some great content in my head, so stay tuned. If I can steal a few moments to get it from my mind to my blog, we’ll be up and chugging again. Time to go clean the throw up from my shoulder for the nineteenth time today.

1 way being pregnant makes you stupid

Ever heard of mommy brain or pregnancy brain? Ever tried being a writer with pregnancy brain? It’s like trying to sprint through mud. Are there other pregnant ladies out there struggling with staying creative while in the throws of gestation? Lists are all the rage right now for blogs (see my post, 15 things they don’t tell you about having a toddler), so I’m going to keep this one simple. Ok, there’s only one because, well, see #1. Here’s one way being pregnant makes you stupid.

1. Your baby is a zombie that eats your brains for sustenance, but only the creative parts, leaving your brain like so much swiss cheese left to mildew in the back of the fridge.