3xA MA: Mindy McGinnis

I've always felt so grateful to the authors that take the time to connect with me through social media. In my mind, I'd always thought that authors were on this unattainable level. Never did I think that they reply to tweets. Personally, I know that I would be lost without authors.
In this event, I want to get to know the authors; to see them for the people they are and not just as creators of your favorite book.

For a full definition, the author schedule [and a fabulous opening giveaway,] click here.

The main theme about this event is for authors to talk about themselves. However, I'm really open to any posts in general and ones about authoring that are still unique, totally count. 
Mindy McGinnis is the author of Not a Drop to Drink, In A Handful of Dust and the book I'm personally excited over, A Madness So Discreet. 
So here's a fun little post from her about "unseeing" your nose.

Writers will find any reason at all to procrastinate. The house needs cleaned. The litter needs scooped. The laundry needs folded. My bladder needs emptied. I can't unsee my nose.

Yes, really.

It takes very little to get us off task, and when it's the shadow of your own proboscis popping up in your peripheral, it's unshakable. The house will be clean eventually. Same with litter and laundry. My bladder refills, but that's a pretty quick fix. But my nose is just kind of there, and once I've seen it I can't get it out of my mind - or my way.

I write in bed, lying down, with my laptop propped up against my legs, and three pillows stacked under my head because I demand good altitude. It's the perfect scenario for my nose to ambush whatever word count goal I have. I usually aim for 1,000 words a day (that's just about 5 pages), and the nose usually pops up to remind me that it exists right around the halfway mark.

And then it's a struggle. Cutting it off is obviously not an option. Ignoring it doesn't work either because it's already been brought to my attention and I'm the kind of person that pounds her problems down into the ground, and hitting myself in the face will only make my nose swell and therefore become a larger object I need to unsee.

Don't get me wrong. I'm glad I have a nose. It's done a lot of good things for me over the years, and I even kind of like it in the aesthetic sense. (Although I would warn anyone against just sitting and critiquing your own nose in the mirror - eventually you lose perspective and it just looks horrendous. The same is true of your tongue. Never inspect your tongue. It moves of its own volition and will have you questioning whether or not you're in charge of it in about five minutes.)

So what's a poor writer to do when your nose is in the way?

The big thing is to remember that your nose has been there all day, and more than likely you probably were seeing it and didn't realize it because you had other things going on. In a lot of ways, unseeing your nose is the best gauge of how good the pages you just cranked out are. If I didn't notice the nose, it's because I was totally into what I was writing. If my nose was a big part of the evening, I probably need to take a hard look at the pages I wrote.

A no-nose night is a good night. Here's to those.

Isn't that such a cute post? Now I can't unsee my nose, grr! I think I read somewhere that our eyes automatically ignore our nose, that is, if we don't focus on it.

Enter the giveaway below! 
Thanks for checking out my blog and remember:  Be kind to one another. - Ellen

Mindy's Facebook | Goodreads | Twitter | Website

Mindy McGinnis is a YA author who has worked in a high school library for thirteen years. Her debut, NOT A DROP TO DRINK, a post-apocalyptic survival story set in a world with very little freshwater, has been optioned for film my Stephanie Meyer's Fickle Fish Films. The companion novel, IN A HANDFUL OF DUST was released in 2014. Look for her Gothic historical thriller, A MADNESS SO DISCREET in October of 2015 from Katherine Tegen Books. Mindy is represented by Adriann Ranta of Wolf Literary.

 

Thanks so much to Mindy for donating a signed copy of NOT A DROP TO DRINK. Enter below!
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