truth thursdays!

Happy Thursday awesome blog buddies! Hope the week is flying by!! Today is another installment of Truth Thursdays, one of my favorite days of the week, I know some of you haven't seen this post since the A to Z Blogging Challenge was a rather long one! However this will be a weekly bit where I showcase my oddness and honesty! Enjoy!

(I wanted to give a shout out to my girl Amber Tidd Murphy, if you haven't visited her blog you must, she has the most awesome Thursday posts called TMI Thursday, she is much braver than I am with her truths, but they will make you laugh hysterically!)

1. Lately ice cream has been on the menu for dinner. With the hubs not being home in the evenings it's easy to forget about eating and just go with something easy!

2. I've never liked the name Jennifer, I wanted my mom and dad to name me Brooke Lindsay, I know realize how silly that would have been.

3. I don't drink coffee but I do drink wine!

4. I'm making a quilt for one of my sister's for her new baby girl. It will be my first,I am taking photos and putting them onto a blanket, like a memory blanket! (idea from Step Mom with Julia Roberts) We'll see how it goes!

5. I get scared very easily, if I'm working on one of my WIP's and it's about a killer I can't work on it when the sun starts to go down, otherwise I'll have nightmares!

--Thank you for all of those who commented on the interview with Talli Roland yesterday! It was a ton of fun and I look forward to showcasing another aspiring/published author! If you are interested please email me at jenniferdaiker@gmail.com! I'd love to showcase your work! Now here are the extra questions some fellow bloggers had for Talli, she was sweet enough to take the time to answer them!--

The Alliterative Allomorph asked - How many years of writing and querying, and how many more novels did you write until you found a publisher?

Talli answered: I only started writing seriously about three years ago, but I trained and worked as a journalist for awhile. In the past three years, I’ve written six novels and send out loads and loads of queries to both US and UK agents (I figured if the UK wasn’t interested, maybe the US would be – plus you can email US agents! UK agents usually ask for hard copies). The Hating Game is the latest novel I’ve written, and the one that will finally make it into print!

Laurel asked - How has the discipline of non-fiction writing helped Talli write fiction? I'd love to hear about "non-fic skills every fiction writer needs".

Talli answered: I really had to think about this one! My non-fiction writing demands that I keep it short, snappy and readable, while trying to get in quite a bit of detail. I do lots of research then condense it all down to three or four sentences. It’s definitely taught me not to overwrite on the fiction side, although I might not write enough sometimes. Also, writing to deadlines has taught me how to organize and set targets for both my fiction and non-fiction work.

How did Talli go about choosing her pen name? I bet it is a great story and I'm dying to hear it! :-)

Talli answered: Sadly there’s no great story! Roland is my mum’s maiden name and I wanted to have some emotional connection to my pen-name name, so I decided to go with that. Then my editor and I threw around a lot of first names to try to find the right one. We wanted something different so people would remember, and something that would work well within the chick lit genre. We were firing emails back and forth when she sent me one suggesting Talli. I loved it! And Talli Roland was born!


Creepy Query Girl asked - why do you think your first books didn't get picked up? When you go back and read them now, do you still think they have potential? And in that case, would you consider resubmitting them to publishers once your first fiction comes out??

Talli answered: I don’t think they got picked up because they sucked! My first novel I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t know anything about plot structure, characterization, the publishing industry… I just went for it and surprise, surprise, no-one wanted it! I got some fairly brutal rejections from UK agents – one simply returned my cover letter with a slash through it and a big ‘NO’ scrawled across it in red (I must see if I can find that letter! I’ll put a scan up if I can find it. I might have chucked it in a fit of anger!) I got better the more I wrote, but there was nothing really unique about my plots or characters. Agents told me my writing was ‘competent’ but my stories just didn’t stand out. I think I was too quick to latch onto ideas that I couldn’t make interesting enough. Choosing the right concept and knowing what you’re going to do with it to make your story stand out is really important in commercial fiction.

Will I go back to them? There’s one novel that won’t leave me alone, so yes, I might go back and have another crack at it.

notesfromnadir asks: What is your favorite brand of chocolate?

Talli answered: Great question! I love Lindt dark orange chocolate with almonds. My husband travels to Geneva quite a bit and he always picks up no fewer than five massive bars for me. I knew there was a reason I love him so!

BTW - T.J. I have not forgotten that you tagged me I just have yet to add it in! I don't want people to leave when they see how ridiculously long my posts have been lately! I hate to drive people away!!

CHECK OUT TOMORROW'S POST!! IT'S GOING TO BE THE EPICNESS OF AWESOMENESS!! An announcement for the upcoming battle of Dragons vs. ?!!!

One More thing and then I'll leave you, if you would like to be showcased on my blog (another sort of interview!) I would love to help you get the word out on your upcoming book! Just send me an email at jenniferdaiker(at)gmail(dot)com!!!